CHAPTER ELEVEN
three's company
(pretend this is a siamese cat)
˚✧₊⁎
In the end, regardless of her partner, she was determined to pass with flying colors even if it had cost her tooth and nail. Juliette just hoped she had it in her to survive the likes of working with Joseph Descamps and not end up in a washed-up penitentiary for homicide.
She and Annick had bid each other their goodbyes just a few moments ago as the girl watched her friend ride out of town atop her bike. Annick had offered for Juliette to hop on the back of her bicycle as she only lived a few blocks away but she decided against it. After the mess of the day, Juliette wanted nothing more than to savor every second of her spare time alone, serene with her own presence despite the bitterness of the early autumn cold.
Much to her luck, however, her alone time was cut short by none other than her lovely exposé partner. The new one, in fact, all 185 centimeters of him towered over her as his lengthy legs were quick to catch up to her much shorter ones in a few mere paces.
"Where are you off to?"
Juliette flickered him a look. The cool breeze catches in his brown curls and all of a sudden she doesn't know what to say. "Home," she swallowed.
"You're not busy?"
"No."
"So you asked Lamaziére to work on the project together after school, but not me? Your actual partner?" He clicks his tongue against his teeth, shaking his head with it.
"You're certainly asking a lot of questions."
A tensed look invades Joseph's expression, his jaw flexing as he swallows a sigh.
"Annoyed, too." Juliette adds.
"Yeah?" He says, a bitterness seeping into his tone. "What makes you think that?"
It confused Juliette a bit—how he was acting now, as if she was the one in the wrong for not wanting to entertain whatever move he pulled earlier today. There was no right reason for him to do so, not after how much she racked her poor brain to think of an explanation of his doing.
"Considering you scared poor Lamaziére into switching partners with you, I thought you wouldn't even waste your time to bother working on it." Juliette professed as their steps aligned. It was the only justification that seemed plausible for her.
Unless, of course, he had other reasons.
His eye peered at her, a burning side-eye of dismay.
Juliette would love to hear it.
"That's why you wanted to work with me, no?" The girl tested as their gazes meet, "you wanted a partner with a better work ethic than Vasseur. You knew that I would do most of the project so you wouldn't have to do a damn thing."
Joseph shakes his head and he feigns a scoff, "no, that's not—never mind."
He decides against finishing his thought. Using her as an easy out was far from his intentions, though his real intentions were not entirely plausible either. Not wanting her to work with any other male classmate aside from him sounded crazy and unjustifiable even if he tried. Juliette would be even more annoyed with him if he revealed even an inkling of that information.
Girls came and went in Joseph's life. He just wasn't so sure why he was so possessive over this one—a friend, a neighbor, a mere acquaintance.
"What is it, then?" Juliette asks, serious and doting.
The inside of Joseph's cheek catches in between his teeth as he chewed it lightly. If he didn't, he would have said something he would regret.
"Just know that I'd rather risk my grade working with a girl than be partnered with Vasseur," he excuses himself.
Juliette rolls her eyes, "again with the anti-girl rhetoric. How many times do our teachers have to announce my grades for you to understand that I've been outscoring you since September?"
There's a competitive fire written all over her visage, from her peering gaze and teasing smile. Something about Juliette's jabs at him was so compelling, he had not noticed the way his palms perspired and his stomach churned. Nerves. Joseph chuckles, brushing off the tease off like a speck of dirt on his shoulder.
Juliette did not question him, nor did she acknowledge the fact that they just walked past his home. Perhaps there was already an unspoken agreement between the two of them that they were to start on the presentation, anyway. To get it over with.
"We're staying downstairs in the shop and only the shop," she announced as they reached the doors of the building, glaring at the boy. "My room is off limits."
A smirk melts upon his lips when opens the door for her. She tosses him a quick thanks. He's quick to follow behind her, "I wouldn't dream of it, cherie."
"I'm sure half the guys in our class would pay for a description of what it looks like." Juliette jokes as her grandfather greets the both of them.
He gives the two a toothy grin as if he was happy the see the sight of the two of them together again.
