The Summer of Him

by Stacy Travis

  “He used to be a heart surgeon, then he retired so he could spend more time doing what he really loves,” Clothilde told me in perfect English. Once again, I felt self-conscious of my own limited linguistic abilities. I vowed to myself to take a language class when I got home. I would need it because I planned to spend much more time traveling. “And this is it. He does all the landscaping, cooking, and odd jobs around the house.”

  Henri poured glasses for each of us from a bottle of Armagnac, then Clothilde retreated to the living room and began playing jazz piano. “She loves her piano,” Henri said, looking at her with love and admiration.

  “Is that her piano?”

  “Yes. Chris was kind enough to let us move it here when we sold our bigger house.”

  “Kind enough? A piano and a pianist to go with it? I definitely got the good end of the deal,” Chris said, and I agreed. Clothilde’s playing was as good as anything I’d ever heard in a jazz club.

  Henri completely took over the kitchen. Before I knew what had happened, he had chickens roasting in a white-wine-and-butter sauce, asparagus spears on the grill, and a pile of scalloped potatoes baking under a cheese sauce. He did, however, let me make a salad.

  “I swear, I didn’t say anything about you only knowing how to make a salad,” Chris said when I smacked him with a dish towel. “I told him you were going to cook everything.”

  “I guess he has a sixth sense about these things,” I said. Frankly, I was relieved. I knew my way around a kitchen, but the truth was, I didn’t cook much for myself other than throwing vegetables over rice or chicken chili into a bread bowl. I often went out. Learning to cook multicourse meals had never held much appeal for me. Once in a while, I’d have a few friends over for dinner, and it would take me an entire day to coordinate the cooking and plating times to get a few courses on the table without burning anything. The best dish I’d ever made was cheese fondue, chicken paillard, and a beet-and-goat-cheese salad over a bed of arugula. I outsourced the desserts and drinks to my friends, and the whole thing had turned out moderately well.

  My three-course-dinner party trick had only worked because I’d had time to look up recipes and shop. In Chris’s house, I would have been left to scrounge through the well-appointed pantry and figure out what to do with the items on hand, like someone in an episode of Chopped. Standing in the kitchen of a gorgeous guy, I wished I had a few tricks up my sleeve to impress him. There was no arugula in sight, and I feared offending our French neighbors by turning some rare cheese into a pot of melting slop.

  Henri didn’t seem to care one way or the other. While Clothilde played, Chris hung out on the couch with his drink and read through a script. I knew he’d printed something out earlier in the day, but I hadn’t realized he had work to do. It impressed me that he went so seamlessly between work and play, but I also found it a bit sad that he could never really unplug. He didn’t seem bothered, so I didn’t dwell on it. From where he sat, he had a good view of us in the kitchen, and every time I glanced his way, he was looking at me with a smile on his face.

  “You know, he’s smitten with you,” Henri whispered to me as we were pulling the dishes out of the oven and looking for serving utensils. “I think you may feel the same way. It makes me happy—young love.”

  I didn’t want to spoil his happy idea with the reality that it was more complicated than that. “He’s a good guy,” I said, looking over at Chris. I could fall for him. It would be so easy. We’d only had a vacation dream of a time together so far, the stuff of fantasy. I could let my mind wander to a place where my life consisted of coming home at the end of a workday to a sunset sail with Chris, a walk on a beach, and quaint dinner for two while staring at his lovely face. Instead, I reeled myself back in. I reminded myself of the philosophy I’d employed at the outset: Enjoy the vacation to the fullest, live the big moments, feel the breeze, but remember, it’s just a vacation, and don’t get too attached. I’d deal with heartbreak when I got home and was back at my desk with a pile of work to distract me.

  Clothilde had left the piano and turned on an oldies playlist, which was now streaming through speakers that seemed to be in every room of the house. She knew the place better than Chris did, it seemed.

