1. ONE

[rimestock.livejournal.com]

Grégoire Jourdain was faced with something of a quandary.

He'd hated Scotland when his parents moved there. That was not in question, at least. Now, as he waited at the corner of Palmer and Rockland, illicit cigarette hidden in a cupped left hand, he was left to wonder just when it had started to seem like a good idea to come to America, of all places. Going back home to France would have made sense – he had family there, he knew the language and had since birth, he knew the Metro like the back of his hand, he had friends there already. And his parents had decided that they were all going to relocate to Edinburgh instead, dragging him along without asking him his opinion – but they didn't think to forbid him to apply to schools in other places, and that had been the loophole he'd found.

And then, instead of going back to Paris, some whim or another had caught his fancy, and now he was stuck in some strange suburb of New York City for the next ten months, give or take. He wasn't entirely certain when his classes were supposed to start, although he was fairly sure it was the right day, at least – the fourth of September, 1964, entirely too beautiful a day to be stuck going into a new school. He thought about skipping, and then thought about the face of his host father, and wasn't afraid of the mental image of that man being angry, but he wasn't exactly thrilled, either.

When Grégoire's cigarette was finished, a few minutes' thought later, he shrugged to himself, flicked it out into the street, and wandered down Palmer toward the school, to find the offices and figure out what classes he was going to be taking.

It was, unfortunately for Grégoire, 7:10am. This meant two things: one, that school wasn't going to start for pretty much exactly an hour, and so he had an hour of time that was mostly going to be spent idle, and two, the bus stop in front of the Westchester Jewish Center had just received the 7:09 bus. This wouldn't have been a problem if he hadn't been standing right on the path of the onslaught of students getting off the bus.

There were about twenty of them, of various ages, and two of them – a boy in a blue pantsuit with shaggy brown hair and a taller blonde girl – were speaking in very poor basic French. The slightly shorter girl with them laughed and said, loud enough for all of the students to hear, "Madame Barrel's going to fail you something awful." She'd applied a French accent to 'barrel,' emphasizing the second half of the word with a rolled 'r,' and this just made all of the others laugh.

Something stood out about that girl, though it wasn't entirely clear yet what.

For his part, Grégoire just blinked, and then stepped forward hesitantly. "I thought the teacher, her name is Carroll?" he offered, shoving his hands into his pockets, hiding the sudden onset of nerves at the idea of meeting other students for the first time.

The three of them exchanged amused sorts of glances, and the blonde one spoke up, "Depends on who you ask. You ask her, or the admins, or anyone, that's her name. Ask her students when she's not around, she's Madame Barrel."

This girl pronounced it plainly like the English 'barrel.'

"It's a name that fits," the boy chimed in.

"How is it that it fits so?" He wrinkled his eyebrows at them, confused, keeping pace with them unconsciously. "Oh – I should introduce myself, I think, unless you would rather I make you practice your French?"

"She's a monster," said the blonde, obviously the ringleader of the group. She was bold, too, wearing a skirt that was cut in the middle of her knees instead of clearly below. "Absolutely terrible, and she walks like she's – well, wearing a barrel. You can use whatever language you want although most of us are pretty terrible at it, though Morgan's got her accent okay – I'm Catherine Moore, she's Morgan Brandt and he's Nicholas Walsh."

"Enchante," he replied promptly. "Je m'appelle Grégoire Jourdain. I came here from Scotland," he added, distaste for his new country obvious. "And I will warn you, I feel that I should reserve judgment on the teacher until I have met her myself."

"Good luck," snorted Catherine, tossing her hair back as she turned to glance at what looked like an Oriental pagoda with a front window panel on the other side of the street. "Whoah, there's nobody at Walter's."

"Because they aren't open yet, braniac," Nicholas Walsh said, grabbing at her hand and starting to turn up the grass of the hill, ignoring the existence of the road. Morgan, still quiet, did the same.

"Walter's?" Grégoire trailed after them, not sure if he was wanted, but unwilling to go back to being by himself.

