by Nell Harding
Stefan was definitely handsome in a smooth, polished way, with blonde hair pushed back from his high forehead and finely angled cheek bones. He was easy company, the opposite of Sebastien, as gregarious as his brother was taciturn.
He was definitely an attractive man, Kate decided, with his lazy charm and winning smiles. He had a way of making a person feel noticed and special. She was sure it was all an act and he wasn’t her type, but it was still flattering and enjoyable attention.
They talked a lot about Verbier. He asked about the locals, about gossip from the pub Mont Fort, about places she had visited in her brief time here. She could tell that he was missing his role as chalet host and could imagine that he was good at it. There was genuine fondness for Verbier in his voice when he spoke. Kate had tried to remember all the gossip Emily had told her about the social scene and passed it on as best she could.
“I suppose I did bring the exile on myself,” he admitted grudgingly, seeming to read her mind. “But it was worth it for the lovely company of the incomparable Rashmi Tewari.”
“Rashmi Tewari?” Kate repeated in surprise. “The star of “Bombay Mix”?”
It was Stefan’s turn to be surprised. “You’ve seen Bollywood blockbusters? I didn’t think that one ever made it off the subcontinent.”
“Ah, but I love musicals,” Kate explained, looking at him with renewed curiosity. “And Bollywood has taken them to an extreme. I can’t believe you know Rashmi Tewari. What was the hit song that they dance to in the forest scene?”
“You mean “Gharam Chutney?”” he asked, laughing out loud. “I still can’t believe you know that.”
“Know it? I can even sing along with it,” she said almost sheepishly.
“In that case, here we go. But first, see how the wine has nearly started to boil? This is when you start adding the Gruyere, stirring constantly. We’ll add the Vacherin at the end. It’s so creamy it dissolves easily. Let me just fetch my ipod.”
Kate was left alone in the kitchen stirring in the grated cheese, handful by handful. Moments later Stefan was back, attaching his player to a small speaker on the kitchen shelf. He spun through his repertoire quickly and found the song in question.
A female voice introduced the theme in two lines that warbled plaintively along an eastern scale before the instruments joined in with a catchy beat and a male voice took up the theme. Kate joined in unselfconsciously, singing along with the female parts while Stefan hummed along to the male vocals. Soon they were imitating the Bollywood dance style, each one dancing around an imaginary tree in the way the actors did in the film, laughing at themselves.
Sebastien burst in at the same time that Stefan suddenly remembered the fondue with a loud “Oh merde, the cheese,” as he scrambled to turn off the music. Sebastien glowered at his brother and leapt to pull the fondue pot from the stove. Most of the wine had evaporated and the cheese had formed a solid lump.
Looking highly unimpressed with both of them, Sebastien opened the kitchen window and dumped the fondue contents into the snow. “I think I’ll take over from here if we want to eat before midnight,” he said coldly to Stefan. “At least it looks like most of the cheese never even made it to the caclon so it shouldn’t take too long to start again.”
Kate, who had remained posed in mid-step during the short-lived fondue emergency, suddenly felt foolish. She remembered Axelle’s cool poise and wondered what Sebastien thought seeing her dance so badly to a Hindi pop song. She decided to follow Stefan out of the kitchen in disgrace as Hans Peter and Jorg came to check on the dinner’s progress.
Sebastien reached for her arm as she passed him by, but she shook his hand away crossly. She didn’t need to hear what he thought of her unprofessionalism or have him blame her for burning the family fondue. If he wanted cool, calm and collected, he could go to Axelle. If he wanted spastic, loud and emotionally unstable, he could speak with her. He made the wise choice and let her walk out of the room.
“I must say, it’s nice to have another woman to share the burden of keeping these family dinners from sounding like a shareholders’ meeting,” Teresa said conversationally, smiling across the dining room table at Kate.
Kate felt four pairs of male eyes turn towards her, and busied herself with putting a small square of bread on her fondue fork. She was grateful for the soft light which hid her flushed face, and the flickering glow of the little flame underneath the fondue pot.
