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

had visited from France and brought me a beautiful present. You were there, too, on that visit, weren’t you? You and your papa. You brought a rubber ball, but Nanny Proud told me that laddies were too wild to play with. I always wished that I had tried anyway. I’d never had a friend before.
    And here I’ve rambled on. Hopefully this letter will give you a moment or two between your essays. If you’re able, maybe you’ll be back at Mille Mots this weekend? At least your mother hopes.
    Sincerely,
    Miss Clare Ross
    The chair across from me squeaked. “What’s this, Crépet?” Stefan Bauer leaned over the back of the chair, fingers laced. “A letter from a girlfriend?”
    “No.” I folded the letter and stuffed it back in the envelope. “Just a girl. Who is also a friend.”
    “A girl and a friend.” He reached across the table and helped himself to my wine. “Is that not how it is defined?”
    “Your English is rusty, Bauer.”
    He shrugged and drained the glass. “The whole language is rusty. Only German is strong as steel.”
    I pulled my dish closer, hopefully out of his reach. “What are you doing here anyway? I thought you were going home to restring your racket.”
    “I am following you. I am…I am stacking you like a deer.” He waggled his eyebrows.
    “Stalking.” I retrieved the glass from him and gazed mournfully at the dregs. “And one generally doesn’t steal the food of one’s prey.”
    “You forgot your satchel at the club.” He swung my battered canvas bag up onto the table, knocking my spoon onto the ground. “You will want your copybooks and texts, yes?”
    I swore in French and opened up the satchel. Nothing was missing. “Thank you.”
    Bauer shrugged again. “Now that you and the satchel are reunited, a cabaret?”
    I never liked the cabarets like Bauer did. Too many loud-faced women and jingling coins. “I have a lot of reading to do tonight.” I buckled the satchel closed.
    “Because of your girlfriend, eh?” He nudged me. “Tell me about her, Crépet.” He swiped my heel of bread and tossed it back and forth between his hands like a tennis ball.
    “You’re imagining things. It’s a letter from my
maman,
that’s all.” I tucked the envelope into the satchel pocket. “When have you ever seen me talk to a girl? You’re delusional.”
    “I do not know this English word. But I know that you are a liar.” He pointed. “Your ears, they are pink right there.”
    “It’s the wine.” I brushed my hair over the offending ears. “Gaspard serves it strong.”
    I couldn’t say why I was evading Bauer. What did it matter if he knew that Maman had a ward staying with us for a little while? Clare was at Mille Mots, and besides, she wasn’t his type.
    “Does she have big…” He proved my point with an unmistakable mime.
    “I’m not teaching you that word in English, you degenerate.” I retrieved my spoon from the floor and wiped it on my apron.
    “But you knew what I was talking about, eh?” He nodded. “She does, does she not?”
    “Of course not. She’s only fifteen.” I stuffed a heaping spoonful of lentils into my mouth above Bauer’s cries of “Aha!” I’d slipped.
    “Why have I not met her? She does not come to the café with you or to the courts at Île de Puteaux. Young girls like to watch men at sport.”
    I swallowed and wiped my mouth. “She’s not in Paris. But I wouldn’t introduce her to you anyway.”
    “You are afraid she would see what a real man looks like?” He winked.
    I was more afraid she’d see the questionable company I kept.
    “Ah, then she is a country girl?” he persisted. “
Ein Süßling
from home?”
    “She’s not a sweetheart.” I bent my head to my plate and ate faster. “She’s my
maman
’s ward. I hardly know her.”
    He leaned his elbows on the table. “This is why you go so often on the weekends to your château. And also why you do not bring me.”
    I never invited him to Mille Mots, but it wasn’t