by Megan Mulry
She’s always been a dark beauty, but very erect and full of purpose. Rigid. Her time in Provence—or, more likely, her time in the presence of the man who loves her—has loosened and softened her. She’s wearing a colorful, multipatterned scarf around her neck and a bright orange cotton coat. She exudes vitality.
“Oh! Miki! You’re really here!” She pulls me into a hard hug, then holds me at a slight distance to get a better look at me. “It’s so good to see you! Someone rational!” She turns to Jules and gives him a similarly forceful embrace, which he pretty much tolerates. “Make that two rational people!”
Margot’s eyes skitter over my shoulder. “Zoe! How are you?”
I turn to see a petite, fashionable woman walking toward us. Her red hair is smoothed into a chic bob, and she has a stunning slash of matte red lipstick across her lips. I hear Jules mutter something disparaging under his breath.
“Miki, this is Jules and Étienne’s cousin Zoe Mortemart.”
I shake her hand, and she seems nice enough, except for the whole sizing-me-up-from-head-to-toe thing. “Hi. Nice to meet you,” I say.
“Oh, hey! Are you Simone’s daughter? I heard you were in town!”
Oh, hey indeed. “I am, actually. Have we met?” I’m trying to stay cheerful, but with Jules rolling his eyes behind the woman’s back and Margot trying not to laugh at my obvious discomfort, it isn’t easy.
“We have now!” she chirps. “I work at Paris Match. It’s great to meet you! Wow. This weekend just got a whole lot better. Would you be willing to do a quick interview at some point?”
“Zoe!” I’ve never heard Jules raise his voice before now, and he sounds pissed.
“What?” she replies innocently. “Don’t act all aggrieved. I’m just doing my job.”
“Now, now, you two.” Margot smiles at the bickering cousins. “It’s our wedding weekend. Zoe, you promised to keep your newshound instincts on a tight leash, remember?”
“Oh, fine!” She rolls her eyes. “Only for you.” She leans in and kisses Margot on both cheeks. “Congratulations, by the way. You look fabulous, as always.”
“Hardly!” Margot says, looking down at her bright but casual outfit. Then she turns to Jules and says, “Now, wipe that scowl off your face, and let’s go. We can’t all be introverted geniuses.” Margot slides an arm through mine and leads us out to the parking lot.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The May air is crisp and clear when it hits my face. So unfamiliar. The air in Los Angeles often makes me feel like I am in need of a squeegee to wipe away the thick pollution, or just the human congestion—all those exhalations. The spring air in Paris felt fresher, but still wet and thick.
The Provençal air feels brand new. As we cross the promenade, I take a very deep breath. This will be perfect—a clean slate.
“Isn’t it incredible?” Margot asks. “I think that was the first thing I fell in love with when I got here: the air. It’s like a drug. Be careful; it’s very addictive.” She pulls me along, and Jules smiles some small, knowing smile and keeps up with Margot’s leading pace.
The drive east out of Avignon is slow with after-work traffic, but Margot talks the whole time, asking Jules all sorts of questions about the land dispute he’s working on for her and Lulu, and then she laughs with Zoe about the latest scandals in Paris. Then she is interrogating me as best she can about Landon.
“You broke it off with a hot cardiologist?” Zoe asks with disbelief, as if I declined the Nobel Peace Prize. She is twenty-five, and apparently the idea of being purposely single at thirty strikes her as appalling.
“I think it’s for the best,” I answer slowly.
“Maybe you’ll have the same luck I did,” Margot says, catching my eye in the rearview mirror. “I met Étienne soon after I moved here.” She returns her attention to the road ahead.
“Right after she broke off her engagement in New York,” I add with a smirk.
Jules looks up. “You were engaged to be married?”
Margot nods.
Jules looked affronted on his brother’s behalf.
Margot laughs and pats his thigh. “Oh, Jules. Look at you, all protective of Étienne’s honor. Seriously, we need to get you a girl to take your mind off things. Miki’s available,” she adds.
Poor Jules. He turns bright red.
I reach from the backseat and squeeze his shoulder. “Don’t worry, Jules. I understand. She’s the sister I never had, always saying the very thing that will make you feel the most discomfort imaginable.”