"Sounds like a great way to make some easy cash," Joseph comments, following Juliette to one of the work tables near the front of the store, near the stairwell up to their dwelling.
She flashes him a look as she sits down.
"Don't worry," he places himself right across from her. "I'd give you at least ten percent of the earnings."
Juliette flashes him yet another look, one with more bite and tension.
"Twenty percent?"
"Fifty," she challenged.
"Thirty," he mimicked her tone.
"How about sixty?"
He 'tsks,' "Don't think that is how negotiating works, Bellemare."
They were much closer now. Somehow, in the midst of their conversation and stare down did their bodies progressively lean against the table. Their elbows threatened to touch.
Juliette's eyes flicker down, heart thumping against her ribcage. She shrugs then, pulling away as if the proximity was scorching her skin into blisters. Perhaps if she turned away just enough, Joseph wouldn't be able to catch how her cheeks reddened and burned.
She hummed in a teasing provocation once she opened up her textbook, "you've lost yourself a deal, Descamps." Juliette stared down hard at the small-pointed text, ignoring his gaze that so beckoned to make her pulse race for some odd reason. Anxious as always, she presumes.
Silence fell upon them as they flipped through pages and pages of their textbook for the next ten minutes. Marcelin's assignment did not have the clearest of directions let alone a proper prompt to follow. Aside from creating an exposé from whatever French literary figure of their choosing, any other form of objective was simply thrown out the window or have fallen into the hands of his own students discretion. A mess surely waiting to happen.
Juliette supposes some would quite like the freedom of process, but for someone as Type A as her, this was a complete nightmare. A conundrum for a rule-follower and an anxious individual, it did not take long for Joseph to notice her fervent page turning with her slender, and delicate bandage-clad fingers. They shook on occasion if he found himself staring hard enough.
"Are you alright?" He asked once his gaze flickered to the deep lines forming between her furrowed brows.
"Huh?" She responded as if he pulled her out of some kind of trance.
"You look a bit... lost."
Juliette shakes her head, eyes falling back to her textbook. "I just have no idea where to start," she confesses. "Marcelin didn't quite give us the most detailed directions..."
"I think you're overthinking it, Bellemare," Joseph hums.
She chuckles, words hushed like a whisper. "When am I not?"
He shook his head at her comment and ignored the way his stomach pitted. He sighed and leaned back against his seat as he braided his arms over one another, "we just need to think of a topic, that's all. Once we do, the hard part is basically done. You have anybody in mind?"
"There's a lot to choose from—Camus, Céline, Prost, Hugo..." Juliette began listing out literary figures off the top of her head.
"Voltaire, perhaps?" Joseph suggests with a smug smile written all over his face.
"The most obvious choice? Yeah, right. Too basic," the girl says, "what about Baudelaire?"
Joseph stifles a laugh, hiding it behind a hand as he shifts his weight upon his seat. "Voltaire is too basic, but Baudelaire is not?"
"Hm..." she sighs, mimicking Joseph as she falls back onto the backrest of her chair. "Touché." She racks her brains for more ideas. The names she suggested earlier were one of the most popular writers that popped into her head. And as she searched for more within that prose-riddled brain of hers does one more person come to mind.
She's just not quite sure if Joseph would like the idea.
"What about Simone de Beauvoir?" Juliette says, her breath catching in her throat she watched his face scrunch.
"She's the one who wrote that feminist novel?"
Juliette nods, "The Second Sex. I think it has fantastic commentary on gender roles in our society and that women are just as capable as men. I have a copy of you would like to read it... you might learn a thing or two."
There is an evident pause that hung in the air, still and uncanny. Juliette fears she might have made Joseph uncomfortable with such a controversial suggestion, but it did not sway her decision of wanting de Beauvoir as their topic. She was sure every other group would focus on better known male literary figures than controversial feminist authors. This would certainly capture Marcelin's attention and praise them for their topic of choice. After all, Marcelin had the least discernable hatred towards the new female students asides from Couret.
Juliette held onto that hope—or perhaps she remained under the guise of optimism.
Joseph brought his hand to the nape of his neck, his trimmed nails itched the skin just below his hairline. "Tell you this," he starts with a sigh, "I'll read it. If I like it we will go with her as our topic. If not, we're doing Voltaire. Deal?"
