Love & Death in Burgundy

by Susan C. Shea

“I read online that the French love American country music,” Michael said, mostly to Betty Lou.

  “The Japanese, too,” the singer said, “although I think they mean cowboy music more likely. But J.B. will get the word out everywhere, won’t you? If there’s an audience anywhere in this wide world, you leave it to J.B., he’ll find it.”

  At that, the producer and the singer started laughing, and Michael looked happily at Katherine, raising his glass to her in a silent toast. All Katherine could do was smile.

  CHAPTER 21

  If anything, Brett was handsomer when he frowned than when he smiled. Not that he smiled a lot. His smiles were reserved for particularly good runs on the skateboard or when he crouched down to play with the puppies. Today, when he found her in her special spot under the bridge near the bank of the river at its shallowest place as the daylight faded, he was frowning. He didn’t speak at first, picking up and skimming rocks over the water.

  “This place is not so deep for that,” Jeannette said, struggling with her English. He still said nothing and didn’t look directly at her. She did a quick mental inventory of her clothing choices. The green T-shirt with something written in exotic gold Chinese characters. The green was good with her hair, Katherine had told her once. Tan shorts, a little tight because they were from last year, but that was all right because she was trying to look sexy anyway. Hair freshly washed and curly around her face, like a model in the magazine her father had brought home last week. She hoped Brett would notice. He seemed to be busy with his thoughts. He didn’t have his skateboard either.

  “I have keeped—kept?—the present you gave me,” she said to get his attention. She held a brass cylinder up to the light, then put it back in her pocket. She had been careful not to let her brothers or her father see it. The little ones would have pestered her for it, and her father would have demanded to know what she and Brett were doing when they spent time together.

  He gave it and her a sharp glance, then looked away. “You going to the café tonight? My dad says there’s a talent show, kind of a tryout for some festival they’re putting on later this summer.”

  “The fête. I don’t know. My father will probably go and he will expect me to take care of the little ones.” She made a face. “Are you going?”

  Brett nodded, peeling the bark off a green twig and stabbing it into the wet dirt.

  “So why don’t you get someone else to take care of them, and come?”

  It was his style, the girl knew, to be super cool, and she did her best to mimic it as she answered. “Maybe François to do it. He is almost twelve. The house is close by, so he can come and get me if the little ones start fighting.” She giggled. “You will try out for something?”

  “No way,” he burst out, finally looking at her and grinning. “It’s old-people stuff. I’m saving my energy for the Ri-vi-era.” He said it triumphantly in a kind of singsong, without seeming to notice her disappointment. She would be sorry when Brett was gone. That part was tragique. But she would be glad when his father, with his secrets and his loud voice and his staring at her when he drove through town, was gone from Reigny. It was M. Holliday who had turned Katherine against her. Katherine had been the only adult in all of Reigny who treated Jeannette nicely, who invited her to lunch and listened to her and advised her on life. Katherine had used her as a model for her paintings, the biggest compliment Jeannette had ever received. Now that was spoiled, and all because Brett’s father was a liar and a thief, even if he must have thrown away what he stole. Maybe even a murderer. She shivered.

  “Come with me,” she said, dancing over to the American boy and daring to take his hand. “I’ll show you someplace secret and fun.”

  Brett looked at her curiously but didn’t pull his hand back. In fact, he wrapped it around hers more tightly and nodded. She had nothing to lose. Brett would be gone soon and she would have an empty summer ahead of her, with no friends and no distractions. She would make the most of the time she had left. She was determined that she would have some romantic stories to share with her girlfriends when she started school again.

  She led him back to the road, then up the hill and onto the dirt road that led to the quarry. The old stone site had two parts: one that was still in use, that her father used when someone wanted stones to line their driveway, or to shore up a riverbank, or put under a pavement, and the other part, which had been left alone for as long as Jeannette knew, a huge hole dug out of a hillside where the stone was harder, too hard for her father to work without better equipment and other men.

