by Serena Janes
But at least one problem had been dealt with.
Maybe.
Chapter Four
Jo’s Jack Russell terrier, Sammy, had been boarded with her friend Alex while Jo was in France. But now she needed her wriggling little bundle of fur for comfort. She called Alex and asked if she could pick him up. Knowing Jo was in mourning for her father, Alex insisted on delivering Sammy. Jo was grateful for her friend’s kindness.
Over a pot of tea Jo briefly explained why she’d stayed so long in France. She didn’t mention Luc, though. Alex was a relaxed, generous woman who respected Jo’s privacy. She didn’t push for more information, and discretely took her leave when she saw Jo was suffering the loss of both her father and her fiancé.
As soon as Alex left, Jo set down to work. She had to find Lucien. First, she Googled his name but came up with nothing she could use. Only obituaries, memorials and marriage records, mostly of couples in Quebec. The lone Facebook entry she found was not the Luc she was looking for. An internet search for his office also proved fruitless. That was a long shot anyway. She couldn’t remember which branch of the federal government he said he worked for.
Was it the ministry of Culture? Education? Who hired archaeologists, anyway?
How on earth can I find him? Damn James. He knew what he was doing when he destroyed that card. Now I’ll never be able to reach him in time to plead my case.
Frustrated and depressed, angry tears stinging her eyes, Jo had another idea. She picked up the phone and called an overseas telephone directory on the chance Luc had a landline telephone number.
Nada.
Sammy had been eyeing her nervously as she muttered and sniveled and cursed through her search. Jo finally noticed and picked him up, hugging him to her chest as he squirmed with glee. A long jog would do them both a world of good.
Maybe it wasn’t the end of the world if she couldn’t reach Luc. Maybe he would be the one to get in touch with her.
If he really loves me, he’ll come after me.
“Let’s go outside, Sammy,” she said as she sat him down, his nails scrabbling in joy on the hardwood floor.
Brenda, her boss and best friend, had been only a phone call away since Jo’s return. But James had done his best to keep Brenda at a distance, both at the funeral and afterwards. He mistrusted lesbians in general, and this one in particular. She was one of Jo’s oldest friends, but he suspected Brenda had always wanted something more from Jo. Whenever he’d brought up the subject, Jo found herself becoming defensive. She didn’t really know why.
But now that James wasn’t breathing down her neck anymore, Jo was free to talk to anyone she wanted. After her run she took a shower and forced herself to eat a cheese sandwich. Then she called Brenda and asked her to come over. She wanted to tell her everything.
Brenda was an empathetic listener and, after Jo’s father, probably Jo’s biggest cheerleader. She sat open-mouthed as Jo tried to explain what had come over her in France—joining a cult and falling in love with Luc—and then how she felt her father’s death was a kind of punishment.
“I know it sounds crazy, Bren. But that’s emotion for you. I feel somehow responsible for all the terrible things that’ve happened since I gave up my free will to a complete stranger.”
Brenda refilled Jo’s wine glass. “You’re damned right it sounds crazy! But how could you let something like that happen? It’s so not like you.”
“It’s the Black Virgin of Rocamadour,” Jo said, a smile on her face as she took a sip of the California Chardonnay. “She made me do it.”
“You know, you really do sound like some sort of loony.”
Jo looked up quickly and saw that her friend was serious.
“I know I do. I kind of joke when I blame it on the Black Virgin, but I don’t know how else to explain it. When I learned that there was once a Cult of the Black Virgin during the medieval period, it all seemed to make so much sense. My feelings for Luc, I mean.”
Brenda got up to open a second bottle, this time a Pinot Gris. “You and your fucking men! So come on, tell me,” she prompted.
“Well, I just stopped fighting my attraction to him and embraced it. I rationalized that it was all perfectly natural, and had historical precedence, and was really mostly only biology. And who am I to buck biological necessity?”
Brenda shot her a doubting look.