They didn't protest, and seemed at least partially willing to include him – while not opening up their circle or offering hands the way they did to one another, Catherine at least looked at him when she spoke (and Morgan and Nicholas just didn't) and nobody told him to go away, either.

"That weird green stand over there? Walter's Hot Dog Stand. See the really long sign that looks like it's written in hot dogs? Says 'Walter's' on it – that's the name of the place. Best hot dogs outside the city," Catherine explained. "Where are you from, anyway?"

"I came here from Edinburgh," he said, looking back over his shoulder (and nearly tripping up the hill) at the pagoda-building. "What are the best hot dogs in the city? I've never had any."

"Careful," said Morgan, suddenly, reaching out to touch the side of his arm. "This hill's killed people. Usually it doesn't start actively trying until the end of November, though."

"And that's Papaya King, about the hot dogs," Nicholas replied at the same time Catherine insisted, "Sure, but I mean where are you from? We've got a professor who's Scottish; he sounds nothing like you at all."

Later, he would realize that he really had heard what Nicholas and Catherine said, and before too long he would even manage to answer them. Just at that moment, though, with Morgan's fingers on his arm, he was left ignoring them and staring at her, barely hearing her, either.

"I – quoi? Oh, from – I'm from Paris," he said at some point a few years later, blinking and shaking his head to clear it, looking somewhere in the general vicinity of Catherine, or at any rate not at Manhattan.

"That makes a lot more sense," Catherine replied, playing a little with one of Morgan's long plaits. "These are going to kill people too, you know – oh god why are we here so early, again?"

"This is what time the bus got here," Morgan pointed out. "And – it's Grégoire, right? I am going to keep pronouncing that wrong." She had, but just slightly. "Can we just call you Greg? Because they're usually Cat and Nick; you can't get much out of 'Morgan.'"

"You could be Moire," he offered. "And non, I do not mind Greg, it is fine." He would, perhaps, have agreed to anything she suggested, just at the moment; he wasn't sure, and couldn't think of anything she might have asked that he would refuse. "Did you have a question, or simply that?"

"That's practically Cat's name, though – no, that was my only question." She tilted her head a little, though, and did not ask 'why is it you're looking at me like that?' no matter how tempted she was to do so. This kid was a little weird, but he was obviously a lost duck of an exchange student, and if anyone was going to adopt a lost duck of any kind of student, it was – well, it was Catherine Moore, not Morgan Brandt or Nicholas Walsh, but they were there for the ride. "Because I was sure I'd mangle it terribly. I don't actually take French."

"Non? Whyever not? It is a beautiful language," he pointed out, glad they were at the parking lot at the top of the hill and he needed to pay less attention to the grass beneath his feet, and could spend more of it on her instead. "And you are beautiful, and so you should speak such a beautiful language."

Catherine giggled a little bit, shooting glances at Nick and Morgan and then at Grégoire, not rolling her eyes at him, but Morgan, at least, could tell that she wanted to.

"Because my mother manages a restaurant in Larchmont, and my father is a doctor in Harlem, and I work at the restaurant in Larchmont, and so I actually need to know Spanish," was Morgan's response. "I use it. Cat and Nick don't, and so they take French for me, I guess – ooh!"

She ran off in the direction of the columned front steps, where a gangly boy was sitting playing a guitar, and Catherine laughed again.

"Here we go again with Morgan," she said. "Every year. Can't hold a steady topic for five minutes. Only happens during the school year, she's not so distractable in summers. Why are you in Mamaroneck, anyway, Greg? It's not interesting. At all."

"It is better than Edinburgh, I think?" He craned his neck back, trying not to look too obvious as he watched Morgan. "Who is that?"

"I have absolutely no idea, actually," Nick said, "and I thought I knew everyone."

"Well you don't." Catherine gave him a playful shove. "That's Kurt, Kurt Dawson. I didn't know he played guitar, though. Or had a Beatles haircut. He got better-looking since last year, didn't he?"

"Don't get any ideas," half-snapped Nick, squeezing her hand.

