Chapter 5 #2
She wondered what Willa was up to. If it was afternoon here, it was morning in Toronto—in other words, Willa was asleep.
Sabine could text her, say they’d arrived safely, but her phone was still on airplane mode.
She wasn’t going to take it off to earn some obscene roaming fee or send a fifteen-dollar text.
And there was not a cell phone store to be seen.
She was just drifting off when she heard heavy breathing. She squinted into the sunshine to see a fit guy about her age, in an upscale athletic outfit and pristine white runners, dripping sweat. He’d obviously just finished a run.
“Salut,” said the guy, sliding off his headphones. “Tu es Américaine?”
“Canadienne,” said Sabine. Weird conversation starter.
“North Americans are the only ones who step on the grass,” he said, switching to English.
“Isn’t that what grass is for?”
He pointed to a sign. “Merci de ne pas marcher sur les pelouses.” Thank you for not walking on the grass. Oh. Sabine heaved herself up even though every inch of her wanted to be horizontal and stepped off the grass.
“Who are you visiting?” he asked, breath calming a bit.
“I’m not visiting anyone,” said Sabine.
“Are you a student, here to work for my uncle?”
“Nope.”
“Who are you, then?”
“Sabine.”
“Aubin. You sure you’re not working for my uncle?”
“I’m sure.” This guy was just so … off-putting. “Who are you?” Sabine asked back. Crabby, yes, but she felt nauseous. She stepped back on the grass and lay down again. She couldn’t help herself.
“Are you really going to lie back down on this forbidden grass?” he said.
“Mm-hm.” Forbidden grass had never looked so good. She closed her eyes and willed him to go away. Silence. Sabine cracked her eye open again. Aubin was gone.
Marlow sat on the bench outside the Nenier city hall, feet up on her luggage, eyes closed, but sleep wouldn’t come.
She hoped she hadn’t done irreparable damage to her promotion prospects.
Surely she’d built up more good will than that.
Technically, if Oscar was unhappy, he’d have to file a complaint with HR. There would be a process.
Stop fretting over what you can’t control.
For once, assume it’s OK to go after what you want.
This was the sort of worrying Noah got on her case about.
Respect yourself, he’d say. If you can’t do it for you, do it for Sabine so you model some self-worth for your daughter.
She loved him, but it was irritating when her brother was right.
A Porsche pulled up beside the rust-bucket minibus.
A man got out, mid-forties, maybe, dark brown hair, clean shaven.
Well-dressed but understated—a sort of nonchalant “these pants cost more than your weekly wage but we will never speak of this” vibe.
A white linen shirt tailored to his soccer star body, suede boots, horn-rimmed sunglasses, and a family crest signet ring on his baby finger all completed the look.
He spotted Marlow and smiled. “Bonjour, Madame.”
“Bonjour, Monsieur,” she replied, moving her feet off of her luggage and sitting up a bit.
To anyone in North America, this would seem like the formal introduction of a suitor in a Victorian novel.
But in France, calling each other Madame and Monsieur was the standard politesse.
Madame Barbier, Marlow’s Grade 4 French teacher, had said that, here, you could never be too polite.
“Vous attendez l’ouverture de l’h?tel de ville?”
Yes, she nodded. She was waiting on the opening of City Hall. She could understand this fellow perfectly—not like Luc’s lightning-speed French.
“Vous aurez de la chance si quelqu’un se présente. C’est l’été.”
Really? Would no one show up at city hall just because it was summer? Was she going to have to come here every day for the next nine days until someone showed? And how would she do that without any transportation?
“Vous ne pensez pas que quelqu’un viendra aujourd’hui?” she asked. That vaguely strung together. Did he not think someone would show up today?
“I apologize,” he said, hearing her accent and switching to English. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Guillaume Fortin. May I assist you in some way?”
“I’m Marlow Linden. From Canada.”
“Oh, Canada. I have been to the Okanagan and to the Niagara, with the beautiful waterfall. And to a charming place called the County of Prince Edouard.”
“Prince Edward County, yes. Are you in the wine business?”
“How did you know?”
It wasn’t hard to triangulate those three places; good wine was the thing they all had in common.
“I mostly do business in the United States,” he said. “And what brings you, Madame, to this tiny spot in France?”
“It’s a long story, but I bought a house over the internet, and even though it’s very beautiful here, I can’t keep it. So I need a refund.”
