Queen of Babble

15

Okay, so it’s the middle of the afternoon and I’m drunk.

But it’s not my fault! All I’ve had to eat today is a cappuccino, a Hershey bar sandwich, and a few dusty, not-very-ripe grapes Monsieur de Villiers picked for me when we were touring his vineyard.

Then, after we headed into the cask room, Luke’s dad kept pouring me cups of wine from all the different oak barrels, making me taste each individual one. After a while, I tried saying no. But he looked so hurt!

And he’s been so kind to me, taking me all around the vineyard-the farm behind it, too, waiting tolerantly while I patted the velvet nose of the enormous horse that stuck his head over the stone wall to greet us, and while I squealed over the source of those cowbells I knew I’d heard (actual cows, three of them, that supply the milk for the chateau).

Then there were the dogs that showed up, eager to greet their master, a basset hound named Patapouf and a dachshund called Minouche. They needed sticks thrown to them-even though the basset hound tripped over his own ears going after them-and their entire life histories told to me.

And there was the farmer to greet, and his gnarled hand to shake, and his incomprehensible French-after which Monsieur de Villiers asked how much I understood, and when I said none, caused him to laugh uproariously-to listen to.

And there was the tractor to ride on the back of, and the history of the area to learn-it’s no wonder I’m tipsy. All that, and ten different kinds of wine, too? I mean, they were all totally delicious.

But I’m starting to feel a little light-headed.

Or maybe that’s just because of Luke’s proximity. Sadly, he went back to the house and changed into a clean shirt and pair of jeans before rejoining us.

But his hair was still wet and clung damply to the back of his tanned neck in a way that made me, out on the back of that tractor, long to throw my arms around him. Even now, in the relative cool of the cask room, I can’t help glancing at the sun-kissed skin of his forearms and wondering what it would feel like beneath my fingertips…

Oh my God, what’s WRONG with me? I really must be drunk. I mean, he’s TAKEN. And by someone way prettier and more accomplished than I am.

Plus, there’s the whole rebound factor. I mean, I’m barely over Andy.

But still. I can’t help thinking Dominique isn’t right for Luke. And I’m not talking about her shoes, either. Lots of totally otherwise nice people own totally overpriced shoes.

And I’m not talking about her whole turning-Mirac-into-a-hotel scheme, either. Or even her disdain for Luke’s secret dream of being a doctor (not, of course, that he’s shared this secret dream with me. I’ll just have to take Dominique’s word for it that Luke even has a secret dream).

No, it’s the fact that Luke is so good with his father, showing endless patience with the old man’s fixation on his winery and its history and the telling of it. How he made sure the old man didn’t trip over any of the machinery he was climbing on top of in order to show me how it worked. The way he ordered Patapouf and Minouche to sit when he felt they’d jumped all over his father for long enough. The way he gently pried his father’s shirtsleeve from the mouth of that enormous horse.

You just don’t see that sort of kindness from a son toward his father every day. I mean, Chaz doesn’t even speak to his dad. And okay, Charles Pendergast Sr. is, by all reports, sort of an ass.

But still.

A guy like that-so patient and tolerant and sweet-deserves better than a girl who doesn’t support his secret dreams…

“You are very old-fashioned,” Monsieur de Villiers is saying, breaking in on my unkind thoughts about Luke’s girlfriend. The three of us are leaning in companionable silence against a cask, sipping a cabernet sauvignon Luke’s dad has told me is very young…too young to bottle yet. As if I’d even know the difference.

“Excuse me?” I know I’m drunk. But what on earth is he talking about? I’m not old-fashioned. I totally gave my last boyfriend a blow job.

“This dress.” Monsieur de Villiers points at my sundress. “It is very old, no? You are very old-fashioned for a young American girl.”

“Oh,” I say, realizing at last what he means. “You mean I like vintage. Yes. Well, this dress is old. Older than me, probably.”

“I have seen a dress like this before,” Monsieur de Villiers says. It’s clear from the way he waves a fly away from his face-none too steadily-that he, too, has had a few too many sips of his own wine. Well, it’s a hot day. All that running-and riding-around makes a person thirsty. And the cask room isn’t air-conditioned.

Still, it’s a comfortably cool temperature inside. It has to be, Monsieur de Villiers told me, in order for the wine to ferment properly.

“Upstairs,” he goes on. “In the…” He looks questioningly at Luke. “Grenier?”

“The attic,” Luke says, and nods. “Right. There are a bunch of old clothes up there.”

“In the attic?” I instantly forget how drunk I feel-and how hot Luke looks. I straighten up and stare at the two of them with my eyes narrowed. “There are vintage Lilly Pulitzer dresses in your attic?”