"The two of you are together, then?" Greg, as he was apparently now to be known, asked half-heartedly, still watching the dark-haired girl over by the stairs.

"Us? Yeah," said Catherine, while Nick looked lost for a half second, scratching the back of his neck before his eyes widened.

"Oh! Oh, me and Cat, yes. I thought you meant Cat and Kurt and I was trying to figure out what you were smoking for a second."

"Nobody ever spoke too highly of Nicholas' intelligence – were you trying to get somewhere in particular," Cat moved the conversation cautiously away from relationships and Kurt Dawson, "or are you just here early because you weren't sure how to get to school?"

"I am supposed to enroll today." He shrugged, wondering if he could get away with another cigarette. "I do not know where the office is, or when it opens."

"Time?" Cat consulted Nick, who tapped at his watch.

"7:20ish, it's sort of broken, it lags and I don't trust it – anyway they open in like two minutes, so we can take you if you want. If the doors are actually open, which they have a tendency to ... not ... be. Ever."

"If they are never open, then when does Walter's open? Clearly we are not requested to attend classes, if the doors do not open," he tried, hopefully.

"They're open for about an hour at eight," Catherine corrected primly. "People just mill about outside before school starts. I think Walter's also opens at eight, but you don't want to go there during school hours, trust me, we learned this from Morgan's brave attempt last year."

"Why, what happened then?"

Nicholas picked up the story then. "She had a free and decided to check out how Walter's was doing and got trapped on line –"

"In line," Catherine, a Boston native, corrected.

"– in line, on line, whatever the fuck – for hours, missing the entire rest of the day and getting busted, because once you're on line –"

"In line."

"– once whatever, you can't really leave, not if you've got your heart set on the food," Nick finished.

"Are they so very busy, then?" he asked, somewhat bewildered by the prepositional confusion.

"Always," the two others said in unison.

"We can try and go in one of the side doors if we're actually desperate to get to the office," Cat started. Nick, that time, cut her off.

"Do you actually want our help," he consulted Greg, something Cat didn't seem to be considering at all, "or should we let you be and deal with the school yourself? I mean, we don't mind either way, we should just also try to get Morgan back from Kurt before she forgets to go to class."

"I think," Greg began, and hesitated, giving Morgan one last glance before turning to face Nick. "I think I would like it very much if you could at least show me where the office is," he decided, and smiled at them both. "I have very little idea of what classes I am to be taking, but I think the school is supposed to know."

"You didn't get to pick? That's awful. I hope for your sake you've got a decent English teacher, some of them are utter monsters." Cat seemed appalled by the idea of one not getting to choose one's own classes; Nick shook his head and took her by the arm again.

"Okay. Let's go then – MORGAN! HEY!" he yelled, suddenly, shooting the group around Kurt Dawson and his guitar a dirty look. Morgan whipped around, braids spinning and nearly whacking another girl in the head; that led her to pause and laugh before actually picking up her bag again and trotting back over to them, waving goodbye to everyone else.

"What, Nick, I can't mind you all the time," she told him with a grin, looping her arm in Cat's free one. "We're going in then?"

"Going to show Greg here the office," Catherine explained as they all ambled not toward the steps, but to another door by the parking circle (which by then was filled with cars).

"What classes are you taking?" the Greg in question asked, careful to direct his question to all of them.

"Uh," Nick looked a little nervous as he put all of his weight against the door, shoving at it.

Nothing happened, and Nick battled with the door again as Catherine talked, racking her memory. "Well we've all got Regents English together, I know, and Nick and I are in French 2 and Morgan's got Spanish 4, and I'm taking art of film and they're taking theatre and of course we all have gym and we're all in the same math even though Morgan shouldn't be, and I don't have a science at all and Nick is in physics and Morgan is in chemistry. Did I miss anything?"

"This door's still a fucker's what you missed," said Nick. "Morgan, you do it, it always opens –"

Shooting him a cheerful smile, Morgan adjusted her bag and practically bounced to the space in front of Nick, calmly unlatching the door and holding it open.

