by Kate Le Vann
‘Well, I might bump into you again,’ I said, suddenly sort of wanting to because he apparently didn’t really care one way or the other. Like I said, I was always more interested in boys who weren’t interested in me.
‘Yes, I’m sure, it’s a small town,’ Bruno said, smiling. ‘Perhaps we’ll see your thief again, too, and we can arrest him together,’ but it was obviously just a joke. As I watched him leave, I thought about all the things I could have said that might have made him stay longer or want to see me again, and realised that right now I really wanted a friend.
Chapter 6
People always say that time goes quickly when you’re on holiday. I think those people are crazy. When you’re spending the summer at home, whole weeks are eaten up in what feel like minutes. You throw days away just lying in bed till midday, getting up only to eat Sugar Puffs and read magazines with pictures of super-thin celebrities. Away from home, the days stretch to hold hundreds of different things, all new, and weeks go on and on without an end in sight. I didn’t see Rachel again till the following Friday because the Lacasse family had taken her down south with them for a mini-break at their holiday cottage in Provence. She’d spent the time playing tennis, swimming in their private pool, and – by the looks of her – sunbathing. She and Victoire met me at a café in Vernon, and Rachel was much browner than the last time I’d seen her, her skin was gorgeously freckled, her dark blond hair wavy and pretty, and she seemed to be brimming over with energy. Victoire looked just as gorgeous as the first time I saw her, leaning against the car in Vernon station, so the pair of them were intimidatingly good-looking. I’d spent those days being dragged by Monsieur and Madame Faye around the local historical hot-spots: abbeys, cathedrals, and exciting woods. So much time seemed to have passed. I felt shy.
It could have been because I’d been looking forward to relaxing with my best friend today, but with the supercool Victoire there I was still holding back and trying to be on my best behaviour, to make her think I was cool too. Rachel was telling me about the Lacasse family’s cottage in Aix, and Victoire interrupted to correct her a few times, but in that fun way, the way you want to be interrupted because it makes your story last longer, the way friends interrupt you. The way I used to interrupt Rachel.
‘Anyway, how have you been getting on with Chantal?’ Rachel asked, and she and Victoire glanced at each other. The look spoke volumes – it told me they’d talked about her and made fun of her – you know how you can tell these things. I’d complained to Rachel about Chantal being hard work plenty of times, but now I was surprised to find myself genuinely upset by this, as if they were insulting a close friend of mine and assuming I’d go along with it. Rachel definitely didn’t mean it horribly – I think she thought I was still up for complaining about her, and that we’d have fun doing it. But the honest truth was, I did like Chantal now. She was as bored as I was by the educational trips her parents made us go on, but she’d stopped blaming me for them. She comically rolled her eyes when they announced their plans in the morning. Chantal and I were probably never going to be really good friends – we were too different and didn’t, when it came down to it, speak the same language, in more ways than the obvious one – but I could tell that she was nice, in a gothy good-girl way.
‘It’s been fine,’ I said, feeling a bit nervous around Victoire, so not giving much away, definitely not the evenings in with Chantal’s parents playing Scrabble in French, or the progress she and her friends were making embroidering leotards for their village festival play. I didn’t want them to laugh at her. ‘And Lucas is sweet . . .’ Remembering what Rachel had told me about all of Victoire’s friends fancying him, I hoped this might quickly put a stop to them both pitying me.
‘He’s been in Paris, though, non?’ Victoire said. ‘I was speaking to Jean-Phillipe, his flat-mate, earlier today. Oh,’ she turned to Rachel, ‘Océane says we should drive there soon to go clubbing one night. Do you think that sounds like fun?’
‘To Paris?’ Rachel said. She looked at me and I saw her eyes widen with panic. Rachel had never been into clubbing, she felt self-conscious dancing. But there was more to it than that – I think she was wondering if I would be included in the invitation. Victoire didn’t address the question to me, but it would have been quite weird for her to be inviting my best friend and not me. Meanwhile, she had started composing a text to a friend. I felt hot and awkward so I just barged forward and changed the subject, telling Rachel about the near-robbery and about the boy who’d helped me out, and of course it turned out – well, blimey, who would have guessed? – that Victoire knew Bruno quite well too. Then her phone beeped, and she opened it up again.
