Beautiful Americans Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  SEPTEMBER

  1. ALEX - Au Revoir, New York

  2 . OLIVIA - The Dance of Discovery

  3. PJ - Broken Homes, Broken Hearts

  4. ZACK - Maybe Now, Maybe Never

  5. ALEX - Love and Lies in Le Marais

  OCTOBER

  6. OLIVIA - Keeping the Faith

  7. PJ - Faded Empire

  8. ZACK - Falling Fast

  9. ALEX - The Best Laid Plans

  10. PJ - Promises, Parties, and Problems

  11. OLIVIA - Raison d’Etre

  NOVEMBER

  12. ZACK - Wishing and Hoping

  13. ALEX - Chasing Fate Through the Champs de Mar

  14. PJ - Everybody Needs Somebody

  15. OLIVIA - Some People Cheat, Some People Steal

  16. ZACK - Enough is Enough

  17. ALEX - Big Mouth

  18. PJ - Second Chances

  DECEMBER

  19. ZACK - Allez! Allez!

  20. OLIVIA - Excess Baggage

  21. PJ - Too Many Belles at the Ball

  22. ALEX - The Right Girl for Him

  23. OLIVIA - Bittersweet

  24. PJ - You Never Can Tell

  25. ZACK - Good Friends Are Hard to Find

  26. OLIVIA - Joyeaux Noël

  27. PJ - The Escape

  Beautiful Americans

  RAZORBILL

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Young Readers Group

  345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700,Toronto, Ontario,

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  (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Copyright © 2009 Lucy Silag

  All rights reserved

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Silag, Lucy.

  Beautiful Americans / by Lucy Silag.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Four high school students on a study abroad program in Paris hide

  secrets, party, and revel in the glamor of the city, until one of them disappears.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-01994-8

  [1. Foreign study—Fiction. 2. Missing persons—Fiction. 3. Secrets—Fiction.

  4. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 5. Paris (France)—Fiction. 6. France—Fiction.]

  I.Title.

  PZ7.S5793Be 2009

  [Fic]--dc22

  2008021075

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  For Jeanne

  SEPTEMBER

  1. ALEX

  Au Revoir, New York

  The New York City skyline glitters outside my open window, the late summer breeze flowing off the East River and into my third-story bedroom. My mom’s calling me from the stairwell, but I can’t tear myself away from the view of my city right now, all lit up with the nostalgia of summer ending.

  A horn honks from the street outside. I shake myself out of my reverie and scan my bedroom, wondering if there’s anything else I need to stuff into my Vuitton duffle bags. I drop to my knees, remembering a few last things.

  In the back of my bottom desk drawer is my Jeremy collection—letters, demos, even an old red handkerchief that he used to keep in his pocket to wipe off his face after his rock shows. He’d get so sweaty when he played under all the lights.

  There’s stuff in here that I haven’t looked at in ages, but suddenly I don’t want to take the risk of being so far away, needing to have it and not being able to. What Alex Wants, for example—what if I want to listen to the CD he burned for me, a mix of rough cuts he made on Garage Band with ironic old songs he knew I’d like? Even the title of the mix was a joke between us. I pestered him for weeks to burn me some of his stuff, and on the last day of sophomore year at Brooklyn Prep, he handed me this CD.

  “As if that’s an easy thing to ascertain,” he deadpanned, “what Alex wants.”

  I glance up at my calendar hanging next to the window. Each month has a print of a vintage photo of a Paris scene. For September, the photo is of a man and a woman hanging their legs over the banks of the Seine, their feet bare and the woman’s too-adorable white pumps sitting next to her. Today’s date is circled a dozen times with a black Sharpie. Today’s the day of my escape, my starting over.

  “The car’s here, Alex!” My mom bursts into my room. I shove the handkerchief and the CD into my tote bag before she can see them. “Aren’t you ready to go?”

  My mom stops in her tracks. “Oh, my,” she says, her fire-engine red lips spreading into a smile. “I can see that you are most definitely ready for Paris. Spin.”

  At her command, I rise to my feet and twirl in a circle in front of her, showing off my linen high-waisted Thakoon pants paired with a nautical-stripe tank and my favorite red stiletto heels. “You are so gorgeous,” Mom says. “Now come! Paris waits for no one, not even you.”

  We clatter down the stairs and out the front door, breathlessly struggling with my two enormous bags, each of us trying not to fall over in our high heels and laughing hysterically. A black town car idles on our quiet tree-lined Brooklyn Heights street. In the distance, I can hear the chatter of the people strolling the Esplanade as the sun sets, remarking on the view of downtown Manhattan, how beautiful New York is.

  Right now, I can’t even see the city as anything but a place that isn’t Paris. Paris is where I am meant to be. All of the ups and downs of the last year were just a rehearsal for all the great things to come in Paris.

  “All right, my darling,” Mom says. I take a deep breath, knowing I will cry when Mom tells me how much she is going to miss me. “Time to go.” She twists one of the large rings on her fingers, a habit she has when she’s sad or nervous.

