Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
I n the morning, all I want to do is remain in my bed, but I resort to freshening up with another shower and getting back to the regularly scheduled programming: au pairing and Conseils work.
When I open the en suite door, a cream-coated face stares back at me with frenzied eyes. I jump back, stifling a scream.
“A-Angela. Is everything ok?—”
“Pas du tout,” she whisper yells. Underneath the cream, her face is pinched in anger.
I grip the towel wrapped around my torso, the condensated shower steam on my shoulders still fresh.
Angela points her index finger at me. “Reste loin de lui.”
“Stay away from who?” Of course I know who, but I want to hear her say it. I cross my arms, not letting her win this one.
“I saw you on the stairs last night.”
I should’ve known those beady eyes had been watching us, even in pitch black. And I hope to goodness one of her spying cronies hadn’t followed Jamie and me to the Vigne. If I were responsible for outing his secret, I’m certain he’d never look my way again.
“Don’t lie to me.” Her pursing lip begins to tremble. She may be Angela Lavergne Chessley, European fashion guru, but she’s also a mother.
My voice reciprocates her hoarseness. “Look. I’m not here to get in the way?—”
“Bien. Then you’re not to speak another word to him this summer.”
“Not even a bonjour?”
“Not even a bonsoir.”
I bite my inner cheek and cross my arms. Normally, I’d just swallow the instruction, but Kat McLauren is not a doormat. “Or what?”
“If this is your true character, I’m sure Howie would like to know before he makes any mistakes.”
My tensed shoulders surrender, and a satisfied grin makes cracks in Angela’s hardened face mask. I agree to her demands with a bowed head and a “bien.” She swipes her satin robe off the floor and disappears down the hall while I clench the ends of my towel. The ten plus years I’ve spent pining after Young Soarers cannot and will not be tossed aside because I can’t keep my emotions in check, as much as it aches me to bear it.
* * *
It could’ve been easy to forget my responsibilities with the kids after the emotional tornado battering inside me. If anything, though, resuming au pair duties is the perfect antidote for dismantling whatever last night was.
Also needing a topic for this week’s Le Journal de Kat , I draw on Estelle’s recommendation to visit her at the Matisse Gallery. After a small chat with Sylvie about how delicious the croissants were this morning and hurrying the kids through breakfast—because I didn’t care to take my chances with running into Jamie—the kids and I take the little train from the top of èze village across the mountains and into Nice.
In the few moments where Milo isn’t attached to my hip on board, asking me to name every US state capital, I dive straight into editing the next batch of Conseils videos. Solange and I decided to pair them with articles and must-see lists from the magazine issues, meaning most turned into short travel guides with music overlays and a documentarist flair.
The electric train lightly sways my body side to side as I watch the footage on my laptop, chopping out any moment where the kids’ faces appear. We’ve been nearly everywhere from here to Cannes in the past few weeks. The B-roll whisks me back to the gelato shop downtown with its freshly mopped floors and plentiful tubs of swirled dessert. One clip of Jamie mimicking an abstract bird statue makes me snort so hard that I smash my palm over my mouth.
Manon furrows her brow at me but continues listening to her music.
I readjust my own earbud and immerse myself in our day trip through the vibrantly clean streets of Monaco. It’s as pristine as a movie set. At the roundabout in front of the sun-washed casino, I relive when we had taken lunch outside at the Café de Paris. Besides a few clips of our French onion soups, Jamie had managed to catch me looking rather posh like Audrey Hepburn with my top bun, cat-eye sunglasses, and cherry lipstick. He’d swayed me to give a few elegant kisses to the camera and bashful side glances. The camera stayed on me a few seconds longer than I thought, even after playtime was over.
Editing together pieces of footage was an elixir I hadn’t yet tasted, though it was quickly growing on me. There’s an intriguing wonder in everyday travels and a soothing cadence in the Riviera’s lackadaisical rhythm. There’s the foreign aspects—the snail appetizers and nude beachgoers. Then there’s the universal bits—babies giggling and palm leaves bristling. The way the day welcomes an electric coral sunrise and bids farewell with a cotton-candy sunset. While its visitors and residents flock to the shores in the morning, evening is where the true magic happens, revelry bursting from the lamplit stone cottages and stuccoed villas tucked in the mountainside.
Before I finish the clip from an olive oil shop’s tasting event, the train halts at our stop, giving us just a few minutes to deboard. It serves me right for thinking I’d get much done on a route that gets us to the museum in less than twenty minutes. Now I understand Estelle’s impatience for us to visit.
Sitting flat on a platform a few hundred feet above sea level, a blood-orange building is surrounded by stately manicured hedges and rose bushes. It’s three stories tall, though the top floor is decidedly four window lengths shorter than the two wider floors below it. In its entirety, the museum is a symmetrical melody, and the attention to detail on its exterior can only hint of the immaculate artwork inside.
