“Honestly, the pair of you" was Edward's response. I brushed cracker crumbs off my homework folder; I'd needed a snack after giving up most of my lunch. "Silly infants. Don't you know the way people see you has absolutely nothing to do with the way you actually look? Beauty is all sleight of hand. Just ask Holbein. Or Bobbi Brown.""I thought Beauty was Truth," I said wearily. I had a headache, and three pages of French to translate."That is Keats. I am not overly fond of Keats. Had he not died so poetically early, people might have realized he was not quite what they thought he was.""The same could be said of you," I shot back. I was a little annoyed by the "silly infants" comment. "Oh, so clever. What's the worst-case scenario, should you give the Bainbridge boy a try?""Well,gosh.Lemme see." I ticked off a few possibilites on my fingers. "Humilation, humiliation, mortification, and humiliation."Edward sniffed. "Qui craint de souffrir, il souffre deja de ce qu'il craint.""And what does that mean?" I recognized it from the second page of my homework."Well,gosh,darling Ella.You'll just have to ask your new tutor, won't you?" he said silkily. Right before he went back to emulating a lump of metal.”

“Qui craint de souffrir, il souffre deja de ce qu'il craint.""Who fears to suffer, already suffers what he fears. ”

“Winslow wants you to learn this"- he waved a few sheets of stapled pages- "and that." He pointed to the book in my lap. Fifty French Conversations. It was one of our textbooks. I'd stopped at the seventeenth: Mon hamster a mange trop de fromage. Il a mal au ventre maintenant. "The rest is the Bainbridge Method.""You have a method?""Patented and proven."I waved the book. "Does it include greedy, cheese-guzzling hamsters with stomachaches?"He nodded. "Absolutely.French conversations is nothing without rodents and cheese.Is there something shameful in your past involving either?""Not that I can think of off the top of my head.""Tant pis.""And that means...?""Fuhgeddaboudit," he translated, grinning.I sighed. "Do people make Russian jokes in your presence?""How do you get five Russians to agree on anything?""How?" I asked."Shoot four of them."I thought for a sec. "I'm not sure that's funny.""No," Alex said. "People don't tell many Russian jokes in my presence.""I should start my three things, huh?""Yeah.That would be good."I did some speedy translating in my head. "Je n'ai jamais lu Huckleberry Finn, Beloved, ou Moby-Dick.""Ella,no one has read Moby-Dick. The French was passable, but as far as revelations go,that sucked.""Ah, but there's a part deux. All three of those books were required reading last year in my American lit class. I used SparkNotes.""You're kidding, right?""See?" I daintily brushed Dorito crumbs from my fingertips. "Changes your perception of me, doesn't it?""No,I mean, 'That's a revelation?' You can do better than that.""Maybe," I agreed, "but it's still early in the game.”

“What is it you want, Ella?""What you had," I answered softly, "with Diana. That once-in-a-lifetime connection that makes everything good.""Fine.But you do realize that in orde to be loved like that, you have to let the lucky gentleman see you.I mean truly see you, scars and all.""Yes,Edward, I am fully aware of that.""But you don't want anyone to really look at you."He had me there. "Well,no.""Good luck with that,then," he said, then yawned and cosed his eyes, telling me the conversation was over.”

“So,twice a week I have my own tutor," he said shortly. "Who,trust me, makes my father look like a marshmellow. And on that note..." He picked up the sheaf of French lessons again. "We'll start with the imperfect, used to express actions that are-""Incomplete,unfulfilled, or repeated over and over." I slumped back in the weird chair. "That I know."At the end of the very imperfect sessions, Alex gave me a full ten minutes in the downstairs bathroom before showing up.All I'd figured out what that Edward's faceless girl had had wide feet, and the Bainbridge's decorator had a preference for green that might merit an intervention."I could probably give you the stupid thing"-Alex gestured to the picture when he came in- "and my folks would never notice."I winced inwardly. "I can't advocate theft," I told him, "no matter how noble the intent.”

“Just out of curiosity, do they know I'm here?""Yep." My Mother did, anyway. Mention of a French tutor had effectively headed off any possibility of shopping."I take it they trust you not to do anything inappropriate."I couldn't tell if he was being serious. I assumed not. "Absolutely. In fact,my mother would probably pay you to do something to make them trust me a little less." I took a look at his face. He looked a little stunned. "Oh,no. I didn't mean-"Or maybe I did. But Alex was backing away from me, hands raised. "okay.""J'etais stupide."He sat down heavily on the edge of my desk, narrowly missing the biscotti. "I wouldn't say that. But your use of the imperfect is improving.""Just what I always wanted," I said sadly, "to get better at imperfection.”

“So,if it's all love or money, which is Alex Bainbridge?"I blinked at him. "What?""He's a turd, Ella. He looked right through you like you were a ghost, but you still have a thing for him.""I do n-""Don't even. You've gone through the whole week watching for him. So what is it? I would really like to know. Love or money?""I have not been watching for him!" I snapped. Oh, but I had, in every hallway, at lunch, when I took my seat at the edge of English class. "And if I have, it's just so I can look away first."Frankie rolled his eyes. "Shall I get you a pail of water?""Why?""Your pants are on fire."I actually looked down at my lap. "Oh, very funny." I shot Sadie a look when she giggled.”