Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
I can’t believe Angela would do something like that. Correction, I can’t believe I believed she wouldn’t do something like that. Really though, what kind of host mother sics a private investigator on their guest? Is this her version of a background check?
Unfortunately, for all I know it might not have been her doing at all. Maybe it’s Nick’s way of vetting the au pair service. Or perhaps Howie’s trying to weed out any rotten eggs from joining Continental. Hell, at this point maybe Jamie’s plotting against me. The further I go down this rabbit hole, the less logic I find in my arguments.
To keep myself seemingly sane and refrain from voicing such accusations to Angela’s direct kin, I don’t mention a peep to Emi on our way from the market to the beach.
By the time we hit the coastline, most of the sun chairs and umbrellas have been snatched, so we unroll a large blanket in front of the water. Where I’m used to sand back at home, here sits an assortment of faded gray and charcoal-colored rocks, no larger than the palm of my hand.
But the sound of the tide is ever much the same. Hypnotic. And the brilliance in the way the Mediterranean’s shoreline transitions from misty white to cobalt blue captures nearly all its onlookers’ attention. Something I love about the ocean; it brings people together. Different opinions, backgrounds, income levels, uniting us as humans who just want to cool off and fall under the spell of its white caps.
After parting ways with Marie and Estelle at the end of the market, Emi and I had swapped our day clothes for our suits. Her, a scanty polka-dot bikini, me, a maroon one-piece, a.k.a. the only swimsuit I packed. Lying down on her back, Emi soaks up the sun.
I peel a piece of paper out of my backpack. It’s my typed-up short answers to the first round in the Young Soarers applications. Biting off the cap of a red pen, I scan my sentences for syntax errors.
The first section passes with flying colors, and I silently dote on my academic achievements in every area from Economics to Spanish. The next needs some work.
Question: How does your international work experience prepare you for life at Continental Air?
I can’t exactly say my host mom is a Type-A disciplinarian with a never-ending list of rules and demands, making me well-equipped to meet the requirements of any future boss or team leader. Rather, I toss in a few phrases like “strengthening intercultural competences” and “enriching my active listening capacity.” That’ll sure keep the admissions folks happy.
Emi opens one squinted eye. “Minou. Can’t that wait? You won’t be in la C?te forever.” She gestures to the beach swarming with sunbathers and swimmers ages four to eighty-four.
Slumping my shoulders, I respond, “Hmm, I know.”
I tuck the lightly marked-up page back in my bag and decide to follow Emi’s lead of actually relaxing. Leaning back, the sun coats my skin.
Emi fishes around for a tube of sunscreen in her bag and points at the clunkiness of mine.
“Minou, what do you have in there? Briques?”
With anyone else, I’d say it’s just summer reading. But I don’t want to lie to Emi, so I show her my bag’s jumbled contents. Language learning books. Everything from French 101, Intro to French Grammar, and French Vocab Speed Course. If I’m going to meet Manon’s and Angela’s standards, conquering a bit more of the language will at least keep me from crashing and burning when needing to function in public spaces.
Without much thought, the idea percolating in my head comes straight out.
“Will you help teach me? I promise to be a great student. I can show you my transcript to prove it.” I clasp both hands at my chest and offer an Oliver Twist pout.
And it’s like Emi had been waiting for me to ask her since the day I met her. She claps and sways side to side. “Oh, oui, oui. Une étudiante! They say once you can teach une Américaine, you can teach anyone anything. But,” Emi says, holding up an index finger. “You have to do one thing first.”
“What?”
Emi rests her tongue between her teeth as a grin nudges itself through her cheeks.
“Suis-moi,” she says, rising to her feet and stripping off the sarong at her waist. “Follow me!”
I press off the blanket and follow Emi’s lead, dunking into the sea. It doesn’t take much effort, so joke’s on her. We float in the gentle current, joining other sea bathers. The water isn’t like the Atlantic where it takes a good few minutes for my body to get acclimated to the temperature. Here, the radiant sun almost seems to warm up the sea like a big bath. It’s refreshing and balmy all at once.
