The Vineyards of Champagne

by Juliet Blackwell

  He had a habit of loudly clearing his throat when he was thinking. At first she had found it endearing, but soon it became irritating. He liked wall-to-wall carpeting—and it had to be white carpeting, which she thought singularly impractical for someone who bought, sold, and drank so much red wine.

  He insisted on renting an expensive condo in a posh new development and leased a luxury car. He spent hundreds of dollars on new clothes instead of purchasing perfectly stylish but used garments from the consignment shop in Petaluma, as she always did.

  Dash had spent freely, assuming he had plenty of time to earn more money, until his time ran out and Rosalyn was left a widow, deep in debt.

  But then she would remember Dash’s husky voice crooning to her, making her feel safe and loved, and she would collapse in a heap on the aqua blue bath mat in their cottage bathroom, stifling her sobs with the T-shirt that no longer smelled like him, wishing more than anything that she could hear him clear his throat just one more time.

  Chapter Fifteen

  On the second of January, Rosalyn awoke as excited as a kid on Christmas morning: This was the day the village grocery store reopened. It wasn’t as though Rosalyn needed anything—Pietro kept the little kitchen well stocked. But it was a signal that everyday life was resuming, awakening after a long holiday nap.

  Still an early riser, Rosalyn arrived at eight in the morning, just as the store opened.

  “Bonjour, madame,” Rosalyn said to the stocky woman in her fifties who sat on a stool behind the checkout counter. The woman’s hair was cut in a no-nonsense short do, and she wore a bright orange work smock over a heavy sweater and jeans. She had her nose in a paperback novel.

  “Bonjour, madame,” said the shopkeeper. “Bonne année.”

  “Et bonne année à vous,” Rosalyn responded.

  It felt funny to hear her own voice after so many days of near-monastic silence. Other than to Pietro and the man at the gas station, she hadn’t uttered a word in a week.

  Slinging a plastic basket over one arm, she meandered through the aisles of the small store, poking around and getting her bearings. Gazing at the assortment of salamis, pâtés, and cheeses, Rosalyn had to admit that Cochet’s store offered a higher-quality selection than her local 7-Eleven in Napa. Too bad it wasn’t open twenty-four hours a day.

  The store sold a variety of breads, presumably since the town didn’t have its own boulangerie. Probably the average French person would look down her Gallic nose at convenience store bread, but Rosalyn was happy to find it.

  She lingered over a dainty display of round cakes decorated with frangipane, called galette des Rois, cake of kings. They were set upon delicate little glass stands lined with doilies, and though she wasn’t going to buy a whole cake just for herself, she was tempted.

  Instead, she selected a simple baguette, some pâté de campagne, a ripe-looking Camembert, a bag of potato chips, some olives, a chocolate bar, and—this last was necessary—a package of toilet paper.

  The woman behind the register placed her battered paperback facedown by the register when Rosalyn approached.

  “Bonjour,” Rosalyn said again as she placed her basket of goodies on the counter.

  “Bonjour, madame,” said the cashier with a nod, ringing up her items.

  Rosalyn’s eyes fell on the book the woman had been reading. She formulated a sentence in her head before asking: “Y a-t-il une bibliothèque dans le village?” Is there a library in town?

  “Pas en Cochet.” Not here in Cochet, the woman answered, her voice rough and deep, a smoker’s voice. “There is one in Trefeaux, and a beautiful one in Reims. They are on holiday hours now, though.”

  “Holiday hours” meant “closed,” Rosalyn suspected.

  “Sometimes the bus comes through,” the woman continued in French.

  “The bus?”

  “It’s a portable library bus.”

  “Do you know if they have books in English?”

  The cashier didn’t respond. The look on her face said plenty.

  By now there were two people in line behind Rosalyn: a deeply tanned young woman wearing a very short skirt, high-heeled boots, and tights, and a woman in her sixties wearing a puffy purple down coat. They didn’t seem particularly friendly, but they waited patiently. It might have been in her imagination, but Rosalyn thought the younger woman was staring at the baguette in her basket.

