by Ciji Ware
“Maybe he didn’t want to bother seeing me.”
“Well, maybe he was waiting for an invitation?”
“Maybe I was waiting for his offer to come for a visit?”
“Oh, Avery,” she said with a sigh. “It is so hard to get things straightened out when they’ve gone sideways for so long, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” She flashed a sardonic look in Juliet’s direction. “Case in point. Mildred Church Thayer.”
“Touché. People in glass houses, and other poems,” Juliet agreed, keeping to herself the small breakthrough she felt she’d had with her mother just before she’d left home. Still and all, she hadn’t heard a word from her mother, despite emails and links she’d sent to friends and everyone in the family—except brother Brad—that displayed her France Unafraid blogging efforts. Her father and Jamie had been enthusiastic and supportive, but as for Mildred Thayer—nary a word.
It is what it is... she thought with an inward sigh. To Avery she said, “I really thought your dad would come through this time.”
“Not in this life, I guess,” Avery said with studied nonchalance. “Hey! I’ve got a good idea!” She seemed determined to change the subject. “Let’s go see the newly refurbished Rodin Museum this afternoon. You can’t say you’ve lived in Paris if you haven’t touched the base of The Thinker!”
Within the hour, the two were strolling through Rodin’s former home, Hôtel Biron on Rue de Varenne, amid the smaller-sized sculptures and plaster casts that populated the many rooms of the mansion. After close inspection inside, they moved out into the vast gardens featuring straight lines of trees marching across the property like soldiers on parade and providing deep shade for Rodin’s monumental works cast in bronze. As they drew closer to the iconic Thinker on its pedestal, Juliet and Avery shared a laugh watching a constant stream of tourists flexing their right arms and tucking their hands under their chins while having their pictures taken on mobile phones.
Juliet had brought her sketchpad and spent more than an hour drawing the mammoth statues of lesser-known Impressionist artists Jules Bastien-LePage and Claude Lorrain. Avery eventually abandoned her in favor of the outdoor café and a café crème, content to rest and people-watch until Juliet finally appeared.
Sinking onto a metal chair, Juliet said excitedly, “Could you believe how Rodin captured those artists standing there in solid bronze, six feet tall, holding their full-scale palettes? Aren’t they simply wonderful?”
“Yeah,” Avery agreed with a grin. “That’s why I pointed them out to you.”
“Did you read the display cards? It said they painted near the end of the nineteenth century and called themselves ‘naturalist painters.’ Bastien-LePage was the leader of the ‘plein air’ school of landscape painting! He was the one who said landscapes couldn’t be true-to-life unless the painter is right there! In the scene! I took a zillion shots and I can’t wait to post about these two guys on France Unafraid. I bet half the American tourists who come here never get past the museum.”
Avery nodded in the direction of the counter where beverages and pastries could be ordered. “Go get your coffee, mademoiselle, though at the rate you’re spinning, I don’t think you need any more caffeine.”
* * *
Early July marked the end of the classes Juliet had been taking and the commencement of the annual French summer-holiday season. She bid a reluctant farewell to Finn and boarded the TGV fast train to Lake Annecy south and east of Paris where she had enrolled in a month-long course in a lesser known art school—an institution happy to take the tuition money from visiting foreigners, including a number of Americans. The city of Annecy sat at the head of a lake of the same name in the Haute Savoie section of the French Alps, an hour across the border from Geneva, Switzerland.
“It’s absolutely gorgeous here,” she related to Finn on the phone after she’d booked into the Hôtel du Château, right across the street from the twelfth-century Château d’Annecy and at the top of a hill that featured a commanding view not only of the water, but also of the soaring Alpine mountains that surrounded the lake. She negotiated the high-season rate for her tiny room down from a hundred euros a day to eighty-five, and had purchased some flowers to cheer herself up.
