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       Breaking Away

      I hadn’t even sat down yet, one buttock still hovering, my hand on the car door, and already my sister-in-law was on the attack.

      ‘At last! Didn’t you hear us hooting? We’ve been waiting here for ten minutes!’

      ‘Good morning,’ I replied.

      My brother turned round. A little wink.

      ‘You okay, sweetie?’

      ‘I’m good.’

      ‘You want me to put your things in the boot?’

      ‘No, thanks. All I have is this little bag, and my dress. I’ll stick it on the back shelf.’

      ‘Is that your dress?’ she asked, raising an eyebrow at the ball of chiffon on my lap.

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘What … what is it?’

      ‘A sari.’

      ‘I see.’

      ‘No, you don’t see,’ I corrected her gently, ‘you’ll see when I put it on.’

      She pulled a little face.

      ‘Can we get going?’ asked my brother.

      ‘Yes. I mean, no. Can you stop off at the corner shop, there’s something I need to get.’

      My sister-in-law sighed.

      ‘Now what do you need?’

      ‘Some hair-removal cream.’

      ‘And you get that at the corner shop?’

      ‘Oh, I get everything from Rashid! Absolutely everything!’

      She didn’t believe me.

      ‘Are you ready? Can we go?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Aren’t you going to fasten your seatbelt?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Why don’t you fasten it?’

      ‘Claustrophobia,’ I replied.

      And before she could start going on about failed skin grafts and the horrors of public hospitals, I added, ‘Besides, I want to sleep a little. I’m exhausted.’

      My brother smiled.

      ‘Have you just got up?’

      ‘I never went to bed,’ I explained, yawning.

      Which was a patent lie, of course. I had slept for a few hours. But I said it to annoy my sister-in-law. And I was right on target, bingo. That’s what I like about her: I’m always right on target.

      ‘Where were you this time?’ she asked predictably, raising her eyes to heaven.

      ‘At home.’

      ‘You were partying?’

      ‘No, I was playing cards.’

      ‘Playing cards!’

      ‘Yes. Poker.’

      She shook her head. Not too hard, though. Wouldn’t want to mess up that blow-dry.

      ‘How much did you lose?’ asked my brother, amused.

      ‘Nothing. This time I won.’

      Deafening silence.

      ‘Might we ask how much?’ she relented, adjusting her designer shades.

      ‘Three thousand.’

      ‘Three thousand! Three thousand what?’

      ‘Well … euros,’ I said, acting naïve. ‘Roubles wouldn’t be much use, now, would they?’

      I chuckled as I curled up. I had just given my little Carine something to mull over for the rest of the trip.

      I could hear the cogs turning in her brain: three thousand euros … click click click click … How many dry shampoos and aspirin tablets would she have to sell to earn three thousand euros? … click click click click … Not to mention employee benefits, and business tax, and local taxes, and her lease, subtract the VAT … How many times did she have to put on her white coat to earn three thousand euros, net? And the Social Security? … add eight, take away two … and paid holiday … makes ten, multiply by three … click click click …

      Yes. I was chuckling. Lulled by the purr of their saloon car, my nose buried in the crook of my arm, legs tucked up under my chin, I was pretty proud of myself, because my sister-in-law, she’s a piece of work.

      My sister-in-law Carine studied pharmacy, but she’d rather you said medicine, so she’s a pharmacist, and she has a chemist’s shop, but she’d rather you said pharmacy.

      She likes to complain about her bookkeeping just when it’s time for dessert, and she wears a white coat buttoned up to her chin with a thermal adhesive label that has her name stitched between two blue medical logos. These days she sells mostly firming creams for buttocks and carotene capsules because that’s what brings in the most cash; she likes to say that she has ‘optimised the potential of her health and beauty section’.

      My sister-in-law Carine is fairly predictable.

      When we heard about our stroke of luck – that we were about to have a purveyor of anti-wrinkle creams in our own family, a licensed Clinique vendor and Guerlain reseller – my sister Lola and I fell on her with shrieks of joy. Oh! What a warm welcome we gave her that day! We promised that from then on we would always go to her for our shopping, and we were even willing to call her Doctor or Professor Lariot-Molinoux so we’d be in her good books.

      We’d even take the RER just to go out to see her! That’s really a big deal for Lola and me, to take the train all the way out to Poissy.

      Whenever we go out beyond the Boulevards des Maréchaux, we begin to feel a bit peculiar.

      But there was no need to go out there because she took us by the arm at the end of that first Sunday dinner and confessed, lowering her eyes, ‘You know … uh … I can’t give you any discount because … uh … if I start with you, after that … well, you understand … after that I … after that you don’t know where it will end, do you?’ ‘Not even a teeny tiny percentage?’ replied Lola with a laugh. ‘Not even any samples?’ ‘Oh, yes … yes, samples, yes. No problem.’

      And when Carine left that day, clinging to our brother so he wouldn’t fly away, Lola muttered as she blew kisses all the while from the balcony, ‘She can stick her samples you-know-where.’

      I totally agreed with her, and we shook out the tablecloth, and changed the subject.

      Now we never stop teasing her about it. Every time we see her, I tell her about my friend Sandrine who is a flight attendant and the discounts she can get us at the duty-free.

      For example:

      ‘Hey, Carine, give me a price for Estée Lauder’s Double Exfoliating Nitrogen Generator with Vitamin B12.’

      You should see our Carine, lost in thought. She concentrates, closes her eyes, thinks of her list, calculates her margin, deducts the VAT, and eventually goes: ‘Forty-five?’

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