Invitation to Provence(33)
“I’m not celibate, you know,” Scott said mildly. “I’m just not the settling-down sort. It’s kinda like the wild west, where I come from, and I’m still that wild west kinda guy.”
“All the good ones are,” Rafaella said, laughing. “But you promised you’d come to the reunion,” she said, anxiously. “You are ‘family,’ Scott. You’re the one who’s always there for me, always helping, keeping me and the winery alive.”
A grin sparked his hazel eyes. “Perhaps I should call you maman instead of Rafaella.”
“Call me whatever you like, as long as it’s not a fool.”
“Never that,” Scott said, suddenly serious. “And you know I wouldn’t miss it.”
When lunch was over, Haigh drove up in the small Peugeot. He rarely allowed himself to drive Rafaella’s Bentley, which dated from 1962 and was reserved for very special occasions. He personally kept it polished to a lacquered gleam, and the last time they’d used it was for a reception at the winery two years ago.
“How’re you, Haigh?” Scott said, getting to his feet and shaking hands with the butler, who looked quite different in a pink shirt and white linen pants, his summer, off-duty uniform. “I’ll be on my way, Rafaella,” Scott said, dropping a kiss on her soft cheek, leaving her with a sheaf of production notes to mull over and a smile on her face.
She watched him walk away with that nonchalant out-doorsman swagger, admiring how easily he swung onto his horse, thinking how attractive he looked with the sun glinting off his red hair. Sometimes she wished he were really her son instead of the pair she’d ended up with.
When they left, Laurent Jarré stood outside his café watching them drive away. He wondered sadly if Rafaella was as lonely as he was.
And outside her little store, Mademoiselle Doriteé, her frizzy hair spiraling out from her head, her green eyes soft behind pebble-thick glasses, still unmarried at age forty-five, also watched them go. She unstraddled her moto and propped it against the wall, gazing admiringly after Haigh. What a fine husband he would make for some lucky woman, she thought innocently.
23
JULIETTE HAD NO PROBLEMS packing—she just took everything. Bathing suits, pareos, beach-wear went into one bag, linen shifts into another, silk cocktail dresses another. A suit or two, just in case she needed to pop up to Paris for a few nights, a couple of ball gowns in case Rafaella went the whole hog and threw a really grand celebration. Hats—she always needed a hat in Provence to keep the sun off her face and hide the wrinkles, as well as to stop that pesky wind from blowing her hair around. Then there was the special case for shoes, and the satin-lined velvet pouches for lingerie, and the beauty case for the necessary creams and lotions that glued her face back together in the morning. And of course the three special Vuitton travel containers in which the Pomeranians would fly luxuriously, if complainingly, to Marseille on Jake Bronson’s Gulfstream IV—because thankfully, he’d called and offered her a lift.
Next, Juliette went shopping for gifts because she enjoyed giving much more than receiving. She headed straight for Barneys, where she chose a couple of cashmere sweaters for Rafaella, in a blue that matched her eyes. While she was there, she also bought a sweater for Jake, in red this time because she felt that after all these years, Jake Bronson probably needed bringing out of himself. He needed to be taken out of his lonely rut and brought back into real life, and red was surely the color to do that.
Next, she stopped into Tiffany, where she found a silver bracelet with heart-shaped charms for little Shao Lan, plus a pretty pair of long, slinky silver earrings for Franny. Jake had told her she was a little bit flower child, and she thought they would suit her. Plus a silver pen for her friend, Clare, whom no one seemed to know.
Next stop was Dunhill, where she picked out a bright paisley silk vest for Haigh, who she assumed was still as rail-thin as he’d always been, and also a nice striped silk tie for the Aussie vintner.
Strange bunch for a “family” reunion, she thought in the cab on the way home, surrounded by her packages. A distant American niece, her friend, an unknown Asian grandchild who might or might not be Felix’s, the “Lover’s” son, Rafaella’s young winemaker, and herself, the old friend. Plus Haigh, of course, who she knew could put them all in their places—and keep them there. She sighed, hoping for Rafaella’s sake that it all worked out.
24
SHAO LAN SAT by the hospital bed where Bao Chu Ching lay tucked to the neck in crisp white sheets, looking smaller than Shao Lan remembered. Her grandmother’s eyes were closed, but her face was strangely free of the tight lines of pain. Shao Lan thought, mystified, that she looked almost like a little girl.
Shao Lan looked very neat in her gray skirt and short-sleeved white shirt. Her old coat was folded on top of her small plastic case on the floor next to her. In the case were a couple of changes of underclothes, one clean shirt, and two pairs of white socks. Her shiny black hair had been newly shorn by a kindly neighbor and now it stuck out peculiarly around her ears. She held a bunch of red flowers she’d bought for her grandmother, and frightened, she tightened her grip on them.
Footsteps approached and she turned her head reluctantly, knowing what was to come.