Queen of Babble (16 page)

He unzips the bag a little and a froth of white lace—unmistakably bridal—spills out. He tucks it back in and rezips.

“I never thought in a million years, when you sat down next to me, that you were the Lizzie I’ve heard so much about from Shari and Chaz. But then when you said Shari’s name, I knew it. But by that time you’d already mentioned…you know.” Now he looks more embarrassed than sheepish. “And I knew you’d only done that because you thought you were never going to see me again…”

“Oh,” I say, feeling suddenly sick to my stomach. Since that’s exactly what I HAD thought to myself.

“My. God.”

“Yeah,” Luke says with a very French shrug. For an American. Which makes sense. Since he’s half French. “Sorry about that. Although you have to admit…it’s kind of funny.”

“No,” I say, “it’s really not.”

“Yeah.” He sighs, not smiling anymore. “I sort of guessed you’d see it that way. That’s why I didn’t tell you.”

“So you knew,” I say, feeling my cheeks heating up. “You knew all along we’d be seeing each other again. A lot. And you didn’t try to stop me. You just let me go on and on like that. Like a moron.”

“No, not like a moron,” he says,really not smiling anymore. In fact, he looks a little worried. “Nothing like that. I thought you were really charming. And funny. That’s why I didn’t try to stop you. I mean, in the first place, I didn’t know, until you were almost through with your—um, venting—who you were. I just knew you needed to vent, and so I let you, because I actually enjoyed it. I thought you were sweet.”

“Oh God!” I want to throw his garment bag over my head and hide in it. “Sweet?Talking about how I gave my boyfriend a blow job?”

“You talked about it in a very sweet manner,” Luke assures me.

“I’m going to kill myself,” I say from between my fingers, since I’ve buried my burning face in my hands.

“Hey.”

I hear footsteps, then feel hands go around my wrists. I look up, startled, and find that Luke has laid the garment bag across my suitcase and is standing very, very close to me, looking down into my face while gently pulling my hands from my eyes.

“Hey,” he says again, his voice as gentle as his touch. “Seriously. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t…I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to tell you, but then I thought…well, I thought it would be a funny joke. But. Like I said. Jokes aren’t really my thing.”

I am intensely aware of how dark his eyes are—as dark as the tree branches behind the train station, silhouetted against the navy-blue sky—and how kissable his lips look. Especially since they’re only just a few inches away from mine.

“If you tell anyone,” I hear myself say in a voice that has gone strangely throaty, “about what I told you on the train—especially Chaz—I will kill you. About my not finishing my thesis yet AND the other thing.

The you-know-what. You can’t tellanyone . Do you understand? I willkill you if you do.”

“I totally understand,” Luke says, his grip on my wrists even firmer now that I’ve dropped my hands from my face. He’s essentially holding them in his big warm hands. And it feels nice. Really nice. “You have my complete and total word. I won’t say a thing. Your blow job is totally safe with me.”

“Ack!” I cry. “I mean it! Don’t mention those words again!”

“What words?” he asks. Now his dark eyes are as lit up as the smattering of stars I see winking down at us, like sequins on a blue cashmere sweater set. “Blow job?”

“Stop it,” I say, and let myself sway toward him.

Just in case, you know, he wants to kiss me.

Because I’m starting to realize that the fact that Luke is Jean-Luc is hardly what anyone can call bad news. Considering that now I don’t have to worry about getting hold of Shari. And about where I’m going to stay tonight.

Not to mention the fact that he’s the nicest, hottest guy I’ve met in a really long time. Who doesn’t have an addiction to Texas Hold’em…that I know of, anyway.

And that he seems to like me.

And that I’m going to be spending the rest of the summer with him.

And that he’s holding my hands.

Suddenly things are looking up. Way up.

“So,” Luke says, “am I forgiven?”

“You’re forgiven,” I say. I can’t help smiling up at him like the moron he claims I’m not. He’s just so…cute.

And not just cute, either. He’s nice, too. I mean, he bought me dinner.

And he was totally sympathetic when I was crying like a maniac.

Plus he’s an investment banker. He’s working hard to…protect rich people’s money. Or something.

And he made me laugh instead of cry after I got off the phone with Andy.

