Chapter SeventeenAll week, Achille had been looking forward to Monday when the Salliac market took place. Yet here it was, Monday morning, late enough that he knew the vendors had set up and opened for business, and yet he kept finding reasons to delay.
It is possible, he was saying to himself, that Aimée would not do. She might be too young. She might want to talk about teenage things he knew nothing about. They might not be able to find enough in common. But then he thought of how lively she had been, talking to her friend on the phone, how she had tossed her head like a little filly, how her green eyes had lit up when he offered her a cannelé.
He wanted that liveliness near him. Wanted her to talk to him excitedly as he had overheard her doing with her friend. And yet, though it was t
