Chapter 14
By the time they all left for France in time to spend the Fourteenth of July there, the week before the wedding, everyone had had a good month.
Marlene and the boys had been to Lake Tahoe and Santa Barbara, while Tommy commuted in a plane he chartered.
The boys had been to day camp and had fun.
Felicity had recovered, her body anyway, and had made plans to go to Paris and check into classes there after Marie-Aurélie’s wedding.
Jamie and Violet had been to the games of all the teams they loved.
He had moved in with her and they wanted to get a dog.
Dominique and Bill were spending a lot of time in East Hampton in their very relaxed unfancy house, and his boys were going to spend a weekend there before they went back to college.
Bill wanted them to meet Dominique. He had told Eileen, and she agreed.
She was proving to be a worthy and noble ex-partner.
After all the years they had spent together, they were family, and he wanted her in his life too.
She wanted to meet Dominique, although she wasn’t quite ready yet, but getting there.
Dominique had always loved the Fourteenth of July in the south of France when she was a child, and still did.
Each town was different with its own cachet and charm.
Juan-les-Pins had always been a little tinselly, with American sailors based there, discos, casinos, and bars, and families on the beach.
It was a middle-class mishmash that had gotten a little more glamorous, but not much.
Cap d’Antibes had an old town and a port, and little sailboats and big ones.
Monte Carlo was glamorous, and one expected James Bond to walk down the street.
Cannes had history, an elegant boardwalk, and old-fashioned hotels.
It was kind of the grand dame of the Riviera.
Nice was a big city of good and evil, hoodlums and angels, and a beautiful church.
And Saint-Tropez, where Clément had rented the gigantic villa they needed, was more of a compound, and to Dominique, Saint-Tropez was Mecca, for the chic and the famous, the wealthy and the wannabees, with great bars, good restaurants, sexy-looking people, great discos, and spectacular yachts bobbing off the docks and at anchor just outside the port.
It was the place to see and be seen, to cozy up to celebrities.
It was sexy and alive and glamorous, from the Gorilla Bar in the port, to dancing at the Caves du Roy at night, next to Catherine Deneuve, or quipping with some French movie star.
It was where the action was and Dominique loved it.
It seemed like the perfect place for Marie-Aurélie and Clément to get married, because they were both still in the world and with it, and somehow above it, because of their years and experience. Saint-Tropez was the place to be.
The house Clément had rented had a little cottage for Tommy and Marlene and their two boys, with a playground behind the cottage.
There was a big, beautiful suite for Marie-Aurélie and Clément with a view of the water, and an elevator, another smaller but very handsome suite for Bill and Dominique, and four more very appealing guest rooms for Violet and Jamie, Felicity, on her own for now, and whoever else they wanted to invite.
The house came with three maids and a chef and several gardeners, pool toys of every size and kind, and an old, beautifully preserved Riva speedboat to go from one small port to another and drop in on friends on a yacht.
They had everything they needed, and wonderful restaurants and shops all through the town, and paparazzi lurking at all the key spots.
They were planning to watch the Bastille Day fireworks show on the first weekend, and the wedding was the following weekend, in a tiny local church, with lunch afterward at the house.
Dominique had worked especially hard on her mother’s wedding dress, the only one she had ever had.
In her research to find the right design, Dominique had asked Marie-Aurélie if she had had a special dress in her lifetime that was a favorite.
She’d had many beautiful dresses, many of them haute couture, handmade for her.
But there was one she remembered particularly.
It had a simple round neck and long sleeves.
It was white lace with a narrow waist, which she still had, even at her age, her figure having remained the same.
And it had a wide, bell-shaped skirt with a crinoline under it.
She said it swung just like a bell and reached just to her ankles, and it had lace shoes to go with it.
She said she’d always loved it. And it had tiny pearls encrusted in the lace.
Audrey Hepburn had worn one like it in a movie, and the dress had been made by Hubert de Givenchy.
She’d worn it sometime in the early sixties, around the time that Dominique was born.