The kids and I are greeted at the front desk, where Estelle holds out her arms for hugs and kisses. In her multicolored shawl, she nearly blends in with the painting hanging behind her. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the ecru-white walls fixated with miniature spotlights over an array of paintings. The air conditioning adds a nice touch though.
As we set off through the gallery’s many halls, Estelle wags her finger at the kids. “Remember. Ne touchez pas.”
Estelle links arms with me as we walk into a room dominated by vibrant paper cutouts in all shapes and sizes.
I’m surprised the kids have gone this long without needing to take a seat or have a snack, and one particular painting catches their attention. It’s a floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall piece made up of blue, pink, green, and yellow cut-out flowers, almost like mosaic tiling. Manon challenges her brother and sister to see who can count them the fastest. Her siblings accept, leaving Estelle and I to take a seat on one of the leather ottomans in the room’s center.
I suck in my lips and pretend to admire the collection while Estelle not so subtly examines my face.
“You look different,” she says abruptly, her comment skirting the line between compliment and observation.
“Thank you?”
“France has been good to you.” Estelle leans an elbow on her thigh and maintains her googly gaze through those thick-rimmed square glasses.
Has it? Right now I’m one glance away from being strangled in my sleep by a delirious host mother who’s ready to chuck my career plans down the toilette if I even think about saying bonjour to her eldest.
“Must be the sun,” I joke. “All that vitamin D.”
“Peut-être. That’s part of it. But you look... je ne sais pas.”
“I’m sure it’s the sun,” I reaffirm. It has nothing to do with Conseils or Damien... or Jamie.
Estelle shakes her head, her chunky dragonfly earrings bouncing side to side. “I knew,” she says, toggling her finger from her chest to me, “you were going to be a difficult case.”
Ah, the French bluntness again. It never gets old.
Estelle chuckles, bobbing her pixie cut up and down. “It was written in your face, of course. In your shoulders,” she says, scrunching up her own to ear level. “And now look at you, totally relaxed, and the kids aren’t running away on you.”
She’s right on that front. Some things certainly have improved. Now that I’m on Manon’s better side, I just might make it through the rest of this summer with flying colors—at least with the kids. Angela is a different story.
“You know,” Estelle continues. “Everywhere I go, people are talking about Conseils .”
“Good or bad?” I sense my shoulder blades squeezing upward.
Estelle rests her hand on my forearm. “Excellente. Even my neighbors read it every week, and they’ve lived here for fifty years. You look surprised. Pourquoi?” Estelle nods to the blush swelling in my cheeks.
“It still feels so strange,” I confess. That people are reading my work. Caring.
“Well of course.” Estelle turns toward me. “Anything new takes a bit of... comment tu dis... breaking in.”
The shuffled footsteps and murmurings around us fade as my ears hear only Estelle.
“When I met you, I couldn’t see the glow in your eyes as I do now. And I hope you don’t ever lose it.”
Many factors could be at play, and I internally analyze them. Conquering my initial au pair screwups, impressing my future boss, growing feelings for someone, and reveling in creative pursuits.
I sigh. Estelle tilts her head.
“It’s just... I didn’t come here to go soul-searching.”
“Well, too bad. Because your soul found you.” Estelle nods assuredly. “The journey is yours to take. Maybe Conseils is your first step, hmm?”
She doesn’t get it. The world doesn’t work like that. As much as I’d like to claim myself a full-time artiste , I can’t just dive into it without an income yet.
“Henri.” Estelle gestures to Matisse’s works and sculptures peppered around the room. “He was set to be a lawyer until his mother gifted him painting supplies. He fell in love with the craft.”
“Lucky him,” I mumble a bit bitterly.
Estelle laughs. “You think it was easy? Look around. This is only a sample of his many expressions. He followed the spark.” Estelle gestures around the room. “Why else would thousands come to see this place every year?”
By this point, the kids have ceased their counting competition, with Milo beating out his sisters much to Manon’s annoyance. Estelle and I decide to end the tour here while they’re mildly even-tempered.
On our way toward the exit, one painting I had brushed past initially now catches my eye. “Joy of Life (Le Bonheur de Vivre)” is engraved on a gilded placard. More than ten minimally outlined human figures dance and sprawl themselves out in the nude, surrounded by washes of orange, coral, and jade oil on canvas. An uncontrollable smile appears on my face as a blissful sensation runs from the crown of my head to my toes.
Manon, Josie, and Milo burst outside through the glass entrance doors, chasing each other into the garden hedges.
Estelle waves me off and says, “Ne peigne pas la girafe, Kat.”
Don’t comb the giraffe?
Before I can question her further, she walks off to guide a new set of tourists through the gallery. She discreetly points to one of the women in the group who has a rolled-up copy of Conseils wedged into a pocket in her backpack.