The Frenchman's Slow Seduction (15 page)

By the last day of the
veterinary conference, I’m feeling pretty relaxed. Texas has been a
revelation: the land is flat as a pancake, which makes for surreal
sunsets and sunrises; all the roads are straight; and just about
everyone has a truck.

The week has gone by
incredibly quickly, and as I sit in the crowded auditorium late
Friday afternoon, I can hardly believe that it’s almost time to
give my talk. Listening to the seminar organizer thank the second
to last speaker, I look at the wall clock and see that it’s four
o’clock, which means that we’re right on schedule. I’m the last
speaker. Finally, the organizer introduces me, and to my surprise I
feel completely calm.

I enjoy giving the
talk. It feels good to release all the positive energy I’ve felt
since I’ve been in Texas. When I’m done, several people approach to
ask me about procedural points, to touch base, or to tell me that
they enjoyed the talk. As I gather my papers to leave, I see a man
with spiky white hair approaching. He’s my age and is wearing
jeans, a navy short-sleeved shirt with a yellow tie, and running
sneakers. Distracted when something hits my chest, I look down to
see what it is, but can see nothing. By the time I look up again,
the man is standing in front of me.

“Hello, Rachel,” he
says. “It is a great pleasure to finally meet you.” His soft-spoken
voice and Parisian accent are intoxicating. “I’m Jean Paul
Gaston.”

The paleness of his
skin and the ice-blue of his eyes, along with my light-headedness,
make everything seem unreal.

I must have held out my
hand because he’s taken it.

“Your talk was
wonderful. I would like very much to talk to you about your work
and about orthopedics in general. You are in College Station for
how long?”

“Until Sunday
morning.”

“Ah, we do not have
much time.” After a moment, he says, “It would be a great pleasure
if you would accompany me to a restaurant not far from here, where
we could better talk.”

As we walk out of the
building and to his car, he talks about the weather and Texas. In
the same gentle manner, he drives us to a French restaurant called
Le Provençal. When we walk into the restaurant, he is treated like
a son.

“
Jean Paul!”
The
head waiter calls out, rushing over.
“Comment ça va, mon
vieux?”
How are you, old buddy?

“
Bonjour,
Martin, I would like to present to you Rachel, a colleague.”

“
Enchanté,”
Martin says, taking my hand.

“A pleasure,” I tell
him.

“A table by the
window?” Martin asks.

“Yes, please,” Jean
Paul says. Everything here is very civilized.

We’re shown to a table
overlooking a garden. Jean Paul helps me with my chair and asks me
what I’ll have to drink. I decide on a glass of half orange juice
and half soda, my grip on reality too shaky for anything stronger.
Martin talks animatedly with Jean Paul about a new French wine that
has arrived at the restaurant only today and tells him that he will
bring us a bottle to sample.

“How did you become
interested in orthopedics?” Jean Paul asks.

“I think about bones a
lot, and I’ve always liked physics, so orthopedics appealed to me
right away. When I was looking for a vet job, I chose a clinic that
specialized in orthopedic surgery.”

“I, too, have bone
fever,” he says. “Bones teach me about many things: art,
architecture, science, the human body -- but most of all, about
life.”

“How old were you when
you first became interested?”

He smiles. “When I was
very small I was fascinated by bones, but it was when I was twelve
that I had a dream that gave me this bone fever.”

“A dream?”

“A marvellous dream in
which I was very tiny, and I was walking within the body of a
human. Travelling along large red tunnels, I saw all the bones of
the body, all in their proper places. I walked along the corridor
of the rib cage, feeling my way as I went. I climbed onto a femur
and felt its strength. I touched the cranium and understood at once
its purpose. Many secrets were revealed to me on that night. When I
woke up, I was perspiring from the effort. It was at this time that
I began to understand bones. They were revealed to me as pillars of
the body, protecting the inner person and propelling the outer
person.”

Jean Paul is exerting
himself now just as he must have been in his dream, his passion for
life radiating from his body.

He shakes his head. “It
would be much easier if I could talk to you in French.”

“You can, if you like.
My mother was French. I understand it fine, but I speak English far
better.”

“
C’est incroyable.
Les anges sont avec moi ce soir,”
he says, instantly becoming a
poet. It’s incredible. The angels are with me tonight. Sitting back
in his chair, he relaxes.

