 
Marianne's Vacation

by

Meridith Rae Morgan

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2010 Meredith Morgan

All Rights Reserved

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Introduction

Marianne hung up the phone and then called Christa. After they chatted for a few minutes, Marianne said, "Sweetheart, I have a huge favor to ask of you. I know you're busy, but this is extremely important. Is there any way you could tear yourself away tomorrow to come for a brief visit. I have something very important to tell you and I don't want to do it on the phone. I know it's a lot of driving, but could you come tomorrow?"

"Are you sick?"

"No. I am absolutely fine. I have a story to tell you that I should have shared with you a long time ago. I need to tell it to you in person."

"How long do you want me to stay?"

"Only for the day. I have to go to the airport in Atlanta the next day. Perhaps you could spend the night and drop me at the airport on your way home."

Christa sighed and said, "I'll come tomorrow and I'll spend the night. I'll take you to the airport on Thursday and see you off; I will not just drop you off on the sidewalk, for Pete's sake. Where are you going? What on earth is up with you, Mom?"

"Thank you. I really appreciate your willingness to humor an old lady. As for where I am going: I am going to LA. Maybe I can see Madeleine while I am there."

"What possessed you to take off for Los Angeles of all places on such short notice?"

"That is what I want to tell you about. In person."

"How long will you be gone?"

"Somewhere between four days and forever."

"Mom, are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine. I'll see you tomorrow. Call me when you get close and I'll have lunch ready."

Christa arrived around noon the following day. Marianne was sitting in the living room with a box wrapped in a quilted cover lying on the ottoman in front of her. They went into the kitchen for a quick lunch of tea, tuna salad sandwiches and deviled eggs. Christa watched her mother suspiciously. Marianne seemed perfectly calm and within her faculties.

After lunch, Marianne led Christa into the living room and sat down on the couch, patting the cushion beside her in a silent invitation. She put the box on the couch between them and laid her hand on it, as if drawing courage from it.

"I should have told you this story long time ago, but, frankly, it's not a story a woman like me would ordinarily tell her daughter.

"I know that most people around here think of me as prim and proper Mary Corbett, the dutiful wife, pitiful widow, community volunteer, cook and damned-fine canasta player. All of that is true, and I've been very happy in my life here. For some reason, maybe because I'm getting old, it has seemed important to me to reconnect with my past, and now it is also important that you understand there is more to me than I have let anybody see.

"Given that I have never previously talked about such personal things with anyone, I am pretty sure that the next few hours are going to be very difficult for both of us. I can tell you now that we are both going to be embarrassed by parts of this story, but I want you to hear all of it. It is important to me for you to know about my past in order for you to understand the reason behind what I plan to do next."
Part 1

I have to give you quite a bit of background in order for any of this to make sense to you – that is, if it makes sense at all. Some of this you may remember, but I want to remind you, in order to set the context.

My mother was from the south of France. She met my father when he was serving in the Navy in the Mediterranean before WWII. I don't know all the details, but I think she was a waitress in a restaurant in Marseilles. Anyway, they met. Love ensued. Somehow Papa managed to scrape together the money to get her out of France and to America during the Depression. My father deposited my mother with his own mother at the family home in Charleston, and then promptly returned to his ship. I was born two years later, approximately nine months after Daddy came home on on a brief leave.

Maw Maw was good to us, but following the Depression and, with her husband dead and her only son far away in the Navy, her fortunes were dwindling. To make matters worse, Papa was killed in 1943 in Sicily. While the War was still going on, Maman got a job as a cook in a restaurant owned by a Greek family. Maw Maw took care of me while Maman was at work.

When Maman first went to work there, the restaurant was about to go bankrupt because the Greek owners didn't know how to cook to suit the locals. Maman solved the problem by sitting down with Maw Maw's cook, who was an old black lady, and virtually every other black cook in our neighborhood. She learned all their recipes and cooking secrets. Maman combined what she learned from the Gullah women of Charleston with the cooking techniques she learned from her mother and aunts in Provence, and before long Maman was turning out the best Low Country food in the area, bar none. In a way Maman was doing what they now call fusion cooking decades before that was a concept, much less a word.

Maman's complete mastery of Low Country cooking coincided with the end of the War. The soldiers came home. People had money again, and everybody wanted to enjoy life after the hard years of Depression and War. With Maman's food and the festive atmosphere created by the Delios family, the fortunes of the Olympia Restaurant turned around, and it became a local landmark for years. It was 'the' place north of the Cooper River Bridge to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries and other special occasions. It was a happy place, always filled with the smell of wonderful food and the sounds of people having a good time.

Not long after the War ended, Maw Maw died, and left her estate, which consisted mostly of her house, to me. Maman was by then the head cook at the Olympia. While I was really little, I hung out in the kitchen with Maman and all her assistant cooks, who were mostly the black women who had cooked for the old ladies in our neighborhood in Charleston. When Maw Maw died, Maman got Mr. Delios to hire Bertie, our cook, and then Bertie got some of her friends to come work for us.

When I was old enough, I bussed tables and then I worked my way up to waiting tables by myself. I was earning excellent wages and amazing tips by the time I was fourteen or so.

Kris Delios was the oldest son of the owner of the restaurant. He had worked in the restaurant since he was a child, too. Neither of us ever had time to date anybody else, so we sort of fell in love with each other by default.

It wasn't hard to fall in love with Kris Delios. He was dark, handsome, fun and... um... sexy....

Anyway, Kris and I got married right out of high school. Maman was the cook in the restaurant. Kris's mother was the hostess. His father was the manager and tended bar. All of their kids worked there in some capacity. Kris and I waited tables. Soon Kris became sort of his dad's assistant manager. Most days it was like the tower of Babel in the restaurant. The Delios family all spoke Greek among themselves. Maman and I spoke French to each other (she insisted I learn to speak French and refused to converse with me in English unless social politeness required it). The Delios family picked up a little French. We picked up a little Greek. We even picked up a few Gullah words from the kitchen workers. It ended up that we all communicated in a sort of patois that nobody could understand but us. One old Gullah lady who worked for Maman in the kitchen said she thought we spoke a language that was harder to understand than regular Gullah. We called it Gullah-pean, and thought we were just the cleverest and funniest bunch of folks on earth. Those were good years filled with happy times and so much love I could sit right here and cry just thinking about it.

Maman died in 1952. She had always spoken with longing about her home in Provence and insisted she intended to return to France someday. After she died, I contacted the French embassy in Washington. They helped me contact relatives in her home town to arrange to have her buried there.

Maman had always said she wanted to be cremated and I honored her wish. That caused problems with the burial. After it was already too late, I learned that Catholics aren't supposed to be cremated. The parish priest in her home town refused to bury her in the church cemetery. Ultimately, her family buried her in a place outside the church walls, but in what they promised would be a beautiful spot nevertheless.

I missed Maman terribly, but the Delios family closed in around me and made me feel loved and safe. Maman had taught me all her recipes and cooking techniques, so I moved from waiting tables to being the head cook. Kris and I were young and in love. I was doing work I adored in a place where I felt safe and loved.

You were born in 1954. That was magical period in my life. I loved being a mother. I never hired a babysitter or put you in day care of any sort. I brought you to the restaurant with me where you were loved and cared for by all of the Delios women, the kitchen helpers, and, when you got old enough to venture out into the dining room, you were universally spoiled rotten by our many regular customers.

By the early 1960's Kris' parents had made enough money to retire. They decided to go back to Greece, partly because their money would go further there and partly because they had always missed their home town. They turned the business over to Kris, who was the oldest and the most business-savvy of their children, and returned to Santorini. We missed them, but our lives went on very much as they had before. Kris and his sisters worked the front of the restaurant. I oversaw the kitchen staff. You had the run of the entire place. When you got older, your favorite pass-time was helping in the kitchen. Kris and I would sometimes allow ourselves to dream of turning the business over to you one day.

After you started to school, I always worked the day shift, and Kris closed up in the evenings. One day when you were about ten, Kris came home from work early, with a bottle of wine and a stack of papers. He invited me to sit down at the kitchen table with him. He poured us some wine and we chatted for a little while. Then he dropped a bomb.

He told me that he had sold the restaurant to some kind of developer. He said he wanted to move to Alaska. He had heard stories about a huge building craze up there. Things were booming and he thought he could make a killing opening a bar, or a chain of them. He told me he was tired of Charleston, tired of running the restaurant that was his father's dream. Listening to his excited chatter, I felt a surge of anticipation about the prospect of heading off on some kind of a grand adventure. It all sounded very exciting to someone who had never been outside of Charleston County.

In his next breath, however, he destroyed my world when he told me he was also tired of being a husband and father. He wanted his own life, and he meant to have it, far away from Charleston, and from you and me.

He opened an envelope and took out a check. He said he had kept only enough of the money he got for the restaurant to get to Alaska. He would fend for himself once he got there. He gave the rest to me for us to live on until I could get on my feet. He handed me the check, and then he handed me divorce papers to sign.

I took the money and signed the papers without reading them.

He left for Alaska the next day. As you will recall for two years, he sent a letter to you once a month, religiously. Every letter was dated on the 11th of the month, which was the day on which you were born. After two years the letters suddenly stopped.

Marianne stopped and cleared her throat. She took a few sips of tea and looked up toward the ceiling, blinking. Christa went into the kitchen and brought back a box of tissues. She handed her mother one and wiped her eyes with another. They held hands for a few minutes until Marianne pulled herself together enough to continue.

I sold Maw Maw's family home in Charleston's historic district and bought a small cottage in Goose Creek to save money on taxes. I learned that the buyers of the restaurant intended to turn it into a nightclub. They did not plan to serve meals. For the first time in my life, I had to look for a job.

Kris's sisters moved on to other restaurants. His parents wrote to us regularly from Greece. They were angry with him and their letters hurled all kinds of venom until he stopped communicating with any of us. After that, they worried about what had happened to him. To their credit they never hinted that they blamed me in any way. They also insisted that they wanted to maintain a relationship with you, which they did until they died. God, I loved those wonderful people.

The money Kris left us was not enough to support us and also to send you to college. Remember how we made it our mission to save enough money for you to go to college? You wanted to be a music teacher and I was determined to make that happen no matter what sacrifices we both might have to make. You babysat and did odd jobs. I found work running that lunch counter at Woolworth's. I also did catering on the side, mostly for some of the old, regular customers from the Olympia. We scrimped and saved. Do you recall how proud we were each month when we balanced our check book and reviewed our accounts watching the numbers grow as we slowly but surely accumulated a small reserve for your education.

In all those years I spent money on me as was humanly possible. I guess I was living completely through you in a rather unhealthy way.

You probably have figured out by now that the story I have to tell you is about the vacation I took when you went away to college. I don't think I've ever told you how grateful I was and still am that you chose to share the gift that your grandparents sent you from Greece to pay for your education. We had saved enough money to send you to school but we would have to continue to live very frugally. That $25,000 gave us a cushion that made me breathe a lot easier.

I will never forget the combined feelings of love and pride when you came home late from school with a satchel full of papers, sat me down at the table, and pulled a bunch of travel brochures from your satchel. You had arranged for me to go on a trip to France. You pushed all the papers across the table and said, kind of impatiently, "I've done all the rest. You have to fill this out, and you'd better derned well have a copy of your birth certificate somewhere so you can get a passport."

I completed the application, attached all the proper documentation and took it to the post office the next day. Later that week we visited the travel agent together, where I paid for the airfare, a Eurorail pass, a carnet of bus tickets, a deposit on the hotel in Provence and another one for a couple of nights in a hostel near the Bois de Bologne in Paris.

You and the travel agent tried to talk me into adding a leg to my journey to visit Kris's family in Santorini, but I was afraid to try to go to Greece. Besides English, I spoke only French. After my mother's death, I had regularly attended Alliance Francaise meetings at the local college to keep in practice. I feared I might have some difficulty understanding rapid-fire, native French, but I was confident I would be able communicate at least in a rudimentary way. I only spoke a few words of 'real' Greek and I was afraid to venture into a country where I didn't speak the language. I guess I was a coward. I preferred to think of it as understanding the limits of my tolerance for risk.

It is one of my greatest regrets that I was too afraid to visit Kris's parents after the wonderful way they treated you and me, but I was afraid, and, besides, I wanted to spend every possible moment in Provence, the magical place my mother had told me stories about since I was a tiny child. I did not want to waste one moment of my once-in-a-lifetime trip venturing anywhere else.

We planned for my trip to take place the week after I dropped you off for her first term at the University of South Carolina. You were not fooling anyone by timing the trip the way you did. I know you worried for a long time about what I would do when you were no longer living at home. We had been together every day of our lives since you were born. I was as afraid as you were about how I would cope with an Empty Nest.

Planning a once-in-a-lifetime dream trip to Europe gave me something to do over the summer besides fret about your departure for college. I would drop you off in Columbia on Saturday and then fly to Europe on Monday. It would not put off my mourning your departure forever, but it would give me something to look forward to, and it would postpone any meltdown over my newly empty nest at least for a little while. I also thought traveling alone would give me the opportunity to do some serious thinking about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

You packed and re-packed her boxes for college all summer.

I packed and re-packed my suitcase.

By Labor Day, we were both nervous wrecks and so excited neither of us could speak a coherent sentence, in French or in English.

I delivered you to you dormitory the following Saturday and returned home, where I found myself alone for the first time in my entire life. I didn't like it, but I had my trip to look forward to, so I didn't freak out – at least not until the next day.

On Sunday, I stayed in bed and cried all day. Mostly I cried because I was bereft at the loss of my precious daughter. But, some of my tears arose out of fear about my upcoming trip. I had never traveled farther than Pawley's Island. I had never been in a plane. I had never gone anywhere alone. I was so scared, I could not get out of bed. I knew I had to go through with the trip, however, because it was all paid for and because you intended for me to have the trip as your gift to me. I could not back out without hurting your feelings, which I could not bring myself to do, no matter how terrified I felt.

On Monday, Kris's sister took me to the airport in Charleston. It was the first time I had traveled by plane. Come to think of it, I haven't been on a plane again since then. I took only one suitcase, but I had a second bag packed inside of it in the event I bought things 'over there.' As the plane taxied to the end of the runway in Charleston, I thought my chest would explode. I am still not sure which was the more predominate feeling: excitement or abject terror.

I flew into Laguardia and took a bus to Kennedy. I arrived late in the morning and waited in the uncomfortable departure lounge for hours until they called my afternoon, overseas flight. I think I was the only person over 25 years of age on the Icelandic flight to Luxembourg. It was 1973. Every kid in America seemed to be headed off to go backpacking around Europe.

All those kids on the plane made me feel positively ancient. I was a grown woman, with an adult child. I planned to celebrate my 40th birthday in France. On the up side, the enthusiasm and fearlessness of all those kids made me less afraid. Their anticipation of their travel adventures rubbed off just enough to prevent me from chickening out.

1 - Arrival in Europe

The plane landed in Luxembourg in the wee hours of the morning. I waited with virtually all of the rest of the passengers on the sidewalk outside the airport until the first bus of the day came to take us to the train station. I rather envied the kids who carried bedrolls; they stretched out on the sidewalk and snoozed. The rest of the kids sort of sat around on the concrete. Given my advanced age bordering on decrepitude, at least compared with most of my traveling companions, I sat on one of the few benches.

Once I got to the train station, I did not have long to wait. My train was scheduled to arrive in Paris at midday. I was never sure when we left Luxembourg and entered France. The train rolled through countryside of Normandy with its quaint farms and fat cows and then, closer to Paris, the land became flatter. I remember there were some vineyards – the first I had ever seen. I was surprised at how little suburban sprawl there was. It seemed that one minute we were in the countryside, and the next we were in the city. The northeastern "suburb" of the city was not the most beautiful part of Paris; it appeared crowded and rather grimy. Nevertheless, I could barely contain my excitement at the prospect of just being in Paris.

My train journey ended at the Gare de L'Est. I was not so silly as to say anything out loud, but I stood on the sidewalk outside the station and thought, 'Oh my God, I'm in Paris, France!! I can't believe it!' The very words sounded enchanted to my inner ears. I am sure I must have looked like hundreds of other bleary-eyed American travelers stumbling out of trains from all over Europe, bound for cheap hotels in various corners of Paris. I had written down the directions to the pension hotel on the right bank just in case I was so nervous or tired I couldn't remember the words. When I got in the taxi and gave the driver the directions, I had a moment of panic.

I rattled off the address and directions in what I thought sounded like pretty decent French. The driver just stared at me with a completely baffled look on his face. For a second I panicked, thinking my French was not as good as I thought and, therefore, incomprehensible to him. I couldn't imagine what I would do if that were the case. All of my travel arrangements were premised on the expectation I could communicate with the locals.

I asked him what was wrong. He told me he'd never heard an American speak such perfect French, and with a distinctly Provençal accent. I was amused that he didn't seem pleased by that. I sighed and muttered something about being half-French. I was so relieved I had a hard time breathing. I really could speak good French! I had never actually known for sure. My confidence started to build just the tiniest bit.

The cabbie started the car and, soon afterwards, deposited me at the door of my hotel. I tried to tip him but he waved me off. It was my first lesson in tipping, European style, as in: don't do it. He asked if this was my first trip to France. I told him it was. He shook my hand and then patted my cheek saying gently, 'Enjoy, Cherie.' No one in my whole life had ever called me that besides my mother. I had to stop on the sidewalk and compose myself before I checked into the hotel.

That afternoon I explored the neighborhood around the hotel. After all those hours cooped up in planes and trains, I needed to walk around. I soon discovered it was a total thrill to walk into shops and have conversations with others in French. My mother was a native speaker and we spoke French at home. After she died my only practice was once a month or so at the Alliance Francaise meetings. Even then, I was mostly talking to Americans, many of whom were students who were just learning French. Talking to native speakers of the language was such fun I couldn't stop myself. I stopped in every public establishment in the neighborhood of my hotel and struck up conversations everywhere I went.

It was kind of amusing watching the merchants' reactions to me. When I first walked into a store, the merchant would look up, realize I was an American and then get very busy in an effort to ignore me. Recall that in 1973 relations between France and America were not particularly good on account of the war in Vietnam. There had been anti-American demonstrations in Paris over the summer. Once I opened my mouth, the merchants were as surprised as the cabbie had been. They still looked down on me for my Provençal accent and American looks, and they were rude because that's the way Parisians treat everybody. I didn't take it personally. Frankly, I thought it was funny. I spent the afternoon popping in and out of shops. I bought stationary in one store. I tasted Perrier water for the first time in another. How nasty can you get? I also tasted real French pastries. That made up for Perrier. I was in Paris! I was glad I had not chickened out of the trip!

That night I was so exhausted, I slept the sleep of the dead despite the really awful accommodations. The pension hotel was geared for young people who were traveling on a shoe-string, and the accommodations were ... I shall be generous and use the word 'basic'.

Despite the thin, uncomfortable mattress, I got a great night's sleep and I woke early the next morning ready for my next adventure. I was to spend the day with a relative, whom I referred to as a 'cousin' since neither of us could figure out exactly what actual familial relationship we had, if any.

My mother had been a relative or friend to another girl who had had left St. Saturnin-les-Apts at about the same time Maman did. Maman went to Marseilles. Her cousin/friend went to Paris where she married and had a slew of kids. She and Maman stayed in touch by letter a few times a year. Corresponding with me became 'English lessons' for her kids and corresponding with them was a part of my own 'French lessons'. They wrote to me in English. I wrote to them in French. Our parents made us write to each other a few times a year, often over our protests. Through all the intervening years, some of us had continued to exchange Christmas cards. By the time of my trip, both my mother and her friend had passed away and most of the French 'children' had married and moved on, but the youngest daughter still lived in Paris. I wrote to her after I made my travel plans. She offered to spend a day showing me around.

Her name was Delphine, which is my middle name. She told me she thought we were both named after some common great aunt. She had two tiny children. We pushed those kids all over Paris in their strollers. I think she took me to every major tourist attraction in the city before noon. Most of the historical buildings and museums and all that old architecture with all the fancy decorative work did not appeal to me very much. I am embarrassed to admit I was a little bored with it.

We ate our lunch from street vendors instead of taking time or spending the money to eat in a restaurant. I took dozens of pictures in the tourist places partly because I thought Delphine expected me to, and partly because I knew for sure that Christa wanted me to come home with a lot of photos. Pretty soon Delphine figured out that I wasn't really interested in the tourist sights. We ended up sitting on a bench near Mont Martre, overlooking the city where we talked for hours. She was as curious about America as I was about France. She was a young mother; my daughter was effectively grown. We shared stories and cross-cultural girl-talk all afternoon.

At the end of the day, she invited me to her home for dinner. It was a simple affair with her husband and two babies. We drank wine and talked for a few more hours. She and I still keep in touch. We wrote letters at Christmas and birthdays for years. Now we send emails a few times a month. We have even learned to share pictures of our grandchildren over the Internet. How cool is that?

Frankly all the glamor and glitz of Paris didn't impress me as much as Delphine's kindness and the opportunity to connect with distant family in a tiny apartment on the Right Bank.

2 - Paris – Versailles – Avignon – Gordes

After talking all day and most of the evening in Paris, I was literally hoarse the next day.

That was just as well. My second day in France was a 'solo' day. Early in the morning, I took the train to Versailles because you insisted I could not go to France without seeing Versailles, and I had orders from her to take lots of pictures. A little of the palace went a long way with me. I was just not into dead kings and queens and all that fanciness. Oh, my God, I was frankly kind of appalled by the palace, and I kind of understood why the peasants revolted. Anyway, I took a few pictures to make you happy and then I wandered into the town.

I spent most of the day wandering around the village, engaging in conversations with anyone I could get to talk to me. As I recall, I drank a whole lot of coffee because I quickly learned the best place to strike up conversations with French people was in the cafés.

The morning passed quickly, and early in the afternoon I took the train to Aix-en-Provence.

The owner of the inn where I was booked in Gordes had promised to meet me at the train station. He was amazed I'd only brought one bag. Provence had always been a haven for starving artists. At that time it was a becoming vacation destination for rich foreigners, including artists and movie stars. They evidently tended to bring a lot of luggage. My single suitcase caused a bit of a puzzlement. We all laughed it off when I said I planned to buy a bunch of new French clothes. I, of course, had no such intentions.

I abandoned my original plan to use the inn as a base for day-trips into the surrounding area the minute I laid eyes on the inn and the town around it. I still intended to make it a point to visit my mother's grave, but beyond that, from the second I saw the place, I had no intention of leaving the village of Gordes. It was without a doubt the loveliest place I have ever seen. Within five minutes of my arrival, I decided to forgo the tourist sites of Avignon and the Cote d'Azur and to spend all my time getting to know the village of Gordes as intimately as was possible in the four days I had left of my vacation.

_Marianne paused and regarded the melted ice in her glass. She grinned and raised her eyebrows._ "Things really get interesting from this point forward. I suggest we refill of our tea now because I don't think I'm going to want to stop again any time soon." _The ladies took their glasses into the kitchen, refilled them with ice, sweet tea and lots of mint. They did not waste time on chit-chat. Marianne returned to her chair and closed her eyes. Her face softened into a half-smile of delicious anticipation. She might have been an old lady sitting in a formal living room in Aiken, South Carolina, but in her mind she was a much younger woman about to embark on the most incredible few days of her life. Christa watched the story play out on her mother's face._

I arrived in Gordes on Thursday evening, an hour or so before dusk. After I tossed my suitcase on the bed in my room, I took a walk around the neighborhood until it got too dark to see. Returning to the inn, I was delighted to be invited into the kitchen to watch and learn Madame's cooking techniques. I guess when you made the reservations, you had let the owners know that I was a cook (I was never prepared to go so far as to claim that what I did at the Woolworth's lunch counter constituted actual 'cooking' but you hadn't told them where I worked, not that they would have understood what a Woolworth's lunch counter was even if you had tried).

That evening the owners even let me eat dinner in the kitchen with them. They told me about the history of the town and the quirkiness of some of the residents. They talked at length about the food, the wines and the architecture of some of the local points of interest. Uncharacteristically for French people, they even opened up a little about themselves. For my part, I am sure I was the quintessential rude and disgusting Ugly American, asking a million questions that were none of my business. I couldn't help myself. I wanted to know everything there was to know about that lovely village and the people who lived there. They were very patient with me, and answered all but the most objectionably personal questions.

When I started yawning more than talking, Madame poured an amber drink into a snifter; she told me was cognac. She walked me up to my room and handed me the glass, bidding me good night and pleasant dreams. She added that she was sorry to inform me that beginning at breakfast the following day she would have to move me into the dining room because there was to be another guest taking meals in the inn. She explained that the other person would not be staying at the inn, but would take most of his meals there. She told me he owned a villa nearby. She said that when he came to visit for any length of time he brought household staff with him. When he only visited for a few days, he took his meals at the inn.

That struck me as odd because I knew that part of Provence was primarily a winter residence for artists and other foreigners. I was a little curious to know why this person was visiting his villa sort of 'off season.' I felt as though I had already been nosy enough, so I did not ask any questions about Madame's other guest, besides I was exhausted and not thinking clearly. Maybe that was the cause of everything that happened after that.

Frankly, I had reservations about dining with a stranger. I knew that is the way they do things in Europe. You know how backward I can be. I rather dreaded the prospect of having to spend my mealtimes with a strange man, and I even spent a little time before I fell asleep trying to figure out if my budget would stretch far enough to allow me to eat in town. I did not have the money to pay for meals in town when we had pre-paid for my meals at the inn. I would have to either go hungry or dine with Madame's other patron.

3 - Gordes

The next morning I awoke before dawn. My second-floor bedroom had a private balcony. I wrapped myself in a sheet and went outside to watch the sunrise. The building was oriented generally to the southwest. Looking to my left I saw the looming, blackness of mountains in the distance. To the right, the land fell off toward the coast; I knew the Mediterranean Sea was just beyond the horizon, but I could not see it, although I sometimes imagined that I could see something that looked like water. Directly in front of me was one of the famous and fabulous lavender fields of Provence, in full and glorious bloom. Beyond that were ancient olive groves. Walking paths wound through the entire area. I made up my mind to walk every foot of every one of those paths before it was time for me to go home.

I couldn't see the sunrise from my balcony because it was behind me. What I could see was the play of light and color on the landscape in front of me. No one who has ever seen a sunrise in Provence would wonder why painters flock there. The beauty of the landscape made me cry. I could suddenly understand why my mother rhapsodized about the beauty Provence even many years after she left it.

As soon as it was light enough for me to venture out alone, I tied on my sneakers and headed out for the path that passed directly behind the inn. It was approximately 6:00 AM when I left the inn.

I walked for miles through olive groves and along trails that bordered the lilac fields. People talk a lot about the visual beauty of Provence. The thing that struck me almost as much on that trip were the smells. The lavender was intoxicating. The air was fresh and clean.