"In you go," she said, smile not faltering for a second, "all of you, everyone else can wait until they open at eight, I'll slam it in their faces."

"Your English, what is it that makes it Regency? And how is it that you, Morgan, are so clever with the door?" Greg said, giving her a sideways grin. "And which math is it that you are all taking?"

"It just loves me, it's a mystery." Morgan shrugged the question off with another winning smile as everyone else ambled through the hall, past a statue of a girl sitting and reading something and under a hanging globe, turning left down a hall and then stopping in front of double doors.

While they were walking, Greg's first question sank in, and the other three ended up laughing again.

"The Regents is a state exam - courses called 'Regents' are prep courses for the test," Cat explained. "And it seems as if administration, uh, isn't there. As usual."

"Ah – your Bac?" He nodded a little, vaguely. "It is this year, though? You are seniors, then?"

"We're juniors," said Morgan.

"There are like two Regents tests a year every year," Nick added. "A science one for every science year, Global History as sophomores, English as juniors, math in at least one year and up to three and it depends on the course – oh and we're in Math B, which also has a Regents which Morgan is going to fail –" Morgan whacked him lightly with her book, "– and seniors, um, I don't actually think they take them at all."

"We have SATs this year too, though," Cat finally got a chance to say something.

"Essay tees?"

Morgan rather boldly patted him on the head, which got another eyeroll from Cat. "Scholastic Aptitude Test, I think is what it is? Learning evaluating thing that makes colleges decide how much they want people. You can't study for them or anything, just walk in and take 'em. Although if you're going back to Europe I would advise just not."

"I am planning to take my Bac at the end of my last year of high school," he informed them, still bemused. "Baccalaureate, ouias? A good score means that I can go wherever I want, and the government will pay for it."

"Some schools in the area have International Baccalaureate courses. We, of course, don't." Cat, again, seemed indignant – this time at the school, as she kicked the door of Administration irritably.

"Don't –" started Morgan, as Nick held up a hand, and then the door opened, a very tall Administrator-Like Personage staring down at them.

"– do that," Nick finished.

"Way to go," said Morgan.

"Miss Brandt, Mr. Walsh, Miss Moore, and I see you've gained yourselves a fourth," the man said, "can I help you all with something?"

Nick, Morgan and Cat all looked directly at Greg.

Greg, for his part, gave the very tall Administrator-Like Personage a terribly polite Trademark Rémi Family Smile. "Bonjour," he said, sweet and cheerful and not at all the sort of person he'd been a moment before in talking to actual people. "I am Grégoire Jourdain, I am a new student, I received a letter that I am to enroll today, monsieur! They have been helping me find your office, and very kind."

The administrator looked just a tiny bit shocked, and his expression was clearly enough portraying that he was thinking along the lines of 'wait, they were kind?'

"Oh," he said. "Well. You want guidance, which is back in here, but I'm afraid you'll have to take your leave of these three. They have to get to class and know they're not welcome to loiter here before hours, don't you all?"

Three very guilty-looking hung heads murmured "yessir."

"Hopefully I will see you at lunch?" Greg said quickly, to all three of them, whether or not it was mostly to Morgan. "Or in class somewhere – merci beaucoup, it was very nice to meet you, bonne chance à la porte."

"We'll find you," said Cat, as Morgan whispered "what did he say?" to Nick, who awkwardly translated it back (to 'something about luck at gates,' but he was close enough for the general idea to get conveyed).

Then, the three of them were arm in arm again, Catherine in the middle, and they disappeared back in the direction of the hanging globe.

Whatever else might be said of him, Grégoire Jourdain was not foolish enough to let his cheerful mask slip in front of the administration, as he followed the man back into the depths of the guidance office, to ask about Math 2, Regent's English, and chemistry, with a certain dark-haired beauty weighing heavily on his mind.

He was, of course, foolish enough to have said dark-haired beauty weighing on his mind, heavily or not, and ended up enrolled in Spanish 1 and Regents US History to pay for his sins – but he wouldn't realize that until fifth period.