Saying the words out loud makes it suddenly seem much more real. My boyfriend and I are breaking up. If I had just kept my mouth shut about his waitering job, none of this would have happened. It’s all because of me. Because of my big mouth.

Really, I have put my foot in it before. But never this big.

On the other hand…if I hadn’t said anything, would he ever have told me? About the gambling, I mean? Or would he have tried to keep a secret from me for the rest of our lives together-as he seemed to have done, pretty successfully, for the past three months? Would we have ended up like Uncle Ted and Aunt Olivia-bitter, divorced, financially insolvent, and living in Cleveland and Reno, respectively?

I can’t let that happen. I won’t let that happen.

I can’t go back to the Marshalls’ house. That’s all there is to it. I mean, obviously, I have to, in order to get my things. But I can’t sleep there tonight. Not in the MDF bed, the same bed Andrew and I made love in…the bed I gave him that blow job in.

The blow job I want back.

And, I realize, I don’t have to sleep there tonight. Because I have somewhere to go.

I stand up so suddenly that I get a head rush. I am staggering around, clutching my head, when Jamal comes back with a glass of water for me.

“Miss?” he says worriedly.

“Oh,” I say, seeing the water. I snatch it from him and down the glass’s contents. I don’t mean to be rude, but my head is pounding. “Thanks so much,” I say when I’m done drinking. And hand the glass back to him. I’m feeling better already.

“Is there someone I can telephone for you?” Jamal wants to know. Really, he is so kind. So attentive! I almost feel like I’m back in Ann Arbor. Except for the English accent.

“No,” I say. “But there is something you can help me with. I need to know how to get to the Chunnel.”

I’m pulling my wheelie bag down the aisles of the Paris Souillac train, and I’m trying not to cry.

Not because of the bag. Well, sort of because of the bag. I mean, the aisle is very narrow, and I have my carry-on bag over my shoulder, and I sort of have to walk sideways, like a crab, in order not to bang people in the head with it as I search-apparently fruitlessly-for a front-facing first-class seat in a nonsmoking car.

If I smoked and I didn’t mind facing backward, I’d be all set. Except that I don’t smoke, and I’m afraid if I ride facing backward, I might throw up. In fact, I am sure I will throw up, because I have felt like throwing up ever since I woke up in Paris-having conked out in my comfy seat on the train from London, like Grandma after too much cooking sherry-and realized what I’d done.

Which is, pretty much, set off by myself through Europe, with no idea whether I am actually going to find the place, much less the person, I’m looking for. Especially since Shari still isn’t answering her cell phone, much less calling me back.

Of course, part of the reason why I feel like throwing up might be that I am so incredibly hungry I can hardly see. All I’ve had to eat since breakfast is an apple I bought at Waterloo Station, since that was the only nutritious food I could find for sale there that didn’t have tomatoes on it. If I’d wanted a Cadbury bar or an egg and tomato sandwich, I’d have been all right.

But since I didn’t, I was out of luck.

I’m hoping there’ll be a dining car on this train. But before I can go look for it, I need to find a decent seat where I can dump my stuff.

And that’s proving difficult. My bag is so wide and awkward that it keeps bumping people in the knees as I go by them, and even though I’m apologizing like crazy-“Pardonnez-moi,” I say to them, when I’m not “Excusez-moi”-ing them-nobody seems to appreciate my apologies very much. Maybe because they’re all French and I’m American and no one here seems to like Americans. At least, judging by the way the kid next to me in the backward-facing smoking seat I found-but consequently had to abandon-had gone, “Etes-vous americaine?” in a disgusted voice when he overheard me leaving yet another message for Shari on my cell.

“Um,” I said, “oui?”

And he made a face and pulled out an iPod, inserted his earphones, and turned his face to the window so he wouldn’t have to look at me again.

Vamos a la playa, screamed the song I could plainly hear from his earphones. Vamos a la playa.

I know that song is going to be stuck in my head for the rest of the day. Or night, I should say, since it’s already afternoon and my train won’t be arriving at the station in Souillac for six hours.

That’s another reason I’m going in search of a new seat. How am I supposed to spend six hours next to a snot-nosed seventeen-year old in an Eminem T-shirt who listens to Europop, hates Americans, and smokes?

Of course, now it’s looking like that seat was actually the last vacant one on this train.

Can I stand for six hours? Because if so, I’ll be golden. There’s plenty of space for me and my gargantuan bags in the spaces between the cars.

How can this be happening to me? It all seemed so simple when Jamal, back at the bookshop, explained what I’d have to do to get to France. He’d been so knowing and kind, it had sounded as if getting from London to where Shari is was going to be a snap.

He didn’t mention, of course, the fact that the minute you open your mouth to speak to anyone in this country and they realize from your accent that you’re American, they just answer you in English anyway.

And usually not very nicely, either.

But still. I was able to follow most of the signage at the Gare du Nord. Enough to get my ticket, anyway-which I’d reserved over the phone-out of the machines. Enough to find my train. Enough to stumble onto the first car I reached and plop down into the first available seat.

Too bad I didn’t notice the smoke-and the fact that I was facing the wrong way-until the train actually started moving.

It’s hard not to feel like this whole thing was a very bad idea. Not the moving-to-the-different-seat thing-I already know THAT was a bad idea. But the coming-to-France thing. I mean, what if I never get ahold of Shari? What if her cell phone fell into the toilet again, the way it did that time back in the dorm, and she can’t afford a new one or there’s no cell phone store nearby and she’s just going without one for the rest of her trip? How will I ever find her?

I suppose I could ask people, when I get to Souillac, if they know where Chateau Mirac is. But supposing they’ve never heard of Chateau Mirac? Shari didn’t say how far the chateau was from the train station. What if it’s really, really far?

And it’s not like I can call Shari’s parents and ask them if they know where she is and how I can get in touch with her. Because then they’ll want to know why I want to know, and if I tell them, they’ll tell my mom and dad, and then they’ll know things didn’t work out with Andrew-I mean, Andy-and tell my sisters.