Soon I noticed that people were beginning to cook. I could smell all kinds of wonderful scents wafting from kitchens all over town. The French don't eat big breakfasts, but the soup pot containing lunch goes on the stove early in the morning!

By 9:30 AM or so, I was hot, tired, thirsty and my legs were shaking from the effort of climbing up and down hills. I was used to walking a lot, but we didn't have hills like that in Charleston! I returned to the inn, dying for a drink of water and hungry for breakfast. I had totally forgotten there was to be another guest.

I burst into the front hall like a typical American. I was so hot and thirsty, all I could think of was making a bee-line to the chilled bottled water I knew would be waiting on the sideboard. Just before I charged through the door to the dining room, I heard Madame's soft voice talking to someone, and I managed to recover what little manners I had, pausing in the doorway instead of barging in on the conversation. I was very sweaty and probably starting to smell a little 'ripe.' I hesitated, wondering if it would be better for me to go to my room and clean up first. Madame was talking in French to a man. His voice sounded like sandpaper rubbing together, and his French was so perfect I took him for a native.

When she heard me behind her, Madame turned and invited me to sit down. I declined, making some reference to smelling like 'cochon.' The man at the table, whom I could not see because Madame was standing directly between us, said in perfect American English, "Then you are in good company. Women have been calling me a pig for years. Please join me."

I could not place the voice, but I knew I had heard it before. Madame scurried into the kitchen. The man turned to me with a huge grin and said, "Your French is perfect, but the rest of you is 100% pure American. Please sit down."

For a moment I thought I might hyper-ventilate. The man sitting at the table smiling at me and joking about being considered a 'pig' was none other than the movie star, Luke Payne.

Try to recall where his career was in 1973. He was in the early stages of what has turned out to be a spectacular career. At that point, he had already won one Oscar for best supporting actor. He was churning out a couple of movies a year, each one more amazing than the last, but he had not yet broken through to the top rank of movie stardom. That came later.

I had never been much of a movie buff, but even I knew who he was. And even I was susceptible to his amazing charm.

She paused for a long time, staring off into space, reliving the moment of that meeting. Her daughter watched the encounter play out on her mother's face as if it were happening for the very first time.

I backed away and said, "Oh, no. I couldn't intrude on your breakfast in my current state." As I sit here today I don't know whether I said it in English or French.

He answered in English, "Oh, for God's sake, sit down. You look like you're about to collapse from heat exhaustion. Drink some water and some juice before you pass out. Marie-Claire will be back in a minute with a proper breakfast. And I don't mean one of those pansy French breakfasts of croissants and jelly. We're having a real American breakfast of eggs and meat and bread."

What was I to do? I sat. I drank my water and juice. I waited for Madame to bring me eggs, meat and bread. I ate what she put in front of me. I didn't even miss the grits.

Luke had that kind of effect on people. He told me to sit; I sat. He told me to eat; I ate. I still don't understand it, but it happened just that way.

How can I describe him? You know what he looks like. You know the rakish grin that denies its own rakishness. Even today he comes across as the Bad-Boy-who-really-isn't-all-that-bad. Now, it's kind of a joke because he's an elderly man and he probably couldn't be all that 'bad' any more. In 1973, it was a sort of a joke, too, but I was not 100% sure which side of the line the truth lay on, so I wasn't sure whether the joke was on him or on me.

He was very handsome, but he had a sort of dangerous demeanor that indicated you might want to watch your step around him. He also had an animal magnetism that worked on women like a Klingon Tractor Beam. He was irresistible ... and he knew it. He capitalized on that, and he never apologized for it. I was glad I had been sweaty when I sat down, because I got a whole lot more lathered up sitting there with him staring at me over the rim of his coffee cup.

The most embarrassing part was that I could tell he knew exactly what I was thinking, and I could tell he thought it was hilarious. I wanted to be mad at him for laughing at me. Instead, I found myself laughing, too. The situation was so utterly ridiculous, there was nothing to do but laugh. Besides, who was I to resist his charms, when so many women who were far more experienced than I had fallen prey to them?

Presently, Madame brought brought our plates. For a French cook, she did an awesome job creating a traditional American breakfast. She apparently learned because that was what Luke wanted when he visited, and Luke Payne pretty much got whatever he wanted, when he wanted it, wherever he went. We ate and talked and ate some more. By the time we pushed back our plates and poured the last of the coffee, I was having such a great time, I almost forgot he was a movie star and I was a short order cook who was very sweaty and growing nastier by the minute.

Eventually, I realized I was starting to smell really bad. I pushed back my chair and excused myself. He stood too and followed me out into the hall. He said, "You know if you're going to spend the week here, you'll need to be introduced around town. If you have no plans, come into town with me. I'll introduce you to the folks you need to know, like the owner of the café, the lady who owns the patisserie and the post-master. I have to go buy supplies, anyway."

I didn't know what to say. I was eager to get away from him because he intimidated me so. But, at the same time I was not immune to his charm. Besides, I knew enough about French culture to know that he was right about my needing an introduction in the village. Despite the voice in the back of my head telling me that the sensible thing for me to do would be to politely decline, and ask Madame to introduce me around, I said, "What time do you plan to leave? I'd like to clean up a bit."

He grinned and leaned against the door jamb, "I'll be ready whenever you are. My house is next door. The back yard has a gate that opens onto the walking path. I'll wait for you on the veranda. Come over whenever you're ready."

I smiled back at him and winked, "You'll be amazed at how soon that will be."

Less than a half hour later, I walked through the back gate to his veranda and pool deck. I paused on the top step. The house itself was probably at least two hundred years old. The pool deck and veranda had been recently added, but the contractors had used old stone and wood and had done something to the concrete to make the new addition blend in and match the older part of the structure building. I was pretty sure just looking at the outside that the inside had been redone in an equally amazing way to look old but to actually be modern.

Luke was sitting on a chaise by the pool, reading from an unbound document of some sort. He looked up and smiled. I raised my eyebrows and he responded to my unspoken question, "Reading scripts."

"I don't want to interrupt."

"I invited you, didn't I?"

He smiled at me with an expression that told me I was being an idiot.

I smiled back, acknowledging his look and feeling like an idiot. I pointed at the stack of manuscripts piled next to his chair, and asked, "Are you looking for anything in particular?"

He replied, "As a matter of fact, I am. I'm looking for a comedy."

I made a face, "Isn't that a little out of the ordinary for you?"

"It is very out of the ordinary for me. I've been playing psycho killers for years. If I don't break out of that mold soon, I'll be type cast forever. Besides, the picture I just finished was so intense it almost did me in. I need to move in a different direction both for the sake of my career and my sanity. I don't usually have to ask this, but are you by chance a fan?"

"I am not sure exactly how to answer that. I have seen a couple of your movies, and I've really loved your performances even though – I have to be honest – I didn't necessarily like the movies." I paused and added, "You know, I think I'd love to see you in a romantic comedy. Something kind of Cary Grant-esque."

He tossed the script onto a pile, stood up and took my hand, "That's exactly what I'm looking for."

We walked through the house which was, as I expected, modern but ancient, or vice versa. Even my untrained eye recognized that the paintings on the wall were masterpieces. His house was like an art museum. I would love to have lingered and looked more closely at them, but Luke was ready to go. As he led me out to the driveway, he asked, "What kinds of movies do you like to go to?"

I answered truthfully, "I tend to wait until movies come on TV. My budget doesn't often allow for entertainment money. When I do have extra cash, most of the time I choose to go to a musical concert or, maybe, a live play."

I hesitated, not knowing what to say in response to the actual question about what kind of movies I liked. I laughed when I noticed the Aston Martin parked in the driveway. He looked at me and raised his eyebrows. I slid into the passenger's seat and waited until he got behind the wheel. I continued, "But, I make an exception for James Bond movies."

"What?!"

"You heard me. I know it is crazy, but I love Bond movies."

He leaned his head back against the head rest and laughed out loud for a long time, "If you only knew how much money and effort I spent trying to get the Bond role.'

I said, "But you're American. Could you do the accent?"

He nodded and replied, with a perfectly clipped upper crust British accent, "Absolutely, I could. I worked with voice coaches for months in order to learn the accent. They passed me over for that damnable Welshman."

I looked out the window and tried, totally without success, to stifle a giggle.

"Go ahead and say it."

"You mean go ahead and tell you that I'm a huge fan of Sean Connery? Yes. I am. Some women will tell you they don't like the Bond movies because they are sexist. I suppose they are, but I love the exotic locations and the gorgeous women who make the perfect backdrop for the Welshman, as you call him. Bond shows up in a white dinner jacket and two things happen. First, all heck breaks loose and there is stuff blowing up and all kinds of amazing action and unbelievably cool special effects, all of which is too much fun for words. Then, when that is all over, Bond beds down with a beautiful woman against some kind of scenic backdrop. It's totally escapist and fun. What's not to love about that?"

I paused and added, lamely, "But then again, maybe I just don't get out enough."

He backed out of the driveway and muttered, "I may not have got the role, but I've got the car. What do you think?"

I giggled and said, "You're not going to like it."

"Tell me anyway."

"It's a gorgeous car, but it's damned uncomfortable."

He laughed again with his head back and his mouth open. I started sweating again. The man was so unbelievably ... um .... I think the current word is 'hot'.

We arrived in town in only a few moments. He parked in front of the boulangerie. We went inside and he introduced me to the baker and his staff. I was surprised that this American movie star knew everyone in the tiny shop by name. He asked after spouses and children by name as well.

We moved on to the wine shop. He ordered several bottles of fine wine and a selection of beers. Again, he introduced me to each of the employees, by name. Next we moved on to the post office where he introduced me to the post-master. He picked up some mail, and we went to the pattisserie where we stopped for coffee and pastries. I took one bite of the almond tarte and tears sprang to my eyes. They were exactly like my mother made them. I told the owner as much. Tears came to her eyes as well and she pressed another bite-sized tarte on me. I didn't say no.

When we had finished with the shops in town, we headed for Luke's car. I noticed he was empty-handed. I asked him what happened to all the things he purchased. He shrugged and said the various merchants would deliver the stuff he ordered. We got into the car and he backed out of the parking space. Instead of heading down the hill towards his villa, he turned in the other direction. In response to my sort of curious look, he made a face that said, "Just you wait."

We soon arrived at what was obviously an ancient ruin. Luke told me it was Roman. I had no reason to disbelieve him although it could have been anything from prehistoric to medieval for all I knew about history and architecture.

We wandered around what appeared to be some kind of fortress. He gave me a running commentary about the history of the area, the architecture of the fortress and even a little about the geography of southern France. Frankly, I didn't care very much about the history of the place, being much to distracted by the unspeakable beauty of it. I tried to pretend to listen politely because the lecture he was giving me obviously meant a lot to him. I was struck by the contrast between the image of Luke Payne, the movie bad guy/Hollywood playboy, and the man I was with, a man who was clearly very well versed in French history and culture, at least as far as this little corner of France was concerned. He also spoke flawlessly colloquial French. I asked him about that.

He sat down on a bench that overlooked the village below and the hills and fields of Provence beyond, and pulled me down beside him. Once I was seated, he let go of my hand. It was all I could do not to reach out and grab his hand again. I restrained myself and we sat, rather primly, next to each other while he explained, "My parents grew up in this community. I was actually born here. My dad sold our family home when we moved to America, but it was still here until it burned down a few years ago. I am so glad I wasn't here when that happened ...." He trailed off and was quiet for a little while.

Then he continued, "My dad was a mechanic in the movie business. He could fix or build about anything, whether it be a busted camera or some kind of technical prop needed for special effects. He moved to America in 1938 to work on the movie version of _Gone With The Wind_. My mother was a wardrobe mistress on that movie. I was actually present the day they shot the scene in the railroad yard. My dad sneaked me onto the set and told me to keep my mouth shut and watch movie history in the making. I watched, and knew that he was right.

"I think that was the day I decided to work in the movie business.

"I was about ten when we moved to America. I became an American kid almost immediately. My parents spoke only French at home, at first because they spoke only French, period. After we all learned English they refused to speak to me in English at home, nor would they answer me or even acknowledge that I was speaking to them if I did not speak in French. They lectured me endlessly about the culture, beauty and history of Provence, and Gordes in particular. I used to get irritated with them because of that, but some of it percolated through my thick skull and my American ways, I guess. They may have moved to America to make their living, but their hearts remained in France.

"About five years ago I came to the Cannes Film Festival for the first time because a film I had worked on was a nominee. While I was there, I met a woman who owned a villa in Gordes and I sort of manipulated her into inviting me to her house. I never told her that I was from here or that my parents were ordinary working people, because she was some sort of minor European aristocrat and I was afraid her blue-blooded snobbery would cause her to rescind her invitation. Having maneuvered her into offering it, I accepted the invitation. I think she thought we would have an affair. To be honest, that was exactly what I think we both had in mind when we left Cannes. At least that was what I had in mind until I saw the house and the town.

"Within a couple of hours of our arrival, I asked her what she wanted for the villa. We haggled most of the day. She was much older than me and she had lung cancer, although she did not share that fact with me at the time. We agreed on a price for the house and we also agreed that she could stay in it free whenever I was not using it for the rest of her life. Her life turned out to last only another four years. We never got around to having an affair exactly. We skipped right over that and became good friends.

"The thing we shared most was a love of this town and that fabulous villa. At the time, the house needed a whole lot of work, which she didn't have the money to undertake. I had plenty of money, so I financed the project and she made it happen. I ended up with the amazing home you saw this morning, in the town where my family lived for generations. It is my special retreat from the world. I never bring anyone with me when I come here except, occasionally, if I am going to be here for a while, I bring my housekeeper. She's a local girl, too. Chantal was the housekeeper for the woman from whom I bought the villa. When Helene died, I hired Chantal. She is now my housekeeper and sort of, um, my personal babysitter.

"I love it here. I try to visit several times a year, even if only for a week or so. The beauty of the place feeds my spirit. I feel close to my parents here. I have made friends with the locals, many of whom are distant relatives. Right now I'm paying for college educations for several kids from the town."

I grinned at him and said, "Mr. Payne, your secret is safe with me, but I have to tell you that you give every appearance of being a really nice man."

He put his finger in front of his lips and said, "Shh."

We resumed our tour around the perimeter of the fortress. When we got back to where we started, he said, "Well, I don't know about you, but I could go for a swim and a beer. It's hot up here." He motioned toward the car.

I hated the thought of leaving that lovely spot. I asked how far it was back to the inn. He made a face and asked, "Are you one of those cussed individuals who insists upon exploring every inch of new places on foot?"

I shrugged and raised my arms, palms out, "I don't know. This is the first time I've ever been on a real vacation or explored any new places. Based on my response to Paris, which derned near wore out my best walking shoes, I think I may be."

He took my arm and led me to the opposite side of the hilltop fortress. A well-traveled path led down toward the village. He pointed down the hill and said, "That path should be easy to follow. It leads from here to the village, meandering just a bit around the edges. The inn is beyond Gordes. It's probably a four mile walk. You sure you're up for it after your trek this morning?"

I laughed, "It appears to me that practically that entire four miles is down hill."

He nodded, "Except for a few little bumps here and there."

I looked around at the impossibly blue sky, the whitish pink of the stone buildings and the gray-blue of the rocks in the fields. Wildflowers and fields of lavender splashed color here and there. I felt like Mary Poppins standing inside one of those sidewalk paintings. For a minute I truly forgot Luke was even there, but when I sort of came to I gushed, "Oh, yeah, I'm up for it. I don't think I ever want to go inside again."

He said, "Okay, then. Behave like a goofy tourist if you must. As for me, I am driving home, where I will lounge by the pool, reading scripts and drinking beer. The path goes by my place before it gets to the inn. Stop by to cool off before you go back to the hotel to get ready for dinner.

"Oh, and, speaking of dinner, since the weather is so fabulous and you and I are the only patrons today, I propose to request Marie-Claire to serve us dinner on the veranda of the inn. How does that sound?"

I was eager to be off, so I simply murmured, "That sounds lovely," and I headed down the path. I don't think I even said good-bye to him. My eagerness go was partly due to my desire to soak up every possible experience of the land and the town. In all honesty, it was also partly due to the fact that I had noticed how I reacted to Luke's touch. He took my hand when he pulled me down on the bench, and he took my arm when he showed me to the trail head. It was, for him, a natural gesture, I'm sure. It had been years since a man had touched me, and I reacted in ways that made me very uncomfortable. I needed to step back and catch my breath.

The village was a little more than half way between the fortress and the inn. By the time I got there, I was hot and thirsty, so I detoured from the path and stopped by the café for a bottle of water and a snack. I chatted with the owner and the waiter while I ate. When I asked for the check, the owner waved his fingers in the air and made that French poofing noise that can mean a lot of things, but usually includes a negative response to whatever question was asked. I was puzzled by that, but I thanked him kindly and moved on.

I stopped frequently to take pictures and to drink in the clean air and silence of the place, so it was late in the afternoon by the time I reached Luke's house.

When I reached his gate, I hesitated. He was sitting in the shade, engrossed in his reading. At first glance, he appeared to be the picture of relaxation, but, looking more closely, I could tell that he was concentrating like a student studying for a final exam. He was totally focused on the story he was reading, and his whole body was reacting. I almost laughed. I read books like that. Story lovers don't read stories, they inhabit them. I started to back away and go directly to the inn so as not to disturb him.

"He didn't look up but said, 'Are you going to stand out there in the sun and get heat-stroke or are you going to come up here in the shade and have some iced tea?"

That got my attention. "You have iced tea?!"

He laughed and said with a nearly perfect Low Country drawl, "Well, ma'am, I have spent a little time in the South occasionally shooting movies. I wouldn't call myself an expert on Southern ways, but I pretty much know that Southerners don't go too long between doses of that disgustingly sweet iced tea. You know enough about French culture to know not to ask for it in restaurants. I don't know if we did it right, but Marie-Claire and I collaborated on something we hope will be a reasonable facsimile. You can give us pointers after you've tasted it."

I walked up on the porch and it was all I could do not to either cry or give him a hug, both of which are, of course, my natural inclination when someone does something nice for me. I somehow knew that neither of those reactions would have been appropriate at that particular moment. Instead, I poured myself a glass from the pitcher that sat at an umbrella table by the pool. The tea was a tad too sweet for me, and I would have liked lemon or mint in it, but I was thirsty and so grateful for the kindness I didn't complain.

He asked me if I wanted to take a swim, and I told him I didn't have a bathing suit. He raised his eyebrows and said, "You came to the south of France and didn't bring your bathing suit?"

"That isn't what I said. I said I don't have a bathing suit. As in: I don't own one."

He grinned and made what was supposed to be a leering face but looked more like a little boy trying unsuccessfully to be bad and said softly, 'This is France, sweetheart. Bathing suits are totally optional."

I leaned back on the chaise and laughed until I cried. He feigned irritation and said, "That wasn't supposed to be funny."

"I know. That's why it _is_ so funny. If you knew me...." I collapsed into another peal of laughter.

"Why don't you own a bathing suit? Last I heard Charleston is very near some pretty fabulous beaches."

I nodded. "Yes, it is, and I go to the beach as often as I can. I don't know how to swim, so I never go near the water. I walk for miles on the beach, but I don't need a bathing suit to do that."

He shrugged and said, "If you change your mind, in the pool-house there's a bureau with a whole lot of bathing suits of all sizes."

I laughed, "Women come here and leave their bathing suits behind?"

He said, a tad too quickly, "No, that happens at my house in Malibu. Women leave all kinds of things behind there, presumably on the hope that I will call them and invite them to come back and collect their belongings. Actually, I keep an assortment of suits here because about the only guests who ever come here are usually impromptu visits from other movie people who are passing through. Most of the time they don't come prepared."

I chuckled and said, "I don't follow celebrity gossip but I'd think that a lot of the movie people would go native... you know, clothing optional."

He nodded and pushed his glasses up on his forehead. "A lot of them do. Mostly the actors and virtually all actresses. They say they don't want tan lines." He made a face, "I'm sure that is part of the reason." He grinned and winked at me, "I pretend to believe it, anyway. Actually, the ones who usually take advantage of the bathing suits here are the movie executives and their wives." He looked at me and somehow I knew that he understood more about me than I had guessed. "There are a few French bikinis and whatnot, but most of the suits are fairly conservative one-piece maillots."

I nodded but didn't move from the chaise. I sipped the tea.

He said, "I told Marie-Clarie it's too sweet."

"Just a tad, but once the ice melts a little it will be fine."

"How about a beer instead?"

I stretched out on the chaise and started to say no, but I hesitated. It had been years since I had tasted beer. Kris and I had often sat on the porch late in the evening and sipped draft beer he brought home from the bar in a milk jug. I was on vacation, so what the heck!? I grinned and said, "Yeah. That sounds really good."

He went inside and came back with two very cold bottles of some German beer I had never heard of. It was a little bitter and strong for my taste, but it grew on me very quickly. Best of all, it was ice cold. Actually, it was divine. I leaned back in the chair and felt the sun on my face and the first sign of the sore butt muscles I was going to have after a four mile downhill walk. I said, "Please don't let me interrupt your work."

"I'm ready for a break. How was your walk?"

"It was fabulous! I am falling more in love with this place every minute. Oh, I want to ask you. Do you have accounts with the shops in town?" He nodded and I made a sheepish face, "I think there may have been a misunderstanding when you were introducing me around. This afternoon I stopped at the café for a snack and the owner didn't charge me. I don't think a French businessman would give away food to an American tourist. I'm afraid he put it on your tab."

He laughed. "Yeah, he probably did. I could see how the merchants might have thought you were with me. Don't worry about it. Call it my treat."

"Will you spread the word that I'll pay for my own stuff?"

He started to say something and then stopped himself, "Sure. I'll take care of it."

We sat quietly for a while. That was the really odd thing. We had only just met, but we were very comfortable being quiet together. I finished my beer, by which time the ice had diluted the tea sufficiently, so I switched back to tea. I asked him about the script he was reading when I walked up and he launched into a long description of the story, sort of semi-acting out some of the scenes. I could see how he was already working on developing the character.

That particular character, by the way, turned out to be the corporal in the movie _When The Bombs Came Down_. Before that time he had done a lot of B-movies, playing mostly bad guys and killers. He was a working actor who had made a lot of money, but his reputation was more as a ladies man than as a really serious actor. _When The Bombs Came Down_ won him best actor awards in virtually every film festival in the world.

He talked to me about the story and then he spent a couple of hours explaining to me how movies are made. I've never been a huge movie buff but that gave me a much greater appreciation for the movies I have seen. I never saw _When The Bombs Came Down_ until a few years ago after you bought us a DVD player for Christmas. I rented it one day when Henry was at work. Luke's character turned out different from the way it started out on the veranda that day, but I could see how he got from where he started that afternoon to where he ended up in the film.....

But, I'm getting ahead of myself. Sorry.

Anyway, we spent what was left of the afternoon talking and laughing. Eventually, he said, "Why don't you go get ready for dinner. I have a few phone calls to make to California. I'll meet you on the veranda at the inn at 7:30."

I stood up and asked, "May I take my glass of tea with me?"

He made a face, "Take the whole damned pitcher. It came from Marie-Claire's kitchen anyway, and I'm sure as hell not going to drink it!"

After I took my shower, I had a moment of panic. I had brought comfortable traveling clothes that were designed to be worn several times between washings without looking like I had slept in them. There was nothing in my wardrobe that was remotely suitable for what I knew would be a candlelight dinner with a movie star on the terrace of the most beautiful inn imaginable. I sighed and slipped into my black pants and a white shell. I had bought a colorful scarf for you in Paris. I decided you wouldn't mind if I 'borrowed' it, since my situation constituted something of a fashion emergency. I wrapped it around my neck to add a little color.

I had not intended to bring any makeup with me because after Kris left I had rather got out of the habit of wearing makeup, what with the greasy environment at the lunch counter. I felt very grateful that you talked me into bringing a make-up bag because it seemed to me that every woman in France was flawlessly made up all the time. That evening, I applied a little more makeup than I ordinarily would have worn, but I knew it would be dark on the terrace.

The whole time I was getting ready there was a raging argument going on inside my head. My 'sensible self' was insisting that I was being crazy to think that Luke Payne was doing anything other than killing time with me, in view of the fact that I was the only person around other than the locals, who were all too busy with their jobs and families to hang out drinking beer by the pool with him. Another little voice kept saying, 'but what if...' I decided the only way to make it stop was to go downstairs and find out.

Madame met me in the parlor and offered me a glass of wine and she invited me to wait on the terrace until dinner was ready. A very small round table was set for two at one end of the terrace. Beside it was a side table with a wine cooler containing a bottle of white wine. Next to the white wine, a bottle of red sat open on the table. A basket of bread, wrapped in a pristine white napkin, and a plate, that I guessed was butter covered with a silver dome, sat nearby.

On the other end of the veranda there was a sort of conversation area of comfortable chairs and tables. I started to sit down but realized that I wouldn't be able to watch the sunset from there. I remembered there was a bench beside the walking trail facing west, so I wandered out that way and waited for the sunset. The air was perfectly still. The only sound was the whirring of insects and occasional bird-song. I couldn't remember a time in my life when I felt so peaceful and relaxed.

I heard a deep chuckle from the shadows on my right. Luke stepped into the glow of the dying sunlight and said, "What I wouldn't give to know what you were thinking just now."

I patted the seat next to me and said, "Trust me, I am sure it was nowhere near as interesting as what you imagined."

He had a bottle of wine in one hand and an empty glass in the other. He motioned to my glass with the bottle. I shook my head. I had been so distracted by the scenery I had barely tasted the wine. He touched the side of the glass. The wine was warm. He took the glass from my hand and poured the contents into the bushes, then he refilled it with cold wine from the bottle and handed it back to me. I shook my head and laughed.

"What's so funny?"

"That was a terrible waste of a perfectly good glass of very expensive wine. I am trying to pace myself. I haven't had wine in years. Besides, I really prefer red wine."

"Really? Typically non-drinkers lean towards white wine."

I laughed. "You see, my mother was French, but she worked in a restaurant owned by Greeks. I married the eldest son of that family. In our house, we drank red wine. You know that strong purplish Greek wine."

"The kind that sort of takes the skin right off your tongue?"

"That would be the stuff. Kris's mom made her own homemade wine, which was really, really good, at least to my untrained taste-buds. I'm afraid my palate is too destroyed to appreciate your delicate French white wine."

He leaned close and whispered in my ear, "Please don't say that in front of Marie-Claire. She's passionate about wine and she really wants her guests to share that passion." I thought I would pass out. He smelled like soap and something spicy. His breath was warm against my cheek.

I took a sip to cool off, and winked, "I'll do my best. It's a good thing I'll only have to crawl up the stairs."