Jo drained her glass and held it out for some of the Pinot. “And the results were amazing!” She felt herself blushing as she remembered what Luc did to her. “I had no idea sex could be so, well, intimate. So spiritual.”
“But you were still taking your contraceptives, weren’t you?” The normally unflappable Brenda sounded shocked.
“I was. But I confess that at one point I wished I hadn’t been. It was the weirdest thing, Bren. To want to get pregnant. To want to bear a man’s child. A man I didn’t even know.”
“Well fuck me,” Brenda said softly, awe in her voice. “I know you, Joey, and what you’re saying doesn’t make any sense. For you, I mean.”
“I know! Really, I didn’t know who I was anymore. I was like some sort of brain-washed cult member. I turned over my will completely. To Luc. All I wanted to do was lie down and spread my legs and let nature take its course.”
Brenda grimaced. “Weren’t you scared?”
“No. Not at all! That’s the scary part. I was happier than I’ve ever been and thrilled just to be alive. The only time I was scared was when I thought of coming home and not being able to see him again.”
She felt familiar tears flood her eyes as she realized that was exactly what had happened. She would never see Luc again, and it was her own fault. “I actually promised I’d run away with him,” she added in a whisper.
“What!? Are you fucking kidding?” Brenda almost sputtered into her glass.
“He asked me to.” The tears were flowing freely now. “We were going to go to Nice, to his family’s summer house, and hide out until our heads were clear enough to make rational decisions. I guess it sounds kind of st- stu- stupid,” she said between sobs.
“Yes, stupid! And immature, too! Irresponsible.” Brenda was lapsing into lecture mode now. “Careless. Selfish. Do you want me to go on, you crazy bitch?”
“No. No. I realize as I’m telling you these things that it was all crazy. But the craziest part is that I still feel everything just as strongly as I did last week. Every day my feelings grow even stronger. I can’t explain what’s happening to me,” she admitted, stopping to blot her tears. “It’s as if the Black Virgin is getting her revenge because I ran away. My desire doesn’t fade—it grows and grows! I feel so powerless. And so empty.”
Brenda moved closer to Jo on the sofa, put her hand over Jo’s, and squeezed.
“Where’s your ring?” Brenda could see that Jo wasn’t wearing the huge aquamarine ring James had given her last Christmas.
“In the safe. I can’t bear to look at it anymore. Every time I do, I think of James.”
“So where does he fit into all of this, if I can ask?”
“He doesn’t,” Jo replied.
“Really?”
Jo detected a hint of satisfaction in her friend’s voice.
“Really. But I don’t want to talk about him right now. That conversation’s going to take a whole other evening. And two more bottles of wine.” Jo smiled sadly.
“It sounds like you need time to get over all of this, Joey. And you need distractions.” She squeezed Jo’s hand again. “I think you should come back to work. Just part-time, if you want. But I really do think you need to focus on something outside yourself.”
“Maybe,” Jo said as she extricated her hand and blew her nose. She knew that Brenda always had her best interests at heart.
“And,” Brenda lowered her voice, “the magazine needs you. I need you. Things just don’t work properly when you’re not there.”
Jo looked up and saw a complex of emotions on her friend’s face. At least one of them—h
umility—was new. She knew that Brenda found it difficult to express her feelings. What she’d just said was a big deal.
Maybe she has her own agenda. But that’s okay. We need each other right now.
Jo sighed. “Okay, Bren. You’re probably right. I’ll come in on Monday for a few hours and we’ll take it from there. Alright?”
Brenda’s face lit up and she grabbed onto Joanna in an awkward bear hug. “That’s my girl!”
After Brenda left, Jo felt a curious lightening of her spirit, as if she’d been granted pardon for her misadventures. Going back to work would probably be good for her. And for Brenda. She did need to think about someone besides herself.