  Finally the young woman said: “Excuse me. There is a boulangerie in Salpot, not ten kilometers from here. It has much better bread.”

  The cashier cast the woman a glare. “This bread is perfectly good.”

  The woman in the short skirt arched her delicate eyebrows, pursed her lips, and looked away.

  “I forgot something,” she mumbled, swore under her breath, and returned to the refrigerated section.

  “That bread is perfectly good, very fresh,” the cashier assured Rosalyn. She looked at her expectantly. “You have no bag?”

  “I . . .” Rosalyn suddenly understood why there were so many tote bags hanging in the pantry at Gaspard Blé’s place. She should have made the connection since in California shoppers were supposed to bring their own bags to stores, too, though it was no big deal if a person forgot—just a dime for a paper bag. That didn’t seem to be an option here. “No, pardon me.”

  “Then you must buy one.”

  “All right.”

  “There is one there for one euro.” The cashier gestured to a stack of reusable tote bags in the same bright orange as her smock and printed with one giant sunflower.

  “Thank you,” said Rosalyn.

  The woman handed her a small device, with her card stuck into one end of it. “Please put in your number.”

  Again with the code.

  “It’s a credit card. It has no number,” Rosalyn said with a shake of her head, feeling so flustered that she defaulted to the Spanish word for number—número—instead of the French.

  “You must have a code, madame.”

  “I’m sorry. Apparently the American cards don’t have codes.”

  Letting out a long sigh, the cashier reached beneath the counter and came up with an old-fashioned credit card machine, the kind that made an imprint of the card using carbon paper. She placed Rosalyn’s card on the metal plate, laid a charge slip on top of it, rolled the metal arm over the two, and then filled out the slip with the amount owed.

  Rosalyn felt like a bumbling tourist in a town unaccustomed to outsiders. But surely in the summer months, tourists came to Cochet in search of champagne, right? Surely she wasn’t the first American to arrive in town with a credit card but no code.

  “You are staying here in Cochet?” the woman asked as she handed the charge slip to Rosalyn to sign.

  “Yes. At Gaspard Blé’s gîte.”

  “He’s out of town,” she said, tearing off the top copy, slipping it in the cash register drawer, and handing the carbon paper and bottom copy to Rosalyn. “Did Pietro let you in?”

  “Yes.” Rosalyn began to pack her own groceries in her new bright orange bag. The cashier seemed to approve.

  As Rosalyn was placing a bag of chips on top, the shopkeeper said: “I am Dominique Cheveaux. A friend of Gaspard’s. That was his daughter, Blondine, there, talking about the boulangerie—she’ll be back tout de suite.”

  “Oh . . . I’m Rosalyn Acosta. Nice to meet you.”

  “You are Portuguese?”

  “Excuse me?” Rosalyn wasn’t sure she understood her properly.

  “You sound Portuguese. You look Portuguese.”

  “I’m from California. But I speak Spanish, and sometimes my Spanish comes through instead of French when I speak. Well, nice to meet you.”

  Rosalyn turned to leave.

  “Attendez, s’il vous plaît.” Dominique asked Rosalyn to wait. She called toward the refrigerated s
ection: “Blondine, this is the American from your gîte!”

  “Coming,” called a muffled voice from the other side of the store.

  Dominique started ringing up the middle-aged woman’s purchases while Rosalyn waited at one side, feeling awkward.

  “Do you know the man who has fields to the north of town, the one who practices biodynamic agriculture?” Rosalyn asked.

  “Of course. Everyone knows him,” said Dominique. “Why?”

  “I owe him some money—he helped me out the other day. Do you know how I can get in touch with him?” Rosalyn supposed she could try to connect with the man on one of her early-morning walks, but there was something almost sacred about that predawn hour; she hesitated to sully it with such prosaic concerns.

  “Oof, that one,” said the woman in the puffy purple coat. “He has been in a bad mood since his wife left.”

  The woman in the short skirt joined them, and nodded. “He keeps to himself,” she said. “But you are staying in my gîte? You are the American Rosalyn Acosta?”

