Where was Sophie?
Where was Alex?
Where were Sophie and Alex?
I pulled myself slowly upright and surveyed the clues left around me. There were two empty bottles of wine on the table and six glasses, three with tiny triangles of red in their bases. I was briefly amused by the fact that we had had enough presence of mind to switch out the glasses. There was a much-worked-over cheese plate and a gold box that had held chocolates. I made note of these details with the care of someone accessing a crime scene. I took in the three pairs of shoes that were together by the door, the towels hung carelessly on the balcony, the faint spots of damp on the back of the couch where our heads had been. I dissected every detail to protect myself from what was plainly obvious: the two of them were missing.
I pulled my knees to my chest in a reflexive attempt to comfort myself and quickly devised a scenario in which I was the first to fall asleep and I’d appeared so exhausted that no one had had the heart to disturb me. After all, a pillow was tucked under my head and a blanket was over my legs. Clearly, someone had attended to me. They had then gone up the stairs, laughing and stumbling a little along the way, and then when they’d reached the landing, that crucial territory between Alex’s room and ours, they’d parted ways. For credibility’s sake I granted them a drunken, meaningless kiss on the landing right before Sophie turned to go to our room. She would feel bad if she remembered it today, but then recall how much we’d had to drink and decide it wasn’t even worth telling me about, that it had meant nothing, had barely happened.
Yes, I decided, my thoughts weaving through a minefield of their own making, that was all plausible. I listened closely for echoes of life in the large house. Nothing yet. I could imagine Sophie coming down at any moment and the two of us groaning and commiserating about our terrible hangovers. Her explaining to me that they couldn’t move me an inch after I’d passed out on the couch and hoping that I hadn’t felt abandoned.
I lay back down and several minutes passed, during which I envisioned going down to the beach, where we would let the alcohol sizzle out of us just in time to begin the whole process again. Perhaps there was somewhere close by where we could go for omelets.
Yet, with all these visions of the day to come—a day that had dawned brilliant and sunny without a hint of the clouds that had rolled in and out the day before—why this fear of approaching the stairs? This was the last moment that I wouldn’t know one way or the other; I wouldn’t be able to get that innocence back. But there was nothing to know, I reminded myself, and with that I pulled myself up a little too quickly, laughing out loud as I nearly lost my balance.
I made my way up the stairs and hesitated for the briefest moment when I came to the landing. Alex’s door was the tiniest bit ajar. Nothing, I told myself. It meant nothing. If anything, a completely closed door would have been more forbidding. I walked slowly toward Sophie’s and my room, pushing the door open quietly. My heart nearly burst when I saw Sophie, sleeping soundly. I admonished myself. How could I ever think she would sleep with Alex now that she knew about my feelings for him?
I could only see much later that her being there told me nothing about what had gone on the night before.
Tiptoeing over to the bed, I pulled back the covers. Sophie grunted a little in her sleep. I climbed in next to her.
“Sophie?” I whispered. “Are you awake?”
“Mmmmugggh.”
She reached back and pulled my arm around her.
“Oh, God,” she murmured, “I’m so hungover.”
“Me too.”
“I don’t even know how I made it up to bed last night.”
“I didn’t. I slept on the couch.”
For a few minutes we were quiet and I drifted back to sleep. A little while later, a knock came at the door. I looked up to see Alex standing there.
I shook myself awake and propped myself up to look at him. “Good morning,” I whispered.
“My goodness, what have I missed here? This is so unfair that the two of you are together in this little bed and I am all alone in mine. Whatever have I done to deserve such treatment, les filles?”
Sophie looked over at him. “Whatever you did, you’re forgiven. I can’t remember anything that happened after skinny-dipping.”
“Good thing you’re both so young; at my age the hangovers last all day. Yours will be gone by lunchtime.”
“You say that like you’re so much older than us,” I said, sitting up and reaching for Alex as though to pull myself up out of bed.
