Chapter 12
12
I stood with Faye on the cobblestones, waiting while she reapplied her red lipstick in a compact mirror. The only thing remarkable about the building we’d been dropped at was its color: a bright turmeric shade of yellow, raucous against the muted sand-and-stone palette of all Saint-Tropez.
I tried to smooth the wrinkles from my shirt dress. The cut was flattering, sliding off my hips, but it needed ironing. I was sure there was someone at the villa who took care of this service, but I didn’t know if they would do it for me, and I couldn’t bring myself to ask. I’d dressed it up with the new rosé-colored scarf I’d bought last week, shopping with Callum.
There hadn’t been time to look for a better outfit; Faye had simply appeared at my guest suite after dinner, asking if I wanted to “come with.” She was going out to see London friends who’d just arrived back in town for the holiday. I wondered if maybe Callum would be there.
Faye clicked her compact shut and waved me forward, as if I’d been the one keeping us waiting. The door was heavy, carved wood, and it swung open as we neared, a doorman nodding on the other side. A gold placard with a lotus flower read Pan De? Palais .
We stepped into an ornate hotel lobby, and I hurried to follow Faye down a long hall of oriental carpets. The furniture was all a lurid red, like the insides of something cut open. We passed a dining room with a sepia-toned scene on the walls: lush palm trees in the foreground, and in the distance, a building with onion domes.
“What’s with the decor?” I asked Faye.
“The whole place is an homage to India,” she said, not slowing. “A French soldier built it as a house for the Indian princess he loved. Eighteen hundreds.”
“Big house.”
She shrugged. “It’s a small hotel. There’s only twelve rooms in the whole place.”
“And your friends are staying here?”
“Two of them. They’ll be in the bar, I’m sure.” She waved a hand in front of us, to indicate that it lay ahead. But there, ahead of us, changing his clothes in the hallway as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world, stood a gorgeous early-twenties man I recognized instantly. He was from Chelsea Made . Julian, great-great-grandson of the man who invented McVitie’s biscuits, biscuits Andre and I often ate while we watched the TV show in bed. I favored the dark chocolate ones, Andre the chocolate-caramel ones. We both favored this man currently tugging a T-shirt up and over his white-blond head in the hallway in front of me.
“Don’t mind me,” he said with an impish smile, dropping the T-shirt into a bag at his feet.
“Dinner and a show,” Faye said dryly.
McVitie’s Julian grinned, clearly recognizing Faye. Peers of some kind, at least here—familiar, even if the Wilders weren’t chocolate-biscuits royalty. “If you want the full dance, that’ll be extra,” he said as we slid past him. Already, he was pulling a fresh shirt on, beginning to button it over his camera-ready abs. Probably he was changing for a fancy dress code, some last-minute yacht-party invite. Oh, to be McVitie’s Julian for a day.
Once we were around the next corner, I finally let go of the giggle that’d been building behind my ribs. Faye rolled her eyes but giggled, too, shaking her head. “Pull it together, Anna.”
“Do you see much of that lot?” I asked. “I know I should be embarrassed—watching such a silly show—but it’s sort of irresistible.”
She shrugged. “London’s a small town, you know, but Chelsea’s not really my scene. I just have a few friends in the wider circle—the fringers you see in episodes with big garden parties or galas.”
“You haven’t dated any nice Chelsea boys?” I teased.
Faye threw me a look. “I don’t really like them nice.”
The bar, when we finally reached it, was very small and empty. Empty because everyone was outside: one wall of the room was completely open to a tree-lined garden, warmed with heat lamps, white chairs and tables lit by lanterns and moonlight. They glowed ghostly against the dark grass. Beyond the trees, I could see the blue-green luster of a large heated swimming pool, steaming copiously.
