All the Way by Marie Darrieussecq

and the children screaming—about a man jammed right up against her and she didn’t know if it was his briefcase or some other hard thing, that’s the trouble with public transport. She complained to her mother who now takes her everywhere by car. ‘It’s disgusting,’ sympathises Rose, ‘it’s vile, how horrible. I’ll never ever take the metro!’
    â€˜Monsieur Bilost!’ Sixtine suddenly calls out. ‘Monsieur Bilost!’
    Monsieur Bihotz twists his head around.
    â€˜Monsieur Bilost, would you like to play volleyball with us?’
    Rose looks at Sixtine as if she was magnificently mad. But her mother comes back, grabbing a T-shirt to dry herself quickly. Beneath her Bo Derek plaits, her brilliant white teeth reflect the sun’s glare. She gives a wet wave to a lifeguard.
    Monsieur Bihotz goes for a swim, finally. By himself.
    On the way back, they doze, stuck in the overheated shade of the van. The sun’s rays beat on the rear-vision mirrors and two square patches of light bounce off the inside panels.
    â€˜What sort of music do you have?’ Rose’s mother asks, leaning on Monsieur Bihotz as she rummages among the cassettes, bumping against him and laughing and yelling, ‘YOU CAN SEE THE PYRENEES, GIRLS!’ over the top of look for your happiness everywhere-ere, say no to this selfish wo-orld.
    â€˜Aren’t they beautiful, those silos,’ she continues, ‘typical of between-the-wars architecture, look at that stepped roof, right out of the housing co-operative style, the building itself expresses hope, social cohesion.’
    The sun slips from one rear-vision mirror to the other, landscape, road, sky, Pyrenees, swirling slowly inside the van, a crest of jagged light glints with each corner taken, illuminating the forehead of Rose’s mother and becoming that forehead, those eyes, then leaving them in the shade while her thighs come alight and the glovebox and the whole windscreen and some of the reflected faces, the two youngest cousins asleep in the back, Rose daydreaming, Sixtine annoyed because it’s so hot, Rose’s mother delighted by a sudden passing thought, Monsieur Bihotz whose lips are moving in time with the song—and someone else, the youthful, round, red face of a girl sitting in the middle, stunned and staring, narrow shoulders and a blue bathing costume over two pointed nipples, looking in the rear-vision mirror between the six other faces to see who it could possibly be there in the van, with them as well, as well as the six of them and Monsieur Bihotz, until a shaft of sunlight straight from the west shatters the image and she understands—her blue bathing costume, her little breasts, her face, Solange, her, Solange, me in the rear-vision mirror calling myself Solange and coming back from the beach in my ten-year-old body, me at the foot of the Pyrenees waiting for the future.

II

DOING IT

A few summers later, the same summer over again. Her breasts a bit bigger. Raphaël wants to finger Nathalie; Nathalie tells her and asks, should she let him?
    I don’t know if you should , she replies casually.
    They are playing Mastermind. It’s a rustic sun, yellow and green, hopeless. She imagines slimy fingers, fingers stuck up like when boys make rude gestures. Stay cool. Don’t look uptight.
    â€˜Do you think you’re still a virgin after it?’ Nathalie presses the point.
    Give an opinion. One finger, that’s smaller than a dick, isn’t it?
    Nathalie has brought homemade cookies for her. Her nails are black with chocolate. No way in the world she’s eating those cookies.
    â€˜I’d wet my pants,’ admits her cookie-baking friend.
    Nathalie has already done so many cool things, tongue-kissing, letting them feel up her breasts and all that. If she gets wet, does that also mean she’s scared? And how many holes are there altogether? In the end, can you get into