by Susan Finlay
He put his arm around her and sighed. “You can’t lie to me again. Promise me that.”
CHAPTER THREE
Three days later Dave found himself staring out the window again, only now he was not really looking at the scenery. Though he still loved the view, he was tired of it, tired of this place. On the surface, his relationship with his grandmother appeared undamaged. He had tried to forgive her manipulation, and told himself he was overreacting, but he hadn’t really convinced himself and could not forget. He knew he didn’t trust her as he had previously. He felt that her lie had been a smokescreen to hide something more—it was surely inconceivable that she had claimed to be dying simply to get him to stay. He wondered what had caused the fallout between his mother and grandmother. Jeannette would know what happened, and if she knew, there was a chance Simone knew. He decided he would go on the sightseeing trip with her and encourage her to talk. He sighed and shook his head. He realized he was growing impatient and edgy waiting around. That was one thing he’d always disliked about the village. At this time of year, most shops in France stayed open all day, foregoing the traditional two-hour lunch breaks, to accommodate the seasonal throng of tourists. Not so, however, in Reynier.
The shopkeepers claimed it was merely tradition, but Dave’s grandfather always used to say it was because Reynier rarely drew in more than an occasional tourist. And it wasn’t on the tourist route for one basic reason. The six hundred or so residents didn’t want tourists invading their town. Dave understood and appreciated the peacefulness it provided. Reynier’s layout, although lacking a town square, was fairly typical of French hillside villages, with homes and businesses spread out over multiple levels, connected by stairways, cobbled roads, and walking paths. Reynier’s labyrinthine cave system in the hill, along with troglodyte cave dwellings sprinkled throughout, made it a bit more unique, although it wasn’t the only such town in France. He’d seen several others, and had heard of more that he hadn’t seen yet. It could have been a popular tourist destination and could have brought in some revenue for the locals. Apparently, the villagers had decided that the price of tourism was more than they were willing to pay.
The chiming clock in the corner drew Dave out of his thoughts. He glanced up. Two o’clock. The clock was fifteen minutes fast, but his grandmother was typically fifteen minutes slow, momentarily amusing him at the two being a matched set.
When he entered the kitchen, she was by the sink, talking on the telephone. She saw him, quickly said her goodbyes, and hung up. “Sorry to interrupt, Grand-mère, but if we go now, the shops should be re-opening.”
“Thank you, dear boy. Let me gather a few things.” She ambled out of the kitchen.
Dave followed her into the living room, where she searched the table beside the front door, sighed, and waved her hand. “What are you looking for?”
She ignored him as she flittered around the living room and foyer. She stopped and stared at the closet, raising her arms. A soft sound of exasperation escaped her and she stomped over to the coat rack, picking up her suitcase-sized purse that was hanging from a hook. “Never mind. I found them.” She pulled out her bifocals along with her new pink and green flowered silk scarf, put on her glasses, and wrapped the scarf around her white hair, tying it underneath her chin. Reaching into the closet, she withdrew her new brown suede shoes, the ones she’d spent hours shopping for in the nearby town of Vendome yesterday. Dave shook his head in amusement as he watched her squeeze her thick feet into the dressy shoes to go walking along the sloping paved lanes.
Thinking that his grandmother was ready to go out, he strode over to the front door. But in the foyer, she again stopped and studied herself in the mirror. She made a clucking sound as she tucked wayward strands of hair under the scarf. She finally walked out the door.
Dave followed her and closed the door, not bothering to lock it since no one here locked their doors unless going away on a trip. Turning his attention back to the street, he breathed in the fresh summer air. The weather had changed in the few hours he’d been indoors. A wind had arisen and was swirling around the fine limestone tufa that covered the buildings. Though the air was still hot and dry as it usually was all summer long, the blowing wind carried with it the scent of flowers and the chatter of birdsong.
