“I have no coffee,” said Luc.
“You see?” said Guillaume. “You have no coffee. You are ill-equipped for the job!”
“Bâtard,”muttered Luc.
“Uh-oh,” said Lali.
“Guillaume,” Marlow said, knowing she had to separate the men. “Can you go to the boulangerie for coffee?”
“Absolument pas,”yelled Guillaume. “I will stay where I am wanted!”
“She does not need you here!” Luc yelled back. “You should leave!”
The men grabbed each other’s shirts, shoving each other up against one wall, then the other, yelling obscenities. Lali and Marlow tried to get them to stop, to no avail. They stumbled, all arms and legs, into the living room. The women watched them go.
“Everything is falling apart,” said Marlow.
“You don’t know that,” said Lali.
But then Ruth stepped back inside, oblivious to what was going on just one room beyond. “Marlow, I can’t buy the house. It’s not that I can’t afford the taxes, it’s more like this is a sign. I hope I’m not disappointing you too much. Where’s Guillaume?”
“He’s just—working something out with Luc,” said Lali, stepping into the living room doorway so Ruth wouldn’t see the men entangled in the next room.
“He said he’d meet you at the parking lot,” said Marlow.
“All right. Sorry this didn’t work out.À la prochaine!”
Ruth left. There was the sound of more scuffling and French swearing from the other room.
“Like I said,” said Marlow. “All falling apart.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The next day, Sabine and Aubin took the first train from Paris to Neufchâteau. He listened to music, and she watched the world pass by, numb. They had extra bags of stuff: clothes from their second-hand shopping excursions, books, food for the trip. She didn’t want to leave a single thing at her father’s.
She poked Aubin with her foot. He shifted one headphone to tune in. “We never went to the Pont des Arts while we were in Paris. I wanted to see where rude tourists attach their locks.”
“We didn’t need to. We had a much better time than that, despite how it ended.”
She moved from her seat opposite to next to him and tucked herself under his arm.
“Do you want to talk about any of it?”
“Well,” she said, liking how she fit into his chest, “let’s see. Here’s one random thing … My dad wanted to come to my grad celebration in Toronto, and my mother refused. That pisses me off, even though he completely flaked out on us in Paris.”
“Life is complicated,” he said, pulling her in closer.
“And now I have to dream up something to say to her when we get back.”
Marlow and Lali brought quiche from the boulangerie up to the Mirabelle fort so Yakiv could slay invisible foes with a cardboard shield and sword.
“What a disaster,” said Marlow.
“Life is bright,” Lali said. “You just can’t feel it right now.”
“On what planet are things bright?”
“You have been invited to interview for a job at Cannes. We got out of Ukraine alive. Yakiv is a brave knight. Fedir has a job.”