We watched the sun go down, chatting about nothing. Madame soon called us for dinner, which was five courses of the best food I had ever eaten up to that point, including my mother's cooking. We laughed and talked about food and wine and travel. Luke regaled me with gossipy Hollywood stories, most of which were probably common knowledge but, since I didn't follow the celebrity news, it was all very new and exciting to me. It didn't hurt, I suppose, that I was hearing the stories narrated by Luke Payne on a moonlit terrace in Provence.

While we were having desert, I asked Madame where I could catch the bus to St. Saturnin-les-Apts. They both looked at me with strange expressions. Madame recovered and answered the question, "The bus stops by the post office at, I believe, 8:30. Do you wish to eat breakfast before you go?"

"Just coffee, thank you."

Luke was not as circumspect as Madame. He blurted out the question I could see in her eyes, "Why do you want to go there? I imagine it is an absolutely beautiful village, but it's so remote. For that matter, how do you even know about it?"

I pushed my cake around on my plate and wished I had not said anything in front of him. Still, he was so direct and open and honest, I discovered I couldn't be anything less with him. "That is my mother's home town. I sent her remains back there after she died. I want to go there to see the place she came from. The place she always described as pure heaven. And I want to ..." I choked up. "I want to visit her one last time."

He put his hand over mine and said softly, "You don't have to take the bus, I'll drive you."

I started to protest, but he stopped me by putting his finger over my lips. He said, "I've got nothing else to do but hang around here until early evening when I have a conference call with a producer in California, so don't argue with me." He told me he would like to leave about 9:30, which would still give me plenty of time to wander around the village before returning to Gordes for his call at 7:00 p. m.

I must have looked puzzled. He explained, "Seven p. m. Local time is 10:00 a. m. in LA. I have a conference call with my agent and a producer."

He looked at Madame and said, "Perhaps Marianne and I should plan a picnic lunch. Could you fix us up with a box lunch?"

She blushed and grinned. I could tell she had a huge crush on him even though she was happily married, and her husband was in the kitchen. Or, maybe she was the quintessential French business woman who loved the fact that he was rich and he was spending lavishly on food and wine during what was typically a very slow time in her business year. Whatever her reason, she was prepared to do anything he asked. She went inside to make the arrangements.

I stood up and stretched. "How is it that we just ate an enormous meal that took three hours, and I don't want to even think about how much wine we had, but, I don't feel stuffed miserable, and I don't think I'm drunk, either."

He leaned against the porch railing and said, "That's because the portions for each course are very small. They pace the meals so your system can digest some of the food before you eat the next course. The wine was consumed over a long period of time. It is what you might call civilized dining as opposed the American way of eating which involves food that is too heavy, served in too large portions and eaten too quickly."

I stretched and said, "You know, I can't believe it because I would never think of going to bed on a full stomach at home, but I think I want to turn in before the wine wears off. It's been a long day and I got a lot of exercise. I'm pooped."

He said, "I'll come over here about 9:15 for coffee and we'll plan to leave by 9:30-ish." He paused as if he were going to say something else. Then he put his hand on my shoulder and said in a voice that was only slightly above a whisper, "Good-night, Cherie, sweet dreams." He said it in French, with exactly the same accent and inflection my mother had said it every night of my life before she died. I turned away quickly in the hope he would not see the tears in my eyes. I don't think I quite made it.

4 - St-Saturnin-les-Apt

The next morning Luke appeared in the dining room at exactly 9:15. He may have been French by birth, but his punctuality was almost German. I was reading the newspaper and finishing my second or third cup of coffee. I poured him café au lait from the pots on the table while he helped himself to bread and fruit from the sideboard.

I tried not to look directly at him. He was wearing white pants and a very pale yellow shirt that was probably silk and more than likely cost more than my entire wardrobe. He was tan and looked very relaxed and at home. You remember those hideous wide collars on men's shirts back then? By today's standards I guess they were gross, but I thought he was the most glorious thing I'd ever seen. I tried not to think about it, but his attractiveness was difficult not to notice.

We chatted small-talk during breakfast. Luke had brought a map which he spread out on the table. We mapped out a route which took us directly to St. Saturnin-les-Apts. On the way back he suggested we make a detour to a winery he liked for a late lunch/early dinner. He looked up at Madame and said, "I will not be here for dinner. I shall feed Marianne a very late lunch so she may not need a full dinner tonight. Please make the necessary adjustment to her bill and add an appropriate gratuity to mine."

Madame nodded. I blushed and started to protest, but I saw Madame shake her head ever so slightly. I closed my eyes instead of nodding my head. She smiled a sort of half-smile. Luke looked from her to me and chuckled, "Whenever you two are finished with that noisy conversation, we can go."

Madame and I both blushed. She handed me a large picnic basket which was heavy enough to contain either a half case of wine or enough food to feed Luke and me for a week. Or both. Probably both.

When I walked out to the driveway, I looked around for the Aston Martin. Luke put his hand on the small of my back and steered me towards a black Mercedes. I looked at him and raised my eyebrows. He made a face, "You bitched about how uncomfortable the Aston Martin was so I thought this would be better for a long trip."

"You have two luxury cars at a house you only use occasionally?"

He made a face. "Of course not. I don't keep a car here permanently. I rent cars while I'm here. I usually rent a German car because the roads are so narrow and twisting. I don't know what possessed me to get that Aston Martin. I guess I was showing off or something. I think you will find this much more comfortable. What do you drive at home?"

"Don't laugh."

"I won't."

"Yes you will."

"I promise."

I tried to glare at him, but I couldn't. He was too beautiful. I said, "I drive an eight year old Rambler American with 200,000 miles on it."

He laughed so hard, he almost ran off the road. "I didn't know there was an American car made that would go 200,000 miles."

"This one has, and it better plan on going another 200,000 miles because I sure as hell can't afford to replace it!"

He asked me what I did for a living and I told him the truth mainly because it didn't occur to me to lie about it until after the words were already out. He asked me to tell him about myself. I hesitated, but he seemed genuinely interested, and I guess driving along the road to my mother's home town seemed like a good time and place to think about my past. I told him what I knew about her and her background, which wasn't much. I said I always suspected that my mother's family was very poor and that she had been working in that bar in Marseilles looking for a ticket out of France. She found it in my dad.

I told him about my marriage and divorce and about the wonderful Greek family who all but adopted me. He asked me if I planned to visit them while I was in Europe, and I told him that I was afraid to try to travel to a country where I didn't speak the language.

He laughed and said, "People almost everywhere speak English."

"I know. I also know that people almost everywhere loathe Americans for being so rude as to expect everyone to accommodate us."

"Spoken like a daughter of a Frenchwoman."

"You disagree?"

"Hell, no. Recall, I'm one hundred percent pure Frog, myself. Born in France, even. I heard that line from both my parents, all my life."

"I've told you my story. I'd love to hear yours."

"You mean you don't already know everything there is to know about me?"

"How would I know that?"

"Don't you read the gossip columns?"

"No, as a matter of fact, I don't. And even if I did, I'm almost positive the person I would encounter in those stories would bear almost no resemblance to the person I've spend the last day and a half with."

He was quiet for a long time. "You would probably be right about that. You mean you really don't know my story at all?"

"I know that you have a bit of a reputation as a lady's man. A person would probably have to live in a submarine not to know that. I know you have won some awards for your acting. I remember a few years ago you did a movie in South Carolina and there was a lot of fuss over that. I didn't pay attention to the details. I think that was the year Kris stopped communicating with us altogether and Christa and I were kind of a mess at the time.

"I may be naïve, sheltered and not exactly up on the celebrity gossip, but I'm not stupid. I assume that the studios manufacture most of that gossip stuff. Whatever your public story is, I'm pretty sure the real story is different. I'd love to hear it, that is, if you're willing to share it with me."

He nodded. "I rarely talk about myself, largely for the reason you mentioned. I sort of lose track of whatever the publicity department has me up to at any given time, so I just keep my mouth shut, smile at the cameras and flirt with every woman who looks at me." He steered around some rocks on the road. I could feel the power and responsiveness of the car even from the passenger's side. For a moment I found myself wanting to get behind the wheel. He changed the subject, "But, today is about you. You will visit your mother's grave and wander around her home town. You should focus on that. Later over dinner, we can talk about me if you're still interested. How about that?"

I nodded, but could not speak because I wanted to cry. First of all, I had momentarily forgotten I was getting close to my mother's home town ... and her resting place.

Secondly, I was somewhat sad to think how divorced his public life was from his real person. I thought that must be a very hard thing to live with. But then, I flipped burgers at the Woolworth's for $3.50 an hour. He made millions. I guess I could afford the luxury of a totally transparent life. Or, he was compensated for not having one. Or something....

We pulled up in front of a café in St. Saturnin-les-Apts a little before noon. Luke stopped the car and turned to me. He didn't touch me physically, but it felt as though he somehow wrapped me in some kind of psychic full body hug. He said softly, "I am going to sit in that café and drink coffee until you are ready. Take all the time you need. I have plenty to read, and if I feel like talking to someone, I can kill time talking to the owner. Maybe I'll find out some stuff about your family. Don't even think about me. We don't have to leave here until perhaps 5:00 at the latest, although if you want to stop for an early supper we should leave by 3:00."

I put my hand on his chest (and immediately wished I had not done so) and said, "Thank you so much. I want to just walk around for a while. I have a general idea where Maman is buried, but I'm not exactly sure."

He looked at me oddly and asked, "Isn't she buried in the church yard?"

I shook my head. "No. I had her cremated. I didn't know Catholics weren't supposed to be cremated. The priest wouldn't bury her in the grave yard. Supposedly somebody in her family intervened and they buried her outside the cemetery. There's supposed to be a spot under a tree, with a bench and a lilac bush. I should be able to find it if I start at the church and work my way out. If I can't find it, I'll ask someone. The cousin who helped with the burial died a couple of years ago, but it's a small village. Somebody will know."

He patted my hand and reached across in front of me to open the door. He said, "I'll be here if you need me." He smelled of soap and something spicy. I got out of the car quickly before I gave in to the urge to fall into his arms and sob.

I could see the steeple of the church and I wound my way through the narrow streets toward it. The locals eyed me suspiciously. I was on a mission, so I didn't take time to make nice with them. It was easy to find the church. Finding my mother's grave was more difficult. The church was built in the middle of the town. There were no fields or trees or lilac bushes around it. I looked at my map. There was a castle above the village with a windmill nearby. Perhaps her family found a place for her there. Then again, maybe they buried her on their own land. I would be trespassing if I tried to go there, and, besides, I didn't know where that was anyway. I had a moment of panic.

About that time I saw an elderly lady coming out of the church. I stopped her and asked if she knew anyone from the Villeneuve family who might be able to help me find my mother's grave. She looked up into my eyes and it was all I could do not to collapse in hysterical tears. She looked at me with my mother's eyes. Then she said softly in my mother's voice, "You are Marianne. I am your aunt Marcelline I always knew someday you would come."

She took me by the arm and we walked through the village. The locals seemed to know who I was now simply by virtue of her response to me. Instead of suspicious glances, I was greeted with smiles and cheery 'bon jours.' Aunt Marcelline was an old lady, with a dowager's hump, but she was strong and in great shape. She walked at a brisk pace, and told me the story of my family while we walked. You've heard most of that already. She took me to the edge of the village and beyond, stopping in front of an ancient stone house with a dairy next door. A few cows stood in a paddock beyond. It was an almost idyllic looking place, if you didn't look too close. Up close the grinding poverty was obvious.

Aunt Marcelline took me around the house, but she didn't invite me inside. We made our way through the yard which was filled with herbs and flowers. Beyond that she led me into the paddock which was a small square of green surrounded by the white rocky terrain that lead up to the Vaucluse plateau. She stopped and pointed to the highest corner of the paddock where there was a small stone bench and a large beautiful lilac bush. She put her claw-like hand on my arm and whispered, "That was your mother's favorite place to sit when she was a child. We put buried her there when she came back to us."

She turned back to the house. I made my way across the paddock, stepping around cow pies and weeds. I sat down on the bench and looked at the incredible view, which was already familiar because my mother had described it to me so many times when I was a child. It was exactly as she had described it. While it was certainly beautiful and peaceful, it was also remote, and very, very poor. For the first time, I had a flash of understanding as to why Maman had to leave her home, despite her love for the place, and why she never went back despite missing it so terribly every day of her life.

My mother loved excitement and fun. She liked to eat and drink. She loved men. As much as she loved her home, and missed it every day when she was far away, she could never have lived out her life there. It was a good place to be buried, however, and I was glad I had sent her home to be buried in the spot she loved so much.

In a little while, I composed myself and went back to Aunt Marcelline's house. She had brought out some wine and cheese and bread into the courtyard. Several cousins and other shirt-tail relations had stopped by as well. I couldn't help but be amused to think that this impromptu gathering of family with food was exactly the way Southerners greet long-lost relatives. My mother always told me that, despite its parochial ways, she thought she was more at home in the South than she would have been anyplace else in America. It occurred to me that day she might have been right.

We had lunch and talked about our families. I showed them pictures of you and of my mother when she lived in Charleston. They showed me some photos of Maman before she left her home. They also showed me photos of her parents and a bunch of other relatives. Way too soon for me, it was obvious they had to go back to work. It was up to me to break up the party, so I did. With hugs and tears and some cheese to go, I made my way back to the village.

When I walked into the café it was about 2:45. Luke was having coffee with the owner. He waved me to the table. The owner asked me if I wanted coffee or wine, and he kissed my hand. Luke grinned and said, "I think he's your cousin."

I smiled back at him and whispered, "I think they all are."

Philippe brought me a glass of wine and Luke a Perrier. We chatted for a little while. Philippe was Aunt Marcelline's oldest son. I had told the family about my life, but I had not mentioned Luke. I was concerned that, if they learned I had arrived with Luke Payne, they might think I was lying or hiding something. Philippe laughed and tossed his cigarette in the gutter. "Cherie, there are probably few regular residents of this village who have ever heard of M. Payne. Most of them think everyone in America is rich, so it does not matter that you work in a bistro and he is a movie star. Compared with most of them, you are both rich."

I leaned forward and said, "What about you? What do you think?"

He shrugged in the manner only a true Frenchman could accomplish and said, "Me? Most of my clients, at least in the winter, are rich people from all over Europe and America. I see their clothes and their jewelry. I hear their talk. I have to stock expensive wine and liquor that only they can afford. But I live here, so I live the way everyone else lives."

I smiled at him and winked, "You're my mother's nephew. I'm betting that you have quite a nice nest egg squirreled away. You may even have a home somewhere on the Cote d'Azur or someplace. When your mother passes, you will leave this place. I hope you will be as happy as my mother was."

He cocked his head. "Was she happy? Your mother?"

"Yes, she was. She missed France. She missed her family. She missed the beauty of Provence with every breath. But, she enjoyed life. She was the queen of the kitchen in the Olympia Restaurant. She was probably the only French chef in the world who could make killer cheese grits and fried chicken livers that even the colored ladies who were her sous chefs couldn't match. She wasn't rich, but she had a lot of friends. She had a lot of fun."

"She never married again after your father died?"

I paused for a long time, considering how to answer diplomatically but truthfully. I opted for the plain truth. "No. She never married again. I don't mean to be disrespectful to her memory, and I love her no less for acknowledging the truth of this. She got what she wanted out of her marriage to my father. She got to America and she got a child. I doubt seriously she expected Papa would die so soon or that Maw Maw would die and leave her house to me. That was pretty much all she ever wanted out of life. After that, Maman worked hard in the restaurant, but she also had a lot of fun."

"She had many girl friends."

"No. She hand many boy friends. My mother loved men. And men loved my mother."

Philippe nodded, "From what I have heard, that was the problem."

"I figured as much."

I glanced at my watch and at Luke, who was lounging in his chair looking totally relaxed and almost half asleep. I could tell somehow that he was listening to the conversation intently. I glanced at him and raised my eyebrows. He smiled.

We stood up almost simultaneously and shook Philippe's hand. I gave him my address and asked him to keep in touch. I wrote down his address and promised to do the same. Luke gave him the picnic lunch Marie-Claire had packed for us instructing him to make a party in the Villeneuve family. Philippe tried to decline, but Luke insisted. He winked and said that if he and I brought the picnic back uneaten, we would have to face a very angry French cook, and neither of us was courageous enough for that. Philippe accepted the gift as a favor to us.

As we drove through the village on our way back to Gorges, every person we passed waved at us as though we belonged there, because in a way, we did. Or, at least I did.

We did not talk very much for a while. Luke was a good driver but the road was very narrow and steep. Luke was concentrating on his driving, and I did not want to disturb him. After a while he said, "I had never been to St. Saturnin-les-Apts. It's a beautiful place. Do you want to talk about your day?"

I said, "First of all, I want to thank you for bringing me on this outing. I will never forget the kindness."

He shrugged like a Frenchman.

"It was a much better experience than I expected. For one thing, it never occurred to me that I would meet anyone in my family. What are the chances of running into my aunt?"

Luke made a face, "In a town with only a handful of permanent residents virtually all of whom are your relatives, I'd say the chances were very, very good."

"Well, when you put it that way, I guess so. I just never realized it was such a small town. It never occurred to me Maman would have so much family still there."

"The way I heard it, I think she was about the only one in her generation who left. The biggest concern among the locals is that most of the kids are leaving now. Provence is becoming very popular with foreign tourists. If it's lucky, St. Saturnin-les-Apts may become a sort of artist's haven. The old residents will leave and/or die off, as is happening in most of the rest of the small towns and villages all over France, and the US for that matter. Are you okay with where they chose to bury your mother? Apparently the family was concerned you would not like the fact that they buried her so far away from town."

"Aunt Marcelline told me they buried her in her very favorite spot. I am sure they did because Maman used to tell me about sitting on a bench in her favorite place, trying to imagine that she could see all the way to the coast. She described the scene to me a thousand times. I sat on that very bench today and I know that she rests in the place she loved most. I am more than pleased."

A few miles from Gorges, Luke pulled onto what appeared to be a private road. We wound through olive groves that gave way to a vineyard. The road ended in a parking lot at a winery. Luke got out and walked around the car to open the door for me. I looked up and smiled at him. He took my arm and led me to the courtyard. We were greeted by the owners and seated immediately.

We were the only patrons in the restaurant. That was not surprising because it was after lunchtime and before dinner during their slow season. The owner brought out a bottle of wine and Luke tasted it with the kind of swishing and lip-smacking wine-lovers do, mostly to show off, I think. The vintner was delighted. They chatted wine-talk for a few minutes. Luke ordered pate and bread with our wine. The owner's wife handed him a menu. He waved it away and smiled at her with his movie-star smile and said, "Please make us a simple lunch. Perhaps some soup and a light salad with a mushroom omelet we could share or a piece of fish with some vegetables. Nothing fancy."

The woman looked at Luke as though she wanted to take her clothes off and climb in his lap right there in the restaurant. She headed back to the kitchen with obvious reluctance and clearly under a lot of pressure.

I laughed and said, "You shouldn't do that."

He tried to look innocent and said, "Do what?"

"Toy with that woman."

"I was not toying with her. I was merely flirting. I find I get much better food out of French cooks if I flirt with them."

"At least you're honest."

"That I am. I am very honest. Nobody ever believes me, but I always tell the truth. Then I don't have to worry about remembering what I've said."

"Why don't people believe you?"

"I'm not sure. It's the damnedest thing. Somewhere along the way people got the impression that because I've got a reputation for liking the ladies, that I'm somehow a liar and a cad. Maybe I am a cad by definition if that means someone who cats around a lot. But I'm not a liar. I admit to what I do. I make no promises or commitments. I ask for none. I never mess with married women. Somehow people think I lie, maybe because they think I should lie."

I nodded. "My personal experience is very different, but I have a little bit of a sense for what you mean. My mother was a lot like what you describe, only her standards were different. She pretty much only dated married men. She said they were a lot less likely to make demands on her. She didn't want anyone to make any demands on her... anyone other than herself, that is. She was very demanding of herself. In fact, she was positively a perfectionist when it came to the demands she put on herself. She didn't want to get married again, so she only went out with married men or a couple of Southern gentlemen whose Mama's held the purse strings and who would never sit still for sonny boy coming home with a French whore."

"I thought your mother was a cook?"

"She was. She also had a very nice little catering business on the side. She catered parties for the ladies around town. She provided other services for their husbands, as I recall. I don't think she was so crass as to charge a set fee. She was sort of everybody's girlfriend, and she accepted gifts and tips."

"Did that bother you?"

I put my face in my hands, pushed back my hair and leaned forward. I whispered, "I have to confess to you I don't think I ever really saw the whole picture until today. Like you, she made no secrets and was in no way ashamed of her life. She was very discrete in terms of her relationships with married men, but she never made any effort to hide what she did from me. If anyone had asked her a direct question about what she was up to, she would have answered it truthfully. Interestingly, nobody ever said anything to me about it at school or any place else.

"Of course, if they had Kris and his gang of greaser buddies would have kicked their ass. Maybe they did kick some asses and I just didn't know. I didn't realize how superb were my powers of ignoring the really obvious until today."

"Did you date a lot?"

"Me? Absolutely not. I never really dated anybody at all. I sort of grew up in the restaurant kitchen with the Delios kids. They treated me like one of their own my whole life. Kris and I grew up together. We worked too many hours to have time to date anybody else. So when it came time for school functions that required a 'date', we went with each other. I don't know how or when we started becoming more than sort of buddies or quasi-siblings. I can tell you that to this day, Kris Delios is the only man I've ever even kissed, much less done anything else with. I have not dated since Kris left me because I have been too busy. And, frankly, I loved having my life revolve around Christa. I missed Kris for a long time. I don't think about him much anymore. I filled up my life with my job and being a mom. I've never had room for a man."

"How do you think your mother would feel about that?"

"My mother would be chewing my ass on a regular basis for not dating after my divorce, and probably throwing men at me right and left. I miss her terribly, but I honestly am grateful I don't have to listen to her nagging me about my decisions on that issue."

He laughed. "Your mother sounds like a pistol."

"My mother was a piece of work.... a fabulous, marvelous piece of God's own art." I suddenly remembered an event I had forgotten and I started to laugh and cry at the same time. Luke demanded that I share the joke.

"It's very personal."

He looked around at the deserted restaurant and said, "Who'm I gonna tell?"

I looked around. There was nobody else there. I would never see him again. I wiped my eyes and tried to rein in the giggles. "Well, you see, when Kris and I got married at the ripe old age of 18, immediately after we graduated from high school, we were both totally and completely ignorant of, um, conjugal matters. After the first few nights, we sort of started getting the hang of it, but it still just didn't seem right to me." I put my face in my hands and said, "Oh, God, I can't believe I'm saying this out loud.... Anyway, I thought we were doing something wrong because my mother would go in the bedroom with a man and for hours there would be laughing and carrying on. There would be bumping around and frequent falling-out-of-bed which usually ended with sharp swearing from the man and riotous peels of laughter from my mother. After about a week I asked Kris one night when we were going to get to the funny stuff. He didn't know what I was talking about. The problem was, neither did I. I had to ask my mother what the funny business involved."

Luke lay his head on the table and laughed so hard he cried. He could not get himself under control, so he got up and walked outside and then went to the men's room. When he came back he was still laughing. I had the hiccups and was trying to fix my makeup which had run all over my face from the laughing tears.

He sat down and said, "I have spent the last five minutes trying to talk myself out of asking this, but I'm too much of an American to resist. Please, please, please tell me what she said."

I shook my head and shrugged, "She told me I'd have to figure that out for myself."

He leaned forward and locked eyes with me, daring me to look away, and asked, "Did you?"

I smiled and said softly, "Eventually. Sort of. And that's all I'm going to say about the subject, so don't ask any more questions."

He poured more wine, and dribbled a few drops on the stone floor. "A libation to the memory of your mother. I think I'd have loved her."

I laughed, "Oh, she'd have loved you, too! I am sure of that!" I raised my eyebrows in a rather suggestive manner, and he blushed.

I pretended to write something down on a piece of paper. He asked me what I was doing. I told him I thought I must be the only woman in the world who had ever made him blush. I wanted to record the event for posterity. He rapped my hand with a butter knife.

That lightened up the mood and helped us move on to other subjects. We ate a fabulous meal and washed it down with unbelievable wine in a setting that looked like a movie-maker's version of Provence. I asked him if there had been any movies made in that area. He said he doubted it because it was too remote. We both thought it would make a wonderful movie set but at the same time we liked the fact that it was far enough off the beaten track it had not yet become popular with the movie people who, Luke said, tended to come in with their trailers and sound trucks and take over small towns.

After coffee and a 'toute petite patisserie' that madame insisted we taste, we took a walk through the olive groves and then headed back to Gordes.

We were almost there when I turned to him and said, "You promised to tell me your story. I spent the whole day yammering about myself. I really do want to hear your story."

"We will have all day tomorrow to talk about me. I hope you don't have any plans because I made arrangements to use a boat belonging to a producer friend of mine for a day of cruising and fishing out of Marseilles. I would really love your company."

"You do not have to entertain me. You're on your vacation. I'll be fine."

"I am quite sure you would have a wonderful time walking the trails around Gordes and being your regular amazingly happy self, but I think boating is a whole lot more fun if you're with someone else, and I'd like the company. Do you like boats?"

I shook my head, "The only boat I've ever been on has been a canoe on a lake at the church camp where Christa and I have spent our vacations the last several years. And I don't much like the canoes. I'm not sure about a motor boat."

"The boat I'm talking about is a lot bigger than a canoe or even what you might call a motor boat, I assure you. It's a yacht. Think small cruise ship."

He did a double take and asked, ".... What the heck were you doing at a church camp? You don't strike me as a church lady."

"Oh, I'm not. About three years ago Christa saw an add in the paper for an activities director and a cook at a Presbyterian church camp in western South Carolina. Neither of us had ever been on a vacation, and she decided it was high time we took a trip. By going to the church camp, we would make enough money to pay for the gas to get there, and come home with more money than we went with. She was the activities director, with responsibility for the music (which is evidently a big part of church camp) and other recreation. I was the cook. It was kind of a bus man's holiday for me.

"At first we had some reservations about how we would fit in with all those church people in view of the fact that neither of us had ever set foot in a church, except for the occasional baptism or wedding at the Greek Orthodox Church, but the people who ran the camp were nice. We kept our mouths shut about not being church members. Nobody asked too many questions because they liked Christa's piano playing and they loved my cooking. During our off times, we were allowed to swim in the lake and use the canoes or bicycles. I spent most of my off time hiking the trails. We went to camp the last three years in a row. I doubt we'll do it again now that Christa's in college. It was fun, but I don't want to go without her."

He shook his head, "I won't take no for an answer. We will go boating tomorrow and I'll tell you my story."

"What time do we have to leave?"

"Early."

"How early?"

"How early can you be up?"

"I've been getting up around 5:30 or 6:00."

He shuddered. "Let's say 7:00."