  “Bon appétit!” Henri proclaimed, dinging a spoon against a copper pot and carrying the tureen with the chicken to the outdoor table, which Clothilde and Chris had set with the ceramic dishes from the kitchen and a mismatched set of utensils she’d bought at a flea market. I carried out my salad, which looked kind of lame next to the grilled asparagus and the delectable-looking potatoes, but the dressing I’d made with Dijon mustard and lemon juice gave it a nice flavor. Plus, the fresh vegetables tasted better than anything I’d ever bought in a grocery store.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever had a proper tomato before,” I’d told Henri earlier.

  “The market where you bought these was probably twenty kilometers from the farm where they were picked yesterday,” he said.

  Before anyone took a bite of food, wine was poured and toasts were made. “Salut,” Henri said finally, and we dug into the piles of food. Henri’s chicken fell off the bone and into the mouth-watering sauce. Everything else tasted fresh and divine, as if the menu had been planned for days, not on the fly after a long day on the water. We saved the salad for after dinner as a palate cleanser.

  “You are in France,” Clothilde said to me, as if I needed an explanation.

  After that, Henri presented a cheese course he’d put together with some of the dozen cheeses in the refrigerator along with almonds and quince paste. I lost count after my third glass of wine, and although I felt tipsy, I never felt drunk. That had something to do with the smaller glasses, I remembered Guillaume saying. And maybe the lower alcohol content. I couldn’t remember. All I could think about was how I was going to sleep really well later.

  We cleared all the dishes, and Clothilde and Henri began dancing in the living room, having changed the music to swing. Chris and I moved over to one of the couches and watched them. “Aren’t they cute?” Chris asked.

  “Someday you’ll be old and cute.”

  “Yeah. Someday.”

  “Right now, you’re young and hot.”

  He looked at me, surprised. “How much wine did you have?”

  “I think… a lot. And after being on the boat all day in the sun, I’m really sleepy.” I folded myself into him, knowing that each time I felt him close to me, I was sinking in a little deeper, falling a little harder.

  “Then you should sleep. I’m tired too and I can think of nothing better than falling asleep with my arms wrapped around you,” he said, a sweet glint in his eye.

  I started for the staircase. It was an impossible dream, imagining we could go on like this after our vacation ended, so I willed myself to stay in the present. We would never be Henri and Clothilde. I knew that. I just needed to take care of my tender little heart so I wasn’t broken in half at the end of the week.

  He said a quick goodnight to Henri and Clothilde who barely heard him because they were consumed with their dancing. Then he carried me the rest of the way upstairs.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Antibes

  Day After Glorious Day

  Beautiful days rolled into long warm nights until I lost track of the time. Saturday snuck up and, along with it, the night of the Cannes premiere. I couldn’t stifle the nervousness I felt from the moment I’d woken up that morning, not knowing what to expect from the evening we had in front of us.

  After our morning ritual of coffee, croissants, and peaches, a car picked us up to drive us to Marguerite’s studio in Antibes’s Old Town to pick up the dress. She was standing outside, waiting for us, drinking a tiny cup of coffee in the bright sun. Herding me impatiently into her studio, she insisted that Chris wait outside. Unfazed by her bossiness, he told her he’d take a walk around the block. I watched his back as he sauntered down the small cobbled street, running a hand through his still-wet hair. W
hen I turned to follow Marguerite inside, I caught a knowing look on her face. Maybe she’d seen others fall for her “cheri,” and maybe she anticipated the heartbreak I had ahead. She said nothing.

  The dress hung on the curtain rod that separated the plain seamstress shop from Marguerite’s magical art studio, a perfect cerulean blue that caught the light and shimmered like the sea. “Oh my God. Oh, it’s really beautiful,” I said, thinking it looked so good hanging there that it didn’t even need to be worn.

  “You must try it on. The final fitting I need to do on the body,” she said as if talking about someone other than me, some body other than mine.

  She handed me a strapless bra with an attached corset that sucked everything in. It fit, naturally. Given her years of experience, Marguerite knew my size without ever having asked me what it was. At first, I felt like an awkward teenager getting undressed in front of her. But she was so professional in her work that after a few minutes, I wasn’t even me anymore but instead I’d been transformed into a dress model having a fitting for a fashion creation I couldn’t have imagined wearing two weeks before.