I continue talking in
English while he speaks in French. Martin arrives with the wine,
pours a glass for Jean Paul, and awaits the verdict. Jean Paul
takes his time to taste it and then says, “It is enchanting,
Martin. The bees will be envious of so sweet a nectar.”

Beaming, Martin pours
me a glass and then walks towards the kitchen.

“My father owns a
vineyard in France,” Jean Paul says, smiling. “The reputation of
the father precedes the son.” He nods towards my glass. “You really
must try some.”

Taking a sip, I hear
faint, childlike laughter. The wine is so sweet and its impact so
sudden that it makes my mouth and tongue tingle.

“It tastes as though it
were made in heaven,” I tell Jean Paul.

He laughs. “Perhaps by
the muses.”

Martin returns to take
our orders. When we both admit to not being very hungry, he
suggests the lime and vegetable soup. For dessert, Jean Paul asks
Martin if he could have his favorite bread brought to the table,
along with a jar of jam and a jar of honey. Martin is delighted to
grant the special request.

Getting lost in the
magic of the night, we stay until ten o’clock, talking, chatting,
drinking tea, eating biscuits, and strolling in the garden. Work is
mentioned only occasionally. Now, it’s time to leave. With no
computer to act as intermediary and our time quickly coming to an
end, Jean Paul says what’s on his mind.

“Rachel, are you
engaged with someone?” he asks, using English to eliminate any
possibility of confusion.

I shake my head.
“No.”

Releasing a deep
breath, he says, “I’m very glad.” After a few quiet moments he
says, “Do you have to leave on Sunday?”

Looking at him, I say,
“No, I don’t think I do.”

His smile is brilliant.
“How wonderful.” Standing up, he holds out a hand. “Let’s go.”

Outdoors, I take a deep
breath, savoring the night air. Texas has a different smell from
Michigan: sweeter, drier.

When Jean Paul and I
get to my hotel, he walks me to my room.

“I would like to take
you on an outing tomorrow,” he says.

“I’d love to go, but
I’ve made plans to visit with a friend for the morning.”

“We could leave in the
afternoon. Would two o’clock suit you?”

“Sure.”

Brushing his lips
against my cheek, he says, “Until tomorrow.”

As I walk into my room,
one cliché after another passes through my mind: love at first
sight, one-night stands, fate, make sure you get to know a man --
the latter from my unmarried aunt, Ann, her life hanging on clichés
like clothes on a line. Then I hear my mother’s voice. Sitting by
my bedside on a warm summer night when I was ten, not a whiff of
alcohol on her breath, she said, “You’ll know for sure when you
find the right man, Rachel. If you have to ask yourself if he’s the
right one, he’s not.”

Chapter 20

When I wake up Saturday
morning, I phone Michelle to tell her that I’m staying in Texas a
little longer. She offers to call Verna, Myra, and Mike.

As I’m waiting outside
the hotel, Lou Ann shows up at the hotel in a beat-up Ford pickup.
When she steps out of the truck, I notice that she’s forgotten to
tell me that she’s very pregnant; a totally normal Lou Ann
oversight. She sees every event in life as incidental, nothing to
make a fuss over. Once, when she was asked to do a routine physical
on a cow in front of our classmates, the cow kicked her hard and
knocked her flat on her back. Looking up at the ceiling, all she
said was, “Did you ever have the feeling that it was just going to
be one of those days?”

During our first year
in vet school, Michelle set Lou Ann up on a blind date and
described her to the guy as “robustly kind and a hell of a lot of
fun.” The blind date was Joe, Lou Ann’s husband.

“Howdy, Rachel,” she
says, squeezing me. “You look great.”

I laugh. “You look
big.”

“This old thing?” she
says, patting her belly. “Joe and I had a bit too much time on our
hands about six months ago. Come on, sweetheart, let’s take off.”
When we’re on the road, she says, “Joe sends his apologies, honey.
He had to take a whack of farm calls this morning. I thought we’d
hang out at the clinic so he can catch a glimpse of you when he
flies through the office. He knows you’re leaving early
tomorrow.”

“Actually, I’ve decided
to stay longer.”

“Oh,” she says,
glancing at me. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing. It’s just
that I left my job back home and I like Texas.”