“Only one star,” she explained to Finn, “but it has a glimpse of the lake and I’m not here much, anyway. Tomorrow we’re going to the little village of Talloires to set up our easels in the exact spot Cezanne chose when he came here to paint. It’s going to be great for the blog, which, if I can brag a little, has just hit a thousand subscribers and my Facebook page, fifteen hundred!” She paused for breath. “Where are you tonight?”
“Back in Paris on the barge, missing you.”
Juliet’s heart skipped more than a beat. “Me, too, you,” she admitted without even trying to pretend otherwise. “In fact, when I get back to this teeny cubicle, the bottom sort of drops out and I really, really wish you were here with me. Two is way more fun on these junkets than one.”
“Well, here’s some hopeful news... Our class’s next assignment is going to be railroad tracks. They’ve got us fanning out all over the place. Maybe I can get them to send me in your direction.”
“Great idea!” The prospect of seeing Finn over the Fourteenth of July national holiday was exactly what she’d hoped. “Ask for the Lyon-to-Annecy branch. The fast train section pretty much stops in Lyon and the old track takes the train at normal speed from there to where I am. I’m sure it needs a close inspection,” she added, her tongue planted firmly in her cheek.
“I’ll do my best.”
Juliet was amazed when Finn, in fact, did manage to wangle the precise assignment that would bring him to this eastern region of the country. He arrived in Annecy right before the weekend of Bastille Day celebrations that were scheduled all over the country and were similar to America’s 4th of July festivities. Fortunately, as of Wednesday, July 13th, she had booked them into a charming hotel she’d spotted when she was painting à la Cezanne in Talloires, a village of five hundred souls where tiny, twisting roads banked along the foothills. Their room overlooked the lake and faced the ancient Chateau de Duingt, looming on the opposite side of the water, its high walls and turrets clad in pointed roofs made of slate.
L’Hôtel Beau-Site was exactly that: a hostelry within sight of the beautiful lake. The Alps soared above their heads—some peaks still covered with small patches of last winter’s snow—and below, tall trees and sloping lawns marched down to the crystalline water. Juliet described it as being “a French-speaking Lake Tahoe with better food, better architecture, higher mountains, and minus billboards and casinos.”
Finn suggested they do as Guide Michelin recommended: drive up a mountain road to the small, World War II French Resistance museum next to a hallowed gravesite where the lives of the grandfathers of current Talloires and Annecy residents had been extinguished in a massacre in March of 1944.
“By August that year, the Germans were in retreat after Allied landings at Normandy that June,” Finn related, having read the section on the battle of the Plateau de Glières. “But, four months earlier, German forces had slaughtered the remnants of some four-hundred-and-fifty resistance fighters who had endured the Alpine winter up there.”
Next to the museum were 105 neatly laid out graves, each one with a cross or Star of David, along with a metal placard noting each man’s birth and death date. Most of the deaths occurred the same day in March, so tragically near the end of the war in Europe.
Finn pointed to the escarpment that rose hundreds of feet above their heads marking an outer rim of the plateau, the rock walls surrounding it like a curtain of gray granite. They returned their gaze to a stone slab that told the rest of the story in French. Pointing to the incised script, Finn translated slowly. “It says that the few resistant fighters who survived in towns and villages of this region liberated Annecy themselves soon after this massacre, even before the Americans came rolling through. Poor bastards,” he murm
ured, turning away. “They were sitting ducks up there.”
She could see that a mantel of melancholy had Finn in its grip. “Sweetheart, what’s going through your mind right now?” she asked softly.
He faced her then returned his gaze to the graves in front of them. “Even a supposedly ‘good war’ has terrible aspects that can’t be glossed over by clinging to the notion of duty, honor, country.”
“But the resistance fighters were defending their very country... this soil,” she countered softly, “these beautiful mountains.”
“Well, at least a better case can be made for what happened here than unmanned drones shooting off Hellfire missiles from northwest of the Las Vegas Strip at people in another desert, half a world away.”
