Queen of Babble

14

And okay. I know this is Europe and people here are much more laid-back about their bodies and nudity than we are (except that Dominique isn’t European. She’s Canadian. Which I guess is sort of like European. But still).

It’s just very hard to sit and talk to someone whose bare nipples are sort of…pointing at you.

And Shari’s no help at all. She’s keeping her gaze resolutely on the pages of the book she’s reading. Though I notice she’s not actually turning any of those pages.

I realize there’s nothing I can do except try to act normal. I mean, it’s not like I’m not used to seeing bare-chested women, considering the gang showers back in McCracken Hall.

Still. I knew all those girls.

Plus, Dominique’s knockers are-how can I put this?-a bit more suspiciously perky than even Brianna Dunleavy’s.

And Brianna worked part-time at Bare Assets Cocktail Lounge.

“So,” I say, casually, “have you mentioned all these ideas you have for, um, improving Mirac to Luke?”

Because I can’t help wondering what he thinks of Dominique’s plans.

“Of course,” Dominique says, lifting a hand to slick back her long blond hair. “And to his father as well. But the old man is only interested in one thing. His wine. So until he dies…” Dominique gives a metaphoric shrug.

“Luke’s waiting for his father to die before turning this place into a Hyatt Regency?” I ask, my voice cracking a little in my astonishment. Because I simply can’t believe the Luke I met yesterday would ever do such a thing.

“A Hyatt?” Dominique looks scandalized. “I told you, it will be five-star luxury accommodation, not part of a cheap American hotel chain. And no, Jean-Luc is not entirely enthusiastic about my plans. Yet. For one thing because he would have to move to France full-time to see them implemented, and he isn’t interested in giving up his job at Lazard Freres. Although I’ve told him it would be a simple thing to transfer to their Paris offices. Then we could-”

“We?” I’m on the word like Grandma on a can of Bud. “You two are getting married?”

“Well, certainly,” Dominique says. “Someday.”

It’s ridiculous that this statement sends a shaft of pain through my heart. I barely know him. I only met him yesterday.

But then I’m the same girl who traveled all the way to England to see a guy I had only spent twenty-four hours with three months earlier.

And look how that turned out.

“Oh,” Shari finally pipes up, “you and Luke are engaged? That’s funny, Chaz never mentioned that to me. I’d have thought Luke would have told him.”

“Well, nothing so formal as an engagement,” Dominique says with obvious reluctance. “Who even gets engaged anymore? It’s so old-fashioned. Today’s couples, they form partnerships, not marriages. It’s all about combining incomes and investing in a shared future. And I knew, from the first moment I saw Mirac, that this is a future I wanted to invest in.”

I blink at her. Today’s couples form partnerships, not marriages? They combine incomes and invest in a shared future?

And what’s this about from the first moment I saw Mirac? Doesn’t she mean from the first moment I saw Jean-Luc?

“It is a beautiful place,” Shari says, turning a page of her book that I know she hasn’t read. “Why do you think it is that Luke doesn’t want to move to Paris?”

“Because Jean-Luc doesn’t know what he wants,” Dominique says with a frustrated sigh.

“Does any man?” Shari asks mildly. And I can tell, from her tone, that she is highly amused by the conversation.

“Maybe he doesn’t want to be that far away from you,” I offer-very generously, in my opinion, considering my little crush on her boyfriend. Since that’s all it is. Just a crush. Really.

Dominique turns her head to look at me. “I have offered to transfer to Paris with him,” she says tonelessly.

“Oh,” I say. “Well. His mom lives in Houston, right? Maybe he doesn’t want to leave her.”

“That’s not it,” Dominique says. “It’s that if he puts in a request to transfer to Paris and it goes through, he’ll have to go. And then he’ll be stuck there. And there’ll be no chance for him ever to pursue the career he really wants.”

“What’s the career he really wants?” I ask.

“He wants,” Dominique says, picking up the bottle of water she has by her chaise longue and raising it to her lips, then swallowing, “to be a doctor.”

“A doctor?” I’m thrilled. I can’t believe Luke didn’t mention this on the train when I said all those bad things about investment bankers. “Really? But that’s so great. I mean, doctors…they heal people.”

Dominique looks at me as if I’ve just said the most obvious thing in the world. Which, of course, I have.

But she obviously hasn’t figured out that I routinely say the first thing that pops into my head. Seriously. It’s like a disease.

“What I mean is,” I hasten to add, “doctors are so important. You know. To society. Because without them, we’d all…be a lot sicker.”

I look over at her to see what she thinks of this stroke of deductive brilliance on my part. Dominique has leaned up on her elbows-though the movement, mysteriously enough, did not cause her breasts to move at all-to look past me, over at Shari.

