One Paris Summer (Blink)

by Denise Grover Swank

  I had serious doubts he would make it all the way home, but we didn’t have a choice. “Not how you pictured our second date, huh?” I asked.

  “I told you, we French don’t date.” Mathieu gave me his boyish grin, and some of my tension eased.

  “But we Americans do, so this disaster is our second date.”

  “If you are tallying dates, why don’t any of our breakfasts count?”

  “Because we weren’t boyfriend and girlfriend then.”

  “Sophie,” he said softly. “I was officially your boyfriend when I kissed you on the Eiffel Tower.”

  “I can’t help it if no one explained the rules to French dating.”

  “Will you two stop bickering?” Eric moaned. “You’re giving me a headache. And if you keep talking about kissing, it’s going to make me barf again.”

  “No,” Mathieu said. “The bottle of wine you drank is giving you a headache and is about to make you barf again.” He turned to me. “Okay, so I watched him.”

  I smiled, though I felt a bit guilty for feeling so happy while Eric was obviously suffering. Despite Eric’s protests, we continued to talk about other differences between the French and Americans.

  “Americans are loud,” Mathieu said. “We French are more subdued.”

  Eric snorted. “Most of you French smoke. Most American’s don’t.”

  “We French find most Americans to be prudes with nudity.”

  “You French sleep around,” Eric said.

  “Non,” Mathieu said, turning to look at me behind my brother’s back. “While we aren’t so strict with sex, we usually have sex only when we are in love.”

  “Stop talking about sex around my sister!”

  I could tell my cheeks were beet red, but I forced a laugh. What was Mathieu telling me? That he hadn’t slept around? I’d never suspected him of it, but it was nice to know anyway.

  It took us over a half hour, but we finally reached our building’s front door. Only then did I realize we had another dilemma on our hands.

  “How do we get him in?” I asked.

  Mathieu dropped his hold on my brother’s arm and leaned against the building. “Will your father believe it if he says he has a stomachache?”

  I cringed. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “I don’t have any other ideas. Let’s try it.”

  We half dragged Eric up the stairs and opened the apartment door. I peered inside, surprised that it was quiet and dark. One lamp was on in the living room.

  “We’re lucky,” I said. “They must be out.”

  “Let’s get him to his bed.”

  Mathieu led him down the hall while I got a glass of water from the kitchen. He was helping lower Eric to the bed as I reached the doorway. When Mathieu started to rise, Eric grabbed his arm and pulled him back down until they were nearly nose to nose. “I might have been wrong about you.”

  Mathieu grinned as he stood, waving a hand in front of his face. “Merci.”

  Eric rolled onto his back, closing his eyes. “But if you hurt my sister, I’ll have to beat the crap out of you.”

  “Fair enough.”

  I set the water on the nightstand and started to pull Eric’s shoes off, but he jerked upright and pointed at me. “I’m still mad at you. Dane Wallace is a prick.”

  “I know, and I’m really sorry.”

  He laid back down. “I’ll make you pay for it later.”

  I was sure he would.

  We left him in bed and wandered out into the hall. Mathieu glanced at the front door. “I guess this is the end of our night.”

  “Not necessarily.” I leaned my head toward the living room. “We can sit in here and watch TV.”

  “Are you sure your father will be okay with it?”

  I shrugged and grinned. “We’re making sure Eric’s all right.”

  “Okay.”

  We sat on the sofa, and he put his arm around me as we watched a French sitcom. Mathieu told me what they were saying and made me repeat the phrases.

  Something warm and cozy filled my heart, bringing me a sense of peace. I looked back at him to reassure myself this wasn’t a dream.

  He caught my gaze and narrowed his eyes. “What?”

  I stretched my neck and gave him a gentle kiss. “So many things are wrong in my life right now, but all I can see are the things that are right. Thank you for encouraging me with my piano when my dad seems intent on making me quit. Thank you for tolerating the craziness that seems to follow me around.”

  His smile lit up his face. “I will put up with any kind of crazy if I get to spend time with you.”

