“My pet, when I was fourteen, I wasn’t sleeping on beaches with fifteen-year-old boys. Doesn’t it drive him nuts?”

“Mama, would you feel better if I told you we were both gay?”

At that her mother finally gave up and started laughing, too. Vanessa must be the only mother in town actually trying to nag her teenage daughter into having sex. To Rat, boys are no different from girls—better, in certain respects. The last time someone tried to force a kiss—after she’d already explained she wasn’t interested—she punched him. A question of basic respect.

Rat’s just about sure Jérôme’s sleeping with Marie’s sister Céline.

Jérôme chooses the little back roads to get to Florian’s place, chugging past miles of market gardens. The only traffic is tractors. It’s the same route Vanessa used to take to get to the Perpignan hospital, and it gives Rat a mean flashback to Souad’s dying.

She wonders whether Morgan remembers his mother. She wonders what her own life would have been like if Vanessa had died when Rat was Morgan’s age. Who would have taken her—Mémé Catherine? The thought of being brought up by Mémé Catherine, Mass every week and Baby Jesus over her bed and “the Bon Dieu” this and the “Bon Dieu” that, makes Rat feel a little more forgiving of Vanessa. She may be a pervert, but she’s not a fanatic.

They reach Bompas. Florian and his grandmother live on the ground floor of a public-housing complex behind the municipal gym.

Jérôme raps on Florian’s window. Florian opens the door.

He and Jérôme do their little pretend-gang-member ritual of touching knuckles to knuckles to heart, a language of the blind.

She and Florian exchange kisses. She’s taller than he, so she has to stoop. She’s taller than everybody (except Thierry, worst luck. She’d rather be littler than everybody else but bigger than Thierry). Vanessa’s always telling her not to hunch to hide her height. You’re a tall girl, enjoy it.

“How’s tricks?”

“Not bad.”

“What’re you up to?”

“Chilling. Minding my own business.”

Florian’s business is dealing dope, and mostly business comes to him. Daytimes, his granny is out cleaning houses, which is her idea of business. In fact, his granny’s business is every bit as illicit as Florian’s, since she’s supposed to be retired, living off her disability pension.

Apparently Florian’s grandmother doesn’t ask too many questions about the strange people coming in and out of her apartment. Once or twice, Florian says, she’s asked him why he doesn’t try to get a job with the electrician, which was what he trained for at school, but mostly she’s pleased he’s putting money on the table.