My Grape Year: (The Grape Series #1)

by Laura Bradbury

  His words felt like a physical blow. I knew from how he acted with his own family that Monsieur Lacanche was not used to having his authority subverted or questioned, but it was still a shock to see this turned on me.

  “Most of them don’t even know,” I said, at last. “Even if they did, I’m not sure that they would agree. I was exactly what you wanted me to be for the majority of this year. I am grateful, but, I’m eighteen now. I have grown up.”

  “Eighteen! True love! Pah!” Monsieur Lacanche scoffed. “You are a huge disappointment, Laura. What if word of this gets out? I highly doubt other parents will allow their children to be part of an exchange program that would let such a thing happen under their noses. The rules are there for a reason, Laura, and you have flagrantly ignored them.”

  Monsieur Girard studied a spot on the carpet, but Monsieur Beaupre finally moved closer to me, as if to protect me from Monsieur Lacanche, and indicated him to stop.

  Monsieur Beaupre turned to me. “Can’t you just go back to being our Laura? That’s all we want…just for you to go back to the Laura that you were at the beginning of the year when you stayed with us.”

  I looked into his warm brown eyes. There was as much kindness and generosity there as there ever was. I thought of our bike ride through the vineyards and sneaking grapes from the Romanée-Conti enclosure, then our winetasting with the purple-stained Henri. He wasn’t furious with me like Monsieur Lacanche. He was confused by my behavior, and distressed at my obstinacy. I longed to give him what he wanted—to make him and Madame Beaupre happy. Part of me yearned to go back to being “their” Laura. But…after searching for it for the past two hours, there it was, as clear as daylight—that line I could no longer cross. Making them happy would mean sacrificing my precious time with Franck.

  “I can’t,” I said.

  “Why?” He squeezed my shoulder and peered into my eyes, as if searching for my answer there.

  “That Laura doesn’t exist anymore,” I said softly. “She’s gone. I’m sorry.”

  His hand dropped away. “Then I suppose there is no more to say.”

  The weight of disappointing him settled like lead in my stomach.

  Monsieur Lacanche opened his mouth. From his bristling energy it was clear he, for one, had much more to say, but Monsieur Beaupre gestured at him that it was over.

  “Then I suppose this is bon voyage,” Monsieur Beaupre said to me.

  I nodded dumbly.

  “Au revoir, Laura.” He kissed me quickly on each cheek, his lips compressed tight. Monsieur Lacanche stalked out of the room, not deigning to give me les bises or make any kind of peace with me. Monsieur Girard shuffled over, gave me a kiss and an apologetic shrug.

  “Bon retour au Canada, Laura,” he said. “I’m sorry it had to end this way. Write us to let us know you got home safely.”

  He shut the door behind him, and I waited until I could no longer hear their voices. I crumpled on one of the many vacant chairs and traced a long thin wine stain on the white tablecloth with my finger. When I lifted up my hand, it was shaking.

  I don’t know exactly how long I sat there. Five minutes, perhaps? Fifteen? This newness of disappointing people was terrifying. Part of me wanted to run after the men and repair the damage, but if I did that, I would have to give up my last two weeks with Franck. I had experienced many once-in-a-lifetime things during my year and I knew without a doubt that these last moments with Franck counted among them.

  Franck. I was starving for him, for the home of his arms.

  I rushed out into the now-deserted hotel lobby and asked to use the phone. The woman behind the desk gave me a sour look. Still, she did end up surrendering it in the end. I dialed Franck’s number with shaking fingers.

  “llo?” he picked up before the first ring had finished. “Laura?”

  “C’est moi,” I said, my voice already shaking. “Can you come now?”

  “Of course. How did it go?”

  I burst into tears. The woman behind the desk stared at me.

  “Hang up,” Franck said. “Go outside. I’m leaving now and I’ll drive fast.”

  All I could do was nod, which was not particularly useful in a phone conversation. I placed the phone back down on the base, mumbled an incoherent “merci” and ran outside. It was already past ten o’clock and dusk was slowly settling on the vineyards that encircled the hotel parking lot.