  I was counting on it. At least for the four weeks I had left.

  CHAPTER Thirty-Three

  THE NEXT THREE weeks flew by. I spent most of my days alone in Mathieu’s apartment, practicing. Once Etienne realized I had amped up my practice schedule, he started going to a friend’s house after swim practice. One advantage to being gone all day was that I had limited contact with Dane, and when we were at the apartment together, Dad and Eva were usually around too. Eric had begun hanging out with Thomas, but he’d taken to ignoring Marine, to the poor girl’s disappointment. He barely spoke to me, which made me feel increasingly guilty for my betrayal.

  Mathieu and I grew closer and closer. We spent part of almost every night together, whether it was a walk to the Eiffel Tower or Seine and back or watching TV with Dad and Eva.

  Jenna had gotten out of the hospital, and she called me every day for updates on Mathieu.

  “I can’t believe I won’t get to meet him!” she exclaimed.

  “I can’t believe I’m going to leave him.”

  She was quiet, then said, “I can’t believe you’re going to leave me.”

  “I’m probably not going to get accepted. The chances are slim. Mathieu says they’re auditioning twenty students for two slots.”

  “You’ll get in,” she said, sounding sad. “I don’t know what I’ll do without you.”

  Anxiety made my skin prickly. I wanted to be with Jenna and I wanted to be with Mathieu. I wished I could have both.

  But I couldn’t get in if I didn’t audition.

  My audition was a couple of days away, and my dad hadn’t given me permission. Mom had become frustrated and threatened to call him.

  “No, Mom. Don’t,” I said. “Maybe he doesn’t want me here. I mean, it could get complicated if I live here all the time with Camille.” I’d told her that my stepsister and I didn’t get along, although I hadn’t shared many details.

  “No,” she said softly. “That’s not it. I have a feeling this has more to do with us than you.”

  “You and Dad?” I asked in surprise.

  “Let me call him, Sophie. I promise not to yell.”

  I finally relented, mostly because of the wistfulness in her voice.

  Thankfully, I was feeling really confident about my pieces, especially since I was having twice-weekly video-chats with Miss Lori. I continued practicing, living in denial that I might not get to audition after all my work.

  And also ignoring the fact that my plane home took off in three days.

  I couldn’t face leaving Mathieu. Even if Dad did let me audition, the conservatoire wouldn’t announce the chosen students until a week after I left. So if I did make it, I’d see him again in a matter of weeks. If I didn’t . . . I had no idea when I’d be back. Whenever I asked Dad, he changed the subject.

  So I was about to get on a plane with no idea when I’d ever see Mathieu again.

  Consequently, Mathieu and I had begun spending every possible minute together. He was still doing his community service work at his school, so he was gone all day, which meant we made sure every minute together in the evenings counted.

  On Monday I was still at his apartment when he got home, although as usual, I hadn’t heard him come in. I found him sitting in the leather chair, watching me with a sweet smile. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt that fit him tight against the chest. His hair
was slightly ruffled, and I felt a sudden urge to run my hands through it.

  “You know,” I said, turning on the bench to take in the sight of him. “I still haven’t heard you play. You promised to play for me if I auditioned.”

  His eyes lit up with mischievousness as he stood and slowly walked toward me. He grabbed my hand, tugged me off the bench and into his arms, pressing my chest against his.

  I sucked in a breath as the now familiar wave of belonging washed over me even as my stomach fluttered with his touch.

  He bent down to kiss me, and I suddenly realized what he was doing—what he’d done every time I asked him to fulfill his promise: distracting me.

  I leaned back, giving him a pointed stare. “I’m on to you. You’re not getting out of it this time.”

  He laughed, then kissed me anyway, although I didn’t protest. When he lifted his head, he grinned. “Okay. But only for you.”

  He maneuvered to sit on the bench, making me sit next to him, then he made a show of flexing and curling his fingers.

  I lifted my eyebrows.

  He grinned. “I’m warming up.”

  “Joue.” Play.