“Your friend,” she says to Shari, “talks very much.”

“Yes,” Shari says. “Lizzie does have a tendency to do that.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, feeling myself blush. But it’s not like I’m going to shut up. Because I physically can’t. “But why doesn’t Luke go to medical school? I mean, if that’s what he wants to do? Because it can’t be that doctors don’t make enough money.” The Luke I know-the one who let me, a total stranger, cry on his shoulder on that train yesterday-and shared his nuts with me-would never choose a career based on what kind of salary he might earn in said career.

I mean, would he?

No. No way. Hugo instead of Hugo Boss! Come on! That is the choice of a man who prefers personal comfort over style…

“Is it the cost of medical school?” I ask. “Because surely Luke’s parents would support him while he was in school. Have you thought of talking about it to Luke’s mom and dad?”

Dominique’s expression changes from one of mild disgust-with me, apparently-to one of horror.

“Why would I do that?” Dominique looks completely perplexed. “I want Luke to transfer to Paris with me and work at Lazard Freres so that he and I can turn this place into a five-star hotel, turn over a considerable profit, and come here on weekends. I don’t want to be a doctor’s wife and continue to live in Texas. Is that so hard to understand?”

I blink at her. “Um,” I say, “no.”

But inwardly, I’m thinking, Wow. This is one lady who knows what she wants. I bet SHE wouldn’t have any reservations about moving to New York City with no degree, no job, and no place to stay already lined up.

In fact, I bet she’d EAT New York City.

It’s at this point Agnes returns from the kitchen, holding a plate of snacks.

“Voila,” she says to me, looking extremely pleased with herself as she hands me the creation she’s prepared for me.

Which appears to be half a French baguette, sliced down the middle and stuffed with-

“Hershey bar!” Agnes cries, excited to be using the only English words she apparently knows.

I have just been handed a Hershey bar sandwich.

Agnes holds out the plate to Shari, who takes one look and says, “No thank you.”

Shrugging, Agnes then offers the plate to Dominique. The teenager doesn’t appear the least shocked that her boss’s girlfriend is half naked, proving that French people of all ages are way cooler about nudity than I am.

Dominique takes one look at the sandwich on the platter in front of her, shudders, and says, “Mon Dieu. Non.”

Well, okay. Maybe she wouldn’t eat New York City after all. Too fattening.

Agnes shrugs again, takes her own chocolate sandwich off the plate, sinks back down onto her chaise longue, and digs in. Crispy bits of crust fall all over the front of her bathing suit as she takes her first bite. Chewing, she gives me a chocolaty smile.

“C’est bon, ca,” she says, indicating the sandwich.

That much is obvious. The real question, of course, is how could it not be good?

Also, how can I say no to such a thoughtful and lovingly prepared snack? I don’t want to hurt the girl’s feelings.

There’s really only one thing I can do, of course. And so I do it.

And it is, without a doubt, the best sandwich I have ever eaten.

But it’s the kind of sandwich I can tell that Dominique-if she were to sink her business-oriented claws into this place-would outlaw immediately! Women recovering from lipo don’t want to be offered Hershey bar and baguette sandwiches! People on a corporate retreat can’t be served candy bars! I can practically see Dominique thinking this, even as she lifts a bottle of sunscreen and resolutely sprays her chest with it.

Agnes, and her Hershey bar sandwiches, will soon be a thing of the past if Dominique has her way with the running of Mirac.

Unless, of course, someone stops her.

“Ladies.”

I nearly choke on the huge bite of chocolate bar sandwich I’ve just taken. That’s because Luke and Chaz have just shown up at the far end of the pool, looking sweaty and dirt-smeared from their morning spent hacking at the underbrush along the driveway.

“Salut,” Dominique says, lifting a darkly tanned arm to wave at them. Her breasts, I notice, don’t move at all as she does this. It is a miracle of gravity.

“Hello, boys,” Shari says.

I don’t say anything for once, because I’m still too busy trying to swallow.

“Are you girls having a nice time?” Chaz wants to know. He is grinning, and I know why: half-naked Dominique. It’s hard to miss the amused glance he throws Shari, who only says, mildly, “Oh, we’re having a dandy time. You?”

“Dandy,” Chaz replied. “Thought we’d go for a swim to cool off a little.” Even as he says it, he’s peeling off his shirt.

One thing I’ll say about Chaz. He may have a master’s in philosophy, but he’s got the body of a physical trainer.

But Luke-I’m able to note all too clearly when he, too, pulls off his shirt a second later-is an even more spectacular example of athletic masculinity than Chaz. There’s not an ounce of body fat on his tanned, well-muscled body, and his dark chest hair, while not copious, still forms a very distinct arrow that seems to point directly down to his…

SPLASH! Both guys leap into the sparkling water, not bothering to drop their shorts first, robbing me of the pleasure of seeing just what that trail of hair from Luke’s chest down into his waistband leads to.

