Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Sabine looked at all those assembled and thought, this is a bigger crowd than the Mirabelle square has seen all summer.
Marlow, Noah, Guillaume, Luc, Aubin, Lali, and Fedir sitting on the stone wall, Yakiv kicking a ball against the post office door.
Even Pierre—Luc’s hunky cousin who ran Voyages Celeste and owned the rust-bucket minibus.
She held out her cell phone, on speaker, so everyone could hear Willa.
“How many people are listening?” she asked from Toronto.
“Nine—if you count Yakiv, ten,” said Sabine. “We’re on an urgent mission.”
“My favorite kind,” said Willa.
“So we’re all here in the Mirabelle square—” said Sabine.
“I can’t believe this is the only place you get Wi-Fi,” said Noah.
“It’s not the only place,” said Sabine. “You can get it down in the Nenier lot, too. We’re here because we want to throw a fundraiser for everyone’s back taxes. And because you were on Peyton and Rachelle’s prom committee, we figured you could be our advisor.”
“Sort of like the Q to our James Bond,” said Noah. “The Alfred to our Batman.”
Pierre looked at him, eyes twinkling. “The Charlie to our Angels,” he said. “The Starsky to our Hutch.”
Noah eyed him back and burst out laughing. Pierre followed suit, and neither of them seemed to mind that everyone else found it only mildly funny.
“Totally wish I could be there,” said Willa.
“Get over here, then,” said Marlow. “The more the merrier.”
“My parents would disown me if I disappeared to France the week before university.”
“Don’t tell my folks that,” said Noah. “Who will be here any minute, so shake a leg.”
“Gotcha,” said Willa. “I can share our checklist for the invites, food, entertainment, auction—we had a silent auction for the smaller stuff and a live auction for the really sweet stuff. Do you know people who can come? And people who can donate auction items?”
“We do,” said Guillaume. Luc, Lali, Aubin, and Pierre nodded, too.
“Hit us with the details,” said Marlow. “Spare us nothing.”
Willa recounted everything the prom committee had done over six months (this crew had a week). Willa did excellent renditions of Peyton and Rachelle arguing over the menu, venue, and font. Everyone laughed and asked questions. Yakiv played ball. Noah kept an eye out for Bill and Iris.
“They’ll have to know about this at some point, won’t they?” asked Sabine.
“Yes,” said Marlow, “but let’s hold off in case it fails.”
“You don’t have to get it right,” said Guillaume, “you just have to get it going. I heard this once in a business course.”
That saying struck Sabine as something that could be said for her life, too.
“Afternoon!” said Bill, approaching with Iris. “What do we have here?”
“Nothing,” said Marlow. “We all just ran into each other. I’m on my way to work at Guillaume’s, and everyone else has things on the go, right?”
Everyone nodded, understanding the mission. Get this party started.
“This is Pierre,” said Marlow, “Luc’s cousin who runs a travel company, and he’s going to take you around for the day, so you can see the sights.”
“And I am going to join,” said Noah. “I want to see the sights, too.”
Those sights being Pierre Celeste, thought Sabine.
“Sabine, let’s go,” said Iris, “we’d like to talk to you about your future.”
“Wish I could, Grams,” said Sabine, “but I have a bunch of things to do.”
“What could be more important than spending time with your grandparents?” asked Bill. “We haven’t seen you all summer.”
“It’s just,” said Sabine, “I have a bit of a summer job here, working on the house.”
“Over dinner, then?” asked Iris.
“Love to,” said Sabine. Lie of her life, but she’d gotten good at lying this summer, if nothing else.
Bill and Iris got into the minibus with Pierre and Noah—but not without alarmed glances at the rusty fenders.
Sabine threaded her fingers through Aubin’s. Things had gotten exciting here and she was glad to have him by her side. They had a ton to do. But maybe there will be enough time for something more, she thought, pulling him close. She was sure she could make time.
The night before the event, Marlow bundled her parents off to Madame Belleville’s and collapsed in bed. She made a mental list of how it was all going.
She’d thought she’d been busy improving Maison Perdue and working for Renegade remotely, but the past week had been breathless.
In the mornings, before her parents really surfaced, she and Noah organized the fundraiser.
They brainstormed the menu, sold tickets, collected auction items, and planned how to decorate the square.
For Marlow, one of the perks to the madness of the week was being back in the trenches with Noah.
