Queen of Babble

13

When I wake up the following morning, I look around the tiny, low-ceilinged room I’m in, with its bright white walls and dark wood rafters, in confusion. The curtains-cream-colored, with large pink roses splotched on them-are drawn across the room’s single window, so I can’t see outside. For a second I can’t remember where I am-whose bedroom, or even what country.

Then I see the old-fashioned door, with its latch you press down on instead of turn-like the latch to a garden gate-and I realize I’m at Chateau Mirac. In one of the dozen attic bedrooms-which, in the chateau’s glory days, housed the serving staff-and which now house Shari, Chaz, and myself-not to mention Jean-Luc and his girlfriend, Dominique.

That’s because the chateau’s formal bedrooms, below us, are reserved for the wedding party-and guests-that are due to arrive this afternoon. While renting out the main house, Luke’s father-whom Shari refers to as Monsieur de Villiers-stays in a small thatched-roofed cottage near the outbuildings, where he keeps the oak casks of his wine before it’s ready for bottling. Shari told me last night, as we climbed the seemingly hundreds of stairs to our rooms after four-or was it five?-more kir royales, that birds regularly nest in the thatch and have to be chased away lest their waste eat through the roof.

Somehow a thatched roof will never seem picturesque to me again.

After blinking groggily at the cracks in the ceiling above, I realize what’s wakened me. Someone is knocking on the door.

“Lizzie,” I hear Shari say, “are you up yet? It’s noon. What are you going to do, sleep all day?”

I throw back the duvet and rush to the door to hurl it open. Shari is standing there in a bikini and a sarong holding two enormous, steaming mugs. Her hair, which is normally dark and curly, is looking enormous, a sure sign that it’s hot outside.

“Is it really noon?” I ask, freaking out that I slept so long and wondering if people-okay, Luke-are going to think I’m a rude slacker.

“Five after,” Shari says. “I hope you brought a swimsuit. We’ve got to try to catch as many rays as we can before Luke’s mom and her guests arrive and we have to start setting things up for the meals and wine tastings. That only gives us about four hours. But first”-she thrusts one of the steaming mugs at me-“cappuccino. Lots of aspartame, just the way you like it.”

“Oh,” I say appreciatively as the milky steam bathes my face. “You are a lifesaver.”

“I know,” Shari says, and comes into the room to make herself comfortable on the end of my rumpled bed. “Now. I want to know everything that happened with Andy. And with Luke, on the train. So spill.”

I do, settling in beside her. Well, I don’t tell her everything, of course. I’ve still never told her the truth about my thesis, and I’m definitely never telling her about the blow job. Of course, I told a total stranger on a train about both. But somehow that was much easier than telling my best friend, who would, I know, only disapprove of both-especially the latter. I mean, a blow job, without reciprocation, is the height of antifeminism.

“So,” Shari says when I’m through, “you and Andy are really over.”

“Definitely,” I say, sipping the last of my delicious cappuccino.

“You told him that. You told him it’s over.”

“Totally,” I say. Didn’t I? I think I did.

“Lizzie.” Shari gives me a hard look. “I know how much you hate confrontation. Did you really tell him it’s over?”

“I told him I need to be alone,” I say…realizing, a little belatedly, that that’s not the same thing as telling someone it’s over.

Still, Andy got the message. I know he did.

But just in case, maybe I won’t pick up if he calls again.

“And you’re really okay with that?” Shari wants to know.

“Mostly,” I say. “I mean, I guess I feel pretty guilty about the money-”

“What money?”

“The money he wanted to borrow,” I say. “For his matriculation fees. I probably should have given it to him. Because now he’s not going to be able to go to school in the fall-”

“Lizzie,” Shari says in tones of disbelief, “he had the money…he gambled it away! If you’d given him more, he just would have gambled that away, too. You’d have been enabling him to continue his destructive behavior. Is that what you want? To be an enabler?”

“No,” I say mournfully, “but, you know. I did really love him. You can’t turn love on and off, like a faucet.”

“You can if the guy’s trying to take advantage of your generous nature.”

“I guess.” I sigh. “I really shouldn’t feel bad. He was getting unemployment money while being employed.”

One corner of Shari’s mouth turns up. “I love how, to you, that’s obviously the worst thing he did. What about the gambling? What about the fat thing?”

“But cheating the government is way worse than either of those.”

“Okay. If you say so. Anyway, good riddance to him. Now will you stop being such a pain in my ass and just move to New York with me and Chaz?”

