by Jo Maeder
She called Liliane and told her she had to miss school and why. She expected Liliane to scold her over the notion of caring for baby rodents.
“You are having strong maternal urges, Al-ees?”
Sounding almost guilty about it, she answered, “Yes.”
“I understand, very much so. My husband found a litter of abandoned newborn kittens when we were dating. We took turns feeding them warm milk with an eyedropper. It was sad when we had to find them new homes. It was also what prompted us to start our own family.”
She paused. “One day, our boys convinced us to get an aquarium. We filled it with fish and plants. They quickly lost interest and the fish died. We will not be doing that again. I can give you the aquarium for the babies to nest in. I have an eyedropper somewhere. I will pick them up at lunchtime and bring them to you. I need to see Jean-Luc about something anyway.”
“That would be wonderful!”
Alyce spent the morning coaxing the babies to lick warm milk off her finger. As they twisted, squeaked, and instinctively pulled in the direction of her hand, a wonderful feeling surged through her.
There was one thing she could do well.
Around 1:00 she was distracted by the sound of a horn honking and another woman’s voice coming from Jean-Luc’s kitchen as well as Liliane’s. She thought about wandering over but was afraid she’d see a butchered mama loir.
Her curiosity and hunger pangs got the better of her.
A petite Asian woman was showing her diamond engagement ring to a mildly interested Jean-Luc, smiling Liliane, and envious Isabella.
“If it had not been for Jean-Luc I would not have known how wonderful Paul was.”
Everyone’s head turned toward Alyce.
“Am I interrupting? I just wanted something from the refrigerator.”
“Hello.” Mazuki eyed her with curiosity.
Liliane said, “Don’t worry. I brought us lunch.”
Jean-Luc explained Alyce was a student of Liliane’s staying in his cottage.
Mazuki shook Alyce’s hand. “Enchanté. Just remember, there’s no one better than Jean-Luc for fun. If you keep it in the right perspective, it won’t be so bad when it’s over.”
Before Alyce could correct her, Isabella did it for her. “I am his lover, not her!”
Jean-Luc sighed, held out his hand. His sister placed an envelope in it. He examined its contents, divided it in half between the two women. Oddly, they seemed reluctant to take it.
Liliane shook her finger. “That is more than you owe them. Why do you do that? And now that Mazuki has claimed her car, what will you drive?”
“I will make more money, it would have cost the same to rent a car, and Isabella needs cash for a plane ticket.” Isabella looked like she had been punched in the stomach. “Isn’t that what we decided last night?” he asked, sounding confused.
“I didn’t think you meant it!”
An awkward silence followed. Alyce felt she should high-tail it back to her cottage but was too transfixed to leave.
Mazuki interjected, “I am sorry, Isabella. I should have told you what I said to Al-ees.”
Isabella, knowing she could not win, asked her, “Could you give me a ride to the train station? I will only be a few minutes.”
She fled the room after taking the money from Jean-Luc.
Then it hit Alyce. “Did you eat the mother loir already?”
Jean-Luc said, “She is marinating in the refrigerator. Would you like it, Liliane? I don’t care for it. I told Isabella not to bother.”
“Thank you, I will,” his sister answered.
Bile rose in Alyce’s throat. She ran to her cottage in time to dry heave into the toilet.
When she came out, Jean-Luc was placing the aquarium on the dining table. Liliane had a shopping bag with her.
“I thought we could eat together, Al-ees,” she said.
“Merci,” Alyce said, “but I don’t have an appetite now.”
“I must work,” said Jean-Luc. Before he left, he added, “I am very sorry for what Isabella did. She was just threatened by you.”
“So she killed an animal? A mother?”
“I bring out the best and worst in women.”
Once the aquarium was set up and the babies securely in it and asleep, Alyce was ravenous. They ate their baguette sandwiches with fresh local tomatoes, cheese, arugula, and mustard at her bistro table by the Tree of Love. They could hear the faint typing of Jean-Luc at his computer through his office window on the second floor. It was far enough away that they could speak without being heard.
Liliane squinted as though deep in thought. “I admire your determination to learn French. I think you will get it in time. Often it is not a gradual incline but big leaps, then a plateau.”
That was reassuring, but she still couldn’t imagine speaking anything close to understandable French.
“You are welcome to babysit anytime,” she said. “It would help you with your French, my boys with their English—” she gave Alyce a wink “—and give me time with my husband.”
“I’d love that.”
“Of course we will pay you.”
“Oh, no,” she protested. “Well, maybe if I have to move into a hotel.”
“Let us hope that will not happen.”
Alyce refilled their glasses of apricot-rosemary tea.
“How is everything going here?” Liliane asked.
Alyce wasn’t sure where to begin. “Well, unpredictable, I’d say.”
“A nice way of putting it.” She pursed her lips. Oh, the stories Alyce knew she could tell.
She thought Liliane was through with the topic of her brother when she said, “Jean-Luc has had a difficult life, Al-ees, and he is an artist. Put the two together and you have a radio that does not tune into the frequency of real life. It can be tiring, but he is so intelligent and entertaining it is impossible not to love him—just like a little boy.”