“I do not!” Margot gasps with false innocence. “That’s Lulu!”
We all laugh. Apparently, Jules and Zoe have both visited numerous times and know the dynamic Montespan sisters already.
Margot turns to Jules. “On the other hand, if we’re going to make everyone uncomfortable, shall I ask the question that’s on everyone’s mind? Is Miki already in love with someone else? Is that the real reason she broke it off with her boyfriend and quit her fabulous job at USC?”
“Margot!” I cry. I lean between the two front seats and say, “Do not answer that, Jules. She’s baiting us.”
Margot hums and nods her head knowingly. “That’s a definite yes.”
Zoe perks up from her endless texting at the sound of that. “Oh! You broke up with the cardiologist because you met someone else? Now I get it.” She nods her head. I need to stay away from this woman, or she is going to drive me nuts.
“Oh. My. God.” I blush in the backseat. “Cut it out, you guys. I’m a single woman at a foreign wedding. I need a good old-fashioned fling.”
Zoe continues, “Agreed! I’ll fight you for one of those sexy bad boys coming in from London!” She elbows me in the upper arm, and I nod vaguely. Charming.
Jules tries to sink even lower into his seat. Making him cringe is apparently one of Zoe’s favorite pastimes.
Margot smiles in the rearview mirror again as she changes the subject. “Here we are, Miki. This is the village where we go for coffee and the bakery.” She is navigating the car through a narrow, steep street that leads to a medieval town square. She pauses for a bit, pointing to the café and the boulangerie in the opposite direction. She drives down another narrow street, and, after she makes a hairpin turn, the entire valley spreads out before us. Margot pulls the car to a halt in the middle of the deserted street. “Isn’t it unbelievable?”
I stare. There isn’t really anything else to do. Jules and Zoe stare, too. The sun is setting and the surrounding fields and trees are etched in gold and copper and hints of ochre and fiery orange. Some of the spring fields are still fallow, but every cropped stalk creates a shadow and reflection of the setting sun. It is van Gogh and Cézanne and Monet and Millet all rolled out at our feet.
“It’s incredible, Margot.” I turn to look at her serene profile and feel her happiness like a punch in the gut. I sit back quickly so she won’t see my threatening tears. I fear I will never be that happy, in that carefree way. We wind our way under the arch of trees, and I am once again reminded of my fantasy of being on the back of Rome’s imaginary scooter, with the spring leaves just beginning to refill the canopy over the curving road.
Margot slows the car and turns down a rocky dirt lane that leads for about a mile through more scraggy oak groves, and then the panorama opens wide again, this time to the south, across the valley in that direction.
When we come to a stop in front of a stone farmhouse, Lulu comes running out of the house with two tall, handsome men. I wonder which one is Margot’s fiancé; then I don’t have to wonder, when the taller, dark one comes to Margot’s side as soon as she steps out of the car. He pulls her into his arms and swings her around. She laughs and kisses him quickly on the lips, then pushes him off. “Cut that out and come meet Miki.”
Of course, Étienne Mortemart is yet another stunningly handsome Frenchman. Is it
in the water? Deliver me.
He bends slightly in a formal greeting. Margot says my full name when she introduces us. “Mikhaila Voyanovski Durand, please allow me to present Étienne Mortemart, my fiancé.” Margot shivers visibly when she says the word fiancé, and I cast aside my own selfish thoughts about scooter dreams that are very obviously not going to come true. I decide, instead, to dive headlong into Margot’s ocean of nuptial excitement. I grab Étienne into a brief hug.
“I’m so happy to meet the man who does this to Margot!” I say, then point at her.
He knows what I mean, and I love him even more on Margot’s behalf. He leans in slightly. “She does it to me also,” he confides in a throaty French accent that makes me feel as if I am never going to escape the whispering reminders of that single night in Saint Petersburg.
I smile at the sweet concession and then try harder not to see his resemblance to Rome. His height, the spread of his shoulders, something about the way he smiles that inclusive, mischievous pirate smile. It is distracting. And Margot notices. I think for a minute she thinks I’m coming on to him.