  I walked as far as the stone pillars that marked the entrance to the hotel drive and crumpled to the side of one, my back against the stone wall. The stones were still radiating heat from the summer day. Their warmth melted something inside of me. Fat tears ran down my cheeks in waves. My chest heaved. I cried for the girl that I used to be and that I would never be again. I cried for the simplicity of my life before, where in pleasing others I had somehow, at least most of the time, pleased myself too.

  Soon, Franck’s car screeched to a stop in front of me. How he’d spotted me, I didn’t know, for the sky had already turned indigo, and I was curled over against the stone wall. He leapt out of the car, leaving the engine still running.

  He grasped me under the arms and lifted me up. “What did they do to you?” he demanded.

  I shook my head and tried to curb my tears. “No. It wasn’t like that…they were angry and it was awful. I had to hurt them…there was nothing I could do.”

  Franck gently helped me into the passenger seat of the car. He got in and turned to me. “If you have to go back to them, I understand. I don’t want you to be sad.”

  “I don’t want to go back to them. I won’t.” I collapsed against his chest. Words were still hard to get out.

  “Thank God,” he breathed in my hair. “But…I’m sorry you had to make that choice.” He smelled of his familiar scent of warm apples. Franck lifted my chin so that he could better search my eyes. “Regrets?”

  “Moi, je ne regrette rien,” I quoted Edith Piaf.

  I could feel Franck smile. “Still, it doesn’t make it easy.”

  A post-sob shudder ran through me. “No.”

  “Maybe life isn’t meant to be easy.”

  “Is that what you learn after spending months in your room gorging on philosophy?” My voice was still watery with the tears I had shed.

  “Pretty much.”

  I laughed softly, and a bit sadly, as Franck kissed me in the twilight, the string chorus of crickets playing all around us.

  CHAPTER 38

  After dinner on my second to last light in Villers-la-Faye, just before finishing off one of Mémé’s bowls of chocolate mousse for dessert, Franck asked if I wanted to go for a walk in the vineyards.

  The evening was sultry and heavy, that Burgundian oven-baked heat that didn’t exist on the West Coast of Canada. The weight of the air reflected my mood. Since the Ursus meeting, everything seemed infused with more apprehension. My life had become so complex—my time in France rapidly running out, the moments with Franck, uncertainty about the future, my longing for things to happen a certain way…

  “I think there’s going to be thunder,” Michèle warned.

  “We won’t go far,” Franck said, already reaching for my hand.

  When Michèle left to take some dishes into the kitchen, I nudged Franck, “Your mom doesn’t need to worry. Thunderstorms are no big deal. At home we get out the deck chairs to watch them.”

  Franck arched a brow. “Not the thunderstorms around here. They can be violent and extremely dangerous.”

  “I want to come! I want to come! Moi aussi!” shouted Emmanuel-Marie.

  “But petit frère, I want to go on a walk with my amoureuse,” Franck ruffled his hair.

  “Laura is my amoureuse too!” Emmanuel-Marie said. “And I want to walk with her!”

  Franck was no match for Emmanuel-Marie’s insistence or charm. “All right. You can come with us. But can you run back fast with us if it starts to rain?”

  Emmanuel-Marie nodded. “Oui. I run very fast.”

  “Get your shoe
s on then.”

  Michèle helped Emmanuel-Marie lace up his sandals, and we all walked out of the courtyard, Franck and I each holding one of his small hands. The vineyards were just down a short lane, past Félix’s house and beside a ramshackle little cottage that Franck told me had been used by generations of winemakers. It had a massive, gnarled grape vine growing up the corner of the house and across the side wall.

  “There used to be chickens running around inside that place,” Franck said. “The people who lived there when I was growing up were real country people of the old sort. Rustic, to say the least.”

  I paused for a moment and gave the cottage a closer look, wondering if Franck meant the cottage or its inhabitants. Probably both. It was unkempt but boasted undeniable charm. “It could be adorable.”

