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“What abouther?” Simone says as she walks out the door, leaving before any of us can respond to her question.
Natalie seats Grandmama at the table, and then stands with her hands folded, biting her lip. I take Natalie by the arm and guide her toward the dining room doors.
“You’d better go,” I tell her, though all the feeling I have for her threatens to overtake me as I look into her midnight blue eyes. “We need to sort this through, just us.”
My hand lingers on her arm for too long. She feels it, too. She nods gently, removes my hand, and heads down the hallway without another word. An impulse inside me wants to run after her, but I can’t. Instead, I close the dining room doors and turn back around.
There are many things to be resolved in this room tonight.
CHAPTER 26
Natalie
“You look rough.” This is the problem with video calling your friends in the morning after an emotionally exhausting night.
“I feel rough.”
“All he asked you to do was to take it easy in your room, right?” Gina asks.
“That’s what he said, but it’s awfully hard to do that when you feel like your future is being decided on the floor below you.”
“That’s notyourfuture.” Annelise pops her head into the screen. “Enjoy your time off. How much longer have you got left there?”
My stomach sinks. Less time than I’m ready to admit.
“Four days,” I say.
“Yay! Four days and then you’ll be back with us, and we’re going to have the best time. It’s just too bad you’re going to miss tonight,” Chrissy says. “We’re going to a bal populaire.”
“A bal populaire? A popular ball...? Is it like a masquerade party?”
“Nope,” Annelise crosses her arms. “Just a bunch of people dancing around in a circle, and eating sardines.”
“Sardines?”
“We’ll tell you all about it when you’re back. Apparently, they do them regularly in Paris; it’s some kind of tradition from the countryside,” Gina adds with a smile. “Doesn’t that sound a bit like home, you know barn raising and square dancing and stuff?”
“You know,” I say. “It kind of does. And I could use a taste of home. But you guys go, tell me what it’s like tonight. Next time, I’m coming along, too.”
Laura takes her phone back.
“You hang in there,” she says. “You’re doing fine.”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t feel like I’m doing fine, it feels like I’m messing up at every turn.”
“It’s not true. Don’t listen to that voice.”
“What voice?”
“You know very well. The one that keeps telling you that you have to be more French. The one that keeps saying you’ve got to read more pages of that book. The one that refuses to believe you’re good enough as you are. You are Natalie from Sage, Texas, and you are amazing. Try trusting your gut, instead. And Natalie?"
"Yeah?" I say to her wide, expectant eyes.
"Could you please slip a really expensive bottle of red wine into your bag before you go?"
"Goodbye, Laura."
"Bye, hon."