"I'll sleep in. What should I bring?"

"A hat, suntan lotion. You still don't have a bathing suit. Did you bring shorts?"

"No. I brought mostly dresses."

"Do you have a sun dress?"

"Sort of."

He shook his head. I guess he was frustrated by my lack of preparedness for the needs of a vacation in Provence. "Be ready at 7:00. We can stop someplace on the way and buy you clothes if we need to."

He pulled into the driveway of his house and walked around to open my door. He took my hand and walked me to the front door of the inn, and said, "Go to bed early. It will be a long day tomorrow."

He started to turn away, stopped and turned back around to face me. He took my chin in his left hand and looked into my face. My heart was pounding and skipping about every third beat. I know I broke out in a sudden sweat and I flushed. He leaned forward. I tilted my head back and waited for him to kiss me. His face was only a few centimeters from mine. He still smelled of spicy aftershave, now mixed with something musky and salty. I closed my eyes. I felt him move away.

I opened my eyes and looked up into his. There was a mix of curiosity, amusement and something that looked to me like irritation. Then he smiled at me and tweeked my nose. He mumbled "Good night, Cherie, sweet dreams," in French and walked away, leaving me standing there sweating and with my knees like jelly.

Somehow I made it into the inn. Madame kept bottled water and fruit on the sideboard of the dining room. I grabbed a bottle of water and went out on the veranda. Marie-Claire and her husband, Jean-Michel, were sitting at one end of the veranda. I moved in the opposite direction. Madame motioned me to join them. I did so reluctantly. I wanted to be alone and to think. They offered me a glass of cognac and asked how it had gone with my visit to St. Saturnin-les-Apts. I told them the high points of the trip, leaving out all the personal stuff. They said they were happy it went so well. We chatted for a few minutes, but I needed to be alone and to think.

I told them I as going to bed early because I would be leaving early to spend the day with M. Payne. Madame looked at me with an odd expression. I half expected her to say something about being careful about getting involved with such a man. She held her peace. She knew which side her bread was buttered on. He was a regular customer. I was a once-in-a-lifetime visitor. She didn't need to concern herself with my stupidity. I didn't blame her for the choice she made. I was also glad not to have to deal with whatever she might have to say. There was enough monkey chatter going on in my head as it was. I didn't need Marie-Claire to chime in with any warnings.

I took my cognac to my room and settled in a deep padded chair on the balcony. We were far enough away from the nearest city that the stars hung so low it seemed as though I could reach up and touch them. I left the drink on the side table and decided to go to bed. I stood at the railing for a moment feeling the breeze on my face. I turned to go inside and saw Luke sitting by his pool watching me. I stopped and looked at him. He raised his glass to me. I reached over and picked up the brandy snifter, and tilted it toward him in return.

I waved good-night and turned to go inside. He smiled that smile of his.

5 - Cruising

I got up early, showered and piled my hair up on top of my head and secured it with bobby pins. I had brought a floral print sun dress with a white shawl and a pair of white sandals to wear to the beach. I knew I was probably over dressed for boating, but it was the best I could do. I put on make up with a light hand. I looked in the mirror and saw a divorced woman who would turn 40 the next day. It appeared to me that I looked every day of my age. My hair was beginning to show signs of gray here and there. My skin was showing the wear and tear of a life of soap and water washing without enough moisturizing. It didn't matter. In two days I would return to South Carolina, and Luke Payne would continue on his vacation and then return to Hollywood where he would be surrounded by fans and starlets. How could he possibly care what I looked like? I could not imagine he would, so I decided not to let myself worry about it.

I crept down the stairs in an effort not to wake up the owners of the inn, who lived in an apartment down the hall from my room, and out to the front porch where I sat on the top step to wait for Luke. I was just getting comfortable, listening to the insects buzzing and birds singing, musing about how hard it was going to be to leave that amazing place and sort of half wondering if I could persuade Madame to hire me as a sous-chef and chambermaid, when the black Mercedes pulled into the driveway. I stepped forward toward the passenger's door in the front seat. Suddenly, the back door opened from inside. A driver got out and walked around the car, ushering me toward the back seat. I climbed in and the chauffeur closed the door. Luke was sprawled on the left side of the back seat, drinking coffee. He pointed to an insulated cup in a holder between us. He didn't say anything. I tasted the fabulous café au lait with just a touch of sugar and smiled.

Luke was obviously not a morning person. I had spent my entire life as an early bird in a world of sleepy-heads, and knew better than to attempt to engage in any conversation with him until he signaled his readiness to talk. Therefore, I, too, leaned back in the seat, sipped my coffee and watched the beautiful scenery pass by. Once again, I found myself feeling relaxed and safe in his presence. I was alarmed by that, but I made a conscious decision to be afraid later. I was going cruising in a yacht on the Mediterranean with an incredibly attractive man – a movie star, at that! I would defer worrying about the aftermath of my little flirtation, which somehow in my heart I knew would be unpleasant, to say the least. I decided to play Scarlett O'Hara and think about that another day.

As we approached Marseilles, Luke reached out and took my hand. I did not move it away.

He said, 'Sorry. I'm kind of a crab in the mornings.'

"No need to apologize. My daughter is insufferable in the mornings, and so was Kris. I'm used to keeping my mouth shut until somebody lets me know it's safe to talk without danger I getting my head bit off." I smiled into his eyes. Something had changed between us. I chose to pretend I didn't notice.

"So tell me, what's on the agenda for my bedazzlement today, Mr. Payne?"

He smiled at me for a long time and said, "Well, the first part may not be so dazzling, but it's part of the deal. The yacht we're borrowing belongs to a the movie producer and director, Braddock Austin. He's here with his new wife. We're having breakfast with the two of them. Braddock and I will talk business. His wife will push her food around on her plate because she's a model and they never eat anything. When the business meeting is finished Braddock and Whatever-Her-Name-Is are taking off for a few days in Monte Carlo. We have the use of the yacht for up to four days if we want it."

I started to say something, and he held up his hand. "I told them we'd only use it today. I hate to take advantage of a kindness."

He told me a little about Braddock Austin's background and movie resume. The latter was impressive. Luke had already made two films with Austin and had received excellent notices and several award nominations for each. He won an Academy Award for one of them. He said he and Austin worked well together and they liked each other. Luke thought Austin seemed to see things in him he could not see in himself. I asked if they were going to discuss _The Bombs Came Down_. He shifted in his seat and said that was sort of the purpose of the meeting. He added he thought he should pass on the film. I gripped his hand harder and turned to face him, "Why?"

"I just don't think it's right for me. The guy's a coward and a weasel and the worst kind of slime ball. I've always played tough guys and bad guys and occasionally even psychopaths, but I've never played a weaselly character like this one."

I shook my head, "It's your business and I don't pretend to know anything about it, but I can tell you what I saw. The other day when you were telling me about the role, I saw the character in you. May I read the script?"

He pulled the folder of papers out of his valise and handed it to me. "This may give you something to do while Braddock and I are talking. Word is that the current wife-du-jour is not much of a conversationalist, perhaps because that would require some level of intelligence. Braddock's main interest in women is looks. Intelligence is entirely optional. I haven't met this wife, but the last one probably would have registered brain dead on a medical monitor."

As we wound toward the harbor, I was caught up in watching the city pass by my window. Marseilles is one of the oldest harbor cities in Europe, and a very diverse and cosmopolitan city, for France anyway. Its traffic and noise came as kind of a shock after the drive through the serene countryside. I decided I liked the French countryside, but was not as impressed by its cities. I don't think I ever said that out loud before because I always knew you would jump on me for not being sufficiently impressed by Paris and not even going to Avignon.

We soon came to the old harbor where we were welcomed aboard the biggest boat I had ever seen in my life. It did look like a cruise ship, or at least what I thought a cruise ship would look like, since I had never actually seen one in real life. The American crew wore white uniforms and treated us very formally.

Braddock Austin greeted us and introduced us to his wife, Andrea. I had never seen such a beautiful woman in person, and I could not take my eyes off her. She barely glanced at me. She locked her eyes on Luke and seemed to be willing him to meet her gaze, despite the fact that her husband of only a few weeks was standing right there. Luke looked embarrassed, and ignored her, so pointedly he was almost rude. She didn't seem to notice. Austin seemed amused by it.

Mr. Austin suggested that the men go into his office and talk for a while before breakfast. He invited me to make myself at home on the deck and suggested that Andrea make me comfortable. She looked at me from head to toe and gave a tiny smirk. As soon as the men were gone, she stretched out on a chaise and went to sleep, or pretended to.

I was grateful I had the script. I curled up in a deck chair in the shade and started reading. An officer asked me if I wanted coffee. He had just the slightest trace of a Southern accent. I put on my biggest ol' Southern gal smile and drawled, "Oh, sugah, I have had nothing but coffee and wine for days and days. Do you suppose you could bring me some sweet tea?"

He laughed, and said, "Yes'm. Do you want lemon or mint with it?" I wanted to stand up and kiss the man, but I settled for just a grateful smile.

I was surprised at how short the movie script was. I read the whole thing through twice before breakfast. The second time through, I made some notes on the back of a napkin.

The guys came outside and asked if I was ready for breakfast. I got up and brought my tea with me. Luke made a face and Braddock caught the look. He raised his eyebrows and I drawled, "Luke thinks my sweet tea habit is jus' disgustin'."

Mr. Austin laughed and said, "Being originally a good ol' boy from Mississippi myself, I always have a pitcher of tea handy. All this great coffee and fine wine is well and good unless you're just hot and thirsty."

He poked Andrea and sort of barked at her to get up and come to breakfast.

When he sat down, Mr. Austin noticed I had the script lying next to my plate. He asked me what I thought of it. I hesitated, saying my opinion would mean nothing, because I had no knowledge of the business. He and Luke both encouraged me to give my opinion anyway. Andrea was concentrating on buttering a muffin and watching Luke out of the corner of her eye. I shrugged. If they wanted my opinion, I'd give it to them.

I started with all kinds of disclaimers about how I didn't go to movies and didn't have any idea what I was talking about but I told them that, while I was reading the script I could see the movie play out in my head. I told them I thought it was a fabulous story that would make a wonderful movie.

Mr. Austin leaned forward and asked softly, "Can you see Luke as the Corporal?"

"Oh, yes. He'd be wonderful. When he first told me about it the other day, he sort of started acting it out. I can clearly see him in the role."

Luke shook his head. "I'm the wrong physical type. This guy's a little shrimpy creep."

I said, "You did something with your body when you were acting out the story. You made yourself look smaller and weaker. I don't know how, but you did it."

He shook his head, "I thought you said I should do a romantic comedy."

Both Braddock Austin and I said at the same time, "You should! Right after this one."

Mr Austin added, "I have one that would be great. It's kind of a screwball romantic comedy. I want to cast Shirley McClain or maybe, I don't know, Jane Fonda in it. Jane is really funny, despite her way-too-serious demeanor when conducting her anti-war activities. Do _The Bombs Came Down_ and then follow immediately with a nutty comedy. I think you'd be great in a sort of Cary Grant role. Too bad Katharine Hepburn is too old for you, you're one of the few working actors who could hold up to the old broad." He went on and on about the direction Luke's career could take.

Luke was wearing a sort of cornered and frightened look that I knew all too well from personal experience: its that feeling you have when everybody in your world gangs up on you and tells you what you should do with your life, without giving you any say in the matter. That kind of thing happened to me on a regular basis. I hated it. I was pretty sure it rarely happened to Luke, and he was very freaked out by it.

I instinctively reached out and took his hand. I said softly, "I'm sorry. I don't think we meant to come on so strong. You need to do what makes you comfortable. It would be wrong of us to put pressure on you to do something that makes you uncomfortable." For a second I thought Luke might cry.

Mr. Austin cut in abruptly, "I have no such compunctions! Luke, you told me you want to break out of your bad-guy rut. I know you're enough of an actor to handle this role or I wouldn't offer it to you. I have too much of my own money tied up in this project to piss it away on a leading man who can't deliver. You have the talent. The question is: are you willing to dig down that deep in your own heart of darkness and let it come out?"

Luke squeezed my hand and then let it go. We went back to our breakfast. Luke said, "I'll let you know when we're both back in LA next week."

Mr. Austin said, "Fair enough."

He looked from Luke to me with an odd expression on his face. It was almost as though he hadn't really noticed me before. Maybe he hadn't because he had been focusing on his business meeting with Luke. He was clearly confused by me. That seemed to be a reasonable reaction to my presence with Luke. I found it confusing, as well.

Andrea left the table without having eaten a bite, announcing she had to change her clothes. Luke, Mr. Austin and I chatted while she was gone. When Andrea came back, Mr. Austin shook hands with both Luke and me. He told us to make ourselves at home on his boat, which was at our disposal until their return on Saturday. I started to say something, but Luke shot me a look and I hushed. I suppose that was when I sort of officially joined the long list of Luke Payne's lovers. I had suspected a lot of women probably got on the list in exactly that way. I probably I should have been offended, but that didn't even occur to me. For some reason, it made me feel bad for Luke. It was as though everybody around him saw him through the lens of what they wanted to see or what they wanted from him. Maybe I was doing the same thing. I don't know.

Mr. Austin and his wife left the ship and the captain asked Luke where we wanted to go. Luke told him we wanted to take a day trip along the coast, returning in the evening after dinner. Our car would be waiting around 11:00. The captain looked somewhat surprised that we were not spending the night, but I guess he had worked for rich people long enough to know never to try to figure them out.

Almost immediately, I could feel the engines kick in and soon the boat backed out of the slip and turned toward the channel that led from the protected harbor out into the Mediterranean Sea.

I can't begin to tell you all the details about that day. We hugged the coast, heading generally east toward the Cote d'Azur. Luke seemed to have donned his movie star persona, at least a little bit. I assumed he was giving me a taste of the life he lived as a jet set movie star. Frankly, I didn't like the part that involved the staff treating us like some kind of royalty or people on other yachts pulling up close to take our pictures with telephoto lenses. I loved the part about riding along on the back of a million dollar boat taking in amazing scenery and sipping tea out of Waterford glasses. I liked that part a whole lot.

At one point Luke went up to the bridge. He was gone for quite a while. A short time after he rejoined me we pulled into a small harbor. Luke took me by the hand and led me down the gangplank. We went into a shop near the harbor where they were expecting us.

Madame La Proprietress met us at the door. She ushered me into a dressing room and clucked over the inappropriateness and ugliness of my dress. She took my measurements and was back in a flash with a couple of dresses. One was a lime green halter sun dress that was totally hideous in color but I loved the cut and style of the dress. Recall the fashion of the 1970's seemed to specialize in horrible colors. The other was a pale peach evening outfit, sort of one of those lounging pajama kind of pant-suits that sort of looked like a dress, decorated with pink seed pearls. I had never seen anything so beautiful. She showed me shoes to match each: gaudy jeweled sandals to go with the sun dress and peach colored kid leather sandals to go with the evening attire. I selected the sun dress and sandals. I told her the other outfit was fabulous but I had no place to wear it.

I asked about a bathing suit. She showed me some suits with lovely cover-ups. I selected the most conservative maillot she had with a matching tunic for a cover-up. I knew Luke was paying for this stuff and that it was outrageously expensive. He could afford it. I couldn't. He was the one who wanted me to wear it. I would rather have worn my own dress, but it seemed important to him to dress me up. I chose to humor him rather than to argue about my principals. Maybe that makes me a person like my mother. Oh, well. So be it.

We went back to the ship with more parcels than I would have expected for a sun dress and a bathing suit. I went into one of the bedrooms and changed into the bathing suit and cover up. I put on the gaudy sandals. I noticed Luke had bought the evening outfit as well. I chose not to ask any questions about that.

It was early afternoon. Drinks were set out with an assortment of fruits and cheeses. Luke asked me if I wanted an actual lunch. I told him I was still full from breakfast. He was in the pool, resting his chin on his hands on the edge. I stretched out in a lounge chair where I could see him but also look out through the railing to watch the scenery. He grinned at me and said, "The water's great. Why don't you join me."

I shook my head, "First of all, I told you I can't swim and I don't like water. Second, I don't think I could see the scenery from there."

He made a face but said he guessed I had a point. He pulled himself out of the water in one smooth motion, and stood on the rim of the pool where he hesitated for a second, with water streaming down his body, before reaching for a towel. I could tell that move was very well rehearsed and I would be willing to bet he used it often. If he didn't he'd be an idiot because it was very effective. For a minute I couldn't move or say anything, but then I blurted out, "Did you use that in a movie somewhere?"

He laughed out loud and wrapped himself in a robe that lay on a nearby chaise. He ran his fingers through his hair and shook his head like a dog, spraying me with water. Then he plopped down in the chair next to mine, laughing. He looked at me with a crooked grin and said, "Actually, I have never had the opportunity to use that particular move in a movie. They do it all the time, although usually women get to do it. You know all that long, dripping hair and wet bikinis. I do it whenever the opportunity presents itself, just for the hell of it. It usually gets a reaction of some sort ... other than sarcastic remarks, that is."

I looked away and said, "Oh, it got a reaction, alright. Perhaps I'm just better at hiding it than a lot of women you know."

"Damn straight. Honey, you should play poker."

"I am actually an excellent poker player. I should be a riverboat gambler if there is such a thing any more."

"You ever been to Vegas?"

"Luke, before this week, I've never been out of South Carolina, which is not exactly a gamblers' paradise."

"Then where the hell did you learn to play poker?"

"From my husband, who learned from his dad and uncles. The Delios men were whizzes at making money in all kinds of ways. They ran restaurants and bars in Greece and in America. They tended to raise capital by playing poker. For all I know they were probably running some kind of illegal, back-room gambling operation right under my nose and I didn't see it. After his dad went back to Greece and his uncle moved to Miami, Kris didn't have anybody to play cards with but his employees and customers, who for the most part sucked at poker and wouldn't play with him because he always won.

"He taught me to play well in order to have someone who would really challenge him. After a while, we were a good match. It wasn't all that much fun because we played for money we already jointly owned. He said it kept him in practice, anyway. We talked about going to Las Vegas someday when Christa was older. Kris bailed out on me before that could happen. I taught Christa to play poker and a bunch of other card games when she was little. She and I play a lot. I hope she will supplement her spending-money allowance at college with poker winnings. I didn't teach her to be a card shark for nothing!"

I turned my palms up, "I guess right behind cooking, card-playing is one of my best skills."

Luke leaned back in the chair and put his hands over his face, laughing, 'Thank you for telling me that and not snookering me into a game where I might lose my shirt."

I laughed, "Oh, I would not be interested in your shirt. When I play cards, I play for money."

"Then we won't be playing cards on this trip. I suck at cards."

"That's curious. I'd think an actor would have a good poker face."

"Some actually do. The problem with actors and cards is that cards require an intense focus and concentration a lot of actors have trouble with."

"Why? Again, knowing nothing about it, I would think that you would have to be able to concentrate to memorize all those lines."

"Here's my theory. First of all memorizing lines does not necessarily require focus and concentration. It requires rote repetition and regurgitation of words. The focus and concentration is more of a physical thing that happens later when you get around to actually trying to create the character. Besides, in the movies we often improvise, so as long as you know the story, you can make up lines. A lot of actors I know, present company included, have certain learning disabilities. Actors have traditionally been considered to be stupid. Directors propagate that myth, for reasons of self-aggrandizement and control, I think.

"The truth is, some actors really are stupid. Some actresses really are the beautiful airheads they are often portrayed to be. But, I hasten to add before you clobber me, some of the smartest, savviest people in Hollywood are gorgeous actresses. The trick is to be able to tell which is which before you get into too much trouble.

"Anyway, I think a lot of people become actors because of either learning disabilities or debilitating shyness. Shy people like to hide behind the roles. People with learning disabilities like the opportunity to have a job where they do physical things – other than construction work – rather than sitting at a desk trying to read or type or do other things that are very difficult for them.

"That may be painting with too broad a brush, but I have to tell you that my circle of actor-acquaintances is an elementary schoolteacher's nightmare."

"What was your learning disability?"

"Actually, looking back on it, I think my main problem was that I didn't know any English when I started school in LA. When we moved to America, my parents simply sent me to school. It never occurred to them that all the classes would be in English. Papa spoke a little bit of broken English. Maman spoke no English at all; I ended up teaching her English as I learned it, which is, of course, the best way to learn something. By the time I got to high school, my grades had improved and they eventually put me in regular classes; I guess they figured out I really didn't have a learning disability after all. But, up until then, I was in special classes for the educable mentally retarded."

"What was that like for you?"

"It was awful. I'm not retarded; in fact, I've subsequently learned that I'm actually pretty smart. I was bored stiff most of the time in school. It was not a total waste, however, because I learned some really valuable things about patience and kindness. There were some kids in the class who were really retarded (some were probably on the low end of the 'educable' spectrum to be honest, but their parents were too poor to put them in special schools so the school administration allowed them to stay in our class) and some kids who weren't retarded, they just had severe behavioral problems. We didn't learn much in the way of academic subjects, but we learned a lot about interpersonal relations, self-control and helping your buddy."

I commented, "Those would be really good skills for anybody, but I would think they would be especially helpful for someone in your business, what with all the egos."

He nodded and smiled, "Bingo! In a way, I think being in that EMR class was much more valuable than any other class I ever took."

"You promised to tell me your story. Tell me how you got from being a little immigrant kid in a slow learners' class to a major movie star and God's Gift to the Women of the World."

He looked at me with an odd expression and said, "Those are really two different stories."

"Pick one to start with."

He slipped out of the robe because the sun was warm and he had dried off. He stretched out on the chaise with his arms over his head and closed his eyes, the picture of relaxation if you didn't look too close. I could tell he was tense.

I hastened to add, "That is, tell me if you are comfortable doing so. I don't want to pry. I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable."

He sat up suddenly, like a coiled snake striking, and turned toward me. His eyes bore into mine and he asked with something like fear in his voice, "Can you read my mind?"

I sat up, facing him and took his hands, smiling, "Not at all. I don't have to read your mind. Maybe it's your acting training or something, your face and voice don't show the signs of tension, but your body gives away what you are thinking. If you don't want to share your story, that's fine. I understand. And, I truly don't want to pry. I'm sure you get enough of that. It's really none of my business."

He raised my hand to his face and held it up to his cheek. Then he totally relaxed and smiled back at me, "Typically, I don't share my personal information, especially with women. As I told you, I kinda lose track of the stories the publicity department puts out about me." He laughed, "The woman I'm supposed to be dating right now is somebody I've never even met. She called me a couple of weeks ago after our publicists cooked up the story. We talked about whether or not either of us actually wants to go along with the publicity stunt. We each have big movies coming out. The publicity will help both of the movies. We decided to meet in Vegas in a few weeks and get our pictures in the paper."

I stroked his cheek with my finger, "That must be awful. What happens when you are actually dating somebody you like?"

"If she fits into the publicity department's criteria, we make a big splash. If she doesn't, then we have to sneak around."

"How awful."

He shrugged. "I'm used to it." He turned his head and brushed my palm with his lips. Then he let go of my hand and stretched out again, sighing. "I've never really told my story before. I'm not sure I can distinguish between the reality and the story the studio concocted, but here goes...."

He talked for a long time, telling me in great detail about his struggles to learn English and to fit into the American culture. Immigrants, even immigrants from allied countries, were not particularly welcomed in Southern California during the Second World War. His parents worked in the movie business, which helped a little. He went to school and focused on becoming Americanized. Like the children of many immigrants, he did everything he could do to shed his 'foreign-ness.' He refused to let people call him Jean-Luc and insisted on being called Luke. When he got old enough, he hung out with the surfers at the beach. He enhanced his naturally good physique with exercise and nearly constant surfing.

He smiled when he said, "My first movie role was as an extra in _Gidget_. Not the TV show in the 1960's. The Sandra Dee movie in the 1950's. I was actually in about three scenes. In each scene, I simply walked across the shot. The first time, I walked by as though I had just come out of the water. On the first take, they squirted me with a hose, so I was streaming wet, sort of like that coming-out-of-the-pool thing. The censor objected, so they dried me off for the actual shot. The second time, they had me carrying a surfboard. They darkened my hair so I would look like a different person. In the last scene, they had me running into the surf and jumping on a board. It was a great shot of my ass.

"I think I made $50 bucks for two days' work. More importantly, I met Sandra Dee. Even more importantly, I met Bobby Darin who was my idol and still one of my favorite singers ever. Well, to be honest, I didn't exactly meet Bobby Darin. I saw him on the set, but I've been telling people I met him for so long, I've almost started to believe it.

"A few years later when they were casting for the Beach Blanket movies, I auditioned for a part. The casting director was a really nice lady who said she liked me but thought I was too sexy and a little to exotic for those movies. They were looking for all-American boys who didn't look like they would actually want to have sex with Annette Funicello. I wasn't what she was looking for in that movie, but she was nice enough to send me to see a director who was making a B-movie murder mystery. He cast me as the killer. Thus was born my career as a bad guy.

"I have never really liked playing bad guys. I especially hate playing psychos for two reasons. One is that, I have always seen myself more as the romantic lead type – you know, a sort of suave, sophisticated, sexy kind of guy. I hate the thought that there is something in me that appears to be so dangerous and dark. The second thing I hate about it is that in order to get into those characters I have had to actually explore the fact that there is something dangerous and dark in me. It is psychologically and emotionally draining. As my parts have gotten bigger and more central to the movies, the darkness is deeper and sometimes it scares me to think that I could become like my characters." He paused for a long time and then laughed, "Besides, I want to play romantic parts opposite beautiful actresses instead of doing all my best work in scenes with rough-looking guys."

"Excuse me for interrupting, but wouldn't your French background help get you those romantic parts? American women love French men."

He nodded. "It would, except for the fact that when I started in the business in the 1950's the Cold War was raging. McCarthy was searching out Commies under every rock. Immigrants and anyone with any foreign connections at all were suspect. Hollywood was scared. I had buried my immigrant past when I was still in school. I went to work for the studio under the old contract system. They owned me, body, mind and soul. The studio invented a persona which was 100% all American; I was a suntanned, muscular LA surfer-dude. I've talked at length to my agent recently about how to get my Frenchness back. Neither of us have been able to figure out how to do it. I'm afraid that ship has sailed."

"So your public persona is sort of a rootless guy who is only part of the whole person you are."

He made a weird noise in the back of his throat that was something of a cross between a growl and a groan and then turned his head to look at me, without sitting up. He had tears in his eyes. "Nobody has ever summed it up more succinctly."

He closed his eyes again and put his hands behind his head, "At first it was fun. I was in the movies. My parents were proud of me. They had worked in the business for years, but having a kid actually working in front of the cameras was a thrill for them. I think I was on my second or third movie when my dad came to work on the film I was in. That may have been the highlight of his life. He kept introducing me to other crew members as his son, the movie star. Keep in mind, mine was a very small role in a B-movie, but to my dad I had become as big as Clark Gable or somebody." He smiled to himself at the memory.