I lie back, letting the ocean tickle my scalp and play with my hair as I float, drinking in the sun shining through the puffy clouds. To my right, Emi’s broadened her strokes farther from the coast and the groups of people around us. When I catch up to her, she lifts her brow.
“Ready?”
I shake some water out of my ear. “For wh— Emi!”
With a gleeful holler, Emi strips off her bikini top and lets it dangle around her wrist. I tear my eyes away from her and look down at my blurry feet sinking into the sea floor.
“Your turn!” Emi shouts, and I turn my neck sharply to her, shaking my head ferociously.
“No, no. Emi, I can’t. I can’t.” My toes struggle to grasp the mushy sand.
“Oui, you can. When in France!”
Not when there’s a fat chance my host mom sent a spy to watch me!
I grip my elbows with opposite hands. “The expression is when in Rome,” I grumble. “I should get back to editing those application questions.”
Emi chuckles. “Just do a quick flash. Face toward the horizon at least. It’ll make you feel better,” she says. “What’s life without a little carpe diem!” Emi exclaims.
You know, if someone asked me in April how I thought my summer would look, I wouldn’t have said “Oh I expect to be flashing the C?te d’Azur to win French lessons.” No, definitely wouldn’t have guessed that.
My knuckles go white, gripping the inch-wide, red straps on my suit. A deep breath fills my lungs. The sun has gone from energizing respite to intense spotlight in mere moments. Emi splashes around, still naked from the waist up.
“Merde.”
I pull the straps down, feel the water cool the skin of my torso, and whip the suit back up, snapping my head in all directions to detect any potential witnesses.
“Ah,” I gasp. Adrenaline pumps from the crown of my head to my toes.
Emi whoops, cheering me on as she hops up and down.
“Oh my gosh. Did I just do that?”
“Feels good, no?”
Emi was right. Uncontrollable laughter sputters through my diaphragm. She joins in, and I splash a bit of water her way.
“See what a bit of spontanéité can do,” Emi teases.
“You’re not gonna make me cliff jump as compensation for teaching me future tense, are you?” I jab.
“Of course not,” Emi says, swatting her hand. “Juste un peu de parachutisme.”
“Parachute what?”
Emi smiles mischievously instead of answering. She looks to the shore, her head tilting as something catches her eye. I follow her gaze to someone standing across the street from the beach. My spiked energy turns to dread. Jamie.
A million thoughts rush through my head with the overarching being did he just see me half naked! He’s already gotten a glimpse down below from this morning’s lamb debacle. So unfair. And I’ve only seen him fully clothed. Not that I want to see anything otherwise!
I swallow hard, feeling my heart pound in my chest.
Wait a second, is he the spy Angela sent?
The warmth has drained from my face. I must look like a ghost. Now this is merde . A big, big merde show.
I sink my entire body except my head into the sea.
“Hé!” Emi tosses her outstretched arm side to side, but Jamie, leaning against the exterior of a gelato shop, doesn’t notice her or us. The swarms of beachgoers, city walkers, and trams populating the road make it a bit difficult to identify a far-off wave from someone lapsing in the water.
Thank goodness.
The breath I’d been holding tumbles out, and my shoulders loosen.
“Ah, he’s busy.” Emi winks at me and returns to floating on her back.
Back on shore, a young woman around Jamie’s six-foot stature approaches him from behind and affectionately grazes his shoulder before whopping a major smooch on his cheek.
I inhale sharply and sink deeper so my chin touches the ocean’s surface. My eyes are magnetized to his hand placements. Her biceps for the double cheek kiss, then back as she squeezes her arms around his neck for a long-time-no-see kind of hug.
So that’s his type.
Given his concentrated interest on her—that and the fact that there’s no camera on his body—I can only surmise that he’s not my street stalker.
“Emi, who is that?” I nod in Jamie and the woman’s direction. “She looks... familiar.” I tilt my head sideways. “What’s her name?”
