“Communists,” I say.
He looks amused. “Oh?”
“I mean, it’s just something I’m working on,” I say quickly. “East Germany, Cold War.” Why can’t you say, “It’s a book I’m writing for a client”? Is that so hard?
“Ah, so you’re a writer. That explains the daydreaming.” He glances out the window and I glare at the back of his head. I’ll put up with being pigeonholed as awkward and boring by my sisters, but it’s irritating from strangers.
But it seems he was just checking where we were, as he turns back to me. “What are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere?”
“What, walking?”
“No, I mean here in the country
side. Why aren’t you in London, or Paris? Somewhere with a little more excitement.”
“University,” I say, waving my hand in the general direction of Oxford. I’m working on a PhD in Victorian literature but he probably thinks I’m a gormless undergrad. I’m dressed like a gormless undergrad, in scuffed shoes and denim shorts.
“During summer? Do they not allow you any holidays in England these days?”
I’m about to reply when we turn into the driveway of my parents' house. It’s something of a spread, all white columns and twining ivy and gray stone. There’s a fountain in the center of a circular gravel driveway. Lisbet, just fourteen, is lying in the grass reading a book. My elder sister, Mona, appears at the sitting-room window, and I see her peer at the car and then turn and call over her shoulder, probably to our other sister, Therese.
I realize that if I stay where I am I’m going to get mobbed by the whole family. Why are you in the car with Monsieur d’Estang? What happened to you? You fell? Oh, Evie, how funny you are! Everyone, come and look.
“Well, thanks for the lift!” I cry, grabbing my shoulder bag and jumping out of the car.
Lisbet looks up from her book as I scurry past. “Who’s that?”
But I just push into the house and run upstairs. It’s not till I’m standing in my bedroom with my back against the door that I remember I’ve left all my books and notes in Monsieur d’Estang’s car.
* * *
“Drinks!”
My father’s voice is a roar up the stairs. I glance at my phone: six thirty. He’ll have been banging around in the kitchen for the last hour and will want everyone to come and have a gin and tonic before we eat. I pull off my T-shirt and shorts and yank the first sundress I lay my hand on over my head.
Lisbet, Mona and Therese are occupying all the good spots in the sitting room when I go in, and they’re arguing about whether this year’s Dancing with the Stars contestants were as good as last year’s. Monsieur d’Estang is standing in the door to the kitchen, his back to us, talking to my father.
“He was rubbish, Lisbet,” Mona is saying. “The producers wanted to keep him on because he’s weird, and weird means ratings. Don’t look at me like that, Evie said it.”
Lisbet turns her red-cheeked glare on me as I sink into the scratchy embroidered chair by the fireplace. “Sorry, Betty-bun.” I did say that, but mainly because I was miserable about Adam and it felt good to be nasty about a stranger.
I wait for my sisters to screech at me about falling down in front of Monsieur d’Estang’s car, but they don’t so perhaps he didn’t tell them.
Mum comes in through the French doors, pulling gardening gloves off her hands. “Frederic, I didn’t know you were here.” Monsieur d’Estang turns around at the sound of his name and breaks into a smile. My mother is attractive and blonde, and her eyes are very blue. She kisses him on both cheeks. “How simply wonderful. Are you staying the week?”
“Just a day or two, if I may. I have to be back in Paris on Monday.”
Lisbet’s voice rises in outrage in defense of her favorite dancer, and Mona and Therese laugh.
“Keep it down to a dull roar, you lot,” Dad says, coming in. Then cheerfully to Monsieur d’Estang, “I’m sorry for the dreadful gaggle of women in this house. Everyone’s come home to roost for the summer holidays.”
“Not at all,” Monsieur d’Estang replies, smiling round at us.
Mona and Therese give him coquettish glances. It’s so easy for some people, flirting. I finger the scrape on my knee, trying not to think about Adam. The scrape hurts. I press it harder.
“Have you all got drinks?” Dad asks. “Mona, Therese, Evie?”
They ask for gins. I ask for sparkling water.