  The thought of my poor mom, banging around in this big, drafty townhouse all alone for the next nine months turns my Louboutins to stone. I absolutely cannot go to Paris, I think rashly. My mom will never survive it! We’re never apart for more than a week, when she goes to report on the fashion shows in Rome, L.A., Milan, and Paris for Luxe and can’t take me with her.

  But then she smiles. “I can’t wait for you to get to Paris!” Mom giddily throws her arms around me with wild laughter. I bury my face in her long dark hair, cloudy with the scent of Chanel perfume. “Go make me pr
oud!”

  “But Mom,” I say, wriggling away for a second. “Are you sure you’re okay with this? Really, truly sure?”

  “Yes, yes, yes, of course!” Mom smacks my butt and points to the car. “Now go!” With one last hug and kiss, she pushes me toward Paris.

  Thrown off balance by the heft of her push, I stumble a little bit. The way she’s hustling me to the car, you’d think she was thrilled I was leaving.

  “One last thing,” she says when I roll down the car window and look up at her, trying to get myself to grasp that this is it, I’m leaving. Paris is finally happening.

  Mom hands me a thin, creamy envelope. “For you,” she says. “It’s not what you think,” she winks. “Now seriously! Go. I love you, darling.”

  She’s right. It isn’t what I expected. Mom usually sends me on a trip with a wad of cash and her American Express Black Card. Since the Amex card is already safely tucked into my camel-colored leather Hogan tote bag, I thought I’d find a few hundred euros slipped in with a note on my mom’s heavy monogrammed stationery. Instead I just find the note.

  Dearest Alex,

  I always knew this day would come, but I really thought I’d have a couple more years, at least till you went to college. Today your life finally becomes your own.

  Your escapades this year, while always charming and indicative of great spirit, have been often very foolish. Young people make mistakes—hell, everyone does.

  What I hope you’ve learned, though, is that women like us can’t wear their hearts on their sleeves, darling. You come from a long line of passionate women who fall in love much too fast. Whatever you do in Paris, don’t get carried away over there the way you did last fall with Jeremy. Seeing you in so much pain made my heart break. I couldn’t stand it if you let another loser walk all over you like that. Be careful falling in love in Paris—you’ll never come back the same. I should know.

  Good luck and all the love in the world! I’m so proud of you.

  See you in November for Fashion Week!

  All my love

  Now I’m crying for sure. I look out the window, but we’ve already pulled onto the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, and my mom is long behind me. It’s too late to tell her again how much I love her and how much I am going to miss her. It’s also too late to ask her for some cash for the trip! I chide myself and get to work fixing the eyeliner I smeared as I was reading her note.

  The brightly lit, lofted International Terminal at JFK airport is abuzz with thousands of people heading off to all corners of the globe—Beijing, Budapest, Buenos Aires. I scan the monitor for Paris. My flight is on time. I realize with a start that while I’ve flown without my mom plenty of times before, this is the first time I’ve been on my way to Paris without her. It’s odd. I can’t say it feels bad, but I’m too distracted, too anxious to get to Paris to be proud of my independence.

  In line at the French Airways counter, we move ahead slowly. I text my cousin Emily, a brand new freshman at Georgetown. GOOD BYE!!!! I brag. SEE YOU AT CHRISTMAS!! KEEP IN TOUCH!!! The thing is, Emily’s been miserable since she got to college. What she wouldn’t do to be getting on this flight with me. Instead she’s desperate to rush a sorority and can’t get a single guy to take her on a proper date.

  What’s taking me so long to get to the front is a tall blonde girl having some sort of argument with the check-in counter personnel. Her face is unsmiling but nonetheless very, very pretty. Thin, sharp hipbones jut out above her loose, faded jeans. The girl turns around to pull a thick stack of papers out of a retro brown camping backpack that looks like it was unearthed from a time capsule buried in 1970. I can see she’s wearing no jewelry or makeup. Just a mane of waist-length, disheveled blonde hair accessorizes her dazzling features—the most arresting of which is a wide, strawberry mouth with full lips set in a strange and downtrodden expression.

  The girl is waving around a fistful of hundred dollar bills, but the French Airways clerk just shakes her head and frowns.

  It’s not like me to stare, but I recognize the stately logo of the Lycée de Monceau on the front of what she is trying to show the French Airways clerk. My eyes widen. Could it be that another student from my program is on the same flight as me?

  How thrilling!

  I whoop with excitement, eliciting a cranky look from an elderly Frenchman standing next to me in line. Is there another New Yorker attending the Lycée with me? The Programme Americaine at the Lycée de Monceau is one of the most respected and exclusive high school study-abroad programs in the world. Students from all over the United States sign up to go to Paris for a year—an entire year—and live in homestays while they study French at a very competitive private school. I barely got in myself, despite having spoken French since I was just a baby. Your whole transcript is considered when you apply, as is your disciplinary record. In my case, let’s just say I was lucky my mom’s a contributing editor at Luxe and my being there brings a certain cachet to the student body this year.

