“Hmm,” she said. “Ordinarily I might hang around in case you needed a chaperone. But if I don’t go with the others, Magda will put the moves on Peter,” she said with all seriousness. I couldn’t believe that at their age, the dynamics of courtship were the same as in high school. As if reading my thoughts she said, “It only gets more immature as you get older, because everybody has less time.”
I kissed her and said, “Have a great trip!”
A little while later, when I went downstairs, I found the lobby uncharacteristically silent. Rick didn’t show up, so I had no idea if he intended to honor his promise to take me to Monaco, and I had no way to reach him without arousing suspicion. Even the front desk was unattended.
I stepped outside for a breath of air, trying to regroup. To my surprise I came upon Gil sitting on the stone wall near the entrance, slumped and defeated-looking, his coffee cup in his hands, staring into space while talking on his mobile. As I drew nearer I saw that he hadn’t shaved, and this gave him a slightly derelict look. He ended his call just as I came out.
“How’s Martin?” I asked. The French doctor who’d been summoned had insisted on keeping Martin under observation overnight at the hospital, just in case he’d had a concussion or retained any water in his lungs.
“He’s fine,” Gil said, with that vulnerable look crossing his face again. “I get to bring him home tonight.” He paused. “Look, I really want to thank you for springing into action as you did. That dumb kid. He owes you. Well, I owe you one.”
“You already thanked me yesterday,” I said, “and you don’t owe me anything.”
There was something else bothering him, though. I could hear it in his reserved tone. I sat down beside him and asked in dread, “What’s the matter? Is it about the mas?”
“Why don’t you ask your boyfriend?” Gil could not resist saying. I shot him a puzzled look.
“You know who I’m talking about,” he said bitterly. I immediately wondered if Rick had blabbed about my interest in the furniture storage.
I felt myself flushing guiltily, but I said, “What are you talking about?”
“He told me he had a nice conversation with you yesterday, and he thinks you’d make an excellent hostess for the hotel. Yep, he definitely sees a future for you in his new operation.” Gil smirked as if daring me to deny it. But it didn’t appear that Rick had said anything about taking me to Monaco.
So all I said was, “His new operation?”
“That’s right,” Gil replied in a self-mocking tone. “As of Thursday, if I sign his ruddy contract, Rick will own this entire place—lock, stock and barrel. So you picked the right horse to back.”
“What happened, Gil?” I asked. “Aren’t you guys partners anymore?”
“Partners?” Gil said with a hollow laugh. “As it turns out, we were never going to be partners. He knew how to play me, though. Back then, money was tight with all the banks, so the only way I could raise enough to cover the renovation costs for the mas was to borrow from the loan sharks. I only did it because I had Rick’s assurances that if I made him my partner, he’d sell off some of his other properties in time to raise the cash so I could repay my loan to—”
“Those thugs!” I exclaimed in alarm.
“To their boss, Gus,” he corrected. “Who absolutely will not extend the loan period no matter what I say. So, after months of back-and-forth with Rick’s lawyer and mine just ‘ironing out the details’ of our ‘good-faith’ agreement—suddenly, at the eleventh hour, Rick tells me he can’t come up with the promised cash to pay back my loan—UNLESS we modify our contract with his new clause to satisfy his bankers. Now I find out that, all along, he only wanted to take over my beautiful, newly renovated mas and simply add it to his hotel chain. It will be, as he put it, ‘another diamond in the tiara’.”
“And what happens to you?” I asked in disbelief.
“Hah!” Gil said hollowly. “He wants me to stay on and ‘cook for him’. He bloody well wants to use my chef’s brand for his own profits, and keep me on as an indentured servant, basically. Or, as he puts it, ‘You just be creative, Gil, and leave the business end to me.’ ”
“Well, that’s preposterous!” I spluttered. “You don’t have to take a rotten deal like that.”