“Shari,” I say. “Really. I just-” How can I tell her the truth? That I can’t possibly go job-hunting in New York City without a college degree, and I don’t know if I’ll be done with my thesis by the time she and Chaz are ready to leave. Also the whole even-if-I have-a-degree-I’m-not-so-sure-I-can-make-it-in-the-big-city thing.

“Fine,” Shari says, clearly misinterpreting my reluctance. “I get it. It’s a big step. You need time to adjust to the idea. I know. Well, what about the other thing?”

“What other thing?”

“About you and Luke. On that train.”

“Shari, I already told you. Nothing happened. I mean, come on. I just got out of a disastrous relationship with a guy I hardly knew. You think I’m going to rush into another one right away? Give me some credit. Besides, have you had a good look at his girlfriend? Why would a guy who has that go for a girl like me?”

“I can think of a few reasons,” Shari says darkly.

But before I have a chance to ask what she means, she says, “All right, listen. I know you’ve been through a lot the past couple days, so I won’t bug you about the New York thing for a while. How about you take some time off from worrying about the future? God knows you deserve it. Consider the next few days a well-earned vacation. We’ll revisit the subject later, when you’ve had a chance to recover from finding out that the man of your dreams was actually more of a nightmare. Now”-she smacks me on the leg-“throw on your suit and meet me at the pool. We have tanning to do.”

I don’t argue. I hurry to grab my beauty supplies so I can have a quick wash before hitting the pool.

“And hurry up,” she says before stomping away. “Prime tanning hours are a-wasting.”

I rush to comply, since Shari doesn’t like having her orders disobeyed. I dart across the hall into an ancient bathroom that comes complete with a massive claw-foot tub and a toilet with a wooden seat and one of those chain-pull flushers. After a quick bath and makeup application, I pull on my bikini-the first time I’ve ever worn one in my life. My sisters used to mock me mercilessly every time I tried to put a two-piece on, back in my pre-weight-loss days.

Of course, that might have been because all my bathing suits were vintage one-pieces, many of which had built-in little skirts and had a distinct Annette Funicello flare to them.

Still, while I may have been the chubbiest girl at the pool, I was always the most originally dressed…or, as Rose used to put it, the biggest “fashion freak.”

My new suit doesn’t make me look like a freak at all. At least, I don’t think so. It’s a two-piece, but it’s vintage, too…vintage Lilly Pulitzer, from the sixties. Sarah used to say it was gross to wear someone else’s old swimsuit, but it’s actually perfectly hygienic if you wash it a few times before you wear it.

Now, checking out my reflection in the somewhat dim but otherwise fairly reliable mirror on the back of the bathroom door, I think I look…all right. I’m no Dominique, of course. But then, who among us can be?

Except, of course, for Dominique.

I hurry back to my room, tug a matching Lilly Pulitzer sundress over my suit, and hurriedly make my bed, pausing to throw back the rose curtains, then open the small diamond-shaped window so I can let in some fresh air…

And catch my breath, struck by what I see out my window…

Which is nothing less than the daylight view of the valley stretching out below the chateau. Green velvet treetops and rolling hills, pale brown cliffsides and, high above it all, the bluest, most cloudless sky I have ever seen.

And it’s all so beautiful. I can see, seemingly, for miles, nothing but trees, and the silver river winding through them, dotted by tiny village hamlets, with the occasional chateau or castle perched on a cliffside above. It’s like something out of a book of fairy tales.

How can Luke, I wonder, go back to Houston after having spent any amount of time here? How can anyone go anywhere else?

But I don’t have time to mull over this. I have to meet Shari at the pool or face her wrath.

It’s no joke, trying to find my way back downstairs through the myriad hallways and staircases that seem to make up Chateau Mirac, but I manage somehow to end up in the marble foyer, and slip outside into the soft, sweetly scented summer air. Somewhere in the distance I hear the whine of a motor-possibly a lawn mower, judging by the smell of freshly cut grass-and the tinkle of…cowbells? It can’t be.

Or can it?

I don’t pause to investigate. I put on my rhinestone-studded sunglasses, then hurry across the driveway, and finally across the lawn to the pool, where I see Shari, Dominique, and another girl all stretched out across chaise longues with blue-and-white striped cushions. The chaise longues face the valley, and the sun. Dominique and the other girl are already brown-this is undoubtedly not the first day they’ve spent lying out. Shari, I can see, is determined to gain on them before the summer is over.

“Good morning,” I say to Dominique and the other girl, who is on the chubby side and looks like a teenager. She’s in a blue one-piece Speedo while Dominique, beside her, is in a black Calvin Klein string bikini.

And the strings don’t seem to be tied very tightly.