  Rosalyn nodded.

  “I am going there right now. My name is Blondine. I am the daughter of Gaspard Blé.” She kissed Rosalyn on each cheek. “Enchantée.”

  “It’s so nice to meet you,” said Rosalyn. “I got your note.”

  An elderly man joined the line. “I hear she brought him the boy, at least.”

  “Who?” demanded Blondine.

  “She’s asking about Jérôme,” said the older woman in purple.

  “He isn’t . . . Are we talking about Jérôme Comtois?” Rosalyn asked.

  “You know him?” Blondine asked.

  “No, though I do owe him some money.”

  “How do you owe money to someone you do not know?” Blondine asked, sensibly.

  “It’s sort of a long story. . . .”

  “He never wanted the place,” said the man, his voice loud. “But his brother ran off, and he had to step in. That Raphael never was any good. He was a sneaky little kid, too.”

  All three women nodded.

  “I hear Raphael took off with the wife,” said Dominique.

  “That’s just gossip,” said the woman in purple, gesturing to Rosalyn. “But she went back to Paris, for sure. She’s like you.”

  “Like me?” Rosalyn asked.

  “She means American,” said Dominique. “Jérôme’s wife was American.”

  “This sort of thing happens with Americans,” said Blondine. “They think all of France is Paris, and when Jérôme brought her to the countryside, she was not pleased. She did not like village life.”

  The group at the checkout stand gazed at Rosalyn, as though expecting her to explain the actions of a fellow American.

  “Personally, I’m not that fond of Paris,” Rosalyn said.

  The villagers burst out laughing and spoke quickly among themselves. Rosalyn couldn’t follow the conversation, but the tone sounded complimentary.

  Blondine then introduced her to the other two townspeople, and Rosalyn tried to commit their names to memory: the elderly man was Gilbert Schreyer, and the woman in the puffy purple coat was Valérie Trepot.

  “Please wait for me,” Blondine said, still in French, “and we’ll walk back together.”

  So Rosalyn waited for Blondine to purchase her groceries, bade au revoir to her new acquaintances Dominique, Valérie, and Gilbert, and began walking with Blondine back to the gîte.

  Seeing Blondine in the natural light, Rosalyn guessed she was probably in her early thirties, older than Rosalyn had initially assumed. Her blond hair was cropped in a flapper style that curled under her chin, and her high-heeled leather boots tapped out a smart tempo. Blondine’s short skirt and frenetic energy would have fit in perfectly in New York, Rosalyn thought. She seemed out of place in this sleepy French village, carrying a woven basket of groceries.

  Rosalyn tried to keep up with Blondine’s confident stride, carefully navigating the cobblestones, wary of patches of snow and ice that glistened here and there. Strategically placed metal posts were the only things standing between them and a car careening too quickly through the narrow streets of the village.

  “I must beg your pardon for not meeting you when you arrived,” said Blondine. “My father is furious with me.”

  “No, it was my fault.” Rosalyn was pleased to be able to understand Blondine’s French, but felt awkward responding, her lips and tongue tripping over the pronunciation. “I changed my plans and arrived early. And Pietro checked on me and brought groceries. It was nice to have time to settle in.”

  “Oh, that’s good. I could not resist the chance to visit Mallorca. A friend of mine invited me to stay in her place . . . and I think I’m still hungover. Have you been?”

  Rosalyn shook her head.

  “It is so beautiful there,” Blondine said with a dramatic sigh, casting a jaundiced eye at the cold gray of the village. “Not like here. Spain is warm and sunny, even in January. Probably like it is in California. You must cry to be here in this season.”

  “It’s not so bad. I don’t mind the cold.”

  Blondine frowned and made a tsking sound.

  “Honestly, it has been a nice change of pace,” Rosalyn continued. “The only problem is that I’m not getting any work done. No one seems to be around.”

  “We allow the vines to rest from mid-December to mid-January, so a lot of people leave town for the holidays. Like me! It is a tyranny, working on the farms, following the agricultural schedule. I don’t know why anyone would go into this business.”

