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Opposites Attack: A Novel with Recipes Provencal

Page 21

by Jo Maeder


  “An excellent idea.”

  He pulled out pâté, baguette slices, radishes, tomatoes, anise-flavored butter cookies, and the apricot-rosemary iced tea that she loved. They didn’t say much as they ate.

  Refreshed, she tackled the rest of the book.

  He prayed to his Muse to guide him. His thoughts kept returning to Colette under the same umbrella Alyce was now beneath, Colette running her fingers through his chest hair, his inability to cry. Really cry. It was as though his tear ducts had been severed.

  Alyce cried for him.

  “The horse died!” she sobbed.

  As she delicately blew her nose into a napkin, he said, “It is fiction.”

  “You’re such a good writer. It feels real. How could anyone want to put a happy ending on it?”

  There was hope for her yet. “Do that again.”

  “What? Read it?”

  “No, blow your nose. You are not a little sow at all. You are an embarrassed geisha. A fragile orchid of beguiling femininity.”

  She gave him a look like he had two heads. So much for the geisha.

  He coached her on how to do a Japanese titter with one hand lightly over her mouth. “Look at me for a split second… more intensity… more!… that’s it! Now look down quickly. Again… Perfect! Next you should go to Japan for three months.”

  She seemed to be mulling it over and he was surprised to find himself wishing he hadn’t put the notion in her head. “I should warn you, it is an extremely difficult language. Much harder than French.” Not true.

  “Oh,” she seemed dismayed. “Never mind, then.” She stood up. “I’m going for a swim. Ow!” She began to limp. “I have a cramp in my foot.”

  “I can take care of that. Sit back down.” He had never failed to seduce a woman with his world-class foot massage. “Lavender scented lotion is best. Our sunscreen will have to do.”

  As he began to work it into her feet, he admired her pink toenails.

  “Are you kidding?” she said. “I need a pedicure desperately. I went into a nail salon and they said they didn’t do them. At first I thought they didn’t want me as a customer because I wasn’t chic enough, but there were no big chairs you sit in with the tub at the bottom for your feet. Then I saw women stretched out in elevated lounge chairs, like they were at the dentist’s but they were being manicured. Now, that’s the way it should be. Anyway, I must have gone to four places and they were all manicures only. I couldn’t believe it. Finally, a woman I thought was being nice opened a phone book and wrote down the address of where I could get a pedicure. I took an expensive cab ride there only to discover it was a podiatrist.”

  Jean-Luc roared. “You did not ask for a pedicure esthéticienne. What a funny story, Al-ees. Why did you not share it?”

  She pulled her face into a cruel smirk. “Gee, maybe because I felt like a complete idiot? Why didn’t they just tell me—ooooooh! That feels great.”

  He stayed there until he felt the tight rubber band of tension in her release, then slowly moved up her muscular calf. He had her now. Her sleepy eyes opened. All he needed was the right verbal key and the door of resistance would swing wide open.

  She pushed his hand away. “Even if I weren’t engaged, that hair of yours.”

  “Perhaps you are afraid of me?”

  She ignored him. “I’m going for a swim now.” As she got up, she said, “I’m so happy Isabella will be here later.”

  She seemed unusually preoccupied when she returned from her swim. She then went for a long walk. When it was time to pack up, Jean-Luc said, “You seem subdued, Al-ees. I would think Nelson buying the property would have you deliriously happy.”

  “I’ve been feeling weird lately, Jean-Luc. I think it’s because I have to let the loirs go. And the reality that my life is about to radically change.” She looked at him straight on. “And I’m worried about you, how your life is going to go.”

  He handed her the picnic basket, much lighter now, as he grabbed the umbrella and their tote bags. “Are you sure you might not be pregnant?”

  He couldn’t see her eyes through her sunglasses but noticed her jaw tighten. “That, too. I never went back on my birth control pills after my panic attack. Nelson was all for it.”