  He laughed at my French, which was probably wrong. Verb conjugations tripped me up so that I was sure I sounded like a toddler. Usually he corrected me—which I wanted—but instead he rested his fingers on the keys. He took a deep breath, then plunked out a simple tune I recognized.

  “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”

  I smacked his arm. “I don’t want to hear the song that ended your promising piano career. Play something you loved. What made your heart sing?”

  With anyone else, I would have felt embarrassed with that question, but not Mathieu. He understood me like no one before him.

  His playfulness fell away, and he leaned over and kissed me, a lingering kiss that sent tingles through my body. When he lifted his head, he was still serious. “You make my heart sing.”

  Then he turned and put his hands on the keys again. “I haven’t played for years. This will sound very bad.”

  “Joue,” I repeated.

  “Joué,” he corrected, adding the “e” sound at the end. Then to my surprise he started to play a more complicated piece than I’d expected. It was a short allegretto—a piece played fairly quickly—and I was impressed that he made very few mistakes. But then I wasn’t. Mathieu never did anything halfway.

  When he finished a couple of minutes later, he turned to me with a grin. “The third movement of Bach’s Sonata in F major. I suppose I should have announced that first.”

  “You’re very good, Mathieu. You shouldn’t have stopped.”

  He shook his head, softness filling his eyes. “Non. It’s not my love. I hated practicing, which only frustrated my mother.” Then he stood. “I’ll walk you home.”

  That night, Dad came home early, looking haggard and older than usual. I was curled up and reading on the sofa, alone in the apartment since Camille and the boys were still out.

  “Where is everyone?” he asked, sitting down next to me.

  “Still out, I guess. I’ve been home for about a half hour.” I put the book on the table next to me. “I had a video-call with Miss Lori today. We worked out the order of my pieces. She thinks I should start off with the Chopin etude, play my Mozart sonata next, and save the Rachmaninoff piece for last. She says it will impress the panel if I finish with such a strong piece. It will also help that I have it memorized.”

  “Sophie. We need to talk about the audition.”

  I sat up, my heart pounding. “Daddy, I’m begging you. Please let me do this.”

  He took my hand in his, his rough, calloused hand against my smooth hand with calloused fingertips. We both lived to create beauty with our hands. So why did he want to take this from me?

  “Sophie, I was in your shoes years ago. Not with the piano, of course, but with my restoration work. I loved it. Still do.” He sighed and put my hand in my lap. “I had to make a choice—a career I loved or the woman I loved. I chose the career, but I thanked God the woman I loved chose to follow me. And then she kept following me. Only later did I realize it ruined us. We became strangers living in the same house.”

  It felt odd listening to him talk about Mom like that, but I now knew about their problems. It wasn’t a surprise.

  “I screwed up when I left last August. I know that now. And I keep screwing up. And it all boils down to that one decision I made long ago—picking restoration over my family. I chose a profession I loved even though I couldn’t offer financial stability or long-term security.”

  “Daddy, I never saw it as you choosing your job over me, at least not until you moved to Paris.”

  “Your mother did.” He swallowed. “I don’t want that for you, Sophie. I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I did.”

  “But Daddy, you’re not even giving me a choice at all. You’re forcing one on me, and it wasn’t even the choice you made. Besides, you love what you do. Despite everything.”

  “Yes.” He sighed, looking distraught. “I love it, despite everything.” He was silent for a moment. “Sophie, you have to understand. I love you. I want to protect you.”

  “You have to let me grow up, Dad. You have to let me make my own choices, and if I screw up, I will be the one to live with the mistakes.” I shook my head. “You haven’t even heard me play since last summer. Why won’t you listen to me play?”

  “Because your mother told me how much you began to play after I left. Now every time I see you play, it reminds me of the pain I’ve put you through.”

  “Daddy.” My heart ached.

  “You need more than the piano, Sophie. You need to live.”

  “I am! I’ve conquered my fears and I’ve been seeing Paris.”

  “With Mathieu.”

