by Jo Maeder
C’est la vie.
She looked around. “Where did you make the wine?”
He took her into the basement filled with the aromas of oak, earth, stone, and dust. As she looked around, he opened the cupboard that now held only two jars of lavender honey.
Pauline was delighted with his gift. She hesitated with an expectant look. For a moment he thought she might be the perfect woman for him. For a moment.
He cleared his throat, took her elbow, and led her out into the sun.
Her hope was still there when she asked, “Are you free for dinner tonight? I hate to cook for myself.”
He did have to eat at some point. But at her place? Too cozy.
“If you treat me to dinner at a restaurant as you would any client, I won’t say no.”
That met, somewhat, with her approval.
As he finished signing the contract that would give her 5% of the selling price, the damn American girl arrived. Pauline sized her up while he explained to Alyce, in English, who she was and that she’d like to see the cottage.
“Sure. It’s open. I only lock it at night.”
Jean-Luc found that comical.
Pauline sighed, relieved to get that piece of information. “Do you wish to accompany me?” she asked Alyce.
Jean-Luc touched her arm. “I need to discuss something with you.”
The broker arched an eyebrow as she tried to determine just what was going on here. “I won’t be long,” she said. “Then we’ll be on our way.”
Alyce saw the contract on the table, the pen still in Jean-Luc’s hand. “Wait, Pauline. Did Jean-Luc tell you my boyfriend has an interest in buying this place? He’s flying over in a week.”
Pauline’s chin went up a bit.
“In America,” Alyce said, “the seller pays a commission to the broker. Is that how it works here?”
“Yes,” she answered curtly. “I see where this is going.”
Alyce turned to Jean-Luc. “Wouldn’t you like to save tens of thousands of dollars?”
He stared at her, dumbfounded. Not giving Pauline a commission for a sale she had nothing to do with never entered his mind.
Alyce nodded at the contract. “Please put Nelson Mansfield down as a noncommissionable buyer.”
Jean-Luc felt highly uncomfortable. Yet, she was right. He had to start being smart about his finances. “If Pauline makes no effort at all to sell it to him and has nothing to do with the negotiation, I agree with you.”
Pauline did little to mask her disappointment. After she headed out the door to see the cottage, Alyce said, “Are you okay with what I just said? I’m trying to help you.”
“I hate to be helped.”
“Well, excuuuse me.” She ran tap water into a glass and took a sip.
He walked to the screen door and watched Pauline go into the cottage. “I do appreciate what you did, Al-ees. I am just having a hard time imagining anyone else living here.”
“So what’s the story with her? Another girlfriend? You don’t waste time, do you?”
“I live my life and women appear. We will be going to dinner. Can you manage on your own?”
“Tonight?”
He detected delight in her voice. “Invite Julien Devreaux over.”
She loudly put down her glass. “Does everybody know everything about me here?”
“Have fun before your boyfriend arrives. Flings do not count when they take place in other countries.”
“Says who. Wait, can I use your computer while you’re out?”
She needed access to the Internet and explained the shortcomings of the school computers.
“No one is allowed on mine.”
“Please, Jean-Luc. I haven’t written my parents more than a couple of sentences.”
“No.”
Her hands rested defiantly on her hips. “Everything’s negotiable. What can I do for you to let me use your computer that doesn’t involve sex?”
He forced himself not to laugh. “Don’t flatter yourself.” He gazed out the window and saw Pauline heading back already.
“I will let you use it if you can figure out how I can let go of the past.”
His sudden openness surprised them both. They stood there, he with the pen in hand, clicking the point in and out as though a clock were ticking.
She leaned on the counter with one arm. “Focus on the future.”
“Then I cannot write my memoir.”
“It is quite charming,” Pauline stated as she hastily came through the kitchen door. “You are a student of Liliane’s?”
“Oui, Madame.”
“How long are you planning to be here?’
“Until the middle of July. Unless Nelson buys this. Otherwise, it’s back to America.” She lifted her left hand and smiled. “Hopefully with a ring on my finger.”
Her confidence restored, Pauline strode in front of Jean-Luc and toward the front door. He pulled Alyce close. “The password to get on the computer is Colette. Do not share that with anyone and do not move a thing. It may look a mess to you. It is an organized mess to me.”
“Jean-Luc,” Pauline called out. “I forgot to look upstairs.”
Alyce sat in the kitchen as Jean-Luc and Pauline toured the upper level she had yet to see. Before long she heard a peal of laughter from Pauline and wondered what that was about. She crept to the hallway by the staircase. She picked up a few words.
Different. Good. Bad.
Finally they were off into the night.
Jean-Luc’s office was at the top of the entryway stairs, to the left. To the right was his bedroom. Both were at the back of the house; their windows faced Alyce’s cottage. Two other shut doors at the front of the house, she guessed, were more bedrooms or closets. The hallway, like the downstairs, looked like it once had lots of paintings hanging in it.
Alyce figured as long as this place was going on the market and Nelson might be the buyer, why not look around a bit? Really, that was all she intended to do.