A smile creeps onto her face, "Deal."
"This better be good..." he sounds hesitant despite the briefness of his answer. However, that was all Juliette needs before she's dashing upstairs to fetch her book. The corners of Joseph's lips tug up into a small grin as he watches her disappear upstairs.
˚✧₊⁎
To put it in the simplest of terms, Joseph Descamps did not hate what he was reading, as much as he hated to admit it. That fact was certainly a rare feat to behold as never in his lifetime did he think he would be caught with feminist literature in his hands and actually find it... intriguing.
His opinions about the opposite sex have always been peculiar. Given that he was raised by a single mother, he knew better than to only treat women with a sense of basic human decency. Too bad he tended to be a piece of shit to people regardless of gender, but his most recent offenses involving a bucket of water and a stolen book probably doesn't help his case.
He could be a better person, Joseph knew that much. But it was difficult to discern learned behavior from peers when that's all he has ever known throughout his life. It just made the novel that much more hard hitting the way de Beauvoir's writing clung onto him like tar heels could not wash off, coating his lungs with ash and smoke of tension and affliction.
Juliette could tell the words he was reading made him uncomfortable. The type of discomfort that him shift in his seat to think, ponder, and hopefully reflect. She knew there was good somewhere deep within him.
And to think he would close the book after a few paragraphs but he kept going. Perhaps it was the way Nietzsche and Kant's influence were so clear in her writings, it kept his eyes glued to the yellow-aged pages of the decade-old book. He was a sucker for philosophy despite Juliette's teases. Because only she, the girl who managed to trick him into reading more books within a few weeks than he has in an entire year, could have that power over him.
Joseph shuts the book, startling Juliette out of her haze as she flickers a look towards him. He was only halfway through the novel, but it was more than enough to decide that he would settle for de Beauvoir as their topic.
"What got you into this?" he asks, waving the book around before shoving a pencil in between the pages as a placeholder.
"Reading?" Juliette clarifies and he gives her a nod, "my grandparents. I wasn't the most active nor the most sociable kid, so spending my days reading was my usual go-to."
"Has White Nights always been your favorite?" Joseph's fingers found purchase fiddling with the corner of the book cover.
"Only recently," she answers, taking him by surprise.
"Really? I assumed it was your favorite for years."
Juliette shrugs, "Kafka's diaries were my favorite for the longest time. Still is. That copy of White Nights was my father's; that's what makes it so special. He gave it to me last year to make me shut up and get off his back." She ends off her statement with a pitiful laugh.
Joseph can't help but be curious at the mention of her father. In retrospect, Juliette had never mentioned her parents to him at all up until now. He tilts his head slightly.
"What do you mean?" he asks, hesitant as if the girl before him could freeze and change the subject at any moment.
Juliette shakes her head, ripping her gaze away from Joseph as she continues jotting something down. Perhaps he could feel the discomfort pouring out of her, "my parents and I don't really get along."
Joseph's expression furrows, gently gazing upon her as she wouldn't dare to meet his eye. Maybe she was embarrassed, maybe she was shy, maybe she just did not want to indulge in such personal information with him. He wanted to know more, but Joseph could not blame her.
In fact, he almost felt bad even bringing it up at all.
There was a strange churning in his gut. The feeling as if he wanted to ease Juliette's troubles away until they were nothing but mere molecules of unease. Indiscernable at best.
Yet instead he looks away, out towards the windows of the shop and stared at the setting sun displaying arrays of shadows upon the walls of neighboring buildings. His adam's apple bobs up and down as he swallowed whatever nerves that somehow found themselves lodged in his throat.
When he looks back towards Juliette, still distracting herself with messy scribbled notes, did the lump in his throat come back again. Like a pesky little parasite, he gulps it away. His hand slowly reaches for her non-dominant, discretely easing his fingers to brush against hers but a yelp of feline whining echos down from her apartment, startling Juliette's hand away from his as her head whips towards the source of the sound.
Joseph pulls his hand away before she could catch his yearning arm stretched over the table.
