“Aubin,” said Sabine, “this is—these are—this is my Grams Iris, my Grandad Bill, and Uncle Noah. Hi. Wow. What are you all doing here?”
“Visiting,” said Iris. “Mr. Fortin was kind enough to get us here.”
“Great. We were just—hanging out.”
“I see that,” said Iris, tossing over Aubin’s T-shirt. He got to his feet and pulled it on.
“Busted,” said Noah under his breath, smiling.
“Not helpful,” said Sabine.
Marlow sat still on a bedsheet in front of Luc’s studio window as he painted her, sun on her skin. It was the first time she’d felt comfortable being naked and looked at. Metaphorically she’d felt naked so many times, like people could see right through to the fraud beneath. But here, with her almost forty-year-old body,even with its imperfections, seen through Luc’s eyes, she felt beautiful.
Luc sat on a stool in an old muscle shirt, bare feet and shorts covered in paint splotches like every other inch of the studio, painting and humming under his breath.
Marlow could see out the window to the valley below. A few clouds passed across the sun, turning stretches of fields different shades of green, fleetingly.
“What are you thinking there, staring off?” Luc asked.
“That there is nothing wrong with this moment,” she said. “Maison Perdue looks infinitely better than it did at the beginning of the summer. I still have my place in Toronto—”
“You can even call it your pied-à-terre.”
“Yves hasn’t stolen Sabine’s heart.”
I’ve fooled around with two men, and both now seem fine with it, she added to her mental list—though she did not say that part out loud.
“Also, I did well enough in the interview for Cannes.”
“And you say you did even better in the interview for your boss’s job.”
“I feel like it’ll be mine when I get back. I’ll know any day now.”
There was also the upcoming appeal about the purchase of Maison Perdue, but even that felt far away. Marlow would manage. She somehow always did.
She looked around the cluttered studio. “I like your house.”
Luc laughed. “I have the classic contractor’s problem: everyone else’s house gets renovated but mine. How do they say that, about the shoemaker and his children?”
“The cobbler’s children go unshod.”
“Yes. This house hasn’t changed since my parents died. And probably not since their parents died. But for me, it is the comfort.”
“For me, too,” said Marlow.
“And you lookformidablein it. Stay as long as you’d like. In my studio, in my bed …”
She drew a breath. “You said you would not use sexy talk.”
“I did not. Or if I did, I should not have. I want to make sexy talk with you. I want you in my bed. It’s important you know that.”
“Fine. What you said is you would not fight Guillaume. As long as that’s the case, make sexy talk. I like it.”
“What’s not to like, having two men want you?”
“Exactly,” said Marlow. “Living the life.”
And then Sabine stepped into the studio, followed by Aubin, Guillaume, Marlow’s parents, and her brother. Iris saw Marlow naked, leg draped over the chair arm, bushy bits hanging out for all to see, and gasped. Bill’s face morphed into Munch’sThe Scream. Sabine looked just as she had when they’d seen the dead rat. Aubin immediately paled, turned, and walked away, and Guillaume just stood there in shock.
