Chapter 3
Chapter Three
O f course, these are my options. After dashing off the plane and toward the nearest souvenir shop in the terminal to replace the juice-stained T-shirt clinging to my lower back, I came upon the only remaining tops in my size—because I wasn’t going to be one of those people flinging open my suitcase in the middle of an airport, giving every passenger, pilot, and air steward the pleasure of gawking at my pink zebra print underwear. (Don’t judge. They’re comfy!) Hence, why I’ll either have to sport a France national team soccer jersey with a cobalt rooster or a see-through white tank with a big old croissant etched over the chest. I choose the former.
After collecting the rest of my luggage from baggage claim, I rather efficiently field a swarm of texts from Mom, answering in the shortest sentences possible now that I’ve reclaimed service.
I take a moment to drink in the scene. It’s funny. Back in Boston, people’s foreheads would be frozen in strain as they quicken their pace from the parking lot to the Dunkin line to their gate. Here, a lackadaisical calm washes over most travelers, more interested in laughing while consuming café au laits at the bistro than they are in retrieving their bags. It’s a symphony of sorts. The clinking of espresso cups, each couple or trio in their own conversation vacuum, completely indifferent to time.
Bathing my ears in the French chitter-chatter passing by, I take momentary respite in the lyrical rhythm of the Romance language, dropping my shoulders to take full advantage of the soccer jersey’s airy, moisture-wicking material.
Sticking with this might not be so bad after all.
But let’s hope to high heavens I didn’t just jinx the crap out of myself.
At the exit, floor-to-ceiling glass walls herald in the bright summer light. And though a kiosk selling fresh boules and pastries attempts to steal my attention, my buzzing phone alerts me that my Uber will leave in two minutes if I don’t get a move on.
Outside, the sunshine paints my cheeks as a salty ocean breeze brushes against regal palm trees lining the street before kissing my bare neck. It’s like an elixir. Like the place warps time and space completely. The air, balmy and soft, coats every inch of my skin like a waterless bath. In my daze, I locate my driver’s license plate among the line of rideshare pickups and greet him with a nod and a bonjour as he loads my luggage into the trunk of the Porsche. Not too shabby, huh?
His eyes go to crescents as he opens the side door and gestures for me to slide in.
I can tell by the way he’s arranged a plethora of guide maps in the back seat pockets that he’s one of those that panders to visitors. His wide belly and plump, round face are as welcoming and gentle as the sunshine. But the second he starts the car and the engine rumbles, my calm is broken. He, along with the other French drivers, floors it out of the airport car park. My palms grow increasingly sweaty. My left hand grips the seat belt, and the right takes hold of the paper map.
We ascend rolling green hills peppered with charming villas to the left and an oceanside cliff to the right. If he took a hard break, we’d surely go flying off the road and down hundreds of feet. Hard to appreciate the cobalt waters when they could be my gravesite at any second. But his driving eases as we take to a more residential route.
I peel the map off my hand, glued on by sweat.
The driver looks through the rearview mirror.
“Fran?ais?” he asks.
“N-no.”
His smile is gentle. A few crease lines decorate his forehead, no doubt enhanced by years spent in a place like this, where the beaming sun and alluring seaside beckon the coastal residents outside every second of the day. He seems nice enough, but that doesn’t stop me from hovering my thumb over the “track my ride” button. Precautions have to be taken.
I fumble around in my backpack for my Canon and snap a few wide shots of the transfixing landscape before us.
“Photographe? Photo taker?” The half-balding driver makes an imaginary camera with his hands, but I wish he’d put them back on the wheel.
I shrug. “Sort of. Not really.”
Who am I to say without a credit to my name? My stomach tenses as I look at my camera.
“Américaine?” he asks.
I only nod. He doesn’t need to know more than that.
“Summer vacation?” His accent is thick as peanut butter, but it’s understandable.
“Something like that.”
“No better place than C?te d’Azur.”