She peeked in his bedroom. It was dark and tropical with a large bamboo four-poster bed that looked like it had been made for a jungle king. Crimson silk panels fell from rods that ran between the posters. The room smelled wonderfully spicy.
She checked out his bathroom. Almost every surface was covered in beautiful Italian tiles. She saw what must have amused Pauline. The shower had no door or curtain and looked like a cave that had been hollowed out of a rock. There was a stone seat Alyce was sure he used for more than just sitting on to clip his toenails.
My, my. How would Nelson feel about this, she wondered. He’d either love it or hate it. She rather liked it and sat on the stone seat to try it out. She closed her eyes and imagined having a little fun with Nelson right there. Oh, yeah.
One room in the front of the house was for guests. She could still feel Isabella’s anger and heartbreak in it. The other across the hall was locked. What was behind it?
What ate at her far more was Who was Colette?
She settled in at his cluttered desk and started to research vineyards for sale in the South of France. One of the first things she learned was that land was measured in hectares, the equivalent of 2.471 acres. Some of the properties were enormous, much bigger than Jean-Luc’s 48 hectares. Glorianna would love them. Alyce thought under 50 was just fine.
She’d never forget the first time Nelson took her to his parents’ house. A black wrought-iron gate swung open and they floated up a long driveway that led to a Tudor mansion. She felt like she’d been shot in the head with Novocain, followed by a sick feeling that she was so not worthy of him. She smiled a lot, said little. His mother did most of the talking.
Wanting to jot down a few things now, Alyce opened the top drawer in Jean-Luc’s desk hoping to find blank paper. She spotted a large, old key; the kind made of metal with a loop at one end and a few teeth at the other.
Maybe it opened the door in the hall? She’d see if it fit and if not, put it back.
No, that would be
snooping.
As is often the case when she got on a computer with a high-speed connection, the time flew by as she went off on all kinds of ridiculous and informative tangents. At one point she Googled Jean-Luc and was amazed at how much she found as well as how much she understood that was in French. It was speaking it that was impossible.
There were mainly glowing reviews of his books; interviews where he sounded intelligent and sensitive; bits on his outrageous life; and mentions of his mother, Stephanie, with photos of her at different ages. Nothing about a Colette.
She shut down his computer, lingered at his bedroom door. Pauline seemed like the “good, sensible woman” Liliane hoped he would find. Alyce hoped they would last.
She noticed the time. It was getting late. He probably wouldn’t be home tonight. She gave that old metal key one last look.
It easily went in the lock to the door down the hall.
The room was dark. A photo fluttered down from somewhere and landed almost at her feet. She took a quick glance at it while she cursed. Where was it supposed to go? As her eyes began to adjust to the darkness, she saw a large white oval on one wall. She felt around for a light switch.
Too late. Through the window she could see a pair of headlights coming down Jean-Luc’s long dirt road.
Dammit. Shit! The photo.
She left it on the floor, hoping it would look like it fell accidentally.
She slammed the door, fumbled with the lock, her heart racing.
She ran back to his office, put the key where she found it and flew down the stairs as quickly and quietly as she could, thanking God she didn’t fall.
A car door closed outside the front door as she passed.
She sped up and really fell in the kitchen, knocking over a high stool.
SHIT!
Just as she got it upright again the front door opened.
She eased through the sliding kitchen door and ran to her cottage, never looking back.
Out of breath, she wiped the sweat from her neck and brow with a dishtowel. Her little loirs sensed her pacing, panting presence and began their chorus of chirps. When she calmed down, she fed them one by one while applying ice wrapped up in a towel to her left thigh.
She thought about the photo she had seen. It had been torn in half, leaving an image of a woman sitting at a bar, her eyes filled with happiness. Colette? She appeared to be middle-aged, had short blonde hair, and was a little chubby, from what she could see. She expected a stunning woman would have been the love of Jean-Luc’s life, not one so ordinary.
She couldn’t ask anyone about her. That would mean admitting she snooped.
She had to find out who she was. She had a feeling it would explain a lot.
12
The Bad Boy Nap
The next day, Alyce took a different route home after school and found herself riding her bicycle on the boutique and café-lined Avenue Gambetta. She had never seen sidewalks covered with dates. They’d fallen from the plentiful palm trees. It made her think of Nelson and how she would show them to him and he would smile, she was certain.
She rode by a café where Julien Devreaux and a friend were sitting outside. His long dark hair fell carelessly into a brooding face that lit up the moment he saw her. Somehow her bicycle turned around. He was just too ah-dor-ah-blah. (Didn’t that sound better than a-door-ah-bul?).
He gallantly put her bicycle against the wall, pulled out a chair, and introduced his friend Fabrice, who gave her an appreciative glance.
“Al-ees, what luck to see you. Sit, sit!”
After they exchanged pleasantries, Fabrice asked, with a hint of a smirk, “How is your French coming along?”
“Slowly.”
“Have they taught you the word jouissance yet?”
She could tell by Julien’s raised eyebrows that Fabrice was having fun.
“No, what does it mean? Americans who act like idiots?”
He sat up straight and in a perfectly serious manner said, “It means orgasmic.” He looked to Julien for agreement.