He entwined his arm with his grandmother’s, and they strolled along rue de Rennes, the sloping lane on which she lived. They headed toward the intersection where the road would switch-back onto rue Corneille and down to the bottom, where most of the village’s businesses were situated. They could have gone directly down the hillside, by way of a steep stone staircase, but Fabienne had tripped on them the last time they’d gone that way and ended up with a bruised leg.
Dave nodded politely when Jeannette strode up beside them, but only half-listened as the two women chatted quietly, their heels clicking like horse hooves on the cobbled road, the thought momentarily providing a quiet chuckle. As they arrived at the end of the road, Jeannette waved and said her goodbyes, then disappeared into the town hall on the corner, across the street from Simone’s café. Dave and his grandmother made the partial U-turn onto rue Corneille. At the bottom of the hill, they walked past the local drugstore and Dave started to cross the street, halting when he noticed the heel clicking had stopped. He turned around, backtracked to where his grandmother was standing, and waited as she reached into her purse and pulled out a piece of paper.
“If we split up,” she said, handing the paper to him, “we can finish faster and return home in plenty of time to prepare the meal. I want everything to be perfect for our party.”
He glanced at the flapping piece of paper before tucking it in the pocket of his blue polo-shirt and out of the wind’s reach.
“Good,” Fabienne said, not waiting for a response. “You’ll find all of those things in the general store.” She reached into her cloth shopping bag and pulled out another, smaller bag, which she handed to him. “I’ll get the cheeses, meats, and wine. We can meet by the town hall?”
“Okay,” Dave said. “Half an hour, then?”
Fabienne flashed him a smile, waved, and then scurried down the street.
The main street was long and narrow with shops on both sides of the street. He watched her stop outside the cheese shop next to the post office across the street. The river was behind the businesses on that side, while the hill was behind the businesses on the side where he was walking. He reached the general store with its yellow awning flapping in the wind, the metal hangers creaking. It was still closed for lunch. On one side of the front door two elderly men sat on an old wooden bench, canes neatly propped nearby. They often sat there all day long. On the other side of the door, crates of fruit were displayed on a low platform. A small group had gathered outside the store, waiting for it to re-open. Dave nodded to Paul Lepage who was standing next to the store clerk, Robert Roussel, both smoking cigarettes.
Paul flicked ashes onto the sidewalk. “Bonjour. I’m looking forward to tonight’s dinner party.
“Me too. She’s planned quite a feast.”
Paul laughed, blowing a plume of smoke towards the sky. “That sounds like Fabienne. I’m not complaining, mind you. She’s the best cook I know. But don’t tell anyone I said so.”
Dave chuckled. Paul was Jeannette’s grandson, and Simone’s cousin; unlike Simone, he’d lived his whole life in Reynier, except for the time he spent at art school in Paris. He now worked as a handyman in order to make ends meet, though he’d told Dave a couple of days ago that he was talking with people who might help him get his art career going. His black hair was tousled and his face was dark and stubbled from not shaving. Dave knew he’d clean up for the party and out-dress him.
Someone rode past on a sputtering motor scooter as the store clerk opened the door. After he reversed the ‘Closed’ sign, the shoppers pushed their way in.
Dave pulled out the scribbled shopping list as he entered the store, reading the groceries listed for him to get: artichokes
, aubergines, mushrooms, onions, bread, cream . . . .
He looked up from the list briefly and nodded as Robert passed by, then headed for the produce aisle in the back of the small store. As he proceeded across the old plank oak floor aisles, scrubbed spotless and shiny, but worn in the center from ages of use, the floors depressed and squeaked. It was clear that these aisles had remained unchanged from the time the store was created.
Starting in the produce area, Dave carefully picked through the fruits and vegetables, knowing from experience that his grandmother was finicky and would complain if he didn’t select perfect specimens. She had complained last week when he came back from a shopping trip with unripe fruit and undersized vegetables. Too bad she hadn’t included a size-chart with her list.
