V
France welcomed Ariadne at the peak of her summer beauty. Our Alice from Arizona was finally standing on the soil she had often dreamt of, but had never seen. Paris looked like a veritable dream. Ariadne could stare at the men and women for ages and not get tired of their flawless skin and dainty gait. Paris was all about love and art. She took a sniff to find out if that peculiar cocktail of odors was simply imaginary or not. It was real. It was the aroma of perfume, freshly baked cakes, roses and the cool breeze of the Seine all mixed together to create a concoction so special that you would feel a strange sense of nostalgia connecting you to the city of lights. Ariadne fell in love with the Parisian sun and wished she could take a slice of summer home to Arizona. Ariadne ‘Alice’ Silver felt like she was the lady born with a silver spoon in her mouth. She had misplaced her spoon for a short while. Everything was probably alright now. There were no mad tea parties anymore. Life was all about the Paris sun and the rich vineyards. Ariadne’s instinct urged her to make a dash for the dream shops and eat at a dainty parlor but she controlled herself against her will. She had to meet the probate officer first. After all, that is what she had come to Paris for. She had to meet a certain Lucien Valier who would guide her through the last remaining official formalities required to transfer ownership of the property. Her first stop in Paris was to be at Charles de Gaulle, a cozy café in the heart of the city. Lucien Valier was supposed to be waiting for her there with the necessary documents for the transfer of ownership. Once there, Ariadne would begin a new life, an unplanned, unexpected life. The first thing that she would do with that money was give herself a treat.
Journey to Charles de Gaulle was rife with a series of delightful faux pas. Ariadne spoke broken French to get to her destination and got mesmerized by the fluent French of the passersby. She blushed when a man excused himself as he took hold of her hand in the middle of a busy street and kissed it unabashedly. Such was the charm of her actual wonderland that Ariadne felt she was home at last. The more she traipsed along the orange-yellow roads of Paris, the more besotted she got. When she finally arrived at Charles de Gaulle, Ariadne had lost all of her stern businesswoman pride and seemed more befuddled by the color and exhibition. Ariadne had rediscovered the lost innocence of her childhood under the bright summer French sun. She was all smiles. Her face looked radiant as she smiled pleasingly to every passer-by that she exchanged a word with. Their fluent French sounded like music to her ears. She imagined a lover singing her love songs in the language. She would trade the fantasy of a Mad Hatter for a Frenchman who could sing. Ariadne Silver felt like a normal young girl on the streets of beguiling Paris. She felt like a spoilt heiress being guided by beneficiaries of royalty till she understood how to use her riches on her own. She was enjoying her fairy tale very thoroughly indeed.
“Bon jour mademoiselle Silver, j’mappele Lucien Valier.”
“er.. hey, I am Ariadne. So, you must be my probate officer.”
“Oui, mademoiselle Silver. Vud ew like ze eet zumthing?”
Ariadne found this Valier person very interesting. He had that characteristic French appeal about him. His skin was smooth and hairless and he spoke with a heavy accent. Although Ariadne wasn’t fluent in French, she could understand the basic salutations. She found Lucien Valier’s English downright funny and adorable to boot but she was careful not to make a fool of herself on her first day in Europe. She did not want to tell her probate officer that his English was awful and cute. Ariadne did not know why but Lucien Valier seemed like the kind of guy who would not mind her bittersweet compliment. She rebuked herself for getting carried away by devastating European good looks and boyish charm. She had work at hand, probate. With an imperious air, Ariadne joined Lucien Valier for a professional meeting over her dead grandmother’s property.
III
Lunch was lavish that day and Ariadne was spoilt by French gallantry. She could not help but lose herself to the suavity and genteel charms of the polished Frenchman. The more she drank wine, the more confident she felt about the entire situation. She not only forgave her life for all the miserable events and traumas that she had to live with but also thanked her life for providing her with an opportunity to visit Paris. She was in a stupor.
Deep… deeper…
Ariadne had the sensation of sinking in water, that pleasant feeling when the warm water kisses the skin. For a couple of moments, she was oblivious to the situation she was in. She sank deep in her measured inebriation.
“Mademoiselle Silver? Eww okay?”
“I am fine, thank you!”
