Marc had just turned eighteen, and had managed to scrape a high enough score to pass his baccalaureate exam on the first try. This meant no exams to be repeated, which in turn meant he could look forward to spending the entire summer on the beaches in La Baule. No more revision, no more cramming; he’d thrown out all his notebooks, his binders and his four-colour pens – when he matriculated at the Sorbonne, he’d write with a fountain pen worthy of his surroundings. But the most exciting part of passing his ‘bac’ on the first try was the promise that his mother had made him a few weeks beforehand: “If you pass, your father will buy you a dirt bike. So apply yourself for once!” It was true that Marc had never been a particularly studious pupil, and was seemingly quite content with the “Could do better” comments that invariably accompanied his report cards. “Could do better! So why don’t you? I’ve been reading the same thing for ten years!” his father had yelled during their last Christmas vacation. But Marc cared little about his father’s temper, thinking only of the girls he had met among the ski slopes and the football medals he’d won that season. The promise of a dirt bike, on the other, hand – that was another story, and one he found much more persuasive than any paternal lecture. Moreover, he did not want to have to repeat his last year, having had quite enough of the teachers calling on him to answer questions and the classmates who weren’t allowed out after midnight.
His weak spot was the philosophy essay. If he scored 2 or 3, as he usually did, he could kiss the bac goodbye, and with it the dirt bike and the beaches of La Baule. And Aurelie, the girl he’d been seeing for the past two months, would go off to college without him. He’d pored over the textbooks like a man possessed, read all those incomprehensible texts by Sartre and Socrates, and even the fellow with the name so complicated no-one could spell it (Nietzsche). But nothing seemed to help; philosophy just wasn’t his game. He knew how to think for himself, so what was the point of reading all these moth-eaten essays by thinkers who wanted to tell him how to live? He already had old people at home to do that. Luckily he had happened upon an inspiring topic for his essay, a quotation from Alfred de Musset: You’re eighteen and you don’t believe in love! There was plenty he could say about love. There was that girl, Caroline, who’d dumped him for an older boy and broken his heart. Then there was Vanessa, Marie and Pauline, and finally Aurélie. On the topic of girls his knowledge was vast, and so, his fear conquered, he sat down and wrote a seven-page essay on the subject. He’d written it in small letters, without crossing anything out. He had applied himself.
Tonight was the last party of the school year, and all the graduates were meeting outside the gates to go to Jean-Pierre’s. He lived just around the corner in a sweet apartment, and his parents were away in Deauville for the weekend, so the stage was set for a wild night. They brought beer, packs of Coca-Cola, potato chips and pizzas. Janne had even made apple tarts, and Louis had stolen a bottle of whiskey from his old man’s liquor cabinet. As they gathered, who should pull up outside the gates but Marc, riding a brand new dirt bike. “Lucky bastard,” they muttered. He hadn’t even gotten a good grade. Aurélie pulled her Walkman headphones from her ears and gave him a deep snog in front of everyone. “Jeez, get a room you two!” they jibed. Marc was unperturbed, and flipped them all the bird. “Wanna go for a ride?” he asked Aurélie. “Let’s show these losers!” she laughed.
Jean-Pierre had decorated the living room with golden garlands; they were Christmas decorations, but it still looked pretty good. Fabrice was DJing, having brought a dozen or so rock and roll records with him. He proudly showed them the latest Michael Jackson album, Thriller, which he’d scored in a record store in Montparnasse. Marc pulled Aurélie up to dance, having learned a few moves at the latest ball. He was still a little rusty with the more acrobatic steps, but he tried his hand at a few original moves. Aurélie’s friends were jealous, wishing someone would pull them up to dance, too. Luckily it would soon be time for the slow-dancing, and Ladies’ choice. It was midnight when Fabrice put on the first slow tunes, and the teenagers revealed their crushes as they asked one another up to dance. They gazed into each other’ eyes underneath the disco ball.
“You’re eighteen and you don’t believe in love!” What a stroke of luck to have hit upon that essay title.
Alan Alfredo Geday