I examine the paper map once. In the twenty-five minutes it takes to complete the nineteen kilometer trek to èze, we transition from a mini highway tucked in the shrub-covered mountains to more residential lanes overlooking the city of Nice and the verdant Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat peninsula. The driver points to various locales to our right. I feel the blood drain from my face as I see his gaze stray from the curving road in front of us. A two-foot stone wall separates us from impending doom, but as if he has eyes around his entire head, he spins the wheel at the perfect moment to keep in his lane.
A deep sigh departs from my upper body, my shoulders slumping back into the seat. I figure I might as well try to relax. I feel like Mom, always on pins and needles.
I shake my head, as if brushing off the bad juju I’m lugging around. Out the window and down the hill, one side of Nice is packed with apartment buildings, where locals decorate balconies with potted plants and the blue, white, and red-striped French flag. The other side of town is just as dense, but the sun-baked, weather-beaten terra-cotta roofs echo a longer history. Most buildings take on a washed yellow hue, almost glittering in the sun. There is an energy, a liveliness, one can feel even from hundreds of kilometers above. The entirety of the view is breathtaking, captivating. It’s imperceptible where sky ends and ocean begins.
The roads we drive along are no less hypnotizing. Traditional brown stone cottages with lavender shutters dot the green ridges to my left alongside modern stucco French villas. Stacked stone walls hug the narrowing road like bookends, keeping the hills upright.
In the last twenty minutes, my once-tense body has loosened. My palms, once sweaty, have dried. It doesn’t bother me—as much—that Antoine, the driver, barely evades dinging the motorcycles parked along the skinnying roads as he unfolds almost his entire family’s history. How his parents, aunts, and uncles owned a vineyard a few miles north of Nice before Antoine’s immediate family relocated to èze where he and his wife opened a wine store.
La Cave. In English, The Cellar. Pronounced like cah-ve as Antoine instructs.
He offers to stop and show me, promising a few samples. I shake my head and politely decline. The family would be expecting me soon and—the family! I must’ve thrown all common sense of cordiality out the window. A gift. I didn’t bring a gift. Do I need to bring a gift? Even if it’s a terrible one, isn’t it the thought that counts? I allow Antoine to take the detour, hoping he’ll be able to guide my decision as to what’s appropriate and what’s not.
Soon, we make it to the main village in èze a few miles north of the beaches, and it’s so unlike what I’ve seen thus far. Here, flowering vines coat stone buildings sandwiched between tight and narrow cobblestone paths. It’s quieter than Nice, but no less lively. It harkens to a place where toddlers take their first steps in the same spots as their great-great-great-grandmothers. The brochure highlights its medieval roots, but that’s not to say the population is without the modern conveniences of pharmacies and real estate offices.
Antoine pulls to the side of the road, where a cluster of cars are parked.
Wind bouncing off the ocean cascades up the foothills and intoxicates my being. It’s like it could lift me up and let me float for a little while.
He points up an inclined pedestrian street lined with shops displaying anything from fresh-picked citrus to handmade jewelry. Each of the doors is only a foot taller than my 5’2” stature. Conversations mull at the quaint outdoor cafés, where the paths widen just enough to fit six square tables. The crunch and savory scent of crusty bread makes my mouth water and my stomach rumble. I follow my guide past an ice cream shop selling hand-spun gelato and novelty dessert. While the pistachio cream and its biscotti crumble topping tempts me, the shop to the right wrangles my attention.
Peering through its window latticed with iron rods, I notice it’s the only darkened store in the lane. The paint on the sign above the doorway is faded and chipped. Once bright dandelion-yellow letters signal a librairie . I’m guessing bookstore, given that librería in Spanish means the same. I squint a bit harder through the clouded glass. Empty ivory bookshelves line the walls. Tables in the center host cardboard boxes full of books collecting dust.
Do people not read anymore?
A red sign with white lettering plastered across the wooden door reads a vendre . I glance through the windows once more, imagining what must have once been a homely enterprise, a local’s favorite. But I soon realize, someone’s in there. A petite woman with frizzy brown hair lugs a few more boxes out of a back room. She heaves them on a central table, sighs, then sees me staring right at her, her forehead wrinkling.
Antoine mumbles something to me, pointing to a few doors up the street, and I break my stare with the woman in the bookstore. He holds his belly as he ducks into La Cave.