  “We’ll need a pied à terre in Burgundy and a cabin in the woods in Canada,” Franck said. We both talked like this, planning our future together as if it were a reality, rather than still a dream.

  “I hate to disappoint you, but I didn’t grow up in a cabin in the woods. Most Canadians don’t, you know.”

  “An igloo?” Franck knelt down to re-tie Emmanuel-Marie’s shoe lace that had come loose.

  “That’s it. I grew up in an igloo. Anyway, you’ll see for yourself soon. You’d better pack your toque and your mukluks.”

  Franck stood up again, and we continued walking on either side of his little brother. “I think I may need to buy a team of huskies too,” he said. “You know, for my dogsled.”

  “Of course. That’s just sensible, dogsleds being our only mode of transportation in Canada.”

  Franck used his free hand to blow me a kiss over his brother’s blond head.

  We were on the vineyard paths now, the ochre dust billowing behind our footsteps. I couldn’t remember the last time it had rained. The air felt like it was pressing down on us. A trickle of sweat ran down my spine.

  “Do you think you can figure out a way?” I said. It was Franck who needed to find a way to come and join me in Canada. I would do everything I could from my end, but I knew the effort required would be unequally distributed between us. I had briefly toyed with the idea of coming to university in France, but I knew my French, while fluent, was hardly good enough to be accepted at university. Besides, I needed a French baccalauréat as well as a high school diploma to qualify.

  “I’m tenacious when motivated,” Franck said. “I’ve never been this motivated before in my life.”

  Emmanuel-Marie let go of our hands and began to run along the path ahead of us.

  It would take a lot of luck and a massive amount of effort, not to mention patience and fidelity, but I had never wanted anything more in my life. Part of me felt scared to want it so very much. I still felt guilty about the Beaupres and believed somehow that if I let the Universe know how badly I wanted Franck and me to be together, our plans would be thwarted as karmic punishment. Still, although there were no guarantees it would work, or that it could work, at least we agreed that we would try—that in itself was something of a miracle. I knew it was unusual for people to meet their soul mate at eighteen and stay together, but something about Franck and me felt…unique, and right.

  “Moi aussi,” I said. Franck gathered me against him and we kissed until Emmanuel-Marie hollered at us to hurry up.

  Franck put his arm around me and drew me closer, and we started walking again. Time seemed suspended—the soft music of crickets, the strange orangey-red light, the bright green of the vineyards, and the heavy air and dusty path all locking it into place.

  “Our children,” Franck said. “They’ll be half French and half Canadian. Can you imagine what an amazing childhood that would be? To move back and forth between countries?

  We had wandered farther than we’d intended, weaving fantasies of our future together. A crack of lightning over the neighboring village of Chaux snapped me out of my reverie.

  I looked behind us. Villers-la-Faye was encapsulated in a golden haze, nestled in the valley between the Mont Saint Victor and Les Chaumes, like some sort of medieval village plucked out of an ancient fairy tale. It was just like it was when I first saw it on our way up to la Maison des Hautes Côtes, except now it was cloaked in the most unearthly light. A rumble of thunder reverberated in my backbone. Villers also looked far away from this vantage point.

  “Merde. We went too far.” Franck was looking up at the sky. “That storm is coming fast.”

  Franck ran forward and grabbed Emmanuel-Marie’s hand—the one he wasn’t using to hold on tightly to the bouquet of cornflowers and poppies he’d been collecting from the edges of the vineyards. “Come on, Manu. We need to head home.”

  “Mais non!” his brother protested. “I haven’t finished my bouquet for Laura yet.

  The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. Lightning flashed behind us. There was only a few seconds respite, then a low, baritone rumble made the ground shake beneath our feet.

  Emmanuel-Marie looked up at Franck with eyes so wide I could see a full circle of white.

  “We’ll get home quickly, don’t worry,” Franck said to him. He scooped up his little brother and threw him up on his shoulders. “Hang on.”

  A fat raindrop plopped on my head, and then another, then another. Within seconds the rain was coming down so hard that the path beneath our feet had turned into a river of mud.

