Chapter VII
VII
By the time we’ve all undergone our six-minute cleansing rituals, it’s dark outside. Clad in soccer shorts and a white button-down, I comb my hair while Ruby weaves her mania of copper curls.
“Have you ever wondered what makes French braids French?” I ask her, watching the way her fingers dovetail nimbly, over and over again, at the back of her skull.
“It’s probably just Europeans culturally appropriating something else.”
“God forbid there was a trend the French couldn’t take credit for.”
She chuckles and winds an elastic band around her braid’s bottom tassel, then plops herself beside me at the foot of my bed. “You want one too?”
I nod, touched by the offer. It seems childish to ask, but I love the affectionate tug that comes from having your hair done—especially at the mercy of hands that feel familiar.
We turn to face the headboard, both of us cross-legged, her behind me, like children miming the act of driving a car.
“So, now that I have you to myself . . .” I feel her gently parceling my hair into three even portions. “Whatcha gonna do about Henri, honeybee? We’re days in, and it practically takes work for you to not go at it in the vines. It’s pretty full-on.”
I feel my face grow warm, and I’m grateful to have my back turned to her.
I am not, by nature, coy in this way; I’m not sure I’ve felt myself blush romantically in years .
. . probably not since the tried-and-true days of (age-appropriate) slumber-party hair plaiting.
I’ve forgotten that there is a certain humiliation that comes with infatuation.
A certain mortifying nakedness. How embarrassing it is to feel some palpable, physical yearning for the simple fact of someone else’s proximity. How bizarrely juvenile.
“The thing is, we’re not here for that long. And I have absolutely no interest in blowing up his life, or his relationship, regardless of the whole break thing. I’m not gonna, like, stand outside of his window with a boom box or anything. But . . . I mean, I’d pick him.”
“You’d pick him? Like out of a hat? Off of a vine?”
“No, ha ha.” I enunciate the syllables, suddenly too exposed to laugh in earnest. “I mean, I often feel like I’m circumstantially in relationships. Someone’s there and it makes sense. But I’m not the one who did the choosing. With Henri, well, I’d pick him.”
“In a very evasive, Alice way, that’s actually quite tender.” She ties off the end of the braid and stands up to examine her work from the front. “C’est parfait, my dear. Henri will love it.”
I giggle, responding both to her prodding and to the quiet relief of having relinquished some part of this thing to someone else.
I’ve been told this is commonly referred to as letting someone in.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve had a crush.
I think maybe it feels easy because it’ll never work out.
He has a sort-of girlfriend. We live on different continents. It’s all just hypothetical.”
“You think too much for your own good. It’s supposed to be fun, chérie. Let’s go eat. I’m starving.”
Downstairs, the table is already set. The group that remained among the central vines returned early enough to prep dinner.
They’ve already taken their places, so just a handful of spots remain for us at the end of the table.
Ruby and I sit, surveying the spread by lantern light: an enormous grain salad alongside platters loaded with enough sausage to feed a small army.
Julian is directly across from me, Henri to his left.
When Antoine strides in, he looks like he could part seas if he wanted to.
I watch as he sidles into the empty chair to my right and promptly loads his plate with so many sausages, I wonder if he’s doing so satirically.
“Not all for me!” he clarifies, seeing me eye his plate.
“Bringing these back to Bea—she’s at home with the dogs. ”
“Ah! That’s kind, c’est gentil.”
He smiles. “Doing well so far? You seem to have taken to things quite quickly.” He gives me a delicate bump on the shoulder with his knuckles.
I listen closely for accusatory undertones, snide subtext, but I don’t register any.
“This year’s a good harvest crew. Everyone fits together so nicely.
Doesn’t always happen that way, does it now, Henri? ”
Henri, who has what appears to be half a sausage in his mouth, swallows in one enormous, haphazard gulp. “I . . . yeah.”
I can’t read the rapport here; I’m convinced I’m missing something in their dynamic, and the not knowing is laced with a taught anxiety.
I’m entirely uncertain what sort of conversations they’ve had in my absence.
Whether our so-called flirtation—a word that feels too crass, too easy, too unserious—is a problem for some reason.
One that’s substantial enough to cause a rift between them.
“Everyone has a little more life in their eyes this year, no?” Antoine addresses the larger group now.
“And well, the harvest. The grapes are looking so beautiful. Not nearly as much frost as last winter.” I watch as he heaps a sandcastle’s worth of farro salad onto his plate.
“Alice, I’ll need your help in the morning with pigeage.
Come meet me in the cave at 6:00, ca marche? ”
“Oui!” I look up expectantly. Henri still has his head turned down to his meal, gazing so committedly at his food, he might be saying grace.
“Mais . . . pigeage . . . ?” I wonder aloud, directing my inquisition to no one in particular. Well, to Henri, but not to Henri.
“Pigeage, ‘foot stomping.’” Julian maneuvers his hands back and forth in the air as if operating a bicycle with his arms. “We foot stomp the grapes we don’t load into the press. Americans always make jokes about I Love Lucy when they hear about it, but I’ve never seen that movie.”
“It’s a show,” I correct.
“I’ve never seen that show.”
“I have!” Ruby chimes in.
“It’s good experience for you,” Julian continues, making me feel that much less chosen with his typical manner of Germanic precision. “But it’s not as fun and silly as it sounds. It’s like marching in place in wet sand. For a long time.”
“It is fun and silly,” Ruby interjects. “But yes, hard.”
“The folks in the cave don’t speak much English, though. So don’t be surprised when you mistake instructions,” Julian goes on.
“Ta gueule,” I fire back. Shut up.
“Hey, elle a un bon accent,” Henri tells him in French. Her accent is good.
“She’ll be just fine,” Antoine says firmly, his party platter of encased meat still poised in front of him.