“In fact, I do,” Gil said heavily. “Because those are the only terms under which Rick will go to his bank and transfer enough funds to cover my reconstruction loan. I have to sign his deal tomorrow, in order to pay off the bad boys on Thursday. Otherwise I sleep with the fishes. And if I don’t take Rick’s deal, then the loan shark will own the mas. Either way, I lose it. Thing is, this place will soon be worth so much more than what I owe! Well, maybe I should just let Gus have it!” he scowled.
“Can’t you get any other backers to take Rick’s place?” I asked. Gil gave me a withering look.
“What do you think I’ve been trying to do ever since I got wind of the fact that Rick has no intention of honoring our original deal? But this is too short a window for most investors, and I don’t blame them. I was, in retrospect, a raving idiot to believe that Rick has been negotiating in good faith, just ‘tweaking’ the damned contract here and there to appease his investors. The bloody bastard had this trick in mind all the time; he was just stringing me along with the promise of good terms to make sure I didn’t make a better deal with anybody else. Well, more fool me, for believing it was in the bag.”
I realized that Rick was a well-dressed thug, no better than the loan shark—worse, really, for betraying Gil’s trust. A little voice inside my head—sounding an awful lot like Aunt Matilda—was telling me that if I had to deal with Rick instead of Gil, I could just kiss that Picasso goodbye.
“NO!” I cried. “Don’t sign it! You can’t sell this place!” Gil was taken aback.
“Why should you care so much?” He stared at me keenly. “Are you ever going to tell me what you’ve really been up to in France? All I want is some truth. From somebody! Rick’s gone to London and left me in the shit unless I sign to his demands.”
“Rick’s gone to London?” I echoed. “But—when’s he coming back here?”
“Never; unless I sign his wretched contract,” Gil said flatly.
“But—but,” I stuttered. “Are you sure he’s gone?”
“Of course I’m sure,” Gil said, sounding irritable again. Then he recovered and said, “Hey, this isn’t your problem. Thanks for asking, though.”
I figured it was a pretty good bet that Rick had no intention of returning here today just to honor his promise to take me to the storage area, because why would he care about decorating the mas now that Gil was resisting signing his contract? So how was I going to find the blue cupboard before this takeover happened? I knew I’d reached the point of no return. I could either get Gil on board right now, or go home and forget the whole thing.
“I just might have a better backer for you,” I said carefully. “It’s a long shot, but you’ll have to promise that no matter what happens, the deal is, the ownership of the mas will be divided fifty–fifty.”
Gil looked dubious. “An equal split with someone I don’t know? Just who’ve you got in mind?”
“Me,” I said with more boldness than I felt.
Gil eyed me speculatively. “Well, you have been casing out this place ever since you got off the plane. So it’s been business all along, eh? With most people, it’s always about the money. But for some reason I got the idea that you had higher priorities, and the money was secondary.”
“It was—but I can’t afford to think that way anymore,” I said. “If I turn up the money you need, no matter how I do it, then fifty percent of everything at the mas is mine, right?”
“Are you going to rob the bank of Monte Carlo or something?” he asked.
“You don’t need the details,” I answered.
“Are you using legal means to obtain this money?” Gil pursued.
“Mostly,” I said. “So you have to swear that you’ll honor this agreem
ent, even-Steven.”
Gil looked as if it occurred to him for the first time that I might actually be serious. The desperate expression on his face abated, and I detected a faint glint in his eyes. “If you can really come up with the money before Thursday, it’s a deal,” he said suddenly, offering his hand for me to shake.
“You can’t welch on it like Rick did,” I said, before letting him take my hand. I was watching his face more closely than I’ve ever looked at anyone’s face in my entire life.
“I won’t welch,” he promised with his most winning, convincing smile. “Swear to God.”
“Write it on a napkin,” I said, and he actually did scribble out our impromptu deal on his coffee napkin and he signed it.
But he couldn’t resist asking, “Are you going to sell off a yacht or a string of pearls?”
“Something like that,” I replied. “If you want the money you’ll have to help me get my hands on it.” He gave me a deeply suspicious look. I plunged on. “Do you know where Rick’s storage facility is?”
“Yeah, sure,” Gil said, bewildered. “It’s in Monaco. Why?”