  Wearing black stiletto sandals with thin straps, also provided by Marguerite in the right size, I stood up on the box in the front room of the shop while she worked on the dress’s floor-length hem, pinning it to the right height for the shoes. From where I stood, I could see Chris sitting outside a bench across the way from the shop. In his casual shorts, T-shirt, and sunglasses, he could have been photographed right there for a spread in an Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue.

  Looking out at him made me less self-conscious about being fussed over by a woman who’d designed for Halston, so I allowed myself to stare, knowing he couldn’t see me through the dark glass.

  Marguerite went to the back for more pins and made a few tucks in the waistline, added an extra shred of fabric to the bust so I could breathe, then whisked the dress off me and went to the back with her needle and thread.

  I stood in the corset and my underwear, still wearing the heels, looking at myself in the mirror and finding it mildly funny that I’d ended up in this shop in the South of France, wearing almost nothing. I badly wanted another cup of coffee from the machine on the back counter.

  Strange where a person’s mind goes.

  “Marguerite, would it be okay if I made a cup of coffee?”

  “Bien sûr, cherie. Please make a second one for me, s’il te plaît.” I obeyed, and no sooner had I set up our tiny cups on little saucers with the smallest spoons I’d ever seen than Marguerite was back with the dress. “I think it will be perfect now.”

  After she’d zipped me in, we admired the dress in the mirror. In the flowing blue strapless gown, I’d been transformed into someone who went to evening cocktail parties at high-end resorts and hung on the arm of a world-famous actor. Make no mistake, it was all that dress.

  Chris came back, impeccable in his timing, almost like he knew how long it would take to turn me into his date to the Cannes premiere. The look on his face said he approved. “Marguerite, I didn’t think it was possible to make her look any more spectacular than she already is, and somehow you managed.”

  She blushed then gave him a kiss on the cheek. “You are right about one thing. She is spectacular with or without the dress. But I’m glad you like the dress.”

  “I love it,” he said, turning to me. “What do you think, Nik?”

  “It’s incredible. Marguerite, you are an artist.”

  She waved off my words and busied herself stirring sugar into her coffee. “I will need a few more minutes with the dress to make sure all the seams are tight. You two, go get some lunch, and when you come back, it’ll be ready.”

  I had no way of knowing if she really needed to work on the dress, but I could tell the compliments made her uncomfortable and she was eager to get rid of us. Chris and I left the shop and wandered through town, his fingers laced through mine, in no hurry to find a place to eat. It felt good to walk.

  I was also aware of the nervous feeling I’d had in my gut since I’d woken up that morning, not really knowing what the red carpet of a premiere would be like but having a sense it would be like a prom on steroids. I needed to blow off steam somehow, just to keep my stomach from digesting itself. The last thing I needed was a three-course lunch weighing me down and straining the limits of that dress for hours to come.

  By that point, Chris had gotten good at recognizing when I’d crawled too far into my head, plagued by some concern or other. He looked at me. “What’s up?”

  “I feel like I need to run around or something. I need to burn off my nerves. I don’t wanna throw up on your tux.”

  He nodded. “Considerate of you. Okay, want to go down to the beach? Hit the gym at my house? What’s good?”

  “You have a gym at your house?” How had I not seen that yet?

  He nodded. “Where d’you think I was going every morning before I showered?”

  I hadn’t even thought about it. I’d mostly been asleep, lulled into more dreams on the million-thread-count sheets. “Well, yeah. An hour on the treadmill oughta do it,” I said as we started walking toward the waiting car.

  Chris called Marguerite and told her his driver would be by later to pick up the dress. On the drive back, I bent toward the window like an animal eyeing its freedom. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d gone this many days without some kind of workout. No wonder I was all wound up and restless.

