Invitation to Provence (14 page)

“But you’ve never been to Paris,” she said astonished,
knowing that he’d never been farther than Marseille in his life and that not for many years. “How will you meet anyone? Whatever will you do with yourself all day?”

He looked back at her with mystified black-olive eyes. Such a problem had not occurred to him. “Then maybe I won’t go,” he said uncomfortably, and Rafaella said that perhaps it was better to stay put and keep trying his luck locally.

Jarré went off to get meat for the dogs. Hearing the
clip-clop
of hooves on the cobblestones, Rafaella turned to see Scott on his black mare, riding into the square. She watched admiringly as he dismounted with the practiced ease of a true horseman. Scott Harris was lean and fit, with sandy-red hair and hazel eyes, creased at the corners from too many years in the sun. In jeans and a soft blue chambray shirt he was, she thought appreciatively, very good to look at.

Scott tied the mare in the usual spot under the plane trees, within reach of the fountain and the water trough. He pulled a carrot from his pocket and gave it to the horse, who crunched it loudly, snorting her pleasure. Louis and Mimi dashed over to greet him, and he fished in his other pocket for the chew bones he knew they liked.

“G’day, how are ya, Monsieur Jarré,” Scott said, shaking the patron’s hand. Scott had only been in the village ten years and was not yet on the level where he could call Monsieur Jarré by his first name.

He bent to kiss Rafaella and said, “Mmm, you smell so good, like summer flowers.”

“Mimosa. I’ve been wearing it for years. Besides, you say that every time.” She patted the seat next to her. “Come,
mon cher ami,
sit here and have some wine.”

Jarré poured Scott a glass of rosé, watching him intently as he sniffed the fruity bouquet, then tasted. The wine came from Jarré’s own mini vineyard on the small hill down the road to the west of the village, and he was anxious for Scott’s professional opinion.

“Monsieur Jarré, you make the best rosé around here,” Scott said. And Jarré puffed out his cheeks in a pleased smile.

Rafaella had dressed for the lunch in a white linen skirt and a fitted jacket with wide lapels that dated from the 1970s. With it she wore strappy blue sandals that showed her red-painted toes, and a blue glass necklace she’d bought in Venice more years ago than she cared to remember. Her silver hair was pulled back from her face, and despite her years, she looked very beautiful.

“You’re looking pretty darn gorgeous today, boss,” Scott said with a grin.

“You’re not so bad yourself,” Rafaella replied, smiling. The truth was, there was no real need for their weekly meetings, she trusted Scott implicitly, but both of them went through the ritual pretense of keeping her informed on the business. He asked her opinion on the planting of new rootstock, on whether to try Chardonnay next year on the east hill, on why the grapes were so late to ripen (was it because of too much spring rain?) and she gave her expert opinion.

The vine arbor over the café’s terrace filtered the sun’s glare into a soft, pleasant glow as Jarré brought out a plate of tiny young asparagus for them to try. Then Rafaella ordered her usual mushroom omelette, while Scott ordered his usual
steak-frites.
Being Rafaella, though, as well as talking business, she had to ask Scott about his love life.

“You mean lack of it,” Scott said with a grin.

“Now, a man like you,” Rafaella said thoughtfully, picking up a thin stalk of asparagus and nibbling on it, “good-looking, intelligent, knowledgeable, a powerful man in the wine trade, now I would say a man like you, Scott, is a catch.”

“Oh yeah, I’m just not catchable. I’m far too busy for any woman to tie down.”

“But aren’t you ever tempted by the thought of a pretty woman waiting for you in the evening? A companion? A lover? How about a proper home with a bunch of children swarming around your knees, calling ‘Papa’ when you walk through your front door at night? Dogs barking in greeting, music coming from the salon, wine being poured, the smell of something good cooking in the kitchen? Now, surely that must appeal?” She stared thoughtfully at him. “Unless you’re gay, of course, and even if you are, then there are some very charming men around here. Surely you must have met some of them?”

Scott put down his glass. He leaned across the table, in her face. “Rafaella, I am not gay,” he said sternly. “Nor am I in the market for a wife and certainly not kids. I’m a free man and that’s the way I like it and that’s the way I intend it to stay. Anyhow,” he added as he speared a piece of steak, “I already have the dogs and the horses. That’s enough for me.”