“Ah, the one-euro program.”
“Yes. Have many people here done it?”
“Not yet. They give reports about it in Italy on CNN. We are later to it here in France.”
Marlow would have to look that up. She should have done some research before they came. She should have done a lot of things.
“It was the idea of our fonctionnaire,” he said. “When she saw it in Italy, she created something similar here. She wants to help our abandoned villages problem. It’s quite brilliant.”
His English was spectacular. He was spectacular, to be honest. He wasn’t sporting a wedding ring—did French men do wedding rings? She left that tempting thought where it was.
An Audi zipped up the road, parked next to Guillaume’s Porsche, and spat out a fortyish woman in high heels, a tight skirt, and silk blouse.
Marlow was now officially feeling underdressed.
Her outfit would have worked at the festival office.
In France, even in the middle of the countryside, not so much.
“Bonjour, Guillaume,” said the woman.
“Bonjour, Rémy. Comment allez-vous?”
“Très bien, et vous?”
“Eh bien, je suis trop occupé, mais ce n’est pas nouveau,” said Guillaume.
Marlow identified with feeling perpetually busy. At least he got to be way too busy here, in this splendid place, suspended in time.
Guillaume spoke in French to Rémy. Marlow could follow the gist of it: he was telling this woman about her problem with the one-euro program. Rémy nodded. They were getting somewhere.
“This is Mademoiselle Rémy Rousseau,” he said to Marlow. “She can help.”
“Félicitations, Madame,” said Rémy. Marlow wasn’t exactly sure if congratulations were in order. “Avez-vous acheté votre maison à Mirabelle-les-Roches?”
Marlow nodded. Yes, she’d bought the house in Mirabelle-les-Roches.
“Alors je ne peux gérer vos affaires que dans la mairie de Mirabelle,” said Rémy.
“She can only help you in the Mirabelle town hall, up there,” translated Guillaume, pointing up the hill.
“Dans quinze minutes.”
With that, Rémy disappeared inside the Nenier city hall. And Marlow had fifteen minutes to figure out a way up that hill.
“I can show you the way,” said Guillaume.
“That’s not necessary,” Marlow said, knowing she absolutely needed the help.
“Allow me. I was only here to drop off an envelope. I will be back shortly.”
Sabine returned from her walk, and Marlow brought her up to speed. Then Guillaume re-emerged. Marlow introduced him to Sabine.
“Enchanté,” he said, reaching for the handle of the heaviest carry-on and leading them up mossy stone steps. “We can take the road, but this is quicker.”
The steps were divided by three landings, maybe a hundred in all—not for the faint of heart—and at the top was a little square.
It was overtaken by weeds and encircled by a low stone wall in the grips of thick, woody vines.
Sabine rested her bag on a broken bench, its wooden planks rotted through.
Lining the square were a boarded-up fruit and vegetable store, its faded, torn awning taken over by roosting pigeons; a closed restaurant, paint peeling; a tiny medieval stone church, stained glass windows broken; a much smaller town hall than Nenier’s, stonework crumbling; an extinguished gas light outside a dark post office; and a closed bicycle rental store.
One layer up was a sprinkling of very old, shuttered stone houses, thirty or forty max, presided over by a single-tower castle ruin. Mirabelle was dead.
“Bienvenue à Mirabelle-les-Roches,” said Rémy, who, it turned out, was right on their heels.
She produced a ring of skeleton keys like a jailor, fit one into the mairie lock, turned it, and pushed on the tarnished doorknob.
Guillaume motioned for Marlow and Sabine to go first. As Marlow passed him, she got a whiff of cologne that conjured at once the magical smell of an out-of-time gentleman and a take-charge-in-the-best-way-in-bed reprobate.
The mairie’s foyer had stone floors, antique light fixtures, and a few doors off of the hall on either side. At the end were glass-paned double doors leading to a neglected courtyard where a dry fountain had been overtaken by brambles and dead plants, as if suspended in time.
Rémy stepped into an office and flicked on ugly overhead fluorescents dangling from the plaster and square beam ceiling. Behind the front counter were two desks piled with paperwork, garbage cans overflowing. Everyone else followed.
“Alors,” said Rémy, plunking her things on the counter. She eyed Marlow. Waiting.
“Est-ce-que vous parlez anglais?” asked Marlow. She didn’t think she could manage this conversation in French.
Rémy lifted her eyebrows, sighed, and nodded.