Chameleon by Cidney Swanson Read Free Book Online Page A

hotel. Mickie berated him for wandering off, but she also took a croissant.
    “You might have remembered coffee while you were at it,” she grumbled.
    “ She’s allergic to morning,” Will mouthed as he handed a pastry to me. We clomped along a quiet road behind Madame Evans, who seemed to have forgotten how to speak English since landing in France. Our group made enough noise to earn more than a few dour Gallic stares, human and canine, as we tromped past.
    Upon arriving at Château de Chenonceau, our destination, we received entrance tickets and instructions to meet for the walk back to the hotel at 5:00 PM. Mickie took students to find restrooms; Will and I strolled together down an avenue of giant, leafless trees. A weak sun peered from behind thin clouds, and I wrapped my scarf once more around my neck as we crunched along the gravel drive. We moved past outbuildings and hibernating gardens, past stumps of knobby pruned trees, beside canals green with moss until at last, Chenonceau castle rose up before us.
    “Hey look,” Will said, raising a gloved hand and pointing. “Our first scaffolding.” He snapped a picture. “For your step–mom.”
    Sylvia had told us the French took excellent care of their historical treasures, leaving the country in a state of constant repair. As we neared the château , I saw a formal garden to the right. Sylvia would love the winter blooms: red and white flowers amidst carefully trimmed hedges and geometric walkways. I didn’t know what any of the flowering things were, only that they were unexpected in winter.
    “Let’s go up,” I said. I pointed to leaded glass windows along the castle façade before us. “I want to take a picture of the garden from up there.”
    Will nodded.
    “ Billets? Vos billets, s’il vous plaît ,” said a woman at the door. I couldn’t have figured how to knot her elegant scarf if I’d had a year to attempt it.
    “Tee–kets please, your tee–kets,” she repeated in English. We held ours up for inspection and proceeded into the entrance hall. Nothing grand, hardly larger than the oversized entry to my own home thousands of miles away.
    Will gestured to the stairs ahead and to the right. We marched up the cold white marble. This kind of floor would be heaven in Central California in the summer, but I didn’t want to touch it in France in December.
    “Imagine living here,” Will said. “You’d need a ton of space heaters.”
    “Yeah.”
    At the top of the staircase, we turned left into a wide hallway, with doors leading off on either side. From one end of the hall, light danced through the windows, sparkling off the hundred tiny bits of leaded glass. My shoes squeaked on the highly polished floor.
    “Wish we could open these for my picture.” I brushed fingers along the window, smooth planes interrupted by ridges of ancient lead. “There’s got to be windows open somewhere. Did you feel that draft?” I pulled out my camera.
    From my second–story lookout, I discovered another, larger garden to the right, across a small waterway.
    “I’m going in this room,” Will said, leaving the hallway.
    I could hear the rest of our group lumbering below, chattering loudly, announcing to one and all our identity as les Americains . I’d never felt uncomfortable with my nationality before. Okay, I’d never thought about it. But now, I couldn’t help noticing how noisy Americans were compared to the French.
    “Whoa,” said Will, from the next room.
    I crossed to join him.
    “I just felt your breeze in here,” Will said. “Where’s it coming from?” He was walking from window to window, holding his hand out searching for the source of the cold air. “That was like—” he lowered his voice and I drew closer. “That was like touching you when you’re invisible.”
    “Told you it was drafty,” I said. “If I were rich enough to build a place like this, I’d insulate a lot better.”
    Will agreed and strolled into another room,