He was talking, I realized after a few seconds, about the difference between French northerners and southerners.
“Here in Burgundy, I like to think we have more in common with our German neighbours,” he explained to his children and me. “We are more orderly and law-abiding, and not as dirty as our southern brothers.”
That wasn’t really what I had seen so far—Burgundy had its fair share of anarchy—but I could just sense that Monsieur Lacanche would not take kindly to being interrupted or having his words questioned.
Madame Lacanche got up and disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.
“We Burgundians are much closer genetically to the Germans than to the Italians or the Spanish,” he added. Monsieur Lacanche, it dawned on me, didn’t so much chat as give speeches as though the table was a lectern.
Madame Lacanche arrived with a delicious first course of braised chicory wrapped in ham slices and covered with a cheesy béchamel and served me some. She wore her white blond hair in a demure bob. I wasn’t sure about Burgundians as a whole being genetically closer to Germans, but the Lacanche family certainly looked like they were.
After serving everyone, Madame Lacanche served herself and sat down.
“So, Laura,” Monsieur Lacanche said, “tell me about your friends. Have you become close with any of the children of the Ursus members?”
“No,” I said. “None of them seem to go to my school. My best friend is probably la Sandrine. She was my first friend here, then she introduced me to la Stéph—”
The Lacanche’s son Anton burst out laughing.
“What?” I asked, smiling.
“Don’t say ‘la’ in front of their names!” he said.
“Why?” Why indeed? It was the way that my group of friends at le Square always referred to each other. It was a way of expressing affection, like saying that there was only one Sandrine—the Sandrine—and she was unique.
Anton made a derisive sound. “It’s how country people talk. You know, people who aren’t educated or cultured.”
I bristled at that. Sandrine and Stéphanie were both educated and cultured, as well as unstintingly kind to foreigners like me. I was sure Monsieur Lacanche would jump in to defend me against his son’s rudeness, but he just smiled at him, approving.
“He is quite right, you know,” Monsieur Lacanche told me. “It will not do for you to speak like that. It would give us Ursus members a bad name.”
I nodded and bent my head to eat my lunch. I mutinously vowed to never stop talking like my friends from Villers-la-Faye.
The week after I moved in with the Lacanches, they took me skiing in the Alps for a week during the school vacation at the end of February. Sandrine and I discovered that she was also going to be at Saint Gervais, the same ski station, where her parents owned an apartment. Better yet, she was bringing Stéphanie for the week.
We met up the first morning at the base of the gondola. Stéphanie, for the first time in her life, did not look confident.
“I haven’t skied much before,” she admitted. “This is only my second time.”
Sandrine, on the other hand, came to the Alps several times every winter, and swooshed down the slopes with an elegance she didn’t normally possess.
As for me, I skied in my usual kamikaze fashion without style or grace, but with a lot of speed and spectacular wipe-outs which had Stéphanie and Sandrine in stitches.
We made frequent stops for mulled wine in the mountain-top chalets and took lots of photos.
At one of the chalets, Stéphanie bought a wad of postcards to send home.
“That’s one of the rules in our family,” she said. “If you go somewhere nice, everyone expects a postcard. Will you guys help me write these? I can never think of what to say.”
She picked out a picturesque mountain scene for her parents, one with a dog skiing for her little brother, one with a photo of the wooden chalet we were sitting in for her grandmother, who she called her Mémé, and a replica of a 1950s advertising poster for her brother Franck. Sandrine and I told her to write the sun was shining, her friends skied so well they could be in the Olympics, and she adopted a Saint Bernard that we had found near the ski lift. Stéphanie made us sign each of these epistles, and I signed all four “Bisous, Laura (la Canadienne).”
“They know Sandrine,” I said as I signed the last one for Franck, “but they’re going to think it’s awfully strange that I’ve signed them—none of them has ever met me.”
“We’ll fix that when les vacances are over,” Stéphanie said, then began to lick her stamps.
