Beautiful Americans Read Online Free

I ever could have predicted.
    “Your host families will meet you here and take you back to your respective homestays to get settled,” Mme Cuchon explains as she pulls forcefully on the parking break. “Then we’ll meet here tomorrow morning for an orientation session and your first day of classes.” With a jerk and a shudder, the van stills, and we pour out into the soupy heat of the street, pulling our suitcases and backpacks through the heavy iron front gates of the Lycée.
    In the large foyer, we sort out our luggage and greet the group of French people, our new “parents” and “siblings,” waiting and smiling hesitantly at us as we come in. Mme Cuchon directs me to my host mother, a middle-aged woman with a thick gray pageboy haircut and dressed in a silk, salmon-colored suit. She kisses me dutifully on each cheek, and I laugh self-consciously.
    I didn’t know they really did that! A year from now, will I be kissing everyone like that when I meet them?
    “This is Mme Rouille,” Mme Cuchon says. “ C’est Olivia ,” she says to Mme Rouille.
    “Bonjour, Olivia,” Mme Rouille says with a tight, formal smile. The way she says my name sounds beautiful and exotic—Oh-LEEV-ee-AH. I can’t help giggling.
    I can’t tell if I am going to always have to address my host mother as Madame , which seems very formal for someone whose standing in for my mother, but for the time being she doesn’t offer me anything else to call her.
    “You’ll be living in an apartment not far from Mademoiselle Penelope in the seventeenth arrondissement,” says Mme Cuchon. “Though I don’t see her host mother yet. C’est strange, n’est-ce pas? ” She looks around among the quickly scattering students.“Anyway, you two girls might walk together to school in the mornings this year.”
    “Penelope must be PJ,” I think, watching the tall, lonely girl twist a strand of her long blonde hair around her finger as she waits on the front steps. No family has claimed her.
    “ Alors , Olivia, you must be off now,” Mme Cuchon prods me toward Mme Rouille’s waiting cream-colored Mercedes. “The Opera is expecting you at one o’clock for your placement audition.”
    “Today?” I say, trying not to show my dismay. Is she crazy?
    I’ve barely slept—my head is swimming from fatigue. I’ve been prepping for this audition all summer—for the advanced class at L’Opéra National de Paris , what everyone in the dance world calls “The Opera” for short. It will most certainly provide me with the training and credentials for the scholarship that I want—no, need —to win next year. But I thought I’d at least get a good night’s sleep before it happened!
    “ Oui , cherie ,” Mme Cuchon confirms. “Your mother wants you to be able to begin with the advanced class right away. There’s not a moment to waste. Good luck this afternoon! Bon chance! ”
    Ah, my mother. Of course. When it comes to me winning the UCLA scholarship, my mother is right—there’s not a moment to waste. She must have implored Mme Cuchon to schedule my audition the moment I got off the plane—not realizing that I might have people to meet, or sleep to catch up on.
    Mme Rouille and I stop very briefly at her apartment so that I can put on my leotard and tights and throw my toe shoes into my dance bag. The apartment is located inside a gorgeous, stately limestone building with spiraling stairs leading up to a different apartment on each floor. An elderly concierge, complete with a little tasseled cap, greets us and takes my bags from me, disappearing into a back hallway with them.
    Mme Rouille lives on the fourth floor, so we take the little wire-cage elevator up. The concierge, like a miracle, has already left the bags by the front door and disappeared again.
    A maid, also in uniform, opens the door for us and scurries ahead with my bags while Mme Rouille does a cursory tour of my new home. We’re also greeted by three adorable miniature poodles