“What is it?” she asks.
“Oh, god, sorry. Nothing. Étienne just reminds me of someone, that’s all. Sorry.” I shake my head and smile again. “It’s really a pleasure to meet you.”
Lulu is bouncing up and down, just as I’ve always remembered her. She and Zoe are babbling about some gallery exhibit in Avignon they both want to see, while Jules and Étienne take our luggage out of the trunk.
While I was at MIT, I spent most of my holidays at the Montespans’ house in the Berkshires. Rather than flying back to Los Angeles to what might very well have turned out to be an empty house—or, more accurately, a staffed house—I became the Montespans’ de facto third sister during those visits. Lulu was still a teenager then, irresponsible and wild, and Margot clung to me like a raft. Her family was notoriously bohemian, and Margot . . . wasn’t.
I hug Lulu and marvel at her new maturity. She is still her same Tigger-ish self, but she seems more grounded somehow. Then I see why.
“Hi, I’m Trevor McCormick. Nice to meet you, Mikhaila.”
I take the British man’s offered hand. Lulu answers for me before I can speak. “Oh, she’s Miki, silly. No one calls her Mikhaila!”
He smiles and finishes shaking my hand. “Okay, then. Hi, Miki.”
“Hi, Trevor, nice to meet you.” He is kind of scruffy around the edges—rough-cut, light-brown hair that hasn’t been trimmed in a few months; a few days’ growth of beard—but the sharp eyes give him away. He looks like he is playing at being louche, more than anything.
We turn toward the house, and Étienne pulls Margot into a one-armed hold. It is exactly how Rome held me when we walked down the street. This is going to be a hell of a long weekend with all these swooning young lovers everywhere if I persist in translating every gesture into a Miki-and-Rome reenactment.
Thankfully, the sight of a little girl, probably two or three, who comes bounding out of the house, takes my mind off Rome. She runs up to Margot, who bends down to grab her and swings her into a wide turn and tosses her in the air.
“Mar-mar . . . vous êtes revenue!”
Make that young lovers and love children. Hell.
“Uh . . .” The stunning revelation that Margot has a baby makes me lose my poise. My open-mouthed shock sends Margot into a fit of laughter. Étienne takes the baby and holds her easily on his hip.
“How could you not tell me you have a baby?” I ask, eyes wide.
“Miki,” Étienne says, “this is my daughter, Ariel. From my first marriage.”
Jules and Trevor are smiling at my attempt to recover. “Oh.”
“Why don’t you and Margot catch up and we’ll get dinner ready?” Lulu offers. “Obviously, a lot has been going on, and she needs to fill you in.”
“Zoe,” Étienne says, “you and Miki are going to share the small bedroom. Hope that’s okay.”
“Of course!” Zoe replies.
“Perfect,” Margot says. “Let’s get a glass of wine and go sit by the fire in my study. It’s starting to get cool. Come on, Mik.” She pulls me next to her, and we all trail back into the house.
Margot’s study—her refuge—is a rich, book-filled sanctuary. Two comfortable leather chairs are angled in the cozy bay window, and a low fire crackles in the small grate.
“Wow, Mar, this is phenomenal.”
She closes the door behind us with her hip. “I feel so lucky. It still doesn’t feel like this is really my life.” She hands me one of the glasses of wine.
We both sit down, and I let my eyes wander over shelf after shelf of books and box files. “I love it in here.”
“Me, too,” Margot agrees. “Come in anytime you want to hide if it gets too chaotic this weekend, with my crazy parents running around, or Étienne’s glamorous cousins from his mom’s side or his British ex-in-laws. It’s going to be only about forty people . . . forty very strong personalities, if you know what I mean.” She winks and takes a slow, appreciative sip of the wine.
“I feel bad taking you away from all your guests like this,” I say.
“Don’t be silly. You’re a guest, aren’t you? I can see those people anytime. When my mom and dad get back from Aix tonight we’ll hang out with them, but until then I’m all yours.” Then her tone changes. “So. What the hell’s going on?” She looks so concerned, so earnest, I just kind of collapse into the safety of a very old, very trustworthy friend and burst into tears. Margot leans forward and hands me a box of tissues from her desk.
