My Grape Year: (The Grape Series #1)

by Laura Bradbury

  “No. I have too much anarchist in me for that. I’ve always preferred pirates.”

  “OK then, mon pirate.”

  Franck parked the car on the street where we had taken it from, and he informed me that we would have to climb up the stone pillar into the courtyard.

  “I have never been gifted at moving my body vertically,” I warned him, studying the pillar doubtfully.

  Franck took my hand. “I won’t let you fall.”

  He showed me some handholds in the stone and, with him pushing me up from behind, I somehow managed to scramble up and over the top. I waited for him there. The view was pretty fascinating in the moonlight.

  “It’s nice up here,” I said when Franck joined me.

  “I spent a lot of my childhood perched up here,” Franck said. When my grandparents lived in this house and I came to visit them, my grandmother would serve me my breakfast up here.

  “What was your breakfast?”

  “An entire baguette cut in half, with butter and her homemade jam.”

  I liked imagining little Franck up here, munching on his morning bread. I thought of myself when I was little, lying in the sand at Willows Beach, looking up at the clouds in the sky.

  Franck jumped down to the pebble gravel in the courtyard below.

  “How do you do that?” I hissed. “It’s too high.”

  “I’ll catch you!” he assured me.

  “Right.” I snorted.

  I began to climb down but lost my grip about half way and did end up toppling into Franck’s arms.

  “You see?” he whispered, squeezing me tight. “I told you.” He put a finger to his lips. “We have to try to be as quiet as we can. We don’t want to wake up my little brother.”

  I remembered that both Stéph and Franck had talked about their little brother, Emmanuel-Marie, who was sixteen years younger than Stéphanie and a full twenty years younger than Franck. Franck pushed open the front door that led directly into the kitchen. It creaked a bit, but softly.

  “My bedroom is at the very top of the house,” he said, taking my hand. “There are a lot of stairs.”

  “Oh,” I said, my breath coming up short, but not because of the thought of stairs.

  “Hold my hand,” Franck said. “I’ll lead you.”

  We crept up the wooden stairs, which didn’t feel at all straight—I wasn’t sure if that was an effect of the dark or my nerves, or if the stairs were truly crooked.

  At the top of the third flight of stairs, I heard the sound of somebody snoring softly.

  “Stéph,” Franck whispered. “This is her bedroom. We have to walk through it to get to mine. That’s the way it is in these old houses. This space used to be the attic.”

  We skirted the far side of her bedroom, and then I felt Franck’s hand pushing down my head. “My doorway is low,” he explained. “I don’t want you to give yourself a concussion.”

  “That would put a damper on things,” I whispered.

  “It would, but I’d take care of you.”

  Franck led me underneath a wooden beam that was, indeed, only set about four feet above the floor. There was no door, only a thick curtain which felt like it was made out of the same heavy canvas as a ship’s sail.

  Franck drew me back up to full height again, and I was surprised to see that his tiny little attic room was bathed by the light of the moon. It shone through a skylight set into the sloping ceiling.

  It was a simple space, furnished with a double bed, several bookshelves bursting with books, and a small wine barrel that had been turned on its end and fashioned into a bedside table.

  “It’s luxurious compared to my bed in the military barracks in Dijon.”

  “I love it,” I said. “A perfect pirate hideaway.”

  Franck wrapped his arms around me and began to kiss me gently. Where is this going to lead?

  Franck must have sensed something, as he pulled back after a while and peered deeply into my eyes. “You don’t need to worry. I’m not going to rush you. I was actually planning on sleeping a bit tonight.”

  “Really?”

  “You could easily change my mind, however.”

  The next morning, I woke to breaths warming the back of my neck. It took several seconds to remember where I was. A toasty body was wrapped around me.

  “Bonjour,” Franck murmured.

  Before long, Stéphanie’s voice came through the curtain. “What do you want from the boulangerie? Papa is going now.”

  Franck looked at me and arched a brow. “Croissant? Pain au chocolate? Baguette?” he asked.

  “Croissant,” I said. “Just to mix things up a bit.”