He went on, "My dad died in a terrible accident on a movie set a couple of years later. The studio paid a sizable settlement to my mom and me. Maman couldn't live without Papa. She died a year or so later, supposedly of a congenital heart condition. The only problem with Maman's heart was that it was broken.

"I paid off my bungalow in West Hollywood with the settlement money and decided to get serious about my career. I made dozens of movies in the 1950's and early 1960's. Most of them were small roles in bad movies. There was a lot of dreadful acting in those movies, most of it mine, but I learned something from every mistake I made. I was mentored by some really great actors and some fabulous directors.

"Because my dad had been in the business so long, I knew a lot of the behind-the-scenes people who had been my parents' friends. I already knew how much the crew knows about the craft of movie making from listening to my dad and his buddies talking with amazing sophistication about intricate details of movie making, including acting. Once I started acting, I learned as much from the crew as I did from the actors and directors. Even now, sometimes if I'm having trouble with a scene, I'll ask the prop lady or a lighting or sound guy what they think I'm doing wrong. Most of the time they can tell me exactly what is tripping me up, because they've seen it all before at one time or another. The crew can be a huge resource to an actor. Unfortunately, a lot of actors barely notice the people who work behind the cameras other than the director or maybe the director of photography.

"Actors make a big mistake in ignoring the contributions of the crew. I learned early in my career, in an incredibly dramatic way, how much they can help an actor. A couple of years ago I was nominated for an Academy Award as a supporting actor. Nobody expected me to win. Frankly, it wasn't a great movie. I had a really small part that didn't require much of me. I can't really understand why I was nominated other than there weren't a lot of great supporting roles that year, and the Academy had to pick five nominees. I don't know what the criteria was. Anyway, there was no way I should have won that award. People aren't supposed to know how the voting went, but I was told by someone who was supposedly in a position to know that I won by one of the largest margins ever – despite being the darkest of dark horses.

"The people who voted for me were not my fellow actors, who for the most part barely knew who I was. The people who voted for me were the non-acting members of the Academy. I think my parents' friends and colleagues ran a behind-the-scenes campaign for me that stayed under Hollywood's radar. I try to keep that in mind, always. Everybody involved in the process of making movies makes an important contribution. The industry's tendency to focus so exclusively on the role of the actors and directors is a big mistake...."

He trailed off and was quiet for a while. I thought he had dozed off, but then he resumed his story, "An Oscar sort of gives a big goose to your career. A golden goose to be exact. When you bring home an Oscar, all of a sudden everybody wants to work with you. People who didn't know your name want to work with you. People who knew you and couldn't stand you want to work with you. I didn't have much of anything else to do with my life at that point, so I worked. It was the 1960's. A lot of actors spent their time getting high and carrying on. I made four to five movies a year. Don't get me wrong. I got high and carried on, too. I just managed to confine my shenanigans to the hiatuses between movies, and for my own good, I kept those hiatuses as short as possible.

"Among directors and technical people I developed a reputation of being a professional. That was something of a rarity at the time. It is also one of the main things directors and producers look for in a movie actor. You don't have to be Sir Laurence Olivier. You do have to show up on time every day, reasonably sober, and hit your marks. It's even better if you know your lines. Professionalism like that is what gets movies finished on time and within budget, which is the thing that really matters. For a movie to make money, it doesn't have to be particularly good; it has to finish under budget. For my part, I always tried to do my best to be both professional and do a good job.

"I guess you could say I parlayed that gift-Oscar into a career that is knocking on the door of true movie-stardom. I try never to let myself forget where it came from and how little I deserved it. I actually want to earn the next one." He looked at me and smiled with his lips but his eyes were deadly serious, "And make no mistake, there will be a next one, and it will be for Best Actor." That was the first glimpse I had of both the serious actor, and the ambitious person he was.

He went on to tell me about his plans for his career. He wanted to switch from playing almost exclusively bad guys to a broader range of roles. Ultimately he wanted to become a character actor so he could, as he said, "work until I am really old or, at least until I stop loving acting more than anything else in the world."

He let that sentence hang in the air for a long time. Then he sat up again and leaned over toward me and went on, "I do love acting more than anything. I have friends who are actors because it's an easy way to make a lot of money, and to get girls. I admit, that is exactly why I got into the business in the first place. Easy money and hot chicks. What surprised me after I got started was how much I love it. I love the entire process of taking a story from the genesis of an idea in somebody's head to putting it on the big screen where it can live for, ..... hell, it can live forever almost."

He smiled and said, "Sorry, I get carried away when I talk about this stuff."

"Please don't apologize! I love listening to people who are passionate about their work talk about it. Maman used to be that way about food and cooking. Kris was that way about running a restaurant. Christa is that way about music. People who have dreams and ambitions are exciting. I love to be around them."

He asked me what my dreams and ambitions were. I told him I didn't have any. For some reason that made both of us sad. The ship was sailing slowly along the beautiful coast. Luke got up and fetched a beer for himself. He brought me a glass of tea with mint. It was absolutely perfect. I raised my eyebrow in a question. He leaned over and whispered, "The cook's from Atlanta."

We laughed and stood by the railing for a long time watching the scenery, and trying to figure out how to get past our awkwardness after the surprising intimacy of what we had just shared.

Eventually, I turned around to face him, leaning my back against the railing. I looked up into his eyes, and said, "I'm probably going to regret asking about this, but now tell me the other story. The one about how, other than by virtue of your fabulous looks and animal magnetism, you became such a notorious Don Juan."

He tilted his head and gave me what was supposed to be a rakish and probably leering grin and said, "Are you sure you want to hear it?"

I said, "Probably not, but tell me anyway."

He turned me around so I had my back to him and stood behind me with his hands resting lightly on the railing on either side of me. He didn't touch me, but it was as though he had taken me in his arms. He spoke softly into my ear, "It's actually pretty simple. In the early years, the casting directors didn't think I was sexy enough; or, they thought I was sexy in a dangerous kind of way. There was always some reason why I wasn't appropriate for a romantic role. I guess I initially sort of set out to prove that I could be sexy, by dating a lot of beautiful women.

"After that I was sort of a victim of my own success. As I think I already mentioned, the studio was able to get a lot of mileage out of the publicity. Young actresses could get a lot of publicity out of being seen with me. A side benefit was that it allowed me to avoid getting too involved with anybody in particular. I was and am totally married to my career. I have never had the time, energy or, really, desire for a wife and family. Maybe I will at some point, but right now I love what I do and I don't want to be distracted. As a ladies man, I got all the sex I wanted without ever having to be really involved with any particular person for any length of time. As I already told you, no small number of those supposed affairs were nothing more than publicity stunts, anyway. I don't even know some of the women I'm supposed to have dated."

Something hung heavy and unsaid in the silence that followed that little confession.

I said, "Go ahead and say it."

"Say what?"

"I hear a large BUT ringing in the silence at the end of that sentence."

He put his arms around me for real. I leaned back against him and he rested his chin on the top of my head, "You mean the unsaid ... but it's getting old?"

"Is it?"

"Yes." He held me really tight and nuzzled my neck, speaking directly into my ear, "I don't love what I do any less and I still don't have any desire for a family, but playing the same old bad guy roles and dating younger and younger starlets is getting boring. I'm looking for new mountains to climb, certainly professionally, and, maybe even personally."

I held my breath for a few minutes hoping that my pounding heart would settle down. It gave me away. He put his hand over my heart and held me tight without moving or saying anything until it returned to normal. I was still afraid to move and almost afraid to breathe. We stood there watching a sailboat regatta in the distance.

After a few moments, we both recovered enough to change the subject, and chatter idly about the boats and the scenery. Eventually, it felt emotionally safe to return to our seats by the pool.

A little while before sunset, the kitchen staff brought out a small table and set it up on the aft deck. They set out candles and fancy dishes and a champagne bucket with a bottle of unopened champagne peeking out from under a linen towel. I was pretty sure it was Dom Perignon. Luke stood up and took me by the hand, saying, "C'mon. Let's dress for dinner. It would be a shame not to dress up for the unbelievable experience of watching the stars come out over the ocean. He led me down to the door of the bedroom where I had changed earlier, and pointed at the pile of boxes on the bed, "The lady said that evening outfit looked lovely on you. Please take it as my gift and wear it tonight." He left me there, and went to his room, promising to meet me on the deck in half an hour.

I changed into the evening pajamas and put on what I hoped would look like 'evening' makeup and not a clown face. By the time I reached the deck, he had changed as well. He was wearing black pants and a white dinner jacket. We were just so elegant! One of the crew members had a professional portrait camera. He took several pictures of us. Then the ship pulled away from the coast, and the captain turned out all the lights other than the navigational lights. While we sipped champagne and ate the best escargot I have ever tasted, the stars came out. I was unable to eat my dinner because I was too transported by the amazing experience of watching the stars come out against a totally black sky; I have never ever seen anything even close to that much beauty, other than perhaps looking into your eyes for the first time on the day you were born.

I could not take my eyes off the sky and even Luke, who had seen it all before, was transfixed by the utter splendor of the heavens. We gave up on dinner altogether after the champagne and the escargot and we spent the rest of the evening stretched out together on one chaise, star-gazing. We talked very little. We held onto each other and were each lost in our own thoughts.

About 11:00 p. m. the yacht pulled into its slip in the harbor of Marseilles. A chambermaid handed our personal belongings and purchases to Luke's chauffeur. We walked down the gang plank hand in hand and climbed into the car for the drive back to Gordes. I don't think we said anything in the entire hour and a half it took us to reach the village. I curled up on the seat with my head on Luke's shoulder. He rested his cheek against my hair. We barely moved during the entire drive.

As he had the night before, Luke walked me to the door of the inn. I leaned against him and looked up into his eyes. There was so much I wanted to say, but I had no words for it. Even if there had been words, I don't think I could have gotten them out around the lump in my throat. We held each other for a long time. Finally, he kissed my forehead and said in French, "Sweet dreams, Cherie."

I looked up at him and said, I think in French, "You need have absolutely no doubts about that."

He held me close and said, "I'll see you for dinner tomorrow. I have a meeting in Nice during the day."

I was confused, "Why didn't you tell me. You should have stayed on the yacht. I could have come back here by myself."

"That was my original plan. But I couldn't send you back to Gordes by yourself. I wanted to spend that hour and a half with you. It was worth having to make the return trip to the coast tomorrow. Sleep late. If you want to use my pool during the day, please make yourself at home. I'll be back around 6:00 or so. If you'd like, please plan to come over for cocktails before dinner."

Then he turned and walked toward his house. I was so weak in the knees it took me a few minutes before I was able to turn around and walk inside.

6 - 40th birthday

The next morning, I woke just before the sun breeched the horizon. I went out on the balcony to watch the world light up. There were lights on in Luke's house. In a few minutes they went out and I heard a car back out of the driveway. As it went around the curve, I could see it was the Mercedes. I couldn't see the occupants, but there was a reading light on in the back seat. At least he was not trying to drive himself at that hour of the morning. I breathed a tiny sigh and then tried to think of something else. I was being an idiot going so ga-ga over Luke. What was I thinking? Who the hell was I kidding?

That day was my 40th birthday. I had not mentioned my birthday to Marie-Claire or to Luke. I found myself feeling glad that he had something to do. It was my last full day in Gordes. I wanted to walk the trails and take photos. I wanted to commit to memory every building and tree. As soon as it was light, I took a couple of bottles of water and headed up the trail toward the Roman ruin above the town. It was four miles up hill. I had all day. It took me almost two hours to get to the top of the trail, but that was because I kept stopping to take pictures and to wander down many of the other paths that ran off the main trail. I spent more than an hour just sitting on a bench overlooking Gordes, burning the view into my memory ... or trying to, anyway.

Eventually, I felt hungry, so I walked back down the hill into the village. I stopped at the café and ordered a sandwich and coffee for lunch. I explained to the waiter that it was my last day in town and I told him how much I had appreciated the wonderful service and food. When I was finished, I said good bye to the owner and his wife, who was the cook. I stopped in each business where Luke had introduced me, and said good-bye to each of them. They seemed surprised, but pleased. A few of them had heard about my trip to St. Saturnin-les-Apts. They liked the fact that I had local roots. Each person I spoke to wished me bon voyage and said they hoped I would visit again soon. I said I would love to do just that, knowing it was highly unlikely that I would ever return.

I bought a few books about the area for me and a necklace for you (to replace the scarf I had already worn) and then took my time meandering back to the inn. As I walked behind Luke's house I noticed some commotion on the veranda. I stopped to investigate and discovered Marie-Claire and her husband setting up a table on Luke's veranda near the corner where the view of the sunset would be most spectacular.

Madame looked up at me and said, "Et alors! I was about to send Jean-Michel to search for you. You must get ready for your party. You have messages and presents in your room.'

I looked surprised, "What party?"

She looked at me as though I were a total moron (which I was) and said, "Why your birthday party, Cherie. What else could it be?"

"How did you know it was my birthday?"

She shook her head and looked up at Heaven and responded like a kindergarten teacher, "Your passport, which you turned in to us when you checked in, has your birth date in it."

"Oh." I just stood there stupidly. The very last thing I wanted was a birthday party, but there was no way I could head it off without offending Marie-Claire and, probably, Luke, too. They appeared to be co-conspirators. I knew there was no way to get out of the party, so I decided I might as well make the best of it.

In my room I found a pile of presents on the bed. On the top was a card from you with a note inside telling me how much you hoped I was enjoying myself and how proud you were of me for venturing out and actually taking the trip (it was pretty clear from your note that you had half expected me to chicken out). You said you had arranged to come home to visit the weekend after my return so we could catch up. You told me that you birthday present to me was a deposit you had made with the local photo shop so I could have my pictures developed. You said you hoped I'd have them back by the weekend so we could share them during your visit.

Below that there was an envelope from Philippe Villeneuve containing several photos of my mother and her family. Enclosed was a note from Philippe wishing me happy birthday. I knew Luke was behind that, but I didn't care. I knew would treasure those photos forever. They are all lined up in individual frames over there on the piano.

Under that was a package containing a tiny silver box that resembled an old fashioned cigarette case. Inside was a print of a photo of Luke and me on the deck of the boat the night before. We were laughing and toasting each other with champagne flutes. I have no idea how on earth he got that picture developed and delivered so quickly, but I guess if you have plenty of money you can accomplish all kinds of things that would be difficult for ordinary folks. Underneath that was a large box I somehow knew contained clothes.

My imagination could never have come close to conjuring up that outfit. The pale pink silk gown was sexy and clingy but it also was modest enough that I did not feel uncomfortable wearing it. The matching kid leather high heeled sandals fit me perfectly. A pearl necklace with a cameo was in a box tucked inside the dress box. I almost overlooked it.

Marianne interrupted her story and said as an aside, "You know, I only told Henry two lies during our entire marriage. One was that my cameo necklace was handed down from Papa's family. I could not bring myself to pack it away with the rest of my treasures from that trip. I still wear it whenever I am going somewhere pearls are appropriate."

I looked at the clock. It was after 5:00 p. m. Luke would be back soon. I had to hurry.

As I moved the the dress box, I noticed what I first took to be a shoe box. It was a spray of some of the fabulous wildflowers that grew in the area. I looked more closely and realized it was attached to a hair comb. It would be fabulous clipped into my hair if I pulled it up on top of my head and pinned it, attaching the flowers. When I returned home, I could press the flowers and they would make a wonderful keepsake. At first I thought they, too, were from Luke, then I noticed a card from Marie-Claire and Jean-Michel with a handwritten note thanking me for my patronage. They wished me happy birthday and invited me to visit them again soon.

It was all I could do not to cry. The 40th birthday is, for many women, very difficult because it is a sign they are getting older. My 40th birthday stands out as my very best birthday ever, even though it was somewhat bittersweet because it was also the end of the most wonderful week of my life.

I hurried down the hall to the shower. When I came back to my room, I was thrilled to find a pitcher of sweet iced tea with fresh lemon. I downed a whole glass almost in one gulp before I put on my clothes. I put on my makeup and pulled my hair up. I couldn't manage a neat, smooth French twist, so I went for a loose, curly pile on top of my head. I had some trouble with the flowers, but eventually got them anchored so they wouldn't fall out. I would have preferred them to be more to the back of my head, but they ended up kind of on the side. I didn't have time to mess with them. What was most wonderful was they smelled so good. I didn't wear perfume, but the fragrance of the flowers was perfect.

I slipped into the shoes. I didn't have a long slip with me, but I did have a white slip that I hoped would at least serve to make a smooth foundation for the sheer fabric, and not show off my white bra and granny panties too much. As I pulled the dress out of the box, I noticed a smaller package underneath. There was a note from the dress shop owner to the effect that the person who ordered the dress and shoes indicated they were for a visitor who had not brought evening clothes. She indicated she believed the person who ordered the dress had not taken into consideration that the recipient might not have brought undergarments suitable for the outfit. She said she hoped these would do. In the bag was a pair of pink silk panties, a matching lace bra and a long, full slip that was obviously made to go with the dress. It would fill out the skirt perfectly. I knew the underwear would have added to the cost of the outfit, but I felt certain Luke wouldn't mind, and I knew would feel much more comfortable. I had feared that my white bra strap would peek out all night long and, well, I would have been embarrassed. I paused a moment to feel grateful for the shopkeeper's thoughtfulness.

I quickly changed into the new undies, and stepped into the dress. It clung in the right places and sort of floated around the kind of bulgy spots where clinging would not have been a good thing. It was like wearing a cloud. If the designer had made it specifically to order for me it could not have been more perfect.

When I put on the pearls I looked in the mirror and almost cried. I have never considered myself beautiful or even pretty. Frankly, I think I have that sort of bird-like quality that a lot of French women have, which I never thought was particularly attractive. That night, I know I looked lovely, perhaps especially to a man who was used to being around French women.

My room was a disaster. I had done no packing and I had to leave for the airport before noon the next day. I decided to worry about that after dinner.

I don't remember going downstairs. I was in some kind of trance, I think. I started down the hall toward the back entrance to go to Luke's house. I was surprised to find him waiting for me in the dining room of the inn, sitting in the same chair where he had been on Thursday morning – could that have been only four days before?

I stopped at the door and looked at him. He looked me up and down, long and slowly, and smiled. He said, "You look almost as lovely as you did on Thursday."

"Don't be sarcastic."

He stared at me for a long minute, with an odd look on his face, then he stood up and walked over to stand in front of me. He crooked his index finger and used it to tilt my chin up to look at him, "You thought that what I saw the other day was a sweaty, dirty, smelly woman who wasn't fit to sit and eat breakfast in polite company. What I actually saw was a woman who looked so radiantly happy it made me want to weep. You're a lot less sweaty and grimy tonight, and you smell a hell of a lot better, but you still have that look of luminous joy about you. That kind of happiness comes from inside. It shines out from every pore. Every time I look at you it makes me ache because I am torn between the desire to take you in my arms and try to absorb some of it by osmosis and the feeling that I am somehow not worthy of approaching such radiance."

We stood there staring at each other for a few minutes -- intentionally memorizing every feature -- and I think we could both have fallen to weeping at the slightest provocation.

I smiled and whispered, "What do you say we save the tears for later? After dinner, anyway."

He slid his arm around my waist and led me out the back door, saying, "Excellent idea. Marie-Claire would kill us both if we are too emotional to do justice to this birthday feast she and Jean-Michel spent all day preparing."

I put my arm around his waist and leaned my head on his shoulder. Thus we arrived at his house. As we reached the top step to the veranda, Jean-Michel picked up my camera, which I had left on a table by the pool, and took our picture. I can barely stand to look at that photo because he caught us each looking directly into the camera and you can see into our very souls. It's really a terrifying shot.

Marie-Claire had made menu cards for us to keep. I have mine in the box there. As I sit here, I don't remember what we ate. I do remember that it was exquisite. The food and wine were perfectly matched and perfectly paced. The meal took hours. We laughed and talked and told stories. We shared our entire lives, I think, in those few hours. One of the things Luke told me that evening was that while he was in Nice that day he had called Braddock Austin and agreed to take the part in _The Bombs Came Down_. He said he did it because I talked him into it. He was nervous about it, but he was hoping for the best.

After dessert and coffee, Marie-Claire and Jean-Michel packed their dishes and the leftovers and prepared to wheel the cart back to the inn. I thanked them profusely for the birthday supper. They promised to have a big breakfast ready at 10:00 a. m. in order to hold me over until I got home. I made a crack about how, after the dinner, I shouldn't want to eat for a week. They were delighted. We shook hands and kissed cheeks. And then they were gone, leaving me alone with Luke. At least I thought I was alone with him. I turned around and Luke was gone, too. I assumed he went to the bathroom.

In a few minutes he was back with a bottle and two brandy snifters. He asked, "Have you ever had Armagnac?"

I grinned, "First of all, you know the answer to that. I had never even heard of cognac until the other day. What is Armagnac?"

"If brandy is a Ford, and Cognac is a Cadillac, Armagnac is a Rolls Royce."

"I guess that's good."

He poured us each tiny portions in the bottom of large snifters. He showed me how to swish it around and warm it in my palm. At first that felt pretentious and silly. Until I tasted it. The expression 'nectar for the gods' must have been coined for that stuff! We walked down the path to a bench where it was very dark and we could see the stars hanging low against the velvet black sky. We could see planes passing over, descending on their approach to Marseilles. Suddenly, there was a meteor shower. Dozens if not hundreds of shooting stars streaked across the sky like what we know of now as a laser light show. I had never seen anything like it. I leaned back against Luke and gazed at the heavens in rapt wonder. He took me in his arms and kissed me.

That kiss lasted a very long time, and a whole lot of communication went on while we were kissing. Questions were asked and answered in the affirmative without a word being spoken.

By the time we came up for air a cloud had covered the moon and it was very dark. We laughed and stumbled and tripped our way back to Luke's house. The laughing and carrying on lasted almost all night long. Luke knew all about the things that made my mother laugh during sex. We had a lot of fun that night. At one point I fell out of bed, and ended up with a terrible bruise on my hip that was sore for days and days. We made all kinds of silly plans. He planned to return to LA in a week and he asked me to join him. We got very carried away with a lot of crazy talk.

The next morning, I woke later than usual for me, but way before Luke was ready to get up. I roused him enough to let him know I was going back to the inn to pack. He had insisted, and brooked no objection, that he would take me to the airport. He mumbled that he would meet me at breakfast.

I put on the dress but didn't bother with jewelry or underwear. I tried to sneak in the back door, but Marie-Claire was baking bread. She stuck her head out the kitchen and smiled at me. I wanted to be ashamed, sneaking in at 7:00 a. m. in such a brazen condition of dishevelment, and with my underwear in my hand, but I wasn't ashamed. I was so happy I think I could have flown home to Charleston without a plane.

When I came out of the shower, I discovered that Marie-Claire had put a pot of coffee in my room. I drank the coffee and packed my bags in some kind of besotted daze.

7 – Coming Home

A little before 10:00 a. m. I heard Luke come in the back door. I could hear him and Marie-Claire talking in the kitchen. He was gushing to her about the wonderful dinner party she had masterminded the night before, and she was preening and reveling in his praise.

I brought my suitcases downstairs, set them near the front door and joined Luke and Marie-Claire in the dining room. When I walked in the room, I looked at him and thought I would explode with happiness. The minute I sat down at the table it was as though some kind of rose-colored veil lifted from my vision and I saw the scene very differently. Some kind of rumbling voice welled up from deep in me and said, "Who the hell are you kidding?"

Luke and I ate breakfast. Actually, what we did was to push our food around on our plates and pretend to eat breakfast, much to Marie-Claire's consternation and despite all her clucking about how we would waste away and die if we didn't eat. I don't know what Luke's problem was, but I was concentrating every ounce of control I possessed to prevent myself from utterly falling to pieces.

When breakfast was mercifully over, we went into the hall. Luke looked at my two small suitcases, and said, "Is that all the luggage you brought?"

I nodded and explained that I came with one suitcase and the other packed inside of it. Between the clothes he bought me and my purchases, I ended up splitting my stuff between the two bags for the return trip. Neither bag was full. Luke and Marie-Claire exchanged amused glances.

We drove to the airport in silence. Luke drove the car himself presumably so we could talk without a driver eavesdropping. It wouldn't have mattered. We had nothing to say. I had made him promise to drop me in front of the airport and not to come inside. I did not want photographers taking photos of a tearful farewell.

We both remained dry-eyed throughout the trip. He kept insisting that he expected me to join him in LA as soon as I could arrange my affairs. I promised that I would think about nothing else. I never promised I would do it. I promised I would think about it. I never lied to him. I did, however, intentionally mislead him because I don't think I could have stood it if he had known what I was planning to do. God, forgive me.

We pulled up to the front of the terminal. He kissed me one last time. I know he believed we would see each other again very soon. I am sure that he could not imagine that I would not simply close up my life in South Carolina and join him in Hollywood. I am sure that it never crossed his mind that I might chicken out. I tried not to so much as a hint that I was having second thoughts. It seemed to me it was easier for both of us that way. It was most certainly easier for me to sneak away than to reject his invitation to his face. I was such a damned coward.

I started crying when the plane's wheel wells closed outside of Marseilles. I cried all the way to Paris. I cried all the way from Paris to New York, and part of the way from New York to Charleston. By the time I arrived in Charleston, I had no tears left, but I was a total wreck from all that sobbing. I took a cab to my house and went to bed immediately. I slept most of the next day.

On Wednesday I took my photos to the developer. Interestingly, I had not taken one single picture of Luke. The only photos I had of him were the one he gave me from the night on the boat, and the one Jean-Michel took on the veranda. I made those photos disappear along with all my other mementos of my trip. I picked up my mail and paid my bills. I called to re-start the paper. I let my boss know I was back in town and would return to work on the following Monday.

On Thursday, I got up early, made pot of coffee and started a letter to Luke. About twelve hours, two pots of coffee and a half bottle of wine later, I finished it. I put it out for the mailman. I put the treasures from my vacation, all except for my family photos and the pearl-and-cameo necklace, in that box and hauled it to the attic.

On Friday, I cleaned my house and prepared for your visit. I spent most of the day inventing a story to tell you about my vacation that would cover the enormous gaps where I excised the entire story of Luke.

"You got a ride home from school for the weekend. We spent Saturday and Sunday looking at my pictures. I told you story after story of the beautiful places I had seen and the wonderful things I had experienced. Everything I told you was the absolute truth. I just never mentioned the most important parts. I never mentioned Luke Payne at all.

The following week Henry Corbett called me to ask about my vacation. He had been calling and writing me between the summer camp sessions for a couple of years. He made no bones about the fact that he was interested in me and wanted to court me, and I use that expression intentionally. Henry was an old fashioned kind of man and what he had in mind amounted to old-fashioned courting. I had always rejected his advances because I thought he was boring and dull. I hadn't wanted to spend my life as a schoolteacher's wife in a small town. You had been giving me crap about how mean I was to him from the very beginning.