Faye rushed out into the garden, and a table of three improbably handsome men stood up to embrace her. Forget McVitie’s Julian, I wanted to be her for a day. Then I recognized, with an eager, skittish swoop in my stomach, that Callum was among them. He smiled shyly at me while everyone made a fuss over Faye. I wondered if he would want to introduce me to these friends. Tell them how I’d helped him, with the car. The idea was appealing.
But it was Faye who did my introduction: American master’s student, here from London to tutor her little sister. “Of course I couldn’t just leave her stuck in the house.” A less-than-thrilling endorsement.
I laughed. “Oh, yes, really terrible for me, being stuck in a villa.”
Faye gestured around the table with her sunglasses. “You know Callum, of course, and this is Simon and Theo. But where’s Lucy, I thought she was here?”
Callum pulled in more chairs from another table, offering me the one next to him. I sat down, grateful to have a friend beside me. Faye often seemed to forget I existed.
A tiny slip of a girl in a short skirt and sky-high heels dropped into the chair on Callum’s other side a moment later. Lucy, then. She smiled at me in the smallest way possible, lips tightly sealed, then turned to speak to Callum, crossing her legs in a way that felt calculated to draw his attention to them. But what I noticed were her shoes: black with a mirrored gold heel, the heel itself was the letters YSL stacked on top of each other. If she wanted to look classy, well, she’d probably struck out, but if she just wanted everyone to know she wore designer shoes, she’d knocked it out of the park.
I didn’t want to see Callum admiring any legs that weren’t mine, so I turned away. The waiter came by then, offering Faye and me small menus shaped like palm leaves. I reached for one, but Simon spoke up. “Don’t bother with the cocktails here, they’re not very good,” he said with a light French accent. I froze, looking at the waiter, who had surely heard this. His cordial smile was fixed in place, his hand still in the air, menu halfway across the table. And then Faye was speaking to him, ordering a bottle of rosé and two glasses, and he was gone.
Shaken by the rudeness, I sat back in my chair. Lucy was leaning on the arm of Callum’s. “Will you nip up and look at the lock?” she asked. “I know it’s just one suitcase, but half my clothes are stuck inside.” Maybe that explained why she was wearing so little in December.
“What, right now?” he said. “Everyone’s just got here.”
Her eyes flicked up to me. “Not like we’ll miss much. It’s probably a quick fix.” She stood insistently, and after a moment, Callum rose to follow.
“Sorry, guess I’m the locksmith now,” he said, turning to me. “Back in a minute.”
I smiled and nodded. Not like I had a claim to him, a right to the jealous flames licking up the inside of my ribs as they walked together into the hotel.
The table had fallen into a lively debate about several people I didn’t know. Eventually the waiter returned with our wine. I couldn’t really apologize for Simon’s rudeness, so I overdid it with a nervous flurry of merci s.
A minute later, Lucy returned alone and announced to the table that Callum would be down shortly, once he’d cracked her suitcase lock.
Undeterred, Faye held up her glass and declared a toast to being all back together in one place.
“Did you all come from London?” I asked.
Simon shook his head. “Not me, I’ve lived here the last year. I can’t stand London anymore.” As he said it, looking at me from under low, heavy brows, I recognized him: the dark figure coming to visit Faye in the night. I thought of Faye saying, I don’t really like them nice.
“Yes, London’s such a bore now, isn’t it?” Lucy said, rolling her eyes, tugging tiny, childlike fingers through the ends of her curls. “Nothing to do. I can’t bear to be there more than a few weeks at a time.”
I couldn’t help it; I laughed. If that was how she felt about London, she’d probably spontaneously combust in my hometown. Bored to detonation within minutes, just a pile of ash and a smoking pair of high heels.
“London’s not boring for me, since it’s all still pretty new,” I said.
“Well, of course. It must seem very exciting for you,” Lucy said. “Where are you from again?” Her voice was innocent, even friendly, but I’d been taunted enough in school to know it when I heard it.
“Boston,” I said. The answer I’d learned to give, since no one knew what Massachusetts was.
“Like the tea party?”