The Pichard family was sharing their Christmas fondue with Kate. This seemed to be a family tradition for them, but Kate felt on the spot. This time it was Teresa who was working to put her at ease, immersing her in the friendly banter of the sons.
“Mother, don’t start this,” groaned Sebastien, rolling his eyes as he reached across to dip his bread in the melted cheese.
His mother was undaunted. “I was hoping by now to have wives and little children filling this chalet,” she observed, looking around the large room. “It was originally meant to host several generations, you know. I know your generation doesn’t feel as rushed as ours did to have children...”
“Maybe we just have better options for birth control, Mother,” Stefan said sweetly.
Stefan was seated beside his mother, directly across the table from Kate where he managed to animate her dinner with comical facial expressions to match the conversation. His blonde hair glowed like a halo in the candlelight, although his behaviour put her more in mind of a clown.
His father, seated at the head of the table, looked as if he had also been blonde in his youth, although his hair was now largely white. The grandfather had been placed between Kate and Sebastien, in the hopes of being able to hear what was said.
“Or perhaps you are too spoilt to find a woman who will have you!” Teresa returned emphatically. “But you had better hurry up. I want to be strong enough still to be able to pick up my own grandchildren.”
“I thought I was banned from pursuing the fairer sex,” Stefan mused aloud. “Does this mean that I’m out of the doghouse? Even encouraged to continue the hunt?”
“If you are out of the doghouse, you are still on a short leash,” growled his father warningly. Hans Peter loomed over the table in a menacing way, trying to hear the conversation, but he spoke with a hint of humour behind his gruff voice.
“I know, we’ll just get you a puppy, Mother,” Sebastien suggested. “They are much easier to manage than grandchildren.”
“A puppy, eh? We can call it Audrey,” Jurg broke in, looking delighted. “After Audrey Hepburn, of course.” He leaned toward Kate. “I met her, you know, when she lived near Morges. She came to us to buy a watch. Charming.”
Hans Peter looked directly at Kate and raised his eyebrows in a theatrical aside. “Teresa looked a bit like Audrey Hepburn herself when I met her, you know.”
“So you’d name a dog after me?” his wife protested with pretended indignation.
Kate smiled. To her relief, she was starting to enjoy the evening. The family was much more down-to-earth than she had expected, and the relaxed ambiance was a pleasant contrast to the grand dining hall. The gentle teasing reminded her of family dinners when she was growing up with her numerous siblings.
The fondue was delicious. The cheese was from the valley just below Verbier, and the white wine came from Sion, only twenty kilometres further away.
As dinner wore on, she watched the dynamics in the family. She caught Sebastien watching her out of the corner of his eye a few times, but each time she turned towards him he looked away to talk to his brother. As for herself, she found it easier to listen to Teresa and Stefan and to try not to think about Sebastien at all.
The mix of emotions that washed over her was not all positive, but there was a simplicity in simply avoiding each other which made it easier for Kate to act naturally and to forget whatever hidden feelings she’d been harbouring.
Still she felt a tiny knot of tension slip away when they had managed to empty the big porcelain dish. The father had even
fried an egg in the final bits of cheese, “to complete Michelle’s introduction to Swiss culture,” as he put it.
“This is la religieuse,” he informed her, mixing the egg into the melted cheese in a heavy mess. “It is very tasty, but then you must not drink cold water all evening or it will form a hard ball in your stomach. Instead you must drink a little digestif.”
They all moved out to the living room for their after-dinner drinks. Kate jumped up to serve them, but Hans-Peter waved her away. “Tonight you are our guest,” he said graciously, ushering her to sit by the fire. “And now you must watch to learn how to play a uniquely Swiss card game, chibre or jass.”
“It really is part of the Swiss tradition,” Stefan explained to her. “You know we still have compulsory military service here, so all men learn to play this.”