Ariadne could not act the goat on her very first day in France. She collected herself and chided herself for getting carried away. She knew that letting her guard down, even for moments could be disastrous. She simply could not let the French air make her forget about the lessons life had taught her. She had a lot to see and lot to learn. Lucien Valier seemed like a nice person. Ariadne was completely taken over by French customs and Lucien’s frankness with her. He offered to show her around and guide her in every possible way to get the probate formalities out of their way. Ariadne knew very little French and kept herself limited to simple answers and smiles.
Ariadne ‘Alice’ Silver wanted to explore the night life of the city, feel the cultural capital of the world throb with life and art. After their preliminary discussion on probate was more or less done with, Ariadne wanted to know if Lucien knew of a theatre Ariadne could visit. To her surprise, he volunteered to take her out that evening and show her the rest of Paris as it was. Ariadne was to go to her grandmother’s home in Salers where Lucien Valier promised to drop by in the evening.
Several days rolled on one after the other and Ariadne got richer and wiser in terms of wealth and culture. Lucien Valier had been a regular visitor at her grandmother’s house. He proved his worth as a probate solicitor by guiding Ariadne through the complicated laws of property ownership. Now that the money was transferred to Ariadne’s account, Lucien Valier did not exactly have any reason to linger behind. Ariadne suspected infatuation and she would have discouraged him right away had he not been so devastatingly debonair. Lucien Valier took Alice to the finest art galleries and some of the best vineyards in France. Ariadne needed at least three days to finish her tour of the Louvre museum. She almost cried when they visited Versailles and walked among stately palaces and monuments. At Biarritz, in the southern parts of France, Ariadne walked among aromatic vines and cried with pleasure at the sight of such extravaganza. Sometimes she felt she did not deserve so much happiness. Lucien Valier was a steady companion who accompanied Ariadne wherever she wanted to go and guided her through the streets of Paris. Not for once did he try to make a pass at her or ask her out on a date. Frenchmen were indeed different from the guys in America. In France, everyone was well dressed and good looking. They would all mostly talk about freedom and the liberty of personal expressions. Walking through the streets of Paris, Ariadne was mesmerized by the color and glamour of the city. Paris was a living, breathing entity. It was alive and had claimed Ariadne as a victim of its grand opulence. She did not want to go back to America. She had blissfully forgotten about her chain of spas and the booming business she had left behind to take care of her grandmother’s property. With so much of money in France, did she really need to go back to her usual job in America again? She thought of the customers there, the daily hassles, the conundrum and resolved to settle down in Paris. Ariadne had exceedingly high hopes for herself and was convinced that she could open her own spa at the French Riviera. Lucien, of course, encouraged Ariadne vigorously and discussed her plans effusively with her. Was Lucien attracted to her? Ariadne had been meaning to find out for a long time. He was so debonair and handsome that our little Alice almost hoped he would propose to her someday. Lucien Valier was a unique man. For one, he had a dreamlike quality about his eyes and a perpetual smile on his face. Lucien Valier spoke English with a heavy French accent but improved his sentence constructions greatly
with the help of Ariadne. At first she really thought he was gay. All the time that Ariadne spent with him, not once did he look at her in a way she was accustomed to seeing American boys look at women on the streets. Lucien walked around with a practiced demeanor and always spoke when he was spoken to. His presence was silent, comforting and enriching. Lucien Valier would not go out of his way to explain the significance of a particular artwork or give the exact date of preservation of a particular kind of wine but Ariadne could rest assured that he knew everything worth knowing about France. He introduced Ariadne to Baudelaire’s poetry while she showed him her copy of Alice in Wonderland. Lucien was so impressed with the concept of a Wonderland that he even managed to sketch his own version of the Wonderland. He later gifted his artwork to Ariadne, whom he referred to as “petite Alice”. Their intimacy gradually grew into a solid camaraderie. Ariadne found a companion, almost what one calls a “consort battleship” in Lucien. Their lack of communication did not interrupt interaction at all. Ariadne had mostly taken to staring at Lucien’s sparkling eyes whenever he spoke. They somehow seemed to understand everything they had to communicate with one another and needed nothing more. ‘Alice’ had everything she needed. She had a job, security and a wonderland. All she was rooting for was the ‘Mad Hatter’.