Hardly any sunshine sneaks in through the windowless storefront. The warm orange light painting the wooden bottle racks and stacked stone walls makes it seem like it’s perpetually 8 p.m. Antoine greets his family with boisterous shouts, hugs, and cheek kisses. He introduces me to his wife Marie and their daughter Emilie—Emi.
“Tu rentres t?t,” Marie claims, adjusting her oval glasses.
“Oui, Papa. You said you wouldn’t be back until dinner,” Emi adds, carrying a wooden crate with clinking wine bottles.
Antoine gestures to me standing in the doorway. “Ah, but we have a spéciale request.” He says something in his wife’s ear who immediately casts an endearing, honest smile and officially welcomes me inside.
While Antoine’s and Marie’s accents are thick like pea soup, Emi, who happens to be my age, speaks English as clearly as if she grew up in the States.
And it turns out, she did. Well, from ninth through twelfth grade, she tells me. Turns out her mother wanted her to have wide-open options and that having English—much as she wanted Emi to keep her French heritage at the forefront—would put more opportunities on her path. Thoughtful.
Emi takes my arm and walks with me around the shop like she’s known me her whole life.
“So what do you think?” Her accent hasn’t escaped completely.
I wriggle my brow.
Emi expounds. “France, the Riviera, èze?”
“Oh, it’s beautiful.” I stop myself from saying bonita or preciosa. “How do you say it in?—”
“ Magnifique .” She smiles. Her bobbing auburn ponytail mirrors the bounciness in her voice. “Come, you have to try.” Emi gestures to the twelve-foot-tall racks along the wall. My eyes trail to the deep cherry-red cabernet sauvignon from Bordeaux to the dusty pink rosé from Provence. But then I realize it’s 10 a.m., and I’m meeting the host family in under an hour.
Shaking my head, I profess, “Oh no, I couldn’t. I can’t.”
“But you wouldn’t know if it’s good or absolute merde .”
I scratch my temple. “I didn’t think you’d sell err... merde... here.”
“Well, what’s merde to me might be orgasmique to someone else. That’s why you have to try it.”
She’s got me there.
Antoine chats up his wife while Emi pours me more than a hefty sample for me, then her. A pinot noir from Burgundy. I follow her lead as she swirls her glass and sticks her nose to the wine, inhaling aggressively before taking a sip. Silky, delicate, light-bodied, not too sweet.
Emi places a few pieces of dark chocolate, nuts, and cheese cubes on the counter and urges me to pair it with the wine. The flavors explode on my tongue, the accoutrements unmasking notes imperceptible on the first sip.
“You like?”
I nod, and we chat about our school history. Me, a marketing graduate. She, finishing her teaching degree in the next year. She fills me in on èze’s top boulangerie and what time to get there for the best selection. Her aunt and uncle on her mother’s side are florists with a storefront two doors down. They have the very best selection of pink carnations and tulips.
I tell her briefly about my time in Spain. My tone doesn’t venture beyond frank in my recollection. Not all study abroad semesters are coated in whimsy when you spend eighty percent of the time in textbooks instead of backpacking the European Union.
Emi tilts her head. “So who are you staying with? Friends? Friends of your family?”
“I’m an au pair.” A heavy weight drops in my stomach. The fact hasn’t yet sunk in.
When I ask Emi about the closed bookshop I had passed just moments before, she swats her hand as if it’s pointless to inquire. She hesitates saying more, and just as I am about to press her further on it, Antoine’s voice bellows from the other side of the shop, bounding around the echoey stone walls.
Turning around to see what’s causing the commotion, my eyes land on him .
The words “future husband” flash inside my brain while an explosive hormonal supernova crashes through my body.
For anyone who’s ever denied instant attraction, they’re either virgins of it or resentful liars. I don’t know what it is about this guy. Sure, he’s objectively—and most definitely subjectively—attractive. I do have a thing for tall, averagely muscular men wearing crewnecks and not-too-tight joggers. And his sun-kissed, wavy hair wrapped in a low bun only bolsters his grounded aura. He opens his suntanned arms wide, greeting Antoine and his wife as if he’s known them all his life.