And I’m going to be with him. All summer. All—

“Good,” Luke says. “Because I’d hate for you to think you were wrong. You know, about my character assessment. The one you made based on my clothes.”

“I don’t think,” I say, lowering my gaze to the opening of his shirt, where I see a few promising-looking chest hairs poking out, “that I’m wrong.”

“Good,” he says again. “I think you’re really going to like Mirac.”

Iknow I’m going to like it, I think—but for once restrain myself from saying out loud—ifyou’re there, Luke.

“Thanks,” I say. And wonder if he’s going to kiss me now.

And then we both hear a car coming and Luke says, “Oh, great. Here’s our ride.” And abruptly drops my wrists.

And an ancient butter-yellow convertible Mercedes pulls into the parking lot, driven by a honey-colored blonde who calls out in a French accent, “Sorry I’m late,chéri !”

And I know, even before he hurries down to kiss her, who she is.

His girlfriend.

It so figures.

Women were not the only ones who were interested in showing off their figures in the early 1800s. This period saw the introduction of the “dandy,” followers of the fashion icon George “Beau” Brummell, a gentleman who insisted his trousers fit tightly as a second skin and could not abide a wrinkle in his waistcoat. A dandy’s neckwear consisted of a collar so high he could not turn his head from side to side.

It is not known how many gentlemen met their deaths from stepping out in front of oncoming carriages they failed to see.

History of Fashion

SENIOR THESIS BY ELIZABETH NICHOLS

12

Gossip is the opiate of the oppressed.

—Erica Jong (1942– ), U.S. educator and author

Because of course he has a girlfriend. He’s way too fabulous not to—that little keeping-his-true-identity-a-secret-from-me thing aside.

The thing is, she seems really nice. She’s definitely gorgeous, with all that hair and her slim tanned shoulders and long, equally tanned legs. She’s wearing a very simple black tank top and a longish peasant skirt (new, not vintage, and expensive-looking, too) with jeweled flip-flops. She’s definitely in vacation mode.

Although my fashion radar may be off, because Dominique Desautels—that’s her name—like Andy, is foreign. She’s Canadian.French Canadian. She works at the same investment banking company in Houston that Luke does.

And they’ve been going out for six months.

At least that’s what I’m able to gather from my careful questioning of them both from the backseat of the Mercedes before my voice dies.

Because it’s very hard to concentrate on gathering information about the two of them when we’re whizzing past such beautiful scenery. The sun has set, but the moon’s rising, so I can still make out enormous oaks, their branches twisting across the road to make a sort of canopy of leaves above us.

We’re careening down a twisting two-lane country road that winds alongside a wide, burbling river. It’s hard to tell, judging by the scenery, where, exactly, we are.

Or evenwhen we are. Judging by the lack of telephone poles and streetlights, this could beany century, not just the twenty-first. We even pass an old-fashioned mill—a mill! With one of those big paddle wheels on the side of it!—with a thatched roof and beautiful garden.

There are electric lights on in the windows of the mill, though, indicating that this isn’t the 1800s.

Still, I see a family in there, sitting down to dinner.

In a millhouse!

It’s very hard to remember that I am depressed about my boyfriend turning out to have a gambling problem when the scenery whizzing past me is so picturesque.

Then we pass out from beneath the canopy of trees and I see towering cliffs above us, with castles on top of them, and Luke explains that this area of France (known as the Dordogne, after the river) is famous for its castles, having over a thousand of them, as well as for its caves, on the walls of some of which are paintings dating back to 15,000 BCE.

Then Dominique adds that Périgord, which is the part of the Dordogne we are in, is also known for its black truffles and foie gras. I am barely listening, though. It’s hard not to be distracted by the sight of a set of high-fortified walls—Luke says they belong to the ancient medieval village of Sarlat, and that we can go there to shop if I want to.

Shop! They couldn’t possibly have a vintage store there. But maybe a thrift shop…God, could you imagine the finds just waiting for someone like me? Givenchy, Dior, Chanel…who KNOWS?

Then we turn off the road onto what appears to be a very steep gravel-covered mountain track, barely wide enough for the car to pass. Branches, in fact, are whipping the side of it—and nearly me, as well, until I move into the middle of the backseat.

Dominique notices when I move and says, “You’ve got to get the men to trim that back before your mother gets here, Jean-Luc. You know how she is.”