Taking inventory, Jo couldn’t believe how much loss she’d just suffered. First, her father. The strongest, most faithful support in her life. Dead of a heart attack at fifty-nine. It seemed impossible, and Jo knew she would never get over losing him.
Then her almost-fiancé. James. The perfect catch who, it seemed, still wanted to marry her after her indiscretion in France. Of course it was this very same indiscretion that had pushed James out of the picture. Jo wasn’t sure which was worse—losing a man like James or potentially losing every other suitable man for the rest of her life. Every other man who wasn’t Luc. No one else would do.
And, finally, losing Luc. Perhaps this was hardest for Jo to accept because it was all her own doing. If she hadn’t listened to James, if she’d been strong enough to insist on contacting Luc before she went home, everything would be different. Perhaps then he would still want her. God knows she hadn’t stopped wanting him since the first moment she saw him.
And every hour of the day she wondered if he felt the same way. Even after what she’d done to him.
Over the weekend James gave Jo the space she said she needed but called a half dozen times. Each time she answered with a consistently firm but detached voice. “Yes, I’m fine. Thank you for calling. No, I don’t need anything. No, I don’t want to talk right now.”
On Monday he sent an enormous bouquet of flowers, with a terse little note apologizing for his behavior. She emailed him a polite thank you, but didn’t open any of the emails he sent her in return.
She was absolutely sure she wasn’t going to change her mind about him.
Chapter Five
The first week passed—then the next, then three more—and still Luc’s pain at being thrown over was as debilitating as it was on the night it happened. The night he came back to the hotel room in Martel to find that Joanna had broken her promise to run off with him to Nice. Instead, he soon learned, she’d gone back to Seattle with her fiancé. Without a word of explanation.
His first response was a terrible fury. After he worked through the anger it was replaced by an acute heartache like nothing he’d ever imagined. His chest actually hurt him, as if someone had taken a shotgun to it. He ached and ached and ached until he thought he’d go mad.
Of course he had to finish the tour. He’d offered to lead a ten-day Dordogne Valley walk to help his friend Oscar, who owned a tour company, French Escapes. If he hadn’t been such a good sport, he would never have met Joanna, and his life wouldn’t be in shambles, he caught himself thinking a hundred times.
After Joanna fled he still had to deal with the nine Brits and two Ozzies who were waiting for him to walk them back to Souillac and send them off with a festive farewell dinner. It turned out to be a grim two days for everybody. Luc squirmed whenever he remembered them.
But there was no help for it.
Afterwards, he went home to Cahors. He still had a month’s holiday from his civil service job, but he no longer wanted to lead any mountain treks or river walks or anything that would force him to be with other people. He told Oscar he was ill and would no longer be able to help him out over the summer. Luc hated telling the lie, but then he rationalized it wasn’t far off the truth.
Then, like a wounded animal, he retreated into his house, alone.
He lost his appetite, so he stopped cooking. He kept his taste for wine, but he was careful to control it. And, trying to tire himself, he exercised obsessively. As a result, his muscular frame didn’t soften, but grew leaner, stronger.
His house was in serious need of maintenance, and he’d drafted a long list of repairs and chores he’d hoped to complete over the summer. But after Joanna he couldn’t be bothered. Windows stayed stuck, doorknobs continued to wobble, paint went on peeling and the drains kept clogging. The latch on the property gate finally broke altogether and one night a pack of wild boars charged in and uprooted an entire section of garden beside the lake.
But he didn’t even notice.
Someone noticed, though. One look at his ex-wife’s face and Luc knew how concerned she was about his uncharacteristic behavior. It wasn’t just the house—she drew his attention to the fact he was neglecting his prized vineyard, the young vines he’d so patiently nurtured through to maturity. They hadn’t been pruned, and the crop would be a disaster.
He was neglecting himself, too, she pointed out. He knew he looked a wreck. Sloppy, unshaven, no longer caring what he wore. Despite the change in his appearance, women still sought him out on his brief forays into town. But after a few minutes of strained flirtation he made it clear to each one that she was wasting her time. He just wasn’t interested.