“Bonjour,” the teenager says to me cheerfully.

“Lizzie, this is Agnes,” Shari says. Only she pronounces it the French way, which is Ahn-yes. “She’s staying here for the summer as the resident au pair. Her family lives in the millhouse down the road.”

“Oh!” I cry. “I saw the millhouse! It’s so beautiful!”

Agnes continues to smile at me pleasantly. It’s Dominique who says, “Don’t bother. She doesn’t understand a word of English. She claimed she did when she applied to work here, but she doesn’t, beyond hello, good-bye, and thank you.”

“Oh,” I say. And smile back at Agnes. “Bonjour! Je m’appelle Lizzie,” which pretty much exhausts what French phrases I know, with the exception of Excusez-moi and J’aime pas des tomates.

Agnes says a lot of stuff back to me, none of which I understand. Shari says, “Just smile and nod and you two’ll get along fine.”

And so I do. Agnes beams at me, then hands me a white towel and a bottle of cold water from a cooler she’s brought with her. I wonder if there’s any diet Coke in the cooler, but a glimpse before she closes the lid tells me there’s not. Do they even HAVE diet Coke in France? They must. It’s not the Third World, for crying out loud.

I thank Agnes for the water and spread the towel out on the chaise longue between hers and Dominique’s. I peel off my dress, then kick off my sandals. Then I lie back against the comfy cushion and find myself gazing at a cloudless blue sky.

This, I realize, is something I could get used to. Fast. England, and its cool, moist air, seems a long time ago.

So, for that matter, does Andy.

“That’s an…unusual swimsuit,” Dominique says.

“Thank you,” I say, even though I have a sneaking suspicion she didn’t mean it as a compliment. But I’m probably just projecting again, on account of the six-hundred-dollar flip-flops. “So where are Luke and Chaz?”

“Trimming the branches along the driveway,” Shari says.

“Ouch,” I say. “Don’t they have-I don’t know. A tree-trimming company who does that?”

Dominique shoots me a very sarcastic look from behind her Gucci sunglasses.

“Certainly-if someone had thought to call them in time. But as usual, Jean-Luc’s father waited until the last minute and couldn’t get anyone. So now Jean-Luc has to do it, if he doesn’t want Bibi to have a fit when she arrives.”

“Bibi?”

“Jean-Luc’s mother,” Dominique explains.

“Mrs. de Villiers is kind of…particular, from what I understand,” Shari says tonelessly from her chaise longue.

Dominique lets out a delicate snort. “You could say that,” she says. “You could also say, of course, that she’s merely frustrated by her husband’s complete and total absentmindedness. All he thinks about are his stupid grapes.”

“Grapes?”

Dominique waves a hand behind us, toward some of the chateau’s outbuildings behind which I’d seen some kind of orchard stretching.

“The vineyard,” she says.

So it was a vineyard, not an orchard! Of course!

“Oh,” I say. “Well, shouldn’t Monsieur de Villiers think about his grapes? This place is primarily a vineyard, isn’t it? Isn’t the wedding thing just sort of a side business?”

“Of course,” Dominique says, “but Mirac hasn’t had a decent harvest in years. First there were the droughts, then a blight…anyone else would take this as a hint to move on, but not Jean-Luc’s father. He says the de Villiers family has been in the wine business since the 1600s, when Mirac was first built, and he’s not going to be the one to give up on it.”

“Well,” I say admiringly, “that’s kind of…noble. I mean, isn’t it?”

Dominique makes a disgusted noise. “Noble? It is a total waste. Mirac has got such tremendous potential, if only Jean-Luc and his father would see it.”

“Potential?” What is she talking about? It’s gorgeous the way it is. The perfect grounds, the beautiful house, the frothy cappuccino…what needs changing?

Dominique has a few suggestions, it turns out.

“Well, it’s obviously in terrible need of updating. The place needs a total renovation-particularly the bathrooms. We need to replace those tacky claw-foot tubs with Jacuzzis…and pull-chain toilets! My God. They have to go as well.”

“I kind of like the pull-chain toilets,” I say. “I think they’re sort of…charming.”

“Well, yes, of course you would think that,” Dominique says, and raises an eyebrow meaningfully in the direction of my swimsuit. “But most people do not. The kitchen, too, needs a total overhaul. Do you know they still have a-what do you call it? Oh yes. A larder. Ridiculous. No chef in his right mind could be hired who would work under the current conditions.”

“Chef?” I say. And even as I think of cooking food, my stomach rumbles. I’m starving. I know I’ve missed breakfast, but when’s lunch? Is there really a chef? Did he make the cappuccino?

