“I will do a few errands and return when themairieopens to make sure you are able to submit your appeal without difficulty,” said Guillaume. God, he was nice. Too nice?
She had two hours to kill, so she climbed the stairs to Maison Perdue and let herself in. The place was a disaster. She felt a surge of fear at what she’d gotten herself into.
Marlow had suffered night terrors as a toddler. Her parents, bleary-eyed in their pajamas, would console her to no avail, and she’d scream and hyperventilate in her onesie until eventually her father would go into her parents’ bedroom and shut the door, and her mother would take hold of her little arms and say“for God’s sake, Marlow, snap out of it!”And she would settle. But she was still afraid.
When she was a teen, she’d found a book by R. D. Laing, a psychiatrist who’d written about fearful children. Parents often told their children,don’t worry—nothing’s there. But what children heard was thatNothingwas there, as ifNothingwere the name fora real thing. They couldn’t see this thing that lurked in the darkness, and their parents kept telling them it was there, and their terror intensified.
Even as an adult, nights were the worst. Marlow slept lightly and was often awoken by what she called the four AM frets, asense that she’d forgotten something, insulted someone, failed at work, not made good. She’d have to get up and turn the light on. And her mother’s voice would come to her.Snap out of it.
Most often she woke up and her jaw ached from clenching and grinding her teeth in her sleep. Her dentist had been appalled and had chastised her for not wearing her night guard. But she did wear it, faithfully! He said she must be a day grinder, too. Nice.
Now, she stood in the house she’d drunkenly bought, feeling one part terror of having screwed up when their finances were already precarious; one part shame, because how could she have been so foolish; one part futility, because there was no way to get out of this, let alone ahead.
Get busy—the only antidote. They had no plans to live here this week, but cleaning up would at least keep her mind occupied. She held her breath and threw out the rat. She opened the windows. She found a broom and swept every floor. Dustpans and dustpans of dirt. She let the water run until it was clear, then she mopped. The resulting water in the pail was filthy.
She worked up a sweat and was suddenly starving, so she took a break and ate the top end of the baguette with a chunk of blue cheese and had a glass of red wine. Why not. When Rome is burning! When France is burning? More like when Marlow is burning.
The wine made her need to nap almost instantly. She went upstairs to the bigger bedroom, pulled the plastic off the bed, flipped the mattress and inspected it—it smelled fine, not musty at all, and no bugs—so she threw down her jacket, lay on top of it, and thought about how she liked naps best because they were had in the daylight, with no possibility of night terrors. Just relief.
Sabine didn’t want to tell Aubin she’d never kissed anyone. Wait. She hadn’t had ameaningfulkiss. She’d kissed a boy at a Grade 10 party in Jonathan Benson’s apartment at Bay and Bloor. Theslow dancing room was his dad’s study. Willa had twisted her arm to go to that party, had dared her to down two shots of Goldschläger and spend five minutes, minimum, in the study. Emboldened by cinnamon booze and the thought of its gold flakes floating about her insides, magically making her special, she’d ventured forth.
Jonathan had turned out the lights, so that the only way to see who was in there, hugging the bookshelf-lined walls or dancing, was by the light of Bloor Street below. This new boy was from out of town—Jonathan’s cousin. Sabine leaned against a bookshelf and waited for the five minutes to pass. Alcohol coursed through her system. As her eyes adjusted, she could see couples swaying, hands on hips and shoulders, to the loud, slow music. The boy approached. She could barely see his face, but he was fit, she could tell that in this light, and smelled good, like a dryer sheet.
He drew her to the dance floor and put his hands on her backside, not committing to her hips or rear, somewhere between. She put her forearms on his shoulders. As the music enveloped them, he pulled her closer. He had no idea she was a nerd. Here, she was Goldschläger cool, and he was private school hot. His lips found hers. They kissed. And then he put his tongue in her mouth and his tongue was slimy, his braces were spiky, and she got grossed out and bailed. First kiss achieved but a damp squib. Why was high school so death defyingly ungood?
“How’d you celebrate the end of school? Last night, right?” she asked.
“We drank,” said Aubin. “A lot. Not so memorable.”
“No kiss?”
“No. There is a girl who wants to be together, but I’m not interested.”
Huh. She wondered who he might be interested in, then.
“Surely you don’t have difficulty in this kissing department,” said Aubin. “Surely you could get your kiss from anywhere, and not just at this prom.”
She loved that he thought this, even if he was so very wrong. Here was a cute guy in a far-off place assuming she was popular. Ha. So what if … No. Don’t do it. Insane idea.
“We could get the graduation kiss over with now, couldn’t we?” he suggested. “That way, we could both say we’d finished high school properly.” He had read her mind.
“That could work,” she said. “After this week, we’ll never see each other again. My mum’s going to submit this house appeal and then we’ll probably look around France a bit, then leave on Sunday. And you now seem less irritating than before.”
“Well then,” he said, laughing.
“Well then,” she said back, heart beating a mile a minute.
He leaned in an inch. She did, too. He leaned more. So did she. And under the massive rock face that made her happily insignificant, she kissed blue-eyed Aubin.
He let her lead, and she did, to her surprise. She kissed him straight on. Sideways. Biting his lip a bit. Hovering so close she knew he could feel her breath, then pulling away at the last moment. At one point, he put his hand gently on the side of her neck, making all her extremities tingle. She moved toward him again, and they kissed until they had to come up for air. Delicious.
Marlow could not remember where she was. Oh. Right. She felt relaxed and floppy. She hadn’t had a nap in the afternoon in years. And she hadn’t dreamt about the festival, or Oscar, or her parents, or her credit card bill. Bliss. A breeze came through the room. The curtains flapped. She could see it might rain. She should close the windows.
She walked over, grabbed the handles, and looked out at the open window of the next house directly facing her. There was Luc, fresh out of the shower with a towel around his waist displaying an extraordinary six-pack, looking a lot more handsomeand clean than he had yesterday. Marlow gasped. Luc looked over. She impulsively ducked.
Which he saw. Crouching under the sill, she had no idea what to do. If she stood up, she’d have to explain her insane dive for cover. If she didn’t, he’d know she was in shock and trapped. Seriously. Luc was her neighbor?
Marlow stood up slowly to find him in the same spot, smiling, towel at risk of falling. His hair was wet and dripping down his clavicle past his ripped torso to his—
