Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Luc drove from Sylvain’s place through farm country against a blue-black sky, except for the occasional light in a house or bar in the middle of nowhere. Marlow sat, mushrooms cradled in her lap in a tea cloth, window down, feeling the breeze on her face.
Around nine o’clock, they arrived at a medieval village called Montsouris-le-Petit.
It was the same size as Mirabelle, perched on a hill.
In the square, a vegetable store was still open, its owner sitting on the step, drinking a glass of wine.
At the restaurant, people ate outside. A wine seller was still open, too, bottles nestled in hay in crates, chatting on her phone.
“They have cell service,” said Marlow.
“Yes, they pushed until the fonctionnaire forced the internet company to install it.”
They walked up a street to an old manor lit by gas lights in the street.
“Montsouris was in the same state as Mirabelle five years ago,” said Luc. “This is my friend Camille’s hotel. It was about to go under. Most of the people had left, and the town was dying. The hotel had been in her family for a hundred years, and she couldn’t bear to have it close.”
“What did she do?”
“Camille’s family spends summers in Italy, and that’s where she saw a new kind of hotel that has become popular there–the albergo diffuso.
A scattered hotel. People in the community come together and make the hotel.
Homeowners offer rooms. The restaurants take part.
Locals who have skills to share teach guests—give them an experience—like learning how to make local food, tend to a vineyard, weave, make shoes from a pattern.
She thought it could save her village. And it did.
She did. Now it gets reviewed in travel magazines all over the world.
Camille’s chef, Manon, was friends with my mother.
She is the one who asked me for mushrooms.”
They stepped inside the hotel front hall. He rang the bell. A woman in her forties with long, silky hair in a braid, a flowing dress, and sandals came from the back and kissed Luc on both cheeks. This was Camille.
She took them along the village’s narrow streets, lit by gaslight.
She showed them businesses that were part of the “h?tel disséminé” as she called it.
It was sustainable tourism, because everyone was involved, and old buildings did not have to make way for new.
There were no big, ugly, lit-up signs reading “Hotel.” It was a pact all the villagers shared.
They met Manon in the restaurant—four feet nothing, apron around her girth, grey corkscrew hair pulled back, escaped wisps of it framing her friendly face—and passed her the mushrooms. She clapped her hands together in delight.
“It was Marlow who found the most chanterelles,” he said.
“Then let me feed you some!” said Manon.
And so while she fried up a few in butter and salt to put on top of slices of fresh bread made by her neighbor that afternoon, Luc pulled out a chair on the restaurant terrace for Marlow, grabbed a bottle of Fortin wine and two glasses, and cozied up beside her.
“Surely this helps your emotions?” said Luc, licking his fingers in a very tempting way.
“For now,” said Marlow. “But my brain won’t stop churning. All these problems, and Yves winning Sabine’s heart—”
“It is not a competition. You have already won, making a daughter like Sabine. There is nothing he can do to touch that.”
“I don’t know. Maybe she’ll feel like he’s better than I am. More interesting. More creative. More parent-y.”
“You feel you are not deserving. Why?”
She chuckled, wry. “In my last year of high school, I was up for the Dorothy Puttnam Award. She was the founder of my school, so this was the fanciest award you could win. I had good but not great grades—nothing like Sabine—but I’d been at the school since kindergarten and had participated in every sport, club, play, fundraiser, so I made the short list. At the interview, I had to answer questions about integrity and honesty and depth of character.
Like, what would you do if you caught another student cheating?
I mean, did you know what you’d do about a moral quandary like that, at the ripe age of seventeen? ”
“No,” said Luc, laughing. “I was the kid doing the cheating.”
“Not me. I’ve always followed the rules, tried to please everyone, especially my parents.
Anyway, I fumbled my way through the interview, and thought, maybe I have a shot.
My parents thought so, too—if only because of the years I’d put in.
Graduation rolled around. Everyone got dressed up.
I’d sewn my own dress. It had big blue flowers on it, and I had blue high-heeled shoes to match.
I pictured myself up on stage, accepting the award in front of the student body, my teachers, the parents.
The grad certificates were given out, the sports medals—the last thing was the Puttnam Award.
My father pushed his way through the crowd to take a photo.
And then the headmaster announced the winner: Mercedes Phillips.