“But of course. In order to turn Mirac into a true world-class hotel, it will need a five-star Michelin chef.”

Oh. So…

“Turn it into a…” I sit up and stare down at Dominique. “Wait. They’re thinking of turning this place into a hotel?”

“Not yet,” Dominique says, reaching for a bottle of water she has sitting by her chaise longue. “But as I keep telling Jean-Luc, they ought to. Just think of the fortune that could be made in corporate retreat and convention business alone! And then, of course, there’s the spa route-they could easily get rid of the vineyards-turn them into jogging paths or horseback-riding trails-and convert the outbuildings into massage, acupuncture, and hydrotherapy rooms. The plastic surgery recovery industry is booming right now-”

“The what?” I interrupt. I’m sorry to say I yelled it, too. But I was just so shocked at the idea of anyone wanting to turn this fabulous place into a spa.

“The plastic surgery recovery industry,” Dominique repeats, looking annoyed. “People who’ve recently undergone liposuction or a face-lift need a place to recover, and I’ve always thought Mirac would be outstanding in that capacity-”

I can’t help it. I have to look over to see what Shari thinks about all this.

But she merely holds the book she is pretending to read even closer to her face, in order to hide her expression.

Still, I can see her shoulders shaking. She can’t stop laughing.

“Really,” Dominique goes on, taking another sip of her water. “The de Villiers family has failed to see the entrepreneurial potential of this property. By hiring trained professional servers-instead of the local riffraff-and offering services such as broadband and satellite television-installing air-conditioning, and perhaps even a home movie theater-they will attract a much wealthier clientele. And turn over a much bigger profit than Jean-Luc’s father’s puny wine business ever has.”

Before I can make any sort of reply to this horrifying speech, my stomach chooses to do my talking for me, letting out an extremely loud gurgle of hunger. Dominique ignores it, but Agnes sits up and babbles something that sounds like a question. I do hear the word gouter, which I know means “to taste.”

“She wants to know if you want her to get you something to eat,” Dominique translates in a bored voice.

I say, “Oh. Uh…”

Agnes babbles some more, and Dominique says in the same bored voice, “It’s no trouble. She’s getting herself a snack anyway.”

“Oh,” I say. “Then, yes, thank you, I’d love one.” I beam at Agnes and say, “Oui, merci.” Then I add, “Est-ce que vous…Est-ce que vous…”

“What are you trying to ask her?” Dominique asks-a little waspishly, I think. But maybe I’m projecting, because of the liposuction thing. I’m still having a hard time believing that she really wants to turn this beautiful place into one of those hotels where they send contestants on The Swan after they get their new noses.

“I wanted to know if they’ve got any diet Coke,” I say.

Dominique makes a face. “Of course not. Why would you want to put those kinds of terrible chemicals in your body?”

Because they’re delicious, I want to say. But instead I say, “Oh. Okay. Then…nothing.”

Dominique snaps something at Agnes, who nods, leaps up from her towel, stuffs her feet into a pair of rubber clogs-which seem like the appropriate footwear for walking through gravel and grass. WAY more appropriate than suede Manolos-grabs her sarong, and takes off for the house.

“Wow,” I say. “She’s so nice.”

“She’s supposed to do what you say. She’s the help,” Dominique says.

I look over at Shari. “Um…but aren’t we, too? The help, I mean?”

“But you aren’t expected to fetch and carry for people,” Dominique says. “And you mustn’t vous her.”

“I’m sorry.” I shake my head. “I mustn’t what?”

“You vous’d her,” Dominique says. “When you tried to speak French to her just now. That isn’t proper. She’s younger than you, and she’s a servant. You should tu her-the informal version of you-tu as opposed to vous. You’ll give her airs above her station. Not that she doesn’t already suffer from them-I don’t actually think it’s appropriate for her to be using the pool during her time off. But Jean-Luc said it was all right, so now there’s no getting rid of her.”

I sit there gaping at her some more, completely unable to believe the words that have just come out of Dominique’s mouth. Shari, for her part, is actually covering her face with her book, she’s trying so hard not to let it show how much she’s laughing.

As if Dominique would even notice. Not when she’s busy doing what she does next, which is say, “It’s so hot…”

Which, actually, it is. It’s broiling out. In fact, before Dominique started in on that vous-versus-tu thing, I’d been thinking about taking a plunge into that clear blue water shimmering so tantalizingly in front of us…

But then Dominique does me one better by suddenly sitting up, undoing her bikini top, flipping it over the back of her chaise longue, then stretching and saying, “Ah. That’s better.”