Rafaella glanced at the black mare tethered under the plane trees in the square. As she watched, the horse took a great slurp from the water trough and shook its head violently,
scattering drops on the sleeping village dogs, who lifted complaining heads before subsiding again. She knew Scott never drove his Jeep when he could ride a horse. “You and that horse are joined at the hip,” she grumbled.

“More like the arse, I’d say,” Scott agreed amiably. “Anyhow, are you all ready for the grand family reunion? The whole village is abuzz with it, and with the news that Jake Bronson will be back.”

She sighed. “I suppose there’s nothing this village doesn’t know about me. And a lot of them knew Jake’s father.”

“The Lover.” Scott helped himself to more
pommes frites
and filled Rafaella’s glass.

Rafaella stole
a frite
from his plate. “I suppose I’ll never live down that scandal.”

“Why should you? Sounded like the perfect love affair to me.”

“I’m glad to hear it from such an expert. Why don’t you follow my example and have one of your own?” She smiled into his eyes.

“I’m not celibate, you know,” Scott said mildly. “I’m just not the settling-down sort. It’s kinda like the wild west, where I come from, and I’m still that wild west kinda guy.”

“All the good ones are,” Rafaella said, laughing. “But you promised you’d come to the reunion,” she said, anxiously. “You
are
‘family,’ Scott. You’re the one who’s always there for me, always helping, keeping me and the winery alive.”

A grin sparked his hazel eyes. “Perhaps I should call you
maman
instead of Rafaella.”

“Call me whatever you like, as long as it’s not a fool.”

“Never that,” Scott said, suddenly serious. “And you know I wouldn’t miss it.”

When lunch was over, Haigh drove up in the small Peugeot. He rarely allowed himself to drive Rafaella’s Bentley, which dated from 1962 and was reserved for very special occasions. He personally kept it polished to a lacquered gleam, and the last time they’d used it was for a reception at the winery two years ago.

“How’re you, Haigh?” Scott said, getting to his feet and shaking hands with the butler, who looked quite different in a pink shirt and white linen pants, his summer, off-duty uniform. “I’ll be on my way, Rafaella,” Scott said, dropping a kiss on her soft cheek, leaving her with a sheaf of production notes to mull over and a smile on her face.

She watched him walk away with that nonchalant out-doorsman swagger, admiring how easily he swung onto his horse, thinking how attractive he looked with the sun glinting off his red hair. Sometimes she wished he were really her son instead of the pair she’d ended up with.

When they left, Laurent Jarré stood outside his café watching them drive away. He wondered sadly if Rafaella was as lonely as he was.

And outside her little store, Mademoiselle Doriteé, her frizzy hair spiraling out from her head, her green eyes soft behind pebble-thick glasses, still unmarried at age forty-five, also watched them go. She unstraddled her
moto
and propped it against the wall, gazing admiringly after Haigh. What a fine husband he would make for some lucky woman, she thought innocently.

J
ULIETTE HAD NO PROBLEMS
packing—she just took everything. Bathing suits, pareos, beach-wear went into one bag, linen shifts into another, silk cocktail dresses another. A suit or two, just in case she needed to pop up to Paris for a few nights, a couple of ball gowns in case Rafaella went the whole hog and threw a really grand celebration. Hats—she always needed a hat in Provence to keep the sun off her face and hide the wrinkles, as well as to stop that pesky wind from blowing her hair around. Then there was the special case for shoes, and the satin-lined velvet pouches for lingerie, and the beauty case for the necessary creams and lotions that glued her face back together in the morning. And of course the three special Vuitton travel containers in which the Pomeranians would fly luxuriously, if complainingly, to Marseille on Jake Bronson’s Gulfstream IV—because thankfully, he’d called and offered her a lift.

Next, Juliette went shopping for gifts because she enjoyed giving much more than receiving. She headed straight for Barneys, where she chose a couple of cashmere sweaters for Rafaella, in a blue that matched her eyes. While she was there, she also bought a sweater for Jake, in red this time because she felt that after all these years, Jake Bronson probably
needed bringing out of himself. He needed to be taken out of his lonely rut and brought back into real life, and red was surely the color to do that.

Next, she stopped into Tiffany, where she found a silver bracelet with heart-shaped charms for little Shao Lan, plus a pretty pair of long, slinky silver earrings for Franny. Jake had told her she was a little bit flower child, and she thought they would suit her. Plus a silver pen for her friend, Clare, whom no one seemed to know.

Next stop was Dunhill, where she picked out a bright paisley silk vest for Haigh, who she assumed was still as rail-thin as he’d always been, and also a nice striped silk tie for the Aussie vintner.

