Until I Die

remembering what Jeanne had told me. “She’s not used to seeing revenants mix with us.”
“Racist,” Georgia insisted, crossing her arms.
“So where should we go with the guys?” I asked, changing the subject.
“Seb’s got a concert in a week and a half—two Saturdays from now.”
“That sounds perfect,” I said. “I’m sure Vincent can come. I mean, he’s dormant this weekend, so by then he’ll be in good enough shape to go out.”
“I can’t believe you just said that,” Georgia said, shaking her head. “It’s just so … weird.” She gave me a hug and started out of the room, before stopping on the threshold. “Hey, you should check Papy’s gallery. He’s got a ton of books there.”
“Oh my God, I hadn’t thought about that!” I exclaimed, my frustration instantly replaced by a little flame of hope.
“Who’s lookin’ out for ya, baby?” my sister said in a gangster moll accent. Then she gave me an exaggerated wink and closed the door.

FOURTEEN
     
    I AWOKE THE NEXT MORNING, EAGER, FOR ONCE , to jump out of bed and head to the breakfast table. My Papy was there, eating a fresh croissant and drinking coffee from a bowl—which is what hot breakfast drinks are usually served in. Not mugs. Bowls that you hold with both hands as you drink your hot chocolate or coffee. Unless you’re drinking an espresso. And then it’s in a ridiculously tiny cup.
Grabbing my own bowl, I poured it half-full with coffee and half with the hot milk that Mamie kept in a pan on the stove, and sat down across from my grandfather. “Papy, if you ever need someone to gallery-sit, in case you have a meeting or something, I’d be happy to.”
I tried to say it as nonchalantly as possible, but my grandfather eyed me worriedly. “Isn’t your allowance enough, ma princesse ?” I cringed. That was my dad’s nickname for me. It had been over a year since he had died, but whenever Papy called me that, it gave my heart a little stab.
Papy noticed. “Sorry, dear.”
“It’s okay. And I wasn’t offering because I want you to pay me. I just thought it would be fun. And I could bring my homework.”
Papy lifted his eyebrows. “Well! I’d never get an offer like that from your sister. But coming from an art lover like yourself, I know you’re not just trying to be helpful!” He smiled. “In fact, I have a meeting this afternoon—an appraisal of some Greek statuary at a collector’s house on the Île Saint-Louis. I was planning on closing the gallery, but if you wanted to come after school …”
He didn’t even have to finish his statement. “I’ll be there!” I said enthusiastically.
Papy’s smile was still quizzical, but I could tell he liked the idea. “See you then,” he said, rising and patting me fondly on the shoulder. He put on his coat and headed upstairs to say good-bye to Mamie, who had gotten an early start in her restoration studio on our building’s top floor.
I smiled to myself as I bit the end off a croissant, humming with pleasure as I did. I had probably eaten hundreds of croissants in my life, having spent every summer here as a kid. And, even so, every time I ate one it was like a pastry revelation. I pulled off a flaky strip and popped it into my mouth and then chased it with a sip of steaming café crème .
    The fifteen minutes it took for Papy to show me what I needed to know about the gallery seemed to last for hours. But finally he was stepping through the front door into the bright sunlight and giving a good-bye salute with his old-man hat as he disappeared down the street.
As soon as he was out of view, I left the hushed semidarkness of the gallery for the brightly lit office space behind. Visitors had to ring the doorbell to be buzzed through the front door, so I reasoned I wasn’t being negligent if I spent a little time away from the desk.
It didn’t take long for me to work my way through Papy’s gallery library. Most of the books were auction catalogues or twentieth-century scholarly books on art and architecture through the ages. With my recently gained research experience, I could tell they wouldn’t contain anything about revenants.
I popped back to the front of the gallery to make sure no one was waiting outside the door, and then made my way to the other side of the space, where Papy had his private viewing room. Switching on the spotlights in the tiny, sumptuous space, I cast around for anything that might be of interest. A few ancient volumes sat on a