“Your face is going to get flattened,” Janine, the oldest of his nieces and nephews, pointed out, having just appeared from behind him and effortlessly startling him.

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Julien replied immediately, perhaps a bit more hastily than he should have.

He felt uncomfortable, which didn’t even make sense, since he was only taking a look out the window: A completely legitimate activity, absolutely blameless—he didn’t even know why he felt the need to act like a criminal every time he was caught doing something! But lately, his subconscious seemed determined to play one trick after another on him.

“I’m just looking at the scenery, like any normal day.”

“I’m not the one saying it; Grandma is. You’ve got your nose almost pressed to the glass. If you don’t move back from the window, your face is going to get stuck there. It’s a real danger.”

Yes, that sounded like something Iris—Julien’s mother—would say. Not to scare the younger ones for no reason, but because it was a convenient excuse to prevent them from clinging to the windows and accidentally dirtying them.

Julien had experienced this himself as a child, and he was about to retort that he was well-behaved and didn’t do things like that. That the glass was safe from his innate clumsiness.

However, as soon as Janine gave her warning, Julien realized he actually was too close to the window. Close enough that, if he denied it, the best-case scenario would be that his eleven-year-old niece laughed at him and gently pointed out that anyone could make a mistake.

“Yes, um… thanks for mentioning it,” Julien said, finally moving back and using the sleeve of his shirt to wipe the condensation off the glass, as if trying to erase all incriminating evidence. “I don’t know how it happened; I’m usually not so careless.”

A lie, but perhaps it would pass, since Janine didn’t live with him all the time and, he hoped, wasn’t paying too much attention to his habits.

“What were you looking at?”

“I was… watching the snowflakes fall.”

“Doesn’t it snow in Lyon?”

“Whether it does or not, you should know this is a daily activity for me: Nothing relaxes me more than sitting by the window, watching the clouds work their magic.”

“Is that why you always miss your poetry deadlines? Because you waste time counting snowflakes?”

“Who told you…?” Julien stopped; of course Janine would have heard about his struggles with meeting the deadlines Le Progrés demanded!

It wasn’t that the adults in his life were indiscreet about this, going around telling anyone who would listen about Julien’s difficulties performing tasks that were basic for some, like keeping a schedule. But Julien himself had complained more than once that hours slipped away in a blink, that inspiration never came at the right moment, so it wasn’t surprising that one of his nieces or nephews had connected the dots.

“You know what? Never mind! Me staring absentmindedly out the first hole in the wall I see doesn’t have to be connected to my work habits. Especially now, during my vacation. If I want to count snowflakes every so often to make sure no one gets buried if the snow piles up too much, no one should have a problem with it.”

“If that’s the plan, wouldn’t it be better to go remove the snow from the path directly, instead of counting the flakes one by one?” Antoine suggested this time, who, at eight years old with a picture-filled book in his lap, definitely shouldn’t have been paying attention to this conversation.

“Do you actually believe that excuse?” Janine interjected, visibly amused. “It’s so dark out, I don’t think anyone could even see a car coming.”

“Maybe he was watching the void,” Georges, the youngest of the siblings, proposed from his spot next to Antoine. “I do that sometimes when I get punished by standing in the corner.”

Julien saw a clear way out here to avoid confessing. It was a real shame, though, that just as he replied with, “Well yes, staring into nothingness while contemplating the futility of our existence is a common practice among all true poets,” his mother appeared out of nowhere to point out:

“Leave him alone; he’s anxious, waiting for his friend.”

“I’m not!” Though as soon as he said it, he knew it wasn’t true.

Unintentionally, he had spent the last forty-five minutes inching closer to the window, hoping to catch sight of a familiar presence outside heading toward this house. It had become almost a compulsion! And rather than trying to resist it, it seemed to be getting stronger, gradually reducing the time Julien spent away from his lookout post.

“I thought Julien’s friend would come later, after lunch,” Janine commented.

“That was the plan,” he admitted, trying not to sound down: Perhaps Francis would have liked to come to dinner, but he already had a prior commitment with his friend’s family, so although he promised he would come, it was very likely he wouldn’t show up until well after dessert. “But you can’t blame me for being cautious and staying alert in case plans change.”

In any case, he could be accused of being overly cautious: Despite being told multiple times that he was a guest and didn’t need to get involved in every detail, Julien insisted on helping as early as three in the afternoon.

Between periodic visits to the window and longing glances down the main street where the visitors would arrive, he had spent the afternoon in the kitchen, helping prepare the dining area, and even running errands in the village to make sure the pantry was stocked for today’s celebration.

Now, barely half an hour before the family meal began, Julien had already been shooed out of three different rooms, being urged to relax in the living room and just watch over his nieces and nephews there.

Or maybe it was the opposite, and they were the ones supervising him. Either way, who was babysitting whom didn’t matter at that moment.

“He’s always done this since he was little,” Iris commented, at some point having settled into her favorite armchair with her sewing on her lap. “Whenever friends came to visit, he’d spend hours glued to that same window, waiting for them to arrive.”

“That’s not true!” Julien tried to protest. “At most, a few minutes… And anyway, it wasn’t usual, because when friends came it was usually because I brought them from school, and we all came together from there: No need to wait for anyone.”

“My point stands; you’ve always been incredibly considerate of anyone you liked. Not a complaint, quite the opposite. I wish your sister had had that quality as a child! She would rather leave the preparation of any special menu for guests to me than get involved herself.”

Although the compliment was obvious, Julien would have loved not to be that way.

Though the part about going out of his way for his favorite people had its perks and usually proved productive by the end of the day, the anxiety beforehand was high. If only that part could be skipped, he would be happy.

