The Twenty-Seventh City. Jonathan Franzen

what she says.”

      “We should have her over for dinner.”

      “I thought you and Daddy were going out.”

      “We were thinking of going to a movie, but it’s not important.”

      “I don’t want to have her over.”

      “All right.” Her mother’s interest in the conversation withered: she seemed to sigh inaudibly, her shoulders going slack. “Suit yourself.” From a pile near the closet she snagged two dirty blouses. “I’ve got to change for tennis. Will you be home till dinner?”

      “Maybe.” Luisa kicked her calculus book onto the floor. “Does Daddy have any other old shirts like that?”

      “Daddy has fifty other shirts like this.”

      Luisa turned up the stereo and waited for her mother to come back with a shirt or two. Ten minutes later she heard the BMW whirring down the driveway. No shirts. Had her mother forgotten? She went to her parents’ bedroom, and there, lying folded on the bed, were three of the shirts she’d had in mind. She struggled out of her sweater and put a white one on, knotting the tails and rolling up the sleeves. In front of her mother’s mirror she unbuttoned the second and third buttons and flipped back the collar. She had a good chest complexion. The shirt worked for her. She spread her hands on her hips and shook her hair back. Then she pulled down her lower eyelids and made blood-rimmed Hungarian eyes. She pulled on the corners and made Chinese eyes. She smiled at the mirror. She had nicer teeth than her mother.

      At 7:30, just after her parents had sung their chorus of goodbyes, the telephone rang. A voice, Paulette’s, floated above the sounds of a noisy bar or restaurant. “Louisa?”

      “Bonjour, Paulette.”

      “Yes, yes, it is Paulette. Did you—receive my card?”

      “Oui, Paulette. Aujourd’hui. A quatre heures. Merci beaucoup.”

      “Yes, yes. Em, I am on Euclid Avenue?”

      “You’re where?”

      “Em, Euclid Avenue? It is close?”

      “Um, no, that’s not very close. I don’t live in the city.”

      “I am at a bar? Yes?”

      “You can speak French,” Luisa said.

      “This bar is called Deckstair?”

      “Well, could you – Do you have any way of getting out of the city?”

      “No. No. You would come to the bar, Deckstair? Yes?”

      Luisa didn’t remember her English being even this good. But then, they’d hardly ever spoken it.

      “Yes?” Paulette repeated.

      Maybe her mother had made her promise to call. But she still could have broken the promise.

      “Oh, all right,” Luisa said. She knew where Dexter’s was. “Will you be there in twenty minutes?”

      “Yes! Yes, right here. Deckstair.” Paulette laughed.

      Luisa tried to call Marcy Coughlin to see if she wanted to come along, but the line was busy. She tried Edgar Voss and Nancy Butterfield. Their lines were busy, too. The busy signals sounded faint, like the phone was out of order, but it obviously wasn’t. She wrote a note for her parents and gave them the name of the bar.

      It was almost 8:30 when she reached the Central West End, the home of a variety of up-to-the-decade bars and restaurants and specialty stores. Luisa parked the BMW in the Baskin-Robbins loading zone and crossed the alley towards Euclid Avenue. Dumpsters yawned disagreeably. In the apartment windows above her the shades were drawn down so far that they buckled and gaped.

      It was strange that a tour group from Europe would want to see St. Louis. Then again, the people Luisa had met in France hadn’t seemed to know what a boring place it was. Even the grownups had thought she must have a great old time living in San Louie and listening to the blues every night on a riverboat. People in Europe were convinced that St. Louis was a really hot town.

      Spilling out along the front window of Dexter’s was a crowd of party people, loud people in their early twenties, people who instinct told Luisa weren’t professionals or good students. They clutched drinks. They laughed, their hairdos frosted flamingo pink by the glaring neon logo. Luisa looked in through the window. The place was packed. She hesitated, nervous, her hands in her pockets.

      A man in a white shirt like hers had stepped out of the crowd. He had a foreign face, she almost guessed Algerian, except he was too decent-looking. He raised his eyebrows as if he knew who she was. She gave him a feeble smile. He spoke. “Are you looking—”

      But her heart had jumped and she’d pushed through the doorway, hopping a little to keep her balance in the undergrowth of feet and shins. She squirmed and ducked laterally, listening for French. All she heard was English. Every word was a laugh. In every partying cluster there seemed to be one stocky woman, shorter and more flushed than the rest, who kept joking through her drink and almost spraying it. Near the blunt corner of the bar, where the crowd knotted up tightly, Luisa came to a dead stop. She wasn’t tall enough for a good view of the tables and booths, and she couldn’t move to reach them. And somebody hadn’t taken a shower this morning. She blocked her nose from inside and inched closer to the bar. Here she recognized a face in profile, but it wasn’t Paulette. It was a boy from high school. Doug? Dave? Duane. Duane Thompson. He’d graduated two years ago. He had both hands on the bar and a beer in front of him. He turned, suddenly, as if he felt her looking, and she gave him a feeble smile. His smile was even feebler.

      She stuck her elbow in a fat man’s midriff and forged into the sitting area. Now she could see all the tables and still no Paulette. A waitress came careening by. “Excuse me—” Luisa caught her arm. “Is there a group of French people in here?”

      The waitress opened her mouth incredulously.

      Luisa had that sinking stood-up feeling in her stomach. She figured it was time to go back home, and she would have left if the Algerian hadn’t had his face pressed up against the front window. He was still acting like he had something in particular to say to her. As creeps went, he was handsome. She turned back to the tables, and then to the bar. Duane Thompson was staring at her. All this attention! She pushed her way to the bar, ducked under a shoulder, and faced him. “Hi,” she shouted. “You’re Duane Thompson.”

      “Yes.” He nodded. “You’re Luisa Probst.”

      “Right. I’m looking for some French people in here. Have you seen any French people?”

      “I just came in a couple minutes ago.”

      “Oh,” she shouted. She cast a futile glance into the haze. When she was a sophomore, Duane Thompson had been a senior. He’d gone out with a girl named Holly, one of those artsy liberal types who wore brocaded smocks and no bra and didn’t eat lunch in the cafeteria. Duane had been blond, shaggy, thin. He’d had his hair cut since then. He was wearing a jean jacket, a preppy button-down, black Levi’s and white sneakers. Luisa also noticed that he had the yellowish remains of a black eye, which made her uneasy. If you didn’t see a person every day in the hall or cafeteria, you didn’t know what kind of life they had, what kind of problems.

      “Is there another room?” she shouted.

      Duane spun around, surprised. “You’re still here.”

      “Is there another room downstairs or something?”

      “No, this is it.”

      “Can I stand here with you?”

      He looked down his shoulder at her, smiling as he frowned. “What for?”

      Insulted and unable to answer, she took a step towards the door. The Algerian was hanging just outside, watching her. She gave him a vomitous