“Do you have a key to the place?” I asked.
“It’s not a key. It’s got a code,” he answered. “I think we can get in. Why?”
I had to tell him now. “Rick’s got something that belongs to my mother in there,” I blurted out.
Gil said in surprise, “As far as I know, all he’s got is the dairyman’s old furniture from the mas. What’s that got to do with your mum?”
There must be something about Monte Carlo that brings out the gambler in people. I knew what my lawyer would say if he had any idea of the risk I was about to take. But lawyers, I’ve discovered, know nothing about life. As Aunt Matilda said, Sometimes, you just have to roll the dice.
“Brace yourself, Gil. And don’t freak out. That dairyman that you bought the mas from?” I said. “Well, he bought this place from my grandmother.”
Gil looked stunned, but then the light broke across his face as if it all made sense to him at last.
“So, that’s it! No wonder you’ve been hanging about here. I knew it couldn’t be your love of cooking, that’s for sure. But what good’s the old furniture? Is one of them some rare antique?”
I shook my head. “I’ve got reason to believe that my grandmother left something extremely valuable in it for my mom, which she desperately needs,” I said softly. “Grandma didn’t want my dad or anyone else to get hold of it. I think it’s hidden in a blue cupboard. Does a piece like that ring a bell?”
Gil glanced at me as if he now feared for my sanity, and said with some confusion, “But, I’m pretty sure all that stuff was empty when I took possession of it.”
I paused, remembering what my mother had told me about Grandmother Ondine: She did have her little hiding places…
I told Gil this. “So I really have to see it for myself,” I insisted. “Otherwise I’ll be haunted by it for the rest of my life, just like my mother was.” I explained to him that I was facing a custody battle with siblings. “If I do find this item, I might be able to sell it, for a lot more than what you need, and then I can pay my lawyer to fight for Mom.”
“Oh,” he said gently. Then he added doubtfully, “And that’s how you’re going to raise the money to save this mas as well? On this slim chance of finding some family heirloom?”
“Yes,” I said. “Laugh if you want to. Just get me into that storage area, right now.”
Gil said under his breath, “Well, fuck me, this is just about what I deserve.”
“What other chance have you got?” I pointed out.
Gil pondered this for several seconds, then said, “Not a one. Let’s go.”
A Surprise from Picasso: Ondine, 1967
AT FIRST, ONDINE KEPT HER Picasso portrait hidden in her bedroom and never showed it to anyone. She focused all her time and energy on making a success of the café and Renard’s mas in Mougins, which were both starting to look like a good gamble. Because now there were more tourists on the Riviera than ever before, thanks to an actress named Brigitte Bardot, who frolicked on the beach in a scandalous bikini to promote a movie; and Grace Kelly, who married Prince Rainier of Monaco in a glorious, fairy-tale ceremony that was filmed and shown around the world. And so, as the café and mas began to flourish, Ondine continued to think of her Girl-at-a-Window as a sound investment which, if left alone, would accrue in value and serve as Julie’s dowry.
But Julie’s prospects for marriage were rapidly diminishing. First, the poor girl fell in love with a local boy who ultimately broke her heart by running off to Toulouse with another woman. If Julie had the confidence of most young ladies in the sassy 1960s, she might have shrugged it off and picked a new boyfriend; but, Ondine observed, Julie seemed to fall in love with being miserable by insistently mourning the boy who got away, and stubbornly avoiding having her heart broken again.
Worse yet, that spring Julie fell ill with a fever of 104 degrees after swimming in a nearby stream. Her condition was so severe that the priest was called in to give her the last rites, and even though she eventually recovered, she lost some of her hair. It came out in sad clumps and took many months to grow back into something that looked presentable.
“She’s had so much trauma as it is, and now this,” Ondine worried.
During that time, no boy came courting, and Julie would not have wanted anyone to see her that way. She couldn’t wait on tables, so she kept out of sight in the back of the house, helping out in the kitchen. Julie felt that she was doing some kind of penance for a sin she couldn’t remember committing. She got so accustomed to hanging her head in shame that even when her new hair grew in and she began to wait on tables again, she forgot to lift her face and smile at people.
