If anything, Brett was handsomer when he frowned than when he smiled. Not that he smiled a lot. His smiles were reserved for particularly good runs on the skateboard or when he crouched down to play with the puppies. Today, when he found her in her special spot under the bridge near the bank of the river at its shallowest place as the daylight faded, he was frowning. He didn’t speak at first, picking up and skimming rocks over the water.
“This place is not so deep for that,” Jeannette said, struggling with her English. He still said nothing and didn’t look directly at her. She did a quick mental inventory of her clothing choices. The green T-shirt with something written in exotic gold Chinese characters. The green was good with her hair, Katherine had told her once. Tan shorts, a little tight because they were from last year, but that was all right because she was trying to look sexy anyway. Hair freshly washed and curly around her face, like a model in the magazine her father had brought home last week. She hoped Brett would notice. He seemed to be busy with his thoughts. He didn’t have his skateboard either.
“I have keeped—kept?—the present you gave me,” she said to get his attention. She held a brass cylinder up to the light, then put it back in her pocket. She had been careful not to let her brothers or her father see it. The little ones would have pestered her for it, and her father would have demanded to know what she and Brett were doing when they spent time together.
He gave it and her a sharp glance, then looked away. “You going to the café tonight? My dad says there’s a talent show, kind of a tryout for some festival they’re putting on later this summer.”
“The fête. I don’t know. My father will probably go and he will expect me to take care of the little ones.” She made a face. “Are you going?”
Brett nodded, peeling the bark off a green twig and stabbing it into the wet dirt.
“So why don’t you get someone else to take care of them, and come?”
It was his style, the girl knew, to be super cool, and she did her best to mimic it as she answered. “Maybe François to do it. He is almost twelve. The house is close by, so he can come and get me if the little ones start fighting.” She giggled. “You will try out for something?”
“No way,” he burst out, finally looking at her and grinning. “It’s old-people stuff. I’m saving my energy for the Ri-vi-era.” He said it triumphantly in a kind of singsong, without seeming to notice her disappointment. She would be sorry when Brett was gone. That part was tragique. But she would be glad when his father, with his secrets and his loud voice and his staring at her when he drove through town, was gone from Reigny. It was M. Holliday who had turned Katherine against her. Katherine had been the only adult in all of Reigny who treated Jeannette nicely, who invited her to lunch and listened to her and advised her on life. Katherine had used her as a model for her paintings, the biggest compliment Jeannette had ever received. Now that was spoiled, and all because Brett’s father was a liar and a thief, even if he must have thrown away what he stole. Maybe even a murderer. She shivered.
“Come with me,” she said, dancing over to the American boy and daring to take his hand. “I’ll show you someplace secret and fun.”
Brett looked at her curiously but didn’t pull his hand back. In fact, he wrapped it around hers more tightly and nodded. She had nothing to lose. Brett would be gone soon and she would have an empty summer ahead of her, with no friends and no distractions. She would make the most of the time she had left. She was determined that she would have some romantic stories to share with her girlfriends when she started school again.
She led him back to the road, then up the hill and onto the dirt road that led to the quarry. The old stone site had two parts: one that was still in use, that her father used when someone wanted stones to line their driveway, or to shore up a riverbank, or put under a pavement, and the other part, which had been left alone for as long as Jeannette knew, a huge hole dug out of a hillside where the stone was harder, too hard for her father to work without better equipment and other men.
Jeannette tugged Brett in this direction, where the road was so overgrown with high shrubbery it was hard to know it had been there, except for two ruts that led into the woods. The best part of this section was the pool made by the digging. Jeannette and her older siblings, before they left for jobs in Lyon, had constructed a rope ladder on a strong old tree. The thick hemp hung into the water so they could walk up the sloping sides of the stone and onto the grass. The little ones were never permitted to come into the quarry. Their father threatened to beat them if they set one foot on the dirt road that led there, and the children knew he was a man of his word where beating was concerned. It wasn’t until they were teenagers that any of them dared to defy their father’s rule.
“The pool isn’t deep, but sliding in is fun,” she said, smiling up at Brett.
“Awesome,” he said, walking up to the edge and looking into its shadows. “Is it cold?”
“Not so much now,” she said, and then was suddenly silent. She hadn’t figured this part out. She could not take off her top, which would be too revealing even though she was wearing a sports bra she had purchased the last time she went to Vézelay with her school group. Brett had already peeled off his T-shirt and, without waiting for her, had grabbed the rope and was shimmying down.
He let out a whoop as he met the water. “Not cold?” he yelled, laughing. “It’s friggin’ ice water.” But he didn’t come out, and she laughed, sitting on her bottom and slipping down cautiously into the water, which looked darker in the growing twilight.
Brett dove under, and came up whipping his hair to one side and swimming easily across the pool. Jeannette was shy again. She couldn’t swim. The water wasn’t too deep, only up to her neck, and she could paddle and float her way over to the rope. Now, she wished she could really swim, to look as rhythmic and controlled as Brett did. Brett swam around her, talking and laughing, splashing water at her, and offering to tow her around the perimeter of their private pond. This was a happy moment, and tonight would be a happy one also since Brett had invited her to the café. She floated and smiled up at the treetops. Brett was her boyfriend, n’est-ce pas? Her first real boyfriend.
When they had hoisted themselves back onto the rocks and spread their limbs on the still-warm stones to dry, Brett surprised her by moving closer until his hip was touching hers. He hoisted himself up on one elbow and looked down at her. His free hand touched her stomach lightly and she sucked in her breath. While he watched her closely, his hand played with the hem of her T-shirt, lifting and twisting it gently. She didn’t take her eyes away from his when his fingers slid under the T-shirt and moved slowly up her rib cage. His smile had faded and the smoldering look he habitually wore was back, freezing her with its sexy appeal. When his hand cupped her breast through her bra, she felt odd, almost as though she had no will of her own. Her breast tingled as it had when he had brushed against it in the woods outside the château.
The boy leaned forward then and kissed her at the same time he squeezed her breast. He turned and she felt him pressing against her shorts, warm and hard. Suddenly, Brett was pushing his tongue between her lips, a big, wet thing poking inside her mouth, making it hard to breathe, and it broke the spell. Why was he doing that? She closed her lips and tried to wiggle away. Brett paid no attention and now he was squeezing her breast harder. She pulled at his hand and jerked her face sideways, managing to say, “Non, non.”
He froze for a moment, then rolled off her, and she sat up, pulling her T-shirt down and scooting her body sideways.
“What?” Brett said in a lazy voice. “You don’t like that?” He reached for her, but she had had enough. If this was romance, she didn’t like it one bit.
“I have to make dinner ahead of time since I am going to the café.” Her face was burning and she felt like a failure. Was Brett angry at her?
“Up to you,” he said, although his tone of voice clearly said he was disappointed. He grabbed his shirt and walked ahead of her back the way they had come. She tagged along behind, miserable and guilty. She was supposed to like that thing with the tongue? Did everyone but her like it? Was she a baby for thinking it was gross?
They retraced their steps silently, and at the road he turned toward the café. “My dad’s picking me up,” he said. “He’s hoping you’ll be there tonight,” he added, a sudden gleam in his eyes. “You won’t disappoint us, will you?”
Confused and unhappy, Jeannette mumbled something to assure Brett she would be, then ran downhill to her house, wanting only to get home, where she could replay the business by the pool and figure out if she still had a boyfriend.