Their somber mood continued even when they arrived back at their hotel for a late dinner. When they walked into the pleasantly updated lobby, they noticed immediately that everyone was glued to the television mounted in the corner above the bar. On the screen was a video showing a large, white refrigerator truck streaking down a street in the seaside resort of Nice, France. Juliet and Finn stood motionless, watching the vehicle’s massive bulk mow down scores of bystanders who’d been enjoying the Bastille Day celebratory fireworks display traditionally scheduled for the night before July 14th. On the screen flashed “Terrorism?”
“Oh God, no... not again,” moaned Juliet, her eyes glued to the screen, as the scene played over and over and television broadcasters related the unfolding horror story. She could only imagine the thoughts whirling in Finn’s brain. No one in the room seemed able to stop watching the terrifying images that had just taken place in one of France’s most beautiful seaside cities facing the Mediterranean Sea.
Finally, Juliet urged, “C’mon, Finn. Let’s go upstairs. They’re just running the same video, over and over again. We’ll get them to bring our dinner to the room.”
Finn nodded and they walked in silence toward the elevator that would take them up to the second floor. Juliet figured that the romantic interlude they had planned for their weekend getaway was now shot to hell. She was startled when Finn turned to her as soon as they’d shut the door to their small suite and pulled her fiercely into his arms. His words were harsh in her ear. “I don’t want to think about what’s just happened! I want to shut it all out. I just want you, Juliet. I just want us in this room. Otherwise, I think I’ll go completely nuts!”
Juliet clung tightly to him and rocked back and forth as they stood next to the bed.
“Just us,” she repeated, her voice hoarse with unshed tears. “Yes. It’s all we can do. Love instead of hate. It’s our only weapon.”
Finn drew back and clasped her by her shoulders as if she were a life raft. In mere minutes they both were naked in bed, loving each other and crying for the lost and wounded—doing what little they could to blot out the nightmare unfolding on television screens throughout the world.
CHAPTER 29
An hour later, their dinner was delivered to their room. Finn had ordered them leek and potato soup and toast with the region’s Reblochon cheese melted to creamy perfection, but neither felt much like eating.
Without preamble, Finn put down his fork and demanded, “Will you marry me?”
Juliet was completely unprepared for his question, and for a moment, her mind went blank. Then, the urgency of his request set off alarm bells instead of filling her with joy. She could see by his troubled expression that he was struggling to keep at bay the memories of other people being killed in villages and towns in the Middle East. He will probably always face these ghosts, she thought, searching his face and willing him to understand her next words. She rose from her chair and stood beside him.
“Ask me again,” she said, leaning down to encase his face between her hands. “Ask me to marry you on an ordinary day, a day when we both don’t feel like howling to the moon over what’s happening to our world.” She pulled him toward her, the side of his head pressed against her breast. She scattered kisses on the top of his head, wanting him to feel her love, her care for him, but knowing in her heart that he had to be sure he truly wanted her, not just someone to cling to when horrible things were happening.
Finn pulled away and his lips crooked upward in a half smile. “The timing of my proposal is all wrong, huh?”
“Only slightly,” she said, assaulted by a gloomy sense that he might never ask again. “But there is no one on this earth I’d rather say yes to... on a different day.”
* * *
Unfortunately, events on the following days of their supposed getaway only got worse. On Bastille Day itself, when all of France was in mourning for 84 dead and 202 injured as a result of the rampage in Nice, Juliet’s cell phone rang in their hotel room just before eight, as they were about to go downstairs for breakfast. It was a call from Jamie.
“You heard about Nice, right?” Juliet said. “Finn and I are in a little Alpine town, nowhere near what happened. We’re fine.”
“I’m glad to hear that, but that’s not why I called. Just as you predicted, there’s another takeover bid in the works and Brad’s making moves that could jeopardize Mom and Dad and the Bay View, big time.”
“Oh, shit!”
Finn reared back and gazed at her with a questioning look. Why is life repeating itself so disastrously, she wondered? First, another horrible terrorist attack in France and now, yet another takeover war breaking out in her family’s business.
