Then there is Luc, of course. Months, years of struggle just to keep his attention, to feel his growing admiration, to ward off all those women who thought they could come and unravel the close-knit family unit you’ve been creating. So different from the one you grew up in. So far removed, mentally, that you almost never tell your parents about your everyday life anymore. Because they wouldn’t understand; they can’t even begin to picture it.
I hope that Valentine is proud of her mom. Prouder in any case than I’ve ever been of my mother. Every time I go back to see my parents, I feel like I’m slipping back down the social and material ladder I’ve been climbing so cautiously yet tenaciously. The minute I get to the station, I’m back in my childhood hand-me-downs: my voice trembles, my gestures are clumsy, and I feel annoyed. Profoundly annoyed, and it makes me wonder why, oh dear Lord, why do I inflict these visits on myself twice a month?
And with him, now, it’s the same thing.
I’m back in my twenty-year-old skin. As if molting season were imminent, lurking in some corner of my native town or on the train, just waiting for me to lower my guard in order to attack. I remember Lucile, who used to work for me a few years ago. She was a tall, slim, attractive girl. One day she showed me photographs of her adolescent self. They used to call her Piglet or Butterball. She clenched her teeth while I looked at the shapeless mass of flesh in the photographs, and tried to discern the features of the woman she would become. She murmured that they were still inside her, Butterball and Piglet. She had to fight them off, every single day, all it took was a moment’s inattention, if someone shoved past her in the Métro, or she took a little too long getting her credit card out of her wallet, and Butterball and Piglet would swoop down on her again. Chubby. Fat. Ugly. Useless.
As she was talking, I saw myself again, at the lycée and then afterward. I even think that that very evening, while talking to Lucile, I felt the shadow of Philippe Leduc brush over me. His insolence. His cruelty.
Philippe Leduc. Now there’s someone who must have spent hours admiring himself in the mirror. Or maybe not. But in other people’s eyes, yes. The supporting roles, only too happy to send his reflection back to him. But now. Look at you. The roles have been reversed. You shouldn’t apologize for bumping into him. He is nothing to you. Nothing.
Today, he would be ready to eat out of your palm.
Today, he wouldn’t dare treat you in an offhand manner.
I remember the party we went to together, of course — but I simply cannot recall the name of the boy who was throwing the party. Surely something like Arnaud or Christophe, those were the trendy names. His father was a doctor, that much I do remember. The mother worked with charities. They had money. Their house was on the edge of town. With a huge garden, and trees, and just beyond, fields stretching as far as the hills. It’s all changed now. Houses have sprung up all around, the farms have been sold off, the town is spreading, bringing its supermarkets, its boulangeries that are not boulangeries, even warehouses that call themselves stores but which sell junk and knickknacks, everything for less than five euros. That house must be stuck in the middle of four other recent constructions, with the parents of the boy who invited us huddled inside. They’ll end their lives trapped in a forest of shopping malls and parking lots.
I’m surprised at how spiteful I’m feeling.
I didn’t think I’d be so bitter. There’s no reason to be bitter nowadays. I have more money than the parents of Arnaud or Christophe will ever have — and I’m nowhere near the age of physical decline.
Maybe it was envy?
Yes.
After all, money meant self-confidence. So did good looks. I had neither. I was doing my best to become a shadow, a prompter at a theater — someone whose face you rarely see but who makes herself indispensable. I was thinking that sweetness and discretion would make me indispensable — to someone. To a boy. For a brief while I believed that boy might be Philippe Leduc. I clung to him, trying to keep myself light as air. And I went flying, with the first puff of wind.
The basement was turned into a disco, and between the rows of spotlights and the strobe, reality was garish and disjointed. For a while I watched people dancing, but the nearby loudspeakers were deafening, so I went upstairs. On the ground floor groups of students were lounging around and acting detached and cynical, as if they were rehearsing their roles as the next Jacques Dutronc or Bryan Ferry. Some of them had crowded around a table to play poker and drink liquor. Others were taking pictures of themselves, over and over, in the half-light of the living room. The French doors were open. I went outside for some air. Down at the end of the garden, you could hardly hear a thing. I liked walking in the grass. To feel it swishing against my shoes. A sweet feeling.
There were stars. It was easy to feel enchanted. I stared at a point on the horizon. He was standing in a corner over on my left, beneath the chestnut tree. I saw him only at the last minute. I was about to move away and, then I figured no, why should I. I had as much right to be there as he did. I murmured “Good evening.” He smiled. We stood there for a while without speaking, but then suddenly that patch of garden felt crowded. We had to start talking, otherwise we’d seem ridiculous. I was looking for something to say. Something a bit less cheesy than, “I’ve always loved gardens in moonlight,” or “When I was little, my father used to tell me the names of all the stars.” Especially since it wasn’t true. My father never gazed at stars either with me or on his own. And he didn’t really contribute to my education. So I decided to be frank. And provocative, in a good-natured way.
“I thought you’d be in the basement all night.”
“Don’t judge a book by its cover.”
“I hate proverbs and clichés.”
“But sometimes they do reflect the truth.”
“Sorry?”
“Well, look, if we’re judging books by their covers, then you’re the type of girl who spends all night out in the garden when there’s a party going on in the house.”
I could have been annoyed or even shocked, but instead I thought it was a clever answer. I laughed. And added, “Score one for Philippe Leduc.” And I sensed him relaxing ever so faintly. His shoulders dropping slightly.
“And a point for you, too, for knowing my name.”
“Everyone who was at the lycée with you knows your name.”
“Only half a point then.”
“And two points for you if you know my name.”
“First and last?”
“One point for first, one point for last.”
“Or maybe one and a half points for first, and—”
“Stop trying to buy time. You may as well give up right away.”
I was facing him. I was smiling. It wasn’t hard to smile at him. Just staring at him made you feel like seducing him. I must have had little bubbles in my eyes, something sparkling. The situation was entertaining. He’d been caught in his own trap. And I’d managed to catch him off guard. Suddenly I could see why he might be interested: here was a girl who knew how to answer back, who was sharp. Sometimes that can even make up for average looks. Especially at night. I knew that two or three days from now he would feel embarrassed. And ashamed, so he’d go and blame the alcohol and the late hour. But for the moment, I had a goal. I wondered if I’d manage to reach it. It was exciting.
I thought of the Leap of Death. At my grandmother’s, when I was little: the Leap of Death used to take my breath away. It was a challenge I’d made up, a game that consisted in jumping down several steps of the stone stairway without falling, to land on the path in the garden. You started with just one step, then two, three, four. The Leap of Death was five whole steps. Every time, I imagined my face would be covered in blood, the grown-ups would come rushing out, my mother would scream with despair, my father would practically pass out, my schoolmates (who, inexplicably, had suddenly shown up, too) would be crying their young eyes out. Ecstasy. The ecstasy of the instant before the Leap of Death, because now I would have to go through with it, after all.