  “No. Not just with him. With Camille and her friends and sometimes just me and Eric. The point is I’ve changed while I’ve been here, but piano is still a huge part of me.” He remained quiet, so I said, “At least listen to me play.”

  He sat there for several seconds, then got up. “Is Mathieu coming over tonight?”

  He was changing the subject. “Yes.”

  He nodded and left the room, breaking my heart all over again.

  But the next morning when I got up to leave for Mathieu’s apartment—the day before the audition—I found Dad sitting at the kitchen table, sipping on a cup of coffee.

  “Dad,” I said in surprise. “What are you doing still home?”

  “I thought I’d go to work late and come hear you play.”

  My eyes widened. “Really?”

  “Yeah. Is that okay?”

  A smile spread across my face. “Yeah.”

  I took him to my favorite pâtisserie. I greeted the woman behind the counter and ordered breakfast and coffee for Dad and me. When I handed him his food, he looked at me in amazement. “When did you learn to speak French?”

  “Mathieu’s been teaching me.”

  Dad told me more about what he was restoring. His work at Sainte-Chapelle would be done in six months.

  “What will you do then?”

  He gave me an apologetic smile. “I’ll probably move on to the Opéra. That’s how I met Eva. I had a lunch interview at a restaurant by the Opéra, and Eva walked into the restaurant. My coworker, Nathan, knew her, so he introduced us. I took one look at her and knew she was the one.” He gave me a sad smile. “I’m sorry. That’s probably hard to hear.”

  I shook my head. “No, I love Eva.”

  When we got to Mathieu’s apartment, I pulled a dining room chair over to the piano. I sat down on the bench and looked over at him. “What do you want to hear?”

  “Whatever you want to play.”

  I held my hands over the keys, mentally running through my catalogue of songs. “First I’ll play Dido’s Lament. It’s meant to be sung, so it will sound overly simple, but this is the piece that changed the way I played. Miss Lori gave it to me last fall.” Then I sta
rted to play, letting all my emotions pour through my fingers.

  When I finished, Dad cleared his throat. “Sophie. That was beautiful.”

  “That was nothing, really. I just thought you should hear it. She gave it to me because of you.” He started to ask me to explain, but I said, “Next I’ll play you my Rachmaninoff Prelude in B Minor. I’ve been working on it all summer, and it’s the finishing piece for my audition.”

  “So it’s difficult?”

  I gave him a small nod. “Yes.”

  “Let me hear it.”

  I closed my eyes, then began to play, my sadness over leaving Mathieu and even my father pouring into the music. When I played the last note, I turned to look at my father.

  Tears were streaming down his face now, and he grinned at me as he wiped them with the back of his hand. “You’ve gotten better since I left.”

  I grinned back. “Maybe a little.”

  “Because of me.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “You love this”—he waved to the piano—“the music.”

  “Yes, Dad. I do. It’s part of me. I couldn’t stop if I wanted to.”

  He watched me for several seconds. “Thank you for playing for me.” Then he stood. “I need to get to work. I’ll see you tonight. Is Mathieu coming to dinner tonight?”

  “Yeah.”

  He nodded, then turned.

  My mouth dropped as I watched him walk out the door. Was he giving me his permission or not?

  Miss Lori told me I was ready to practice playing through my pieces a few times, but we split it up with some of my other songs. I left after only a couple of hours and headed back to Dad’s apartment. Eric was still there, and he, Dane, and Camille were getting ready to leave for an outing.

  “Back already, little Sophie?” Dane asked, giving me a sleazy smile. Camille had gone into the living room, so thankfully she didn’t notice.

  I set my bag on the keyboard bench and began to pull out my music. “Yeah, my piano teacher told me to make it a light day.”

  “Then you can come with us to Montmartre,” Camille said, emerging from the living room. “It’s your last day to enjoy Paris before you leave on Thursday.”

  Camille had been nicer to me lately. Maybe she was capable of gratitude. Or maybe she was excited I was about to leave. Whatever the reason, I still didn’t trust her.