“Sorry we were so loud!” Bobby added. “I know you hate that.”
Nicholas made a rude noise. “Whatever! I’m gonna be loud about the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me, next to coming to Kings Row and winning our match against MLC.”
If he learned amazing tricks at Camp Menton, there would be even more victorious matches in his future. Coach Williams thought this camp might be their key to winning at state.
Nicholas could tell Seiji was happy about France, too. He was looking at Nicholas, and there was a faint curl of satisfaction to Seiji’s mouth that might have been a smile on someone else.
“It’s good that you’re pleased,” Seiji said decisively.
Bobby was smiling, too. Unlike Seiji, Bobby’s smiles were unmistakable, bright as his ribbons and earrings. “Dante, you’ll come, too, right?”
In some surprise, Nicholas turned to the taller boy. Dante Rossi nodded in Bobby’s direction, then returned Nicholas’s look impassively. Dante’s face was neutral. It usually was.
“I thought you didn’t like fencing?” Nicholas asked.
He wasn’t sure why anyone would feel that way, but he’d absorbed that Dante did.
Dante nodded again.
“Then, uh…,” said Nicholas. “Not that we’re not glad to have you, but why would you come?”
Dante’s gaze drifted over to the turquoise beacon of Bobby’s ribbon. Nicholas wondered why Dante was looking at Bobby, then realized he must want Bobby to answer for him. Dante and Bobby were roommates and the type of best friends who did everything together.
“Dante has family in Italy, so he can have fun with them,” Bobby explained.
“Uh, but we’re going to France,” Nicholas pointed out.
“The town the camp’s based near, Menton, is on the border between France and Italy. It’s a half hour drive to get to Italy and this city called Ventimiglia, where Dante’s cousins live.” Bobby gave Dante an affectionate look. “So he can visit them and be at the camp to hang out. And he can even watch the fencing! He’s actually getting way more into fencing.”
Bobby’s back was turned to Dante. Bobby didn’t see Dante slowly but vehemently shaking his head, his wavy dark hair tumbling every which way. He didn’t argue with Bobby’s statement, though. Dante was a guy of few words.
“Dante and I always have fun when we travel together. When we pack,” said Bobby, “we always keep space in both suitcases to bring back many cheeses! Dante loves cheese.”
This time Dante nodded. A terrible realization descended upon Nicholas.
“Oh my God,” said Nicholas. “Can’t stay here chatting, guys. Gotta go! Seiji, I have to pack for France. Seiji, what should I bring to France?”
“Clothes,” Seiji said flatly.
Nicholas was already dragging Seiji back to their dormitory. Nicholas had read somewhere that French people were into fashion. Bobby would fit right in, but Nicholas didn’t own any fancy clothes. He did have a lot of black T-shirts. Maybe those would work? Black was cool, right?
Nicholas tossed the question over his shoulder as he barreled through the door to their room, number 108. “Do people wear a lot of black in France?”
Seiji pulled his wrist out of Nicholas’s grasp. “I never noticed.”
The morning sunlight was pouring with equal brightness into both halves of their dorm room, Seiji’s half with a neatly made bed and alphabetized books, while Nicholas’s half contained a colony of socks under his bed. Nicholas knew Harvard and Aiden pushed their beds together so that they could watch movies and chat. He didn’t think Seiji would ever go for that, since Seiji insisted that the duck-patterned shower curtain they’d hung up in the middle of their room must stay there for the preservation of his sanity.
Nicholas paused halfway toward the duck curtain, arrested by a sudden thought.
“This is so nice of your dad,” he told Seiji. “What made him think of doing this?”
“I don’t know, Nicholas,” Seiji snapped. “How should I know? I wouldn’t, because I haven’t spoken to him recently. He gets wild ideas all the time. It was a strange whim of his, I expect. Maybe he’s regretting it now.”
Nicholas shrugged. “Well, I think it was great of him. Your dad seems really cool.”
“He’s a well-respected businessman,” said Seiji, but he had that faintly pleased look on his face again.
Sometimes Seiji got testy about his parents. Nicholas wasn’t sure why. With the way Seiji spoke about them, it was as if he worried he was disappointing them, but obviously nobody could be disappointed in Seiji.
Maybe it was just that the Katayamas were occupied with running their car-making empire, and they didn’t get the chance to spend a lot of time with Seiji. That must be sad for their whole family.
“Say thanks to him from me,” Nicholas said. “I mean, not that he’ll know who I am. But, like, from a teammate of yours? Since that’s what I am? Let him know I wanna say thanks.”
If it wasn’t for Seiji’s dad, there was no way Nicholas could’ve ever dreamed of going to Camp Menton. Mr. Katayama didn’t realize what he’d done, didn’t know how much it meant, but he’d given Nicholas a better chance of winning at state.
Seiji said distantly, “He knows who you are.”
Truly this was a great day. Nicholas brightened further. “Yeah?”
He was Seiji’s roommate, and they fenced and spent a lot of time together. It made sense that Seiji might have mentioned his name, even if he was just listing off his team members.
“I constantly tell him how terrible you are at fencing.”
“Wow, Seiji!” Nicholas grumbled. “Thanks for nothing. Next time you mention me, could you tell him that I’m really improving?”
“I might if you actually were,” said Seiji, so Nicholas was forced to go over and shove him.
It was cool to think that Seiji’s dad was somewhat aware of Nicholas having a place in Seiji’s life, that Seiji’s dad might even remember Nicholas’s name from phone calls with his son. Nicholas didn’t really understand how it was with dads. Nicholas would have given a lot for his dad to call him, but his dad never would. He didn’t know Nicholas existed.
Nicholas had asked often about who and where his dad was when he was small, but his mom hadn’t told him for years. So Nicholas had made up a bunch of cool little-kid stories, like that his dad was totally awesome but super busy with important stuff, which was why he couldn’t see Nicholas.
He’d always thought, really, that those were just dreams. It had been a shock to find out they were true. To find out his dad was Robert Coste, the finest fencer of his generation, who had long ago attended Kings Row just as Nicholas was now. Robert Coste, who had once won Olympic gold. Nicholas had hunted down a newspaper with an article about Robert Coste’s victory at the Olympics and cut it out to keep. The picture was grainy and blurred, with Robert’s golden hair blending with the gold of his trophy, but it was the only physical picture of his dad Nicholas owned. That was okay. It was the most important picture possible, because it showed the amazing thing his dad had accomplished.
Robert Coste didn’t know about him, and Nicholas didn’t want him to. Not yet. Nicholas wasn’t as skilled a fencer as his dad had been. He had to train more and learn better. People had called Nicholas “Zero” after a fencing match gone wrong, and he couldn’t have Robert Coste thinking of him as a zero. Nicholas didn’t want his dad to be disappointed in him when they finally met.