Oh, and as promised, here is the link to the updated French to English translations. http://alysonbowen.blogspot.com/2014/05/french-to-english-translations.html#.U5YboBZcMpA
Rose
Chapter 7
He felt his head pounding
along with the ridiculously loud bass that was blasting throughout the entire
De La Fontaine mansion. Vi had
gone all out for her birthday.
Loud music, flashing lights, and alcohol abounded as frequently as the
drunk jeunes he had never met before
and wondered if Vi actually could name all these people. After watching her down another shot of
Glann ar Mor whiskey, he realized she
probably didn’t even know her own name.
The party had only been going
on for an hour and Phillippe was ready to go home. He had to stay for at least another hour to satisfy his
father, or more likely lessen the severity of the lecture he had surely
planned. It would not go over well
when his father found out that Vi had refused to even acknowledge his
presence. Surrounded constantly by
a wall of people, she danced away.
Tired of watching the drunk dancing, he crept out the back door onto the
veranda for some air that didn’t reek
of alcohol.
“Phillippe, I didn’t realize
you were still here.” Dai was
seated on une chaise, overlooking the
vineyard.
“Not enjoying la fête?” He pulled up une autre
chaise next to hers.
“This isn’t really my kind of
fête. I don’t really know any of Vi’s friends from lycée, so I have no one to talk to.”
“Well I’m here so you can
talk to me.”
As she looked at him, her
small pink lips pushed her pink cheeks up into a smile.
“Do you want something to
drink?”
“I’ll pass on the alcohol,
but I think ma mère made her buy some
Lorina too. Grenade, s’il te plait.”
He nodded and headed back
into the chaos, forcing his way through crowds of dancers to grab two Lorina sodas, one grenade and one citronnade. After finally making it back outside,
he stopped and watched Dai for a little bit. Her head was down, her short hair falling in her face as she
scribbled out a sketch onto a scrap of paper in her lap. Her bright hair seemed to glow in the
light of the stars. It was the
color of the sun, but not the bright yellow color usually associated with the
sun. No, Dai’s hair was not
yellow. It was the actual color
the sun appeared when looking up into the sky. It was the color of the stars.
Not wanting to interrupt her
drawing, he sat and watched for a little longer. She seemed to be drawing three girls together. She was finishing up the face on the second
when she glanced up at him, embarrassed, and tucked away the drawing. She took her soda and they sipped in
silence, well as silent as it could get with the thundering music from inside.
“So who were you
drawing? I could tell the first
one was you. Was the second one
Vi?”
She nodded and took another
sip of her drink.
“Was the third one Rose?”
She nodded again and turned
her head away, but not before Phillippe saw the storm brewing in her eyes the
reminded him of the waves at the beach on a cloudy day from when he was a child.
“It’s always hard to lose a
sibling, especially one you never got to know. You can’t help but wonder how life would be different if
that other person was there in your life.”
Dai put a hand on his
arm. “I forgot that ta mère had a miscarriage. You were supposed to have a younger
brother.
“Or sister. It was too early to tell.” He sighed, then continued. “Oh, how things would be different if I
had a sibling to take away some of the attention of mes parents. It’s
impossible to not think about. Or,
how different life would be if Rose were still alive. I wouldn’t be at this party because I wouldn’t have to be
with Vi. I might already be
married, that is if Rose liked me more than Vi does.”
Dai laughed. “Vi really doesn’t want to date you.”
“Oh, je sais. That’s why I
haven’t been able to see her all night.
You know that she didn’t send me an actual invitation. Mon
père overheard about her party and told ta
mère to expect me.”
“Well I didn’t get one
either. I just live here.” She laughed.
“As her sister, she must be
nice to you, vraiment?”
“Of course she’s nice to
me. I just don’t always get along
with her friends.” They both
glanced inside at the crowds of boisterously intoxicated people.
“Does she really know that
many people?”
“I’m sure she does. Vi is very friendly.”
“I guess that’s one way to
put it.”