True to her word, two weeks after the ski trip in the middle of March, Stéphanie and Sandrine informed me one day over our jambon beurres at the Café du Square, that I was coming to a discotèque with them the next Saturday night. Thibaut never asked to do things with me on the weekend, so my schedule was wide open. Still, my initial reaction was suspicion.
“Why?” I said.
Stéphanie shrugged. “To dance, bien sûr. Olivier from our village is coming as well our friends Martial and Isabelle and Franck.”
“Franck?” Ah hah. There it was.
Stéphanie’s eyes slid away from mine. “He’ll be home from the airforce base for the weekend. We can hardly leave him at home. He hates having to waste a year doing the military service as it is.”
Sandrine swallowed her bite of sandwich. “Plus, he’s been hounding Stéphanie to meet you even more since he saw the photos of us in Saint Gervais.”
I could feel Stéphanie kick Sandrine under the table.
“I told you. I don’t want you to set me up on a blind date with your brother,” I said to Stéph.” I’m sure he’s perfectly nice but I’m going out with Thibaut.”
Sandrine choked on her baguette. When she cleared her airway she glared at me. “You are going out with Thibaut, are you? Is that what you call it?”
I crossed my arms over my chest and glared back. “I don’t know. It’s…something.”
Sandrine rolled her eyes.
“Besides,” I said, “I have my tap dancing performance that evening.”
“Wait,” Stéph grabbed my arm. “What? Tap dancing?”
I exchanged a glance with Sandrine. Up to then, she was the only one who’d known.
“I’ve always wanted to tap dance, and I saw that there was a mini course being put on in Nuits-Saint-Georges the past two weekends.” I could feel my face heat up with embarrassment. “I’ve been learning how to tap dance, and this Saturday night is our performance. We’re doing it on the stage at the movie theatre.”
“Did you tap dance growing up?” Stéph asked.
“I always wanted to, but my mom never let me. She said it was too noisy and vulgar. I had to do ballet instead, which I hated.”
I braced myself for mockery but Stéph just shrugged. “That sounds like fun…if you like tap dancing.”
“As it turns out, I love it,” I confessed. “It’s really fun actually.”
“What time is your performance?”
“Six o’clock.”
“How long is it?”
“About forty minutes. You can’t learn that much in two weekends, you know.”
“We’ll pick you up just under Le Beffroi at eight.”
“But—”
“Look,” Stéphanie said. “It’s just a group of friends going to hang out and dance for a bit. Franck will be there, but we’re not trying to set you guys up.”
Sandrine snorted.
“Shut up, Sandrine!” Stéph said, and then dissolved into laughter.
I realized after school that Friday that I couldn’t possibly make the blind date. I wouldn’t have time to get back to the Lacanche’s to drop off my tap shoes. Also, I was coming down with a cold. My nose was pouring, and the last thing I felt like being was polite to some guy all evening just so as not to offend my friends.
I called Sandrine. “Salut, Sandrine,” I said. “I can’t come tonight. I won’t have time to drop off my stu
ff after the performance. Besides, I think I’m coming down with something.”
“We’ll pick you up at eight underneath the Beffroi,” she said in a tone that brooked no argument. “I won’t talk to you anymore if you don’t come. Trust me, I’m good at sulking.” Her family was right; she was as stubborn as a donkey.
“Sandrine!”
“Be there!” she said. “Bisous.” She hung up the phone.
As the day wore on and I prepared myself for my performance, I actually did feel a thrill at tying on my tap shoes. I loved tap dancing, as it turned out, just as I always thought I would. My mom had been wrong.
I shoved some extra clothes into my backpack, so I could get changed out of the shiny, red silk shirt I had to don for the performance before meeting up with Sandrine and Stéph’s gang. I purposely didn’t take much care in choosing nice clothes, as I had no intention of playing along with this whole blind date thing. I was with Thibaut…well, not exactly with him, but something beyond mere friendship was still percolating there. Besides, I just didn’t know if I had it in me to risk being disappointed yet again.