Emi catches me mid-stare, and she nudges my elbow. I can’t help it. Nor can I help my palms going a bit sweaty and the giddy vibrations trembling in my throat.
It’s the same feeling I’ve gotten while making eye contact with some guy at the gym and spending the entire forty-five minutes of my workout wondering if he’s looking back at me. It’s like a pop song. He likes me. No he doesn’t. Yes he does. But it only ends in mystery as we hop off the treadmills and go about our daily lives. If I was a more experienced flirt, maybe some of these exchanges would have turned into a string of dates. But, alas, I haven’t dedicated as many hours to flirting practice as I have to becoming a straight-A student. I don’t know what’s worse, my lack of romantic experience or the fact that I’ll have to admit that to someone at almost twenty-three years of age.
The heat in my cheeks spreads to my neck and collarbone as Emi pulls me over to him.
“Bonjour, cousine ,” Emi says to him.
He reciprocates her greeting, and they kiss each other’s cheeks.
Cousin? Did she say cousin?
As he peels his face back, his eyes trail to mine. In case the light in here isn’t dim enough to hide the crimson skin splotches burning along my chest and up my cheeks, I twist my in-need-of-a-good-shower fishtail braid down my chest.
“Bonjour,” he says to me. His smooth voice scalds my skin.
Get it together, Kat.
I clear my throat and stick out my hand, awaiting his. “Kat McLauren.”
He and Emi sneak a smile to each other.
“Kat,” Emi says. “You’re in France. Give Jamie a kiss.”
I take a sharp breath. “A... uh...”
Jamie’s smile diffuses to a chuckle.
“It’s okay, Em.” When he drops the French, his accent doesn’t match Emi’s. He’s English. Of course. The kryptonite of all accents. “Jamie Chessley, pleasure to meet you.” He shakes my hand.
Hope you like sweaty palms, Jamie .
“So who’s your pick? Griezmann? Giroud?”
He notices my scrunched brow and points to the—unintentional—conversation starter I’m wearing. I look down at the jersey.
“Kat’s going to be an au pair,” Emi says proudly, latching her arm in mine.
Jamie raises his eyebrows. Is that good? Bad? I can’t tell.
“I wonder if it’s the Savoy family or the Blanchets.” Emi taps her chin.
Jamie looks at me. “You don’t know?”
I shake my head and pull out the picture of the little cottage the company provided. I pepper in some details like length of stay—two months—and number of kids—three.
Examining the photo, neither Emi nor Jamie seem to recognize the house surrounded by grasslands and deduce it be farther out from the coast, possibly closer to La Turbie or Peillon.
I’m about to show them that the address line still says èze, but I become distracted by Jamie’s sudden proximity. His forearm rests close to mine as he examines the sparse au pair reference materials. Antoine catches my attention, nodding toward the entrance. His parking meter is almost up, meaning I have a few moments to pick out a wine for the family I know nothing about, but Jamie avails to help as Emi greets incoming customers.
“Looking for anything in particular?” Jamie asks as we peruse the stacks of bottles arranged by region.
“Something that says I’m not cheap but I also won’t be a kiss-up and spend a fortune on something you’re probably gonna cook with anyway.”
He smiles and points to a few options. His hands look to be stained by something red, like strawberry juice.
“Why are you in France?” I realize this comes out blunt and abrupt, but his brimming smile tells me he doesn’t mind. “I mean, you don’t sound like you’re from here. What brings you to èze?”
“Family. This is where we holiday. Every summer ever since I was a lad... My mum loves this one.” Jamie picks up a 2015 pinot noir. “So why did you decide to give up your summer to babysit?”
“Wow, right for the jugular, huh?” I smile playfully and relay my postponed career start.
The more we talk, the calmer I feel, my nerves melting away, unwinding the knots in my shoulders.
“I take it back,” he says. “That’s genius.”
“What about you? What do you do?”
“Hmm, how do I know you’re not some reporter incognito?”
“Oh, so you’re that important?” The corners of my mouth rise with my lifted brows.
Either I’m reading way too far into this or there is definitely a vibe here.
