Chapter 1
“You’re late.”
Delphine’s voice came out exactly how she wanted it to: flat, observational, no concern whatsoever. Angelique was seven minutes late, which was not unusual for her, but the way she slipped through the door was – quiet, no sarcastic greeting, no complaint about the walk from the metro. She just dropped into the chair across from Delphine and pulled out her notebook without making eye contact.
“I know.” Angelique’ said with a rough voice, then cleared her throat. “Sorry.”
Tilting her head, she studied the shadows under Angelique’s eyes, the way her light brown hair was pulled back messier than usual, the slight puffiness that suggested crying she’d rather no one knew about. None of this was Delphine’s business. She was a tutor. This was a transaction. Angelique paid for her time, and Delphine delivered fluency, and nothing else passed between them.
But Angelique was looking down at her notebook now, and her lower lip was doing that tiny thing where it trembled before she bit it still, and Delphine felt something move in her chest that she hadn’t felt in a long time. Something that wanted to reach across the table. Something that wanted to ask.
But she didn’t reach. She didn’t ask. She was very good at not doing things she wanted to do.
But she softened her voice anyway, just a fraction. Just enough that someone paying attention might notice. “Angelique.”
Angelique looked up. Her hazel eyes were red-rimmed – the kind of red Delphine was actively trying not to see, not to let matter. She let the silence stretch instead. She was patient. She had learned that people filled silences with things they didn’t mean to say.
“I’m fine,” Angelique said, and she even managed a smile, tight and unconvincing. “Long night. Roommate drama. You know how it is.”
Delphine did not know how it was. She lived with her wife in a five-bedroom house and a garden she paid someone else to maintain, and she had not had a roommate since she was nineteen years old and sleeping on a mattress in Montpellier. But she nodded like she understood, because that was what people wanted.
“If you need to reschedule– ”
“I don’t.” Angelique opened her book with more force than necessary. “Can we just start? Please?”
Please. That was new. Angelique never said please. She said fine and whatever and you’re not my real mom as a joke that wasn’t fully a joke. But she said please now, and it sounded like don’t make me talk about it, and Delphine knew when to push and when to let go.
She watched Angelique for another beat before she spoke again.
“Page forty-two,” she said. “The conditional past. You failed it on the last quiz.”
“Thanks for the reminder.”
“I’m not being cruel. I’m being honest.” Delphine leaned back in her chair, crossed her legs, let her face go smooth and unreadable again. “You have two weeks to bring your grade up, or the department will drop you from the program. So we need to work. Can you work?”
Angelique met her eyes and there was something like gratitude or relief, maybe, that Delphine wasn’t pushing further.
“I can work,” Angelique said.
“Good.” Delphine picked up her pen. “Then conjugatevenirin the conditional past, and don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re about to ask me something personal.”
Angelique laughed, just once, surprised out of her, and it was the first real sound she’d made all afternoon. “Maybe I was.”
“Don’t.” Delphine said it gently. “Conjugate.”
So Angelique conjugated, and Delphine watched her write, and neither of them mentioned the shaking hands or the red eyes.
