Chapter 10 #3
“As long as we keep our fingers crossed grandfather,” Jacques jumped in humbly.
He gave Ana?s a side hug as she pushed past the chairs, towards their grandfather to greet him with a kiss.
Jacques meanwhile had fastened his gaze on Celine, approaching her from the other direction.
“Hello, ma jolie,” he said, drawing her in a loving embrace. “How did shopping go?”
Celine brushed a quick kiss to his lips. “Charles could barely get the car started with all the weight of our bags.”
The voices around them magnified in volume as more people entered the grandstand and the discussion of the weather or the reasoning behind each bet became inevitable. The race was about to start.
Jacques narrowed his eyes at her. “I’m starting to think you're looking forward to this party just for the gifts.”
“They're a fringe benefit.”
“Like the cake?”
“Oh, the cake will be divine.”
“Yeah?”
Celine nodded. “Mhm.” Staring at Jacques, she was beginning to understand Ana?s’s fascination with the racers. Maybe it was just her mind, focusing on the details of his uniform, but Celine couldn’t deny that the royal blue stripes on his jacket made him undeniably dreamy. “You look handsome.”
“Hmm, maybe I’ll use my charms to get the trophy today,” Jacques teased, stepping closer, when a hurricane of mixed perfumes and a dishevelled white suit rushed past them.
“Isn't this a little risky brother?” Bastien grimaced. “Kissing in public and all that? I thought you two were keeping it chaste.”
Before either of them had a chance to reply, Bastien levelled his grandfather a feigned apologetic look. “Do forgive my tardiness. As per your request, I live a little further away now.”
Monsieur Ménard managed to look past the barb and Bastien’s bedraggled state. “It’s a beautiful day. I’m only glad the entire family is here to enjoy it.”
With both of his hands in his pockets, Bastien hooked his foot around a chair’s leg, dragging it back. “Whatever you say padrino,” he remarked and plopped himself down unceremoniously.
“I do not care for being associated with the Cosa Nostra, Bastien. Leave your comments for when we're in private and be silent.”
The tone prickled Celine’s skin to the point of goosebumps, but she wasn’t there to advocate for Bastien. Nor did Bastien seem to care. He tossed his hat on the table, nearly knocking over Jacques’s drink, then slid his green-tinted shades on and leaned back on his chair.
Jacques ran a soothing thumb over the back of her hand, bringing her attention to him.
“Everything alright?”
“Huh? Oh, yes. Everything is fine.” Wanting to switch the subject, she glanced at the track. “Is Pharaoh number five again?”
“We’re five again, but Pharaoh cannot compete anymore.” The issue clouded his expression just then. “The vet said his injury wasn’t going to recover properly. I’ve been training with Meringue ever since.”
“Meringue?” Celine grimaced at the absurd name.
“Ana?s named him before I could.” Putting his hands on her shoulders, Jacques pivoted her towards the track and brought a pair of silver binoculars to her face. “It’s the white Arabian. There. Unfortunately, we don’t work that well together. He’s awfully stubborn.”
“Perhaps it’s the name,” Celine offered, hoping to change his mood. Jacques indulged her with a small smile. “Don’t worry,” she muttered. “I have all the confidence you’ll win.”
“That’s all I need then.” He placed a kiss on the back of her hand. “I must go, but I’ll see you after the race. And don’t mind Bastien. He doesn’t mean the things he says.”
Somehow Celine doubted it. She blew Jacques an air kiss and seated herself between Ana?s and Bastien. He had propped his feet up on the railing, head tilted backwards as he readied himself to deliver another one of his wild observations. But Monsieur Ménard’s irritated grumble intercepted him.
“You’d think some people would have a smidge of reserve in them. He has brought her again.”
Celine leaned over to whisper to Ana?s. “Who is he talking about?”
“The club’s president and his new wife. Grandfather despises her.”
“Why? What did she do?”
Ana?s smiled wickedly. “What didn’t she do. They say she was involved with someone way younger than her while she had just celebrated her engagement to the club’s president. But it’s all rumours, I haven’t found anyone to confirm it yet.”
“I’ll do you the courtesy sister,” Bastien said. “It’s all true.”
He hadn’t changed his position on the chair, but a gratified grin was slowly creeping over his lips.
Ana?s’s jaw hung open. “You didn’t!”