He was having a hard time keeping a straight face. “You are close. It is the moment before the orgasm!”
Even Alyce laughed along. She could well imagine what Fabrice already knew about her and was determined to not care, or at least not show it.
Fabrice politely excused himself and went inside the café.
“Al-ees, where are you staying now?” Julien wasted no time asking. When she told him, he clapped his head in disbelief. “Jean-Luc Broussard is your host?”
She remembered Liliane’s warning to be discreet and regretted telling him.
“But he is so private and famous for disliking Amer—”
“I know. Please don’t let anyone know I’m there.”
“Certainly.”
He said he had all of Jean-Luc’s books, and his two bestsellers in English as well. “Would you like to read them?”
“Sure, I’m curious.” Though she had a feeling she wouldn’t like them.
Julien ordered her a glass of wine. While casually sipping his and trying to look older than 22, he told her Jean-Luc’s vineyard had almost succeeded.
“He did not give it enough time. He plunged into writing The Horse and that was that.”
“I could never live like he does,” Alyce said. “It’s too unpredictable.”
“Most artists cannot live any other way. But what a character he is. He once drove a brand-new Lamborghini Countach into a lake. An Italian countess had given it to him. He was insulted she would give him such a gift, as though he were her plaything.”
His next Jean-Luc story was about a critic who made disparaging remarks about one of his books.
“He wedged his car between two palm trees. The critic had to have a fender removed to get it out. He would have been run out of town if he’d cut down one of the trees. Oh, this is the best one. Jean-Luc lost a bet and had to ride a large pig down the street naked!” He clutched his side, laughing at the image. “How can you not love someone like that?”
“Considering how many women have,” Alyce said, “I would say you can’t love him for very long.”
“Ah, this is so.” He turned serious. He slid his chair in so he could be closer to Alyce. “I am going to stop talking about him this instant. He is my rival now.”
She took a sip of wine as though it were perfectly natural to be drinking in the middle of the day. “Nelson is your rival. He’s coming in six days.”
Julien’s face darkened. “Why do you torture me so, Al-ees?”
Fabrice returned but did not sit down as he and Julien chatted a mile a minute. Alyce was able to gather they were talking about skiing, but that didn’t make sense in the month of May.
As the boys talked, she studied the perfect blue sky. It wasn’t a light blue, but a deep one that easily lulled her into a state of tranquility; a state Jean-Luc did not seem to know. What a strange, fascinating, hopeless mix he was.
After Julien’s friend left, he said, “We are planning a ski trip to Argentina. We go every summer, when it is winter there.”
“I was right!”
Ulrike and Jutta, two German girls from the school, waved to her from across the street, causing her to tell herself to get over her insecurities and start hanging out with them more.
“Look,” Julien nodded to an older, chic woman sitting several tables away. She was reading The Horse.
“Tell me,” Alyce asked in almost a whisper, “was there someone who broke Jean-Luc’s heart?”
He took out a pack of cigarettes and put it away when he saw her horrified expression. “Not that I’m aware of. It has been the other way around many times. Why?”
“I just wondered why he never settled down with someone. What’s he afraid of? It doesn’t seem normal to want to be alone.”
“Jean-Luc Broussard is rarely alone.”
“You know what I mean.”
He studied his wine glass, hair in his face. Finally, he looked up. “I think it
is admirable he has not fallen into the cliché of the artist who needs a family to get away from in order to create. He could easily have done that to be socially respectable and then live a double life—if not multiple ones—with other women and children. In those cases, everyone feels cheated, but the man. He just feels very tired.”
They exchanged another flirtatious glance.
Alyce asked him to teach her insults in French that she could use on Jean-Luc.
“No, he will kick you out if you say these things.”
She considered his reaction to her use of the word twat. “I doubt that.”
“There is one term you must know, though it is not an insult. Sieste crapuleuse.”
She tried to figure out what he was saying. “Sieste sounds like siesta.”
“Good, good.”
“Crapuleuse?” She threw up her hands. “Loose crap?”
He shook his head. “No. It comes from crapuleux, which means crime. Crapuleuse is more, how would you say it? Villainous?”
“I think I’m getting it.”
“The Bad Boy Nap. What do you think happens during the midday break when the stores close? Everyone just goes home to eat lunch?”
She hated to admit it, but such a nap with Julien didn’t sound like a bad idea. If she really was going to be Mrs. Mansfield for the rest of her life, shouldn’t she have a little fun before sealing off all the exits?
Her birthday was tomorrow. She could ask the two German students to celebrate with her, but knew she’d end up going on about Nelson and missing him terribly. Or spend an evening with Liliane and her family and end up wishing she had what Liliane had with Simon but with Nelson. Perhaps she should consider Julien a present to herself. But that would lead to missing Nelson even more.
She threw her handbag over her shoulder. “I need to be going.”
Julien didn’t want her to leave. She stayed. Did she have anything better to do?
They shifted to the subject of his real mother, who drowned when he was 13. His stepmother-to-be zeroed in on his dad and never let go. She quickly became pregnant, they married, his cheating started.