A fine mist was falling when Katherine left Mme Robilier’s stuccoed house with its freshly painted pale-green shutters the next afternoon. She had accomplished what she came to do. The rival gardener to Mme Pomfort would contribute her prized yellow roses to decorate the table at the entrance to the tent where people paid a small fee for the show and received their programs. “The place of honor,” Katherine had said, and Madame had nodded solemnly. Much better than festooning the stage itself, which was bound to be dusty and tangled with amplifier cords, she said, hoping her comment would never make it back to Mme Pomfort’s ears.
As she passed the church garden, that keeper of Reigny’s social order stood up from her low stool next to some tomato plants that were resisting her demand for order and propriety. With one hand on her back and a handful of weeds in the other, her posture still managed to signal the degree of Katherine’s insult in calling on someone with such suspect ancestors. They exchanged “Bonjour, Madame”s with no warmth, and Katherine reminded herself to have Michael arrange a firewood delivery from the farm in another town before he left on tour.
She trudged past Jean’s messy courtyard and heard a rustling sound from the old oak tree that spread its ancient branches over the roadway. Jeannette dropped gracefully from her concealed place among the branches and, to Katherine’s surprise, fell into step with her. To her greater surprise, Katherine felt her heart swell with, well, perhaps it was pride and perhaps it was affection. Katherine knew they were still visible to the disapproving old woman in her garden, but she decided she didn’t care. Jeannette was worth a dozen Mme Pomforts, and if the girl was trying to make up for her outburst the other night, Katherine was happy to welcome the child back. Jeannette needed someone on her side as much as she did.
“Comment ça va, cherie?”
The question didn’t elicit the same list of symptoms in the teenager as it had in Katherine’s older neighbors. Jeannette shrugged and was silent. But her arm snaked around Katherine’s waist, and they walked in a more companionable silence than they had in a week. After a hundred yards, Jeannette ventured a question. “When is old enough to have sex? Is it like the movies?”
Katherine stopped in the middle of the street. “I have no idea what movies you mean, but I promise you, you’re not old enough.” She noticed Jeannette was dressed in her normal tomboy attire today and the sparkly polish was already fading. “Is it Brett? Is he bothering you?”
Jeannette shrugged. “No,” she said, hesitating, “not exactly.”
Katherine wasn’t sure what “exactly” meant, but the look on Jeannette’s face said she was in the throes of suffering as only teenage girls can experience. “Listen,” she said, facing Jeannette and holding both of her arms. “You’re only ready when you love someone so much that you don’t even have to ask yourself the question.” She struggled to make sure her French was good enough to drive home her point. She couldn’t be sure Jeannette would get the message if she delivered it in English. “But, trust me, that’s a ways off. And you never, ever have to let someone convince you if you don’t want to, okay, d’accord?”
Jeannette nodded, even managed a small smile, the first Katherine had seen in a while. Impulsively, she hugged the girl. Mothering wasn’t something she’d had much of when she was Jeannette’s age, or practice in as an adult, or, honestly, much desire for given how unhappy the role had made her own parent, but right now she felt ready to do battle to protect this chick.
They resumed walking until the bend in the road where Katherine would go uphill. “Want some ice cream?” she asked.
“Non, merci, I need to go to the pool,” Jeannette said.
“Pool?”
“At the old quarry. The little kids can’t go there, but Brett and I sometimes swim.”
“Isn’t it too chilly today, with the rain?”
“Oui, but I have to go there for something.” A look passed swiftly over her features, but it disappeared before Katherine could be sure it was there, and she kissed Katherine noisily on both cheeks and vanished from view down the dirt road to the quarry.
Katherine had almost reached her gate when the Hollidays’ SUV passed her. J.B., at the wheel, stared ahead intently and didn’t acknowledge her wave or even seem to see her. The car’s noise faded as it disappeared from her sight. The phone was ringing and she hurried back inside. Michael was in Auxerre at the music store and it might be him calling to see if she needed anything while he was in town.
“Hi, sweetie,” said Betty Lou, in her warm contralto voice. “Can I speak to Mike?” Hearing that he wasn’t there, she opted to leave a message. “J.B. has got it in his head that tomorrow’s the day we leave for the Riviera. Honestly, that man is too much. But we did promise Brett we’d head to the beach sometime, and I guess this is that time.”
Katherine wondered if they knew Brett and Jeannette were edging toward something they shouldn’t. If so, taking a break wasn’t a bad idea, although Jeannette would be devastated.
“Tell Mike not to worry. We’ll be back in a couple of weeks to finish the sessions. Who knows, I might even have a little more zip to my voice if I hit it big in the casinos.” She laughed. “And J.B. won’t mind. I hear the young ladies wear nothing but thongs on the beach, and I don’t mean shower shoes. Lord knows how we’ll keep Brett from staring at them, though. The life of a mother,” she said, and rang off in high good humor.
Katherine was restless after the call for some reason. Of course Betty Lou wasn’t gambling with their money. She and Michael hadn’t even written the check. Michael would have some time to ease up and shuck off some of the stress he’d been feeling as the CD and the tour began to take shape. This was all happening so fast, and they hadn’t talked about the big issue—his having to deal somehow with Eric.
Another item on her list was a talk with Jeannette about sex before the Hollidays got back. She was pretty sure Jean hadn’t faced up to that particular challenge and didn’t have much faith in what he would say if he tried. The child seemed to swing between high spirits and despondency, the agonies typical of teenagers throughout the ages, she supposed. The girl’s face as she kissed Katherine good-bye was open and trusting again, and that meant the world to her.
As she remembered, though, another face came to mind, J.B.’s as he drove past, and the sense of urgent purpose in his driving. She had a sudden image of J.B. drooling over the girl at the café. Without thinking too much, she grabbed the dogs’ leashes and called for them. A walk down the hill would be good for all of them. There was no SUV parked at the café, or along the street, so perhaps he had been intent on an errand farther away. She peered as far around the downhill bend as she could. Pippa was out for a walk too, her mop of red hair distinctive even at a distance. Katherine realized that she had seen a lot more of the young writer since Albert’s death, doubtless because the police who were knocking on doors, the rampant gossip and speculation about plots and motives, had fired her creative juices. Katherine retreated, pulling hard on the dogs’ leashes. The last thing she was in the mood for was being waylaid by the ardent crime researcher.
The quarry pool? If Jeannette wouldn’t feel she was intruding, perhaps that would be a new adventure for the dogs. Michael had never mentioned a pool during his dusk walks. As she ventured down the dirt road, not entirely sure where she was headed, she heard a voice raised and another weeping in the distance beyond a fork in the road. There was a trodden path up a short hill that looked more direct. As she reached the summit and looked over the tops of the greenery, she saw Jeannette, her back to a break in the rocks and, below it, water that reflected the gray of the clouds. The girl’s bare arms were tightly crossed over her chest, and she was shaking her head. Whoever she was talking to was hidden from Katherine. Brett, come to say he was leaving?
“Non, non,” the girl said, loud enough for Katherine to hear, and took a sudden step backward.