His eyes remained shut beneath his shades, but his grin widened.
“Even you are not that shameless as to…are you?”
Bastien shrugged. “As long as her husband doesn’t find out, I don’t care.”
Celine had to stop being surprised by Bastien's profligacy, though she hadn’t expected his tastes to include married women. She craned her neck to check if Monsieur Ménard had caught a word of his grandson’s philandering. The old man was just waiting pensively, eyes fixed on the track.
The announcer’s voice crackled with static over the speakers as he called the jockeys to the gates.
Celine straightened her spine primly, though her fingers were restlessly twisting her purse’s strap into a knot.
Jacques’s last race with Pharaoh hadn’t ended that well.
The horse had collapsed right as they crossed the finish line, shattering one of his leg bones and becoming the main subject of all newspapers.
Jacques, fortunately, had only gotten a few scratches and a twisted ankle; but now that he was saying Meringue was stubborn, Celine couldn’t help but fear for the worst.
A lost match was no matter—it would do nothing to taint Jacques’s record—but there had been horrifying accident cases over the years, and to see Jacques get hurt right in front of her was sending her nerves in a frenzy.
“I hope he wins,” she whispered, half to herself, half letting the words take shape in the course and become Jacques’s good luck charm.
“Please,” Bastien scoffed. His eyes were roaming anywhere but the track. “Jacques always comes up first.”
Celine quirked a brow in his direction. “Aww, jealous?”
“Of what, being splattered by dirt and smelling like a horse? No, thank you.”
“Better than sullying yourself in brothels all day and smelling like cheap perfume.”
Now it was Bastien’s turn to quirk a brow. “Aww, jealous?”
“Of being touched by a pig like you?” She lifted her nose in the air. “Not even on my deathbed.”
Bastien dropped his feet down in revolt. “You wish I was touching—”
He was interrupted by Monsieur Ménard as the old man dismissed the track and faced them. “Celine dear,” he said, pushing his drink to the side and lacing his fingers on the table. “Jacques tells me you enjoy fashion.”
Celine startled to attention, cold sweat breaking across her temple when his words registered. “I-I do,” she stammered. “On occasion.”
Bastien snorted.
Celine reached for his thigh underneath the table and dug her nails in. He choked on his words, masking it with a cough.
“Great then,” Monsieur Ménard continued. “Do give me a list of those designers you wanted to meet. I might pull a few strings and get you to be the face of their brand if you want.”
There wasn’t much Celine could say to that other than a shy thank you.
“Ana?s, you too, my flower.”
“Merci, pépé. I will.”
Once Monsieur Ménard’s attention returned to the track again, Celine released Bastien’s thigh. “You forget that you stand to lose too, if anyone finds out.”
“Thanks to you, I have a physical reminder now.” His eyes flickered back and forth between her and his grandfather. “I thought you said you’d tell Jacques about…you-know-what.”
“When I tell him is none of your business.”
“Well, I’d tell him soon if I were you. I would also ask what Grandfather really thinks of fashion designers. What he’ll say when he finds out you don’t want to be just a cover girl.”
Celine’s expression shuttered. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Bastien didn’t get to respond right away—Ana?s had got to her feet and was shouting: “Look! Jacques is in the lead!”
Celine rose too, though her mind was elsewhere, until Bastien shifted next to her. “My mother was a designer,” he said quietly. “It wasn’t a welcome concept in our house.”
“But she was revered.”
“Maybe by little girls like you who dreamt of sewing and wearing pretty dresses when they grew up. To my grandfather, she was a woman who preferred to work over enjoying and showing off the leisures our wealth provided.”
Celine didn’t like what he was implying. “…I doubt Jacques thinks the same.”
“Jacques thinks what Grandfather tells him to think,” Bastien sneered. “Enjoy your oblivion while it lasts, baby vamp.”
Without another word, he exited the grandstand. Celine was still clapping, albeit absently, her attention fixated on Bastien’s figure as it disappeared down the stairs, back into the betting hall.
Once he was gone, she shifted her eyes on the track, where Jacques was riding in front of a dozen journalists and flashing cameras, carrying the cup.
Celine couldn’t focus. Bastien’s words had stirred a dark cloud into life, casting an unshakable shadow over her thoughts; her brain did not register anything else for the rest of the day.