Sacré Bleu

“Why don’t you get dressed while I clean these brushes?”

She sat up quickly, pushed her lower lip out in a pout. “You’re bored with me, aren’t you?”

Lucien shook his head; there really was no winning here, as his father had taught him was often the case when dealing with women.

“Where do you want to go for lunch?” Lucien asked.

“I have an idea,” she said.

Before he could fully fathom what she had in mind, they were boarding a train at Gare Saint-Lazare and headed for Chatou, only a few miles northwest of the city.

“It’s lunch, Juliette. I need to get back to work.”

“I know. Trust me,” she said.

From the train station she led him to the banks of the Seine; out on the river he could see people gathered on a small island, connected to the shore by a long wooden dock. Rowers and day sailors had tied their boats to the dock. There was music playing and people on the platform were laughing, dancing, and drinking, the men in bright, striped jackets and straw boaters, the women in brightly colored pastel dresses. All along the shore bathers waded, splashed, and swam, and farther up the river, Lucien could see couples lying together under the willows.

“I can’t believe there are so many people out here on a weekday,” Lucien said.

“Isn’t it marvelous?” Juliette said, taking his hand. She pulled him down the riverbank.

Lucien saw two painters working side by side on the near bank, concentrating intensely on their work and laying down color at a mad speed. He stopped to watch and Juliette yanked him away. “Those two are—”

“Come on, it will be lovely.”

Finally, he gave himself up to the experience. They ate, and drank, and danced. She flirted with various boaters and the gentlemen slumming among the rowers, who were having a look at all the young girls, and just as she’d get their interest, she would cling to Lucien’s arm and profess to her suitor that the painter was her only and her ever. The resentment from the men was palpable.

“Juliette, don’t do that. It’s—well, I don’t know what it is, but it makes everyone involved uncomfortable.”

“I know,” she said, and she planted a wet kiss on his neck, which made him squirm and laugh.

A fellow in a T-shirt and boater who was rowing by at the time shouted, “Ah, nothing like a Sunday afternoon at La Grenouillère, oui?”

“Oui,” said Lucien with a smile, tipping his own straw boater, which he didn’t remember putting on, or for that matter owning. He was sure it was Tuesday. Yes, Tuesday.

“Let’s explore,” said Juliette.

They walked up the riverbank, talking and laughing, Lucien noting how the light played on the water, Juliette noting how silly everyone looked in their bathing costumes, some of the men still wearing their hats as they swam. They found a spot under a willow tree whose branches hung all the way to the ground, and there, on a blanket, they finished a bottle of wine, teased, kissed, and made love, all of it feeling very exciting and dangerous and naughty.

After the

y dozed in each other’s arms for what seemed like the whole afternoon, they made their way back to the train station, where the last train of the day was just boarding. They took the train to Gare Saint-Lazare, leaning on one another as they looked out the window, not saying a word, but both grinning like blissful idiots.

Although he could ill afford it, Lucien paid for a cab to take them from the station back to the bakery, where she assumed her pose on the fainting lounge, and he took his seat, palette in hand, and he resumed his work, without a word, until the light from the skylight went orange.

“That’s it,” Juliette said.

“But, ma chère—”

She stood and began dressing, as if she had suddenly remembered an appointment. “That’s enough for today.”

“They used to call this the painter’s hour, Juliette,” Lucien said. “There’s a softness to the early evening light, and besides—”

She put her finger to his lips. “Have you not had a good day?”

“Well, uh, yes, of course, but—”

“The day is done,” she said. And in a minute she had dressed and was out the door. “Tomorrow,” she said.