  We ran. My sandals slurped and stuck to the mud underfoot. We slipped and slid as the curtain of rain brought our visibility down to almost nothing.

  The lightning was behind us, but not far enough behind, given the sizzle of the flashes and the thunder that filled every particle of air around us.

  We were almost to the end of the vineyard path when a blinding white flash struck an apple tree just in front of us. Franck yanked me against him and Emmanuel-Marie. A scorched, black branch crashed down across the path in front of us.

  I was sure my heart was going to leap out of my chest. I had never seen, let alone been in the middle of a storm like this. If this was a coup de foudre, I had never realized that—sublime and amazing though it was—it was also perilous.

  “Come on!” Franck yelled through the rain, and, clinging together, we leapt across the branch and ducked into the lane that led past the old winemaker’s cottage. A few seconds later, Franck pushed open the gate to his house and almost fell into the courtyard. Franck’s father was standing on the other side of the gate with his car keys in his hand, his face white.

  “Thank God!” he said. I was just about to come and find you. We were terrified.”

  André drew us all inside, and Franck set Emmanuel-Marie down in a puddle on the kitchen floor. “Ça va, Manu?” he asked, leaning down to feel Emmanuel-Marie’s wet head and face and making sure that there were no injuries.

  “I was scared,” Emmanuel-Marie exclaimed. I noticed now that Franck’s hands were shaking.

  “It was my fault.” Franck straightened up again.

  Just then a flash of lightning struck the courtyard just outside the kitchen window. We all jumped back. The entire house shook. I fought the urge to drop to the ground, roll under a table, and brace my neck, as I had learned in earthquake drills in elementary school.

  “Thank heavens you made it back in time,” Michèle said. She had already gotten three large, fluffy towels from the linen cabinet and was wrapping them around us. My eyes met with Franck’s. No need to mention the tree right away. We were all jittery from adrenaline—better to wait a bit. She stripped Emmanuel-Marie’s clothes off.

  “You two should do the same,” she said, “or you’re going to catch your death.”

  “We can’t have a shower,” Franck explained to me. “The electricity can run through the water and electrocute us.”

  “OK,” I said. My teeth were beginning to chatter.

  “Come on.” Franck took my dripping arm and led me up through the kitchen door to the staircase.

  We got up to his bedroom, and Franck drew the curtain over the
small door.

  I stood under the skylight where the rain was pounding down in biblical proportions. My soaking clothes created a puddle on the pine floorboards.

  Franck pushed my towel away and began to unbutton my soaked cotton shirt. It stuck to my skin.

  “So that’s a coup de foudre?” I asked.

  Franck’s fingers paused. “Yes. It can be scary, can’t it?”

  “Terrifying.” I took an edge of Franck’s towel and dried the drips trickling down his neck from his hair. “Amazing too.”

  “Yes.” Franck divested me of my shirt.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I need to check if you are injured,” Franck said. “It would be negligent not too.”

  I shivered.

  “Are you cold?” Franck asked.

  “No,” I pulled off his soaked T-shirt. “That wasn’t from the cold.”

  The sky above us flashed white with lightning, and the whole room glowed, then shook.

  “We’re leaving tomorrow for Paris,” Franck said. “Then you for Canada, then me, trying to figure out every possible way to get to you. In the meantime, though, we have this afternoon.”

  “We do.” How was it that when I had been longing to find my soul mate, I’d never considered how hard it would be to find him, fall in love, and then have to leave?

  Another coup de foudre crashed over us, and we fell onto Franck’s bed.

  CHAPTER 39

  André drove us to the train station. His little car was packed to the gunnels with my suitcases and bags. I had given away everything I could—clothing, books, hair brushes—to Stéphanie, Sandrine, and Michèle; and in their place, I’d filled my bags with gifts for family and friends and memorabilia of my year in France, especially things that reminded me of the past few months with Franck—a little ochre stone from the vineyards of Villers-la-Faye, the gargoyle that matched the one I had bought him in Dijon, a wrapper from a chocolate that I had eaten that first day we had gone for a café in Savigny. They were all talismans to help me hang on to the miracle of the past year.