Jamie’s reciprocated and pearly smile makes my diaphragm swell. “Baker by night and sometimes day. But don’t tell my parents.”
“I know what you mean,” I say, brushing my fingers against the cool glass bottles, thinking of the half-finished documentaries on Cape Cod summers and New England epicureanism sitting in my Google Drive that I don’t dare share with Mom again. I’ve been down that road before. And it only ended with her warning I’d be a “starving artist” and me slamming my bedroom door in her face.
“Seriously.” The enthusiasm drains from his cheeks.
Marie waves to Jamie, gathering his attention. “Prends cette caisse,” she says, pointing to a wood pallet crate housing at least fifty pounds of wine sitting in crinkle-cut packing paper. A tag tied with twine to the handle reads “Chateau Vigne d’Argent.”
Jamie lifts the crate and nods to the doorway. “C’mon,” he says to me. “I’ll walk you out if you’d like.”
After gesturing to the bottle in my hands, I scurry around my purse for the euros I’d collected before leaving the states. “I just have to...”
“Don’t worry about it,” Jamie says.
Does he have a running tab with this place? What gives him such special treatment, besides being Emi’s cousin? Marie waves us off as she attends to the customers talking her daughter’s ear off. Emi prances over to the door just as Jamie and I are about to leave.
“Come back as much as you like,” she says to me. “I desperately need a friend who hasn’t run off for the summer.”
Jamie and I make our way out of the musky wine cellar and into the narrow, winding cobblestone streets. Not a hint of sunlight brushes our skin until we make it to the overlook at the end of the road. The view seizes my attention. It looks like half the world is before me with a sapphire-blue ocean stretching from east to west. Sailboats dot the rugged yet lush coastline. Though inhabited, nature still exerts its domain here.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I say, holding up the bottle.
“I didn’t.” I straighten my spine at his response. “Your first bottle’s free now that you’re basically a family friend. Antoine must’ve liked something about you to bring you in.”
I feel Jamie’s eyes on me as I examine my feet scuffing the pavement.
“So, Kat from Boston. If you’re not too busy at that cottage with the kids?—”
“Emi is just a hop, skip, and a jump away. Yup, I got that.” I smile while one tugs at his own lips. The warmth encroaches again. This time, starting in my lower back.
“And when you’re done visiting Emi, I work up there,” Jamie says, nodding his head. “In the restaurant. Chateau Vigne d’Argent.”
I look over my shoulder. Up a stone staircase on the edge of the slopes sits a hotel made of the same medieval rock in the street, save for the terra-cotta roofing. Square windows decorated with pastel blue shutters give way to the cascading overlook. A terrace with tables and umbrellas closest to the slopes’ edge enjoys the brilliant view as well.
“I’m usually the third-shift pastry chef, but I’ve been picking up some day shifts.”
“Lucky we ran into each other then,” I say, my neck and face warming.
“Sure is. Like fate.” He grins. “Come by for some coffee and dessert anytime.”
I hope to goodness the sun masks my tomato-red cheeks. He probably doesn’t mean it to be anything more than good manners. Like the wine. It’s customary. I force myself to look into his electric emerald eyes for more than two milliseconds and give him a polite smile. If I’ve learned anything from four years at business school, it’s how to maintain eye contact and give a firm handshake, even when every insecurity inside me is screaming not to give away something so precious, so vulnerable.
The luminosity in his eyes fades when I tell him, “Maybe. If time allows,” in the most procedurally formal voice I can drum up. Pushing his mouth into a half smile, he nods and waves bonjour to me as I spin around and make my way to meet Antoine in the car park.
I doubt I’ll actually ever see Jamie again this summer. How can I when I’ll be chin-deep in au pairing three children in a foreign country without knowing a single person besides my new acquaintances Emi and Antoine? My jam-packed resume still desperately needs this summer to go well if I’m going to guarantee myself a spot in the Young Soarers with Continental Air. I won’t get distracted just because I have the hots for someone. Besides, Jamie would find out eventually what a fraud I am. What would he think once he knows I’m essentially Drew Barrymore in Never Been Kissed ? For now, it’s better to focus on what I know best: relentlessly brownnosing my newest employer.