Fairytale, p.7
Fairytale, page 7
“What a lovely young woman!” Maxine exclaimed to him as soon as they walked outside. “She’s beautiful, and obviously very smart if she’s working with you.”
“She’s planning to go to business school in a few years,” he said proudly, “but to be honest, I’m not sure she needs it. She’s getting experience here she’d never get in school. Especially now, with her mother gone, she’s taking on a lot of responsibilities that my wife handled before.” It was obvious how much he loved both of his women, and Maxine nodded and looked touched.
“Your wife was a very lucky woman,” she said quietly, as they walked into the part of the winery where the barrels were kept.
The facilities were huge, much more than you could see from the road. It was an important winery, even if it wasn’t as vast as Sam’s. But Christophe made up in quality for what he didn’t produce in quantity, and didn’t want to. And he was impressed by the questions Maxine asked. She seemed genuinely interested in the wine business, and what he did. She knew a number of important wineries in France, and was interested in how he did things differently, and what was the same. He spent two hours with her, and he enjoyed the time. She didn’t seem as glamorous in his own familiar setting. Other than the fancy alligator riding boots, she behaved like a regular person, and he enjoyed talking to her and explaining his business in some detail. The time flew by, and it was nearly five o’clock when he walked her to her car in their parking lot, and then he thought of something.
“Do you want to come up to the house for a glass of wine?” He was almost ready to leave work by then anyway, and it was too late to start any new projects on his desk.
“I’d love that,” she said, looking pleased, as they lapsed back into French. “Are you sure it won’t be an intrusion?” she asked and he shook his head.
“Of course not. If you don’t mind, I’ll ride up the hill with you. I walked to work today.” He and Camille did that often, to get a little exercise before they started work, and it gave them a chance to chat before the day began.
He got into the Mercedes she drove, and directed her up the hill to the château. They could see it peeking out behind the big trees which surrounded it, and the road up the hill was winding. They couldn’t see how big the château really was until they drove up to it, and could appreciate its elegant proportions. It was small for a château, but a very large house by local standards, and Maxine looked startled as she got out of the car and stared up at it.
“It’s like being at home, back in France,” she said, sounding nostalgic, and he thought of the château she had lost to her stepchildren in Périgord, and felt sorry for her. She had had her share of tragedies and disappointments too, and there was a vulnerable side of her that peeked through her confident demeanor, which touched him.
He led her into the front hall, where he had hung portraits of his family in France, and his parents. And there were photographs of him and Joy in silver frames on the tables, and many with Camille as she grew up. Everything about the house was very personal, and she admired the delicate frescoes Joy had painted when they built it. The château was beautiful, and entirely different from the house she had rented, where it was all new. The home he had built looked as though it had been there for hundreds of years instead of just twenty-three.
He poured Maxine a glass of wine and they sat outside in the garden, where he used to sit with Joy on quiet evenings, and Camille found them there, with a look of surprise an hour later when she came home from work. Her father hadn’t sat in the garden since her mother died, and it gave Camille a shock to see Maxine ensconced in her mother’s favorite chair.
“Oh…I’m sorry…I didn’t know you were out here, Papa,” she said when she found him in the garden, after she followed their voices there, and saw the open wine bottle in the kitchen, of his favorite vintage, from the year Camille was born. He thought it was his best wine.
“I should really go,” Maxine said, switching back to English as she stood up and smiled at Camille. She had heard them speaking French as she approached, which bothered her. Her father had always regretted that Joy didn’t speak French. She had tried to master it when they were first married, but languages weren’t her strong suit and she had given up. He seemed so comfortable speaking to Maxine in his own language, and they looked as though they’d had a nice time together.
They left their glasses in the kitchen, and he walked her out to her car, as Camille heard him say, “I’ll give you the full tour next time,” which made Camille wonder what he was going to show her. Their bedrooms? His private library, where her parents had spent nights reading by the fire? Joy’s office at home? Everything about the house was personal and seemed intimate to her, and not to be shared with strangers, particularly a woman he’d only seen twice in his life, and hadn’t planned to see again, and said he didn’t want to. But she had shown up at the office, and now she’d had a drink with him, sitting in her mother’s chair, in their private garden. And something about it felt creepy to Camille, as though Maxine had invaded their space, and had intended to do it.
“I’ll call you when I get back from Holland,” he said as she got into her car and smiled up at him.
“I’m sorry I took up so much of your time today,” she said apologetically. “The winery tour was fascinating, and your home is spectacular,” she said, admiring it again as she turned the key in the ignition.
“I thoroughly enjoyed it,” he assured her. “We’ll have dinner at The French Laundry when I come back.” It was said to be the best restaurant in the Napa Valley.
“I’d love that,” she said happily, waved, and drove back down the winding driveway, and he walked slowly back into the house thinking about her. It had been pleasant spending time with her that afternoon, more so than he would have expected. She was easy to be with and to talk to, in spite of the fancy people she knew, she was very unassuming and unpretentious. He thought she’d make a good friend, and he was looking forward to taking her to dinner, to reciprocate for the evening he had spent at her home.