Luke says, “I know, I know,” and then, to me, says, “You all right back there?”

“I’m good,” I say, clutching the back of the seats in front of me. I am being bounced around quite a bit.

The driveway—if that’s what it is—needs some maintenance.

And then, just when I think the shuddering car can’t take it anymore—and am starting to wonder if we’ll ever reach the top of this hill, or if tree limbs are going to whip our heads off first—we burst through the last of the trees onto a wide, grassy plateau overlooking the valley below. Bright torches line the driveway, leading up to what appears to be—if my eyes are not deceiving me—the same house Mr.

Darcy lived in in the A&E version ofPride and Prejudice .

Only this mansion is bigger. And more elegant-looking. With more outbuildings.

And it has electric light, which is making what looks like hundreds of windows blaze brightly against the blue satin sky. Arcing out from the circular driveway is a wide lawn dotted with huge, elegant oak trees, a massive swimming pool—lit up and gleaming like a sapphire in the night—and a scattering of white wrought-iron lawn furniture.

It is the most perfect place for a wedding that I have ever seen. The entire well-manicured lawn is fenced in with a low stone wall. All I can see beyond the wall, which appears to drop off into thin air, is a vast expanse of moonlit trees, far below, and then, off in the distance, another cliff like the one we’re on, topped by a château that could be a sister to this one, its own lights blazing in the night sky.

It is breathtaking. Literally. I find I’ve stopped breathing, gazing at it all.

Luke pulls the car into the circular driveway and switches the motor off. All I can hear is crickets.

“Well?” he says, turning around in his seat. “What do you think?”

I am, for the first time in my life, speechless. It is an historic occasion, but Luke doesn’t even know it.

The crickets sound very loud in the silence that follows Luke’s question. I still can’t breathe.

“Yes,” Dominique says, getting out of the car and heading toward the château’s massive oak doors, the garment bag with the wedding gown in it in both her hands. “It tends to have that effect on people. It’s pretty, isn’t it?”

Pretty?Pretty? That’s like calling the Grand Canyon big.

“It’s,” I say, not finally finding my voice until Dominique has gone inside and Luke is helping me pull my suitcases from the trunk, “the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.”

“Really?” Luke looks down at me, his dark eyes hooded in the moonlight. “Do you think so?”

He keeps saying he’s bad at telling jokes. But he has to be kidding me. There can’t be any more beautiful place on the entire planet.

“Completely,” I say, though even that seems like a total understatement.

And then I hear familiar voices from the grassy terrace overlooking the valley.

“Is that Monsieur de Villiers, returned from Paris?” Chaz, striding out from the shadows of one of the massive trees, demands. “Why, yes, it is. And who is that with him?”

Then, midway across the circular drive, Chaz stops, recognizing me. It’s hard to tell, with the moon at his back—and the bill of his University of Michigan baseball cap pulled low over his eyes, as always—but I think he’s smiling.

“Well, well, well,” he says in a pleased way. “Look what the cat drug in.”

“What?” And Shari appears behind him. “Oh, hi, Luke. Did you get the—”

Then her voice trails off. And a second later she shrieks, “LIZZIE? IS THAT YOU?”

Then she’s leaping across the driveway and all over me, and shouting, “You came! You came! I can’t believe you came! How did you get here? Luke, where did you find her?”

“On the train,” Luke says, smiling at the panicky look I throw him over Shari’s shoulder as she’s hugging me.

But he doesn’t elaborate. Just like I’d asked him not to.

“But that’s amazing,” Shari cries. “I mean, that you two, of all people, would run into each other—”

“Not really,” Chaz says mildly. “I mean, considering they were probably the only two Americans heading for Souillac—”

“Oh, not another one of your philosophical speeches on the nature of randomness,” Shari says to Chaz.

“PLEASE.” To me, she cries, “But why didn’t you call? We’d have met you at the station.”

“Idid call,” I say. “About a hundred times. But I kept getting your voice mail.”

“That’s impossible,” Shari says, pulling her cell phone out of the pocket of her shorts. “I have my…Oh.”

She squints at the screen in the moonlight. “I forgot to turn it on this morning.”

“I figured you’d dropped it in the toilet,” I said.