CLANDESTINE : Spencer Reid

08

Right before Stéphane is supposed to arrive to take me up to New Hampshire, when I am all alone in the flat because Estelle left last week to celebrate Eid with her family, I get a call from him.

"Hey, Cole," he's speaking in English, but he sounds nervous.

"What is it?"

"Do you have your passport?"

Without a second thought, I hang up the phone. Those bastards. They can't just sneak their way into dragging me to Québec. I take my stuff back into the bedroom. I'm about to unpack it when the phone rings. He's calling back.

I pick up, "you had better be about to tell me that you're trying to be more like Bastien by pulling a prank and not that you are planning to force me into Québec against my will."

There is a pause on the other line.

"Stéphane Marc Andre I am not playing," I tell him. As much as French is a language of intimacy and secrets, it is also the language that our mother scolded us in when we were children, and so there is something quite uncomfortable in hearing it shouted at you in anger. Even as an adult, when someone tells me to stop in French, my heart holds in place as well as the rest of me, out of reverence.

"I told Caro it was a bad idea," Stéphane continues in French now. "It was two versus two though, so we tossed a coin-"

"Wait a second," I am not dropping the language so long as it makes him apologetic. "Two versus two? You mean to tell me that Bastien is on her side?"

The line goes quiet again. He had better be joking. There isn't any background noise, so I know that he is in a parking lot, probably a block away from my building.

"Bastien was on my side," he nearly whispers. "Caro and Cletus-"

"Shut up," I say, and he does. "Esti de câlice de tabarnak, you gave Cletus the fourth vote and not me? So, it's really three versus two. Really three versus one, because Cletus is not a member of this family!"

"Caro says that they're going to get engaged any day now and-"

He cannot even finish before I hang up the phone. I'm losing my mind. The whole world has gone topsy-turvy. My twin brother turned against me on behalf of Cletus. Leaving it up to a coin toss instead of letting me decide.

It's living on this continent, I swear. When I did my bachelor's in Australia, I was never this mad, and that country is much hotter, and the spiders are huge. I had all the reasons to be angry while I was there, but I wasn't.

The phone rings. I pick up.

"I'm not giving you another chance," I say. "If I hang up, I'm not picking up again."

"Listen," he says, and sighs. "I've talked them into driving up in the morning on Boxing Day. We'll get to Maman's in the late afternoon. None of us need to work until January second, so we are going to stay there that whole time. I told them you said you could get it off work. We'll tell them there has been a change of plans, and you can rent a car to drive back here. Perfect cover story. Just, bring your passport for me, and pretend to get a work call asking you to come back in."

"Okay," I tell him. "I'm trusting you."

"I'm not going to disappoint," he promises. "Also, I'm parked outside."