“What isn’t forbidden is mandatory here,” Sebastien quoted dryly, trying again to catch her eye.
Kate avoided looking at him and made a mental note to use that quote in her next column. Meanwhile Stefan had launched into a funny tale about compulsory volunteer fireman duty in the small village they had grown up in.
“We were all on a roster to take the old truck out for a drive once a week or the engine would seize up. Well, Seba and I took our shift together, and one night there were these young women we wanted to impress, so we put on the fire engine sirens as we passed.”
Sebastien started to chuckle. “There was no way to turn them off after that. We panicked and went screaming down the road, sirens ringing and lights flashing, and all the other men in the village who did fireman duty came tearing out of their houses, calling each other to try to figure out where the fire was.”
Stefan grinned ruefully. “We had to supervise a lot of car parking at special events to make up for that,” he remembered. “But we certainly managed to attract the attention of those girls.”
Kate sat back and watched as the four of them seated themselves around the low coffee table. For her sake they played a few open hands, explaining their strategies and the complicated score-keeping. Hans-Peter bellowed as if everyone else was deaf, which added a comical rowdiness to the table, but was yawning loudly by the third hand.
“Next time, you will take my place, Michelle,” said Teresa as she stacked all the cards again neatly. “But now it is bed-time for us old folks. I will see you all at breakfast.”
She got up gracefully, bidding them all goodnight. At the doorway she paused, looking back pointedly at Stefan. “And I expect to see you at the breakfast table as well. With no surprise guests.” Without waiting for Stefan’s indignant response, she swept up the stairs after her husband.
Stefan grinned at Kate. “Those Tessinoise mothers put Italian moms to shame when it comes to treating their thirty-something sons as little boys still. Or is this a more universal phenomenon? How is the mammaissimo where you come from, Michelle?”
Kate had still not decided on how much of a history she dared to invent for Michelle. Made bold by the tone of the evening she decided to be blatantly evasive.
“The agency expressly forbid me from giving you any of my personal details,” she answered with mock primness.
Stefan’s eyebrows arched high into his forehead. “Oh they did, did they?” He leaned forward in his chair, rubbing his hands together with relish. “What exactly did they tell you about me? I’d love to hear my notoriety rating.”
Kate pursed her lips firmly together and shook her head. “Sorry, that’s classified info. I can’t divulge private information to any of my clients.”
“Well, in that case I’ll have to ask you after-hours, when you’re off-duty,” Stefan responded suavely. “Why don’t I take you out to the Farm Club this evening and buy you ridiculously over-priced drinks in return for the gossip on the black sheep of the Pichard flock?”
Before Kate could reply, Sebastien cut in, his dark eyes glinting dangerously.
“I think Michelle has had her dose of Pichard for one evening,” he said shortly. “We don’t pay her nearly enough to ask her to put up with you on overtime. Let the poor girl escape and get some sleep before she has to face the clan again early tomorrow.”
He stood up abruptly and gestured gallantly toward the doorway. Stefan leaned back on the sofa and flung his arms out, watching his brother with curiosity but saying nothing.
Unsure of what to say to Stefan, Kate glanced toward Sebastien, but his polite suggestion seemed to conceal a direct order. She nodded goodnight to both of the men and fled to the safety of her room.
The fire was burning low when the two men drained their glasses.
“You are supposed to be keeping a low profile, that’s why,” Sebatien said irritably to his brother. He slammed his glass down onto the table with unnecessary vehemence.
Stefan sighed in a bored way. “And you are supposed to be learning how to be social again, remember? Can you remember how it was to go out and have fun from time to time?”
“I’m not against all fun,” Sebastien answered impatiently. “But hitting on our employees seems a little inappropriate.”
Stefan looked amused. “Is that what’s really bothering you, little brother? You think I’m being inappropriate? Or are you wondering if it would be inappropriate for you to hit on our charming little employee?”
“Don’t be stupid,” Sebastien said churlishly, picking up his glass and gazing into its empty depths.