  An ax lodged in his chest.

  He tried to sound upbeat. “You will be a great mother.”

  Her smile was not as trouble-free as it should have been. He was sorry for declaring his love to her now. Sorry for saying she was in desperate fear. He should never have intruded on her Cinderella dream.

  They were silent on the ferry to the mainland. He often saw her biting her lip.

  They hadn’t driven far in the car heading home before she said, “I have a confession to make. When you and Pauline went out to dinner, I was looking for something to write on when I was at your computer. I found a large metal key and wondered what it opened. At that point I knew Nelson was interested in your place and thought I’d just look around to see how many rooms there were. Really, I didn’t snoop. But I should have asked you.”

  He never suspected she went in there. “And what did you see?”

  “The key opened the door that was locked upstairs. Before I could turn the light on, you came back. It looked like something was painted on the walls but I couldn’t see much except a big white oval. I did see a photo, though. Half of one, that is.”

  He said nothing.

  “The room was repainted and the photo gone when all of us looked later. Then, when I was walking in the woods one day, I saw a headstone. A new one. Jean-Luc, if I’m going to live there, I’d like to know if something, well, out of the ordinary happened. I need to stop wondering. I’m sure my imagination has made it worse than it is.”

  He pulled on to the shoulder of the road they were on and turned off the engine. He did not look at her as he took off his sunglasses and set them on the dash.

  “Al-ees, I am sure your imagination has not let you down.”

  Seeing how distressed he was, she fished out a bottle of water from her bag.

  He took a sip, handed it back, and reclined his seat so he could stare out at the topaz sky. He placed his elbows on the armrests, crossed his hands in his lap. He easily organized the story in his head. He had retold it mentally a thousand times.

  “The royalty checks were growing smaller each year. I tried to give up writing and make a go of the vineyard. There was a jazz singer named Margot who played the South of France in the summer. She’d flirted with me for years. There was something about her that told me to stay away. When she approached her late 30s, I was living with Nicole, a travel writer.

  “Margot possessed an incomparable radar, for she would call every night Nicole was away to see if I wanted company. Finally I said yes. The affair with Nicole was on the wane. She no longer checked in with me every day when on the road. More than once I called her in the early morning and she did not answer.

  “Margot’s intense focus on me naturally appealed to my ego. I was very careful about using protection. A condom is more than a barrier to pregnancy and diseases. They create an emotional wall as well. I could not take care of a family so I willed away the desire.

  “When Margot and I finally made love, I reached for my protection. She stopped me. She said, It would be too painful to have you inside me. Could we leave that out? Did she mean physically or emotionally painful? Had she been raped? In love? I was too drunk and aroused to question her. I released on her stomach, went for a tissue. She said, “I’ll do that in the bathroom.” I rolled over and fell asleep. Little did I know she scooped up my sperm and placed it inside a device that was like a miniature turkey baster.

  “We made love the next night. I should have known when she again insisted on cleaning up in the bathroom while carrying her purse that something was up. I was intrigued by her odd behavior, and she implied she had a dark secret. She was a cunning woman. She knew exactly how to string me along.

  “She was determined to have my child. She
claimed it was something she had never felt toward anyone else. That’s why I was turned off—and on—by her. I saw something in her eyes.”

  He looked over at Alyce, who had reclined her seat as well and was curled on her side, eyes wide. “Was she the woman in the photograph?”

  “Yes.” He turned back to the blue sky. “There was nothing wrong with her. She knew how careful I was from a friend of hers. It was a long shot, but she took it.”

  He pushed himself back into the seat, tried to relax.

  “When she told me she was pregnant I refused to believe it. Then she told me what she had done. I was furious. I was sure it would bring nothing but sorrow to our lives and especially the child’s. I lived in fear she would force me to take a paternity test and publicly acknowledge the child as mine. I wanted my child to have a father, but I did not want the father to be me. I would feel an even greater failure.”

