All the Way by Marie Darrieussecq Page A

voice that envelops everything; it’s nice and some of the bad vibe of the evening dissipates.
    â€˜I feel pretty shit,’ says Delphine, who has turned red, and looks fatter than Solange has ever noticed. ‘Do you want to go for a walk?’
    Right now I’m dancing.
    â€˜Come on, my boyfriend gave me some dope.’
    This is the moment to absorb the fact that Delphine smokes , and that she has a boyfriend . The moment to observe Delphine rolling a joint . On the terrace opposite the rose garden and the tennis courts. Under the dazzling white moon. Using a cassette case to mix and cut the tobacco.
    You’re so introverted. But we had a good talk last time, didn’t we. I told you everything. (That she was going out with a fireman.)
    Delphine seems bored. ‘Food and sex are two things that shouldn’t exist,’ she declares.
    Right, so she’s already done it. The concierge’s daughter smokes and has already done it.
    â€˜What do you think I’ve got to look forward to?’
    Delphine asks her, passing her the joint.
    What should she say? Is it a real question, like in a horoscope? Or just a statement: nothing? She takes a drag and it’s good, better than her Kools, and the effect is a bit stronger.
    â€˜Like even you,’ Delphine continues, ‘you’ll have more than I will. You can tell straight away. The proof is, like, you don’t even know what I mean.’
    And from this perspective, in the evening light, in front of this fabulous garden, Delphine is almost beautiful, deep, unusual (if you ignore the ‘like even you’ and the ‘like, you don’t even’, in fact if you ignore what comes out of her mouth).
    Christian and Rose are kissing on a couch. It’s disgusting. Being jealous would be really humiliating. A total waste of time, for a feeling that is just not worth it , that is completely degrading.
    Look nonchalant. Like an air hostess.
    A degrading feeling, quite simply degrading.
    Lætitia is kissing a guy too. She’s wearing a dress. The girl’s wearing a dress. Full and flowing, with a belt made of big gold chains. She (Solange) would look like a grandmother if she wore it, but Lætitia looks amazingly hot in it. So weird. Her legs are as thin as her arms, and she’s wearing opaque stockings, they’re perfect, and the guy’s arm is going up and down them. You can’t tell if his hand is at the top, at the bottom, in front, behind, it’s winding around, it’s grazing the bare part of her thigh. The music (someone has put Sade back on) is coming out of those fingers playing on those stockings. Stockings , the girl’s wearing stockings, which are staying up by themselves, a black band on a white thigh under a black dress, appearing, disappearing, white, black, thigh, dress, the hand moves onto the band of lace, the girl gets up followed by the guy with his wandering fingers and wild eyes, they disappear into the rolling shadows.
    â€˜They’re going to fuck,’ someone says in her ear. A guy who drags on a joint and passes it to her. ‘Every party she goes upstairs with someone. There are so many bedrooms up there.’
    He’s older than her. More like Year Ten or Eleven. Black eyelashes and green eyes. She takes a drag of the joint and steps back a bit (nonchalantly). The glow of the dress is still floating in the shadows, the flash of the chains on the big belt, the hand of the suitor tracing curves and crowning her, Lætitia, the happy one, the princess upstairs who devours them all with kisses.
    â€˜Do you know what they call her?’
    Lætitia d’Urbide?
    â€˜Yeah…’ He inhales deeply on the joint and holds his breath, like you’re supposed to.
    I don’t know. Læti?
    He laughs. He laughs with his mouth open, without a sound, for a long time. As if she’s said something cute. ‘Cheap Carpet.’ He expels it with the smoke.