Monsieur de Villiers looks confused.

“I do not know that name,” he says. “But I have seen dresses like this up there. My mother’s, I think. I have been meaning to donate them to the poor-”

“Can I see them?” I ask. I don’t mean to sound overeager.

But I guess I do, anyway, since Luke’s dad chuckles and says, “Ah! You love the old clothes the same way I love my wine!”

I start to blush-how embarrassing! I didn’t mean to sound so greedy.

But Monsieur de Villiers lays a comforting hand on my shoulder and says, “No, no. I do not mean to laugh at you. I am just very pleased. I like to see people show passion for something, because, you know, I have my own passion.” He holds his glass of wine aloft to illustrate just what that passion is-in case I hadn’t guessed.

“But it is especially nice to see a young person with a passion for something,” he goes on. “Too many young people today-they care for nothing but making money!”

I glance nervously at Luke. Because of course if what Dominique said is true about Luke choosing a business degree over medicine, he is one of the “young people” his dad is talking about.

But Luke is showing no guilt that I can see.

“I’ll take you up into the attic if you really want to see it,” Luke volunteers. “But don’t get your hopes up that any of it’s in decent condition. We had a pretty bad leak last year and a lot of the stuff stored up there got ruined.”

“It’s not ruined,” Monsieur de Villiers says. “Just a little moldy, perhaps.”

But I’ll take moldy Lilly Pulitzer over no Lilly Pulitzer any day.

Luke must sense my eagerness since he says, with a laugh, “Okay. Let’s go.” To his father, he adds, “Don’t you think you’d better go inside and have some coffee? You might want to sober up before Mom gets here.”

“Your mother.” Monsieur de Villiers rolls his eyes. “Yes, I suppose you are right.”

Which is how a few minutes later, after thanking the elder Monsieur de Villiers profusely for the lovely tour and dropping him off in the chateau’s enormous-but, as Dominique mentioned, hardly high tech-kitchen, I find myself in the cobweb-filled attic with the younger Monsieur de Villiers, riffling through old trunks of clothes and trying unsuccessfully to contain my excitement.

“Oh my God!” I exclaim as I open the first trunk and find, beneath a bone china tea set, an Emilio Pucci slip skirt. “Whose stuff did your dad say this is? His mother’s?”

“There’s no telling, really,” Luke says. He’s examining the rafters above our heads, ostensibly for more leaks. “Some of these trunks have been here since well before I was born. The de Villiers, I’m sorry to say, are definite pack rats. Help yourself to whatever you like.”

“I couldn’t,” I say-even as I’m holding the skirt to my hips to see if it might fit. “I mean, this skirt right here? You could get two hundred bucks for it on eBay, easy.” Then I gasp and dive incredulously back into the trunk.

But it’s true. I’ve found the rarest of rare-Lilly Pulitzer’s elusive tiger-print housedress…with matching kerchief.

“Well, I’m not going to go to the trouble of selling it,” Luke is saying. “So it might as well go to someone who can appreciate it. Which, from the way things look, is you.”

“Seriously,” I say, bending down and finding what appears to be a wadded-up-but genuine-John Frederics blue velvet hat, “you have some great stuff in here, Luke. All it needs is a little TLC.”

“That’s a pretty good description”-Luke spins a wooden chair around and straddles it, backward, leaning his elbows on its back while he watches me-“for Mirac in general.”

“No,” I say, “this place is gorgeous. You guys have done a fantastic job of keeping it up all these years.”

“Well, it hasn’t been easy,” Luke says. “When the Crash came-in 1929-my grandfather lost nearly everything-including that year’s crop, to a blight. We had to sell off a lot of the land just to afford to pay the taxes on the place that year.”

“Really?” Suddenly the unopened trunks all around me aren’t nearly as interesting anymore. At least, not as interesting as what Luke is saying. “That’s amazing.”

“Then came the Nazi occupation-my grandfather avoided having SS officers housed in the place by claiming my father had contagious yellow fever…which he didn’t, but it tricked the Germans into going elsewhere. Still, the war years weren’t the best for winemaking.”

I sink down onto the top of a trunk next to the one I’ve just plundered. There’s something lumpy beneath me, but I hardly notice.

“It must be so weird,” I say, “to own something that has such a history. Especially if…”

“If?”

“Well,” I say hesitantly, “if owning a chateau isn’t exactly your dream job. Dominique was saying something about how you actually wanted to be a, um, doctor.”

“What?” His back straightens and his gaze, in the golden light that flows in from the diamond-shaped panes on either end of the long, sloped ceiling, is impenetrably dark. “When did she say that?”

“Today,” I say innocently. Because I am innocent. Dominique didn’t say it was a secret. Not that, given my history, it would have made a difference if she had. “By the pool. Why? Is it not true?”