"Sorry," she apologises, "that's my cat. I gave her an extra treat when I went up there to look for my book and now she's acting like a diva." Rising from her seat, she quickly dismisses herself, "I'll be right back."
The boy nods, watching as she disappears upstairs again.
Juliette was only gone for a minute when she arrives back downstairs. This time, an adorable Siamese cat purred in her arms.
"Are you allergic to cats?" she asks before she sits back down at the table.
Joseph shakes his head, fighting the grin that threatened to take over his expression as Juliette approaches him.
"Good," she says, "this is Bonbon. Usually she doesn't like meeting strangers, so let's see if she lets you pet her or if she claws your eyes out."
"Nothing wrong with a little game of roulette," Joseph muses as he reaches over towards the animal.
Bonbon hisses at the stranger's approaching hand, lips baring and revealing sharpened fangs as he neared. Joseph only laughs at her reaction, a smile melting upon his lips as fear was nowhere near close to plaguing his nerves. He pets her head anyway, the warmth and softness of her grey and white fur moved fluidly through his fingers. It was then did the feline's hissing fit dissolve into nothing but purrs of adoration as she leans into his pet.
Juliette watches him as he does so. Something about his smile now seemed so genuine, it was not a teasing smirk nor a forced grin she often saw him adorn. This was different. The details were nearly insignificant, but to Juliette the difference was clear as day—the way his eye squinted into crescents and crinkled at the corners, how one corner of his lips tugged a bit higher than the other—did he always have dimples?
She rips her gaze away from him, flickering a look of surprise towards Bonbon instead. "That's new," Juliette says, "usually it takes her a while to warm up to new people. She had just barely taken a liking towards Annick."
"I've always been a hit with the ladies," Joseph jokes.
Rolling her eyes, Juliette sets the cat down to roam freely around the shop, "funny."
"Are you going to the game tomorrow?"
"What game?"
"The football game," he says, "teachers versus students. Everyone's going."
"We have a project to work on, Descamps."
"Oh, c'mon it's just a little game," he whines, "if it takes longer than two hours, we can ditch and work on the assignment, promise."
Like a child, he sticks his pinky out, wiggling it for Juliette to take into hers. She gives him a look, feigning from rolling her eyes for the umpteenth time in the span of a few minutes.
She sighs, nodding. "Alright," she mutters and wraps her pinky around him.
The touch, as simple and minuscule as it was, made her cheeks ache in earnest, seeping intravenously and settling itself home between the gaps of her ribs.
"Jesus, it is stuffy up there," a familiar voice rang from upstairs, loud thumping of irregular steps down the stairs followed with it and all of a sudden Juliette is pulled back into her senses.
She tears her pinky away out of Joseph's grasp and if she wasn't thinking any better, she swears he tries to hold her still for a moment as if to savor the moment just a while longer.
"Mamie!" Juliette exclaims, the legs of her chair scraped against the carpet. Albertine Bellemare was already halfway down the stairs, weak legs struggling to keep her balance as she leans against the handle bars. Her cane loosely gripped in her other hand. "What are you doing? You know you can't go down by yourself!"
She is immediately at her grandmother's side, steadying her frail body.
"Oh hush, sweet girl, I'm going down just fine," her grandmother huffs.
"With my help," countered Juliette.
"I just needed to stretch my legs, that's all. Your grandfather's working after all and I did not want to disturb you or Annick—oh!" Albertine's eyes widened at the sight of Joseph instead of a familiar blonde that was usually at Juliette's side. "Who is this, Julie? Does Dean know you have a boy over?"
Joseph, who had been watching this whole ordeal in his comfortable seat, raises a brow at her. Juliette wanted nothing more than to crumple up in a ball and pretend she didn't exist and that this was all a dream, but instead her cheeks heat as hot as the sun, dusted in the brightest crimson blush known to man.
"We're just working on a project, mamie." Juliette huffs once their feet touch the ground floor.
Joseph stands when they do so, approaching her grandmother with an outstretched hand, "I'm Joseph Descamps, Madam."
"I know who you are," she mutters as she takes his hand with a touch so gentle he could barely feel the contact, "you're Suzanne's son."