‘It’s from Lucas,’ she said. ‘He says he’s home this weekend, and that he’ll come into Vernon now to meet us. Do we want to wait for him?’ Rachel and I looked at each other, shrugging and stuttering our way through to ‘yes’. I hadn’t known Lucas was coming back today. Victoire texted a swift reply with her elegant French-polished fingers, and got back another text from him, which made her laugh out loud, but which she didn’t share with us. I didn’t think it was good that she was friends with Lucas while being snide about his little sister.
As we waited for Lucas to turn up, Victoire teased Rachel about a boy called Fabrice. I tried to follow, but it all felt like I’d tuned into my favourite TV show, and realised I’d somehow missed an episode and the plot had moved on and it was hard to catch up.
‘Who’s Fabrice?’ I asked.
‘We’ve only met a few times,’ Rachel said. ‘He came with us to the beach at Deauville that day.’
‘But he likes you,’ Victoire said. ‘He told Marthe he thought you were pretty.’
Rachel blushed. ‘I’m sure he didn’t say that . . .’
‘Enough, I’m texting him too,’ Victoire said, grinning, and flipped open her phone again. While she was texting, Rachel grabbed at her hands and they both cracked up. I felt like an intruder, and also fairly jealous. It was like she’d taken my place. In what felt like another world, Rachel would have been blushing when I told her Ginger Brian fancied her, or trying to stop me writing a funny romantic email to GB on her computer (or, not long after that, a not-so-funny breakup email). I fixed my friend with a look that I tried to aim somewhere between finding it just as amusing as they did, and jokily telling her off for not keeping me up to date. I hoped my hurt didn’t show.
‘I’m sure he didn’t say that,’ Rachel said again to me, more quietly.
‘So, um, what’s he like, then, Fabrice? Anything like Ginger Brian?’ This was supposed to be a joke but once it was out of my mouth I was worried it sounded snide.
‘Nooo,’ Rachel said, and fortunately didn’t seem bothered. ‘He’s nice; I like him. I wanted to talk to you about him, but you’ve been so busy. And I’ve been so busy! It’s like our French people are keeping us apart. I didn’t want to send you a text about it, I wanted to talk properly. I miss you, I can’t believe we’re spending so little time together. This was supposed to be our amazing summer and we’re already into the second week and I’ve barely seen you.’ I was so relieved she’d said this so I didn’t have to.
‘It’s the Fayes and their educational outings,’ I said. ‘You’re allowed to do what you want, my family are taking it all too seriously and think they have to teach me things as part of the arrangement.’
‘Plus you’re so far out – you know, everyone’s hanging out in town every night and you’re stuck in that little village. Océane has a car, but it’s always full of her friends. I don’t feel like I can ask her to drive up and get you, but I really want to.’
‘No, of course you can’t. Honestly, don’t worry about it.’ I sighed. ‘I just got unlucky. The Fayes have said I can go out in the evening, but Monsieur Faye has no intention of acting as my personal taxi driver and there’s no other way of getting here!’
‘What about Lucas?’ Rachel said. ‘When he’s home, get him to bring you out on his moped.’
<
br /> ‘Excuse me? Rachel “Safety first!” Chase is telling me to get on a boy’s moped!’ I said. ‘What’s come over you?’
‘It is safe,’ Rachel said. ‘You just grab on to the boy’s waist as tight as you can and concentrate on not falling off. He’s got a spare helmet.’
This was too much all at once.
‘Seriously, what? When have you been on a boy’s bike?’ I said. ‘Whose bike?’
Rachel had plucked a sachet of sugar out of the bowl on the table and started playing with it. ‘Lucas’s. I told you that already,’ she said, concentrating on getting every grain of sugar down to one end, and then folding the paper up tightly around it.
‘NO YOU DIDN’T!’
‘Didn’t I?’ She took her concentration off the sugar packet for a moment to glance up at me.
I made an ‘oh, come on!’ face at her.