  “Deux croissants,” Franck called back. “Merci Stéph.”

  “Ah! Salut, Laura. I figured you’d be here,” Stéph said. “Ça va?”

  “Très bien,” I answered, pulling a funny face at Franck. He smiled. “I guess we’d better get up,” I said.

  “I guess.” He gave me a final kiss. “I could get used to waking up with you, though.”

  “Moi aussi.”

  I descended the stairs behind Franck, with no small amount of trepidation. His parents were surely down there. What would they think of me spending the night? This was something absolutely forbidden in my household. I had no idea which way the winds blew in Franck’s house. Franck was certainly old enough to be conducting his own relationships, but I was still only Stéph’s age, and it was their home.

  Franck opened the door at the bottom of the stairs that led into the kitchen. Around the table sat a youngish woman wearing overalls. Her hennaed hair was in a pixie cut. Beside her was a man with the lightest blue eyes I had ever seen. Stéph was talking to a chubby-cheeked, blond toddler in a high chair, who was occupied with gnawing on the end of a baguette.

  “Maman, Papa, Manu.” Franck went around and kissed all the members of his family. “Je vous presente, Laura.”

  “Bonjour,” I said. I wasn’t sure about the protocol but I followed Franck’s example and kissed everyone too.

  I sat down in the chair beside Stéphanie, steeling myself for the inquisition to begin.

  “Franck, you’ve been teaching Emmanuel-Marie swear words again.” Franck’s mother raised her eyebrows at him. Franck’s dad, André, poured me a bowl of coffee and Stéphanie passed me a croissant. Nobody seemed at all surprised by my presence. Was this because of the lack of French prudishness, or because Franck brought strange girls to the breakfast table often?

  “Never,” Franck protested, but he did have a telltale glint in his eye.

  “Ah bon? Listen to this.” Franck’s mother sat up and adjusted one of her overall straps. “Emmanuel-Marie,” she addressed the two year old in the highchair. “How does your bread taste?”

  “Comme de la merde!” he yelled, triumphant. He cast us all an exultant look, especially to Franck.

  “What do you have to say for yourself now?” Franck’s mother demanded, but she was also fighting a smile.

  “I’m sorry,” Franck said. He reached out and ruffled his brother’s blond hair. “Don’t say those bad words I taught you, Emmanuel-Marie.”

  Emmanuel-Marie paused in his gnawing of the baguette again. “Ta gueule!” he exclaimed. I gasped. That was one of the rudest French expressions I had learned so far.

  Then, we all burst out laughing. I choked on my café au lait, and Stéphanie had to whack me on the back.

  “Rascal,” Franck’s mother said to him, without heat. “What will happen when your little brother goes to school and talks like that? Besides, I’m sure he shocked Laura.”

  I shook my head. “No. The words that Franck taught Emmanuel-Marie were the first ones I’d learned at Saint-Coeur.”

  “Maybe you can teach Emmanuel-Marie to swear in English too!” Franck declared, passing me the jar of what looked like homemade jam. “Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”

  “It would not,” his mother said.

  “But maman, it’s a foreign language!” Franck protested
. “It would be educational.”

  “Eat your croissant,” she ordered. She meant Franck, but I tore open my croissant too and slathered it with the pale yellow butter that was studded with salt crystals. On top of that, I spooned on the dark red jam—berry of some kind. I took a bite. Flaky, salty, sweet, and buttery, all mixed together to create a truly perfect start to what was turning out to be one of the best weekends of my life.

  “This jam is delicious,” I said.

  I could tell I had said the right thing, as a proud smile lit up her face. “André and I make it ourselves. From the blackcurrants we pick at a neighbour’s house.”

  “I love it.”

  Michèle, Franck’s mother, pushed the jam jar even closer to me.

  “Franck told me that his grandmother used to run the bakery across the street,” I said. I had been brought up to make conversation like a polite guest, and I wasn’t about to slack off.

  Michèle nodded. “She did do that for about ten years. It was very hard work, but the villagers always say that no bread has ever even come close to hers.”