  He sipped more water from the bottle Alyce had given him.

  “She quickly gave in to a wealthy Norwegian who lived in Paris and had been chasing her. He thought the child was his. They married. I knew Nils would be the better father. Yes, it hurt me deeply—ah! That is an understatement. I felt like my insides had been dug out with a burning hot shovel. But I felt it was the right thing to do for the child.”

  Alyce’s hand flew to her mouth. “All of my talk about having children. I’m so sorry. And the baby loirs…”

  He picked up his sunglasses, cleaned the lenses with his shirt. “Please do not repeat any of this. No one knows.”

  “Not even your sister?”

  He shook his head. “Only Raymond, my editor. Liliane became more involved in my life after this happened, when I truly couldn’t function.”

  “Oh, Jean-Luc,” she said quietly.

  His hands stopped moving. “Margot died of a drug overdose. Though classified as accidental, I doubt it was.”

  “Wait. Your child. Colette?”

  A long pause passed while he swallowed more water to open his throat again.

  “Margot managed to arrange visits when Nils was away on business. We were not lovers, but it was impossible to erase Colette from my mind and heart once I saw her. Her big blue eyes looked right into my soul and her curly brown hair was just like mine as a child.” He took a deep breath. “I have never known a child to have such a sweet scent.

  “You only had to tell her something once and she would remember it. She would point to something, pull me to it, and say in English, ‘John look!’ Understanding at such a young age that she was making a pun on my name. She loved to watch me make lavender honey and wasn’t at all afraid of the bees. Of course not. She was a child. She didn’t know they could sting.”

  He reached for the key in the ignition. “I cannot talk about it anymore.”

  She stopped him. “Wait, where is she? How old…” She gasped.

  “The headstone you found is hers. She would be almost six today.”

  He slammed his hand on the dash. “It was an accident that would not have happened had I been paying attention instead of lost in another world! If I had been more responsible!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I had cleared out the library upstairs to turn it into her room. I was ready to fight Nils for her, even though he had the money to hire the best lawyers and would win. I was even willing to marry Margot. I wanted to be Colette’s father more than anything I have ever wanted!”

  Alyce’s image blurred from the tears rushing into his eyes.

  “She fell asleep on the living room sofa while her mother went to buy a snack Colette loved: graham crackers and peanut butter. I said I was going to get them. Promised Margot I would. A simple thing like that. And I didn’t. See? I would be a terrible father.

  “I was painting a mural of characters from the books I read to her. It covered every wall of her room. I was completely caught up in paints and shadows and brushes and seeing her beautiful face light up when it was done and how I was going to make her mine when—”

  He looked out the side window. “I was about to paint Humpty-Dumpty. Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall…

  “Margot appeared at the door. Where’s Colette? She’s not on the couch. I flew down the stairs screaming her name, feeling a dread only a parent can feel.

  “I knew. I knew.

  “I went out the front door, she the back.” He whispered, “I have never heard screams like hers before and pray to God I never will again. The pool had been emptied for a repair.” He pinched the bridge of his nose to stop the tears. “Why did I not cover the pool? Why?”

  Alyce’s voice broke when she touched his upper arm. “And I kept bothering you to fix it. Oh, darling, I am so sorry.”

  He refrained from clutching her hand. Her calling him darling would register later.

  “Nils, that bastard, knew I had little money, but had to make me pay. He tried to take the vineyard and I wish he had. I could no more run a vineyard than I could fly to the moon. I gave him my art collection worth $1,000,000. Only some toys, the other half of that photo with her in it, are buried here. She rests for all eternity near Oslo.”

  He shook his head. “Margot went straight into a sanitarium and was dead a year later. As for me, the only way I knew to anesthetize myself from the pain was to write. I stopped making wine, honey. Stopped seeing friends, women, and wrote my last novel. My sorrowful career was briefly revived, but at what price?”