"I wasn't sure if you remembered me or not. Your husband didn't seem to recognize me the other time I was here." Joseph muses.
"Oh, Èugene barely remembers anybody these days. Nothing personal, boy." Albertine assures him.
"Cursing my name now, are we?" It was then did Juliette's grandfather finally emerge from the deep maze of aisles of the bookstore, pushing a cart filled with books to put away when he notices his wife in the arms of his granddaughter. His lips purse into a line, flickering his wife a look. "What are you doing down here, mon amour?"
"Found her trying to go down the stairs by herself," explains Juliette as he approaches them.
"Oh, you are all overreacting! Staying up there all day long is suffocating. I am just fine."
"You know we can't afford you getting hurt, amour." Èugene sighs with a shake of his head.
Albertine nods, dejection coating her wrinkled expression. "I know, I know. I just wanted to go for a walk. Will you go with me?"
Juliette's grandfather shakes his head, "I have to close up shop soon. Juliette could you go with your mamie?"
The girl nods, hesitant as she looks over her shoulder towards Joseph who had been standing there awkwardly. Even more of a reason to want to die from embarrassment. The entire reason why she didn't want him to even step foot upstairs was to prevent him from knowing too much about her family life at home. Who knows what he would do with this information? With how ill her grandmother was or how much her grandparents relied on her wasn't any of his business.
"Alright," she says just as the shop's phone rings. Èugene goes to pick it up as Juliette turns towards her presentation partner. "I'm sorry we had to cut the session short. I know we didn't get much done today."
Juliette has never been a confrontational person unless she really needed to be. Asking someone to leave fell under that umbrella of awkward tension and all of a sudden she found herself anxiously picking at her nailbeds once again.
"I can leave if you want me to," Joseph says softly. Perhaps he read her mind. Perhaps he just noticed how tense she got all of a sudden. Regardless, relief filled her and she nods.
"If you don't mind," she mutters, "I'll be at the game tomorrow."
"I will see you there," he smiles as he goes to gather his belongings. She walks him towards the doors once all his things are together.
With one step out the door, Joseph turns on his heel to face Juliette, their height matching at the unevenness of the stairs to the street.
"I'm sorry you had to see that, usually it's not that hectic in my house."
"It's okay. I've seen worse," Joseph reassures with a shrug.
Her lips part to say something, just one more thing before he turns to leave, but instead her name is called.
When she turns back to her grandparents, he grandfather is approaching her, motioning his head towards the phone on the counter. "Dean is calling. You might want to answer that, he sounded a bit jittery."
Juliette nods, "Alright, I'll be right there." She turns back to Joseph whose brows seem to furrow at the name. A name brought up multiple times was sure to be kept in mind. "I'll see you, Descamps."
He tosses her a smile, "I'll see you, Bellemare."
˚✧₊⁎
"Hello?" Juliette greets the moment she picks up the phone.
Usually the jovial lilt of Laurie's voice followed not even a beat after, yet only silence travelled through the line. If it weren't for the slightest static of breathing from the other line, she would have believed the call had dropped.
"It's just me on the call, Juliette," Dean sighs, breaking the silence.
"I figured," she pressed her lips into a fine line, "is there something wrong?"
"What would you do if you found out one of your closest friends was in love with you?"
"What?" she practically gasped. "Context would be nice, Robinson–"
"Laurie rejected Leonard last week. He came up to me today at school in a fit, blaming me for her not liking him back." He explains. The annoyance was clear on his tongue, "He's implying that me and her are more than just friends based on what Laurie told him."
"Well are you guys?"
"Are we what?"
Juliette rolls her eyes, "more than just friends."
Dean hesitates and that's all Juliette needed for an answer.
"No, we are in fact, just friends. You know this."
"Right," she laughs, "let me know when you're ready to talk about your feelings, Dean."
"Then, maybe we can talk about yours too. A little birdie told me you had someone over." He says, matching her energy. "Seriously, Julie? The guy who stole your book?"
"Oh, hush!"
AUTHOR'S NOTE !
juliette fr said, "i can fix him." me too girl, me too.
and thank you all for the lovely comments and messages. you guys are so funny lolol <33
— fei.