‘Oh, well, if I didn’t, it was because you were talking about there being a bit of a spark between you and I didn’t want you to think I was trying to muscle in on your . . . bloke, which I wasn’t, because as you can see I have a completely different crush.’
‘What were you doing on his bike?’ I asked. Victoire had stopped texting and I was aware of her listening to us, and hoped I hadn’t started to look angry and crazy.
‘The night we met, he just asked if I wanted to ride round the edge of town with him, and along the river,’ Rachel said. ‘I thought it would be fun. Obviously I didn’t know then that you were into him.’
‘I’m not into him,’ I said weakly. ‘Well, not . . . I mean . . . I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.’
‘It was really nothing,’ Rachel said. ‘I thought it would . . . upset you and it has, so I was right not to talk about it.’
‘I just don’t like not knowing,’ I said. I sounded sulky, and couldn’t get it out of my voice. ‘Anyway, it is dangerous.’
Rachel smiled and turned to Victoire.
‘I’ve always been sensible: you know, played safe, ‘ she said. ‘Sam is just a bit shocked at how different I am here.’
‘It’s quite safe,’ Victoire said to me, smiling kindly as if I was a little old lady. I was getting quite sick of hearing this ‘Lucas should bring you when he comes into Vernon. You’ll have more fun with us. We’ll tell him when he gets here.’
It was now about seven p.m., and I had to phone the Fayes to say I wouldn’t make it back for dinner, because that was one of their big rules. I couldn’t assume I’d be eating with Rachel and Victoire, though – it was possible that it’d get to nine p.m., say, and Victoire would suddenly say, OK, we’re off chez moi for le dîner, now, au revoir, Samantha, leaving me stranded in Vernon, hungry and alone. Victoire had an infuriating spontaneity. The thing is, I knew I’d have been exactly the same, back in England, just assuming everything was easy. But, anyway, Lucas was going to be here soon – so if I stuck with him I should be fine. His parents couldn’t tell me off if I’d been with their son, and he could set them straight on where I’d been and assure them I was fine. Still, I had to give them notice, in case they were right now preparing enough tough brown meat for all of us. The music in the café was quite loud, so I went outside to call.
It was still daylight, but it was the time of day I liked best, where the sun felt heavy and seemed to collect in my hair and wrap me in a hug. I called, and Madame Faye answered. She told me she’d already started making dinner and then left a silence, which I duly filled with an apology in my usual patchy French. She asked me how I was getting home. I said I’d come home with Lucas.
‘Lucas is with you now?’ Madame Faye asked. ‘He told me he’d be home for dinner. Let me speak to him, please.’
‘Well, actually, he’s not here yet,’ I said. ‘But he, er, told my friend, I mean, my friend’s friend, he texted to say he was on his way.’ Madame Faye didn’t seem very happy with this at all.
‘Of course you can stay out with your friends,’ she said. ‘But I need to know you have a way of getting home safely.’
I was getting stressed because I didn’t know for sure that Lucas was coming, or, really, how else I might get back. I thought about how my mum would kill me if she knew that I was even considering taking risks about the way I got home in the dark, and the thought of her loving me and worrying about me, even though her over-carefulness had always driven me mad, made me want to cry. But it wasn’t like my best friend was going to let me just start walking off along the corn field alone, and Madame Faye wasn’t my mum, so I politely assured her that I would definitely be careful and there were lots of people ready to drop me off. She was silent for a while, then said, coldly, ‘Please be home before midnight, or you will wake us.’
I hung up and theatrically rolled my eyes and said, ‘Blooooody hell,’ out loud, the way you sometimes do things in quite an over the top way when you’re in public, alone, and think you might be being watched.
Then I realised I was being watched.
While I’d been concentrating on the phone call, Lucas Faye had somehow managed to park his bike outside the café, more or less exactly where I was talking, and he stood next to me now, those incredible, merciless eyes of his looking very amused.
‘And how is my mother?’ he said.
Chapter 7
‘She’s expecting you back for dinner,’ I told Lucas.
He leaned against the moped, smiling mischievously. ‘Well then, we’d better go back, hadn’t we?’ he said.