  “She must be an amazing cook.”

  “She is,” Franck assured me, dipping his baguette into his coffee and gesturing at me to do the same. “The best.”

  Stéph rolled her eyes. “Of course he would say that. Franck is her favorite.”

  “That’s not true,” Franck said.

  Both Stéph and her mother snorted. André concentrated on eating his tartine.

  Franck’s father was a fascinating anomaly in the midst of the rest of his family, who were olive-skinned and dark eyed. André, in contrast, looked like he had jumped off a boat sailing directly from Norway. His eyes were the palest, translucent blue and his skin was pale. His hair had obviously never been anything but the whitest blond. It was as if he had been kidnapped by a band of Mediterranean gypsies and decided to stay.

  When I finished my croissant, Franck asked if he could butter me a slice of baguette as well. I nodded. Apparently romance made me hungry. When he passed it over, I added another few spoonfuls of the delicious jam. He leaned across the table and kissed me. I was flustered. There was not a lot of public kissing in my house, especially not with boyfriends. When I looked up, however, I saw that his family didn’t seem to consider it unusual at all. In fact, they didn’t even appear to notice.

  “What time is your train?” André asked Franck.

  “Eleven forty-five,” he said. “I don’t know why we have to go back and waste the entire Sunday afternoon at the base. It’s not like they ask us to do anything. He squeezed my knee under the table. “I’d much rather be spending my whole Sunday with Laura.”

  “When I was your age the military service was eighteen months long, not twelve,” André reminded Franck. “You’ve got it easy.”

  “And I don’t have to do it at all,” Stéph chortled with satisfaction. “It’s a lucky thing being a girl.”

  “I’ll remind you of that when you’re nine months pregnant,” Michèle said.

  Stéph waved a hand. “Pffffffffff, that’s nothing.”

  Michèle raised a skeptical eyebrow.

  Two hours later, Franck was dropping me off in Nuits-Saint-Georges, just around the corner from the Lacanche’s street, so we could say good-bye without being interrupted. He parked the car and reached for me. “I’m going to miss you this week,” In fact, I’m going to miss you the minute I drive away from you.”

  “It went too fast,” I said, between kisses.

  A wave of fear washed over me. It was all going fast…and so well. It was wonderful, but I worried I might be missing something crucial. Already, I couldn’t imagine breaking up with Franck, so how would it be four month’s from then? Experiencing something so wonderful made me so much more vulnerable than I had been before. With Thibaut, I never invested much of my heart. I couldn’t say the same for Franck already.

  “Wait a second.” Franck’s hand was still behind my neck. “Do you have school on Wednesday afternoon?”

  “No. I get out at lunch and then catch the bus to Nuits-Saint-Georges.”

  “There’s a bus just across the street from Saint-Coeur that goes to Dijon. I’m going to try and arrange to get leave on Wednesday afternoon. If I can, do you think maybe we can meet and spend the afternoon together in Dijon?”

  “That would be nice,” I said, imagining us whiling away the afternoon in Dijon’s numerous wonderful cafes. It would be more than nice, but my nerves made me play it cooler than I felt.

  “I’ll call you Monday or Tuesday night, as soon as I hear anything, d’accord?”

  “Oui,” I said. “If that works for you. Whatever.”

  Franck pulled back. “What’s wrong? Why are you acting all of a sudden like you don’t care?”

  I considered making up a flippant lie, but when I looked into his face, which had already somehow become imprinted on my soul, I couldn’t muster up the duplicity.

  “I’ve been with so many people who don’t care.” I fiddled with the clasp on my backpack. “I’m scared to…or, I can’t help but care; but I’m frightened to show you that I do.”

  Franck studied me for a long while.

  “That probably makes no sense,” I said, looking up again. “Does it?”

  “I told you when we met that you don’t need to be scared of me,” he said. “I meant that. I want to be with you, Laura. For me, it’s that simple.”

  “No games?” I clarified.

  He looked at me mystified. “I’m not even sure what you mean by playing games. Why would I play games with another person’s heart, or my own?”

