At the Edge of Summer by Jessica Brockmole Read Free Book Online

do, you know. I remember how reluctant you were to show your sketchbook, how precious your drawings are to you. That you trust me, mademoiselle, it means much.
    It’s been raining here as well, but I’ve hardly noticed. I’m only outside when passing from my study turne at the university to my job at the café then back to my uncle’s apartment to sleep. If I disregard the latter, sometimes there’s a spare corner of time for tennis. There’s a German student here, who I tutor in English, and he’s as mad for tennis as I am. Sometimes we’ll have a “lesson” across the net. He can now swear in three languages.
    Well, I have a theme due for which I am woefully underprepared. If only I’d spent more time reading Callisthenes and less time accidentally discovering salacious paintings, I might be better prepared….
    Forgive me, I’ve had too much serious reading this week and too little sleep. And yet, once more into the breach!
    Thank you, truly, for the sketch.
    Luc René Rieulle Crépet
    I posted it on my way back to the university, along with a brief note to Papa.
The demoiselle, she has talent in drawing. Papa, can you teach her the way you taught me?
That stack of books on my desk somehow didn’t seem so towering the rest of the weekend.
    Her response didn’t come straight away and then I was too into the weekday routine of classes, study, and work, with the occasional late tennis match, to notice. Then Wednesday I came home, dripping in my tennis flannels, to find a letter waiting.
    “It arrived last night,” Uncle Théophile said. He pursed his lips. “If you’d come home at a decent hour, I would have told you.”
    “I’m sorry, Uncle.” I reached past him for the envelope on the hall table. “It’s been a busy week. I’ve been studying a lot and I’ve been working a lot. I must pay my tuition somehow.”
    He looked pointedly at my racket. “I can see that.”
    Without changing, I took the letter and racket straight back out the door. Rather than sit across the table from my sour-faced uncle, I’d eat supper at the café after my shift. Again. The other boys in my
turne,
they always teased that I had it easier living in the city rather than boarding at the university, the way they all did. As draconian as the rules were for boarders, they couldn’t be any worse than Uncle Théophile’s. Home by seven, lights out by eight, no sugar in my coffee, no wine on weekdays. And absolutely no gramophone music.
    Gaspard, the owner, rolled his eyes at my tennis flannels, but passed me an apron. “Clear those three tables, and I’ll have Hugues make a plate for you.”
    I tucked Clare’s letter into my apron pocket, unread, and went with damp towel to clear the tables for the next customer. Of course, it wasn’t until three hours later that I finally had a corner table, a plate of lentils with tomatoes, a glass of cheap wine, and a moment to read her letter.
Dear Monsieur Crépet,
    I don’t believe that it is as dreary as you say. You’re in Paris, after all. Universities, clean socks, unexpected letters. Living on your own rather than with someone telling you what you should or shouldn’t do. What can be better than that?
    I haven’t been reading my Callisthenes either (should I be?). Your mother did give me a copy of Les Contes de Ma Mère l’Oye to keep me company. I can’t read more than a handful of words (l’ogre, les roses, la petite princesse) but it’s as marvelous as I remember. It makes me feel that I’m sitting in my nursery with Nanny Proud, my old nurse. She couldn’t read any of the French either, but always pulled me onto her lap to trace the pictures and tell me the stories in her own words. I think she made up half of them.
    You know, I remember when your mother brought me the book. It must have been right after it was published, now that I think back on it. Of course then I had no idea your papa was the illustrator. Only that the nice lady who spoke with the lovely accent