Strange bunch for a “family” reunion, she thought in the cab on the way home, surrounded by her packages. A distant American niece, her friend, an unknown Asian grandchild who might or might not be Felix’s, the “Lover’s” son, Rafaella’s young winemaker, and herself, the old friend. Plus Haigh, of course, who she knew could put them all in their places—and keep them there. She sighed, hoping for Rafaella’s sake that it all worked out.

S
HAO LAN SAT
by the hospital bed where Bao Chu Ching lay tucked to the neck in crisp white sheets, looking smaller than Shao Lan remembered. Her grandmother’s eyes were closed, but her face was strangely free of the tight lines of pain. Shao Lan thought, mystified, that she looked almost like a little girl.

Shao Lan looked very neat in her gray skirt and short-sleeved white shirt. Her old coat was folded on top of her small plastic case on the floor next to her. In the case were a couple of changes of underclothes, one clean shirt, and two pairs of white socks. Her shiny black hair had been newly shorn by a kindly neighbor and now it stuck out peculiarly around her ears. She held a bunch of red flowers she’d bought for her grandmother, and frightened, she tightened her grip on them.

Footsteps approached and she turned her head reluctantly, knowing what was to come.

“There you are, Shao Lan,” said the man from the travel agency, smiling. “All ready to go?”

Shao Lan just gripped her flowers tighter until a nurse in a crisp white uniform removed them from her cramped fingers. “I’ll put those in a vase for your grandmother to see when she wakes,” she said. “And now you must say good-bye. It’s time you were off to catch that flight to Paris, you lucky girl.”

Lucky,
Shao Lan thought, and she bent over to kiss her grandmother good-bye.
I wish it were the nurse who was lucky. I don’t want to go to France. I don’t want to be with those strangers who call themselves my family. I don’t want to leave grandmother.

But, “Good-bye, Grandmother,” she whispered obediently, letting her hand be taken by the man from the travel agency.

She sat silently next to him on the drive to the airport, staring terrified at the great planes swooping overhead. She had never seen a plane before except as a dot in the sky. The man parked the car, then took her bag and her hand and walked her into the departure area. At the check-in desk he hung a laminated plastic card on a black cord around her neck with her name and destination written on it in big black letters.

“There,” he said jovially, trying to cheer her up, “now everybody will know you’re Shao Lan and that you’re going to Paris.”

They walked to the departure lounge and he looked uncertainly at her frozen face. She had not said one word, not looked at him in all this time. “Wait here,” he said, hurrying into the gift shop.

He came out a few minutes later carrying a bag. “This is for you, Shao Lan,” he said, “enjoy your vacation.” Then he handed her over to a woman in a blue uniform, and, his responsibility over, with a sigh of relief he turned and hurried away.

Shao Lan was left on a seat near the departure gate by the uniformed attendant who was now in charge of her and told not to move until she came back. Although she wanted very much to go to the bathroom, Shao Lan held her breath and
her bladder and looked around her. People hurried past but nobody looked at her. Feeling very alone, she opened the bag from the travel agent. A rare smile curved the corners of her mouth as she took out the soft white woolly lamb. It was the kind of toy you bought for babies, but Shao Lan had never been “a baby,” and she had never had toys.

She held the lamb to her face, feeling its softness, smelling its newness, touching the blue ribbon around its neck, smiling into its vacant blue eyes. “I’ll call you Baby and I’ll never leave you,” she whispered. She planted a kiss on the woolly lamb’s pink nose and hoped the woman would come back soon because she really had to go.

J
AKE WAS AT HIS
cabin in the mountains. He’d been trying for some time to get Dirty Harry into the horse box, but the horse wasn’t having it. He reared and kicked out at Criminal, who was acting like a sheepdog, slinking behind the horse, nipping at his heels, trying to herd him into the box.

Jake sat on the fence, loose and relaxed, a blade of sweet grass between his teeth, watching the pair of them. It was an old game they played, Dirty Harry being the uppity stallion and Criminal the trusty shepherd. They enjoyed it and in the end the horse would allow himself to be subdued and,
hooves clattering, he’d edge meekly into the box. Then, knowing the game was over, Criminal would leap into the cab of the old green pickup, to which Jake had already attached the horse box. He’d wait for Jake to lock the horse in and get into the driver’s seat, then he’d woof importantly, as though saying, “Okay let’s go then,” and they’d drive off.