  “Aren’t you in this business?”

  She twisted her mouth. “Only because I have no choice, really. There is a great deal of pressure to keep the family business going. And my father . . .” She shrugged. “You will see. Gaspard is a bit of a despot.”

  Rosalyn was concentrating on understanding the French, and wasn’t sure she caught everything. “What do you mean—he is a despot?”

  “You will see soon enough, when you meet him. Besides, I am the only one who can speak English with our clients.”

  Rosalyn couldn’t help but notice that, so far, Blondine had spoken only in French to her.

  “My father will return soon to prune and tie up the vines; he likes to begin early, when he can get a good crew together. We will show you.”

  Rosalyn nodded, though she wasn’t especially interested; she had seen plenty of vines being tied up in Napa every season. But listening to Blondine made Rosalyn realize just how far away Napa and the Small Fortune Wines office were. She was in daily e-mail contact, and had been gone only a week, but it seemed like more. Cochet felt like another world.

  She was a jumble of contradictory emotions: On the one hand it was a profound relief to be somewhere new and foreign, where she wasn’t a widow, where people didn’t know about the sorrow she carried. At the same time, she was loath to let go of the grief. It felt like her last tangible connection to Dash.

  Rosalyn realized she had lost the thread of what Blondine was saying, though it appeared not to matter. Blondine seemed to leave no thought unarticulated, and rarely required a response. As they walked along, she pointed out the house of this person and that, complained about how few services there were in town, and bemoaned the lack of a boulangerie. The nearest gas station was the one that Rosalyn had found two villages over, where she had encountered Jérôme Comtois.

  They passed the old stone church with a small cemetery, surrounded by a walled garden. Rosalyn noted that the slabs of stone and crypts were aboveground, similar to those she had seen on a trip with Dash to New Orleans. Many were topped with silk flowers and framed photographs of the lost beloved.

  “Nearly every village in France, no matter how small, has a church,” Blondine explained, noting her interest. “But things have changed; there are not enough priests to go around, or enough old people to
attend services, so we have to share priests—that’s why mass is celebrated here only every four or five weeks. You can drive to different villages if you want to attend mass each Sunday.”

  “Are all French people Catholic?” Rosalyn asked.

  “Bien sûr,” she answered quickly. “Of course. At least, in the countryside. We are raised Catholic, though we’re not all Catholic. Not like the old days. Now we get married and buried in the church—that’s about all. Not many people go every Sunday, mostly just the old people. There are a few Protestants . . . but most are still Catholic.”

  Blondine pointed out the auto repair shop as they passed by. “An old priest runs that auto repair shop.”

  “Really? A priest?”

  “An ex-priest, I suppose, though once a priest, always a priest. But he was asked to leave the church.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He fell in love,” Blondine said with a little sigh. “I think this is very romantic. Don’t you? Imagine leaving the church for the person you love.”

  Rosalyn smiled. “I suppose it depends on how one feels about his commitment to the church. I don’t know much about it. I wasn’t raised Catholic.”

  “You weren’t? What are you?”

  “I’m . . . not much of anything, I guess. My background is sort of generalized Protestantism.”

  Rosalyn said this last, “generalized Protestantism,” in English since she couldn’t fathom how to translate it.

  Blondine turned to her, a frown marring her smooth brow. “Je ne comprends pas.”

  Rosalyn relapsed into French, saying: “It doesn’t matter. I didn’t grow up in a churchgoing family. So, the priest was asked to leave the church because he fell in love with a woman?” Rosalyn asked, hoping to change the subject. “That seems harsh.”

  “Oh no, the reason it was so shocking wasn’t that he fell in love, but that he fell in love with a man.” She lifted one eyebrow and gave Rosalyn a significant glance. “I don’t think I have to tell you that this is not California. These things are still whispered about in small towns here. . . .” She let out a sigh. “But I think it’s a romantic story, to give up so much for the one you love, whether woman or man.”