Worst of all, he was avoiding his family and friends, taking no pleasure in things he once loved. In more than one of their brief conversations, Anna told him she was particularly concerned that their son was being affected by this terrible change in his father.
After their divorce, several years earlier, Anna and Luc had arranged a convenient situation for the benefit of Daniel. As their large property had two houses on it, Luc moved into the smaller home, leaving Anna and Daniel in the larger. Daniel could stay at his father’s house whenever he wished, but once he retreated, Luc became silent and unapproachable.
Of course Daniel couldn’t understand why his father was withdrawing from him. He was further upset that Luc no longer wore his wedding ring. When Luc and Anna sat him down one day and told him they were no longer married, Daniel took it hard.
So did Luc. Breaking up his little family was yet another one of his failures.
Anna had to be strong for the both of them. She managed to contain her son’s grief and distract him with promises of outings and sleep-overs with his cousins and friends. Then she turned her energies towards her ex-husband.
One evening, with Daniel safely at his cousins’ for the night, she took a roasted chicken, a dish of Luc’s favorite stewed eggplant and a bottle of wine over to his house. After eating, drinking and much prodding she managed to get him to talk. And because he trusted her, he eventually confessed the entire sordid story.
“I know it sounds crazy but it really was love at first sight. Or I guess I should say lust.”
He felt no embarrassment with Anna, ever. He loved her, and he didn’t want to hurt her again. But that pain was all in the past, and mostly healed. He sighed, and looked across the table at the intelligent, sensible woman whom he’d married nine years earlier out of duty. They were both in graduate school and she was pregnant.
“And when did it turn into love, do you think?” she asked.
Luc knew that some men would flinch at this type of question coming from a former wife, but he understood that Anna wished only for his happiness. He didn’t marry for love, but they now loved each other in a way that would last, despite divorce, for the rest of their lives.
“Within a few days, I suppose. I wasn’t absolutely sure until that last day, when I made her promise to come to Nice with me.” He ran his fingers through his hair, noticing he needed a haircut. “I didn’t even plan it. It just sort of happened.”
“And she said yes?”
“Not right away. I think she was too shocked. But I managed to convince her,” he admitted sheepishly.
Anna was looking at him with shining eyes. He supposed she was remembering how convincing he cou
ld be when he wanted something. She was the one who had asked for the divorce. She knew she couldn’t make him happy, and decided she had to let him go.
“And you believed her when she said she’d drop everything and go with you to Nice?” Anna asked gently.
“Yes. I did.” It did sound improbable when it was put like that, he thought. “Maybe I just wanted it so much that I couldn’t see she was frightened. Maybe she lied just to get away from me.”
That thought disturbed him even more. At the time, he’d been so sure that Joanna shared his passion. So sure that he’d gambled everything.
“And now you think she was lying?”
“Yes. What other explanation could there be?”
“A change of heart? A family emergency, you said?”
“A contrived emergency, you mean?”
“Let’s give her the benefit of the doubt,” Anna insisted. “What do you think happened?”
“Madame Guillmont told me that her fiancé had made a sudden appearance at the gîte that afternoon. When Joanna came back to collect her things, they quarreled. Everyone could hear them. And then nothing—they disappeared during dinner.”
“Is that all you know?”
“Madame said there was a family emergency. That’s all she would tell me.”
“So perhaps there was. Is it so impossible to believe?”
Luc hung his head. Anna was so fair-minded. So insightful. Maybe she was right. She was a well-respected oral surgeon, adept at reading people and accustomed to winning their trust and admiration. Maybe he should trust her instincts on this one, too.
“No, I guess not,” he answered. “But if there was a problem I can’t understand why she wouldn’t come to me for help. And why she didn’t leave me a note. Then, or since. That’s probably the worst part.”
“I understand,” Anna said softly as she placed her hand over his.