“I don’t care,” I said. “I fucked Marion last night.” Léo looked at me. Then he laughed. Then we both laughed and drove the rest of the way to the house.
At lunch Fabien told an interminable story in French that I couldn’t understand. No one translated. The air around the table was preoccupied. I was anxious to ask Vicky about her and Léo, so when lunch ended I insisted that we do the washing-up. Only then and gently, because I wasn’t mad—I wasn’t—did I ask why she hadn’t told me about her and Léo. “What about us?” she said, plopping a grape in her mouth. “That you had a thing.” Vicky laughed and set down the dish she was drying. “Me and Léo? A thing?” Her mouth twisted in genuine amusement. “I think I’d know.” My relief was followed closely by annoyance and then, maybe, something like regret. I thought for a crazy moment of asking Vicky whether she would have, had Léo wanted to, but I could hardly ask her that. It wasn’t jealousy I felt, after all, but the opposite. I felt—well, spurned. Vicky and Marion went into the city that afternoon to play tennis at Marion’s club, and I was once more left alone with my books and notepads on the back lawn. I tried to think about Rome, but all I could think about was Léo. What had happened to him? Was he crazy? Just as I was thinking, Screw Rome, this is what I should write about: the madness of Léon Descoteaux, his son Antoine appeared at my side. He announced his presence by putting his hand on my shoulder and looking down at my notes. “Hello there,” I said. He breathed on my face for a few seconds before turning away from my papers. “You must think we’re very strange,” he said. I looked at him appraisingly. He couldn’t have been more than eleven.
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