"Hey," Heitor interrupted out of nowhere. "Don't you live in my building?"
"I don't think so," I said, trying to remember.
He smiled broadly and pulled up a chair at our table, excited.
"No, I'm sure."
"I know my neighbors," I retorted.
"Come on, I live next to your apartment," the boy insisted.
I frowned, unable to tell if he was serious.
"You wrote 'please wash me' on my car when it was dusty."
I widened my eyes, suddenly remembering doing that about two months ago on an unbelievably dirty car in the building's garage. At the time, the joke seemed funny.
"I think you're confusing me," I lied.
"You even wrote 'Signed: Elizabeth'..."
"There are so many of us, aren't there?" I let out a nervous laugh.
"...Prado..." he continued.
"That doesn't mean anything," I challenged.
"...From apartment 518," he concluded, raising his eyebrows.
"Who are you? A cop?" I raised my eyebrows in response.
"Ha. Knew it." He pointed an accusatory finger at me. "I just don't get why you left your identification."
"Did you at least wash the car?" Marina asked.
The boy stood up, shrugging.
"Of course not. Why would I? By the way, I've never seen you before. Do you also live in the building?" he fixed his gaze on her.
"No, I live in Praia da Costa," Marina replied.
"But if you want, we can start seeing each other more often." Heitor moved his chair closer to her in a playful way, but I believe it was a "let's see if it works" kind of joke.
Cassandra opened her mouth to join the conversation, but whatever it was got stuck in her throat, and her gaze froze on the door. I followed her eyes and saw a man in a gray overcoat and a black bowler hat, totally out of place for where we were. I realized that’s why she was staring. He looked like he had stepped out of one of those old black-and-white movies.
"S'il vous plaît, j'ai besoin d'informations," the man in the overcoat said, closing his umbrella. He saw Cassandra and stopped mid-action. "Victorine, c'est toi?"
Cassandra looked at the newcomer, confused. We all stopped moving to pay attention. The way he looked at her was strange and indecipherable. Suddenly, the atmosphere became too heavy, and none of us could explain why.
"Sorry, I don't understand you," she replied, shaking her head repeatedly.
"Victorine, que fais-tu ici?" he repeated those incomprehensible words to me. His voice was very loud.
"He's speaking French. I speak French," Heitor interjected. Cass shot him a look I couldn’t understand. "He thinks you’re someone named Victorine."
"Victorine," the man insisted, repeating the name several times, waiting for Cassandra to respond.
"Then tell him she’s not this Victorine!" Marina shouted over the voice of the lost Frenchman.
"Non... no... nom n'est pas Victorine." Heitor struggled with French that sounded clumsy even to my untrained ears.
"Oui, elle l'est. Comment pourrais-je la confondre?"
"What did he say?" Marina pressed.
"He... he said..." Heitor wiped his forehead, clearly nervous about having to translate simultaneously. The three of us looked at him anxiously as he stammered. "Look, I'm not that good, I mean... I learned online. And I didn't even finish the course they offered."
The man still looked confused at everyone at the table. Finally, he stared menacingly at Cassandra, who recoiled under his gaze. He opened his umbrella and left, uttering words I couldn’t understand.
She kept her eyes on the door, as if it had been too scary to process. Something about this situation slightly bothered me, but when everyone started talking again and the topic was dropped, I couldn’t think about it anymore.
It was only at night, when we had already returned home, and I was getting ready for bed, that the thought came back and hit me with full force. Didn't Cassandra say she spoke French?
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**Glossary:
**S'il vous plaît, j'ai besoin d'informations** - Please, I need information.
**Victorine, c'est toi?** - Victorine, is that you?
**Sorry, I don't understand you** - Sorry, I don't understand you.
**Victorine, que fais-tu ici?** - Victorine, what are you doing here?
**Nom n'est pas Victorine** - The name is not Victorine.
**Oui, elle l'est. Comment pourrais-je la confondre?** - Yes, she is. How could I confuse her?
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Author's Note: Hi guys, thank you for reading my story. This is an English version of my story originally written in Brazilian Portuguese. I hope you enjoy it and leave lots of comments. I apologize in advance for any mistakes; sometimes the translation can get a bit lost. But any mistakes, please point them out to me, so I can correct them. Kisses.