The Distance from A to Z by Natalie Blitt Page A

that makes it even more attractive in some ways. It feels like poetry, like a special secret.”
    I scuff my shoe in the dirt, suddenly embarrassed by all I’ve said, all I’ve said to Zeke of all people. But somehow I can’t yet stop. Because I feel like maybe . . .
    I stare at my well-worn Chucks, how they fit me perfectly, broken in just the way I like them. “The fact that there’s a whole country that speaks this beautiful language . . . Sometimes in my head, I picture France like some combination of Hogwarts and Narnia and The Secret Garden . And I know it’s ridiculous, that France is a real place with real people who are sometimes kind and sometimes shitty, but I just . . .” This is too much. “I just want to be able to speak the language.”
    We walk for a few minutes in silence as I try desperately to return my face to a color that isn’t bright tomato red.
    After that we make small talk about the places we’ve visited, our favorite cities. With a grandmother in Paris, Zeketells me about a few of the trips to France he’s taken, his parents’ insistence on him speaking only French while he’s there, even with them. How his mother still makes him frequently switch to her native French to keep up his language acquisition.
    â€œSo why are you in this class— course —and not Advanced French?”
    â€œStill trying to get rid of me?” he jokes.
    But I shake my head. Because when I said the words out loud, I realized how much I didn’t want to say them, didn’t want to give him any ideas.
    â€œMy spoken French is much better than my written French, and my reading. And sadly I haven’t been back to Paris in a few years, so even my spoken French has been fading.”
    I want to grill him more about the places he’s been to in France, but I feel like I’ve already made myself so vulnerable with my impassioned speech about the French language. Did I really compare France to a blend of Hogwarts, Narnia, and The Secret Garden ?
    Instead I think about what it would be like to have a grandmother who spoke French, a grandmother who loved what I loved.
    I can’t even imagine it.
    â€œAre you keeping the list going for Marianne? To prove that we’re really spending all this time talking?” I ask whenwe stop because Zeke wants a drink.
    â€œBien sûr,” he says, providing the pad in which he’d apparently been taking notes. How did I miss that?
    As we approach the dorms, I glance at my watch. It’s been dark for the last little bit but I’m not prepared for what it says. “Mon dieu, il est presque onze heures!”
    â€œNo way can it be eleven o’clock,” he answers, flipping out his phone. “Merde.”
    â€œThat means we’ve been speaking for three hours.”
    Three hours out of ten. We’re a third of the way through our weekly requirement and it’s only the first day.
    â€œUn moment.” Zeke stares at his phone, swiping and tapping keys. After three hours of having his attention just on me, I can feel its absence.
    Absence. Absence in French. I love words like that. I put it on the list, just because I can.
    â€œHey, man, I just got your message. Can we meet in five?” Zeke’s voice sounds completely different in English, and I can’t help it, I take a step back. “Great, great. Yup, definitely save me some.” He laughs and it’s not the way he laughed when I told him my favorite word in French: pissenlit . Dandelion. Or his: agrafeuse . Stapler.
    It’s a harder laugh. Rough.
    â€œI should go.” I’ve switched to English too, and it feels likeI’m losing something. Now it’s the English words that feel awkward in my mouth. “Can I take the list so I can copy it down into my notebook?”
    â€œI was planning to type it and e-mail you a copy.” All in English. All technically fine. All completely