Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Guillaume had watched her as she’d stood in the tub, bubbles clinging to parts of her, but not everywhere. She’d felt vulnerable, so he’d stood up, too, and they’d faced each other like that in the tub, taking each other in.
“What now?” she asked, feeling awkward.
He stepped out and offered her a hand. Then he put a giant towel around her shoulders and rubbed her from head to toe to dry her, starting with her back and then moving to the front, not looking her in the eye—focusing only on what he was doing.
Her heart was pounding as she watched him move his hands over her.
He brought some lotion from the counter, rubbed it into his hands so that it was warm, and then, starting with the tips of her fingers and working his way up her arm, smoothed it into her shoulders very near her breast but never touching it.
Then he started in on the other hand, repeating the motions, working the lotion into her skin all the way up to her shoulder, again dangerously close to her breast. It gave her goosebumps. Every nerve ending felt alive.
“Can I … should we …”
“Not yet.”
He did the same thing with her legs. One by one, he applied lotion to her toes, her ankle, all the way up her calf, knee, thigh, dangerously close to another body part that was now on fire.
And the other foot, calf, thigh … impossibly close to oblivion.
“You’re killing me,” she said.
“Je l’espère.” He stood to face her.
“Can we go to your bedroom?” she asked.
“Be patient. Just stand there.” He was in control, and she was both happy to give over and dying of anticipation to know what would happen next.
He grasped the edges of the towel but paused.
“Je peux?”
She nodded and he slowly opened the towel to step in close to her.
“Mon Dieu,” he said. “Que t’es belle.”
“Toi aussi,” she said. He was beautiful too. So beautiful.
He looked down at her and moaned.
“You can’t make that sound and expect me to be patient,” she whispered.
And then in one move, he grabbed both sides of her waist and hiked her up as if she were light as a feather. The towel dropped as she wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, and he walked her to the bed.
That night, lying awake and listening to Guillaume breathing, she’d had a deep sense that everything was all right—better than all right; that she was in safe hands (and what hands they were).
She let herself fantasize that they might have a future, given they saw eye to eye on so many things, and, even better, that she learned new things from him.
New ways of thinking, of looking at problems, and feeling powerful enough to know they were solvable.
Marlow woke up in his king-size bed. He was already up and gone. Her clothes had been cleaned and ironed—ironed!—by Madame Klein, like your mother finding the shirt you puked on at a secret high school ravine party and surreptitiously cleaning it. The jig was up. Oh well.
Marlow pulled on her clean clothes, overwhelmed by everything: her night with Guillaume, her job prospects, her relationship with her daughter. And Rémy’s decision about the sale of Maison Perdue was also on the horizon.
Tackle the problems one by one. First up—she dialed Yves before she could talk herself out of it. She’d swallow her pride, be totally professional.
He picked up after only one ring. “Allo, Marlow? Is everything all right?”
“Well, if you forget about Sabine staying with you without so much as a single message from her or you since she first told me, I’m awesome, thanks.
I didn’t even know she was in Paris. They were supposed to be a half-hour from here with friends, but no, she lied for the first time ever, and it figures you’d be involved. ” So much for being professional.
“I had no idea you did not know she was here,” he said. “That’s not good.”
“It’s not good to have her with you under any circumstance. You’re not her father.”
There was a silence. How had it taken her thirty seconds to mess this up?
“She feels I am her father,” he said slowly, “and that’s perhaps more important than what you or I think. It is fair to be angry with me for not being present while she grew up, but there is some need in her to know me, and it would be cruel to keep that from her, don’t you think?”
Marlow gripped the phone. Her head pounded.
“I will talk to her about lying to you,” he added.
“Don’t. I will handle Sabine myself. Do not speak for me in any way.”
She imagined screaming at him an inch from his face that she’d worked her ass off to be a good parent—an act of heroism, as far as Marlow was concerned—and how all that was not a race easily won, but now he was sauntering in at the finish to take the effin’ ribbon. Her ribbon.
“Did you need something?” he asked.
Right. Just spit it out, perhaps at a lower decibel.
“My boss at the festival, Oscar, wants you to attend a one-day conference, first week of September. It’s paid, plus airfare and hotel. I said I’d ask.”
“That is in three weeks, no?” Yes of course it was in three weeks!
“I’m waiting for the greenlight of three films at the moment, but I’m sure I can do it.”
“Thank you,” she said with relief. “I’ll send details. I can’t afford to screw up at the festival right now, so …” Shitty way to finish, true. “And don’t let Sabine ruin her life there with you. And don’t say anything to her about this call.” Even shittier.
“You have my word.”
She hung up and sent a message to Oscar saying Yves was in. There. She’d been a grown-up—mostly. She felt like crawling into bed. Or, rather, finding Guillaume, and seeing if they could crawl back into his. Or maybe Luc’s?
No. She’d go home, alone, and not do anything rash.
Perhaps today Rémy would deign to give her the verdict about the land transfer papers.
And if Rémy gave her the go-ahead to sell Maison Perdue, she could tend to whatever was happening with Sabine.
Yes, she wanted to be the calm, rational parent, but she also wanted Sabine out from under the spell of Yves and back in the fold—something that might require going to Paris.
While Yves called La Sorbonne to arrange for late admission, Sabine and Aubin ran errands on Boulevard Saint-Michel.
They tried to get her a data plan, because her cell phone was too old for an eSIM, but the man at the cell company insisted she needed her passport, and of course she hadn’t thought to bring it from Yves’ apartment.
When asked why she needed a passport to buy data, he replied seriously, “Because, Mademoiselle, terrorisme.”
