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Champagne: The Farewell

Page 3

by Janet Hubbard


  Hans was upon them, blue eyes, blond hair drifting around his face. She would describe him later in her journal as cocky. They maneuvered themselves out of the car and Léa shook hands with her visitor who dwarfed her. He swung around and greeted Olivier, and then shook hands with Max, holding her hand a second too long.

  He pointed out the Beechcraft Bonanza that he had flown himself, and seeing Olivier’s eyes light up, said, “It has three-hundred hp, and retractable gear. It costs around four-hundred-thousand Euros. I can take you for a spin if you like.” He paused, “I’m better at English than French. Anyone have a problem with that?”

  Olivier shook his head, but Max detected a flash of annoyance, and wondered if it had to do with being forced to speak English or more with Hans Keller controlling the situation. Léa walked ahead with Hans to the plane, laughing at something he said. When she stopped to wait for them, Olivier asked her in French if she really wanted to go. “It’s time,” Léa said. “Doesn’t this fit in with our new risk-taking stance on life?” Max thought the exchange was in reference to her husband having died in a plane crash.

  Once they were at the plane, Olivier became enthusiastic, mentioning that he had taken lessons years ago, but never completed them. “I find it the most exhilarating experience imaginable,” he said. Max couldn’t wait to be aloft.

  Hans lowered the steps that were attached hydraulically, and opened the door to the plane. The interior was luxurious, with six dove-gray leather seats. Léa sat behind the pilot’s seat and Olivier took the seat beside her.

  “I need a co-pilot,” Hans said to Max, and she readily took the seat in front. “Everyone has headphones above their seats. Make sure they’re on appropriately.” He leaned over to help Max, and whispered flirtatiously, “Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?” She laughed at him mocking the U.S. commercial.

  Hans got into the pilot’s seat, and prepared for take-off. Within moments he had received the okay from the tower and they were sailing skyward, and shortly afterward he announced they were at one-thousand feet. “Look below at Notre-Dame de Reims,” he said, and banked slightly. A cross that had been carved out of stone covered a large portion of the roof of the thirteenth century Gothic cathedral. It was an act of pure devotion, Max thought, perhaps put there for God to see. There surely was never a thought in those medieval artisans that humans would be viewing their cross from a flying machine. She wished that her devout mother could be with her.

  “This is a great introduction to Reims,” Olivier said. “The city was destroyed and then rebuilt after the First World War. Thus the bright colors of the buildings.”

  Léa added, “And during the Second World War the Nazi troops camped in the city for four years. My husband Charles’ grandparents never forgave them.”

  “It’s also where the Germans surrendered,” Hans retorted, and then, putting his hands up, added, “And I surrender now. Again. No war talk!” Max was surprised that the subject was still tender. “Where is your château exactly, Léa?”

  Soon they were gazing down at the patchwork of fields with orderly rows of vineyards planted up to the periphery of the gardens that were interrupted by a few narrow roads carved out for easy access for farm machinery. “Your château looks fabulous from here,” Hans said. “I want a tour.”

  Max peered down and saw the fairytale castle rising up from the landscape, with formal gardens planted behind the house that were breathtaking. As impressive as it was, she thought how stifling it must be at times to always be among the people you grew up with, never feeling anonymous. She believed this to be one of the great freedoms rarely mentioned.

  Olivier pointed out the distant vineyards of Avize, Cramant, Epernay, and Chouilly, and Max thought that she, too, would like to take up flying. She was surprised by how contained she felt in the plane. Flying this way, she decided, felt like a meditation, where thoughts and words seemed unnecessary in the vastness of sky. Her reverie was interrupted by Hans asking her to trade places with Léa so they could speak about business and she obliged.