“But it is worse at my age, you’ll see.” He grabbed my hand with a smug smile. I pulled him down on top of us so that we were pig-piled on the bed, limbs sticking out in every direction. Sophie gave a loud groan and Alex and I laughed.
“See, this is how it should be,” he said, “all in one bed tous ensemble!”
We showered and drank some French-press coffee that was strong enough to sufficiently revive us for the journey into town in search of breakfast. We ate at a restaurant that served café au lait in large bowls and pain au chocolat so light and heavenly that I could have eaten half a dozen. Soon my hangover was breaking away, releasing its hold. I was gripped with a sudden wave of love for Alex and Sophie and found myself wishing the others were not on their way to join us, that we could stay for a time just the three of us: a week, a month, until the end of the summer. At least the rest of this weekend, this bittersweet interlude. The energy had changed between the three of us and I wanted to savor this new thing that we now had: this feeling of having no limitations, of being naked together, which though we were now fully clothed seemed to remain present in some deeper way. I suddenly couldn’t imagine ever needing anyone else besides these two people or anywhere else but this beautiful place.
As we let our breakfast settle, we smoked cigarettes—I had a full-blown habit at this point, as did Sophie—and Alex told us about the friends who would be joining us later. Henri and Isabelle were friends from Paris who lived in Saint-Tropez during the spring and summer. Isabelle was a dancer.
“Henri is a rich boy,” Alex said with a barely disguised touch of disdain that made me wonder what exactly one called Alex if not that. “He is a classic dilettante. Every time I see him he has a new life ambition. He has been at different times a writer, painter, and photographer, so we will all have a lot in common.”
I smiled. Not like us was the insinuation. Not devoted and passionate. Not the real thing.
“Who else?” Alex said, leaning forward and flicking a light dusting of cigarette ash into a delicate blown-glass ashtray. “There’s Sebastian, who works for his papa in wines, he is down from Bordeaux. Maybe with a woman. He is sweet, you will like him. I do not know who ma chère cousine is bringing with her. It’s always possible she has fallen in love with someone new since I spoke to her two days ago. Alors, on verra!”
As we drove the sleek little car back along the narrow ocean road, I thought again how we were in a place where trouble couldn’t touch us, and that the rest of my life, Nantes, my family, America, would simply wait patiently for me, to be dealt with later. I couldn’t see all that was beginning.
When we got home, we went upstairs to the bedroom and changed into our bathing suits. I noticed Sophie pulling out one I’d never before seen.
“Ugh, I should have brought an extra, mine is still damp from last night,” I said. “Is that one new?”
She nodded and smiled, stopping to admire the white bathing suit with its gold hardware. I had wanted to buy a new suit for this trip as well; mine was a little faded and not chic enough by half for the Riviera, but much as the desire was there, the money was not. Each time I looked at my bank balance I felt a little spasm of guilt, and an image of the many hours I’d spent behind the coffee bar floated through my mind. I felt a tiny flicker of jealousy and pushed it away. It wasn’t material things that mattered at this moment in my life, not really. It didn’t matter if Sophie looked more the part than I did.
&nbs
p; Alex was waiting for us by the kitchen. I noticed that he was a little sunburned across his chest and biceps, and this got to me for some reason, this sign of humanity, of vulnerability.
“Sophie, quel joli maillot de bain!” That he complimented her bathing suit shouldn’t have mattered; he was the kind of man who noticed these things, who could get away with noticing these things. But I ached, and the nylon of my still-wet bathing suit suddenly even felt ugly. “You two go on ahead, I will be down a little later. I need to nap for a bit.”
Sophie and I made our way down the path. I was happy to be alone with her for a moment. Despite my relief that I hadn’t found her with Alex that morning, I had also not been with him myself. Out of nowhere I remembered the expression on his face when he’d taken the picture of Sophie in the water, like a child who’d caught a beautiful insect by its wings. I wanted her here, of course. But did he understand that she was off-limits? Did she?