“The doctor is in,” she says with a supportive smile.
“Oh, Margot. What a mess. I mean”—I try to smile—“everything is so amazing. I am so excited about Voyanovski and all the new opportunities that are coming my way.” I sort of sputter through the words, as surprised by my outburst as she is. “I’m so relieved to be free of Landon, and even giving up my place at USC feels like this huge weight off my shoulders. But . . .” I take a deep breath.
“You have met someone else, haven’t you?”
I nod slowly. “It’s just so stupid.” I wipe the tears away and sit up straighter. “I thought it was going to be this one-off, a kind of . . .” I stop, distracted. I look out the wavy glass panes of the bay window behind Margot’s shoulder and watch the last edge of the sun fall behind the mountains to the west. Even the red of the sunset reminds me of him. It’s becoming ridiculous. I refocus. “I thought it would be a spot of fun. We both agreed it was just going to be fun.”
“Was it?” Margot asks.
“Was it what?”
“Was it fun?”
I picture his eyes when he kissed me on the bridge; I picture his lips when they trailed down my stomach in the shower. Rome was definitely the most fun I’ve ever had in my life.
I whisper, “He was so damned hot, Margot. I become sort of weak when I think about him.”
Margot smiles as if she likes the sound of that. “Sounds dreamy. So, what’s the problem?”
“Yeah. Slight problem. He’s now engaged to someone else.”
“Ouch. Well, it’s not like any of us are strangers to botched engagements. Why doesn’t he just call it off? It can’t be impossible.”
I let out a self-deprecating laugh. “Yeah, maybe if I had ever spoken to him or seen him after our tawdry one-night stand, that would be the perfect time for me to tell him to break off his engagement to Miss Perfect.” I take a sip of wine and shake my head at my own foolishness. “It was just a stupid fling.”
“Then why can’t you stop thinking about him?”
“Hell if I know, but that’s what I need to do. He’s a business colleague, so I just need to think of him as a business colleague and nothing more. I’m trying.”
Margot swallows another sip and stares at the fire, then sends an assessing look down the
length of my jeans to my expensive high-heeled boots.
“So, he hasn’t seen the new, hot you?”
“Margot, stop!”
“What? You look gorgeous. I mean, you always were gorgeous, but you seem . . . cooler somehow, more comfortable in your own skin.”
“It’s just the clothes and stuff. My mom took me on a wild shopping spree in Paris.”
“Really? It was all your mom’s doing?” Margot widens her eyes suggestively.
“Okay, fine, I may have purchased a few things myself. It probably sounds superficial, but I feel stronger somehow when I’m in beautiful clothes.” I lift my free hand as if I am posing for a photo. “It’s the new me: Glamorous Miki.”
“It suits you. You look great.”
“Thanks.”
Margot’s smile slips, and she looks serious. “How are you handling things since your dad died?”
I burst into tears again.
“Oh, Miki.” Margot leaps up and hugs me awkwardly; she’s half standing and I’m half sitting. I pat her back.
After I finally settle down again, I say, “It’s okay. I think I might still be in shock.”
Margot sits back down in her chair and reaches for her glass of wine on the round table between us. “You think?”
We both smile. I wipe away the new tears and shrug. “I thought I was so tough, about my dad and everything, but I feel so devastated sometimes, without even realizing it. I keep thinking everything is just a little off kilter, but really, my life has completely changed in so many meaningful ways. Between all the stuff that’s happening with these negotiations and the crush I have on this guy, I feel like my dad is sort of with me in spirit. I can’t really explain it.”
“All right. One thing at a time. Tell me what happened with your dad.”
We spend the next hour going over all of the insanity of the past six weeks, everything to do with the paper business and my (old) job at USC. Margot used to be a really successful forensic accountant at KPMG in New York, before she moved to France, and it’s fun to talk to someone who understands that part of what’s happening. She totally gets my excitement about taking over the company and applying all the things I was only theoretically good at. She is happy that I am finally realizing I was never going to be professionally satisfied in a university setting.
