Then Jesse Coste strolled up, French sunlight turning his hair into a fancy gold helmet. The day went dim around him. He and Marcel nodded at each other in Exton solidarity.
“Hello, Jesse,” said Bastien. “Jesse goes to Exton with my friend Marcel. Your schools are close, aren’t they? Do you all know each other?”
Jesse looked at Nicholas with polite blankness. “Do I know you?”
“I’m on the team that’s going to beat you at state,” Nicholas shot back.
“In any case, I do know Seiji. He and I have been fencing partners since we were small,” announced Jesse. He gave Seiji a possessive look, as though Seiji were an épée or a trophy.
Bastien frowned. “How strange he never mentioned you.”
“That is strange,” said Jesse with supreme composure. “Hello again, Seiji.”
“Hello,” said Seiji in a wooden voice.
All light now seemed leeched from the orchard.
“Is it nice being back in France?” Bobby asked Marcel brightly, covering the brief pause.
Marcel unbent slightly. Bobby had that effect on people. “I’ve been looking forward to coming home all year.”
“But you’re on the best team in America, so it’s not all bad,” Jesse said with his sunny smile.
The table full of Kings Row students bristled.
Bobby tried again. “I love your hair. What kind of shampoo do you use?” he asked Melodie valiantly.
“I don’t know…” Melodie seemed faintly perplexed. “The kind in the showers of my salle?”
Bastien laughed, looping an arm around Melodie’s waist. “Melodie learned footwork when she was three. Fencing is all she thinks about. She’s very good.”
Melodie beamed at him. “Bastien’s coached me almost as much as his father.”
Sometimes Nicholas imagined having learned fencing from early childhood. Having the same time-polished skills as Jesse so that Seiji wouldn’t ever look down on him.
“I know the Robillards are a famous fencing family,” Jesse said with his super-bright smile that made Nicholas’s head hurt. Bastien smiled back.
“The Costes are no slouches themselves. Like father, like son, from all I hear.”
“People do say that,” Jesse admitted modestly. He glanced sharply over at Nicholas as though he could feel the weight of Nicholas’s stare on him and wished to remove an irritant. “Do you have any family to speak of?”
“No. Not to speak of,” said Nicholas distantly.
He knew his voice sounded weird. He was saved by Bastien addressing Dante in Italian, speaking chattily at length and finishing a sentence on an upward tilt, as though asking a friendly question. Dante glanced up from his plate and answered briefly. Bastien appeared taken aback.
“What did Dante say?” Nicholas whispered.
Bobby whispered back, “He said, I hate fencing.”
“Right,” said Nicholas. “Classic Dante.”
Marcel, Bastien, and Melodie stared at Dante. They seemed too well-mannered to point out that this was a training camp for fencers.
“This is a training camp for fencers,” said Jesse Coste.
Dante shrugged. Jesse returned to staring at the back of Seiji’s head with the focused air of someone attempting mind control, as though Jesse thought his force of will gave him superpowers.
“It’s really great to see so many Americans here,” Bastien continued with determination. “Usually it’s the same people over and over. Fencers come to the Camp Menton from France of course, and from Italy and Germany and England, but never before from America. We’re all looking forward to seeing your skills.”
From what the English boy at the buffet table was saying, they didn’t seem to be expecting much. Nicholas felt a jolt of horror at the thought of living down to everyone’s expectations.
“Americans don’t take the sport seriously,” remarked Marcel.
“I take everything seriously,” said Seiji.
That was so undeniably true, it silenced the whole table. Nicholas wished the captain were here. Harvard was so steady; he anchored their whole team.
Harvard was sitting at another table and talking to a guy Nicholas thought he recognized from their match with MLC. Maybe he was wrong, though, and Harvard had struck up a friendship with a random person. Their captain had a winning personality. Even Aiden liked him, and Aiden didn’t like anybody. Sometimes Nicholas got the feeling Aiden didn’t even like Aiden much.
Where was Aiden? He was always late to everything these days. He said he was sleeping in, but he didn’t look as though he was sleeping much. Nicholas couldn’t figure it out.
The silence that had fallen on their table seemed to spread until the only sound was the leaves rustling in a rippling warm breeze. Nicholas gazed around to see why and noted that Aiden had come to breakfast at last.
Aiden didn’t look as though he’d slept much, but that was the norm these days, so maybe it wasn’t jet lag but his party lifestyle that was affecting him. Being tired actually suited Aiden, turning his face mysterious with angles and hollows in it. Leaves from the lemon trees fluttered down, seemingly in slow motion, and got caught in his fancy bedhead. People paused with forks frozen halfway to their fallen-open mouths as Aiden passed by.
But Aiden was still annoying, so what was the big deal?
Bastien had taken hold of the edge of the picnic table as though he were clinging to the edge of a cliff. “Oh, and I say this with feeling, mon Dieu.”
Nicholas wasn’t sure what that meant.
Bobby leaned in to whisper to Nicholas. “Do you see the way Bastien’s staring at Aiden? And Bastien’s incredibly good-looking, isn’t he?”
“Is he?” Nicholas checked.
French sunshine seemed different from American sunshine, at once brighter and paler, primrose colored. The sunlight was splashing through the leaves of the boughs above the picnic table. Bastien’s shoulders were broad beneath his white polo shirt, and his brown curly hair was untidy in an on-purpose way. He had a cleft chin.
“Almost as good-looking as Seiji,” Bobby confirmed in a very low voice.
“What? No way,” said Nicholas.
“Do you think Bastien and Aiden will date?”
Nicholas shrugged. “Probably. Aiden dates everybody, right?”
Aiden had even dated the captain, but that hadn’t lasted long. Nicholas felt another prickle of unease. Harvard and Aiden had seemed really happy when they were dating. Would the captain feel okay about seeing Aiden go off with other guys the way he used to?
Even familiar things felt strange in France.
The hush that had fallen over the table was broken by Melodie opining that Aiden was too skinny for her taste, and Jesse asking imperiously what everyone was staring at.
“Your captain, though, his shoulders have great potential.” Melodie sneaked a glance at Eugene. “So many men neglect their delts.”
“That’s what I’m always saying!” Eugene exclaimed.
Bastien was still staring over at Aiden, but with a mighty effort to be polite, he wrenched his attention back to their table.
“Your pardon.” Bastien turned to Nicholas with an apologetic smile. “Got distracted for a second there. Nicholas, before you came, Seiji was telling me you’re his fencing partner.”