IV
Three weeks passed by casually. Ariadne kept the remote desert regions of Arizona out of her mind and let the Mediterranean sun court her supple skin. She was getting along really well with Lucien and had become best of friends. Cultural differences could not stop them from sharing their intimate secrets with one another. Never in her wildest dreams did Ariadne ever imagine it would be so simple to talk to a stranger about all those intimate details of her life that she managed to keep hidden from her acquaintances in Arizona all this time. She could open up to Lucien about everything. She could tell him of her love for dogs and cakes. She could tell him how much she enjoyed window shopping. She could disclose to Lucien about the exact slices of pizzas she could consume. She could tell Lucien of all things silly and all things intimate. Ariadne could tell Lucien of the pains and the disappointments that had haunted her since the very beginning. Perhaps it was the strange beauty of the place, the sunny boulevards and their unflinching poetic honesty that made Ariadne open to a stranger in a strange land. To her immense surprise, Lucien did not take offense to her stories in the least. He was not surprised when he heard about her prostitution days or when she narrated her experiences at the orphanage or the foster homes. Lucien comforted her with an acknowledging smile and reminded her that poverty and grime was universal. What Ariadne saw in Paris was a miasmic deception. Paris was not only about riches, splendor and the maudlin Mediterranean calm. Paris, perhaps most of France, was writhing in pain, suffering and poverty. Destitute poets and artists roamed about the streets of Paris with rejected manuscripts in their hands and hunger in their hearts. Life for the financially privileged was no cakewalk either. The privileged were like wage earners, doomed to a life of eternal slavery and servitude. They were playthings of corporate systems whose consciences had been drained out of their lives, rendering them hollow, sluggish and cruel. They lacked company and a hearty conversation, hence they made love. While the sunny side of Paris was indeed sunny and gay, there was another side to Paris which was littered with vomit and hangovers, characterized by loveless intimacy and hollow appreciation of the arts. Lucien convinced Ariadne that her existence was sheer poetry in itself. All her sufferings defined her and she did a fine job growing up. Needless to say, for the first time Ariadne was falling in love. She had never fallen in love before. Perhaps that was one of the setbacks of being an early age whore. One sets one’s standard of men very high. It becomes almost impossible to fall in love. Ariadne, for the first time felt tenderness for a man. Lucien was the first man to have made so much sense to her. She admired his devotion to the arts and his maudlin poetic ways, his lisping English and hasty retreat to native French. It was all very adorable. In Ariadne’s mind, Lucien was a mad man in a suit and a hat. Lucien had to be her Mad Hatter.
http://www.amazon.com/Romance-Grandmother-Novella-Mystery-Suspense-ebook/dp/B016GFXXH4
***
Sample from The Love I Found, Book 3 of the Ariadne Silver Romance Mystery Series
http://www.amazon.com/Romance-Finding-Eugenia-Novella-Suspense-ebook/dp/B01849WQOG
Chapter 1
I
It was not long before Ariadne Silver was on the road to recovery. The trials and tribulations she had gone through in early childhood had given her a mental toughness that could not be broken by a mild heart attack. Her resolve helped her and her conditions improved dramatically. Moreover, the fact that she had finally learnt about the whereabouts of her step-daughter gave her a new lease of life. The doctors were quite happy with the progress she was making and decided to release her after only a week in medical care. However, she would have to maintain a number of restrictions in life and avoid stressing herself in any situation.
Lucien had been close by Ariadne’s side ever since returning to the States. He was pleased to learn of her release and that she would be able to return to her normal life. On the morning when she was slated to return home, Lucien reached the hospital early so that there was no unnecessary delay with the paper work and Ariadne could be let off without any delay. The doctor called him in to his office and gave clear instructions on what he must do to care for his wife. She had to be kept away from any unnecessary excitement; else she risked a lapse of another potentially dangerous attack.
The couple returned home and Lucien gave Ariadne enough time to settle down back into her regular schedule. They were still worried about Eugenia since there was no news of her whereabouts. However, her letter had brought with it a renewed hope for Eugenia’s parents who clung on to hopes of finding her alive and well. The fact that she had finally made contact after a gap of three years was like an indication of their missing daughter being happy and well.
The Love I Lost (Ariadne Silver Romance Mystery #2) Page 9