‘Oh, of course,’ I said, nodding, realising that I hadn’t escaped another heavy dinner with the Fayes after all, and my plans to finally have a fun night out with my friend were going to be shelved again.
‘I’m just joking with you,’ Lucas said. ‘Come on.’ He opened the door to the café to let me go through ahead of him.
‘Oh, but –’ I said. ‘Shouldn’t you call her?’
‘I’m not fifteen,’ he said.
When we got back to Rachel and Chantal, they’d been joined by another boy, who Victoire introduced as Fabrice. Oh, this was Fabrice! Long black hair, skinny, big-nosed, a bit arrogant maybe, but all put together in a French way, these things were undeniably quite gorgeous. He glanced up at me without much interest, and carried on talking. He was sitting next to Rachel on the long wooden banquette, and their upper arms were pressed close together. He was smoking. Rachel didn’t like smoking. Lucas pulled out a chair for me and called the waitress over, ordering a glass of red wine. It crossed my mind that he might get drunk and then I’d have to go home with him on his bike and he’d crash or take a corner badly and I’d fall off and be killed. I asked for a Coke, thinking that if I was sober it would be safer. But would I really get on a motorbike with someone if they were drunk? This was terrifying. Why was I here? OK, it was just one glass of wine, that was totally legal, totally fine, the French are used to drinking wine, calm down, Sam.
But I was really worried. It didn’t feel anything like fine.
Then I saw that Rachel had a glass in front of her too.
‘Is that wine?’ I asked her.
‘Yeah,’ Rachel said, looking guilty, then, as if slightly exasperated with me, ‘Just a little glass. Have some.’ Seriously, when had I become the goody-goody and Rachel the racy one? I remembered a party earlier in the year when a completely sober Rachel had sat with me, talking me through a panic attack, as I flopped on the stairs with the room spinning because I’d stupidly drunk home-made punch without knowing what was in it. Of course, the next day, I had promised myself never to be so dumb again.
‘Maybe in a bit,’ I said, still thinking about how I’d get home. I’d been wishing so hard to be a part of this gang since I arrived in France, arrogantly telling myself over and over that it wasn’t fair that Rachel had a place at the cool table, while I, previously the cool one, was forced to relocate to nerdville. Now I was here and couldn’t find a way of belonging. I sipped my Coke and watched my best friend flirting in French. All the questions I could think of asking were lame and boring. I di
dn’t have anything interesting to say. Half of me wished I could just give up tonight and somehow be back home with my mum watching a cheesy old movie. The other half was trying to think of ways to be more like the me back home, who had no trouble talking to people.
Some more of Victoire’s friends turned up, ones I’d heard Rachel talking about: Océane and Marthe, plus more boys, until the table was stuffed with people and I didn’t have to worry about not saying anything, because I knew no one was looking. At this point the conversations split, and Lucas started talking to me in English in a lower voice, asking me if I was OK, how I was getting along with his parents, and so on. We weren’t really particularly clicking. I found myself pretending to smile more often than I naturally felt smiley, in case Rachel was watching me – so that the thing I’d told her, about there ‘definitely’ being some flirting going on between me and him, seemed true. But Rachel’s attention was taken up with Fabrice, who was pressed even more closely against her since all the extra people had turned up. When we all ordered some snacks, Fabrice casually ate chips from Rachel’s plate, and sometimes she glanced at me with a kind of shocked, excited look on her face. I tried to throw her back supportive looks, to let her know it was OK. Really, I needed to talk to her properly, to have a little girly time-out before things went further, but we’d be able to do that soon enough. I sent her a secret text from the loo, saying, ‘Wow, you vamp! He’s so into you!’ and came back to see her read it and give me a huge grin.
Later, everyone lingered outside in the street, chatting before they went home. Fabrice’s arm was loosely wrapped around Rachel’s waist, his fingers casually drumming on her belt, and she leaned against him. My sensible friend was definitely going to get snogged tonight! I was really happy for her. But also still worried about how I was going to talk to Lucas about him giving me a lift home. This was crazy, he was going right there; Rachel had been on his bike just last week; it was going to be no big deal; I was just going to hop on like it was pre-planned, and we’d be back at his mum’s house in ten minutes. So, OK . . .