“Vivian. I don’t know her well, but I know she owns like four motos. And that she was once an assistant in Angela’s office. Now she’s some sort of higher up at a major fashion company. Hermès, I think it was.”
Impressive. And she’s most likely not even thirty yet. I wonder if Vivian has a ten-year plan. Well, she probably doesn’t need one. She’s obviously crushing it professionally.
Given her high-rise white satin pants and jet-black button-up, she either had style before working at Lavergne Designs or she got it there. But knowing what little I do of Angela, I assume it to be the former.
Vivian. Tall, brown skin, luscious black locks, who’s badass and rides a motorcycle. That’s it. She’s in a photo with Angela in the villa library.
“She and Jamie have been friends for years.”
We watch Vivian get cuddly close to Jamie as they walk into the gelato shop. Just friends? The jealous, jumping-to-conclusions side of me lingers on Jamie’s most likely type: a career-oriented woman who’s made her dreams a reality. And here I am, just holding onto my visions for the future by a lone thread.
I figure switching the subject will say to Emi like I care what Jamie does in his free time or with whom . Because I don’t.
“So that’d be cool if the Cave starts selling at the market, huh?”
I tread gently, swishing water in a semicircle with my arms. Emi reattaches her bikini top.
“Yeah, do you wanna take my shifts?” she jokes. “I cannot stand it when she does that.”
I feed off her earlier sarcasm. “What, volunteer you for something you never agreed to?”
Her palm taps the surface of the water. “Exactement. She doesn’t want to see me actually use my degree.”
“I’m sure she does.”
“Well, bien. She does. But she only wants me to use it within ten kilometers of èze so that I can always pick up a shift at the Cave.” Emi shakes her head and leans her face to the sun, though a cloud quickly blocks its rays. “I want to go to Paris. To be a teacher in the city.”
“Does she know that?”
“She should. I talk about it all the time, but she pretends like I won’t take a job if I get it or that I’ll change my mind. But I don’t care what she says. I’m moving up there in a few months whether she likes it or believes it.”
“She’ll warm up to it, I’m sure.”
“Well if she doesn’t, ce n’est pas mon problème.”
I thought the same when I first shared some of my writing projects and short films with Mom back in high school. Let’s just say “nice hobby” isn’t exactly what wide-eyed young artists want to hear. After that, it kind of just became a habit not to share anymore. Sure, I can pretend that the trust and support roots in our relationship aren’t ruptured, but the act can only last so long.
Emi and I wade in the water a few more minutes until she claims she’s feeling a lemonade. When we get back to our towels, I struggle to find my button-down. And this bathing suit’s lack of padding doesn’t offer much coverage when wet. A narrow shadow appears on our blanket and gets more defined as its owner gets closer.
I clench my jaw, waiting for the clinking of handcuffs, but the distress melts when I hear his voice.
“Did you lose something?” The French accent is heavy, like merlot.
I spin around. Damien. He lifts up my button-down with an index finger.
“It blew down to my chair.” He points to a cluster of white pool chairs under blue pin-striped umbrellas.
Rising to my feet, I scrunch my eyes in the sunlight and cover my chest.
“Did... did you see us... in the water?”
A smile tugs at his cheek, and he shrugs. “Peut être.”
Emi giggles but doesn’t offer my begging eyes a translation. “You could have joined us,” she says with a polite smirk. “Kat would have liked that.”
“Emi.” My eyes widen at her.
“I would too.” Damien directs his attention to me. “But I had to deal with something.” He waves his hand with minimal effort.
“Oh, that’s... that’s okay.” His soft gray eyes mesmerize me.
A gust of wind sweeps through the beach, spraying sand over our blanket and fluttering open the flap of my backpack where I had stuffed my market purchases. The stationary goes flying in every direction.
“No, no, no, no!”
Without much grace, I lunge for the flying papers, jerking every which way to retrieve what I can like a puma on the hunt. Engorged in laughter, Emi and Damien help me scuttle around, collecting most of the flyaway sheets. We forfeit some to the wind, where they’ll eventually be blown onto someone’s seaside apartment balcony.