  We’d no sooner pulled onto the property than I was out of the car and running upstairs to dig through my clothes for a running bra and shorts. When I came back downstairs, hair in a ponytail, Chris was in the office, looking at something on his computer. He looked up when I asked him to point me in the direction of the gym then escorted me to a wing off the kitchen that had been equipped with a treadmill, rowing machine, elliptical, spin bike, multiple weight machines, and a rack of dumbbells. The guy didn’t do anything halfway.

  “This work for you?” he asked.

  I nodded. Yes, I could definitely make something of this miniature version of a professional training facility by the sea. I looked straight out at the ocean as I revved up the treadmill, running faster than I would ordinarily because it had been a while since my feet had moved like this, and my adrenaline was sky-high. An hour was barely enough.

  When I returned to the main part of the house, I saw a fruit platter and baguette sandwiches set out on the kitchen table, and I knew Henri or Clothilde was responsible. Chris sat at the table, finishing the remains of a sandwich and reading the paper. “Better?”

  “Got all my stress out. For now. I think I’m good.”

  “Great. Make sure you eat,” he said, getting up and kissing me on the cheek before heading upstairs. “Almost showtime. Gotta shower.”

  I grabbed a slice of melon and climbed the stairs slowly, my legs feeling the effects of my workout. I only had a half hour before a hairdresser and makeup artist were coming to the house. Chris had tried his best to cast a casual light on the fact that he had a crew of people responsible for making the two of us—mostly me—presentable for the paparazzi that would be out in full force later. I was secretly glad he’d hired a little help. I didn’t know much about hair and makeup other than what I’d learned from a few video tutorials on accentuating my cheekbones.

  I’d been sharing the master bedroom with Chris, but he’d insisted that the third-floor sunroom was mine to use anytime, “just so you have some space when you need it.” So far, I hadn’t wanted it, but it seemed like a good place to let the pros do their work. I wanted to surprise Chris once I was fully pulled together, hoping the effect would be impressive. I was normally lazy when it came to makeup so even I was curious what magic the makeup artist could work on me.

  On the way to the upper set of stairs, as I was passing the door to the master bedroom, I heard the shower running. Then Chris’s hand reached out and pulled me into the bedroom. He was wearing a towel around his waist. “Come with me, you sweet, sexy girl,�
�� he said, leading me into the bathroom.

  The shower had filled the whole room with hot mist, and a therapeutic lavender-mint scent emanated from a fizzy salt ball in the corner of the stall. Chris helped me peel off my sweaty workout clothes, first lifting the shirt over my head, then the bra.

  “I want you,” he growled into my ear, tilting his head down and gently biting my shoulder, then running his tongue over the tender spot. “I want you slick and wet.”

  He gazed at my breasts and traced his finger over each one, circling the nipples but not touching them. My insides twisted with desire for his mouth on me. But he was teasing, making me wait and enjoying the lovely anguish he was causing me.

  “Patience, lovely.”

  My head rolled back in agony because his hands were massaging but he was still neglecting the sensitive nipples which were swollen with want. I felt them harden and I almost reached for them myself. Then I felt his hot breath before he crushed his mouth to the center. Fire shot through my body and I leaned against the glass enclosure to steady myself.

  When his eyes met mine, they were playful with an edge of roughness.

  Two could play at that game. I lightly ran my fingers over his chest. Then I dragged my nails down his abs until I heard him suck in a breath. I stopped just shy of his triangle of hard muscle, working my hands back, lightly touching his skin but not dipping lower.

  “Fair is fair,” I said.

  He raised an eyebrow. “You’re in trouble.”

  He rolled my workout pants down my legs, but it was like trying to get me out of a wetsuit. “Hang on,” I said, yanking them over my feet so I was free. “Okay, continue with your threats.”

  He smiled and looked me over from head to toe like he was trying to devise a seductive torture plan. But he was taking too long and that gave me other ideas.

  I yanked off his towel and reached for his hard length, loving the feel of it in my hand. Rubbing slow circles around the head, I watched his face soften as he started to give in to me. Then he shook his head. “No.”