  Olivier was obviously enjoying himself. “This is the Jaguar of small planes,” he said, “and now that I’m aloft again, I’m determined to take lessons in Bordeaux. It’s been a dream of mine since I was ten to own a plane.” He pointed out the white, chalky soil that reflected the sunlight back to the vines, causing them to thrive in a cooler climate, and offered to take her on a tour of the caves below ground where millions of bottles of champagne were stored. “They occupy hundreds of kilometers that date back to Roman times.”

  Léa’s voice raised in annoyance boomed through the headphones. “I never said that I would sign a contract this weekend, Hans. You insisted that this was the only time you could come.” Max noticed that she was holding what appeared to be a contract in her lap.

  Hans’ voice was steely, “I have a tape recording of our conversation, my dear, and will be happy to play it when we land.”

  Without warning, he banked the plane and Léa shrieked.

  “It’s only a twenty-five-degree turn.” Max leaned up to watch him return the yoke to neural, holding back pressure on it until the turn was completed.

  Was he trying to be amusing, or was it a warning? Max glanced over at Olivier and saw that he was no longer smiling. The plane banked again, this time to the other side, and Olivier stood up and moved toward the front of the plane. “It’s time to land.”

  Max experienced the first sensation of nausea since they had boarded. Hans ignored the command and said to Léa, “A week ago you seemed quite desperate to sell your company, and I raised the money, practically overnight. Returning without a contract will be difficult for me to explain to my father.”

  “My family is also upset. Any more pressure from you and I will cancel everything. You’re not alone in wanting ownership of my company. An American company is bidding, and if I have to, I’ll reverse and sell to Dupuis.”

  Hans banked for the third time, and Léa grabbed a barf bag and threw up in it. Olivier, who had toppled sideways, but caught himself, said to Hans, “If you do that again, I will have the police waiting when we land.”

  “I’ve done nothing to be arrested for, monsieur. Please sit or I will force you to.”

  Olivier whipped his ID out of his pocket and shoved it in front of Hans’ face. Hans’ lips became a thin line as he maneuvered the plane back toward Reims. Within fifteen minutes they were on the ground, and Léa was out of her seat. As soon as Hans opened the door, she clomped down the stairs and marched across the tarmac.

  Hans turned to Olivier and laughed, as though he were speaking man to man. “She won’t get away with using her womanly wiles to squeeze out of this deal. I was making my point, you understand.”

  “As was I,” Olivier said. “Detective?” He stood back to let her pass. Max exited the plane, feeling slightly short-changed by the ruckus over bidding and buying. Hans followed, unfazed by the animosity he had caused. “You’re an American detective?” He burst out laughing. “You carry guns and shoot people?”

  “If I need to.”

  “If I had known Madame de Saint-Pern had her police force with her, I would have brought my bodyguard.” Olivier walked past them on his way to the car. “I have to close up. Be there in a minute,” Hans shouted after him. Max didn’t know whether to run to catch up with Olivier, or be casual and amble over with Hans. She decided to do the latter. He pulled out a leather suitcase and a smaller bag, which he handed to her, cautioning, “Don’t let that out of your sight. There’s a small fortune in it.”

  “Isn’t there a limit to the amount of cash you can carry across a border?”

  “Now you’re acting like a detective. I suppose there is, but who’s checking?”

  She walked alongside him to the car, and hoisted herself over the back seat before anyone had a chance to open the door. Olivier climbed into the back seat
next to her, still too irked to be polite, and Hans took the passenger seat.

  “I see that you fly, too,” Hans said to Léa as she accelerated away from the airport. He pulled his mobile from his jacket pocket and held it to his ear. He tapped in a number when no one responded, and spoke in rapid German. How obnoxious, Max thought. Léa glanced in her rearview mirror at Olivier, as if to ask what he was talking about. When Hans placed the phone back into his pocket, Olivier, from his tone, ripped into Hans in his own language.

  Léa was pleased. She drove too fast around a curve and her passengers hung on. Max decided she and Hans were in a pissing contest, and it wasn’t all that serious. When Léa turned up the radio Max recognized the French band, AaRON, that had taken France by storm over the past year. What the hell, she thought. She sang the English lyrics “something’s coming up, my friend.” Léa knew the song, and joined in. When Max glanced over at Olivier, he was smiling, and even Hans’ jaw had relaxed.