Simon sniggered into his wineglass. My cheeks burned.
“And you’re enjoying Saint-Tropez?” Theo asked sincerely, turning in his chair next to me. “Is this your first time?”
I nodded. “It’s been great.”
“Yes, you’ve really hit the lottery,” Lucy said. She smiled sweetly, tipping her head toward Faye. Indicating my ticket for admission.
“This weather, I’d say we all have,” Theo said with an easy smile. He was very handsome, but in a different way from Callum: it felt almost exaggerated, movie-star stuff. Like Paul Newman in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof . Tall and broad, muscled, tan. Eyes too blue, short ash-blond hair charmingly wavy on top. He made Julian in the hallway look like a little boy. But then, he also looked familiar, which made no sense; I would absolutely remember meeting a man this staggering.
“Trying to figure it out?” Faye asked, arching an eyebrow.
Everyone laughed, and I blushed in confusion. “Figure what out?”
“Where you know him from.”
I looked back at Theo, but I was now too embarrassed to actually see him. “Where, then?” I asked, smiling up at him gamely. “Did we go to summer camp together?”
“Nursery school,” he said, returning the smile, melting me right into my seat.
“Of course. And you never shared your toys,” I laughed.
Faye rolled her eyes. “He’s on your favorite TV show, silly.”
“You can’t be,” I said to him, genuinely surprised. “I’d remember you.”
“He’s a fringer,” Faye said.
Theo laughed easily. “I’m not on much, just filling out the parties really. I don’t even get that banner across the bottom of the telly.” He held out his thumb and forefinger and mimed his name sliding across the screen. Leaning over, he put his arm around my chair, as if pulling me in conspiratorially. He said in a stage whisper, “But it’s not like they didn’t ask me.”
I had no trouble believing that Chelsea Made had wanted young British Paul Newman for their reality show. “But it must really pay,” I blurted out.
I saw Lucy’s lip curl, but Theo just nodded. “Two thousand pounds an episode, even if you’re only on-screen for three minutes,” he said.
Callum arrived then. As he bowed to receive a teasing round of applause for his victory over the suitcase, I saw his eyes land on me, drift to the arm around my chair, follow the arm back to its owner. Theo leaned in toward me again, picking up our conversation.
“Next time you watch your favorite show, look out for the ones who show up, have a quick coffee and a gossip with one of the primaries—who pulled who at the cocktail party—then disappear. Those are the smart ones. Just collect their check and go about their normal lives.”
“Which are not at all normal, I’m guessing,” I said, leaning back in my chair, trying to open the conversation to include Callum, who’d just sat down. He didn’t look at me, though; he looked down into his drink, like it demanded his immediate and full attention.
“What’s normal?” Theo asked.
I turned back to him. “A week here and I have no idea anymore.”
He grinned. “Are we really so strange?”
I couldn’t resist smiling up at him again. After Lucy’s barbs, his warmth felt like actual heat, like turning toward the sun. But before I could answer, Callum spoke.
“We can’t seem that strange, if that’s your favorite show,” he said snarkily, fixing me with his dark eyes. “Different zoo, same animals, right?”
He and I had teased each other before, but this did not feel like that. It felt unkind, like he was calling me out. In front of everyone.
Only sarcasm could save me now. “Come on, that’s not a fair comparison,” I said, keeping my voice light. “At least zoos serve a purpose.”
Theo hooted at this, and Faye and the others laughed, too. Wine was poured, conversation resumed. But I stayed quiet. Had I imagined it? Why would Callum give me a hard time?
Turning toward him, I tried for an easy smile. “Is this the part where you tell me you’re an undercover locksmith?” I said, echoing what he’d said about me being a mechanic.
“I’m what?” he said, as if he hadn’t quite heard. He didn’t look at me but instead reached for the wine across the table.
“An undercover locksmith.”
He shrugged. “Oh, right.” Lucy nudged him to fill her glass, and he turned toward her, his back to me. A clear brush-off.