  Alyce dabbed her eyes with a tissue.

  Though not the most comfortable place for a hug, she managed to put her arms around his neck and hold him while they both cried. There was no one else in the world he wanted to make happy more than Alyce. But there was nothing he could do about it, absolutely nothing. And now she knew why.

  He started the engine. “I will understand if you wish to pull out of buying my property. Though I would not be surprised if your admirable American pluck gets you beyond the tragedy that happened there.”

  She was picking at her tissue now, shaking her head. “What a sad story. I’m only thinking about your loss. Your terrible loss.”

  They said nothing the rest of the ride that was often punctuated with sniffles.

  29

  The Loirs and the Notebook

  Between Jean-Luc’s confession and the summer heat, Alyce had no energy. While she had clarity about him and, she had to admit, relief that Colette was not a woman, she was confused over something else.

  How did she feel about living there now? One of the names she had suggested to Nelson for their new property, and their wine, was La Vie. The life.

  It was too overwhelming to comprehend. She wanted to talk it over with Nelson. Isn’t that what you do with someone you’re going to spend your life with? Shouldn’t he know what occurred here? Something stopped her. She would be invading Jean-Luc’s privacy. He had shared something deeply personal with her. She would respect that.

  But she had to tell someone. It was like a dam ready to burst inside her. There was only one person she could trust not to blab.

  Her father.

  After a deep sorrowful sigh followed by “That’s very sad,” he said, “You could have a priest come out and bless the property if it makes you feel strange living there.”

  Alyce thought for a moment. “Doesn’t every place have some kind of catastrophe in its past? Who knows what Indians were killed on the land where your house is. I’m sure someone died making the Holland Tunnel I commuted through every day. They died making the bridges around New York.”

  “That’s true. Death is part of life.”

  “I shouldn’t let this get to me.”

  “I will say this. I think Jean-Luc is wise to move away. But I still can’t believe you might be living in France. It was hard enough having my girls move to New York.”

  She heard the gloom in her father’s delivery and was instantly inside him, connected to a child in a way that only a parent can be. Alyce was appalled by her own self-centeredness to
leave Minnesota. Yet, she had to, or feel trapped and unfulfilled the rest of her life.

  The agony of letting go of a child never hit her before like it did today.

  She looked lovingly and sadly at her baby dormice. She had to release them immediately, an act of solidarity.

  Tomorrow.

  She had to brace herself for the return of Isabella any moment. That confused her as well. Why should it bother her?

  Their dinner that evening was strained, to say the least. Jean-Luc was exceedingly distant, causing Isabella’s initial sense of triumph to fade. She shot daggers at Alyce, as though she were responsible for Jean-Luc’s behavior.

  Alyce left the table saying, “It’s so nice to be one big, happy family again.”

  The next day her scream brought Jean-Luc and Isabella running.

  She rushed out to meet them. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “What is it?” Isabella asked with annoyance. “The loirs?”

  “Are you okay?” asked a concerned Jean-Luc. “Is the male stripper back?”

  Isabella whipped her head and long hair around. “Who?”

  She didn’t want to tell them. She knew how it might make them feel. But they’d find out soon enough.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  It seemed to hit Isabella the hardest. At first she suspected Jean-Luc was the father. They cleared her up on that point. “Lucky you,” was her final statement on the subject.

  Jean-Luc’s reaction was hard to read. “I am happy for you, Alyce.” He repeated what he’d said before. “You will make a great mother.”

  Isabella said on a nicer note, “If you would like to commemorate where your child was conceived, I do commissions.”

  “I’ll bring it up when Nelson gets here and can see your work.” The moment felt awkward.

  She texted Nelson: Let’s video chat. She wanted to see his face when he heard the Baby On Board news.

  He wrote back: Slammed before coming over. And with the time change… I’ll be there before you know it. BTW, Jr was in the ER last night. Thought he broke his arm in a fight but it’s just a sprain.

 

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