Marie left the bedroom where she had been reading the whole afternoon and walked into the dark, cool corridor: "Benjamin!" she called.

"I'm here! I wrote half a page today. I suppose I should be satisfied," he added, bitterly.

He crumpled a sheet of paper and threw it into the bin. He was sitting in his father-in-law's office. The large desk was close to the French doors opened wide onto the terrace and the swimming pool dug in the middle of the pine trees. He had been working all day on the computer on his novel. But he could not get more than this half page that had been taunting him for hours.

When Marie had called him, Benjamin was collapsed in a chair, his bare feet on the floor, wearing an old Peanuts T-shirt and a pair of baggy shorts. He took his head in both his hands and stared at the computer screen and at the last word he had typed, at the annoying blinking vertical line right after.

Marie walked in. She wore a dark blue, short summer dress and that she had slipped over her peach swimming suit. Benjamin loved this color on her tanned skin. He used to watch her for hours when she lay in the sun near the pool. He loved the way the peach swimsuit fit the first curves of her belly.

"I'm going to the beach," Marie said, tying up her hair while coming to Benjamin.

It was late afternoon. It was too hot to go down before six. Most of tourists were already back in town and the beaches began to become deserted again.

"Do you want to come with me?" she asked.

He sighed, shook his head and pointed to the computer screen.

"All right," she said, before going out on the terrace.

She picked up the large beach towel left on the deck chair near the swimming pool. Benjamin made his chair swivel and looked at her in silence. "Are you going to walk?" he asked, frowning.

"No. I'll take the bike." She came back in, the towel around her neck. Then she said that she had stayed in the house the whole afternoon and that a swim in the sea would be absolutely great before dinner. She would be back within a couple of hours. She kissed him goodbye, stole his sun glasses from the desk, wished him good luck with his half page still to fill, kissed him again, complained that he could have shaved and then she was gone. He never heard anything else from Marie other than the grating sound of the old bicycle when she rode out the garden a couple of minutes later.

"Are you with me?" Emma asked a little louder.

He raised his head to her. He did not answer but she knew that he heard her now.

"The bike is your answer," she said before having another sip of punch.

Benjamin could not say if she was still tasting what she was drinking but her eyes were wide open. Her speech had slowed down though. "Was there a car at home?"

"No. Her parents took the only one to go to Nice," he answered, wondering what she was talking about.

"Yeah, yeah, that's it. I've got it," she continued, suddenly very excited. " It's so simple that you're gonna die of shame not to have thought of it before! Listen. She takes the bike, goes to the beach, lies on the sand, swims in the sea, perfect. A couple of hours later, she wants to leave and, bing! She can't find the bike. Why? - Stolen!"

He sighed, shaking his head once again. "You're don't know what you're saying," he said. "This bike was old, very old. It belonged to Marie's grandmother...nobody would steal such a -"

"An old bike is better than walking. I'm telling you: the bike was stolen! And that's why she had to walk back home, knowing perfectly that it was no use calling you because you didn't have a car to pick her up. And on the way home, on the road, a car stopped. A dark green E-type Jag. Vincent has recognized her and offers to drive her home. She accepts. Why not? She knew him and an E-type is definitely better than walking. Now tell me," she concluded, staring at Benjamin's anxious and confused eyes, "did you find the bike somewhere after the accident?"

He searched quickly in his memories, did not find, did not know what to answer.

"You didn't," Emma said in a very soft and gentle tone of voice. "It was stolen. She didn't have a date with him. It was a coincidence, nothing but a horrible, tragic and stupid coincidence."

Benjamin did not say a word. He remained quiet, unable to talk or think. The place was getting empty now. People were leaving the noisy, smoked-out atmosphere of the restaurant. It was after one o'clock and Bob Marley was still playing.

Benjamin's hands on the table were shaking a little. He raised his head to look at Emma and tears came to his eyes. They came and dropped on his skinny cheeks, down to his dry lips. He took a deep breath and then felt the immense, incredible relief he had been waiting for so long. He looked at Emma who was staring at him and laughed through his tears.

She was not embarrassed to look at him crying. She found him beautiful and suddenly peaceful. She glanced at the bar. Paul was watching them. She smiled at him, then drank up her glass of punch. She closed her eyes and heard nothing but Benjamin's laugh and the voice of Bob Marley.

"Look at her, look at her," Benjamin said.

They were both standing in front of a shop window in the street, looking at the presentation TV screens. On one of them, a young woman, a journalist, gave mute comments on a famine somewhere in Africa.

"She looks so nice, with all those starving kids around her. Hope the network paid for her room in a nice hotel. Bargain holidays! Makes me sick..."

"Don't be so bitter," Emma said with irony. "She's obviously having a very hard time. Must be hot there at that time of the year..."

Then she looked at another TV set, some commercial brought by satellite from the US. She laughed. She could barely keep her eyes open now. "If James Dean was still alive," she said, "he would probably be doing commercials for laxatives now..." Benjamin smiled.
"Better die young," she added.

"Better shut up sometimes," he said. He walked a few steps away from her on the sidewalk. When he realized she was not following him, he stopped and turned to her.

"I've got to go," she said.

He did not say a word. She was still standing in front of the shop window, her hands in the pockets of her long, beige coat.

"I have a plane to catch in five hours," she added. "I'd better go back home and pack, what do you think?"

He remained quiet a moment, then he nodded. He walked back to her, held out his hand, took hers and squeezed it without a word. "Put your cap on," she said, a little embarrassed. "You're going to be cold."

He smiled. "Do you know your way home?" he asked.

"Sure. And if I get lost, I'll take a cab, no big deal..."

He let her hand go and she left. She turned back to him soon and threw something that he caught instinctively. He looked in his hands and saw the blue box of salt. He smiled. He raised his head again but she was gone.

Benjamin told Paul the whole story of that night only after his second novel was finally published, more than six months after he had met the American girl.

"I don't like this book," Benjamin said, frowning. They were both in his apartment and had just opened a box full of Benjamin's new novels that the publisher had sent. "I'm going to write another one," Benjamin said, smiling. "About two drunk people meeting on a bridge."

He threw indifferently the new book on the table, and he smiled: "I'll call it 'Alexandre 3'."