I’d done nothing, said nothing; there could only be one reason, and it stung. Callum was too embarrassed to acknowledge me as a friend, now that all his real friends were here. I was only good enough to talk to when no one else was around. When he needed my help.
I reached for my glass and took an overlarge gulp of the cold wine. I could feel the dull blush climbing up my neck, above the collar of my dress. I’d been so stupid to think that he and I had really connected. Stupid for all the things I’d accidentally revealed to him in conversation, each one presenting itself to me now, one by one, in dazzling shame: my reeking flat; my junker car; my unplanned, unpromising dissertation. The silent dysfunction of my family: dead mother, disappointed father. The first private moment we’d shared—when he’d discreetly shown me how to eat the oysters—felt excruciating to remember, now that I was sure he saw it as I did. A clear sign that I didn’t belong with his snobby, too-cool-for-fucking-London friends.
Lucy murmured something, and Callum laughed, leaning back in his chair. I wanted to catch his eye—I wanted to be wrong about everything—but he was looking down again, moving his hands around the wineglass like he was testing for cracks. Probably deep in thought about Lucy and her perfect little fawn legs. I turned fully in my chair, thinking of the bathroom, my only excuse for escape. Instead, I found Theo.
“What’re you enjoying most about Saint-Tropez?” he asked. I couldn’t tell if he was genuinely interested or just drawing me back into conversation, noticing my discomfort. Either way, it was a kindness.
“Mostly the good weather,” I said. “I can see why you all come here for Christmas.”
He nodded. “No one stays in London for the holidays. The rain washes away the Christmas spirit.”
“Even in Chelsea?”
“I can’t be arsed with all the holiday parties, honestly,” Theo said, shaking his head. “You spend too much time in Chelsea, you sort of start to lose the thread. All of SW is a bit much, isn’t it?”
I laughed. Callum looked over at the sound, as if it were disruptive.
I turned away from him, toward Theo, insulating myself with his attention. With the crush of chairs at the table, the arm of his chair overlapped with mine, and he was leaning forward on it. He was very, very close. “It is,” I agreed. “Knightsbridge and Sloane Square, especially. North London seems a little more low-key. A little more bohemian. I’ve worked with families in both places.”
“Yes, I’m sure you’re the more qualified to comment, of the two of us,” he said. “The ideal observer really. In the home but not of the home.”
“I’ve always felt like that,” I said, nodding. “Everywhere, not just tutoring.” My brain felt pleasantly fuzzy; Theo had leaned in for a moment to refill my glass, and his light citrusy cologne lingered.
“Really? I feel like a smart pretty girl can fit in anywhere. Or at least if she has a sense of humor, which you do.”
I took a sip so I wouldn’t have to speak. Was he flirting?
“So what brought you to London?” he asked.
“Technically, a master’s program. But I’ve always wanted to get to England. I was even supposed to study abroad in London when I was an undergrad. But it didn’t work out.”
“Visa issues?”
I shook my head. The reason wasn’t something I liked to remember; I certainly wasn’t going to talk about it here. “Family thing,” I said, with a dismissive wave of my wineglass.
“Well, at least you got here in the end. Is studying here much different than America?”
“It is, actually. There’s a lot more room to slack off, then panic and make it up at the end.”
“But you’d never do that,” Theo said coyly. “You’re a good student.”
I raised my eyebrows at him. “Are you so sure about that?”
“Can you be a good teacher and a bad student?”
“If anyone can, it’s me.”
“I’m glad my test-taking days are behind me,” Theo said. “Though maybe if I had a teacher like you, I’d like it.”
Definitely flirting, then. I took another sip of wine, let it cool me. “Sorry, I’m not taking on any new students at the moment.”
“A waitlist? I’m a patient man.”
“You won’t have long. I’m back to London after New Year’s.”
“That’s plenty of time. And I’m often in London for work.”
