“You’re avoiding my questions!”
“What’s up with Max?”
“We have another date this week,” said Willa. “They’re taking me for a picnic. FYI, I totally plan a second kiss and a million more. You and I were the losers of our year, and we’re in serious course-correction mode. Reconsider your no-kiss summer. That is a terrible idea.”
“I have to go.”
“There are no details in your story!” Willa yelled, but Sabine signed off and lugged her suitcase down the stairs.
Did Aubin like her? Did she like him? She had kissed him precisely because it was meant to be nothing. A course-correction, just as Willa said. A do-over for what she’d missed by skipping out on prom. But now she was feeling all these complicated feelings. And it wasn’t fair to be half-in, half-out, now that she was staying. That decided it. She wanted to be friends. That was it.
Lali showed up at Maison Perdue with a broom, pail, mop, toolbox, and lunch things, ready to work. Once they met the contractor, who was coming any moment, they’d make a plan, go to Neufchâteau for supplies, and get started. In the meantime, Marlow gazed around the house at everything that needed to be done and exhaled long and loud.
“We will do this together,” said Lali reassuringly. “First, we can get you new mattresses, since you will be staying the summer. That would be good, no? And then we will do all these other things, one by one. Fedir will come after work. He is good at wiring.”
Marlow felt sheepish. “You don’t both have to help.”
“Oh yes, we do. You cannot imagine how long it’s been since I had time to gossip with another woman. It is selfish. I hope you have good gossip.”
“I really don’t,” said Marlow. “We’ve only been here a few days. So … do you miss being a doctor?”
“Yes. I was the first in my family to graduate from high school. My grandmother put me through university. You know this saying, you only live once? Her saying was you only die once. Because you live every day, you repeat this living over and over, but once you are dead, you are gone. So live life to your highest possibility, whatever that might be.”
“Good way to think about it,” said Marlow. “But I don’t think I’m living life to its highest possibility. In fact I know I’m not.”
“We don’t all have to be doctors. And while I say that I was inspired being a doctor, I have abandoned it. My grandmother would not be pleased.”
“You saved your family from a pretty dangerous situation. That was brave.”
“True. And maybe someday I will be the doctor of Mirabelle. But the cost of the French medical exams … I cannot see it.”
“I can. Have some faith.”
“I do. I will. I don’t know you very well, not yet, but you need this same faith. I am sure you are as brave as I am. You bought a house in another country. You have been thrown some problems since then, and you are fixing them. That is bravery. Do not, how do you say? Offer to the market a small Marlow.”
“Do you mean undersell myself?” asked Marlow. Lali nodded.
There was a knock. “Ah,” said Lali. “The help arrives, the work begins!”
Marlow opened up to find Luc in a pink Hawaiian shirt, shorts, and flip-flops.
“Bonjour,”he said, stepping inside.
“We’re a bit busy at the moment,” she said, feeling peeved that he’d just invite himself in like that. “We’re waiting for a contractor.”
“And here he is,” said Luc.
“You are the local contractor?” Marlow looked at Lali, gobsmacked.
“Is there a problem?” Lali asked.
“Not … at all,” said Marlow hesitantly.
“Excellent. Luc is good at many things. Especially plastering—is it because of your art degree, do you think, Luc?”
“Being good at plastering is more about fixing houses in Mirabelle than my art degree.”
“You should see his paintings,” said Lali. “They are beautiful.”