“No, it’s not true,” Luke says. “Well, I mean, sure, at one time-Jesus, what else did she say?”

That you’re an attentive and thoughtful lover in bed, I want to say. That a girl doesn’t have to worry about taking care of her own needs when she’s with you because you are totally willing to take care of them for her.

“Nothing,” is what I say instead. Because of course Dominique didn’t say any of those things. That’s just my totally dirty, filthy imagination talking. “Oh, except some stuff about how she wants to turn Mirac into a hotel or a spa for people to go to while they’re recovering from plastic surgery.”

Luke looks even more startled. “Plastic surgery?”

Oops.

“Nothing,” I say, turning crimson. Oh. No. I. Did. Not. Just. Do. It. Again. I turn back to the trunks to hide my blush. “Gosh, Luke. This stuff is amazing.”

“Wait. What did Dominique say?”

I fling him a guilt-stricken look.

“Nothing,” I say. “Really. I shouldn’t have-I mean, it’s between you and her. I…I know it’s none of my business-”

But it all comes spilling out anyway.

“-but I don’t think you ought to turn this place into a hotel,” I say all in a rush. “Mirac just seems so special. Commercializing it like that would just ruin it, I think.”

“Plastic surgery?” Luke repeats, still looking incredulous.

“I guess I can understand the appeal,” I say. “Since you wanted to be a doctor and all, but-”

“I didn’t-” Luke springs up from the chair and takes a few quick steps toward the far end of the attic, raking one hand through his thick, curly hair. “I told her I wanted to be a doctor when I was a kid. Then I grew up and realized I’d have to be in school for another four years after college…plus three more years as a resident. And I don’t like school that much.”

“Oh,” I say, sinking back down onto the lumpy trunk-top. “Then it’s not just because doctors don’t make as much money as investment bankers these days?”

“Did she-” He spins around to face me. “Is that what she told you I said?”

I can see I am treading on rocky terrain here. I hop up and, eager to change the subject, say, “What is this lumpy thing I’ve been sitting on?”

“Because it’s not true,” Luke says, striding toward me as I bend to lift up the long white object. “It had nothing to do with the money. I mean, it’s true that for the years I’d be in school, there’d be no money coming in. And, yeah, okay, that’s a concern. I’m not going to lie. I like having my own money so I don’t have to depend on my parents for support. A guy wants to be able to pay his own bills, you know?”

“Oh,” I say, unwinding what appears to be a length of white satin from the long, hard object it’s been wrapped around. “Totally.”

“And, okay, I looked into the postbaccalaureate premedical programs at a few schools-because, you know, not having been premed in college, even if I wanted to try to get into med school now, I’d have to take some postgrad science classes.”

“Sure,” I say, still working at unraveling whatever’s been wrapped inside what appears to be some kind of tablecloth.

“And, yeah, okay, maybe I applied to a few of them. And maybe I got into the ones at Columbia and New York University. But I mean even if I go full-time, with summers included, that’s another year in school that doesn’t even count toward whatever medical degree I eventually go for. Is that really what I want? To be in school for another five years? When I don’t have to be?”

“Oh my God,” I say. Because I have finally unraveled the long, hard thing. And gotten a good look at what was being used to wrap it.

“That,” Luke says, looking alarmed, “is my dad’s hunting rifle. Don’t-Lizzie, don’t hold it like that. Jesus Christ.” He hastily takes the long thing from my hands, then opens it and looks down the barrel.

“It’s still loaded,” he says in a small voice.

Now that Luke’s taken the gun from me, I have both hands free and can give the thing the gun was wrapped in a good shaking.

“Lizzie.” Luke sounds kind of stressed. “In the future, when you’re holding a hunting rifle-even an unloaded one-don’t fling it around like that. And definitely don’t point it at your own head. You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

His voice seems far away. All my concentration is on the dress I’m holding. Even in its wrinkled, rust-stained state, I can see that it’s a cream-colored full-length satin gown with slender spaghetti straps (complete with tiny snapped loops on the underside, for hiding the wearer’s bra straps), fine gathers over the double-lined molded breast cups, and a row of buttons down the back that can only be real pearls.

“Luke, whose dress is this?” I ask, searching inside for a label.

“Did you hear me?” Luke says. “This thing is loaded. You could have taken the top of your head off.”

Then I find them. The words that nearly cause my heart to stop, though they are discreetly stitched in black on a small white label: Givenchy Couture.

I feel as if someone has kicked me.

“Givenchy-” I stagger backward, to sink back down onto the top of the trunk, because my knees no longer appear to be working. “Givenchy Couture!”