“How would you put it?”
“Je ne sais pas. I
don’t understand how she can have actual relationships with all these
people. Can one person have that
many friends? I think I would
explode.”
“You don’t have to know
everything about a person to be their friend.”
“Non, but you should know
more than their name. How would
you even spend time with that many people? There aren’t enough hours in the day.”
“You don’t spend time with me
anymore. Are we no longer
friends?”
“Dai, that’s not what I
meant. I know a lot about
you. Your favorite color is
yellow. You love to draw. Even through drawing is your favorite
thing, and quite frankly you’re fantastic at it, you don’t want to make a career
out of it. You want to move to Los
Angeles and start a charity, but you haven’t decided what kind of a charity it
will be because you move through ideas faster than you can write them down. You’ve only had one boyfriend, mais il
y a six mois he broke your heart and left you for Dominique, one of your
closest friends. You haven’t
talked to either of them since.
Don’t forget that I brought you ice cream and watched Amélie et Paris, Je t’Aime with you
multiple times that weekend. Of
course we spend time together. Dai, you are more than a friend. You are family.”
“Merci, Phillippe. But
what about Vi?”
“I don’t know anything about
her except that apparently she likes tout
le monde except me.”
“Ce n’est pas vrai. She
likes you.”
“Not the way she’s supposed
to. We’re supposed to be in love
so we can get married, and instead she ignores me because she’s too busy
throwing herself on every other homme
she meets.”
“That’s not very nice,
Phillippe.”
“Non, Dai. What isn’t very nice is her ignoreing
me and treating me comme des déchets
every time I’m with her. Remember
Paul? She went out with him while
on a date with me! Then she
ignored me for a week, and have you ever seen him since?”
“Phillippe, it isn’t like
that. Can you imagine being
promised to a person from before you were born? She has always been told who she would marry and what she
would do for the rest of her life.
She doesn’t get to experience life like a normal human being. She doesn’t get to date or deal with
heartbreak like I have. This isn’t
the 14e siècle, yet she’s being told
who to marry. That’s all of her
freedom taken away.”
“You think it’s easy for
me? I’m in the same
situation. I don’t have any say in
my life either. At least I’m not
out dating other girls because I know what I’m supposed to do. I chose to accept that and try to make
it work. She’s making it so
difficult for me.”
“Did you know that a few
years ago she asked if she could study music at Oxford but was told she
couldn’t because she had to stay here and marry you? She promised not to date anyone else if the wedding could be
put on hold until she had her degree.
Mes parents adamantly refused,
and ever since then she’s been acting like this!” She gestured to her sister wearing the low-necked, short
skirted navy dress as she danced on the table next to two young men who were
uncomfortably close to her.
Phillipe didn’t know how to
take in that new information about Vi.
It’s true that Vi had definitely gotten worse and ruder in the past
couple of years, but he was going through the same situation as her and he
didn’t handle it that way. “Dai, I
have to go. It was nice talking to
you.”
After driving all the way
home, he decided to postpone the inevitable confrontation from his father so he
snuck around the side of the house to Audrée’s garden and climbed up one of the
trellises. He crept along the roof
until he reached his bedroom window where he snuck in. His mind circled around itself as he
tried to sort through what Dai had told him.
On one hand he wanted to feel
bad for Vi being denied so much, but at the same time he was going through
exactly the same situation and was trying to make the best of it instead of the
worst. She was using him as an
excuse to act completely irrationally.
He had worked so hard and given up so much because of her. He had always wanted to travel. He wanted to take in world
culture. He wanted to live on his
own and see how he survived. Most importantly
though, he wanted to get a business degree from HEC Paris. Instead he was trapped at home with
almost nothing to do while he waited for her to get old enough to marry.
She was unbelievable. How was this marriage supposed to last
if they fought worse than married couples did before they were even
engaged? Yet he knew he had to
keep at it for his parents, her parents, and both wineries. No matter what she did, he would put up
with it and keep trying.
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