Never Satisfied

James Madison- Off In Paris

Thomas and I walked the Paris streets. Finally, a weekend. We had been working non-stop studying classic French artists, sketching buildings, and practicing classic painting techniques, which is fun, but we were exhausted. Thomas is my only roommate. He's a great roommate.
We were trying to find a good place to get dinner. We found a place called Lafayette's Baguettes and stopped in.
"Hey, remember that guy in our grade named Lafayette?" I asked Thomas.
"Why, did you forget Lafayette?" He questioned.
"No." I said. "Too hard to forget. Very in-your-face. Good at rapping." Thomas gave me a look. "Not as good as you! You are the best rapper I know."
"Good." He smiled. He was a teeny-tiny bit self-centered in that way. Had to be the best. At everything. "Aaron texted me earlier. Thanked me for referring him to George. Then he called me."
"What'd he say?"
"He was upset about asking this girl out and she was on a date."
"Oh. Ow. That is harsh. Who was it?"
"Eliza Schuyler. Angelica's sister."
"Hey, Peggy's too!"
Thomas proceeded to laugh. His laugh is contagious, so I began to laugh as well.
"So, we're goin' to the Louvre on Monday." Thomas said.
"Seriously?"
"Yeah. Seein' the Mona Lisa."
"Ooh." I said, excited. "But it's not French!"
"Who the hey cares if it's not French?"
"Um... Me and French people...?"
We cracked up.
"So. James. Think about it: If we and Aaron achieve our dreams, we are brothers-in-law: A bond that can only be broken by divorce." Thomas began. I laughed. "We could get to know each other better: We will be better together. I'm the brains, you're the other brains, and I think Aaron's got brains, so we are like the Brady Bunch, only there are fewer of us, we're all guys, and we are the Brainy Bunch instead." We laughed.
A text came to both of us:
Aaron: The new kid's in the hospital.
James: Why?
Aaron: Idk gtg ttyl sys wnr ykwim
Yes he came up with most of those abbreviations himself. He does that to seem "cool".
"I wonder what the new kid... Oh, his name's Adrian, no, André, Abraham, Addison, A- Oh, I don't know. Well, I wonder what he's like." Thomas said.
"Alexander. He's probably pretty cool." I responded.
"Well, he is George's pick for the theatre secretary. Theatre kid. Some of them are cool, I guess. Laf's pretty cool, Angelica, Eliza..." Thomas pointed out.
"And Peggy! You keep forgetting Peggy!" I stated.
We laughed again.
After ordering and eating our food, we headed towards where everyone from school that was in Paris was staying, a hotel called L'amour de Paris. Thomas and I went to our room on the top floor. Thomas took his new iPhone and started playing The Beatles.
"Is it on shuffle?" I asked.
"You bet." He replied.
It played Hard Day's Night on full blast volume as we talked about our day. I went to see the Eiffel Tower while he went to Sainte Chapelle to see the architecture. Then he went to the Eiffel Tower while I took pictures of the city. At 1:00 am we decided that we should go to bed. We put on our pajamas and slept, and wondered about the changes once we arrived back at high school, the school that we had all been speculating about going to in middle school, that Thomas and I hadn't been to yet. It was far away, but it was an exciting notion. I watched out the window, seeing the darkened Paris sky and fell asleep.