Anyway, that particular day when he called, I was more vulnerable than I had ever been in my life. I agreed to have dinner with Henry. Only a few months later, I agreed to marry him. We had a very happy life. We loved and cherished one another every day until the day he died. God, I miss him. Sometimes I don't know how I will get through the day without his gentle presence in this house.
Part 2

Marianne opened the package that sat between them on the couch and showed Christa the photos of her and Luke plus her other keepsakes including the menu from her birthday dinner, a matchbook from Braddock Austin's yacht, the napkin on which she had made notes about _When The Bombs Came Down_ and corks from the various bottles of wine that had been served at her birthday party. The clothes were on the bottom. Marianne pulled out the green halter dress first.

Christa made a face, "Oh, God, Mom. That's disgusting."

Marianne smiled and agreed. Then she pulled out the peach lounging pajamas and then the pink silk evening gown. Christa started to cry, and gushed, "Mother, you must have been so incredibly beautiful in that dress!"

After she composed herself, she said, "You know, Mom, I always knew something amazing happened to you on that trip. The stories you told never added up. There were huge gaps in the narrative. Your 'boat tour' pictures didn't look like any tour boat I had ever seen. It was all very strange.

"Strangest of all was the way you behaved when you came back. You were different in many ways. I couldn't put my finger on it at the time, but somewhere along the way (maybe after I got married and came to understand what being with a man you love does to you), I knew you had met a man in France. I couldn't figure it out, but I have to confess that, at eighteen I don't think I would have been open to the real explanation.

"Anyway, the most surprising thing was that, after rejecting Mr. Henry's advances for years, all of a sudden you hauled off and married him out of the blue. I was very worried about you, and I always suspected something had happened to you in France.

"A couple of years after that, a package came addressed to me at school. It was from a man, and the note inside asked me to give you the wrapped package unopened. I wondered. But I didn't want to pry. I guess I reckoned that when the time was right and you were ready, you would tell me. Besides, I was something like twenty at the time, and, frankly, I didn't want to think of my mother, whom I thought of as kind of an old lady, as a woman who would need a man in that way. I never asked because, I had a pretty good idea what the answer would be, and I didn't want to hear it then. I appreciate the fact that you didn't burden me with your story at that time as much as I am grateful for your sharing it now.

"I'm sure that package was from Mr. Payne. What was it? And why did he send it to me?"

Marianne touched the dainty gold necklace she wore at all times except for the rare occasions when she dressed up and wore her pearl-and-cameo necklace. "The package contained a necklace – this necklace. The pendant is made of a tiny a piece of the _Paume d'Or_ which is what they call the award they give out at the Cannes Film Festival. Luke won almost every acting award there was for _When the Bombs Came Down._ He broke this little piece off his award and had it set in a necklace. The letter that came with it said that he sent it to you because he couldn't locate me. Recall I had married and moved from Charleston to Aiken. He knew your name and that you were a student at the University of South Carolina. He took a chance that it would get to you.

"He wrote that he always believed he owed much of the credit for the accolades he received for that movie to me, along with any career success he might have as a result, because I had talked him into it, or, more precisely, I had talked Braddock Austin into not taking no for an answer. He said he wanted to share his award with me.

"I put the necklace on and I have never taken it off except for when I wear the pearls, and even then, I usually carry it with me. I am not sure why I keep it near me all the time. Maybe it is a reminder to myself that sometimes it is good to step out of the ordinary. Maybe it is a reminder that if I never do anything worthwhile in my life again, I once helped pave the way for entertaining a lot of people when I helped Luke Payne make the decision that sent his career into the stratosphere. I don't know. Maybe I wear it because despite the horrible way I lied and abandoned him, and without diminishing in any way the wonderful life I had with Henry, I never got over my infatuation for Luke. The fact that he took the trouble to send it to me at least let me know he hadn't forgotten me either.

"This necklace caused me to tell the second lie I told Henry. I told him you gave me the necklace."

"Do you want to know my little secret?"

"What?"

"Luke Payne has been my very favorite actor since I saw him in _When the Bombs Came Down_ while I was in college. I had a huge crush on him for a long time. Maybe, in a way, I still do. I can't believe I've spent my whole adult life in the presence of the love of his life without ever knowing it."

Marianne protested that characterization of the situation, and then started to put away her treasures, but Christa stopped her. "You don't need to hide them any more, Mom. Leave the photos out. Hang the pink dress up in your closet. I'll bet it still fits you; perhaps you'll have the opportunity to wear it again sometime. Get rid of that hideous green dress, though."

Marianne laughed and said, "You know, I knew that dress was ugly the day I bought it, but I sort of went with what the saleslady told me I should buy."

Marianne put the photos on the piano and pushed the box aside, "Let's have some tea."

Christa was quiet while she drank her tea. She said, almost more to herself than to her mother, "I know you were happy with Mr. Henry. He was a good man. You were a wonderful wife to him. I think I can guess why you married him, but I'd really like to know why you didn't go to LA with Mr. Payne."

"Because I was afraid. I knew that if I followed Luke to California, I would have to live in a world where someone would be watching me all the time. He was a movie star. He was not yet as big a star as he became in later years, but even then he had photographers and autograph seekers following him around. I didn't think I could stand that.

"In addition there were the women throwing themselves at him. I knew he was infatuated with me, or with the idea of me, or something. But, he was young, sexy, ambitious and, despite what he told me, I didn't think he was really ready to settle down. His career came first with him. His reputation with women enhanced his marketability. No matter how much he might have cared for me, I knew in my heart if he had the chance to boost his career by embarking on a relationship (whether it was real or concocted by the publicity department of some studio) with someone else, he would do it.

"I was used to living quietly. I am basically a shy and retiring person, despite the story I just told you. You know how I hate to have my picture taken! How would I stand being with a movie star? I made my decision while I was pushing my breakfast around on my plate in Gordes that I couldn't go through with it."

Christa asked, "I'm guessing you are finally making that trip LA to visit Luke Payne. You're a little late. How did you reconnect after all these years?"

"I read in the paper that Luke was to receive a Life Achievement Award at the upcoming Academy Awards ceremony. In the bio that accompanied the article, it said that he had announced his intention to accept the award in person. That was something of a surprise in Hollywood because after his second wife had died a year before, he had avoided public appearances. He had continued to work as hard as ever, and, at 76 years of age, he had one new movie ready for release and was working on another.

"You know me, I rarely act on impulse, but I made an exception that day. I sat down and wrote a letter in French. It said:

My dear Luke:

I read in the paper that you will soon to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Academy Awards. I want to join my voice to the choir of praise that will no doubt be raised for the entire body of your life's work. You have remained true to your original plan to devote your life to your craft. You have achieved the awards and accolades you so richly deserve as a result of your hard work and diligence. The Lifetime Achievement Award is a testament to both your considerable talent and your passionate devotion to the career you love.

It is most certainly presumptuous of me for saying this, but I am very proud of you.

While I am saying things I have no right to say to you, I would like to take this opportunity to express my sympathy for the loss of your wife. As you know I do not follow the celebrity press. The news article I read today was the first I heard of her death. I understand only too well, and from personal experience, that the death of a spouse is one of the hardest things life calls us to face... along with the death of one's parents and living with the guilt of betraying someone you love. I am truly sorry for your loss. I hope you were happy with her and I hope you can take comfort in the love of children and grandchildren.

Once again I want to congratulate you on your professional achievements. I do not usually watch the Academy Awards, but I will watch this year in order to see you honored by your peers in the Academy. I will be the little old lady standing like an idiot in the middle of my living room in Aiken, South Carolina, cheering for you. And probably crying, too.

Sincerely -- and with love,

Marianne

"I looked up the address of Luke's agent on the Internet and immediately took the letter to the post office in order to mail it before I had the chance to chicken out. A few days later, I was reading a book after dinner when the phone rang. I remember glancing at the clock. You usually call at about 7:00 on Sunday and Tuesday. It was 9:30 on a Thursday. I almost didn't answer it, but I glanced at the caller-ID and noticed the area code was from Los Angeles. Madeleine usually calls from her cell phone, but sometimes she calls from the dorm room, and I couldn't remember the number. I thought it might be her, so I answered the phone."

She laughed and said, "I expected to hear her voice but instead I heard a baritone chuckle. Luke said, 'You know, you should make sure a person is healthy before you mail letters that could give a man a coronary.'

"My heart skipped a beat or two... or seven ..., and I had to catch my breath. His voice still sounds like sandpaper rubbing together."

"I said something ridiculous like, 'Oh my God. I never thought I'd hear your voice again. Or, at least not without having to pay for a movie ticket.'

"He said, 'Who's choice was that?'"

"I apologized and started to cry. Then I stopped thinking how stupid it would be to cry over something that happened more than thirty years ago."

"He didn't respond immediately. Eventually, he said, 'I didn't understand for a long time. I was hurt and angry. I was more angry at first, to be honest. The hurt came later. Shortly after you dumped me, I married an actress I met in a night club. It was a classic rebound relationship. She was a nice kid, but she was too young and not strong enough for me. She couldn't stand up to me. We had a couple of kids. The kids were great. The wife not so much. We got a divorce after only five years. After that, I resumed my womanizing ways. More correctly, I continued my womanizing ways because I never stopped seeing other women even while I was married to Janice.

"'After our divorce, I continued to relentlessly pursue my dual careers as an A-list Hollywood star and as a latter day Casanova – that is until I met Lisa.

"'I fell in love with her, hard and fast, just like I did with you. We got married and it was good. She was not like you, but our relationship was the nearest thing I ever found to what I think you and I might have had. She couldn't have kids, but she was good with my kids, better than their own mother, to be honest. She was a funny, kind and loving woman in private, but she was painfully shy. She had a speech impediment and absolutely would not appear in public if there was any possibility she might have to say anything. After a few years, we arrived at a compromise. I pursued my acting career with the same relentless single-mindedness I always had and made all my public appearances alone. She stayed home and in the background. She liked it that way. When I was at home we devoted ourselves to one another in private.

"'At first, I rebelled against that kind of marriage. I tried to push her into the limelight. I wanted her to share the spotlight with me, but she refused. We had some tremendous fights about that, let me tell you. I wanted a public wife who would share my public life. She was happy to let me take all the accolades. She actually was one of my biggest fans and cheerleaders. She just didn't want to join my world. That pissed me off a lot, but eventually I gave in to her, because I saw how terrified she was by the prospect of being thrust into the spotlight.

"'As I watched her struggle with her fear of the spotlight it finally dawned on me why you ran away. That was when I finally forgave you. It took a while, but eventually I reached the point that I could think about how much I loved you without being distracted by how much I hated what you did. I gradually came to understand that you did what you had to do for your own emotional safety. Maybe you were right. I'm pretty sure that if I had ever discussed it with Lisa she would have said you absolutely did the right thing. I never discussed it with her because I didn't want to hear that.

"'Lisa had multiple sclerosis which gradually crippled her. She ultimately died of a heart attack, but that was only after she was almost completely incapacitated. I stayed home and took care of her, except for when I was working. She always understood that my work came before everything. For the last year and a half of her life I didn't work at all. I stayed home and spent virtually every minute with her. I think I made her happy. She certainly made me feel that I did. She made me happy, too. I loved her. I think I loved her in all the right and decent and honorable ways that made me understand even more clearly why you couldn't just drop everything and follow me to LA."

"He paused for a while, cleared his throat and then said, very gently, 'I take it the man you married has passed away or we probably would not be having this conversation.'

"'Yes. He died two years ago after suffering with cancer for a long time.'

"'Were you happy with him?'

"'Yes. Yes, I was happy with him. Your question is: was I as happy with him as I would have been with you? I thought about that a thousand times. I think the answer to that is that it is like comparing apples and oranges. Or maybe, more accurately comparing fourth of July sparklers to explosive high-flying fireworks. I loved Henry. He was a good husband. I was a good wife to him. I really was. I loved him and I miss him now that he is gone. But I never loved him the way I loved you. And I never stopped loving you. Not for a moment.

"'I want you to know that I have worn the necklace you sent me after you won the award at Cannes for _When The Bombs Came Down_ every day from the day I received it. I told Henry that Christa gave it to me. I put it on and never took it off again.'

"'What about the pearls?'

"'I told Henry they came from Papa's family. I don't wear them every day, but I wear them whenever I get dressed up.'

"'I never lied to Henry about anything else. But, every day of my life for more than thirty years I wore a piece of jewelery that came from you. You were never far from my thoughts. Ever.'

"He was quiet for a long time. Then he said, almost to himself, 'Nor you from mine. Janice knew I was in love with someone else. At first she said she didn't care. Maybe she didn't. After a while, it became a problem. She felt she could never measure up to you and she didn't even know who you were. She was never jealous of the other women I screwed around with, but she was always jealous of the person she always referred to as my Muse.'

"'Lisa knew there was someone in my past who was the love of my life. She was okay with that, provided I was faithful to her during our marriage. And I was. It was weird for me, but I was faithful to her for more then twenty years.' He chuckled, 'I don't tell that to just anybody; it's bad for my image, but it turned out not to be as difficult as I feared it would be.'

"'Lisa died about a year and a half ago. I assumed that nobody would want to go out with an old goat like me, but I was wrong about that. I am old, but I am still a reasonably healthy man. As much as it pains me to admit it, I'm sure my money has a lot to do with my continued ability to get dates. I have never wanted for female attention. At first I declined all offers, partly out of respect for Lisa's memory and partly because it had been a long time since I had been on the market and I was, to be frank, ... I was nervous. After a while, I said _what the hell?_ and sort of resumed my old ways, although perhaps not with the same degree of vigor.

"'Mostly, however, I just work. I can't tell you how many times I wanted to try to find you. I even went so far as to hire a private investigator a couple of times, but I always called a halt before they got started. I didn't want to intrude on your life, especially if you were still married.'

"I said, 'I don't want to intrude on your life, either, or to open old wounds for either of us. I wrote to you because I am pleased about your professional accomplishments and I am genuinely sorry for the loss of your wife. I hate to think of you in pain. I guess I didn't say the most important thing in the letter because you deserved to hear it from my lips. I have owed you an apology for a very long time. I'll say it now: I am very sorry.'

"He was quiet for a long time. His breathing was ragged for a moment and then it slowed. His voice was hoarse when he said, 'Better late than never, I guess. I know that all I could feel when I read (and re-read and re-re-read) your letter was hopefulness that maybe now, at long last, we might have what I guess they call closure. I am grateful to you for that.'

"He paused and then continued, rather faster, 'But, now that we have got all that shit that out of the way, I've got other things on my mind.'

"'Such as?'

"'Such as what are you doing this weekend? And, why don't you come for a visit? We can catch up. No pressure. I'm not suggesting we try to pick up where we left off. There has been too much water under both of those bridges. I just would like to catch up with an old friend. I want to see pictures of Christa and her family; I'm sure there is one. I want to show you pictures of my kids and my amazing grandson. What do you say? I will arrange for a ticket from – where did you say you live?'

"'Aiken, South Carolina.'

"'Where is that?'

"'Kind of in the middle of nowhere between Atlanta and Columbia.'

"'I guess that will involve a ticket from Atlanta to LA. I'll put you up at a hotel, or you can stay in my guest house, whichever makes you more comfortable. How about it?'

"I could hear through the phone that his mood had lightened. He sounded like the young man I met so long ago. Lord, I wanted to say yes. I knew she had no real reason to refuse, other than pride and decorum, neither of which seemed as important as the opportunity to see him again. I laughed and said, 'Dammit, Luke, you are the only person on earth who can get me to do crazy, spontaneous things. What the heck? Sure; I'll do it. When do you want me to come?'

"He laughed out loud and said, 'I will have my assistant check on flights and call you. Her name is Diane. May I give her your telephone number?'

"'Certainly. How long should I plan on staying? I'll need to know how long to hold my mail.'

"'Why don't you plan on staying somewhere between four days and forever.'

"'Four days worked for us before.'

"'I'd personally rather concentrate on the forever part.'

"'Let's take it one day at a time. What kind of clothes should I bring?'

"'My guess is your wardrobe consists entirely of conservative, casual clothes. That will do. I don't suppose we'll be going out a lot. That should be okay with you, I assume. If you need anything else, believe it or not, we have stores in LA.'

"'I'll make my personal arrangements and wait for a call from your assistant.'"

"That call came less than an hour later. Luke's assistant had made arrangements for me to fly to LA tomorrow. Diane asked if I wanted her to have the ticket at the gate or if I wanted her to overnight it to me. I said, 'Why don't you just email it to me? I have a printer here.'

"Diane laughed and said, 'You use a computer?'

"'Yes. My daughter bought it for me and made me learn to use it so I can keep in touch with her and with my granddaughter who is in college at Pepperdine.'

"'Do you have a laptop or a desktop?'

"'Actually, I have a new laptop they bought me for my birthday. Why?'

"'Well, I would appreciate it if you would do me a favor. Please bring it with you and let Luke see you use it. He insists he is too old to be able to learn to use a computer and it drives everyone crazy because he ends up making me run back and forth all over LA to deliver him copies of things I could email to him in seconds.'

"Marianne laughed, 'I will gladly do that. I thought I would not be able to learn either, but it was surprisingly easy.'

"'Luke is surprisingly stubborn.'

"'So am I.'

"Diane was quiet for a long time. 'Mrs. Corbett, I know I am totally out of line for saying this, and Luke would strangle me if he knew I ever talked out of school, but I have to tell you I am so happy he has reconnected with you. Today when he called me, he sounded like his old self for the first time since Lisa died..... Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing remains to be seen, but I have missed the old bastard for the last couple of years.'

"'How long have you worked for him?'

"'Forty years.'

"'Then you remember when we met?'

"'You will recall that I wasn't there for the _meeting_ part. I sort of came in on the crashing-and-burning afterwards. He was a mess.'

"'I see. And you're still willing to let me visit him?'

"'It's not up to me. And, besides, I understand. I think I understood what was going on with you even at the time, without ever having met you. Anyway, bring your computer and see if you can teach the old geezer some new tricks.'

"'I will do my best.'"

Marianne looked at Christa with a silly expression and held out her hands with palms up, "Go ahead and tell me I'm an old fool."

Christa had tears in her eyes when she look at her mother's eager face and shining eyes, "I should, because you probably are. But, I guess I'm a fool or a romantic or as big a nincompoop as you are, because I think you should go for it, Mom. The worst that can happen is you'll catch up and find that you don't have much in common after all. Then you'll know for sure. And, who knows, you might find that you do have a lot in common." She paused and added with a wink, "But, do me a favor. If that happens, spare me the details."

Marianne laughed and promised she would. They spent the rest of the day shopping and packing and getting ready for Marianne's trip.

In the evening Christa went into her bedroom to call Richard. They talked for a very long time and Marianne knew Christa was filling him in on Marianne's story. She didn't care. She felt unburdened and was glad to have the story out in the open; Richard was a good man who would not hold it against her – at least she hoped.

She called a few of her friends to let them know she was going out of town. They all had a million questions because the last time Marianne had gone on a vacation was years ago. She said she was going to visit Madeleine at Pepperdine. That at least forestalled too many probing questions.

1 - Reunion

The following day Christa took her mother to the airport and kissed her good bye. As the old lady disappeared down the ramp toward the boarding gates, Christa stood in the concourse alternately laughing and crying. She called Madeleine while she was driving home, just to hear her voice. After they chatted about Madeleine's classes and Christa's latest news from Atlanta, Christa ended the conversation by saying, "Honey, I just dropped your grandmother at the airport. She is on her way to visit a friend in LA. I'm not sure if she will have time, but she may call you sometime in the next few days. If she does, and if there is any way you can do it I would like you to drop whatever you are doing and make time for her."

"Why? Is something wrong with Maw Maw"

"She's okay, but she has a lot going on in her life. I want you to be there for her because she is your grandmother and she may need the reassurance that some things in her world have not gone crazy. She should be able to count on the love of the granddaughter who is named for her beloved Maman."

"Sure, Mom. I'll be there for her. Is Maw Maw sick?"

"No. She is quite well. If she calls you, don't ask any questions, however, if it is at all possible, please agree to whatever she asks you to do."

"Okay. You gonna fill me in?"

"I promise. As soon as I know what's up myself. My guess is you will find out before I do.... from the horse's mouth. I want you to fill me in on anything you learn."

"Sure, Mom. I gotta go to class. I'll talk to you soon. 'Bye."

2 – Los Angeles

Marianne had not expected to fly first class, but she was not particularly surprised that Luke arranged for her to do just that. Shortly after she checked in at the kiosk, the airline paged her to report to the gate attendant. When she checked in at the gate, she was whisked off to a VIP lounge where she waited until all the passengers had boarded the flight. A stewardess invited her to board last, and the plane took off almost immediately after she took her seat. She said little to the stewardesses or the other passengers. She was lost in her thoughts, which were a jumble of memories, fears and, even, occasional flashes of hope.

Diane had told her Luke did not plan to meet her at the airport in order to avoid attracting attention of the photographers who hung out at LAX, trolling for photos of celebrities. Marianne truly appreciated that. While she knew that an aging movie star greeting an old friend wouldn't make the front pages of the tabloids, it might at least cause people to ask questions or take pictures, particularly considering that she was evidently lot older than the women Luke typically dated. Even Lisa had been more than a dozen years younger than he was. She, who had never been at all self-conscious of her age, was very nervous about that. She feared that Luke thought of her as the youngish-looking 40 year-old he met in 1973, and not the gray-haired 70-something widow wearing bifocals and hearing aids.

When Marianne walked into the gate area at the airport in LA, there was a man holding a sign bearing her name. She walked up to him and identified herself. He led her to a waiting limo. She climbed into the back seat and enjoyed the ride from LAX to Malibu. The streets of Los Angeles, and in particular the beach highway through Malibu, looked very familiar due to the many movies and TV shows that had been filmed there. Her heart was pounding by the time the limo pulled into the driveway of a rather nondescript looking house on the beach. The driver got out and helped Marianne out of the back seat. He took her (one, small) suitcase from the trunk and asked again, "Are you sure this is all of your luggage?"

She smiled and said, "I travel light."

She felt the laughter behind her even before she heard its familiar baritone rumble. She turned and the next thing she knew she was in his arms, and she and Luke were hugging and kissing and laughing and crying. Eventually, he composed himself enough to take her bag and tip the driver, "She does travel light. It's a habit she developed early, the better to escape the clutches of lecherous movie stars."

The driver stood there scratching his head while Luke and Marianne went into the house, still laughing.

Luke pushed her suitcase off to the side just inside the front door, and drew her out on the pool deck where he had refreshments waiting in the shade. They talked and laughed and cried for hours, babbling like teen-agers, trying to share with one another the significant experiences of the last thirty plus years almost all in one breath. He showed her pictures of his children and his grandson. She showed him pictures of Christa, her husband and Madeleine.

When they wound down a little, his housekeeper interrupted asking if they wanted supper before she knocked off for the day. Marianne looked up at her and smiled. "Oh, my, I hope you didn't wait on my account. Please go home to your family and I'll clean up the kitchen after we eat."

Luke and the housekeeper both laughed, and both of them protested that Marianne was a guest and did not need to clean up, but Marianne noticed the tears that glittered in the housekeeper's eyes. After the housekeeper retired to her apartment, Marianne said she needed to check in with Christa or she would catch hell. Luke motioned her to the phone. She shook her head, "It's too late for that." She pulled the laptop out of her tote and opened it. She fiddled with it for a few minutes. She looked puzzled and then asked Luke what the password was for his wireless connection. He said he didn't know, while he dialed Diane's number on the cordless phone. He said, "Marianne wants to know the password for the wireless router." He switched the phone to speaker and they could hear her mutter, "I am so freaking fired."

Luke repeated, "What is the password?"

"Um. The password is: GD_Assh#le."

Marianne immediately became hysterical. Luke tried to keep a straight face when he said, "Is there any significance to that password, Di?"

Diane said with a perfectly serious and professional tone, "No, sir. Absolutely none."

Luke dead-panned, "I thought as much." He winked at Marianne, which caused her to collapse into another fit of giggles.

When she had recovered, Marianne logged onto the Internet and sent an email to Christa indicating that she had arrived safely and would phone the next day. When she logged off, Luke was laughing, "That witch put you up to that didn't she?"

"Who? What?"

"Diane. She's been wearing me out about learning how to use a computer. Now I have to learn in order to save face."

Marianne smiled and said noncommittally, "It's really kind of fun once you get the hang of it."

Luke made a face, looked at the clock and said, "You must be exhausted. I reserved a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel if you want. Or, if you prefer, you can stay in the pool house or the guest room here."

Marianne stretched out and said, "I'm far too old to worry about my reputation, and I don't want to waste any of our precious time going back and forth to a hotel -- unless you want your privacy, that is. I'm happy to stay here. I am tired and very uncomfortable after being in these traveling clothes all day. I'd like to shower and change into my jammies."

"Pool house or guest room?"

"You know I don't like water. I'll take the room inside where I won't be afraid of sleepwalking to a watery death."

Luke took her suitcase to the guest room which was across the hall from his bedroom. He made sure she had plenty of towels, pillows and blankets, and then he started to go to his room. He stopped at the doorway and turned around, taking her into his arms he simply held her for a long time without saying anything. Then he turned suddenly and walked out of her room, closing the door behind him.

Marianne took a scalding shower and then put on her pajamas, which were man-styled satin pajamas Christa had given her for Christmas a few years before. They were well-worn and very soft. She came out of the bathroom and started to climb into bed. She stopped and then she began to pace the room, from the door to the bed and back. Eventually, she opened the door and marched across the hall. She rapped on Luke's door and opened it immediately when she heard him say, "Yes?"

He was sitting up in bed, reading a book. His hair had gone gray and his whiskers were a bit grizzled, but he was still in good shape – at least for a man his age. Marianne locked eyes with him and moved across the room toward him, sliding into bed without blinking or looking away. She scooted over next to him and put her arms around him, "Let's make a couple of things clear at the outset."

He slid his glasses up on his forehead, set the book on the nightstand and looked amused, "Such as?"

"Such as, first off, this bed is a lot higher and I'm a lot older than the last time. I nursed a bruised hip for weeks after that little back-flip I did once upon a time. It must have been a man who invented those damnable satin sheets. Anyway, first of all, none of that whatever the hell it was that caused me to fall out of bed the last time."

He said, "I always thought it was a simple matter of you were too close to the edge and not paying attention."

"I was paying attention all right, but not to where the edge of the bed was."

"Okay. So we've got the 'no acrobatic sex' rule. At my age, I think that won't be a problem. What else?"

