Chapter 11 #2
He pursed his lips and shrugged a little—that French gesture for “perhaps”—as he pulled onto the road.
“The material things don’t matter. I already have those—which makes it easy not to care about them.
I don’t believe in fate, really, I believe in the practical world—and I do have women I see, on occasion, when we can fit it in.
It’s easy because we are busy, we know what we like, we don’t have children.
But I have been thinking that I would like someone to be with more regularly than that.
And then, there you were. In the square. ”
He tapped his signet ring on the gear shift. The muscles in his forearm moved.
“You barely know me.”
“I know enough to be interested. You are, how you say, refreshing. You are real. And my instincts are good.”
“I’m flattered,” she said. Never in a million years had she thought someone like him would be interested in her.
“Ah,” he said, voice velvety and low, “there is a but.”
“I think it’s better if we stay friends for now. It’s just, I have so much going on.”
He nodded, with a half-sad smile. “I will respect your wishes, of course. Still, let me take you to Vittel. For fun. My treat.”
They pulled up a circular drive to the spa: a formidable art deco building whose front doors were flanked by fountains.
A valet opened Guillaume’s door, allowed him to open Marlow’s, then took the car to park it.
Marlow gazed up at the grand, arched mosaic entrance and instantly worried about being dressed for the hardware store.
They stepped into the spa’s grand hall: tall, arched, mosaic tiled ceilings, columns, giant windows giving onto the sunshine and forest beyond.
Guillaume signed them up at the front desk, for what, she had no clue, but she was going along with it.
He went into the gift shop and bought them both bathing suits.
They were given fluffy white bathrobes with sandals and a pile of clean towels.
She was already in heaven, and they hadn’t even had a treatment yet.
They went into separate bathrooms, got changed, and emerged into a large shower room, jets everywhere.
Officially, she kept her eyes firmly on the mosaic tiles but stole a couple of glances at Guillaume.
His body boggled the mind in swim trunks—even better than when she had discovered him doing push-ups in pajamas.
He had a different physique from Luc—solid.
Sturdy. Capable. His hero-worthy six-pack made her wonder if this excursion might lead to something else.
There was a five-star hotel as part of the spa complex—the likely insane cost of a room there wouldn’t even make Guillaume think twice.
If he proposed such a thing, she’d be hard-pressed to say no.
Unexpected things were happening this summer, and she was doing a better job than usual rolling with them. Why not wherever this was going, too?
They moved to a steam room scented with eucalyptus.
Marlow stretched out on a bench. The heat and humidity felt good on her sore muscles.
Maison Perdue was slowly making progress.
She and Sabine were eating simply: baguette and cheese during the day, chicken, potatoes, salad at night.
The daily walk down to the boulangerie to buy the baguette suited her, too.
The owner, Corinne, knew her now, and made pleasantries despite Marlow’s halting French.
That half-hour each morning was time she did not have in Toronto.
There, she slathered toast with no-name peanut butter and held it between her teeth as she rode to the festival office, navigating between cars with drivers checking texts, delivery trucks, cops ticketing people.
Here, she emerged from her house—her house!
—left the door unlocked, and walked down the old Mirabelle stone steps to get bread, gazing over the mist settling in pockets of the valley below.
Marlow turned onto her stomach and melted into the sauna’s hot wood, her mind drifting to a video she’d posted last summer of a neighbor’s garden.
They had two children who’d built a tiny village with their toys amidst the decorative grasses.
With no concern for size, proportion, or what belonged together, they’d made a magical enclave about a foot in diameter.
A superhero in a doll’s dress stood next to a purple house beneath a polka-dot mushroom.
Plastic farm animals grazed nearby, one in a cowboy hat, another adorned in plastic jewelry.
On a miniature picnic table lay four peanuts.
A sign affixed to a chopstick stuck in the ground pointed to “Enchanted Land, 12640000 miles this way.” The display was surrounded by a circle of rocks on top of which were scattered fake jewels.
Marlow had gotten onto her stomach to capture the scene.
Just then, a squirrel darted to the picnic table and shoved the peanuts into his cheeks before darting off again.
She could not believe she’d caught it. She put it through a dreamy filter on IG and posted it.
