Chapter XI
XI
Tonight, for the first time since arriving, my bodily needs—eating, sleeping—refuse to take full-throttle priority.
Lying in bed, I wonder if I might hear Henri pass in the hallway.
If he’ll knock at my door, usher me outside, offer some reassurance that he wanted this, whatever it is—that he still wants it (me) now that we’ve exited the territory of the theoretical.
Then I berate myself for agonizing. You’re not like this, I chastise myself in my head, rolling onto my back.
He and I are adults; kissing is small, and plain, and human.
Anyway, the allure of Henri is—or was—tied up in his inviability.
We are impossible, contextually hopeless.
Perhaps we’ve just gotten the thing out of our systems. Now, we’re free.
I consider pulling out my phone to send him a WhatsApp message.
We all have one another’s numbers—Antoine had started a group thread for the vendangeurs when we all arrived.
But for as long as Henri and I have known each other, our rapport has been three-dimensional, face-to-face—well, face-to-vine, really.
We only exist in each other’s company, in the flesh—with all the stumbling, rambling, mistranslated inconveniences that presents.
Texting feels like it might rupture something. Like breaching another dimension.
All night, I toss fitfully, feeling the swell of fatigue tighten around my eyes.
At the sound of my alarm, I throw off my covers and, pining for some tangible kick start, meander downstairs for a coffee before changing.
Waiting by the espresso machine—with a sly, chipper grin on his face—is Julian, pulling a coffee of his own.
“Well, someone’s not looking her best,” he says with a smile, and I grimace in response.
“A bit early for compliments, no?”
“Americans and their compliments. Don’t you all ever get tired of saying nice things to each other?”
“Coffee, Julian. Need coffee.”
He reaches into the cupboard over my head for a cup, sticks it under the machine, and punches the button, urging the gears into motion. We watch with rapt attention as the murky brown liquid flows in dual streams, settling with a frothy scrim across the top.
“Coucou, how did you all sleep?” Bea’s voice greets us from the doorway, where she’s already clad in kitchen clothes and a flour-dusted apron, flanked by Henri in his standard workwear. “Vous avez bien dormi?”
Julian, Henri, and I nod in unison. I look at my feet.
“Some of us better than others!” Julian announces, placing the espresso ceremoniously in my hands.
“Lucky for the three of you, Antoine sent me for, well . . . three of you,” she continues.
“He’s in the vines today, but he wants to try doing some de-stemming by hand.
We’re going to make a special, very clean cuvée out of this year’s riesling.
He says he’s never done this before so we’re going to figure it out together, ca marche? ”
Again, we all nod—even more reluctantly this time. The trio of us: myself; Julian, who has the conversational tact of a senile ferret; and Henri, who seemingly prefers to examine any dishware in his immediate vicinity rather than look at me. Why does waiting to be witnessed by him sting?
“Excellent!” Bea claps her hands together. “I’ll go ahead and let the team know you won’t be joining in the vines. Get dressed and meet me in the cave.”
Henri marches up the stairs. Julian shrugs and saunters off behind him—though not before turning toward me with one last bit of commentary: “I know there aren’t many mirrors in the house, but you might consider a hairbrush.”
I scowl but reach my hands up to survey the top of my head and find it matted.
By the time I return to the kitchen, dressed in bike shorts and a T-shirt with the insignia of a youth soccer team, the boys are already in the cave. I rinse my espresso cup in the sink and make my way to join them.
Inside the space, breathy, verbose French rap plays over the speakers, and I feel the clever, rhythmic speech vibrating behind my sternum. Henri is helping Julian lift a large, grated metal screen over an empty steel vat.
“Alice!” Bea calls to me. “Come stand next to this tank. I’d like to see if you can reach.”
I do as I’m asked.
“OK, OK, not tall enough. We’ll need you to see over the tank. Will you have a look for something to make you taller?”
Julian laughs. “If only it were that simple,” he says with a sigh. I brace myself to contend with Julian at his most irritating today while my capacity for grace is at an all-time low.
I rummage around, unearth a stack of square gray crates, flip them upside down at the foot of the tank, and test my weight atop them. They are sturdy and unprecious enough for the task, and I fashion similar pedestals for each of the boys. Very gracious of me, I think.
“We’re not all your height, New York.” Henri removes the top crate from his stack and peers over the grate.