His brother laughed out loud. “Come on, I haven’t seen you act like this since Genevieve. You can’t keep your eyes off her. Are you defending a fair maiden or your own interests? Is this jealousy I see?”
Sebastien lunged at his brother in a wrestling hold and the two of them rolled off the sofa and landed with a thud on the wooden floor.
Stefan was taller, but Sebastien was more muscular and managed to pin him in a few moves. He glared down at his brother.
“Ouch!” Stefan grunted, grinning devilishly. “I take it that’s a yes?”
Sebastien gave him a final shake and then stood up, proffering a hand to pull Stefan to his feet.
Stefan gave tousled his younger brother’s shaggy hair. “Don’t worry, I wasn’t hitting on her. I haven’t forgotten that I’m exiled to Siberia.”
Sebastien stared into the fire, saying nothing.
Stefan brought him back to his senses with a friendly punch in the arm. “I don’t suppose you want to go down to the club, see who’s in town?” he asked hopefully.
Sebastien sent him a baleful look and Stefan sighed. “Somehow I didn’t think so. In that case, I’m off to bed.” He paused, looking at the dark form still staring into the flames. “But it wouldn’t be a scandal if you asked her for a date outside of her work time, you know.”
On that note he waltzed out of the room, leaving Sebastien with his tangled thoughts.
Chapter Eleven
Tuesday night found Kate and Mimi curled up on the couch in the chalet, eating ice cream from the container and watching a movie as they discussed romance in general. Outside, the wind rattled the shutters and drove snow up against the panes. Inside, the fire cast a cosy glow on the warm room.
They were watching The Sound of Music in French. Mimi had come up with the idea as a means of boosting Kate’s flagging interest in improving her French.
“What better way to work on a language than by watching a film you can recite by heart?” she had asked, adding, after a moment’s thought, “Except of course by taking on a French lover. That’s the true secret to learning a language. And it IS the language of love, after all.”
Kate had preferred the film option and so here they were trying to get used to strange voices singing familiar melodies. As a French lesson Kate wasn’t reaping much benefit, but both women were having fun singing along when their favourite songs came up, and in between they were trying to analyse Sebastien’s behaviour.
“In any case, sounds like Sebastien is the musical,” Emily mused aloud. “And Stefan just might be the drama.”
; Kate had to laugh at the forgotten code they used to use back in high school, where Kate was always given the lead in anything musical and Emily starred in most dramas. “You’d probably be his type, actually.”
“Good, that’s settled then,” her friend said matter-of-factly. “You two just have to get married, make me the maid of honour and I’ll pick up the best man. I assume it’s de rigeur to make your brother your best man in these old families. Keep the cards held close and all that.”
“I don’t think it’s so likely to be a case of wedding bells ringing as police sirens wailing,” Kate said, pushing out her lower lip. “That Axelle witch is probably behind the scenes trying to get me fired even as we speak.”
“Ah, ha, proof positive,” Mimi crowed triumphantly. “She obviously felt threatened by you, which means that the chemistry between you two is palpable even to the self-absorbed. It’s a good sign.”
Kate snorted. “She thought I was the maid and my presence was the only thing that stood between her and a naked romp in front of the fire. And he didn’t exactly do anything to suggest that he thought differently.”
“You have to see it as a game,” Emily declared, waving her spoon dramatically in the air for emphasis before plunging it back into the container. “Nobody wants to show their hand too early, but there are clues you can look for.”
“Like showing up with a beautiful model?” Kate asked dryly. “You don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out that one. Pass me the ice cream.”
“Occupational hazard,” her friend dismissed airily, handing the tub across the coffee table. “His reaction to your flirting with Stefan.”
“I was NOT flirting!” Kate objected emphatically, stabbing her spoon crossly into the ice cream. “But he probably thinks I was. And don’t smirk like that, I’m not interested in Stefan.”
“Or Sebastien either, or so you keep saying,” Emily reminded her. “Although methinks the lady doth protest too much.”