Maybe she was in Enchanted Land right now.
“Ready?” Guillaume asked. They donned their bathrobes and slippers and made their way to a salon where they were offered a fruit plate and herbal tea.
Outside, they took a boardwalk through lush gardens and tall grasses to a jacuzzi. They were alone, surrounded only by the sound of rustling leaves.
“It’s good, no?” was all he said, stepping in.
She nodded, getting in, too. The water swirled around them until an attendant came by to say that their couple’s massage was ready.
Guillaume was about to correct his assumption, but Marlow put her hand on his forearm to say it was OK. His skin was warm to the touch.
They went into separate cubicles to take off their suits, and in their robes entered a dimly lit room with two massage tables, a foot apart.
They each got under a sheet, not making eye contact.
She felt shy. Two massage therapists entered and worked on them in tandem.
Marlow tried very hard not to imagine Guillaume naked beneath the sheet beside her. It wasn’t working.
Back at Maison Perdue, Sabine and Aubin yanked up orange shag carpet, rolling it in pieces, tying it with string, and carrying it down to the Nenier dumpsters.
Was she really going to do this—text her absentee father, the famous filmmaker who Aubin seemed to know even better than she did?
She hadn’t even seen all his movies. The notion of thinking he was a great anything—great guy, great filmmaker—would be a transgression in her house.
Mostly, he was irrelevant, so it was weird that Sabine wanted to see him.
She felt like she didn’t recognize herself in many ways at the moment. Maybe that was a good thing.
On their last trip down the steps, Aubin pulled out his car key to head home.
They stood under the sunset sky. Houses were starting to light up.
“If you could give me a hotspot,” she said on impulse, “I think I will text my father. You’re right, my mother doesn’t have to know. But he probably won’t answer.”
Aubin nodded, understanding the import of the moment. He did as he was told.
Sabine: Hey Dad.
No, she couldn’t call him that. Technically he was her dad, but he’d been pretty much an epic fail at that and could not live up to the name in any way. Delete, delete.
Sabine: Sabine here. Your daughter.
Too dumb. He knew who she was. Delete, delete.
Sabine: Hey. Sabine here. Mum and I are in France on holiday. I was thinking of coming into Paris for the day. Wondered if you were around. If not, np.
Aubin was right. What was the worst that could happen? Yves might ignore her. He might even reject her. She could take it. She pressed send before she could talk herself out of it.
“You’re braver than I thought,” he said.
“You’re more of a jerk than I thought,” she said back, smiling.
She stared at her phone. Nothing. She was crestfallen—ridiculous. She’d just told herself not to go there.
“See you tomorrow?” he asked.
“Yep. Safe drive back.”
And then, her cell phone pinged. She read the text. Her breath caught in her throat. “He said come! Now what?”
“Now we go to Paris.”
After the massage, Guillaume had more treatments lined up involving hot stones and reflexology and other luxurious things.
Marlow tried to protest—they really ought to get back—but she gave up almost immediately.
Truth was, she wished all this pampering would never end.
So she texted Luc and Sabine that they should knock off early, and that she wouldn’t be home for dinner.
When the treatments were finally done, and Marlow felt so relaxed she thought she might melt into the floor, they made their way to the dining room. It had tall, grand windows giving onto the surrounding countryside, marble columns decorated all gold and white, and a fresco ceiling.
Dinner was out of this world. Impeccable service, candlelight, and the food, the food!
It was the sort of meal that started with appetizers of a single enormous scallop on a giant white plate with a divine sauce drizzled over it.
Her mouth died of happiness, and it just got better from there.
The main course was a filet mignon, rare, two potatoes, and four string beans tied together in a bundle with something fancy and edible.
Guillaume chose the courses and paired the wines. For him to take care of all the details and not make a big deal of it … in Marlow’s life, she was the organizer, the planner. Here, she barely even cared about her outfit. Somehow, he made her feel as if she fit right in.
They talked about their lives—where they’d come from, where they were going.
Guillaume travelled once a month to the United States, where he was working on distribution networks for Fortin wines.
He was contemplating a partnership with a winery in California, and if they did that, he’d likely spend half the year there and half the year here.