It was like the old days, planning secret parties their parents had no idea about (and there’d been plenty of those).
At one point, when Marlow’s living room floor was covered with a thousand small paper French flags that she and Noah were threading onto string to make bunting, he eyed her and said, “So? Are you moving here for good or what?”
The question took her by surprise. “Nah,” she said. “Can’t afford it. I’m just trying to get out of back taxes jail.”
“But if you can make it fly, you could, you know,” he said. “You wouldn’t be abandoning me.”
It was like he’d read her mind—sensed the nagging worries she’d had all summer about leaving him alone in shark-infested waters (Bill and Iris being the sharks).
“I’m feeling much better,” he said. “The meds have kicked in, and even though my future’s unknown, I feel lighter about it.
Hopeful, even. Plus—we’re adults. I adore you, but you need to do what’s best for you—you and Sabine.
And yes, I know you feel responsible for me—Lord knows I feel responsible for you, what with your endless shenanigans—but we’re grown-ups, and I can take care of myself.
Say it with me: ‘I will do what’s best for Marlow and Sabine. ’ ”
Her eyes brimmed with tears, but she said, “I will do what’s best for Marlow and Sabine.”
In the afternoons, Noah had explored the countryside with Pierre, Bill, and Iris, ostensibly to keep them out of Marlow’s hair, but really, Marlow could tell, because of Pierre.
The French vocabulary Noah had learned in school was coming back, and he was having a great time flirting with a cute tour guide who had a sense of humor and joie de vivre—a real thing!
It was the first spark she’d seen in him in years, and it made her happy that the twists and turns in her own life had unexpectedly brought him joy.
Working for Renegade had also been busier than busy.
She leaned on Akiko to back her up so that Oscar couldn’t blame her for not focusing enough on the festival.
She, Akiko, and Gustavo were in pretty constant contact through their group chat, which he was still a part of, even though he no longer worked at the festival.
This also meant that she and Akiko got updates about how he was doing in LA.
His mega feature was going better than he could have imagined.
It was in its last month of prep, and the production had rented him a convertible to get around Hollywood so he could lunch with the director and famous actors on the patios of expensive restaurants.
Marlow and Akiko had done the requisite oohing and ahhing, but inside, Marlow had died a bit.
Marlow had assumed it would be impossible to sell fundraiser tickets, but she knew more people in the area than she thought. Corinne La Boulangère in Nenier not only said her whole family would come but offered desserts for the event, and six months of daily fresh baguette for the silent auction.
Gérard, the old man whose coop had been destroyed in the storm, remembered Marlow from when she had chased down his chickens and replaced his coop’s metal roof. He offered eggs for a year.
The Neufchateau hardware store owner adored her, given she’d spent the summer lining his pockets, and offered a high-end toilet as a silent auction item. It made her laugh, but she also coveted it for Maison Perdue.
Fedir had talked up the event at the champagnerie, and Guillaume bought tickets for all of his employees. He also offered a crate of his best vintage for the live auction and suggested the other vintners nearby do the same. Noah was salivating at the thought.
She reflected on all the things she hadn’t yet done for the fundraiser, including telling her parents about it. Somehow, she’d forgotten to do that. They would not be happy.
Then she imagined the party itself, and hopefully how special it would be.
There would be food, an auction, dancing …
And who would she dance with? Guillaume?
Luc? Neither? Both? She drifted back to them fighting over her when Ruth had come by Maison Perdue, and then facing them outside the house when her parents had arrived, vying for her hand.
It was ridiculous to have two men on the go—two men wanting her …
and yet also, admittedly, the best thing ever.
She had no idea which one she wanted—and she had no idea if they were both even still game.
But the potential of desire, of intimacy, of maybe even love, was enough to let her forget all the things on her massive to-do list and finally drift off.
It was after lunch on the big day. Sabine took in Mirabelle’s square, full of people in serious prep mode.
She and Aubin hung paper lanterns and the French flag bunting, Fedir strung up tiny lights, Guillaume laid out tables and chairs he’d sourced from various vineyards in the area, and Lali was setting up food stations for a buffet.
Marlow, Yakiv, and Madame Belleville cleaned the storefronts around the square.
Madame Belleville had out her broom and dustpan; Marlow and Yakiv were using sponges and buckets of soapy water.
Yakiv swished the water to make bubbles, then squeezed the big sponge and lathered up everything, including himself.