EXCERPT:

She was sick with a fever and told me she’d throw up if she stayed any longer. Her face was the color of a sour pickle sliced into shreds. I asked if she was certain and she said yes. I wasn’t sure whether I should ask any more.

We were sitting in the third floor of a building right near the Odeon, in a large front room that had been painted over with blue and pink flower decorations and fleurs de lis from the time of the kings, one of the Louis probably. She was hunched over the piano, an upright that her parents had rented for the occasion. Her hands were interlaced over the keys. The decor was so out of fashion it could have been avant-garde. I cleared my throat.