“Jesus Christ,” Luke says again. He’s unloaded the rifle, and now he sets it down on the chair he’d abandoned and hurries across the room to bend over me solicitously. “Are you all right?”

“No, I’m not all right,” I say, reaching up and grabbing a handful of his shirt, pulling him down until he’s kneeling by my chair, his face just inches from mine.

He doesn’t understand. He just doesn’t understand. I have to make him understand.

“This is a Hubert de Givenchy evening gown. A priceless, one-of-a-kind couture evening gown from one of the most innovative and classic fashion designers in the world. And someone used it to wrap up an old gun that…that…”

Luke gazes down at me, concern in his dark eyes. “Yes?”

“That RUSTED on it!”

Something causes Luke’s lips to twist upward a little. He’s smiling. How can he be smiling? I can tell he still doesn’t get it.

“RUST, Luke,” I say desperately. “RUST. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get rust out of fine fabrics like silk? And look, look here…one of the straps is broken. And the hem-there’s a tear here. And here. Luke, how could someone have done something like this? How could someone have…MURDERED a beautiful vintage gown like this?”

“I don’t know,” Luke says. He’s still smiling, which means he still isn’t getting it.

But he’s also laid a hand over mine, where I’m still clutching his shirt. His fingers are warm and reassuring.

“But I have a feeling if there’s anyone in the world who can resuscitate the victim,” he goes on in his deep, quiet voice-which sounds even deeper and quieter in the stillness of the long attic-“it’s you.”

His eyes, as I gaze into them, look very dark, and very friendly…just as his lips, as always, look eminently kissable.

HOW CAN HE HAVE A GIRLFRIEND? It’s not fair. It’s just not.

I do the only thing I can, under the circumstances. I gently release his shirt and drop my hand-and my gaze-away from his.

“I guess…” I say, looking down at the yards of stained fabric in my lap, hoping he doesn’t notice my blush-or the sudden speeding up of my heartbeat, which I can feel slamming against my ribs. “I guess I could try. I mean…if it’s okay with you, I’d like to try.”

“Lizzie,” Luke says, “that dress has been up in this attic for God knows how long, and, as you mentioned, wasn’t exactly treated very nicely. I think it deserves to belong to someone who will give it the care and attention it needs.”

Just like you, Luke! I want to cry. You deserve to belong to someone who will give YOU the care and attention YOU need…someone who will support your dream of being a doctor, and not nag you to move to Paris, who will stick by you for those five more years of school, and who will promise never to turn your ancestral home into a spa for people recovering from plastic surgery, even if it would bring in more money than weddings.

But of course I can’t say this.

Instead I say, “You know, Chaz is going to New York University in the fall. Maybe if you do decide to go to that postbacca-whatever-it is thingie, you two could find a place to live together.”

That is, I add silently, if Dominique doesn’t insist on coming with you…

“Yeah,” Luke says, still smiling. “It’d be just like old times.”

“Because,” I go on, keeping my hands strictly away from him, and on the silky smoothness of the dress in my lap, “I think, if there’s something you really want to do-like being a doctor-you should go for it. I mean, because otherwise you’ll never know. And you might regret it your whole life.”

Luke, I can’t help noticing, is still kneeling beside my chair, his face still way too close to mine for comfort. I’m trying not to think about how my advice-about how he should go for it-could also apply to my kissing him. Because, you know, I might never get another chance to see what it would be like.

But kissing a guy who has a girlfriend is just wrong. Even a girlfriend who doesn’t necessarily have his best interests in mind, like I do. It’s the kind of thing Brianna Dunleavy, back at McCracken Hall, would do.

And no one liked Brianna.

“I don’t know,” Luke says. Is it my imagination, or is his gaze on my mouth? Do I have something stuck to my lip gloss? Or-oh God-are my teeth purple from all that red wine? “It’s a really big step. A life-changing one. A risky one.”

“Sometimes,” I say, my gaze on his own lips-his teeth, I note, are not purple at all, “we need to take big risks if we want to find out who we are, and what we were put on this planet for. Like me, jumping on that train and coming to France, instead of staying in England.”

Okay, he is definitely leaning in. He’s leaning in toward me. What does this mean? Does he want to kiss me? How can he want to kiss me when he has the world’s most gorgeous girlfriend lying half naked out there by the pool?

I can’t let him kiss me. Even if he wants to. Because that would be wrong. He is taken.

And besides, I’m sure I still have stinky wine breath.

“Was the risk worth it?” he wants to know.

I can’t seem to tear my gaze from his lips, which are coming closer and closer toward mine.

“Totally,” I say. And close my eyes.

He’s going to kiss me. He’s going to kiss me! Oh no!

Oh. Yes.