“Christ, that feels good,” Chaz says when he surfaces. “Shar, get in here.”

“Your wish is my command, master,” Shari says. She lays down her book, stands up, and jumps. Some of the spray from the splash she makes gets on Dominique, who flicks it off.

“Dominique,” Luke calls from where he surfaces at the deep end. “Come on in. The water’s great.”

Dominique prattles something in French that I don’t completely catch, although the word cheveux is mentioned several times. I try to remember if cheveux means hair or horses. Somehow I don’t think Dominique is saying that she doesn’t want to get her horses wet.

Shari swims to the side of the pool and, folding her arms on the edge, leans out to say to me, “Lizzie, you have to get in here. The water is fabulous.”

“Let me finish my sandwich first,” I say, since I’m still working on the messy-but sinfully delicious-concoction Agnes handed me.

“Better wait half an hour after eating,” Luke says, teasingly, from the deep end. “You don’t want to get a cramp.”

Fortunately, I’m busy chewing, so my mouth is too full for me to ask, If I get one, will you rescue me, Luke? Flirting would be totally inappropriate, considering the fact that his girlfriend is sitting right next to me. Topless.

And looking way better that way than I could ever hope to.

“Ah, the new girl!”

I practically spit out the wad of bread and chocolate in my mouth, I’m so startled by the heavily French-accented male voice behind me. When I whip around on my chaise longue, I find myself staring at an older gentleman in a white shirt and khaki pants held up by a pair of stylishly embroidered suspenders.

“Um,” I say after I’ve swallowed, “hello.”

“This is the new girl?” the old man asks Dominique as he points at me.

Dominique turns around, looks at the old guy, and says, in a much pleasanter tone than I’ve ever heard her use before, “Why, yes, monsieur. This is Shari’s friend Lizzie.”

“Enchante,” the old man says, lifting my hand-the one that isn’t clutching the remains of my Hershey bar sandwich-and bringing it to the vicinity of-but not touching it with-his lips. “I am Guillaume de Villiers. Would you like to see my vineyard?”

“Dad,” Luke says from the side of the pool he’s hastily climbing out of, “Lizzie doesn’t want to see your vineyard right now, okay? She’s relaxing by the pool.”

So this charming old man is Luke’s father! I can’t say I can really see a resemblance-Monsieur de Villiers’s hair is wispy, not curly, like Luke’s, and snow white, not dark.

But he does have Luke’s same twinkling brown eyes.

“Oh, that’s all right,” I say, reaching for my sundress. “I want to see your vineyard, Monsieur de Villiers. I’ve heard so much about it. And last night I had some of your delicious champagne…”

“Ah.” Monsieur de Villiers looks delighted. “But technically it is not correct to call it champagne, unless it was made in the region of Champagne. What I make can only be called sparkling wine.”

“Well,” I said, having polished off the remains of my sandwich so that I have both hands free to struggle into my dress, “whatever it was, it was lovely.”

“Merci, merci!” Monsieur de Villiers exclaims. To Luke, who has come up to my chaise longue and is dripping on Dominique’s legs-causing her to give him an annoyed look-he says, “I like this girl!”

“You don’t have to go with him,” Luke says to me. “Really. Don’t let him bully you. He’s notorious for it.”

“I want to go,” I assure Luke, laughing. “I’ve never been to a vineyard before. I’d love to see it, if Monsieur de Villiers has time to show it to me.”

“I have all the time in the world!” Luke’s father cries.

“You don’t, actually,” Dominique says, with a glance at her slim gold watch. “Bibi will be here in less than two hours. Don’t you need to-”

“No, no, no,” Monsieur de Villiers says. He takes hold of my elbow to help me balance while I slip on my sandals. Or maybe to keep me from running away. Because that’s sort of what I feel like doing, considering that Luke’s dad is having this conversation with Luke’s girlfriend while the latter is completely TOPLESS!!!

I try to imagine a scenario in which I would ever have felt comfortable being topless in front of one of my ex-boyfriends’ fathers, and fail.

“We will make it short,” Monsieur de Villiers assures Dominique.

“I’ll just go along to make sure you stick to that, Dad,” Luke says, accepting a towel Agnes is handing him. “We don’t want to bore Lizzie to death her first day here.”

But now that I know Luke is coming along, I know that’s one thing I definitely won’t be: bored, I mean.

Especially since, as we move away from the pool and toward the vineyard behind the main house, I realize Luke has left his shirt behind.

Really, there’s something to be said for this topless thing after all.