  Jeannette tugged Brett in this direction, where the road was so overgrown with high shrubbery it was hard to know it had been there, except for two ruts that led into the woods. The best part of this section was the pool made by the digging. Jeannette and her older siblings, before they left for jobs in Lyon, had constructed a rope ladder on a strong old tree. The thick hemp hung into the water so they could walk up the sloping sides of the stone and onto the grass. The little ones were never permitted to come into the quarry. Their father threatened to beat them if they set one foot on the dirt road that led there, and the children knew he was a man of his word where beating was concerned. It wasn’t until they were teenagers that any of them dared to defy their father’s rule.

  “The pool isn’t deep, but sliding in is fun,” she said, smiling up at Brett.

  “Awesome,” he said, walking up to the edge and looking into its shadows. “Is it cold?”

  “Not so much now,” she said, and then was suddenly silent. She hadn’t figured this part out. She could not take off her top, which would be too revealing even though she was wearing a sports bra she had purchased the last time she went to Vézelay with her school group. Brett had already peeled off his T-shirt and, without waiting for her, had grabbed the rope and was shimmying down.

  He let out a whoop as he met the water. “Not cold?” he yelled, laughing. “It’s friggin’ ice water.” But he didn’t come out, and she laughed, sitting on her bottom and slipping down cautiously into the water, which looked darker in the growing twilight.

  Brett dove under, and came up whipping his hair to one side and swimming easily across the pool. Jeannette was shy again. She couldn’t swim. The water wasn’t too deep, only up to her neck, and she could paddle and float her way over to the rope. Now, she wished she could really swim, to look as rhythmic and controlled as Brett did. Brett swam around her, talking and laughing, splashing water at her, and offering to tow her around the perimeter of their private pond. This was a happy moment, and tonight would be a happy one also since Brett had invited her to the café. She floated and smiled up at the treetops. Brett was her boyfriend, n’est-ce pas? Her first real boyfriend.

  When they had hoisted themselves back onto the rocks and spread their limbs on the still-warm stones to dry, Brett surprised her by moving closer until his hip was touching hers. He hoisted himself up on one elbow and looked down at her. His free hand touched her stomach lightly and she sucked in her breath. While he watched her closely, his hand played with the hem of her T-shirt, lifting and twisting it gently. She didn’t take her eyes away from his when his fingers slid under the T-shirt and moved slowly up her rib cage. His smile had faded and the smoldering look he habitually wore was back, freezing her with its sexy appeal. When his hand cupped her breast through her bra, she felt odd, almost as though she had no will of her own. Her breast tingled as it had when he had brushed against it in the woods outside the château.

  The boy leaned forward then and kissed her at the same time he squeezed her breast. He turned and she felt him pressing against her shorts, warm and hard. Suddenly, Brett was pushing his tongue between her lips, a big, wet thing poking inside her mouth, making it hard to breathe, and it broke the spell. Why was he doing that? She closed her lips and tried to wiggle away. Brett paid no attention and now he was squeezing her breast harder. She pulled at his hand and jerked her face sideways, managing to say, “Non, non.”

  He froze for a m
oment, then rolled off her, and she sat up, pulling her T-shirt down and scooting her body sideways.

  “What?” Brett said in a lazy voice. “You don’t like that?” He reached for her, but she had had enough. If this was romance, she didn’t like it one bit.

  “I have to make dinner ahead of time since I am going to the café.” Her face was burning and she felt like a failure. Was Brett angry at her?

  “Up to you,” he said, although his tone of voice clearly said he was disappointed. He grabbed his shirt and walked ahead of her back the way they had come. She tagged along behind, miserable and guilty. She was supposed to like that thing with the tongue? Did everyone but her like it? Was she a baby for thinking it was gross?

  They retraced their steps silently, and at the road he turned toward the café. “My dad’s picking me up,” he said. “He’s hoping you’ll be there tonight,” he added, a sudden gleam in his eyes. “You won’t disappoint us, will you?”

  Confused and unhappy, Jeannette mumbled something to assure Brett she would be, then ran downhill to her house, wanting only to get home, where she could replay the business by the pool and figure out if she still had a boyfriend.