“Good grief, Rachel,
are you looking for a job?”

I laugh. “Yeah. I guess
I am.”

She shakes her head. “I
can’t believe it. Joe and I have been looking for someone for a few
weeks now, but haven’t found anyone. We do about fifty percent farm
work, which I know you’re not used to, but do you think you’d be
interested?”

I’m surprised to hear
myself say, “Yeah, I would.”

She lets out a loud
whoop. “Oh my goodness, Rachel! There’s no reason it couldn’t be
arranged. Joe will go nuts.”

In seconds, she comes
up with some tentative plans: I could stay with them since their
house has a separate apartment attached, I could start work
whenever I wanted, and we could give it a trial run of a month to
see how it goes.

As we both mull things
over, everything takes on a new significance. Driving along, Lou
Ann points out some of the farms they do work for and gives me the
low-down on some of the owners.

It takes forty minutes
to reach Joe and Lou Ann’s clinic. As we pull into the driveway, I
see Joe stocking up a truck for his visits. He’s a lanky six
foot-four inches tall and still has a mess of hair that partly
hides his eyes.

“
Rachel!”
he
calls out, walking over to give me a hug. “City mouse visits
country mouse, huh?”

I laugh. “I wouldn’t
exactly call Haslett a city.”

“It’s all relative,
honey.”

“Hey Joe,” Lou Ann
says, “what would you think if Rachel came to work for us?”

He studies his wife’s
face to see if she is joking; then he turns to me. “Really,
Rachel?”

“It’d be a lot of fun,”
I tell him.

He gives a lazy smile.
“Could we ever use someone like you around here.”

Lou Ann suggests that I
accompany Joe on the morning’s farm visits, and I readily agree.
Knowing that Joe’s in a hurry, she quickly fetches a pair of
coveralls and work boots from the clinic.

When we’re on the road,
Joe says, “So, how’s that sidekick of yours?” He’s referring to
Michelle. “Still breaking hearts?”

“I think she’s working
on fixing her own.” I fill him in on some of the details.

“I really like that
girl. I hope she finds what she’s looking for.” After a few quiet
moments, he says, “So Rach, do you want to get your hands dirty
today, or do you just want to observe?”

“I think I can handle
some action.”

Our first three visits
involve horses. We tend to swollen lower leg joints, lung problems,
and some vaccinations. The next stop involves a pregnancy check on
a cow and a calf dehorning. When we reach the cow, Joe hands me a
shoulder-length glove and a tube of lubricant. “Go ahead, Dr
Wiley.”

I get on with the messy
job. “It’s a bit hard to tell for sure,” I tell him. “I’m pretty
sure she’s pregnant, but she wouldn’t be that far along.” He
accepts my verdict, and we get on with the dehorning.

When we get back to the
clinic, Lou Ann is waiting for us.

“So, what do you think,
Rachel?” she asks.

“Well, it’s a lot more
strenuous than I’m used to, but I think I’d really like it.”

She nods. “I thought
you would. Come on, I’ll take you to the shower.”

After lunch, which
consists of Lou Ann’s special cheese and date sandwiches, she
drives me back to my hotel. It’s a few minutes past two when we get
there, and Jean Paul is outside in the gardens.

“Lou Ann, there’s a
friend of mine I’d like you to meet. He’s just up ahead.”

“Sure. Who is it?”

“Jean Paul Gaston. He
works at the vet school doing research.”

She parks about fifty
feet from Jean Paul. Seeing us, he waves.

“Hmmm, I think I’m
beginning to understand your sudden change in plans,” Lou Ann
says.

We make our way towards
Jean Paul. Without hesitation, he kisses my cheek.

“Jean Paul, I’d like
you to meet Lou Ann, a really good friend of mine.”

“Howdy, Jean Paul,” Lou
Ann says, shaking his hand.

“It’s a pleasure to
meet you,” he says. “How was your morning?”

“A-1,” Lou Ann says.
“As a matter of fact, my husband and I have all but convinced
Rachel to come and work at our clinic. Maybe you can work on her
for us.”

Jean Paul turns to
me.

“Well, I’d better be
off,” Lou Ann says. “Nice seeing you, Jean Paul. Hope we get to see
lots more of each other.”