Camille had dinner on the table when he walked back in, and she was quiet as they sat down to Raquel’s tamales and enchiladas she had put in the microwave, and a big salad. They both loved Mexican food, and especially Raquel’s. Camille didn’t say a word as they started eating, and her father could see that she was troubled by something.
“Anything wrong?” he asked her and she shook her head, and smiled at him, but he could see a sad look in her eyes and wondered what had happened. She didn’t speak until she cleared their plates, and then she told him about the new ideas she had for social media, to bring their lower priced wines to the attention of younger people. He liked the idea, and she said she was researching companies to handle Twitter and Facebook for them. She had been doing it herself, and had for some time, but she thought they could outsource it and hire a firm to do it, who might do it better. “You do a great job with it,” he praised her, but she still seemed upset, and he reached out and touched her arm with a tender expression. He hated it when she was unhappy and she looked so sad, and had all through dinner. “What is it? What’s bothering you, Camille?”
“I’m just being stupid. It was weird coming home to see you in the garden with that woman. She was sitting in Mom’s chair, as though she belonged there. I guess I’ll have to get used to that at some point,” she said, with tears bulging in her eyes, and he put his arms around her.
“Not yet,” he said quietly, stroking her long blond hair that still gave her the appearance of a child at times, especially when it hung straight down her back or she wore it in braids on days when she was busy. “No one is ever going to take your mother’s place. I thought of it when she sat in that chair too, but I didn’t want to be impolite and tell her she couldn’t sit there. I guess we’ll both have to get used to that when people come here. But I hardly know her, I’m not pursuing her. She’s an interesting woman who has had some hard breaks too. She’s probably very lonely. She doesn’t know anyone here, and it’s a small community. It doesn’t hurt to be nice to people. That doesn’t mean I’m falling in love with her,” but Camille sensed something about her that she didn’t know how to explain to him. It was an undercurrent which was much less innocent than he was describing, and he could be naive about people. Her mother had always said so. Camille thought Maxine de Pantin was a woman on a mission.
“What if she’s after you, Papa?” Camille said looking up at him. He was a handsome man with a successful business, and a lot of women would have liked to catch him now that he was widowed.
“She’s not after me, Camille.” He smiled at his daughter. “She knows lots more important men than me. I’m just a little fish in a small pond to her. She can go back to Paris, or anywhere else, and catch a much bigger one. Besides, I’m sure she doesn’t need me. Those boots she had on today must cost the price of a vineyard,” he said, laughing, and Camille smiled, thinking about them. She had never seen alligator riding boots before, and had no idea what they might cost.
“I promise you, she has no interest in me, nor I in her, except as friends. You have nothing to worry about. And I won’t let anyone sit in your mother’s chair next time,” he said, and she smiled at him, and hoped he was right about Maxine. Camille didn’t know why, but she didn’t trust her, and she had an odd feeling that her mother wouldn’t have either. She always knew when women were after him, and warned Christophe about it. He always brushed it off and had trouble believing that women wanted him. He was totally happy with his wife, and had never looked at another woman. But Joy was gone now, and Camille knew how lonely he was, and how empty the house was without her. There was a hole in their lives as big as the sky now, and all she knew was that she didn’t want Maxine de Pantin to try to fill it. The thought of that made a chill run down her spine.
Chapter Six
Christophe’s trip to the Lowlands was shorter than his trip to Italy, and he was back in two weeks, satisfied with how it had gone. He had stopped in New York on the way back, and saw two of their most important distributors, and Camille brought him up-to-date on everything as soon as he got home. She had had another run-in with Cesare, but didn’t bother to tell him about it. He always defended him anyway, and she was more interested in telling him about the social media group she had hired. In a single week, they had increased their followers on both Facebook and Twitter, and she was pleased. Her father was ecstatic to see her. He took her out to dinner the following night, at Don Giovanni’s, one of their favorite restaurants, and they both ate enormous plates of pasta, until they could barely move.
That weekend, true to his word, he took Maxine to dinner at The French Laundry, for a sumptuous meal, and they sampled three different local wines at dinner. He was trying to educate her since she said she wanted to learn all about the Napa Valley wines while she was living there, and at the end of the meal, she commented that his wines were still the best of all of them that she had tasted so far. They sampled a Sauterne for dessert, which they both loved, although they both agreed that nothing equaled Château d’Yquem, which she said was a favorite of hers.
He told her about his trip to Holland and Belgium, with a quick stop in Berlin on the way back, and she described a dinner party she’d been to, and who had been there. She said that all of them were snobs, and he laughed. He knew all the people she had mentioned. They were the Old Guard socialites, and not likely to extend a warm welcome to her.