I leaned in and dropped my voice. Pulling my fingers through my hair like Lucy had, I said, “But don’t you just find London such a bore ?”
Theo tipped back in his chair, surprised, laughing heartily—long and loud enough to draw attention to us. I could feel Callum’s narrowed eyes on us. Good. He should see that Theo wasn’t too good to talk to me.
Faye smiled her catlike smile. “You two coming with us? Or shall we leave you to it?”
I performed a carefully neutral shrug. “Where to?”
“You’ll see,” Faye said, waving the waiter over for the bill. “I think it’ll be a first for you.”
Simon led us through narrow streets until the bay was in sight, Lucy leaning heavily on Callum’s arm as her heels wobbled over the cobblestones. Brightly lit boats glowed along the water. I’d been thinking of Gatsby when I arrived here, but if I was in a Fitzgerald novel now, it was probably Tender Is the Night . Young American, newly arrived in the French Riviera, seduced equally by its beauty and its beautiful people. Destined for disaster.
We stopped for a few minutes so Simon could buy a pack of cigarettes. The breeze over the water felt good, and I turned into it and felt something slip away from me.
My scarf—it was so light, almost made of wind itself. The only nice thing I owned, leaving me. But as I turned to dash after it, I saw that Theo was already there, laughing, catching it with just a few steps and the long reach of his arms.
He came back to me and made a show of draping it around my neck just so. Half joking, but he was gentle with the delicate fabric, and I could feel his hands.
“That’s better,” he said, smiling. “Isn’t she beautiful.”
I glanced across at Callum and saw he hadn’t missed it—the image such a perfect reflection of the moment we’d shared in the shop, the shopkeeper draping the scarves on me, requiring him to say that they were beautiful. It was funny. This, at least, he’d have to smile at, comment on.
But he said nothing. And his silence felt so vicious that I turned to Theo and gave him my sweetest smile. “Thank you for saving it,” I said. “I just got it. Shopping on my own, here in town,” I added, making sure Callum would hear. If he wanted to pretend that afternoon together never happened, I could, too.
Callum gave a bitter little laugh and said, “I’m sure Theo could buy you plenty more, if that’s what you’re after.”
My neck felt hot, red, and I turned away before Callum could see that his dart had landed. Like I was some gold digger following them around. Theo was already laughing it off, making a show of bowing gallantly before me. “She can have all the scarves she wants, our Anna,” he said.
The streetlamps washed the scene yellow and gold: the buildings all in shades of white and terra-cotta and pale lemon, the town of Saint-Tropez curving inward along the water, almost protectively hunched around the harbor. When Simon returned, we cut across the broad stretch of open-air cafés to the sidewalk right on the water.
Gleaming speedboats were crammed flank to flank here, nosed up to the sidewalk, bobbing eagerly at our feet as we passed. Farther down, the biggest yachts were moored: three swaying stories, gilded and glowing with light. Music pumped from the nearest one. I could see people filing on, a bouncer by the gangway checking names and plus-ones from a list. The process was a slow one; it seemed that all the women boarding had to step to the side and remove their heels, dropping them into a basket.
“You can keep yours on,” Faye said, following my eyeline. “Soft-soled shoes are allowed.”
I stopped dead. How could I be going on that yacht?
Faye was waiting for my reaction, greedy for it. I tittered nervously and said, “First time since I got here I fit the dress code.”
“I’m not sure I’d go that far,” Faye said, eyeing my faded tennis shoes. “I’ll dig around and find you some better clothes, for next time.”
When I looked back at the yacht, Lucy was leaning against the bouncer, unbuckling her heels. Callum was onboard, watching us approach. Theo stood on the short gangway, waiting for Faye and me. I could still feel his hands on my shoulders, arranging my scarf. With the bright lights of the boat behind him, he was silhouetted: a tall, broad, inviting outline, blank, completely unknown.
He said, “Aren’t you coming, Anna?”