She had loved the wide, bell-shaped skirt.
Dominique had researched it carefully and had found it in the Givenchy archives, and had made an exact replica for her mother.
Marie-Aurélie gave an excited cry when she saw it.
“That’s it! That’s it! Oh my God, you found it.
” Dominique had sent it to Paris in an enormous wooden crate to protect it, and they had had it driven down to Saint-Tropez.
It was sitting on a garment rack with a sheet over it to hide it.
Marie-Aurélie was going to wear it on her wedding day, and it moved Dominique to tears when she saw how happy it made her mother.
* * *
After a week of fun and play with the whole family there together, great meals at home, and evenings in small, noisy restaurants, with all of them laughing and talking, the wedding day finally arrived.
Dominique and Marie-Aurélie’s two granddaughters helped her put on the wonderful dress and a huge lace wide-brimmed hat to match it, and Dominique had even been able to find someone to make the shoes, and they fit Marie-Aurélie perfectly.
Clément drove to the church so he wouldn’t see her.
Jamie went to the church with him, wearing the blue summer suit he’d brought, and Violet was proud of how he looked.
The two men waited for the rest of them to arrive at the church.
The organ played as Marie-Aurélie came down the aisle on Tommy’s arm.
Dominique had attached a wisp of delicate veil to the hat and Marie-Aurélie looked exquisite, as tears rolled down Clément’s cheeks as he waited for her.
They said their vows, and Tommy and Marlene’s sons delivered the wedding rings in good order, and Marie-Aurélie and Clément became man and wife, for better or worse, for the rest of their lives.
Bill was there with Dominique, standing beside her, and Violet and Jamie held hands.
These were the moments that life was made of, to balance the harder ones, to make life worthwhile, and bond good people and families together.
A cheer went up in the little church when they were declared man and wife, and Clément and Marie-Aurélie walked out, standing tall, walking straight, so proud to belong to each other, with a shower of rose petals thrown in the air and fluttering around them.
As they were leaving the church, Violet was dabbing at her eyes and smiled at Jamie.
“They’re so beautiful, aren’t they? I’m sure my grandfather approved. I’m sure he would have married her if he could have, and he’s glad she’s happy now.”
“You’re just as beautiful as she is,” Jamie said, as the organ continued to play Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” which had accompanied the happy couple out of the church.
“I know you don’t like the idea, but your grandmother is married now…
will you marry me?” he asked her softly, they could hear the others outside, laughing and talking.
It was a happy day, and it finally felt right to her, and maybe he was right, because Marie-Aurélie was married. Violet looked at him and nodded.
“Yes…I will…can I still keep my MVP ring?”
He laughed and kissed her. “Yes, you can. You’ll always be my MVP.” They walked out of the church arm-in-arm, and at lunch, Jamie stood up and made the announcement.
“Violet and I have something to share with you. We’re getting married.” A cheer went up from the small crowd and Clément stood up to toast them.
“Bravo! Good man! You will make an honorable woman of her, like her grandmother,” he said, in his heavily accented English, and they all laughed.
Bill watched them enviously, wishing he could do the same for Dominique, but their time hadn’t come yet. It was just beginning, and Clément and Marie-Aurélie had waited forty years for their moment.
Everyone toasted Jamie and Violet, and Tommy asked them when they were getting married, and the happy pair looked at each other, confused for a minute, and Jamie leaned toward her. “When are we getting married?”
“What about Labor Day?” she said spontaneously. “Then we can all get together again in six weeks, at the end of the summer.” The group voiced their approval and Dominique spoke up.
“Let’s do it in the Hamptons,” she suggested. Everybody nodded and Violet and Jamie liked the idea.
“We can do it on the beach, and have a barbecue, and swim all weekend.” They were going from one wedding vacation to the next.
Labor Day was right before Fashion Week and Dominique would be busy.
But the last weekend of summer would be perfect for the wedding.
It was turning out to be a summer of weddings, even though the first one had been canceled.
But the second one had been a dream come true.