The Winemaker's Wife(19)

“I have some business there.” Grandma Edith pursed her lips when Liv still hadn’t moved. “Olivia, the train leaves at 12:58 on the dot. Dépêche-toi! We mustn’t be late. I have a car waiting to take us to the station.”

“Um, okay,” Liv said, confused. She started toward her room.

“Wait!” Grandma Edith called after her. She walked over to Liv, removed her own scarf—white-and-gold vintage Chanel—and tied it around Liv’s neck, frowning as she wrapped it just so. She stepped back to admire her handiwork. “There. Now you look almost as if you might belong here.”

? ? ?

Less than two hours later, after taking the TGV through a landscape dotted with rolling grain farms, industrial windmills, and tiny villages nestled between hills, Liv found herself in a sumptuous two-bedroom suite in a boutique hotel on the rue Buirette, just a short taxi ride from the Reims train station. The carpets were a plush, spotless cream, while the furniture was ornate and gilded, with invitingly soft burgundy pillows piled everywhere.

“You’ll be in there,” Grandma Edith said, gesturing to the bedroom on the left as a red-faced porter struggled with a heavy Louis Vuitton case behind her.

“Looks great. So, do you want to go grab something to eat once we get settled?” Lunch would inevitably come with alcohol, and perhaps bribed by a drink or two, her grandmother would explain what on earth they were doing here.

“Non. But you go, dear. I have a headache, and I need to lie down.”

Liv was startled to realize how pale her grandmother had grown in the past few minutes, even under her layer of freshly applied blush. “Are you all right, Grandma Edith? What can I do?”

“I’m fine.” She handed a few coins to the porter, who hurried away with a mumbled merci. “Please. Go have a coupe de champagne, Olivia. Enjoy yourself.” She gave Liv a small smile and then turned and walked into the bedroom on the right, closing the door behind her.

Liv bit her lip. Should she knock, make sure Grandma Edith was okay? Then again, that would likely only result in more accusations about what Liv was doing wrong with her life. Still, she didn’t feel right leaving her grandmother alone if she wasn’t feeling well.

She pulled her suitcase into her room, which featured a large, polished mahogany, four-poster bed with a crisp white duvet and a pile of pillows matching those in the parlor. The heavy drapes were open, and light spilled in from windows overlooking a street punctuated by long, rectangular fountains, shops, and hotels. Narrow chimneys poked up from angled rooftops, and buildings made of centuries-old stone shared space with large, blockish structures that couldn’t have been built more than fifty or sixty years ago. Above the buildings, Liv could see the twin towers of a cathedral that looked like Paris’s Notre-Dame. A block away stood a soaring, ornate fountain topped with a winged woman cast in bronze.

As Liv gazed down at the little red awning of the café just below her window, her phone rang. She glanced at the caller ID: Mom. She groaned and considered ignoring the call, but her mother would only keep trying. She picked up, bracing herself for a barrage of questions about her divorce. “Hi, Mom.”

“Hi, sweetie,” her mother chirped. “I’m heading up to New York tomorrow with Stan. Just wondering if you want to meet us for dinner. We have theater tickets on Thursday, but I said to Stan, ‘You have to meet my daughter.’?”

Temporarily stunned that her mother hadn’t asked about Eric, Liv said, “Um, which one is Stan, again?”

Her mother laughed. “The lawyer. Owns the condo at the Ocean Sun in Boca?”

“Oh. Right.” Liv was fairly sure she’d never heard of Stan—or the Ocean Sun in Boca—but that would be par for the course with her mother. “Actually, Mom, I’m not in New York right now. I’m visiting Grandma Edith.”

“In Paris?”

“In Reims, actually. About forty-five minutes east of Paris.”

There was another beat of silence. “Well, what on earth are you doing there?”

“Honestly? I have no idea. She hasn’t been acting like herself.”

Liv’s mother laughed. “And that’s a bad thing?”

“Mom, I’m serious. I’m a little worried about her. She seems, I don’t know, depressed.”

“Honey, I’m sure it’s nothing.” Liv’s mom plunged immediately into a story about something that had happened at the pool at Stan’s condo complex the day before, but Liv was no longer paying attention, because out the window, she had just spotted a familiar figure clad in pink Chanel hurrying out the hotel’s front door, turning left without hesitation, and slipping into pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk. It was Grandma Edith, but where was she going? Hadn’t she just told Liv minutes earlier that she was feeling too unwell to leave the room?

“Sorry, Mom,” Liv interrupted. “I have to go.”

Her mother began to say something else, but Liv was already hanging up and heading for the door.

Outside the hotel, still panting from running down six flights of stairs, Liv turned in the same direction she’d seen Grandma Edith disappear, but she already knew finding her would be futile. The streets were crowded with people fixated on their cell phones, couples holding hands and leaning into each other, locals walking dogs, children giggling and dashing a few steps ahead of their parents. Liv walked three blocks, then doubled back, turning into the plaza anchored by the fountain she’d seen from her window. She peered into every storefront, every restaurant, but her grandmother had vanished. Puzzled, she turned slowly and walked back toward the hotel.