The tap performance was surprisingly nerve-wracking. The entire theatre was full of friends and family, and all the Lacanches had come to see me perform, even Anton who, at fourteen years old, looked distinctly exasperated with the family outing.
I took a deep breath, concentrated on my steps, and did my best not to think of the blind date afterwards. Clickety-clack, clickety-clack…tap dancing was loud, but so noisily satisfying. Also, I could tell from their congratulations after the performance, the Lacanches approved of what they felt was a most wholesome activity for an Ursus exchange student. They didn’t consider it vulgar at all. They also knew I was going out with my friends from school and, perhaps because I had only mentioned the girls, gave me permission to stay over at Sandrine’s house.
I checked my watch after I had bid them good-bye. It was already five minutes to eight. I quickly changed in the bathroom in the theatre, not even checking my face before running outside. I had no room in my backpack for my tap shoes, so I carried them slung over my shoulder by their red silk ribbons.
Just then, I sneezed. Maybe I could just say a quick bonjour and then make my escape. As I hurried towards the Beffroi, I fantasized about spending the evening in my cozy room beside the belltower, with a warm duvet and a hot lemon drink.
Just as I neared the belltower, a snazzy black French sportscar screeched to a stop beside me.
Stéphanie leapt out of the car with her habitual verve, cigarette in hand. When she swung her shiny black hair out of her face and kissed me, I couldn’t mistake the mischievous expression on her face.
Her brother followed closely on her heels. It had to be Franck. His cheeky smile struck me first, like he knew that I would have preferred to stay at home, but that he was having none of such spiritless behavior. He hadn’t uttered a word, yet his eyes dared me to join them.
I gave him the traditional bises on each cheek. There was something electric when my skin touched his, something that made me hold my breath. He was clean-shaven, and his olive skin smelled vaguely of apples and wood chips. I hadn’t expected Stéphanie’s brother to be so handsome. Devilishly handsome. The cliché popped into my head out of nowhere, but I had to admit that, with his lean muscles, chiseled cheekbones, and those flashing, almond-shaped eyes, it was accurate. My pride bolstered me even as my heart sank. Men like Franck were invariably bad news, as well as not interested in the likes of me.
I stepped back—mainly because I couldn’t think straight in his vicinity—and cocked an appraising eyebrow. “I’ve heard a lot about you,” I said.
Franck’s brows flew up for a split, but gratifying, second. He laughed. “Bon. I guess I have a lot to live up to.”
“I guess you do.”
Franck took my hand and pulled me down into the backseat of the car beside him. Somehow I forgot all about backing out of the evening.
We were going to Buisson first, to pick up other friends Martial and Isabelle. They were a couple and were already living together, Stéph told me. Nobody seemed at all shocked by this. I was pressed up against Franck’s side in the car, and my heart, as a result, seemed determined to pound out of my chest. There was chemistry here, but I told myself that it was probably one-sided and only felt by little old moi.
“I almost didn’t come tonight,” I said to Franck. He turned to me, and I had the strangest feeling that at that moment we were the only people in the car. “I’m coming down with a cold, and I was tired from my tap-dancing. Sandrine didn’t give me a choice.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” he said, and then picked up my tap shoes from my lap. “These are pretty with the ribbons and everything…” His hands ran over the lengths of red silk, and I repressed a shiver, wondering how those same hands would feel running over my skin.
“They’re noisy too,” I said. “They clickety-clack. It’s awesome.”
“You like making noise?” Franck kept the tap shoes in his hands.
“I’m starting to realize that I do sometimes, yes.” I then broke this intense moment by sneezing three times.
“A cold. Poor you.” Franck reached down and squeezed my forearm. “Do you know what I would do for you?”
“What?” I couldn’t tear my eyes away from his face.
“I would have you take off most of your clothes and then wrap you up very tightly in a warm feather duvet. Then I would make you one of my special hot toddies and make sure you drink it all. You would get so warm in there that you would sweat it out, and I would wipe your forehead with a cool cloth. Then I would stay with you until your fever broke—which it would—and then maybe lie down and stay beside you until you fell asleep.”