  CHAPTER 22

  The café, which scratched out a partial living for the wheat farmer and his wife, who owned it, was located in what would have been a good spot had there been a reasonable amount of traffic coming through Reigny-sur-Canne and if the proprietors had a sign that stuck out into the street. At the junction of two narrow roads that came together in a Y, the building stood almost in the intersection, its pockmarked stucco facade free of any modern marketing gimmicks. A flower box with some brave geraniums stood on one side of the door. The problem was if visitors didn’t know that it was there, they were likely to sweep past the store and then have to look for a relatively safe place to turn around. Strangers passing through town probably said, “To hell with it,” and kept on driving until they came to the next little hamlet in the commune, twelve kilometers down the road, which had its own little shop for Badoit water and yogurt.

  The only sign, painted directly onto the stucco over the store window in red letters, which the owner touched up every couple of years, was economical and to the point: *CAFÉ*VIN*EPICERIE*. It didn’t say “live music” because, in spite of the sound wafting from its interior as Katherine and Michael entered this evening, there wasn’t entertainment on a regular basis other than the exchange of gossip and heated complaints about whichever national government was in power. And the sign, Katherine had discovered after they bought their house, was not entirely accurate. While espresso and local wines were always available, bread, milk, eggs, and cheese were not. This was not the place to come if you ran out of sucre or dry beans for tomorrow’s cassoulet unless one or the other of the owners had thought to order them for the weekly delivery or, on a whim, had gone directly to the wholesale supplier while doing other chores in the larger cities of Autun or Dijon. Everyone in Reigny knew this, of course, and did their basic shopping at the supermarchés in the big towns, which lessened their reliance on the Reigny café, which, in turn, lessened the urgency on the part of the owners to stock the shelves.

  The coffee and wine business was booming tonight because locals who dreamed of an audience for their talent all year round were here to try out for a place on the stage of the annual Feast of the Assumption fête.

  Katherine had explained to Michael that they weren’t auditions because she would make sure everyone who wanted to perform got at least a little time onstage, even if it was early in the day or while the food was being served in another tent. The trick was to keep the most enthusiastic performers, who were often the least talented, from taking and holding the small stage pretty much at will. That’s what had happened the prior year to everyone’s annoyance except Emile’s, who was fond of telling Katherine and Michael how exceptionally well received his encores had been.

  Emile’s only concern this year, he had explained to Katherine more than once, was that she would not invite him to perform twice—something French on his beloved accordion, and a “true rock and roll” classic on his electric guitar with the renowned American performer living incognito among them. He wanted Katherine to understand that he and his fellow pétanque players, a drummer and a bassist, were crowd-pleasers in both styles.

  Yves, who held the door open for Katherine and Michael, rolled his eyes and murmured in her ear that he hoped Michael would not join Emile’s motley crew of amateurs on the stage.

  “Not tonight anyway,” Katherine said. “He and Betty Lou are hoping to get some response to their new arrangements before they decide if they should record them.”

  Yves was twitchy with energy and soon abandoned them, and Michael headed off to get them drinks while she claimed a table. Katherine didn’t like crowds or big parties. In Los Angeles, she had always felt like an outsider, which she knew made her react snobbishly, fuming silently at what she called “these pod people” while drinking too much overly oaky chardonnay. “But if I had their money,” she admitted to Michael after a party she’d wanted to flee the moment they entered the house, “I would only spend it on vintage clothes and better paintbrushes and tap-dancing shoes, and I’d still look like this, and they’d still look down their noses at me and call me quaint or worse behind my back.”

  This party scene was as far from the modernist canyon lifestyle of L.A. as it could be. She reminded herself this was what she had wanted. She looked around at the high-ceilinged fluorescent-lit space littered with small tables and rickety chairs, the scuffed linoleum floors, a faded poster for Kronenbourg beer on one wall, and a line of decorative plates high on another. Yes, this suited her better.