Alex came down an hour later, and one by one the guests arrived and joined us on the beach. Henri was pale and kept his face shaded under an expensive-looking fedora. He had a shy smile that made him seem vulnerable for a grown man, which surely anyone so wealthy and so lost must be. Everything about Isabelle, from her perfect dancer’s legs to her pert little nose, gave you the impression that she had always been beautiful and mean and felt guilty about neither of these things. When we were introduced, she regarded me as though I were an exotic dish of food that someone was trying to convince her would not taste disgusting. She barely glanced at Sophie, an omission I could only take to mean she was threatened. Henri sat between Alex’s and my beach towels and asked me polite questions about my time abroad in a slow, lilting French that denoted a certain ease with foreigners. Sophie lay on the other side of me either sleeping or doing a good impression of it.
At last Véronique arrived with someone she introduced as Grégoire, apparently the same Grégoire from her past, since Alex made an ostentatious show of being glad to see him again.
She kissed me on both cheeks and sat at the edge of my beach towel. Her shiny black hair whipped in the wind, glinting almost blue in the bright sun.
“Et bonjour, Sophie,” she said, leaning over me to where Sophie lay with her hat pulled over her eyes. I smacked her in the leg when she didn’t respond.
“What?” she said in English. “Ah, bonjour, Véronique.” Sophie leaned over me to kiss her hello, smelling of salt water and sunscreen. Sophie, I was sure, was also wishing it were just the three of us here.
We discussed plans for the evening and Henri eagerly offered use of his boat, moored in the harbor at Cap Ferrat. When the sun began to go down, we headed back to the house to get ourselves ready for the night. Back in the room again I despaired over what to wear while Sophie showered. Pulling shorts and tank tops out of my bag, I held them aloft and examined them with caution as if they belonged to someone else, as though my suitcase had been switched with another on the train. Véronique, Isabelle, Sophie, even the boys, seemed so effortlessly lovely—where had they learned it? When I thought of my life in the future, I always envisioned a slightly thinner, more stylish person living it. Perhaps this was how I began to become that person. For now I just wanted to toss out everything I owned and start over. More than toss it out, I wanted to burn it, to leave no evidence.
There was a knock, and Véronique poked her head around the door. I put down the faded sundress I was holding.
“Allô, chérie. What are you doing in here? We were going to open a bottle of champagne on the terrace before we drive down to the marina.”
I sighed and sat down next to my bag. “Trying to figure out something to wear tonight.”
Véronique sat down on the bed.
She tilted her head, assessing me. “You can borrow something.”
“Your clothes won’t fit me,” I said, smiling ruefully at her.
She made a face. “I have some things that are a bit bigger. Come, we will try them on.” She bounced to her feet and grabbed my hand. I felt absurdly grateful to her.
Véronique was staying in one of the guest bedrooms down a long corridor. Though the rez-de-chaussée was dominated by large, open spaces, designed to accommodate the sunlight that flooded in from the windows, the top floor was surprisingly labyrinthine, with unassuming doors that opened onto grand bedrooms and hallways that could swallow you.
Véronique began to sift through what was hanging in her closet. “So, have you girls been having a nice time down here with my cousin?” She stopped to pull a hanger out, then seemingly decided against it.
“Wonderful. It’s so incredible, this place. I’ve never been anywhere even half as beautiful.”
“Really? Oui, c’est vrai—Cap Ferrat est très beau. But there are places in California that are very beautiful also.”
“Not the part I’m from.” I thought of the strip-club billboards that cluttered the freeway exits to Chino, the chain-link fences outside the houses with scruffy pit bulls pacing the dusty yards.
Véronique pulled from the closet whatever she had her hand on. She looked at me thoughtfully, coming to take a seat beside me on the bed. “But I think this is better in some ways. To not come from a place that has everything.”
“If you say so.”
She sighed a little. “It’s not really that valuable, to be unimpressed with everything, to feel like nothing will ever be better than what you’ve already had. This is why I like being at the university in Nantes. If I had gone to the Sorbonne like all my friends, I never would have met anyone new. They’re so small-minded and insular you wouldn’t believe. Look at Isabelle, who is here now: an impossible bitch.”