Alyce struggled with a question. “Do you and Jean-Luc have the same parents?”
It turned out they were half-siblings with the same mother who was no longer alive. Jean-Luc’s father left when he was a child.
“It was easy for Maman to spoil him since she was so alone. He also had the energy of a hurricane. Most geniuses do. Later, when I was a child, she married my father, an Algerian. He took the much-needed upper hand. Jean-Luc was 16 and fled to Paris.
“He soon found success with his first novel. It proved to be too much, too young. He lost his mind and spent time in a sanitarium. I did not know him well until he wrote Renée, which the publisher changed to The Horse. Did he hate that title! Until it was a hit.” She shook her head. “He was so overwhelmed. I wanted a closer relationship with him. I helped him.”
Alyce put down her baguette. “Could you go back to the lost-his-mind part?”
Her head tilted to the left as she considered how to answer. “He hit bottom. He needed to. Now he is much stronger. But he has a new demon. Growing old. He is 38 and thinks he has one foot in the grave.”
Her candor prompted Alyce to say, “I can see why. He already looks dead.”
Liliane burst out laughing. It made Alyce feel good to crack up a woman so poised at all times. She also felt bad for saying it.
“You should have seen him when he had a tan and dark hair,” Liliane said. “Quite the lady-killer. What am I saying? Women swoon over him just as much now.”
“Don’t count me among them.”
“That is good to hear.”
Alyce sat back and inhaled the country air. She didn’t want this lunch to end. She wanted to know more about Jean-Luc.
“Liliane, I get the impression he’s not good with money. To me, that’s a turnoff.”
“I’m with you, Al-ees.” She told Alyce that her brother had made a lot but would overspend on women, friends, the less fortunate. “Or he gives it to the fire department, my school, the police. He is greatly admired here for his generosity but does not know how to l
ook out for himself. He needs a good, sensible woman. If only he would surrender. I fear he never will.”
Liliane shook her head, sat back, and pushed her half-eaten sandwich away.
“Is something wrong?”
An expression came over her Alyce had never seen before: guardedly warm.
“Morning sickness is not confined to mornings.”
“Oh!”
“I meant what I said about babysitting. Simon and I would like to have a little fun before we’re tied down again.”
Why was everyone getting pregnant around her? First her sister, now Liliane. “I’d love to help. You’re happy about this, right?”
“It’s unexpected, but good.” She added wearily, “Jean-Luc is going to have to sell this property, though. I cannot keep helping him.”
A vivid image of living here with Nelson and their children made Alyce smile.
The painful thought of Jean-Luc losing his home did not.
10
Besotted
Alyce was sitting at her cottage bistro table with her French is Fun book, trying to figure out when to use “le” and when to use “la” when her cell started playing the samba music she’d chosen as her ringtone.
“Bonjour, mademoiselle. Ees thees ze sex-ziest womahn een ze world?”
“Nelson!”
“I wanted to hear your voice, honey.”
“Awwww. That’s so sweet.”
“What are you doing and what are you wearing?” After she told him, he said, “Sure you don’t want to come home now?”
She dropped her pen. “I thought you were coming here.”
Still sounding sweet as can be, “Come on, you made your point, sexy.”
She wasn’t sure how to respond.
He filled her silence with “You know what I mean. That you can live without me but I can’t live without you.”
A warm rush zapped her face. Her lips tingled. It intensified when he said, “I just want us to be the way we were.”
He went on in his privileged voice about “all the places we’ll see together in this big wide world, the sooner the better.” Alyce barely heard him after that, though she came back to earth when he said, “I’m sending you a credit card that earns points toward almost any airline.” Huh? No man had ever done that for her before. “I know you won’t go crazy with it, one of the many things I like about you. Not that I don’t enjoy spending money on someone I adore. I don’t want to feel used, either.”
“I don’t blame you.”
She was absolutely certain God was listening to her when he said, “Ally, when you emailed me that your host’s property was going to be sold and it used to be a winery and was now run down and needed a lot of work… well, I talked it over with my parents and if it’s as good as it sounds, I might buy it. I’ll have my own business and be far away from my mother. And how cool would that be, to own a vineyard in the South of France! What do you think?”
This time she nearly dropped her phone.
In the six months they dated, he’d talked about buying a foreign car dealership, starting a restaurant, launching a website, and other ideas so he could retire by 40 (seven years away).
“Nelson, you know I’ll support you in whatever you want to do. If it doesn’t work out, life goes on. Regretting not trying would be worse.”
“I love you, Ally.”
He said the L-word.
“I love you, too, Nelson.”
“I’m so glad to hear that. I wish I were there right now. I need to feel you, baby.”
She closed her eyes and moaned, “Mmmmm. I need to feel you, too.”
His business voice jarred her. “Of course, my parents will be helping financially. Mother wants to see it and other properties, too. And you.”
See how much she’d transformed and broadened herself was more like it.