They stopped to buy a crêpe au citron et sucre à emporter, which Aubin told her she’d live on while attending school—fast, cheap, devour as you walk.
As the man made it in the storefront window, pouring batter onto the round griddle, smoothing it in circles until it steamed and turned golden brown, she fretted again that she couldn’t see how La Sorbonne would accept her this late.
But Aubin told her to trust in the universe, or, at the very least, how famous her father was, which meant he could open doors others couldn’t.
The man in the window flipped the crêpe with his flat knife, sprinkled lemon juice and sugar over it, folded it in four, and passed it out to them in a paper towel.
They swung by Shakespeare and Company to buy a pocket-sized Paris Plan map book—this way she’d be able to get around even if she didn’t have data.
Aubin had his nose in music books, so she went to see the bulletin board.
There was the note from before: “Yesterday I turned nineteen! Far from home, penniless, pretending to be confident, trying too hard, terrified, free, living the dream, best birthday ever.” Now there was a new note beside it, scribbled on a Maison d’Isabelle napkin.
It read: “Everyone is these things. I will be these things with you, so you don’t feel so alone. ” It was Aubin.
She went right back to him and held up the napkin, smiling. “I don’t feel alone.”
“Good.”
“When did you write that?”
“One morning on my way from buying a baguette. I knew we’d come back—this bookstore is irresistible to you.”
“And so are you.”
She bought The Art of No-Budget Filmmaking.
She’d have to hide it from her mother, but her conversations with Yves about creativity and striving for meaning had inspired her.
The cashier stamped it with “Shakespeare and Company—Kilometer Zero Paris,” and they headed home along the Seine.
She stopped on the sidewalk to kiss Aubin in public, the sort of PDA she’d always hated.
She could still taste the lemon and sugar on his lips. Best thing ever.
Sabine and Aubin unlocked the door to find Yves on the phone with an entrance officer at the Sorbonne.
Nothing Yves said would convince him that they should accept Sabine this close to the beginning of the academic year.
He tried to explain how brilliant she was, that she had been one of only three students in Ontario to finish high school with a perfect score, but the entrance officer replied that many of their students had perfect marks because of the school’s excellence.
La Sorbonne was La Sorbonne. It did not bend for others. Others bent to it.
“I tried, but it was not enough,” Yves said, hanging up. “What do you want to do?”
“I th-hink—it’s j-just—” stuttered Sabine, shocked at how suddenly things were not so perfect. One sob escaped. Aubin reached out and she collapsed into him, crying like a baby.
Yves got her a box of tissues, and after she’d calmed down and blown her nose, they sat beside her. Yves on one side, Aubin on the other.
“There are other universities in Paris,” said Yves.
“It’s not that,” she said, face stinging from salty tears. “When you asked what I want to do, I realized I still don’t know. There isn’t anything I really want to study, here or at home.”
“Before, I asked you what made you happy,” said Aubin. “It’s a different question.”
“This is very wise,” said Yves.
Sabine shrugged. “I like to make little picture books. It’s so pathetic.”
“Not at all,” said Yves. “You are an artist.” He thought a moment. “I have an idea. I’ll need to rearrange this afternoon’s meetings, but can you stay at least one more day?”
It was late morning when Marlow arrived at the mairie. Rémy’s Audi was already there. Damn. She ran inside.
“Bonjour,” said Rémy, seemingly very busy opening mail.
“Bonjour,” said Marlow.
“Oh—and before we begin, about the clean-up you are doing in Mirabelle …”
Marlow wanted to say: no thanks to you, a woman who calls herself the fonctionnaire but is not doing one thing to help.
“Yes?” said Marlow instead.
“You cannot pile litter beside the Nenier bins. It must go inside the bins.”
“The bins are full.”
“Then you must wait for the change in the bins.”
Say nothing.
“Bon,” said Rémy. “I was ready to leave, so let us get to the matter at hand. I have four or five minutes to explain your situation.” She laid out papers on the counter.
“These are the land transfer papers you requested. This is your tax statement. And this is payment method information for Mirabelle residents.”
Marlow looked at the tax statement. Her eyes instantly focused on the bottom line, which read, give or take, twenty thousand euros. “What’s this? I don’t understand.”
“Maison Perdue has back taxes owing in the amount of 19,794 euros. You can pay by—”
“I see the methods of payment,” said Marlow. “What I don’t understand is why I’ve never heard of this before. Why didn’t you tell me when I bought the house?”
“You didn’t ask.”
Marlow’s brain melted. She could feel it oozing out her ears. Or was that liquid rage?
“To transfer ownership, all accounts must be settled, as was stated in the conditions of sale, whether you do so, or your buyer. This document will be looked at by the board when they evaluate your appeal at the end of the month.”
“Help me understand,” said Marlow. “You have a security deposit of thirty thousand euros charged to my credit card, which you refuse to repay. There’s a ten-thousand-euro penalty if I leave the house vacant for over seven weeks.
And there’s also a twenty-thousand-euro tax issue no one told me about? ”
Rémy reached for her keys. “Malheureusement, I need to lock up, as I have an appointment elsewhere.”
“Don’t you want people to buy the one-euro houses? Isn’t that the whole point?”
“It most certainly is,” said Rémy, giving her a steely glare.
“And for some, perhaps I might waive the back taxes, if they were minor. But these are not minor, and, far more important, when I suspect someone is flipping the house and will bring the program into disrepute, then I will not waive one cent.” She grabbed her bag and the mail.
“Will you deal with the litter outside the bins? As I said—”
Marlow left before she could say anything she’d regret. Only this time, she had a new debt of twenty thousand euros. She was officially screwed, and not in the good, fun way.