  I can’t help it—I push past the old guy and rush forward to the counter. “Excusez-moi!” the Frenchman protests, but I just giggle in his general direction in response.

  “I’m Alex!” I place my hand on the girl’s bony arm, delicate blue veins streaking her translucent skin. “You’re going to the Lycée with me!”

  “What?” Her plump lips form a startled “O” as she turns to face me. “Who are you?”

  “Alex Nguyen,” I reiterate. “We’re studying abroad together this year! I saw your registration packet from where I was standing in line!”

  She looks at the papers in her hand, and then back at me, confused. I notice as I wait for her to react that she needs some concealer in a bad way—the bags under her eyes make her look like she’s been popping amphetamines all night.

  She wouldn’t. Would she? And I thought I’d be the token wild child at the Lycée de Monceau.

  “You haven’t been abroad before, have you?” I ask her. She has the that nervous twitch of a newly minted traveler.

  “No, I haven’t,” she says. “But that’s not my problem right now. My problem is that I don’t have a reservation and French Airways only has first-class tickets left. And I don’t have enough cash for first class, just coach.”

  “There’s one first-class seat left,” the clerk tells me in French. “Coach has been booked for weeks.”

  “You haven’t bought a plane ticket to Paris yet?” I ask in disbelief. My mom’s assistant at Luxe booked my trip last June.

  “Can you fly tomorrow?” the clerk offers. “There’s a middle seat open if you can go on the six pm flight tomorrow night.”

  “No, no, no,” the girl says, kicking her backpack in frustration. “I have to go to Paris tonight!”

  “Oui, oui, oui,” says the clerk. “Do you have a credit card? The only way French Airways can accommodate your request to go to Paris tonight is if you buy the last available first class seat.”

  “No!” the girl moans.

  “Well, then, please step aside so I can help the next ticketed passenger.”

  “Hold on,” I stop them, glancing down at the wad of cash in the girl’s hand. “I’ll buy her ticket. I have my American Express card. Will that be okay?”

  “What are you doing?” the girl asks me.

  “You give me the cash you have, and take my seat. I can’t bear coach, anyway. You’re doing me a favor,” I tell her.

  “Really?”

  “Sure!” I hand the black Amex to the clerk. “So, what’s your name, anyway?”

  “Penelope Jane Fletcher,” she says, putting her passport on the counter so that the clerk can type in her name and information. “But you can call me PJ. Why are you doing this for me?”

  “Well,” I say with my brightest, most charming smile, looking down at the euros in her hands. “I can always use cash. I forgot to get some before my driver dropped me here. You can pay me for the ticket I just bought for you.”

  PJ pushes the money toward me as i
f she can’t wait to get rid of it. “Here, take it,” she says. “I can’t believe you are doing this for me.”

  I’m stoked, but I’m already picking up on the fact that something is not quite right about this girl.

  PJ is precisely the kind of girl that the program is supposed to weed out, I think as we walk toward Security. The Lycée is for the best of the best young American students, the kind that have summered on the Riviera, the ones that know the Musée d’Orsay like the back of their hand. PJ looks like she’s never been off the ranch.

  For one thing, PJ is dressed like an absolute fugitive—dirty, ripped jeans from JC Penney’s and a thin, shrunken black T-shirt with the silk screened words “Live Free or Die” starting to crumble and fade on her chest. As I give her a once-over, I notice that it is more than just her ragamuffin clothes that are making me uncomfortable. Her hands are trembling as she sets a cloth purse onto the conveyor. She keeps looking at her boarding pass like it might not be real.

  Unpacking my laptop and all my cosmetics, not to mention taking off my gold filigree hoops and unloading my Blackberry and everything for the metal detector, means PJ is waiting for several minutes by the time the TSA is done with me.

  “Listen,” PJ says. “You really helped me out just now. I’m totally grateful. My dad gave me all that cash. . . . I was sure it would be enough.”

  “Please,” I guffaw. “Tell me about it. My dad is the same way. He assumes that a stack of hundreds can solve any problem.”

  PJ looks at me peculiarly. “Really? Your dad always pays for everything in cash, too?”

  “Totally!” I nod. That’s not exactly true, but she seems so embarrassed about not having a credit card that I want to put her at ease. I’m sure my dad has a dozen credit cards, each with an enormous spending limit that I am sure he takes full advantage of. My dad works for the Commonwealth Trust Bank in London, where he oversees all ventures in Southeast Asia. He also comes from old money, since his family was one of the first noble Vietnamese families to get rich off of French trade during the colonial era. Educated at the best schools in France, my dad ended up on Wall Street, then rose the ranks of the City in London, and is now an inspiration for b-school graduates everywhere, with homes, cars, and girlfriends all over the world.