Feelings

12: Talents

I turn around to see Amélie with a pink helmet and a pink, round thing in her mouth. "Amélie? What are you doing here?"

Amélie holds up a scooter. "Je scooter. Voulez-vous un macaron?"  She pulls out more of those round things wrapped in a translucent wrapping from her sweater. Oh. She's eating a macaron.

"Ok." I take one from her and look at it. I've never eaten one of these before. It looks like a layer of cream sandwiched between 2 pink biscuit things. It's sweet, but not too sweet. "This is good," I say with my mouth full. "Where'd you get them from?"

"I bake them." Wow, Amélie bakes. Cool. "But why are you here?"

If I tell her it's because of Wren, she'll think I like her. Then she might tell everyone and soon Wren will find out. But I have no other excuse. "Wren brought me here."

Amélie bites into another macaron. "Ah, tu aimes elle."

How'd she find out so easily? "What? How do you know?"

"Le regard l'amour. The way you look at her." Amélie smiles at me. "Do not worry. Ton secret is safe avec moi. I promise."

Good thing I can trust Amélie, she's kind. "Thank you."

"Je vous en prie. Would you like to watch me?"

"Sure." Amélie pushes off with her scooter, speeds down, flies off a ramp, spins the scooter deck around 3 times, and LANDS IT. There's loud applause as she scooters back to me. "Amélie, that's insane!"

"Merci. I thought I did that triple tail whip too late."

Maybe to her, but to me, it was perfect. "You're really good at this. Do you join events for this stuff in France?"

Amélie shakes her head. "Non. Colette says I should, but je n'aime pas ces événements. They are too loud for me."

"Is she your mom?"

"Ma amis. Colette Martin is my best friend who resides in France." Whoops. "She is going to le Université de Lille. I plan to join her too."

She's got plans for the future. I definitely don't. "Hey Amélie!" shouts Maddie.

"Maddie is here?" Amélie asks. She's elated.

I nod. "Yeah. You know her?"

"Oui! She is my friend, too!" No idea they'd be friends. They're so different. Amélie looks like she's going to burst of happiness.

"Amélie! Bonjour! Comment ça va?" says Maddie in French.

"Je suis super maintenant tu es là!" replies Amélie . "C'est si bon de trouver quelqu'un qui parle français!" They hug and keep talking to each other in complete French. That just happened. I can't recognize any words anymore besides my name and some other people's names.

Viktor comes out of nowhere next to me. "Maddie's part French. Her mom is, but she took all her looks from her dad. She has no idea why, but she can speak French, too."

"Oh."

"Jae, right?" says Ben.

"Yeah."

He looks so shy. "What can you do? I mean, Amélie can scooter and speak French, Maddie can skateboard, roller skate and speak French, Wren can skateboard, I actually like filming my own movies, and Viktor can do music stuff. What's your talent?"

I never thought about that. I guess nothing yet. Except... "I can draw things. People say I'm really good, but I don't know."

"Hey," Wren walks up to us. "Show some. Show them how good you are."

Amélie pops in, too. "Can you draw me?" Maddie follows behind her.

"Ok, ok, hold on." I pull out my sketchbook. What do they want to see? The only good ones I can think of are the ones I do for school. They're boring things, though. I want to show them something not from school. but still impressive.

"Show them the drawing of me," whispers Wren. She's fine with me showing that?

I shake out Wren's drawing and give it to Ben. "Here."

Ben quietly inspects it. "He is good." He passes it to Maddie, who passes it to Viktor after a 'hmm' of approval.

"Beautiful," says Viktor. "Maybe he can be the park artist. Because from this I can tell that Wren is the hottest out of all of us."

Everyone laughs, but Amélie peeks over Maddie's shoulder. "Um, I did not get to see it yet..."

Viktor gives it back to me. "Good job. Hey, let's go skateboarding. I found some new songs to try out." They all leave, and soon it's only me and Amélie again on the bench.

Amélie's eyes easily tell that she's sad about something. "Amélie, something bothering you?"

"C'est juste que, sometimes it feels like I belong here, like after I do un cascade, but when everything is quiet again, I realize I really do not."

"But you're really good at the scooter," I add.

"Oui, but no one else here uses one. Seulement moi. And look at them. They all have vêtements et des comportements similaires." Her body sags. "I do not fit in."

I can relate. "Hey, me too. I've been to a house party and I hated it there. Too loud, like you said. Plus, do you think I fit in here? I definitely don't. Um, what if we do that drawing of you like you asked?"

Seeing Amélie smile makes me feel good. "Merci beaucoup. You are very kind and prévenant, Jae. What do I do?"

"Just sit still so I can get it right."

Amélie sits freakishly still and straight, not even moving a millimetre. "You can relax, it'll look better that way," I say.

"D'accord." It takes a while to get the guidelines right, but after that it all comes together easily. I'm doing this to make her feel better, so I put in more effort than I did for the sketch of Wren. After 40 minutes of erasing and re-sketching, then erasing and re-sketching again, I show it to her.

"Mon visage, c'est beau!" exclaims Amélie. She grabs it out of my hands to look at it closely. "I did not know j'étais si jolie." She won't make eye contact anymore. I think it's because she's blushing as hard as Wren did. "You made me more pretty than I am in real life."

If we start talking about this, she'll think I like her. "No, I just draw what I see."

Amélie tucks some of her hair behind her ear and giggles. Is she flirting with me? No no no, I didn't want this. "Amélie, I didn't mean that like... you know..."

"What?"

"I don't like you, if that's what you were thinking."

"Oh. P-Pardon. I am really sorry. I-I need to go." Amélie briskly gets up and scooters away with the sketch. I didn't want to make her feel bad.

Shortly after she leaves, Maddie walks up to me with the vape in her mouth. "She left? Whatever. Hey," she sits down next to me and holds out the pen, "Wren won't know. Still wanna try?"

I gently push it away. "No, thanks."

"Maddie, get that the fuck away from him!" shouts Wren.

"Shit, I gotta dip. See you around." Maddie hops on her skateboard and rolls away. Wren runs up to me, panting.

She brushes some hair out of her face. "You didn't use it, did you?"

"What?"

"Did you use the fucking pen?" Wren seems really worried about if I used it.

If I did, she'd probably punch me in the face. "Oh! No. No way would I ever."

"Good. We're all going home now. Viktor's offering to drive us home. Wanna come?"

How much time passed? I forgot about the time. "Yeah, sure."

"Let's go then." I follow Wren out of the park and into a parking lot, where Maddie and Ben are sitting inside Viktor's car.