At the moment, although no one had asked him to leave his spot, they had unknowingly managed to make him feel self-conscious about his own actions. And why not take it that way? Perhaps this was a signal for Julien to abandon his habits for a while, since they did no good for his health.

Thus, in the next two hours he tried to distract himself by playing with his nieces and nephews, helping serve the dishes, or having a deep conversation about how expensive oranges were depending on which unknown street they were bought from. During these two hours, guests arrived, ate, recited their blessings together, and even sang a few Christmas carols happily—soberly.

During the entire period, Julien only approached the windows stealthily about seven or eight times, which was a far more normal number.

Dessert came and went with no sign of Francis, and just as Julien began to lose hope, thinking perhaps he had only accepted the invitation out of social pressure and had no real intention of coming, Francis finally appeared.

He arrived alone, with none of his friends following him, as Julien’s relatives were already preparing to go to the New Year’s Mass.

“Sorry, am I too late?” he asked, the very image of innocence. “There was an incident at the house where I’m staying, which resulted in a small but powerful army invading the kitchen… And so we spent most of the afternoon cleaning up, fixing what was consumed, and returning the guests to their pen.”

“To the pen?” Julien repeated, a little confused.

“Someone left a door open and the goats got in where they shouldn’t. Then they started eating everything. Even what wasn’t edible.”

How a few harmless goats could get past any fences, cross the Castel grounds, and enter a private home, Julien didn’t quite understand.

“Wait, did everything turn out okay in the end? Did you fix it?”

“I wouldn’t have come here if it hadn’t; once everything was tidied up and the animals put under control, the meal went on normally. Besides,” Francis lowered his voice and leaned closer to Julien so no one else could hear, “I never said this disaster happened near dinner time.”

No, of course he hadn’t. Spending a good part of the afternoon, in his language, could mean any time between noon and this blessed hour when he finally showed up at the Bousquet house.

“You’ve been counting the minutes just to arrive when no one’s going to be at the table, haven’t you?” Julien accused him, though, strangely enough, he wasn’t angry about that deliberately late arrival: The satisfaction of Francis having kept his promise to come, even if only for a few minutes, outweighed any negative emotion anyone in their right mind might have felt.

“Counting the minutes? Me? I would never stoop to something so trivial,” Francis said, with all the confidence experience brings. “I have plenty of experience evading social gatherings, so I don’t need to keep an exact count of the time. I already have a natural compass that tells me the perfect moment.”

“You could have said you didn’t feel like coming; I wouldn’t have minded—” After a brief pause, he corrected himself, “Well, I might have been a little disappointed. But I know where you’re staying, so nothing would stop me from visiting you at another time.”

“That sounded like something a stalker would say, but I’ll let it slide, since we won’t be spending many more days in this village anyway.”

“Unfortunately. I mean, unfortunate that our vacation will be so short, not that I can’t act like a stalker.”

Damn it, why did everything Julien said that day sound so awkward? At least it was lucky that Francis didn’t seem to notice.

“Anyway,” Francis continued, “who says I didn’t want to come? What I wasn’t particularly thrilled about was having to mingle with the crowd. But, again, that’s perfectly normal: I understood that the purpose of the invitation was to spend time with you, not to socialize with a wider circle.”

Actually, that was Julien’s intention: Aside from spending more time with Francis, he wanted to include him in his family dynamics, showing him he would be easily accepted. However, he wasn’t going to contradict him. It was much better to focus on the other thing.

“Francis, are you saying you’re actually looking forward to spending time with me?”

There was a silence, in which one couldn’t hide a smile, while the other seemed to need a moment to reconsider his recent life choices.

“I did no such thing,” Francis stated, though it sounded more defensive than sincere.

“Without a doubt, you did. Not even two minutes have passed; it’s impossible for me to have imagined it!”

“You must have misinterpreted then. It’s well known that journalists tend to do that, according to what suits them at the moment.”

“Just like when you decided I was your literary nemesis only because I replied to a couple of sharp remarks?”

“You know what? Forget it. I’ll go back to my friends; it seems today I can’t talk to you without a lawyer present.”

It was all a performance, a charade. Julien knew it, and so, as Francis took a couple of steps toward the nearest exit, he thought about pointing out that no one with nothing to hide would need a lawyer. But he couldn’t make this remark because, as expected, Francis had already spent too much time in the house without being accosted by an army of eager relatives wanting to welcome him and include him in their festivities.

As a result, Francis didn’t even make it to the foyer before one of Julien’s uncles approached him, urging him to go to the dining room and meet everyone.

And how could Francis refuse an invitation offered in such good faith?

All these people had already risen, presumably to head to the church but also intending to introduce themselves to their new guest. With all this commotion, Julien was temporarily relegated to a secondary role, having to watch as, inevitably, his relatives tried to persuade Francis to accompany them to Mass and then return with them to this same house to—finally—invite him to drink whatever he wanted.

Julien wanted to intervene—not because he disliked the invitation, far from it, but because he feared that so much enthusiasm might convince Francis to make a hasty exit and, this time, not return.

But, to his surprise, that wasn’t necessary.

Francis even seemed perfectly comfortable answering his relatives’ questions. He also had no problem accepting, with complete ease, the invitation to go to the church and whatever would follow.

This man might have been a grump in his daily life, but it was clear he had practice dealing with crowds, telling them what they wanted to hear to keep them satisfied. If Julien didn’t know his character and knew this had to be the result of practice, he might have thought it was a gift.

In any case, it didn’t change the fact that, within five minutes, everyone was on their way to Mass, Francis an integral part of the group. And just for that, Julien was already happy.