She put her hand against his cheek and looked deeply into his eyes. "I still get up at impossibly early hours. My biological clock is set on Eastern Time. My guess is I'll wake really, really early. I will get up so as not to disturb you, but I will be here, in the house. If you wake up and I'm not in bed, follow the smell of coffee. I'll be waiting for you. I promise you I won't leave you again unless it is by mutual agreement."

He took her in his arms and kissed her. He held her for a long time, both of them trembling with emotion and unable to speak. Eventually he whispered, "Are you as exhausted as I am?"

"I'm the old lady who traveled a couple of thousand miles today and then had an incredibly emotional reunion."

He snuggled against her and said, "With any other woman, I'd feel obligated, but I'm really kind of an emotional wreck. And, somehow, with you I have never felt the need to pretend about anything."

She kissed his chin and said, "I'm tired, too. How about let's don't and say we did?"

He laughed and wrapped his arms around her. Just as she started to doze off, he started laughing. She wriggled around to face him and asked, "What the hell is so funny?"

"I just remembered something funny from my childhood."

"What?" She was suddenly awake and curious to hear his story.

He pushed her hair back and propped up on one elbow. He said, "Shortly after we moved to LA, when I was maybe 11 or so, my parents befriended an old couple from across the hall in our apartment building. At the time, my parents were in their early to mid thirties. The people across the hall were in their late sixties. They had both been widowed and had met after they moved into the complex. They had recently married and they were so damned horny all the time, it was disgusting. They couldn't keep their hands off each other. I, of course, didn't understand what was going on, but my parents were outraged. They could not imagine that old people would want to have sex. My mother, in particular thought it was totally gross."

Marianne laughed and traced his eyebrow, "How old were your parents when they died?"

"Papa was forty two and Maman was thirty-nine."

"Good thing they died before they lost interest, huh?"

He laughed, "Based on the stuff I heard from their bedroom, I'm guessing they'd have changed their tune if they'd lived to be old."

"Are we old?"

"Yes."

"Do you feel old?"

"No. Do you?"

He answered, somewhat wistfully, "I do right now" Switching to French, he added, "Good night, Cherie. Sweet dreams." They fell asleep instantly, snuggled together like a couple of puppies.

The next morning Marianne woke before sunrise and padded barefoot down to the kitchen. She made coffee and spread the newspaper out on the kitchen island. About 6:30 a. m. the housekeeper came in to begin her day. Chantal poured herself the last cup of coffee and put on a new pot. Then she bustled around the kitchen making preliminary preparations for breakfast.

Marianne said, "Do you want me to get out of your way? I feel like such an intruder."

Chantal laughed, "I'm the cook. You're the... I'm guessing you're the next lady of the house. I might as well get used to taking orders from you."

Marianne said, "I've never had household help before."

Chantal looked incredulous, "You're kidding?"

"No. I've always done all my own housekeeping and cooking. I know I committed a terrible faux pas yesterday, and I apologize. I hope you will help me out when I run the risk of making such gross mistakes in the future."

Chantal sipped her coffee and said, "Madame, I have worked for Monsieur Luc for a very long time, nearly forty years to be exact. In fact, I came to him with the house in Gordes where you met. I was the housekeeper there for the previous owner. I have seen women come and go in his life. With the exception of Madame Lisa, mostly they have gone. You have stayed with him all these years. I can imagine almost nothing that would cause you to fall from his favor. He is my employer, so, of course, I do not volunteer my opinion. That does not mean I do not have one."

Marianne asked, "What is your opinion?"

Chantal said, "It is my opinion that for some reason that makes no sense, given the life Monsieur has led, our Dear Lord has taken mercy on him and has given him his dearest wish."

Marianne pressed further, "And what do you think of that?"

Chantal looked her squarely in the eye and said, "That will depend entirely on the decisions you make over the next few days."

Marianne smiled and said, meeting Chantal's gaze without blinking, "Thank you so much for your honesty. I want you to know that I am very sorry for hurting him, and I won't do it again."

Chantal smiled, but it was clear she was going to reserve judgment until she had seen some proof that Marianne would follow through on that promise.

By the time Luke came downstairs a few hours later, Marianne had read the paper and was most of the way through a script he had left on the table. Luke laughed and commented, "The last time you picked up a script I left lying around you encouraged me to do the movie, and it worked out pretty well for me... as in I won damned near every acting award there is for that picture. What do you think of that one?"

She made a face, "I think it could be a sort of moderate hit, but it's not all that great. You'll probably do it, and it'll be okay, but it's not fabulous."

"I'm 76. I don't do 'fabulous' any more."

She stood up and put her arms around him, "Why don't you let me be the judge of that?"

"'Mrs. Robinson, you are trying to seduce me?'"

"Don't play coy with me, Luke Payne. It's morning. We've both had a good night's sleep. What do you say?"

He put his arms around her and said, "Oh, God, how many times have I dreamed of hearing those words from you... or maybe not those words exactly, but something to that effect."

She laughed, "How about, 'Take me to bed or lose me forever.'"

He kissed her and said, "That's very funny. I can tell you, ma'am, I know Meg Ryan, and you're no Meg Ryan."

"So sorry."

"That's okay. She's way too young and perky for me anyway."

He motioned her toward the stairs, and she led him back to the bedroom, laughing. They were still laughing when they came back downstairs some time later.

They spent the rest of the day sitting around the pool, alternately talking nonstop and simply relaxing quietly, enjoying one another's company without feeling the need to talk. Chantal served them a simple dinner, after which they watched TV for a little while. When it came time to go to bed, neither of them made any pretense about Marianne spending the night in the guest room. Luke had requested Chantal to move Marianne's personal items into his room. They curled up in bed and talked for a while before falling asleep in one another's arms.

The next day, while they were reading the morning paper, Luke asked Marianne if she would like to spend Christmas with his family in Gordes. He handed her the email contact information for the inn, saying "There will be too many people for my place at Christmas. Since you're such a whiz at the computer, please send Marie-Claire an email and ask her if she could save us four rooms for Christmas."

"Four?"

"My son Paul and his son Lucas in one room. Christiane and her husband, Georges, in one room. Your Christa and her husband in a room. Madeleine should have her own room; she could bring a friend if she wants."

"Am I going to get in hot water with Diane for doing her job?"

"Oh, probably, but do it anyway."

She started typing in the email address and then did a small double take. She asked, "Is Marie-Claire still running the inn?"

He laughed, "Well technically her son and his wife are supposed to be running the place. Marie-Claire took some time off after Jean-Michel had a stroke a couple of years ago. He recovered enough to allow her to go back to do what she calls 'helping out'. What it actually amounts to is playing general manager."

"How is Jean-Michel?"

"He's recovered pretty well. He has some paralysis in his left arm so he can't cook any more, but he hangs out in the inn and plays host."

Marianne tapped out the message to Marie-Claire. She signed it "Sent on behalf of Luke Payne by Marianne."

Only a few minutes later, she received a message from Marie-Claire acknowledging the reservation and confirming they would hold the rooms. At the bottom of the message, Marie-Claire had added, "Marianne? Are the same 'Marianne' who stole M. Payne's heart so many years ago?/"

She replied, "I think the answer to that is, yes."

Marie-Claire responded, "How marvelous!! Yes. Yes. We will reserve the rooms for your family. You may reserve the entire inn if you wish!"

Marianne read the email exchange to Luke. He said, "Dammit, I hate it when Diane is right. This email stuff is really cool. Tell Marie-Claire we want the whole inn for the entire holiday. We'll pay the full rates for all rooms. Then, let's get on the phones and call the kids."

Marianne sent the message to Marie-Claire who received it with glee.

After that they each called their kids to discuss the change in plans for Christmas. Luke's kids were already planning to go to Gordes for the holiday. They were a bit surprised at being bumped to the Inn next door, but neither of them objected, after Luke explained the situation.

"Marianne had a slightly more difficult time with Christa. She had no objection to the idea of Marianne spending Christmas with Luke and his family. She just didn't understand why her family was expected to join them. Marianne made it clear that it was important to both her and Luke to have all their kids together. Ultimately Christa agreed. She suggested Marianne should work out the arrangements with Madeleine directly.

After they hung up the phone Luke asked, "Where does Madeleine go to school?"

"Pepperdine."

"That is just up the road. Do you want to stop in and see her while you're here?"

"That would be fun. Do you think we could take her out to lunch?"

He thought about that for a minute and said, "I am not sure you're ready to go out to lunch with me just yet. We might have to do a little preparation for that kind of thing. We could, however, have Chantal fix us a boxed lunch and take your granddaughter for a picnic somewhere along the coast highway. The weather is supposed to be great all week."

She nodded, "That's a super idea." She paused and said softly, "I guess there are still a few hurdles to overcome. One of them being the public nature of your life."

He reached across the table and touched her hand, "We do need to address that at some point, but we don't have to go there today. Let's plan a picnic with your granddaughter. We can figure out how to face the paparazzi another time."

Marianne nodded. She was happy to put that off as long as necessary. She knew she did not have the option of chickening out again, but the prospect of living under such public scrutiny made her want to run away.

Marianne called Madeleine and asked if she was free for lunch. Madeleine said she was free until 2:00 when she had a meeting with her study group. Marianne suggested a picnic at a nearby park. Madeleine agreed and said there were some beautiful picnic spots either on or near the campus. She suggested they meet on campus. She said she would love to show her grandmother around. Marianne said, "We will be there by noon-ish. I'll call you when we get close."

Madeleine said, "I can't wait to see you, Gram. Who is 'we'?"

"I will be accompanied by a friend, a very dear friend."

Madeleine said, "How wonderful. I can't wait to meet her."

Marianne said, "It's a man."

Madeleine laughed out loud, "Oh, wow, now I really can't wait! I will be on the sidewalk outside my dorm."

A couple of hours later, Luke and Marianne pulled into the steep driveway leading to Pepperdine University. Madeleine was sitting on a bench reading a book. Marianne hopped out of the car and greeted her granddaughter with hugs and kisses. They chatted for a minute and then Marianne led Madeleine to the car. Luke had suggested they picnic at Malibu Canyon State Park. Madeleine climbed into the back seat while Marianne returned to the passenger's seat in front. Madeleine looked up at the driver and gasped. "Oh, my God!"

Marianne smiled and said, "Madeleine I want you to meet my oldest and dearest friend, Luke Payne. Luke, this is my granddaughter, Madeleine."

He reached between the front seats and took her hand, "It's a pleasure to meet you."

"I can't tell you what a thrill it is to meet you, Mr. Payne. I'm a huge fan."

He smiled his movie-star grin, winked at her and said, "It's always a thrill to hear that."

He drove to a beautiful picnic spot where they spread out their lunch and talked for more than an hour. Madeleine was amazed and astonished to hear the highlights of their story, and said she wanted a detailed version later, "... at Christmas ... in France. Oh, God, I'm so excited!"

Marianne asked, "Do you have a passport?"

"Yes. I had to get one when I went on that foreign study program after high school. I can't wait to tell people I'm going to France with Luke Payne's family.... " She stopped, and looked from one of them to the other. She said, "Then again, maybe I should keep my mouth shut about that part."

Luke looked at her and said, "Perhaps it would be best if you didn't mention any names. At least not just yet."

Madeleine smiled at him and said, "Okay, but I've gotta tell you that isn't going to be easy. I'm taking a film class this quarter on the iconic movies of the late 20th Century. You are in four of the twelve movies we are watching. Right now, we're doing an almost scene by scene dissection of _When the Bombs Came Down_. It is such a wonderful movie. Every scene, every performance, almost every shot. It may be as close to perfect as a movie can be."

"Thanks. Quite honestly, I haven't see it in years, but periodically I have been asked to speak at film schools and they always want to talk about that movie. Are you a film student?"

"Yes, sir."

"Acting?"

"No. I'm not pretty enough or courageous enough for in-front-of-the-camera stuff. I'm interested in sound design. When I was in high school I did the sound effects for a play and was totally hooked. I love all that creaking-door and breaking-glass stuff. It's so cool!"

Luke grinned and took her hand between both of his, "Both of my parents worked behind the scenes. That can be a great life. Some of the wisest and most wonderful people in the movies work on the other side of the camera. When you're ready to get some hands-on work experience, I'll make some calls. I know a couple of people in the business, if you can believe that. I may be able to help you."

Madeleine dimpled and then looked into his eyes with the kind of naked adoration only the young and innocent can manage without looking pathetic. She gushed, "Oh, thank you!"

Marianne watched them and beamed.

Marianne was supposed to return to Aiken the following day, but neither she nor Luke was ready for her to go home. She postponed her departure for a few days, then for a few more days.

After she had been in LA for two weeks, she said, "Luke, I have to go home to pack for the trip at Christmas, not to mention that I have to pick up my mail, and pay my bills before they turn off my water and electric."

He drew her down on the couch beside him and said, "I've been thinking about that. I don't want you to go. I want you here with me. Would you be willing to let me hire a lawyer to help you wrap up your affairs there and sell your house?"

"You're suggesting we shack up?"

"I'm not sure what I'm suggesting, exactly. I want you to be with me. It doesn't have to be here. Frankly, I can't see you living in LA full-time, but I can't see me living in Aiken, South Carolina, either. Maybe we could live in Gordes most of the time. I have my lawyer doing some research on French immigration regulations regarding how much time out of the year we could stay there."

"You would move away from LA to be with me?"

"When I'm working, I'll have to come back here, or go on location. In between films, it sort of doesn't matter where I am. France is as good a place as any. Gordes is remote enough that the paparazzi usually don't follow me there. And on the rare occasions they do, the locals run them off. They have always been very protective of me. Living there might be a perfect solution to your fear of living in the public eye. Plus, I love it there."

"We can talk about the future at Christmas. In the meantime, I have to go home to pack."

"Why? You can buy anything you need here."

"What about my mail, my bills and my passport?"

"Diane takes care of my bills and stuff. Why don't we have your mail forwarded to my office. Diane can pay your bills as they come due. Where is your passport?"

"In my safety deposit box."

"I am sure there is a way to have the bank send it to you."

"Luke, what is the matter with you? You sound shrill and upset."

He put his arms around her and nuzzled her neck, "I hate to admit it, but I'm afraid. The last time I let you go home to make preparations to join me, I didn't see you again for more than thirty years. I don't have thirty years to wait for you again. I feel anxious and afraid at the very thought of letting you out of my sight."

Marianne relaxed against him and lay her hand on his chest, "I suppose that's understandable, and in a way I deserve it. Alright, find out if Diane can figure out a way for me to get my affairs squared away without going home."

"If she can't, we could charter a plane and go together for just the day. I wouldn't mind seeing your home and town."

She said she didn't think that was a good idea. He would not exactly blend in. Then she turned to kneel on the couch and face him. She put one hand on either side of his face and put her nose almost up against his, and said, "I told you: I will never leave you again unless you agree it's not working out with me here."

He said, "I sincerely hope you mean that."

The ever efficient and resourceful Diane arranged to have Marianne's mail forwarded to Luke's office. Marianne opened an account at Luke's bank, and Diane took over paying her bills just as she did Luke's. The bank sent Marianne's passport by overnight courier.

Luke took her shopping at some of the most exclusive shops in Beverly Hills to buy the things she needed for the trip. Whenever she left the house and ventured out into the city of Los Angeles, Marianne had a sense of unreality and confusion. Alone in the house with Luke, it was an altogether different world. She felt as though she had come home to a familiar and safe place. She knew she would not be happy living in LA, but Aiken was out of the question. The more she thought about it, Gordes seemed like the perfect place for them to live.

Luke and Marianne decided to leave for Gordes a week early in order to allow Marianne to reacquaint herself with the place before the kids arrived.

A few days before they were scheduled to leave, Luke booked a meeting at the Beverly Hills Hotel to discuss an upcoming movie with Braddock Austin. He invited Marianne to join them. She demurred, but Luke insisted, "The last time you attended a meeting with Braddock it worked out pretty well for me. I'd not be totally bummed out if you pulled a repeat of that performance. It's been a while since I've had a really big movie, and, besides, Braddock says he'd love to see you." She was reluctant, but her desire to see the dining room at the storied Beverly Hills Hotel got the better of her, so she agreed to accompany Luke to the meeting.

Braddock brought his latest wife to the meeting. This one was wife number 5 for Austin. At one point while the woman, whose name he didn't even tell them, was in the bathroom, Marianne asked whatever happened to Andrea. Braddock had a hard time even dredging up the memory of her, and had no idea what became of her. Marianne thought that was sad at first, but, then she realized, she had no idea what had become of her ex-husband either, so who was she to judge Braddock Austin?

The new wife came back from the bathroom and seemed utterly disinterested in the meeting, although Marianne noticed she seemed exceedingly interested in Luke. She kept batting her eyes at him and reaching out to touch him. Marianne noticed the top two buttons of her already-low-cut blouse were unbuttoned. The cleavage that spilled out was prodigious. Austin was in his late sixties, but the woman appeared to be in her early thirties. Marianne found herself wanting to scratch the woman's eyes out. Luke was watching Marianne. He winked ever so slightly when no one else was looking. Marianne knew he had something up his sleeve. She refrained from strangling the bitch in order to see what he was up to.

Luke turned to the woman and poured on the charm. It had the effect of turning on an electro-magnet in a room of paper clips. The woman responded immediately and started openly flirting with him. She did about everything short of crawling up in his lap, and Marianne was pretty sure she'd have done that, too, at the slightest provocation. Braddock leaned across the table and hissed, "Go home, Betsey, if you can't behave. You may behave like a trollop the rest of the time, but at least have the decency to not act that way in the presence of a lady."

Betsey looked at Austin with something like disdain and stood up to leave. Before leaving the table, she narrowed her eyes and looked at Marianne for a long time. Without taking her eyes off Marianne she said to Austin, with venom in her voice, "I don't see that she is any different than what I am. I'm just more honest about it."

For a minute, Marianne could barely breathe. She felt as if she had been punched in the stomach and she thought she might throw up. Luke's face drained and he clenched his hands. He had never hit a woman, but it was clear he was considering making an exception in Betsey's case. Austin waved pointed toward the door, and Betsey left quickly. He then turned to Luke and said, "Don't pay any attention to her. She's a bitch."

Marianne pursed her lips and said, "She may be that, but the woman does have a point."

Luke glared at her and whispered, "Don't you dare say, or even think, that."

Marianne shrugged, "We'll talk about that later. Right now, you two have business to discuss."

The men talked at some length about a couple of projects that were of interest to Luke. Marianne couldn't understand why Luke still wanted to work so hard at his age, but she said nothing. She could tell from his body language and demeanor he was totally focused on his conversation with Austin. She concluded that he still worked hard because he was still as passionate about his job as he had been when she first met him. He liked the ideas for both movies, but wasn't happy with the scripts. Austin agreed to send them both back for further editing. They planned to meet again after Christmas.

As they said good-bye, Austin hugged Marianne and said softly, "I am so glad you two reconnected. I have been very worried about him. You have brought the joy back into his eyes."

She smiled, "The joy is mutual, I assure you." She paused and looked at him. She knew he had been one of Luke's best friends for decades. She blurted, "Perhaps you should consider doing something about your own joy."

"You mean my utter failure as a husband? The problem with me is that I am a total bastard. The only thing I am really passionate about is my work. I keep marrying women because they want me to. I forget how much I hate being married."

Luke was standing back watching the conversation from the doorway. For a second, Marianne thought he might not appreciate her whispering so intimately with Braddock. Then she noticed Luke was smiling. She smiled back at him. Braddock noticed the exchange and smiled, saying loud enough for Luke to hear as well, "And besides, I've never found a woman who loves me as much as you love him."

Luke grinned and said, "That's because I'm not as much of a bastard as you are."

"Betsey says they say different at her gym. She is kind of disappointed to be one of the few women in her Pilates class who hasn't had sex with you, or who at least hasn't claimed to have sex with you." He laughed and waved his hand in the air, "She'd be delighted to rectify that situation at any time, I am sure. All you have to do is whistle."

Luke laughed and said, "I'll pass. I do not mess around with married women. Especially not wives of my friends." He looked at Marianne and smiled, "Besides, I seem to have developed a penchant for older women and fidelity late in my life."

Braddock said, "My advice to you is to guard that secret as carefully now as you did when you were married to Lisa."

Luke laughed, "I'm 76, for crying out loud. Shouldn't I be slowing down?"

Braddock raised his eyebrows and asked, "Are you?" Then he immediately put his hands up, palms out. "Don't answer that. I don't want to know!"

Chantal had departed for Gordes a few days before Luke and Marianne left LA, in order to open the house and begin preparations for the family Christmas. She was working closely with Marie-Claire at the inn to coordinate meals for the families.

Chantal's departure left Marianne and Luke on their own for a few days. The first day, Marianne called the grocery where Chantal did business and ordered the ingredients she needed for dinner. Luke was playing golf with some friends, and she spent most of the afternoon preparing roast pork, dressing and home made apple sauce. Luke raved about the food, and Marianne puffed up with pride. It had been a long time since she had cooked a special meal for a man. She forgot how wonderful it was and made a mental note to try to work out some kind of kitchen-sharing arrangement with Chantal if that could be arranged without hurting Chantal's feelings or treading on her turf.

The next day, after breakfast, Luke sprawled on couch reading the paper, while Marianne rummaged around the kitchen occasionally writing things down in a notebook. He asked her what the hell she was doing banging around like that, and she told him she was making a shopping list for dinner. He said, "I hate to see you work so hard at cooking. Let's go out."

She started to protest, but as soon as the words were out of his mouth, they looked at each other and knew the time had come for her to appear in public with him. He made reservations for a window table at Moonshadows early enough to catch the sunset and to beat the peak of the dinner crowd. Diane always made reservations for him under one of several aliases, one of which was his actual given name. Nobody had ever caught on to that alias. That day he made the reservation for Jean-Luc de la Peine. He arranged for a driver, because he wanted to put on the dog a little, besides that would allow him to order wine with dinner.

Marianne dressed carefully, knowing she would be under the microscope. She wore a pantsuit that Luke had bought for her. It was simple and chic. She tried not to think about how much he must have paid for the wardrobe he had lavished upon her. A few minutes later she joined him in the living room. He looked up and smiled, saying, "That looks very nice, but it's missing something."

She turned to look in the mirror over the fireplace, and then turned back to him looking puzzled, "Missing what?"

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box. "Missing these." The box contained diamond stud earrings and a diamond pendant necklace. She gasped and tears welled up in her eyes, but she blinked them back and smiled. She put on the earrings and handed the necklace to him, asking him to help her with the clasp. He fumbled with it a bit. They laughed about their awkwardness. He suggested she take off the Paume d'Or necklace. He thought it was too much with the diamond. She took it off reluctantly, and put it in her purse. He raised his eyebrows. She smiled, "Even when I'm wearing another necklace, I keep it with me. It is my most cherished possession."

He turned away but not before she saw the shine in his eyes.

The restaurant was not crowded when they arrived. Only a few people seemed to notice them. Marianne started to relax. The wait staff was accustomed to celebrity clients. The management insisted they be given stellar service with no gushing or invasion of privacy. Asking for an autograph was a terminable offense. Luke had chosen the place specifically because he knew the staff would help him keep curiosity seekers at a distance, at least while they were inside the restaurant.

The food was very good, although much more fussy than Marianne preferred. The portions were very small. She was amused to think that she would have enjoyed her own cooking more. Marianne enjoyed watching the sunset, but they could have done even that from the terrace of Luke's house as well. She knew, however, that this evening was not about enjoyment or the food. It was about being seen in public with Luke: it was strictly business.

By the time they were ready to leave, nearly every table was full. As they walked toward the door, most of the patrons openly stared at them. Quite a number used cell phones or small digital cameras to take photos. As they waited for their car, a dozen photographers lined up on the sidewalk across the street, taking their pictures with telephoto lenses. There was no pushing or shouting. The owners of the restaurant insisted that paparazzi behave. In addition to the sort of official paparazzi, tourists and other patrons entering or leaving the restaurant pointed cameras at them. They had to wait a few minutes for the car, and Marianne was self-consciously aware of the furious clicking and flashing of cameras.

As the car pulled away from the curb, Marianne said, "I guess that could have been worse."

"It used to be a lot worse. Actually, I guess that is one of the compensations of getting old. I'm not as much of a draw as I used to be. People still take my picture and they still ask for my autograph, but I don't get mobbed like I used to. One thing you can count on, those pictures will be on the Internet before we get home and they'll be all over the TV celebrity shows tomorrow."

"Will that cause more interest?"

"Maybe. There may be some interest because you're one of the few women I've been seen with in public since Lisa died. Interest in me may rise a little until the Academy Awards and then it should fall off again. Are you okay?"

"Yes. It wasn't so bad. I think I will avoid looking on the Internet or watching the TV celebrity shows. I never watched them before; I'm not going to start now."

He nodded. "That's a wise choice. My publicist monitors all the photos and the stuff people say about me. If anything needs to be addressed, he discusses it with my attorney. I'm the last to find out about it. That works for me, anyway. The only time they show me anything is on the rare occasion somebody publishes a picture they think I might actually like."

She said, "I'm really pretty much of a home-body. I rarely went out when I lived in South Carolina. I love to cook, especially for an appreciative audience whom I happen to love." She smiled at him and batted her eyes, "While Chantal is away, I'd be happy to do the cooking."

"You can cook when you want to, and we can order delivery when necessary. I know that you don't like to be the center of attention. We'll just have to be careful about when we go out and where we go. Sometimes, however, we may not be able to avoid crowds of photographers. These days they're generally not there looking for me, but if I happen to be someplace where a bunch of the really hot A-listers are hanging out, I tend to get caught up in the frenzy. I'll do my best to keep you in the background as much as possible."

She snuggled against him and said, "And I'll do my best to avoid freaking out on those occasions when you can't."

He held her tight and whispered, "We'll manage, somehow, I'm sure."

3 – Return to Gordes

Luke and Marianne arrived in Gordes a little more than a week before Christmas. Jean-Michel and his son picked them up at the airport in Marseilles. Jean-Michel had changed much in the decades since the first time Marianne visited Gordes: he was heavier and his hair had thinned, but he was still jovial and funny. Marianne had liked him from the minute she met him in 1973; her affection was restored immediately as he ushered her into the car. Marianne couldn't wait to reconnect with Marie-Claire, but that would have to wait. There were a number of guests staying at the inn and Marie-Claire was busy.

The kids were not due to start arriving for several days. Luke's daughter and her family, along with Christa and hers, were arriving on the 23rd because they each had commitments right after Christmas. They planned to drive up from Marseilles together. Luke's son and grandson planned to arrive on Christmas Eve and stay a few days afterwards. Marianne and Luke thought that spacing out the visits like that would help to allow each of them to interact with each of their kids one-on-one.

