le bonheur de vivre

11

She looked up at the clock and began to tie her shoelaces, entwining them within themselves and the fabric of her shoe. In the mirror she flashed her best smile, before rearranging her necklace so that it melted and dribbled seductively down her neck, sidling between her collar bones.

She left her room and made her way to her mother who was waiting for her in the car. Being let out to roam freely in town wasn't a rare occasion, but her mother always found it necessary to drop her off.

The air acted like stagnant water, heavy and tenacious, having acquired bugs and butterflies that floated in a drunken sleepy state through it. She rubbed her eyes as she jogged through the kitchen, before stepping out onto the sickly sweaty street. Her mother waited in the front seat, clicking her heels on the concrete.

Elodie strutted over to the right side of the car and pulled her door open with a tug. This frightened her mother slightly. She flinched her hand and dug her nails into her palm before she cracked a smile and greeted her daughter.

"Elodie how nice you look today!"

"Merci, mama. You look nice too."

Her mother lifted her feet into the car and Elodie lowered herself onto the seat. It felt like sticky tape upon her bare buttocks, and she peeled her skin back off it before pulling her skirt under her bum and resting herself down again.

"I'm glad you noticed. I'm taking the guests out for dinner in Gustavia. They've decided on a house, I've been told. Perhaps we'll be able to visit it."

"Where is it?" Elodie asked as her mother accelerated out of their drive.

"Up on the mountain near shell beach."

Elodie lowered her window and stuck her head out. The heat felt nicer that way. She didn't give her mother a reply. It wasn't necessary.

The island's tropical verdure billowed out on all sides until it met the water's edge, and like every other car ride she let her eyes rest on it. It's wet, vigorous green was a gentle colour for her exhausted gape.

It didn't take too long to reach Gustavia. It buzzed as people flurried from shops to bars, giggling, chattering, bathing in their opulence and popularity and other useless things.

It was a place for the trivial, for drinks chosen not by taste but by price. For artwork that spoke poetry in each brushstroke, that sold statements and symbolism all woven up in a commercial over-mantle canvas.

She was dropped off near the dock. Her friends would wait for her at the edge of the water, and she could see them now, dangling their feet of the edge. Elodie gave her mother a wave and skipped towards Marie and Anna.

"Salut!"

The girls both turned their heads at once, flicking their hair over their shoulders and revealing beaming smiles.

"Elodie! How are you? "

"I'm content."

Marie fluttered her mascara laden eyelashes and licked her lips.

"Content? What a peculiar word to use."

Elodie lowered herself down next to them and dangled her legs off the dock, looking down into the cloudy water. It had turned opaque because of the herds of boats which slumbered in it. A muddy, visceral darkness.

" It felt like a fitting word."

Anna, who had not been following the conversation, turned to the two of them as she pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her blouse pocket.

" Who wants one? "she offered, tunnelling her way into the exchange. She clicked her maroon nails along the edge of the packaging , her pinky finger burrowing under the opening.