“That’s a lot of postage,” Damien says, catching his breath and placing the stack of envelopes in my hand.
I bashfully shrug. “I was thinking of writing home this way. Old-fashioned, I know.”
“Oui. I’ve read my grandparents’ old letters before. C’est romantique. I think,” Damien says, curling up one corner of his lips and tossing in a wink.
I scramble for the sunglasses tucked in my hair, but I push them off the back of my head completely. As I bend down to grab them, another hand meets mine. Not Emi’s. Not Damien’s. The wide silver ring on the pinky tells me who it is. I lift my eyes to confirm. Jamie smiles and hands my glasses back.
“What are you... where’s...” I don’t know how to finish that statement without sounding like I’ve been prying into his personal life. I look over his shoulder, but there’s no six-foot, gorgeous, probably-has-her-career-sorted woman behind him.
“So,” Jamie says, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Beach day, huh?”
Damien’s cheerfulness has completely evaporated from his face.
“For some,” Damien replies, examining Jamie’s less than beach ready jeans.
“Well,” Jamie begins. “Some of us have real responsibilities.”
I bow my head. Jamie’s tense jaw line softens.
“Kat, I didn’t mean?—”
“Ah,” Damien lifts both his palms. “I forgot, you have to be very dedicated to your silver spoon. Very dedicated. Je suis désolé, Jamie.”
Jamie squints back. “Piss off.”
“Well then, if you’re finished, please excuse me,” Damien says to him. “I have something to ask Kat.”
Me? What? The next thing I know, Damien steps in between Jamie and I and gently rests his hand on the back of my elbow. We take a few steps away from the others, but not out of their earshot.
“Kat, are we still on for this Saturday? The Monte Carlo gala?”
I feel Jamie’s head snap toward us. When I glance his way, his brow is scrunched.
Turning back to Damien, I shine a toothy smile. “Yes. Of course. I?—”
“I can’t tell you how excited I am. Did you ever see To Catch ?—”
“A Thief? Of course. With Cary Grant and Grace Kelly.”
“Mm, she actually became?—”
“Princess of Monaco.” I finish the fact.
“The auction is bringing in some big items. I hear some cars from the movie are going to be there as well.”
Jamie’s eye roll is hard to miss.
Ugh, why do you care, Mr. Hot and Cold?
“Pick me up at six,” I remind Damien, returning my gaze to the bronze-skinned Hercules standing in front of me.
Emi sports a proud grin.
“Merveilleux,” Damien says, slicking his hands through his jet-black hair.
And after a few bumbling moments of forgetting my own phone number, Damien pops it in and gives me a double bise on my cheeks.
“Who’s going to watch the kids, then?” Jamie says, his arms crossed.
Emi steps forward. “I will. A little bonding time with the cousins can’t hurt.”
I smile gratefully toward her before sneering ever so slightly in Jamie’s direction.
“Merveilleux,” Damien says again and bids us bonsoir.
A daze stirs in my body. As Emi and I head up the scorching cement stairs from the beach to the street, I overhear Jamie confront Damien back at his chair. Their bickering is hard to ignore.
“Laisse-la tranquille.” Jamie points in our direction.
Damien scoffs. “Occupe-toi de tes oignons.”
“ Ce sont mes affaires.”
Emi doesn’t hear any of this as she’s on the phone with Antoine who’s agreed to give us a lift to èze. And I don’t have the wherewithal to memorize Jamie and Damien’s conversation.
The day’s events are catching up to me. The market, the potential spy, flashing in the sea, and the upcoming date. My second date ever—if I’m also counting a group of ninth graders seeing a Liam Neeson movie and getting frozen yogurt before our parents picked us up.
But this. This is a real date.
Whatever Jamie’s problem is with me—and Damien—will have to be dealt with later. I’m over his flip-floppy attitude. It’s not worth sacrificing my peace of mind. He can deal.