His voice went sweet again. “Then it’ll just be you and me, sweetheart. How about we take a quick trip to Paris?”
“Très bien.”
“Shall I get us a hotel while I’m in Marlaison? That writer probably wants to be alone with his girlfriend.”
She thought she saw Jean-Luc in the kitchen eyeing her. “Actually, she just left.”
“It’s just the two of you?”
“I hardly see him. He’s either holed up in his office or I’m studying.”
“I don’t like the idea of you being there alone with him.”
“Oh, please. I’m not remotely interested in him and I’m hardly his type. It’ll be so romantic if you come here compared to a hotel. And if you’re thinking of buying this place, it’ll be a test drive.” She sat down and pouted. “All I do is think of you, sweetie. All this beauty and charm and you’re not here to share it with me.”
“Oh, honey. I’ll be there before you know it. I’m sorry I’ll just miss your birthday. But I’ll make it up to you in Paris.”
Before they hung up, she told him she was changing her email address. “It’s just Alyce dot Donovan at gmail. I’m not a media grrrl anymore.”
“Sure, honey, but you may not be a Donovan much longer either.”
Her arms turned into one solid zingy goose bump.
But the best part of their conversation was that neither You-know-who nor their child was mentioned once.
My sexy amour,
Itinerary coming in a separate email. Can’t wait to see you!
I Googled Jean-Luc. There were a lot of articles on him in French but you know how it is when you hit the Translate This Page button. It comes out pretty bizarre. I did learn he’s never been married or had kids and has quite a reputation with the ladies. If you’re a Francophile, he’s an American-vile. Can’t stand us. Sure you don’t want to get a hotel? xoxo N
He attached a photo of himself at a Music World magazine party with a famous actor. Damn, he was cute. Cuter than the actor, she thought. There was something about his face, his scent, that still made her stomach tighten.
She considered Nelson owning a vineyard. Here. With her. It was insane. But good insane. Bad insane: an email from Glorianna.
Re: Coming to visit
To: Alyce Donovan
Fr: Glorianna.Mansfield
Darling Alyce,
Didn’t I tell you your trip was the best thing you could do to reel in my little Nelson? He was absolutely besotted the moment you slipped away. I can’t wait to see how France has changed you. I can see you now, all chic and sophisticated. (I highly approve of the new email address.)
Now, before I come I need you to…
11
The Password
“Bonjour, Jean-Luc.”
“It is a delight to see you, Pauline.”
They did the South of France customary three-cheek kiss, right/left/right. He invited her in. She immediately began taking notes.
Appointed by his sister to be their real estate broker, he had heard she just left her husband, or he left her. They had been miserable for years. Jean-Luc always enjoyed flirting with her when she was unattainable. Now?
“So much character!” she trilled.
Absent-mindedly he answered, “Yes, yes. So much character.”
He watched her from behind as she headed toward the kitchen. There was nothing like a recently liberated woman: vulnerable, insatiable, and pumped up by friends and family with the conviction that she was wiser, stronger, and better off without her no-good husband. He could spot one instantly. Caution stiffened the knees, the desire to surrender swished around in her ass.
He had finished his mural and needed to write, dammit! Pauline would have to wait.
He needed a car, too. Fast. With those odious Americans coming to visit Alyce (she certainly wasted no time telling them about his misfortune), it would be thoroughly emasculating if he did not have his own chariot. It would also be obvious he was broke. They would swoop in like vultures.
“The kitchen is superb,” Pauline cooed. “You were wise to update it. The
rest of the house, hmm, it wouldn’t take too much to make it presentable.” As she scribbled away, she said, “How do you really feel about selling, Jean-Luc?”
He gave a Gallic shrug. “Do you mean how desperate am I?”
“I would use the word flexible.”
He did feel, at times, a deep sadness from all the sentiment attached to his home, especially its connection to Colette. Or was imprisonment a more accurate description? A glorious elation put the wind in his sagging sails when he envisioned walking away for good and starting over somewhere else—as long as his new place was to his liking. That would take a good amount of money.
“Liliane tells me you have no mortgage,” she said, to fill the silence.
“Yes, I will be flexible. But I want to buy another home, of course. It is in your best interest to sell this for as much as possible.”
A pleased grin filled her 40ish face that still looked youthful.
He directed her outside. “Is there something wrong with the swimming pool?”
“No. I never use it.”
She gave him an odd look. “It’s a big selling point. I strongly recommend opening it up and showing it off.”
A nasty edge came forth. “Let people use their imagination.”
Pauline shook her head and jotted down a note. “Let’s look at the cottage.”
“I have a tenant in there. She should be here when you do that.”
“She?” Pauline teased. She nevertheless walked over and peered in the window. “What’s in that aquarium?”
“Pet loirs.”
“They must go immediately!”
She wrote another note that Jean-Luc took a look at. Poison.
“That won’t be necessary. I can fix the sonic detector that keeps them away.”
“My way is cheaper.”
He did not look forward to broaching the subject with Alyce. He found her attachment to them oddly comforting. Heartbreaking, too. She could not be their mother forever.