He had been in the store for twenty-five minutes and had acquired most of the items on the list when he encountered the Cardin twins and their younger brother running around in the store. One bumped into him, then ran off. A few minutes later a crashing sound and a startled scream a couple of aisles over made him rush toward the source of the commotion, but he had to stop abruptly to avoid running over a young woman who was sitting on the floor, half covered in fallen cereal boxes. Dave looked from the apparent train wreck to the boys standing behind her, mouths gaping open. He turned his attention back to the dazed woman. She looked up at him, her diminutive face emerging from a dark cloak of long hair, revealing two of the most beautiful, most extraordinary, most mesmerizing eyes Dave had ever seen.
She was definitely not local, of that he was sure. He would certainly have remembered those clear blue eyes with little flecks of gold and green. Regaining his wits, he extended his hand. “Are you all right?”
She reached up and took his hand shakily, allowing him to help her to her feet.
“Yes, Monsieur. I must admit, though, this is quite embarrassing. I . . . I’m not sure what happened, really.” She spoke the words breathlessly, as if pulling them out of the windy sky. Though she spoke in French, her accent sounded odd to him.
Dave, aware that he was staring, smiled and shrugged. “I don’t think it was your fault. Those kids were clowning around. One of them ran into me a few minutes ago. I’m sorry you became a casualty as well.”
She laughed softly, her cheeks growing pink. When she reached her hand up and tucked her hair behind one ear, the store’s overhead light caught on an exposed earring, making its tiny diamond glitter.
“Thank you for your kindness,” she said, lowering her eyes, her face suddenly closed.
Just then, Robert appeared, waving his hands excitedly and yelling at the boys who had created the mess. They took the hint and scurried out of the shop without looking back.
Dave shook his head as he watched the trio exit. He turned his attention back to the woman, only to find her gone. He searched through all the aisles in the store, and then went outside, looking in all directions. There was no sign of her. Giving up, he went back inside and helped Robert re-stack the cereal boxes. As they finished and Robert returned to his post at the checkout counter, Dave spotted something shiny on the floor at the edge of the aisle, half-hidden under the bottom shelf. He bent down, picked it up, and examined it. It was a silver necklace with a tiny-diamond covered heart locket—not terribly expensive, but nice looking. Its clasp was broken. He carefully deposited it into his shirt pocket.
When he left the store and strode back up the hill to the town hall, instinctively looking round for the young woman, his grandmother wasn’t there. He checked his watch and realized that with all the commotion, he was fifteen minutes late. Maybe she’d walked home without him. He waited for another five minutes, debating whether to wait longer or go back to the house. Then he caught a glimpse of her trudging uphill toward their designated meeting place. She had seen him and was waving her hand. He started walking toward her.
“Oh, dear boy,” she said, breathlessly as they neared each other, “I tried to get back sooner, but you know Brigitte over at the wine shop. She talks and talks to each customer. I couldn’t get away.” She paused to juggle her cloth shopping bags around.
He grinned. “I don’t suppose you talked with Brigitte, huh?”
She faked being indignant and smacked him on the arm with her purse, then struggled to keep from laughing. “At least I was quick in the cheese shop.”
“Are you ready to go home?”
She nodded, and they headed back to her house, their arms full of food and trappings for the party. When they were nearly home, Dave caught a glimpse of the mystery woman up ahead. He watched her inch her way down the stone stairs, the steps that passed Chateau de Reynier on the way down to rue Corneille. Though she could be heading to the road, he considered the other possibility that she might be a guest at the inn.
The rest of Dave’s afternoon was taken up with dinner party preparations, leaving him no time to go looking for the woman. That didn’t stop his mind from drifting though. As he helped his grandmother with food preparation and housecleaning, he tried to focus on the party and his upcoming trip, but images of the woman’s face, and especially those eyes, kept appearing in his mind.
That evening, watching his grandmother and her friends, Dave wished he were somewhere else. He did his best to appear happy and at ease, and even whispered to Simone, “You look lovely.” She wore a strapless red satin dress that displayed her perfect skin and sensuous figure. A sheer red scarf covered her neck. She smiled and wrapped her arm through Dave’s. “I missed you today. Why didn’t you come by the café?”