And that’s how things remained, until one day when a party of businessmen came into the café. Two were German, two French, one English, and one American. The New York accent caught Julie’s attention; it shot her right back to her happier childhood days in New Rochelle.
“Bone-jour, ma’am-zelle!” the handsome American called out to her. With his sandy hair, laughing Irish eyes, and astonishingly perfect, small white teeth, he reminded her of those easygoing Hollywood movie stars who were so brave and breezy and cheerful. When Julie leaned over to translate the menu for him, he looked up at her with such gratitude that she felt a warm flush of pleasure. He made a good-natured joke about his bad pronunciation, then he asked her name, and introduced himself: Arthur, a lawyer meeting his colleagues here “in the Frenchie branch” of his firm.
“Say, Julie, wouldja like to go to the movies with me tonight?” he asked. He added coaxingly, “I saw a poster for a great John Wayne film!”
When Julie told her mother where she was going, the girl looked so happy to finally have an escort that Ondine almost wept with relief. Yet at the same time, she felt a peculiar twinge of misgiving.
It was a gentle night, and after the movie Arthur and Julie went for a walk through town where he bought her ice cream. He told her all about his boyhood, and how, for awhile, he’d thought seriously about becoming a priest. When he spoke of his deceased wife, he cast himself as a brave martyr. “But I have two kids, and I think the good Lord wants me to have a new wife to complete my family,” he said, as if he believed that his life was of particularly high value to the Almighty.
He must be a very pious man, Julie thought admiringly, basking in the warmth of his gaze.
After their first date he showed up every evening at the café to take her out. He was genuinely fond of Julie, and touchingly vulnerable, as if he feared she’d grow tired of him and stop wanting to see him. Every time he called on her he wore a searching, eager look; and he confided that Julie’s soft, reassuring touch made him feel truly “connected” with someone for the first time in his life.
There was only one problem for Julie—her mother.
Ondine tried to like Arthur, but she had learned never to ignore reality no matter how muc
h she wished to avert her eyes.
“He’s the kind of man who can’t bear to hear the sound of any voice but his own,” she told Renard after observing that whenever someone else told a story or a joke, Arthur drummed his fingers on the table, impatiently waiting for his turn to speak again, like a bad actor looking for his next cue. And, the jokes he told were often at someone else’s expense—even Julie’s. “A man like that would make any woman miserable, but for Julie, who’ll never fight back, he’d be a disaster for a husband!”
“Oh, let her have some fun,” Renard advised. “It’s just a flirtation; this fellow will be gone in a week and she’ll have a happy memory, and some confidence! Whereas if you forbid her to see him, she’ll imagine you ruined her life, and she’ll hold it against you forever.” Ondine could see the wisdom in this.
But one afternoon in the café, Ondine overheard Arthur having dinner with some American colleagues. Julie was dealing with another customer, so one of the busboys who didn’t speak English came to deliver the check. Ondine, still unnoticed behind the bar, watched as Arthur broke into an enormous fake smile when he handed the money to the French busboy and said in English, “Here you go, why don’t you take this and shove it up your ass?”
The busboy, reacting only to the smile without comprehending the insulting words, nodded and said, “Merci.” Arthur howled with laughter while his friends just shook their heads.
“Here comes my girlfriend,” Arthur boasted to them as Julie approached him now. “She’s French, too, but I’ve already got her obedience-trained.” To Julie he called out, “Grab your hat and coat, honey. We’re going dancing tonight. Hurry!” Julie quickly removed her apron and went to get her coat.
Ondine said sharply, “Julie, I need to talk to you.”
But Julie sensed from her mother’s tone that it was something she didn’t want to hear, and for the first time in her entire life, the meek little mouse put her foot down. “We’re late for the dance, Maman,” she called out cheerfully as she put on her hat. “Let’s talk when I get home.” Her newfound stubbornness felt like strength, and she flounced defiantly out of the café, giddy with her own daring.
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