“She is awful, isn’t she?” I had the traitorous feeling that we were also talking about Sophie.
“Terrible. Chérie, all I am saying is, don’t be fooled. What you are is worth a thousand Isabelles. En tout cas, try this on.” She handed me a dress.
I turned my back to her as I pulled my own top off and pulled the dress over my head. The cut was forgiving enough that it fit me perfectly, and the white looked lovely against my newly bronzed skin. I looked at myself in the mirror and had a pleasing sensation of being more myself than I had been a moment before. My cheeks were a bit pink from the sun, and my unwashed hair had a beachy fullness to it.
“C’est parfait!” Veronique said. “So what did you all get up to last night?”
“Oh, lots of wine. A swim in the ocean. Some more wine. Oh, and Alex made galettes.”
She laughed. “Mais bien sûr. That is the only thing Alex knows how to make. Well, there will certainly be plenty more wine tonight. And with that moon that’s rising, it should be very romantic.”
“For you and Grégoire?”
“And anyone else who might be in the mood,” she said, smiling over her shoulder as we walked out of the room.
We joined the others on the terrace to drink a glass of champagne before heading to the boat.
“J’adore cette robe,” Alex said when he saw me. He was sitting down with his elbows on his knees; he reached out and tugged gently at the hem.
“Merci. Elle appartient à Véronique.”
“And yet it seems made for you.” He reached for my hand and pulled me onto his lap. I put my arm around his neck. How natural it felt. How right.
Sophie emerged a few moments later, looking gorgeous in an orange floral dress. Her eyes stopped on the two of us and she froze for a moment before she smiled and sat.
Henri handed me a glass of champagne with a cautious smile. “Alors, Brooke and Sophie, when do you return to the United States?”
“Four weeks,” I said, frowning.
“Arrête!” Alex told him, circling his arm around my hips as though trying to keep me from running away. As though I ever would. “We are not talking about that, it makes us sad.”
Sophie opened her mouth as if to speak but then said nothing.
“Right,” Henri said.
I noticed Alex mentioned nothing about us sta
ying for the summer. I tried not to think of Chino and of the Starbucks. Alex began to stroke the outside of my thigh softly with his fingertips, and that brought me back into the moment, back into my skin with force.
Over the ocean the bright moon seemed many times its normal size.
Eventually we headed to the cars and I rode alone with Alex in the blue convertible after Véronique cajoled Sophie into riding with her and Grégoire. As we made our way along the winding road, Alex put his hand on my knee almost absentmindedly. I craved being the thing he could touch without asking permission. I uncrossed my legs. He ran his fingertips along the inside of my thigh, then let them rest at the top, maddeningly close. My breath was getting shallow and I stared fixedly at the empty road ahead. Henri and the others followed behind us, and to know they were there increased the thrill. We came around a curve in the road and the lights from the harbor became visible. Alex watched the road, smiling serenely. My skin was burning from his touch and blood rushed to my head, extinguishing rational thought. I felt as though I’d been shot up with some dizzying drug.
Just as we pulled around into the lot by the harbor, Alex’s hand moved just far enough up my thigh that his little finger rested atop the fabric of my underwear. He stroked me gently before removing his hand to put the car in park.
My face was hot and I knew I must be blushing. I fumbled with the car door. I was certain that when the others saw me, they would somehow sense what I was feeling. I wasn’t sure I could behave normally or form a coherent sentence.
Alex put his arm around me and chuckled a little as we walked toward the marina. Henri’s “little boat” was in fact a fifty-foot yacht with a sullen-looking captain and two lovely female crew members, whom Isabelle seemed to take great pleasure in ordering around. The seven of us had a magnificent dinner on the stern of scallops and striped grouper as we sailed out toward Nice, the lights twinkling in the distance. Throughout dinner I noticed Henri sneaking looks at me. I felt as though he was studying me, waiting for me to do something. I had the now-familiar sensation that I was missing something.
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