“What’s Brad doing now?” she demanded. “Can’t he just beat them off like he did last time, whoever they are?”
“These are apparently very big boys in the video-game industry. Brad’s now demanding that the parents increase the equity loan up to practically every penny the Bay View’s worth, and he’s seeking funds from some very sketchy sources to stock his war chest.”
“And the parents say what?”
“The usual, of course. Mom says they should do what Brad demands and Dad doesn’t think it’s wise to mortgage the hotel any further, as they could lose everything. However, he hasn’t put his foot down and Brad is bugging him every minute to sign a bunch of papers.”
“So what’s going to happen?”
“That’s why I’m calling you. You’ve got to come home. Dad and I can’t fight this without you.”
“Why me?” she protested. “I only own the stock I could have sold starting July first, but I’ve been too busy even to do that. You three have all your stock, plus your stock options. That should give you some clout. And think of it this way... maybe you’d do better if the takeover happened?”
“Brad says all our holdings will be diluted if there’s a change of control, and they could actually end up worthless if the takeover guys win.”
“And you believe him? What does Adelman, the lawyer, say?”
“That’s why you’ve got to come home!” Jamie insisted. “Adelman told me that with you here, there’s a better chance we four Thayers can come out of all this with something decent, whoever ultimately controls GatherGames.”
Juliet felt a rock in the pit of her stomach. Finn had turned from her during the conversation and was staring sightlessly out the window at the lake. There went their weekend. There went her session at the art school in Annecy, along with a month, prepaid, at the little hotel up the hill. Does it also mean I’m jeopardizing something else, she wondered, gazing at Finn’s stiff, erect stance. Am I giving in when I should stand firm? Let Dad and Mom and Jamie fend for themselves? “Let the chips fall where they may,” would Finn say? But the Bay View Hotel is sacred ground, she thought with an aching heart. Can I simply stand by and allow Brad to run roughshod over our family’s proudest legacy and leave our parents in a ditch?
She heaved a resigned sigh.
“Okay. I’ll get there as fast as I can. But only for a week or so. Just to see if we can help straighten out this mess.”
* * *
Downstairs in the dining room, Finn and Juliet ate their soft-boiled eggs and buttered toast in s
ilence. The lake outside was a smooth, blue carpet this somber July morning. They both gazed without comment at several boats pulling water skiers carving curling wakes on its pellucid surface.
“So, off you go,” Finn said, finally. “Juliet to the rescue.”
She ignored his pointed comment, saying only, “It turns out that I can fly out of Geneva. The man at the desk, here, said there’s a bus from the Annecy train station that goes right to the airport in a little more than an hour.”
Finn nodded, but didn’t comment.
“Would you mind driving me into town? I can just make it to a flight that goes to Heathrow, and from there, get a nonstop to San Francisco. With the time change, I’ll get there at about eleven o’clock at night, California time.”
“I’ll drive you to Geneva.”
“You don’t have to do that. I-I can take the bus from Annecy.”
“You want to make sure you make your flight, don’t you? I’ll drive you.”
A wall had risen between them that Juliet ascribed to both Finn’s disappointment that everything about their getaway had gone so awry, and also that Juliet was playing rescue ranger for a mother who—he’d surely surmised from everything she’d told him—was going to side with her elder son, as usual, with no real concern for the welfare of the rest of her family.
“You’re wondering why I’m trying, one more time, to help Jamie and my parents save the Bay View when I’ve failed so often before?”
“That and... well, a lot of other things. As you said before, maybe our timing is wrong.”
“Please, Finn... hear me... I’m not abandoning ship! You must realize by now that I can’t imagine my life with anyone other than you, but for both our sakes, we have to be sure that when we do get together, it’s for all the right reasons... and not when your divorce papers are barely dry, or because we’ve both been horribly jolted by what happened in Nice.” She touched his sleeve. “I’m not the bad guy in all this.”
Juliet watched the shuttered expression on the face of the handsome man sitting across from her in one of the most romantic places she’d ever been.