Franck’s plan sounded appealing in such a myriad of ways. “Oh,” I said simply, my imagination spinning too wildly to allow me to say anything more coherent.
“I almost cancelled too,” Franck admitted, smiling at me.
“Really?” Had he not wanted to be set up with me, either?
“My father and I spent the day moving huge pieces of stone from the floor of the barn to make an outside eating area under the wisteria.” He rubbed his lower back. “I’m a little sore.”
“What changed your mind?” I asked.
“You,” he said. “I’ve been wanting to meet you for months, ever since Stéph started talking about you.”
I stared at him. And now? What did he think now? If only I was a mind reader.
Olivier pulled up in front of a small stone house in a picturesque little village just down from Aloxe-Corton. Everyone leapt out except Franck and me.
“Laura’s got a cold and I have a sore back. We’ll wait here for you.” Franck waved his friends on. “Is that okay?” he asked me, once we were alone in the backseat.
I nodded, not trusting my voice. I wanted to kiss him. I had no idea why, but all I could think of was getting closer.
“I am sort of going out with someone at school,” I blurted out, then cursed myself. I was such an ass. Franck hadn’t even said he was interested in me…
“Is it serious?” he asked.
“Not really. No.”
“Then I don’t see that as an insurmountable problem.”
“An insurmountable problem for what?” I asked, confused.
“For this.” Franck leaned towards me and, trailing his thumb along the line of my jaw, set a gentle kiss on my lips. This was so much gentler than Florian or Thibaut, yet a million times more electric. It left me wanting so much more. I moved closer and kissed him back. Franck’s way of kissing me made me feel like I had never been kissed before. The air between and around us was charged with desire, pushing us closer together and then closer still.
“I think I’m glad I came, after all,” I murmured at one point.
“Moi aussi.”
The kisses became deeper and longer and more intriguing, until we were interrupted by a pounding on the car window. Olivier and Sandrine
and Stéphanie were all peering in with huge grins on their faces, and a tall blond man and a much shorter blond girl—who had to be Martial and Isabelle—stood behind them, trying to get in a good look as well.
Stéph got in the car first, bubbling with laughter. “That didn’t take long.”
I felt my face burning. Had that really been me, making out with a guy I had met literally minutes before? Still, snuggled under Franck’s arm, I couldn’t regret anything.
“No, it didn’t,” Franck answered, able to maintain a certain dignity. “Some things, I guess, are just meant to be.”
CHAPTER 24
Sandrine and I were woken up by her mother and the sound of a few insistent roosters in her garden.
“Come now, sleepyheads!” Madame Bissette burst into the bedroom with her usual energy. “It’s almost ten o’clock. I’ve been up since dawn.”
Sandrine buried her head deeper in her duvet. I opened my eyes and it all came back to me in a rush—Franck and I making out shamelessly on the dance floor, and then on those couch things along the sides of the room… My heart skipped several beats. When Olivier had dropped us off the night before, he and Sandrine had arranged for us all to meet at Franck and Stéphanie’s house at ten thirty to go for a café in Savigny. I hadn’t been paying much attention, as I had been tangled in Franck’s arms at the time.
I wasn’t sure how he would act when he saw me. Would Franck be like Thibaut and pretend like nothing happened? The mere idea of that felt like a lead weight in my gut. I wasn’t sure I could bear that after the lightning bolt of the night before—the one I had been waiting to feel all my life. I knew, instinctively, that with Franck, the hurt would go deeper than mere wounded pride.
Madame Bissette came in again and yelled “Sandrine!” in shrill tones, then ordered us to hurry down to eat our breakfast.
Sandrine groaned, and turned over so she faced me. “Alors? You and Franck last night…?”
It was definitely a question. I considered lying but decided to be brave instead. “He’s amazing.”
My Grape Year: (The Grape Series #1) Page 20