“There is a lot of that up here. My wife and I made a pact early in our marriage to stay away from the seriously social group. They think they own the Valley, should be the only ones here, and give parties for each other all the time. It’s a very closed group.” He was surprised that they had invited Maxine at all. They hated outsiders, and rarely invited newcomers to the Valley. “They don’t ask me anymore,” he said, looking pleased. “I don’t miss it.” But Maxine seemed much more social than he was. She had worn a pink Chanel jacket and jeans to dinner with high heels, and managed to look very chic with whatever she wore.
“That reminds me,” Maxine said casually, as they walked to his car after dinner, “I don’t know how you feel about it, but I have tickets to the ballet next week, and I wondered if you’d want to go with me. It’s Swan Lake, with a wonderful new young Chinese dancer recently arrived from Beijing. I don’t have anyone to go with me, and I was hoping I could take you to it.” She tried not to sound pathetic about it, and he grinned at her sheepishly.
“My wife loved the ballet too, and I never went with her. She always took our daughter, or a friend.”
“Is that a no?” she asked him, with a pleading expression and he laughed.
“It would be if you’d allow it to be. But how can I say no when you look at me like that?” The poor woman had no friends here. At least he had Camille to keep him company, Maxine didn’t even have a close friend to go to a movie with.
“Then you’ll come with me?” He nodded, and she was elated. “I hate going to the ballet alone. It just makes one feel lonelier. That’s the hard part about not being married, although Charles really couldn’t leave home for the last two years. We tried a couple of times but it was too much for him.” Christophe had already understood that for the last two or three years of her marriage, she had essentially been a nurse. And although she missed Charles, she felt liberated now, and wanted to live again, which was understandable. She’d been a prisoner for years.
“Why don’t we have dinner in the city after the ballet?” he suggested, and he could see that she loved the idea. He already knew she liked Gary Danko, but he had several other suggestions, and they could make a festive evening of it. And although he wasn’t a big ballet fan, it sounded like fun to spend an evening with Maxine. It made him feel faintly guilty, since he had always refused to go to the ballet with Joy.
Camille had the same reaction to it when he told her he was going with Maxine to see Swan Lake.
“You never went with Mom,” she said angrily, “you always refused. How can you go with someone else?”
“She already had the tickets, and she didn’t have anyone else to go with. I felt sorry for her,” he said, looking embarrassed as Camille stormed around the kitchen, in her mother’s defense.
“Papa, that woman is playing you. She’s acting pathetic, and there’s nothing pathetic about her. She knows exactly what she’s doing. I can feel it. She’s after you.” She sounded exactly like Joy when she said it, and he laughed at her.
“You sound just like your mother. I really don’t think that’s the case this time,” he insisted, seeming absurdly naive to his daughter. It was as plain as the nose on his face and he didn’t want to see it. He thought Maxine was an innocent, but she reminded Camille of a spider weaving her web.
“I do,” Camille insisted. “I think you’re wrong about her. She’s trying to trap you.”
“The only thing she’s trapped me into is an evening at the ballet. That seems pretty harmless to me,” but his daughter didn’t agree with him, and she looked glum the next day when he left the office early, to go home and change, in time to pick Maxine up and drive her into the city at five-thirty, so they didn’t get delayed by traffic. And he had made dinner reservations for them at Quince, since the food was comparable to Gary Danko’s.
They made easy conversation on the way into the city, and she mentioned her stepchildren again and how evil and unfair they were.
“They would have left me penniless if they could, and starving by the side of the road,” but she didn’t appear to be penniless, from the way she dressed and was living, and how lavishly she entertained, so he assumed she must have come to a satisfactory agreement with them. But he was sure it had been unpleasant, and it had left her bitter about them, and the laws in France governing inheritances and estates. “We had ten wonderful years together, nearly eleven, and they gave me twenty-four hours to leave the château after he died, and forty-eight to get my things out of the house in Paris. It’s amazing how cruel some people can be. People talk about wicked stepmothers, but I think stepchildren are far worse, particularly if there are several of them. They really ganged up on me.” She seemed deeply hurt by them as she said it.
He turned to more pleasant subjects then, and asked her about her two sons in France. She missed them and couldn’t wait for them to come during the summer. He was surprised to discover how knowledgeable she was about modern art, which he enjoyed as well. He and Joy had bought a number of paintings at auction at Sotheby’s and Christie’s, to hang in the winery.
They arrived at the opera house in plenty of time, put his car in the parking lot, and had a glass of champagne at the bar, before they took their seats in the box where she had bought tickets. They were dead center and the best seats in the house, and he was surprised to find that he enjoyed it, which made him feel even guiltier about all the times he hadn’t gone with Joy. And dinner at Quince was exactly what they’d hoped for, an excellent meal in a pleasant setting, with superb service. They were back on the road to Napa at midnight, and sat in comfortable silence in the car. It had been a lovely evening, and he thanked her for inviting him to the ballet as they got on the Golden Gate Bridge, and admired the lights of the city. It was nice being with her, and he was feeling relaxed.