I flinch. His proximity, the jocular prodding, all of it without any actual intimacy, scrapes like rug burn.
The stubborn avoidance on his part feels like it carries the lazy implication that it’s my move—that I must decide if I’m going to address last night or playact at our normal rapport.
“I’d prefer a few extra inches, frankly,” Julian says, and for the first time this morning, in spite of myself, I’m grateful for him. Or the distraction of him, at least.
Once we’re perched, Bea empties the first crate of grapes—yesterday’s harvest—onto the grate.
She demonstrates how to use our hands to rub the grapes in forceful motions against the wires, freeing the fruit from its stems. The flesh plummets through the holes into the barrel below; the stems stay behind in a tangled knot atop the metal until we collect them in crates at our feet.
Simple enough. Except there are thirty-six bins of grapes piled beside us.
“OK, ca va? Good to go?” She flicks her gaze over to each of us, one by one. Henri flashes a thumbs-up, and she nods. “I’ll be in the kitchen, then. Call out if you need anything.”
Julian unleashes a mass of grapes in front of us in a single, graceless lurch.
Within minutes, I learn the stems are as sharp and angular as the iron cross-hatching of the grate itself.
And they are stubborn. Removing them requires repeated, stinging movements that rub my palms raw, the sensation muted only by the numbing cold of the damp grapes—like gentler, more pliant ice on a near wound.
Once we’re at work on the second crate, I sneak glances at Henri intermittently, aching for him to look up at me. But still, with mesmerizing discipline, he keeps his eyes trained in front of him.
I pause to rub my hands together, coaxing blood back into my frosted fingers. Julian gazes up, rolling his eyes in one quick, venomous rotation.
“What? Comment?” I ask, allowing myself to be sharp with him. “My hands just got cold for a second—aren’t yours?”
I wait for Henri to cut in, ever poised to defend my honor, blow hot breath on my palms. But now, nothing.
“Stop being such a girl,” Julian pokes.
“I am a girl.”
“Do some jumping jacks.”
I give him my most dismissive face. It doesn’t seem to elicit the desired effect.
“Blood flow. In Munich, my dad used to make me do them outside in the dead of winter when I got cold. I swear it worked.”
“Brutal.”
“Hey, I’m just trying to help. We’ve got a lot of cases to get through. Like . . . a lot.”
“Maybe we need a distraction.” Henri is serving crumbs—and still, I feel some mortifying rush of gratitude boil up in me. “Something to entertain, take her mind off the sting.”
Which sting? I wonder.
“Well,” Julian tosses a grape into his mouth. “If you recall, when we were picking those terrible reductive grapes the other day, I was supposed to be able to ask you all any question I like. I was not indulged, so I’d like to exercise my right to ask now.”
“Fine, permission granted.” Henri shrugs.
“Hmm.” Julian looks up at the ceiling in thought as he mashes the grapes against the metal. “OK, why are you and Antoine so close? I only see my uncles once a year on holidays, and frankly, I have no desire to increase that number.”
I see Henri’s shoulders inch downward ever so slightly, and his jaw slackens. He is relieved; this is a question he can answer. It’s coming from Julian, after all—not Ruby. Hardly emotionally invasive.
I lean over the grate, my hands prickling with each thrust, and I angle myself toward Henri. I want to hear him speak.
He smiles sheepishly, using the back of his hand to wipe his hair out of his eyes.
“I don’t know, je sais pas—he was with us a lot when I was a kid.
My parents weren’t always around, exactly.
And for a while, before he lived here at the domaine, he lived in our house.
” He pauses, glancing around furtively, a particular glaze settling over his eyes.
“And when I was in grade seven, my mom moved out.” He’s half a decibel quieter now.
“So Antoine and I started spending all of our time together—holidays, afternoons after school, the whole thing.”
Unwittingly, Julian and I both cease to move, pause mid-task. But Henri returns to the grate with renewed fervor, as if the confession has wound something up in him.
“I’m sorry. About your mom.” I want to know more, but I won’t ask for it. I want him to offer it to me.
“All good, no need.”
“What about your dad?” It’s a simple enough question. Polite, even. Nothing emotionally prodding.
“He was around. Is around. But he kind of shut down after my mom left. He’s always been a bit rigid. Not warm, exactly.”
“Mine too—I get that,” Julian adds. “The cold dad thing.”