And the boy who passed me the note in class made a shooing motion. “Go find someone else to trip.”
At once, they scurried away like little mice. The tall boy watched them before he looked down at me. I stared back at him.
He held his hand out to me. I contemplated whether I should take it for a brief second before I accepted his help.
Once on my feet, I dusted the dirt off my pants as best I could. “Thanks for your help,” I said.
The tall boy gave a brief nod. “Watch yourself around those boys. Connor, Thomas, Rolland and Marcus are rowdy, but they’re particularly cruel to new kids.”
I nodded at his sage advice. Although I wasn’t certain what I could do about that. I couldn’t compete against four boys.
“How old are you?” the tall boy asked.
“I’m eight,” I proudly stated.
The two boys in front of me said nothing. They exchanged a glance before the older one itched the side of his head. “Asa, is it?”
Eyes wide, I nodded.
“I’m Étienne Lacroix.” He pointed behind him, toward the dark-haired boy. “This is my twin brother, Livingston.”
Their first names were unique, but their surname was of more interest to me. “Lacroix? In French, Lacroix means the cross,” I excitedly said. “It also stands for a person who has a cross erected near the side of the road.”
Étienne and Livingston blinked at me several times before Étienne, very slowly, nodded. “We know. Our father’s family is from France.”
When I was unsure of myself or apprehensive, I talked aimlessly, and when I was finished, people that were once speaking with me were utterly silent. Just like the two boys in front of me.
I didn’t say another word because how could I explain that most of my life, my friends had consisted of books shelved in my father’s library? I simply couldn’t. Not if I wanted that baffled expression to fade from their faces, that was.
“You are now our friend.”
“Speak for yourself, Étienne. I don’t know this person,” Livingston chimed in.
“He’s our friend,” Étienne called over his shoulder.
Livingston grumbled words beneath his breath—did he speak French?—and held his hand out to me. “It’s a pleasure, Asa.”
Readily, I took his hand and looked between the two of them. I didn’t have friends in Charleston. I didn’t know it was this easy. “Actually, it’s Asa Ralston Calhoun. Ralston is my momma’s maiden name. I have no siblin’s and Momma wanted to have many kids. Four to be exact, but she wanted my next siblin’ to have the name Ralston.” Livingston and Étienne looked at one another and I knew I’d said something wrong, yet I continued to talk. “That didn’t happen, so she gave me the middle name Ralston. At least that’s what she told me, but I’ve been thinkin’… if that’s true, why did she give me the name Ralston if she wanted to name her next child Ralston?”
I stopped talking only because I needed take a breath. I could’ve continued, but what stopped me were Étienne and Livingston. Their mouths were hanging open.
You dolt! Why did you say that? Now they would change their minds, and they wouldn’t be your friends and then you would have no one.
“You didn’t need to tell us all of that,” Livingston finally said.
I swallowed and felt my shoulders shrinking. “Oh.”
“But my name is from my momma,” he offered.
Those seven words strung together felt like an outstretched hand, and I took them.
“Is there anyone else from Charleston?” I asked, trying my best to appear like a normal boy.
“Two more boys. Miles Pleasonton,” Étienne said.
“We call him, Pleas,” Livingston supplied.
“And Beaumont Legare.”
“We call him Beau. Obviously,” Livingston provided, once again.
I nodded, wondering what else they could tell me. “How long have the two of you been here?”
“For three months. But we try to go home on the weekends as much as we can.”
Every weekend seemed reasonable. But it only made me wonder, would I come home every weekend?
“What dorm are you in?”
“Stratson Hall. Room fifteen,” I immediately answered.
Étienne nodded. “Miles and I are there.”
Livingston raised a finger. “I’m in Watlyn Hall with Beau.”
I felt a bit of hope grow inside me the longer I stood with these two boys.
Étienne began to walk. Livingston fell into step with him. When I didn’t follow, Étienne stopped and nudged his head toward the buildings. “Come with us. I will show you our dorms.”
And so I did…
As I came back to the present, a very faint smile pulled at the corners of my lips. Not once did they turn their backs on me. They didn’t look at me like everyone else did. Étienne and Livingston took me in, and so did their parents. My own parents didn’t care much for that. The first two months they didn’t come see me or send for me to come home. Étienne and Livingston received permission from their parents and mine that I could go home with them. My world changed after that. However, my momma’s face would contort as though she had smelled something rancid when I mentioned the Lacroixs, and my father mumbled ugly words underneath his breath about their father.
When I was younger, I believed they didn’t like Étienne and Livingston because of the time they visited our home when I was twelve. We ran through the sitting room and the ashes of Momma’s recently departed and beloved cat tipped over. I knew she would be devastated, so Livingston suggested cigars. It seemed simple enough; we watched our own fathers do it all the time. We stole a box of my father’s cigars, snuck out into the garden and smoked as many as we could. Momma caught us halfway through the cigar box. Étienne was sick in the bushes. I wasn’t too far behind him. Livingston hovered over the cat’s urn, furiously puffing away.
When I was older, I discovered it went much further than childhood influence. My father once confessed to me that he was almost engaged to be married to Charlotte, but before they ever had the opportunity to be together, Charlotte met Adrien.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if the name Lacroix means nouveau in French,” my father spat. “The family is nothin’ but filth.”
Even so, I was never forbidden from seeing Étienne or Livingston, or ever visiting them.
I approached the Lacroix House. It was still hard to reconcile that Livingston was now living here. Before, he occupied an apartment bigger than most homes in Charleston. When their grandma Lacroix recently passed away, she placed the Lacroix House in a trust for Étienne, Livingston and Nat. Now that Livingston lived in the Lacroix House, it made work for me and Étienne much easier, it was a simple walk from my home and even from my parents’. But someday, Étienne and I wouldn’t have to work from home, we would have our own office.
Someday.
I stepped into the Lacroix House, without stopping to look around. Almost all the furniture stayed in the house while Livingston made himself comfortable, turning the home into his own bachelor paradise. The only remnants from his past that he refused to let go of was a painting of his entire family. He and Étienne were teens, Julian was a young boy and Nat was a little girl. She was standing beside her momma, with her dark hair in ringlets and her hazel almond-shaped eyes staring straight ahead. She wore an expression of awe and wonder as though the world around her was filled with magic and perfection.