  Léa pulled into the small parking lot of the Oiseau Inn down the street from the Marceau house. “I was having some fun,” Hans said. “That’s all. It would be unfortunate if you refused to make a deal because of that.”

  “I am a businesswoman, and I rarely make decisions based on emotions, nor am I known for making mistakes. I will be here at seven to discuss your offer, and you will be out of here first thing tomorrow, d’accord?”

  Hans got out, slammed the door and sauntered to the office. Olivier extricated himself from the cramped back seat, and ensconced himself in the passenger seat. “I would hate to imagine him owning de Saint-Pern.”

  “He’s a connard,” Léa said. Asshole, Max translated. “I should go in now and tell him any deal is off. But I might need him. That’s the way of the business world and part of the reason I want out.”

  Olivier said, “He assured someone during his phone conversation that he wasn’t leaving until he had a deal, and that he had brought something that would let you know he was serious.”

  “What, a gun?” Léa laughed at her joke.

  Max thought about the small bag that he had taken back from her and placed at his feet in the car.

  They were entering the Marceau driveway. “My sister will hate him. But why should I care that she is freaking out over selling my company?”

  “Because you were brought up to care,” Olivier said. “Take your time, and don’t sign anything until I’ve seen the papers.”

  Léa’s eyes welled with tears. “Ignore me. It must be the pregnancy. I was thinking for the first time when we were in the airplane that I have to do what’s right for this baby.”

  “You’ve managed alone for five years. But now Marc has joined the company, and you will have an heir when your baby comes. These are positive changes, no?”

  “I hope that’s the case with Marc. He’s overtly ambitious, which is unlike people around here, but I can forgive him that. The problem is, and this is confidential, I was nice to him and he started to behave as though he were smitten with me.”

  Like everyone else, Max thought.

  “I decided that introducing him to Chloé would be the perfect distraction. And look what happened. I think my niece was feeling a bit desperate. French girls after age twenty-six or twenty-seven begin to panic about marriage. I worry that Chloé will be hurt.”

  Max had also questioned Chloé deciding to marry so soon after meeting Marc, and the email she had read on the plane made her wonder if something was amiss. Chloé had mentioned friction between Marc’s mother, Geneviève Durand, and her parents. Max knew that Ted had had a fling with a woman named Geneviève when he first arrived in Paris. Could this be the same woman? It was odd, now that she thought about it, that Ted hadn’t let her know about him meeting and falling in love with Léa de Saint-Pern, especially because he was aware of Max’s friendship with the Marceau family.

  When Max turned her attention back to the French conversation Léa was saying that Jacques was paying someone to do a background check on Marc’s family. Max thought about her own mother, who had been banished from her French family because she insisted on marrying Hank. That knowledge made Max want to take up for Marc, no matter what. She decided she would go out of her way to get in a game of tennis with him in order to get to know him better. She could see why Chloé was attracted to him. He had a brooding look that she had seen on many Frenchmen, which women often found sexy. She only hoped that the brooding didn’t equate with depression.

  Léa said, “I don’t know much about Ted either, but sometimes we have to trust. My friends think he’s after my money.”

  Max wanted to butt in and say she could vouch for him on that issue, but decided to wait for Olivier’s response.

  “Is he doing well with his…blog?”

  “It’s catching on. I’ve lent him the money to make it fly.”

  Olivier shrugged. “You’re right. At some point you must follow your instinct and trust. A good lawyer can organize it so that he can’t take what isn’t rightfully his.”

  “Merci, Olivier.”

  Once they were in the parking area, Max stood up. “Max!” Léa said, “You were so quiet I forgot about you. We were having a conversation about the past. Nothing interesting.” To Olivier she added in French, “Thank god she wasn’t able to understand our gossip.”

