Grim Lovelies (Grim Lovelies 1)

“It’s realistic. We have to be honest with ourselves.” Cricket lowered her voice. “What happens if Mada Zola can’t help us? Or won’t? Then we’ll have only two days left as we are. To drive, to wear clothes, to eat pastries. After that . . . well, you know what it was like.” Her face soured at the thought, but then she pushed the menu toward Anouk tenderly. “I’m just saying that if there’s anything you’ve ever wanted to say or do, then you’d better say it or do it soon. Because we might not have much time left.”

An uncomfortable silence fell over the table. Anouk realized she’d torn the paper napkin into shreds. When the waiter came back, she ordered a chocolate croissant. It came, flaky and buttery and delicious, and something tugged in her chest.

“NASCAR.” Beau coughed.

“Are you choking on your crepe?” Cricket asked.

“No, it’s a car race in America. That’s my dream. To drive in it.” He spread jam on his crepe, thinking. “And watch a movie in a cinema. There are so many things I haven’t done.”

“Ride a train through every country in the world,” Cricket said. “That’s what I’d do.”

“See the northern lights,” Anouk added.

“Get a tattoo.”

“Oh! Go to a drive-in theater. Movies and cars.”

“Sing karaoke.”

“Eat pasta in Italy.”

“Run through a sprinkler.”

“Win at Clue.”

“Eat sausage in Germany.”

“Kiss a boy.”

“Kiss a girl.”

For a few minutes there was only the sound of clinking plates, of scraping forks and anxious chewing as they all thought of what they’d lose if the worst happened.

Anouk wasn’t ready for it to end, the beautiful dream of being human. She wanted to experience everything. See all the places she’d only read about. Sail on a boat. Fly in an airplane. And read—?read everything. Fairy tales. Romance novels. Only humans could write such pain and love, could make her swoon one minute and cry the next over something that had never really happened to people who’d never really existed.

“We should go,” Beau said.

Cricket scooped up the rest of the beignets and stuffed them in her many pockets. Anouk almost hated to get back in the car and face the ticking cat clock whose second-hand tail kept turning and turning, always in the direction she didn’t want it to move. As they pulled back onto the autoroute, the nerves crept back into her insides. She wished she hadn’t put so much rich cream in her coffee.

Somewhere around Plan-de-Baix, she twisted to look in the back seat. Cricket had lain down and was caught in the throes of an anxious sleep.

Beau cleared his throat. “She’s asleep?”

“Yes.”

He kneaded the steering wheel with his hands, glancing in the rearview mirror to make sure she was out.

“So, remember what she said at the café about us not having much time left to say the things we’ve always wanted to say?” His fingers wrapped hard around the steering wheel. “I have something I want to say. I don’t know if I’ll get another chance.” He dared a glance at her.

She shoved her hands in her pockets and suddenly felt a little too warm.

“You know it drives me crazy when you say I’m like a brother, right?”

She nodded. She worked the sprig of mint between her fingers, shredding it into ribbons. She felt the same light, ticklish feeling she had the night they’d danced together in the kitchen, the soap bubbles popping on the floor, such a wonderful moment, and yet at any second they might have tumbled and fallen on their backsides.

“I’ve never felt we were siblings. In fact . . . mon Dieu, this is hard.” He paused, chewing on his bottom lip, not taking his eyes off the road. He was driving faster now, though he didn’t seem to realize it. “It’s like in Luc’s fairy tales. The one about a peasant boy who’s hopelessly in love with a princess, and there’s that monster he has to stab between the horns, only the monster’s made of a stronger material than his spear, and I forget the rest, the monster is really his changeling brother, I think . . .” His rambling drew to a close and he glanced at her. “Say something, cabbage.”

“I’m still confused about the monster.”