  A burst of laughter from the next table caught her attention. She didn’t recognize a single face among the party of unshaven men upending bottles of beer and shouting merrily. After a confused moment she realized they were Polish workmen, a group of summer migrants hired to rebuild a stone bridge at the far end of Reigny, beyond Pippa’s house, that had been undermined by a flood last winter. Jean had assumed he would get the job, but the district’s bureaucrats had apparently not even considered the idea that a local—or maybe Jean in particular—could do it. As a result, the quarryman was looking daggers at the party from his position at the end of the zinc bar.

  His glance met hers and he gave her the same belligerent glare, and when she looked away quickly, it was to see Mme Pomfort peering at her from the opposite direction, mouth turned down in its habitual moue of disapproval. The widow bent toward the other woman at her table, hand covering her mouth, and said something. That lady, hawk-nosed, buttoned tightly into a black trench coat, and looking much like a large crow, cut her eyes in Katherine’s direction, then ducked her head to hear what else Mme Pomfort had to tell. Katherine began to feel as though she had a target painted on her back.

  To her surprise, Pippa Hathaway was sitting in a far corner of the room, looking at no one in particular and sipping a glass of red wine, her face slightly flushed. When their eyes met, she gave Katherine a look designed to carry meaning and lifted a small notebook surreptitiously. Katherine understood she was here doing research, probably looking for clues to a murder, and was debating whether or not to signal her to join them when suddenly everyone in the café jumped as if they’d received simultaneous electrical shocks. Emile had tested the amplifier volume with a shrieking chord that vibrated in Katherine’s teeth.

  Before the patrons had recovered, the door opened and Penny came in wearing a floaty dress that shouted “Paris” and was wrong for the occasion. Her eyes darted around, rested briefly on Katherine, then kept moving, with only a dip of her head in greeting. Okay, Katherine thought, she’s still pissed at me.

  Penny saw Yves and made for him, touching his arm possessively when she got to where he was standing, talking to the young cheese makers. He tossed his hair back and moved a millimeter away, enough to make her hold on his arm tenuous, a bit of drama that made Katherine wince in sympath
y.

  Looking around for Michael, Katherine noticed Mme Robilier, whose flowers would have to be accommodated somewhere on or near the stage. She was sitting with her elderly husband, who looked confused by the activity. A middle-aged couple, their son and his wife, Katherine guessed by the young man’s strong resemblance to the older one, shared their table. The three Robiliers who did not suffer from dementia were facing the stage with rigid backs, turned as far away from Mme Pomfort’s table as possible. The speculation about German-born Albert’s intruder and gossip about Nazi sympathizers in Reigny had raised the temperature of dislike between the two women, a pity, thought Katherine, since they held adjoining properties and would be neighbors until they died. No one who held land in Reigny-sur-Canne sold their legacies outside the family.

  Emile had continued to refine the sound from his amplifier, drowning out conversation with electronic squeals and hums as he adjusted the knobs on his secondhand equipment. His drummer, a car mechanic who hung out at the pétanque court most days, practiced his cymbals. The bassist, a young guy Katherine didn’t recognize, sat calmly, surveying the audience. Mme Pomfort pantomimed her verdict with hands over her ears.

  Emile had set his silver-and-red accordion at the edge of the small platform, which happened to be close to where Jean leaned against the bar. Emile was eyeing Jean nervously as he tuned his electric guitar. Katherine shook her head as Michael came back, put the thick stemless glasses down, and turned his chair around to straddle it, cowboy-style.

  “He’s afraid Jean will make off with the accordion,” she told Michael, dipping her head in Emile’s direction. “He’s convinced Jean broke into the château and has been worrying for days that Jean is on a one-man burglary rampage.”

  A particularly discordant lick from the stage froze Michael. “Oh boy,” he said, refusing to look at the stage.

  Penny was having a hard time getting Yves’s attention as he made a great show of charming the new resident couple, and now she left his side, moving over to where Emile was bent over a speaker. He looked at her, grinned broadly at something she said, and held up his index finger. Darting over to his pile of equipment, he brought back a tambourine, thrusting it at her with what Katherine could only describe as a leer. Ironically, given his former profession, he had a missing molar that made him at this moment look quite piratical.