“My grandmother kept me captive. I had planned to stop in, but she was excited about this party and put me to work shopping. I suspect she has this need to out-do Jeannette’s, which is no small feat.”
Simone laughed softly. “For such good friends, they have a bit of a rivalry.”
Throughout the evening Fabienne was in a splendid mood, which pleased Dave. And yet, seeing the intimate group of friends laugh and talk so easily while he remained mostly quiet and on the periphery left him with a feeling that perhaps he did not belong there.
CHAPTER FOUR
The day after the dinner party, Dave got up early to work for a couple of hours on his book and left for the post office on the main street. He stepped up to the counter and bought a stamp for the postcard he’d bought yesterday. His mother often complained that he didn’t call or write to them enough and, thinking about it, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d sent his parents a real letter. Leaving the post office, as he dropped the change into his pocket, his fingers brushed against the necklace he’d recovered from the floor in the general store.
He crossed the street and headed toward Chateau de Reynier near the far end of the village, not far from Café Charbonneau. The hotel was situated on a leveled-off section of the slope midway between the bottom tier and the next tier. It could be reached by walking up the winding driveway from the main street to the hotel’s parking lot or by climbing halfway up a steep staircase that connected the two tiers, and then exiting onto a path, the staircase being the shorter of the two.
Dave strolled past several shops and cars parked along the roadway on his way to the staircase. As he reached the bakery, a scraggly terrier darted in front of him. He swerved to avoid it, stumbling backwards, and crashed into something. Disconcerted and embarrassed, he realized he’d careened into a woman coming out of the bakery. Following her gaze, he saw an empty coffee cup and a baguette on the ground near her feet, soaking up the now puddled coffee.
“Oh, no, I’m sorry,” Dave said. He bent down and picked up the soggy bread and empty coffee cup, straightened back up, and looked at the dark-haired woman. “Are you all right?”
She nodded. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail at the nape of her neck, making her look different than he remembered. But her eyes were unmistakable. It was the woman from the general store. His eyes locked onto hers and he again felt awestruck. Smiling at her and taking advantage of his unexpected good fortune, he said, “Why don’t we
go inside? I’ll buy you another coffee and baguette.”
“Oh, that’s not necessary, really. Actually, I should be going.” She took a step backward. Although they both spoke in French, he was more than ever sure she was not French.
“Of course it’s necessary.” Still holding the ruined items in one hand, he held the door open for her with his other hand. “I owe you that much. Besides, I wouldn’t mind a cup of coffee myself. You’ll join me at one of the outside tables, won’t you?”
“No. I really shouldn’t,” she whispered.
“Please. It’ll make me feel better about being such a big oaf.”
She smiled and glanced down at her feet. “I’m not sure you’re the oaf. I seem to be a magnet for accidents lately.”
“Maybe we both are.”
She looked up at his face and gave a tentative smile. “Well, I suppose it would be all right. To drink coffee with you, I mean.”
“Good. By the way, I’m Dave Martin.”
She didn’t respond.
He frowned slightly, then said, “Do you have a name?”
“Oh, sorry. I’m Maur—” She blushed, then continued. “I’m Maurelle Dupre.”
They went inside, where he disposed of the ruined bread and empty cup, and ordered two coffees and another baguette. He handed her the bread and carried the coffees outside to an umbrella-shaded table. After he set down the coffees, he pulled out a chair for her and they sat down.
They sat quietly for a few minutes, sipping hot coffee and enjoying the sunshine. Sunlight caught on one of her diamond earrings, reminding Dave of the necklace. He reached into his shirt pocket. “I have something I think is yours.”
Her eyes lit up when she saw it. “Oh, it is,” she said, accepting the chain. “Thank you. I thought it was lost forever. Where did you—” Her face flushed again. “The general store,” she finished.