“Shut up.”
“Ah, Mimi . . . I’m kidding! But you know one day he’s going to have to realize you’re not his little girl any longer.” She grinned, sucked up Aperol through her straw. For a second I wanted to slap her . . . I nearly did. I don’t always have the best impulse control.
“He’s just a little . . . protective.” It was more than that, really. But I suppose I also never really wanted to do anything to disappoint Papa, tarnish that image of me as his little princess.
I often wished I could be more like Camille, though. So chill about sex. For her it’s just another thing she likes doing: like swimming or cycling or sunbathing. I’d never even had sex, let alone with two people at the same time （one of her specialties）， or tried girls as well as boys. You know what’s funny? Papa actually approved of her moving in here with me, said living with another girl “might stop you from getting into too much trouble.”
Camille was in her smallest bikini, just three triangles of pale crocheted material that barely covered anything. Her feet were pressed up against the ironwork of the balcony and her toenails were painted a chipped, Barbie-doll pink. Apart from her month in the South with friends she’d sat out there pretty much every hot day, getting browner and browner, slathering herself in La Roche-Posay. Her whole body looked like it had been dipped in gold, her hair lightened to the color of caramel. I don’t go brown; I just burn, so I sat tucked in the shade like a vampire with my Francoise Sagan novel, wearing a big man’s shirt.
She leaned forward, still watching the guy getting his cases out of the car. “Oh my God, Mimi! He has a cat. How cute. Can you see it? Look, in that carry basket. Salut minou!”
She did it on purpose, so he would look up and see us—see her. Which he did.
“Hey,” she called, standing up and waving so hard that her nénés bounced around in her bikini top like they were trying to escape. “Bienvenue—welcome! I’m Camille. And this is Merveille. Cute pussy!”
I was so embarrassed. She knew exactly what she was saying, it’s the same slang in French: chatte. Also, I hate that my full name is Merveille. No one calls me that. I’m Mimi. My mum gave me that name because it means “wonder” and she said that’s what my arrival into her life was: this unexpected but wonderful thing. But it’s also completely mortifying.
I sank down behind my book, but not so much that I couldn’t still see him over the top of it.
The guy shielded his eyes. “Thanks!” he called. He put up a hand, waved back. As he did I saw again that strip of skin between his T-shirt and jeans. “I’m Ben—friend of Nick’s? I’m moving into the third floor.”
Camille turned to me. “Well,” she said, in an undertone. “I feel like this place has just got a lot more exciting.” She grinned. “Maybe I should introduce myself to him properly. Offer to look after the pussy if he goes away.”
I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s fucking him in a week’s time, I thought to myself. It would hardly be a surprise. The surprising thing was how much I hated the thought of it.
Someone’s knocking on the door to my apartment.
I creep down the hall, look through the peephole. Merde: it’s her: the woman from Ben’s apartment.
I swallow—or try to. It feels like my tongue is stuck in my throat.
It’s hard to think with this roaring in my ears. I know I don’t have to open the door. This is my apartment, my space. But the knock knock knock is incessant, beating against my skull until I feel like something in me is going to explode.
I grit my teeth and open the door, take a step back. The shock of her face, close up: I see him in her features, straightaway. But she’s small and her eyes are darker and there’s something, I don’t know, hungry about her which maybe was in him too but he hid it better. It’s like with her all the angles are sharper. With him it was all smoothness. She’s scruffy, too: jeans and an old sweater with frayed cuffs, dark red hair scragged up on top of her head. That’s not like him either. Even in a gray T-shirt on a hot day he looked kind of . . . pulled-together, you know? Like everything fit him just right.
“Hi,’ she says. She smiles but it’s not a real smile. “I’m Jess. What’s your name?”
“M—Mimi.” My voice comes out as a rasp.
“My brother—Ben—lives on the third floor. But he’s . . . well, he’s kind of disappeared on me. Do you know him at all?”