  I should really clear up this language misunderstanding soon, Max thought, though their overheard confidences had whetted her appetite for more. They gave her an insight into Olivier, who was starting to fascinate her.

  Léa waved and drove off, which left Olivier and Max in the parking area in a suspended moment of shyness. Gardeners and caterers were milling about below, where the reception was to be held. “Care to take a walk?” Olivier asked, leading them to a footpath that seemed to course through the forest. “I never tire of observing wild flowers. Have you noticed the poppies scattered throughout the vineyards?”

  “The red flowers?” Max shrugged. “I only see flowers in parks.”

  Olivier led them to apricot-colored roses growing in the branches of a linden tree. “We have five-hundred varieties of roses,” he said. “This one, a French rose, was introduced by a man named Turbat in 1916. One of my favorites.”

  “I saw the rose bushes planted at the ends of the rows of vineyards. Is that an old tradition?”

  “They are the canary of the wine world. When they exhibit signs of the fungus oidium, or mildew, the wine growers immediately spray the grapes to stave off infestation.”

  She didn’t know when her brain switched from rose talk to the almond shape of Olivier’s brown eyes that bordered on black, beneath beautiful naturally-sculpted eyebrows. His lips turned up puckishly when amused. He brushed his hair back with his hand. Their eyes interlocked for a second, and he quickly asked if she liked working for the NYPD. She nodded, “I’ve just spent twenty months in street narcotics, which earned me a gold shield. That’s the goal, to acquire that as fast as you can, though it often doesn’t work as quickly as you’d like. I’d be lying if I didn’t say my father is a big influence. He’s a legend on the force.”

  “And there are many women like you?”

  “No. I joined up later than most after getting a degree from university, which meant I had to work harder to be accepted by the other women in my precinct. Women make up eighteen percent of the force.” What she didn’t feel like going into was how deep down she felt she would never have become a detective had fate not decreed it.

  They were at the Marne River, where they stood and watched a barge move slowly through a lock. The river was wide, bluish-green in color, and mesmerizing. “This is as opposite to my life as can be imagined,” Max said. “I’ve read that your childhood landscape forms you, which makes me some kind of kinectic object hurling through space—especially next to your phlegmatic constitution.”

  Olivier smiled. “The Cha
mpenois, actually, are a paradox, for often they are assumed to have the personalities associated with the beverages they produce, when in fact they are indeed more like the landscape and climate here, which can be harsh and unforgiving. Far more reserved than the Burgundians.”

  Max recalled the comment she’d heard Léa make to Olivier about finding someone who would loosen him up. Now that she’d been dumped by Joe, it seemed like a fun challenge to take on. Ambling along in the late afternoon, their conversation segued to the wedding. When Olivier asked her if she had ever been married, Max volunteered the information that the guy she was seeing in New York had texted her on the flight over that they were done. “That’s another story,” she said.

  “I have the awful challenge of being at the wedding with my ex-wife and the man she left me for.”

  Max smiled. “I will face the same situation at work when I return.”

  Olivier glanced at his watch, and she could tell he was uncomfortable with the intimate discussion. “I’m stealing you from the Marceau family.”

  “I like being stolen.” He looked at her curiously with a slight smile playing at the corner of his lips. She was surprised both at her boldness and at the tingling sensation in the pit of her stomach that his smile had caused.

  The moment passed as he turned to examine large, lavender flowers that he explained were in the hibiscus family. Chloé was waiting when they arrived at the parking area. “I’ve been looking for you,” she said to Max, her face a blend of curiosity and irritation. “My mother’s stressed out about the dinner, and the fact that Monsieur Keller was invited. And I have to put up with this when I’m getting married tomorrow.”

  Max experienced a moment of guilt over abandoning Chloé, who had earlier mentioned going for a walk. “Give me five minutes,” Max said, and mouthed “later” to Olivier as she took long strides to the wing of the house where she was staying.

 

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