  CHAPTER 29

  That Wednesday, I tapped my pen on my textbook in English class as I waited for the final bell to ring before we’d all be let out at noon. Thibaut, who shared my desk, eyed me.

  “Impatient?” he asked. He had acted hurt for a few days after learning about Franck, but we were starting to strike up a tentative friendship again.

  “I’m heading to Dijon this afternoon,” I said.

  “To meet Franck?” he guessed.

  I smiled. “Yeah.”

  “How is that going?” he asked, trying to sound nonchalant but not completely succeeding.

  “Fantastique.” I couldn’t seem to wipe the smile off my face as I thought of Franck’s “ocean” and the pain au chocolats.

  Thibaut studied me. “I was a terrible boyfriend, wasn’t I?”

  I chewed my pen. “Oui,” I said finally. “But I think that one day when you meet a girl you really fall in love with, you’ll do better. You and me…we are better off being just friends.”

  Thibaut nodded, thoughtfully. “You broke my heart,” he said. I knew this wasn’t true but rather his well-ingrained habit of flirting.

  “Maybe your pride,” I said, “but not your heart.”

  Just then the bell rang, and I gave Thibaut a farewell wink and headed outside.

  My progress was stopped in its tracks by the still-closed wooden doors. Where was le Dragon? Although she couldn’t stop me from leaving the school now that I had permission, her favorite thing to do was ignore me until every single other student went through and only then deign to check my card and let me pass. As if she still needed to check my card. It hadn’t changed since I bested her in September—exactly like her grudge against me.

  The crowd of students at the door grew and still no Dragon. Did she somehow know I had a romantic rendezvous in Dijon that very afternoon and I was about to miss my bus? It was impossible, but a little part of me still wondered.

  Five minutes later, she trudged up the walkway with her enormous circle of keys clanging in her fist, scowling at all of us. She offered no excuses, apologies, or explanations for her tardiness.

  I was near the front of the crowd, but as usual she ignored my card and me as she ushered all the other students past me, one by one. I checked my watch. The bus to Dijon—the only bus to Dijon for the next three hours—was leaving in five minutes.

  More than
anything I wanted to just push past le Dragon and walk out, but I knew this would just provide her with a pretext to rescind my right to leave campus. If I waited patiently and didn’t let on that I was in a hurry, I would probably miss the bus, but if I showed that I was desperate to leave, she would probably detain me even longer to exact her revenge. I wouldn’t even have put it past her to figure out some unscrupulous way of curtailing any future afternoons in Dijon.

  I thought of Franck and how badly I wanted to see his smile and feel his arms around me and… I couldn’t miss this bus.

  I schooled my face into an impassive expression and continued to wait, feigning boredom. I hated le Dragon. I hated rules. I hated tyrants who lived for enforcing stupid rules.

  Finally, I was the last student left. I held out my card, which she took slowly and then proceeded to examine with exaggerated interest.

  I clamped my lips shut. I so wanted to tell her off, not to mention my bus to Dijon was probably leaving that very second—without me.

  At long last she gave a grudging nod and I sprinted off towards the bus lineup that formed in front of the tabac.

  I needed to see Franck. Every minute I got to have with him now was to be treasured—the idea of missing out on an entire afternoon left me robbed.

  The bus was still there! I gave a whoop of relief and leapt on. I heard laboured breathing beside me and turned to see the driver climbing up the stairs.

  “I thought I wasn’t going to make it!” I said to him.

  “You wouldn’t have,” he said, flashing me two boxes of Gitanes. “Except that there was a lineup for me to buy these.”

  I collapsed in my seat—a grin from ear to ear. Le Dragon almost won that battle. The mere fact she hadn’t succeeded would make these next few hours even sweeter.

  As promised, Franck was waiting for me at the bus stop on the main street in Dijon, rue de la Liberté. It was located right in front of the beautiful old storefront that housed the Maille Mustard boutique, all polished wood and shiny black with gold lettering and row upon row of glass jars of mustard.