A mediocre human. I turned to make ‘oh well, next time’ eye contact with my dad, and caught him fading back into the crowd.
He was embarrassed. My parents have always felt like that about me.
So my time in France, and everything I’ve gotten up to here, is par for the course. ”
“You are not responsible for their feelings. And we know tomorrow if Ruth takes the house with the back taxes, so why worry?”
“Because if I worry enough, it’s sure to help. That’s how the gods roll. They want you to twist and turn. That keeps the order of things.”
“This is about you being happy, nothing else. You know this saying, you have survived a hundred percent of your days? There’s no reason to think that today you will ruin your record.”
Yves, Sabine, and Aubin got home very late from Chateau Beaupré.
“Thank you. For everything,” said Sabine.
“My pleasure,” said Yves. “Tomorrow—I mean, today—I have meetings, so I’ll be out until after lunch. In between, I will research how long it takes to get you a French passport.”
“I can’t wait.”
She went to the bedroom. Aubin had already laid out his bedding on the floor and was lying there in nothing but boxers. The sight of him made her inhale sharply. She turned out the light, stripped down to her T-shirt and underwear, and got into bed.
“It was the most amazing day,” she whispered, “even if I have to keep lying to my mum. I feel like I’m getting to know my dad, and you, and, weirdly, me too. So I just need to keep going even if I don’t know how it’s going to turn out.”
He reached for her hand at the edge of the mattress. She interlocked her fingers in his. Touching him made her want more.
“Soon, you’ll be French,” he said, yawning. “And an artist living in a chateau.”
“I feel like there’s a way we could be together, even though I’d be outside of Paris.”
“Mmm.” He yawned again. “Me, too.” His hand slipped out of hers and flopped by his side. So no more for her tonight. But things were falling into place. Her eyes drifted closed, too.
Sabine and Aubin hung around the apartment all morning. He listened to music; she made a little book. They scrounged a breakfast of day-old baguette and Nutella. This eating chocolate on your morning toast thing was a fine idea. Aubin kiss-licked the Nutella from her lips.
“Nutella can’t go to the waste bin,” he said, grinning at her coyly.
She leaned over and kissed him longer, licking him at the last moment. “Look. You started a trend.”
Then her phone lit up. A text from Yves which read:
At my meetings but it’s a GO! Fastrack Passport possible. See you at one o’clock. Normally you need birth certificate, but I have mine—we can submit yours by mail later. Bring Canadian passport. Will text address. DON’T BE LATE.
“Oh my God,” said Sabine, holding up her phone for Aubin to read. “It’s happening!”
“Sabine la vraie francaise!”
“Sabine la pratiquement francaise!” she countered. “Sabine the Almost French” had a ring to it. “Let’s get organized. I have to find my passport.”
“One further minute to confirm this trend of licking Nutella off each other’s face?”
“Nope. We need to go make me a French citizen.”
Marlow woke up at eleven. She hadn’t slept like that in forever—she and Luc had stayed out late in Montsouris, drinking and talking with Camille.
Across the gap between their houses, she could see Luc, still asleep, naked and perfect on top of his sheets.
She threw a sandal out her window and it whacked him in the head.
“I love how you summon me. There are more creative ways.”
“You are delicious and astonishing,” she said, pulling on her jeans, “and it makes me want to come over there and have my way with you, but I have sworn off men. So get your glorious naked ass over here to help me clean up for Ruth. She’ll be here soon, and then I have to go work at Guillaume’s.”
“There is a very romantic invite buried in there, and I accept.”
“Correction: get your ass over here, but put it in pants first. I’ll get us a baguette.”
“I’m sorry you’ve sworn off men, because that does not help my plan to woo you. At least I can forego the duel with Guillaume at sunrise.”
“The sun was up hours ago. You missed your chance.”
Marlow walked through Mirabelle square toward the boulangerie.
She got on the mairie’s Wi-Fi and found an email from Estelle, Guillaume’s friend from Cannes, requesting her CV, and suggesting times for an interview.
Wow. Then she ran into Lali and told her about Sabine sneaking off to Paris to see Yves, twenty thousand euros in back taxes, Ruth coming to sign paperwork but not knowing about said taxes, and sleeping with two men (but not, obviously, at the same time).
“Your life is much more interesting than mine,” Lali said.
“Right now, I’d take boring any day.”