As the car approached Gordes, Marianne was transported back in time. There were a few new houses. A lot of the old ones had been renovated and/or enlarged. The place had always boasted its share of foreign artists and rich people, but they seemed to have all but taken over at least the outlying countryside. There was a lot more traffic than she remembered, but, then, her last visit had been during the slow season. Winter had always been the peak season and the holidays positively bustled. Still, the area looked busier and more prosperous than it had on her last visit.

The really important things, however, were the same: lavender fields and olive groves, landmarks and ancient ruins. She could feel Luke's excitement level rising as well. He tried to visit Gordes for several weeks a year, but he told her that he never failed to approach his home with anticipation.

When they pulled in the driveway, Marianne got out of the car and stood gazing up at the house, barely breathing for fear the enchantment would lift and the magical place she had cherished in her memory for so long would disappear. It was exactly as she remembered it! Her memory had neither embellished nor altered even the smallest detail. She stood there for a long time fearing that if she moved or tried to speak she would dissolve into sobbing.

Luke came up behind her and put his arms around her, burying his face in her hair, which was still thick and curly, even though it had turned a shiny silver. When he felt he could finally trust his voice, he said, "Welcome home, Cherie."

She turned and buried her face in his chest. They held each other tightly for a long moment. Marianne squeezed her eyes and gritted her teeth in an effort not to cry. After a few minutes, Luke took her hand and, without saying another word, led her into the house. There was some new furniture and a lot of new artwork (more original masterworks, she noticed), but for the most part it was exactly the same. She put her arm around his waist and held on tight because her legs felt wobbly and she feared they might give way altogether.

They walked out onto the pool deck where Chantal, who was nowhere in sight, had a late breakfast laid out for them. Luke asked if she wanted coffee. She said, "No, thanks. I would like some juice, please." She stood at the edge of the pool deck, gazing over the fields beyond, recalling those days so many years before, and wondering what miracle had brought her back for another dose of this magic. Luke handed her a glass of juice and asked, "Would you like to go for a walk to stretch our legs after that long trip?"

"I would love to! Let's go."

They set aside their juice glasses and walked hand-in-hand up the path toward the village. Luke knew that Marianne still walked three to four miles a day, either outside or on a treadmill. He typically worked out in a gym. In the past few weeks, they had combined routines. She felt she was benefiting from the weight training; he had lost a couple of pounds due to the additional cardio work. They joked that they were literally good for each other, body and soul.

They talked little as they walked. Each one was lost in some combination of memory and reverie, which careened back and forth from remembering the past to savoring the moment and occasionally wondering tentatively what the future might hold.

After a couple of miles they were both ready to return to the house. As the days progressed and their jet lag wore off, they would venture farther, but after traveling so far and experiencing such an emotional homecoming, they both needed to rest. Luke asked if she wanted to take a nap. She said she would be happy to rest in a chaise by the pool. He wanted stretch out in his bed for a nap. She encouraged him to do so.

He disappeared into the house and Marianne stretched out on the chaise luxuriating in the warmth of the sun and letting her mind drift. It floated just at the very edge of consciousness. Marianne was young and falling in love and simultaneously old and rediscovering a love she thought was lost forever. Young or old, new love or old love, Marianne was happy. She stretched and smiled. She heard tinkling laughter behind her, and turned to see who was there. She smiled broadly and rose from the chaise to embrace Marie-Claire and Chantal who had come to clear away the breakfast things.

Marie-Claire said, "I don't think I have to ask you what you were thinking about. Or, perhaps, the better word is 'who' you were thinking about."

Marianne blushed.

Chantal made sure they were finished with the breakfast things and then began to clear them away. Marie-Claire turned to help and Marianne joined them. Both Chantal and Marie-Claire started to protest, then they looked at each other, rolled their eyes and all three women laughed. They knew that Marianne had a difficult time understanding the boundaries between employers and household staff, but they decided to humor her for once. They knew Marianne had been a cook and a caterer. Cleaning up a buffet was just as natural to her as it was to them. The three women laughed and chatted while they worked together companionably to clear away the breakfast.

Chantal consulted with Marianne regarding their plans for the rest of the day, which was a waste of time because Marianne had no plans and did not intend to make any. She suggested that it might be better if Chantal took command for a day or two while she and Luke re-acclimated themselves to life in Gordes. Chantal, who had been in charge of Luke's private life for nearly 40 years, was delighted to know that Marianne was not going to try to take over.

Marie-Claire and Chantal were distant cousins, and they chatted about family gossip in rapid-fire French. Marianne realized to her chagrin that her French had deteriorated terribly. She could still read, write and speak the language fluently. Understanding the language, spoken at full conversational speed, was going to take a little time. Even so, Marianne could understand enough to follow the general drift of the conversation.

She spent most of the next couple of hours concentrating fiercely to regain that comprehension, and it came back with amazing rapidity. As a by-product, Marianne learned a great deal about what was going on in Gordes as well. She knew that would help her a lot when she and Luke ventured into town and she had to converse with the locals. It would be nice to know who they were and a little background about them, although she felt that she had learned a bit too much information about some of the more scandalous folks in the town and its environs.

When Luke got up, he was ready for lunch. Chantal offered to serve lunch. He shook his head, "Nah. Once the kids get here, we'll be eating in most of the time. I want to spend our family time here in the house. Right now, I'd like to take Marianne exploring a bit. Chantal, call Michelle Frenoise and ask if she would be willing to re-open for a late lunch."

Chantal made a face and said, "Like that woman would say no to you."

He winked and said, "Yeah, but it's always nice to ask."

They both laughed in a way that made both Marianne and Marie-Claire understand that it was a very old inside joke that had acquired layer upon layer of meaning over the years. It crossed Marianne's mind that a stranger listening to the conversation might think that Chantal and Luke were a long-married couple. She felt a little like an outsider. The moment passed because Luke turned to her and said, "Do you remember that winery where we had lunch the day we visited St. Saturnin-les-Apts ?"

She smiled into his eyes and said, "How could I forget? The food was wonderful, but what I remember most was the beauty of the place and the way you wrapped the cook around your little finger."

He tried to look sheepish, but missed the mark and ended up looking like Dennis the Menace, "Well, not much has changed. The place is even more beautiful because Michelle's daughter is a landscape architect who has practiced on her mom's property. It was always beautiful; now, it is spectacular. The food is even better because Michelle hired a real chef who caters to the rich and famous people who have flocked here in recent years. I used to be her only rich and famous client. Now she has bunches of them. The food is, naturally, out of sight as well."

Marianne grinned and said, "Why do I think you still have her wrapped around your finger."

He made that French face that is a combination of a shrug and smirk, "Because I do. The woman is a hopeless flirt."

All three women laughed.

Luke tried to look offended. "No fair ganging up on me. I know I'm a flirt, too, which is why it's so much fun to visit Michelle's place."

Marianne dead-panned, "Sounds like an absolute blast for me. I'll be lucky to get some bottled water and a crust of bread!"

Marie-Claire rushed off to the hotel to start dinner for her guests who were leaving the following day. Marianne went inside to change and she could hear Luke and Chantal talking softly in the hallway, going over plans for meals and agendas. Marianne reminded herself she needed to be careful not to step on Chantal's toes. Chantal had been Luke's chief housekeeper forever, and Marianne's place in the picture was very ambiguous.

A car and driver were waiting for them. Marianne raised her eyebrows. Luke said, "For one thing, I don't drive much around here any more at all. The roads are too narrow and the people drive too fast. My reaction time isn't what it used to be, so I usually limit my driving to short trips within the village where I really know the roads. The other reason is that, in addition to hiring a chef, after her husband died, Michelle hired a vintner who has turned the winery around as well. One reason for this trip is to pick out some wines for the holiday meals." He patted his pocket, "I've got a list of what Chantal is looking for." He grinned, "We'll be doing some sampling."

As they rode along, Luke asked her softly, "Do you want to visit St. Saturnin-les-Apts?"

She paused, "Yes. But, I want to do that while Christa and Madeleine are here. In fact, I was thinking that might be a good trip for my family to make on Christmas Eve. You and your kids can spend the day together. Richard and Christa have driven all over Europe. If you give him directions, he can drive us."

Luke seemed to be about to protest but then he nodded, "I think that's a good idea. It'll give us each a chance to spend some one-on-one time with our own kids."

She squeezed his hand, "I hadn't thought of this, put perhaps it would be a good idea to let someone know we're coming."

"Have you kept in touch with them?" He seemed somewhat amazed.

"I've kept in touch with Philippe's family. He retired and moved to Marseilles. His daughter runs a boulangerie there. Christa has visited her a few times when she and Richard have visited France."

"Has Christa ever visited St. Saturnin-les-Apts?"

"No. She always said they never had time to venture that far off the beaten track. I think she didn't want to go. And, frankly, if she doesn't want to go now, I will respect that. I would like to take Madeleine if she'll humor me." She paused, "If Christa and Richard don't want to go, would you let us, um, ... could I use your driver?"

He put his arm around her and kissed her cheek, "I would insist on it."

The car pulled into the driveway of the winery. Marianne thought it looked the same, yet somehow different. Then she realized it looked much more prosperous. When they had visited before it was a simple place, making ordinary local wine, and serving inexpensive Provençal food to local patrons. It had gone upscale in a big way. The buildings were the same but they were no longer shabby and run down; they looked rustic in the same way Luke's house did: by virtue of very expensive design work. The vineyards and olive groves looked the same. The outdoor portion of the restaurant was the same, only where there had been bare wooden tables with ceramic plates, there were now crisp white linen table clothes with gleaming crystal wine glasses, porcelain plates, and fine silver flatware. Marianne tried not to show her disappointment. She apparently failed because she heard Luke chuckle and he poked her with his elbow.

Before Marianne could say anything, Mme. Frenoise greeted them – or, more accurately she greeted Luke, glancing only briefly in Marianne's general direction. She led them to the table, flirting madly with Luke while trying not to be too obvious. She led them to the same table they had occupied on their previous visit.

Marianne laughed, "This is the same table..."

Luke shook his head, "Don't make too much of that. This is 'my' table. I always sit here. It has the best view of the vineyards, and Michelle can see it from anywhere in the restaurant. She puts her best clients here so she can keep an eye on us in case we need anything."

"What happens if more than one of her 'best' clients show up at the same time."

He laughed and leaned forward, "She tries to make sure that does not happen, but when it does, she positively comes unglued. Some of us like to descend on her en masse once or twice during the season just to watch her. She's too funny."

Marianne shook her head. Luke looked at her with a strange expression, "You don't seem to like the changes."

She purse her lips and said, "It's beautiful and I am sure the food will be good, but the truth is, I liked the simple wood tables and those chipped white plates. This kind of fanciness seems out of place in such a rustic place. What is more I prefer the ordinary, rustic Provençal food. I'm betting the new menu is all that haute cuisine which is about looks more than taste, with portions so small you often need to eat again when you get home."

He sighed, "I rather agree with you. Unfortunately, the clientèle has gone upscale and the rich and famous tend to demand fancier establishments."

"You're rich and famous – and, ever so handsome, by the way – but, you seem to enjoy simple things as much as fancy things."

"I do. But, that may be because I was born and spent the first few years of my life in Gordes. Things were anything but fancy here in the 1930's. I don't remember a lot of my life before we moved to America, but I do remember it was pretty bare-bones. Maman carried that with her through her whole life. Even after we moved to the States, she was still basically a bourgeois French housewife who squeezed a dime's worth out of every nickel my dad brought home. She was a fantastic cook, but the food she made was peasant food."

They ate their lunch and chatted about the distant past. They had never really shared childhood memories, but they made up for it that day. They laughed and cried through a long lunch of reminiscing and story-telling. After dessert, Luke leaned across the table and whispered, "Okay, now it's time to get down to business. Please do not be offended, but flirting with Michelle is the only way to get her to give me even a half-way decent price on wine, and even though I can afford to pay more, I don't like to be ripped off."

He stood up and took Marianne's hand, raising her to her feet, and saying loudly enough for Michelle to hear, "Let's go into the wine shop and pick out those wines Chantal ordered." Marianne almost laughed out loud at the look on Michelle's face. It got even better once they entered the tasting room. The vintner himself conducted the tasting. Michelle hung around to flirt with Luke and negotiate the price. Marianne didn't say a word. She tasted the wines they put in front of her and merely nodded occasionally when someone asked her if she liked it. She didn't know all those fancy wine terms and did not want to embarrass herself. She could tell Luke was amused by her act. She suspected he thought she was trying to act sophisticated. In reality she was mainly trying not to embarrass him.

In a little while, they had assembled a couple of cases of wine to take back to Gordes. Once they were back in the car, Luke checked off most of the items from the list, but there were a few missing. He looked pensive for a moment and said, "I think the rest of this stuff we'll just have to order from Pierre at the wine shop in Gordes. I'd rather have Bordeaux and Burgundies for the red wines."

Marianne asked, "Wouldn't something a bit softer go better with the simple Provençal food that we would prefer?"

He laughed, "Dammit, you sound like Chantal! Okay, we'll get some of each. That's been a continuing disagreement between us for years. I like big, bold reds with a lot of tannin. She thinks softer, fruitier wine goes better with her cooking. I'm sure she's technically correct, but sometimes those soft reds taste mushy to me."

Marianne made a face that made it clear she didn't care one way or the other. They rode back to Gordes, satisfied with both their wonderful lunch and their wine purchases. They held hands like kids and watched the scenery whiz by the car windows.

They watched the sunset from the edge of the veranda, wrapped in a blanket. Once the sun went down it was too chilly to sit outside. They went into the living room where Chantal had laid a fire. Luke had told her they would not want a big dinner because they had eaten lunch so late, so she had left out a plate of cheese, fruit, nuts and a bottle of vintage port. There was a pitcher at the side of the table. Marianne curled up on the couch. Luke asked if she wanted a glass of wine. She shook her head and winked at him, "I'll have a glass of what's in that pitcher."

He obviously thought it was sangria and poured the contents in a wine-glass. The color was wrong. He tasted it and made a face. "You have got to be the only person I know who would prefer that vile shit to vintage port wine."

"Shut up and hand me the tea."

He brought the tray of food to the coffee table. They munched a little, talked a while. At one point, Luke turned on the TV. In flipping channels, they ran across a channel that was playing reruns of old American TV shows. They were playing an episode of _Dallas_. Luke kept flipping, Marianne sat up and waved, "Go back. I want to see that. I want to hear J.R. Ewing speak French!"

They watched the show for a few minutes, howling at the disconnect between the dubbed French voices and what they knew to be the actual American actors' voices. Luke asked her, "Did you watch that show?"

"Watch it? My God, Henry and I never went out on a Friday night for the entire run of the show, or if we did, we made it a point to be home before nine. I don't think we missed one episode, and we even watched the reruns. Did you watch it?"

He shrugged. "That show was on during a period when I was working really hard and playing even harder between movies. I watched enough episodes to know who was who, and Chantal – who never missed an episode and who recorded them to watch over and over – kept me up on the story line so I would understand what other people were talking about. I have never quite understood the attraction of soap operas."

She laughed and whispered in his ear, "That's because soap operas are all about fantasy for people who live ordinary lives. You were already living a fantasy life, and had no need to watch it on TV."

He rested his cheek against her hair and said, "You probably have a point, although I guess my life doesn't seem all that glamorous to me."

"Oh, yeah, traveling the world making movies in exotic places, being treated like royalty every where you go and bedding beautiful women at every stop along the way. How dull and boring it all must have been."

He looked at her closely to make sure she was kidding and she winked at him.

He said softly, "Speaking of bedding beautiful women..."

She interrupted, "Then you'd better go find one fast, 'cause this old bag is pooped."

He laughed and whispered, "You have no idea how glad I am to hear you say that."

Marianne went into the bathroom first while Luke made the rounds to lock up the house and let Chantal know they were going to bed. She was already in bed when he came into the room. He stopped inside the door. Marianne thought he was going to say something, but he just cleared his throat and went into the bathroom. A little while later he came out and crawled in bed beside her.

He murmured, "Sometimes getting old sucks."

Marianne whispered, "Oh, just shut up and go to sleep." She snuggled close in his arms. He smelled of soap and something spicy.

4 - Christmas

Luke's daughter, Christiane and her husband lived in Cannes, but they had business in Marseilles just before Christmas, so Diane had arranged for them to meet Christa and her family at the airport and drive them to Gordes. Christiane was delighted to have the chance to meet the daughter of Luke's "mystery woman." She told Diane she planned to check out this family carefully. Before they were past the outskirts of Marseilles, however, the 'checking out' part had been completed and they chatted like long-lost friends.

Christa and Madeleine both spoke French, not with native fluency, but well enough to have a relatively easy conversation. Richard did not speak French, but both Christiane (who was born and grew up in L. A.) and Georges (who had been dealing with a American movie people for years) spoke fluent English. Between Marseilles and Gordes, each family asked and answered dozens of questions.

They were a few miles outside Gordes when Madeleine asked the question that had been in the forefront of each one's mind but which no one had dared to verbalize, "Christiane, what do you suppose is up between MawMaw and your father?"

Christiane shrugged, "You tell me. I haven't seen them together, but you have. After Lisa died, he started to withdraw from life. He seemed to physically shrink. He still worked hard, but he spoke little and went out hardly at all between movies. He almost completely stopped making public appearances. He didn't even date for quite a while, and even when he did start keeping company with women again, it seemed to me his heart wasn't in it. I feared for him.

"Now, he is a different person. I can tell you that talking to my father on the phone these days is like speaking to someone I have never met. I have never heard that lightness in his voice. I don't know what it is, but I have to tell you, I like what being with your grandmother is doing to Papa."

Christa said, "Madeleine, you have seen them together. What were they like?"

Tears sprang to Madeleine's eyes. "Mom, it was positively the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I know they're old. Frankly, I have to tell you ...., um, well, never mind." The four adults all laughed. Madeleine blushed. "Anyway, they are like two teen-agers in love. It's beautiful... and a little gross."

Christa said, "Christiane, I am sure that we share concerns that our parents not be hurt, but from what I hear, they are very happy together. I am inclined to be supportive. It sounds to me as though you are at least willing to keep an open mind. How does your brother feel?"

Christiane hesitated for a long time before answering. She was obviously considering carefully what to say. Finally she smiled and said, "I'm going to let my 'American' side rule here and blurt out the truth. I've lived in France for a long time and have gotten out of the habit of being as open as I used to be when I lived in America. Anyway, here's the bottom line on my brother's attitude. My brother does not care who my father sleeps with. What he cares about is what my father intends to do with his money, of which, as you may have surmised, there is a LOT."

Christa said, "Oh, my God. I hadn't thought of that. Every dime your father spends on Maman is money out of your inheritance."

Christiane shuddered, "That sounds crass, but its certainly a factor to consider. You must understand that Papa has a small army of attorneys, accountants and others who look after his interests. I have been gratified to learn that Marianne has passed all their scrutiny. Not all of the women Papa has been interested in have passed muster. Papa always put up a fuss when his attorneys objected to a woman, but he ultimately gave in. He worked very hard to build the fortune he has. Even he understands that he needs to protect it from gold diggers. He has always been reasonable about that.

"Paul has always been somewhat overly concerned about Papa's fortune, at least in my opinion. He has not been able to embrace the idea of Marianne because of what he thinks the impact will be on his inheritance. I have been emphasizing to him that it won't make any difference. We are in fine shape. When Papa and Mom divorced, he agreed to pay her four million dollars a year in alimony. After she died, he continued the payments, dividing them equally between our trust funds. Paul and I each already have huge trust fund from Papa. We don't need any more. The problem is Paul inherited our mother's greedy gene. He may have reservations about their relationship because of that, but I can assure you he will not give so much as a hint of it in front of Marianne or Papa."

Madeleine asked, "How can you be so sure?"

Christiane said softly, "Because Papa laid down the law to each of us before he left L.A. If either of us so much as makes a sideways face at her, we will be invited to get the hell out of Gordes immediately and we won't be invited back any time soon."

Richard said to nobody in particular, "That sounds like a man who's got it bad."

Christiane added softly, "A man in a relationship that has survived more than thirty years without any nurturing."

They were all quiet the rest of the way to Gordes.

Luke and Marianne greeted them at the door with hugs, kisses and tears all around. The driver took their bags to the inn. Chantal served brunch in the dining room of Luke's house instead of the terrace because it was windy and a bit chilly outside. They ate, and then Marianne offered to take Christa and her family to the inn where they could check in and rest for a while after their trip. They took the back way, along the path between Luke's pool deck and the back veranda of the inn. Marianne walked along the path, arm-in-arm with Madeleine. Christa and Richard followed with their arms around each other. About half way to the inn, Christa stopped and said, through tears, "My God, Mom, this place is even more fabulous than your words and pictures showed."

Marianne smiled and said, "Oh, you haven't seen anything yet. Wait until sunset."

Marie-Claire was waiting for them on the porch. She said to Marianne, "I have put M. et Mme. Bannock in the room you once occupied. Mademoiselle will be across the hall. Will that serve?"

"Absolutely! Thank you, Marie-Claire." The entire group was to have dinner in the inn that evening.

Later in the afternoon, Marianne was sitting in the sun on the pool deck, half-listening to Luke, Christiane and Georges talking movie-talk. Their conversation was about people she didn't know and movies she hadn't seen. She was enjoying the fact that Luke and his daughter shared something that they were both so passionate about. Marianne didn't understand most of what they were talking about, but she loved listening to the intensity with which they spoke.

She noticed Christa come out the back door of the in and start down the path. She started to let her go, but then changed her mind. She stood up and said, "I do not mean to be rude, but I think I will join Christa for a walk."

They all smiled and Christiane said, "By all means, go. If you don't mind, I may try to catch up with you in a little while."

"Please do."

Marianne hurried down the path and caught up with Christa. They hugged and walked along together, with Marianne pointing out landmarks. After they were out of earshot of the house, Marianne said, "Thank you for coming."

"Thank you for inviting us. This is amazing." She paused for a minute and added, "Luke is every bit as wonderful as you said. And I really like Christiane also."

Marianne smiled and looked a bit bemused, "I am still not sure what to make of it all, but I'm simply trying to enjoy every day before I wake up and find it's all a dream."

Marianne went on, "I want to ask you something. I wanted to do this privately so if you say no, you can do so without losing face. I want to know if you would be willing to go with me to St. Saturnin-les-Apts. I had in mind for us to go tomorrow. If you and Richard want to go, I would love it. If not, I would invite Madeleine to come with you and me."

Christa thought about it for a long time. "Mom, I've been to Provence many times before, but I always avoided this particular region because I didn't want to go to St. Saturnin-les-Apts. Your stories and photos have always been so precious to me, I was afraid if I went there it would not be the same. If you want to go, I'll go with you. Perhaps it would be appropriate for you to take me and Madeleine. Richard is working on arranging a new piece of music; he has already warned me he plans to take full advantage of the artistic air of Provence. We will hardly see him while we are here. Could we borrow Luke's car and make it a chick trip?"

"Better than that: Luke has offered us both the car and a driver if Richard doesn't want to go."

"Do you have any contacts with people there?"

"Nobody who still lives in St. Saturnin-les-Apts."

"I'll call Philippe's daughter, Marcelline I know she still keeps in touch with some of her cousins in St. Saturnin-les-Apts." She pulled out her cell phone and pushed a couple of buttons. A few minutes later she was chatting in only slightly halting French with Philippe's daughter in Marseilles. She explained the plan for the following day and rang off a few minutes later. Looking up at her mother she said with a bit of a sheepish face, "I'm afraid we may both regret that I made that call."

"Why?"

"I think we may be met with a welcoming committee from the Villeneuve family."

"Oh. Imagine that!" They laughed.

Christiane caught up with them and they explained the plans for the next day. Christiane seemed somehow disappointed. Marianne said gently, "My dear, you are more than welcome to go with us."

Christiane shook her head sadly, "Oh, no. I wouldn't think to intrude on such a personal outing, but someday I would like to go there. My father has told me many times how lovely he thought it was and how nice the people were to him. I usually come up here after the Cannes Festival to rest. The lavender is in full bloom then." She hooked her arm through Marianne's and said, "Perhaps you and I could take a day trip at that time."

Marianne agreed immediately and insisted that she would hold Christiane to that offer. She thought it interesting that Christiane seemed to assume Marianne would still be in Gordes in May. On the one hand, she was gratified to know that Christiane accepted Marianne so readily in her father's life. On the other, Marianne had trouble thinking beyond the next day. Thinking ahead all the way to May was out of the question.

That evening, Marie-Claire and her son outdid themselves with a spectacular dinner that was both simple, in the way that Marianne and Luke preferred, but fancy enough to suit the sophisticated palates of Christiane and Georges. The families ate and talked and laughed as though they had known each other forever. At one point during the meal Christiane, Georges and Luke all looked at one another and laughed.

Christiane leaned across the table and, in a stage whisper, said to her father, "How's about you put on your thinking cap and come up with a way to dis-invite Paul. I like Marianne's family better than ours."

Luke reached across the table and tweeked her nose, "I'm glad you like them because I absolutely love them," he looked at Marianne, "-- some more than others. But, dis-inviting Paul will not help matters. Maybe if we surround him with such nice people, all this joy and happiness and love will rub off."

Christiane made a face and Georges muttered, "Yes, and someday pigs might fly."

Christiane and Luke glared at him for a minute and then they laughed. Christiane said to the others, "You need to understand, my brother is, how shall I say it.....?"

Luke said, "He's a son of a bitch. Literally."

"Papa, mother is dead. Give it a rest."

He sighed, "Yeah, I know. I should not speak ill of the dead and all that. Besides, I acknowledge that I contributed as much to our problems as she did, maybe more. But you know the thing about her that always infuriated me the most: She lived with Randy for more than 20 years and never married him in order to continue collecting four million dollars a year in alimony from me. He never made another movie after he hooked up with her. I essentially supported the both of them, and he was a bigger star than I was when she met him...."

He raised his hands, "I know. I know. It's water over the dam or under the bridge or wherever it went. I should let it go. I promise to try." He looked from Marianne to Christa to Madeleine and said, "I promise you, my son will mind his manners."

Marianne grinned and winked, "Who knows, perhaps we will win him over with our charms."

Luke laughed and said, "Lord knows they worked on me."

Marianne leaned over to Christiane and said, "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think perhaps your father has little resistance to feminine charms."

Christiane laughed, "My father doesn't even particularly require charm from a woman in order to be attracted to her. Usually a woman who is actually breathing is sufficient to get his attention," Luke glared at her and started to puff up in anger, but she hastened to add, "but, it takes one hell of a woman to make him fall in love." She looked at her dad and stuck out her tongue. He instantly relaxed and smiled.

Every one at the table was quiet for a moment.

Luke, Christiane and Georges planned to hang around the house on Christmas Eve. Christiane explained to Marianne that "hanging around the house" for all of them translated into working all day.

Richard planned to stay in the inn and work as well. When Marie-Claire found out what he was working on she cleaned up her sewing room and made it available to him so he could spread out his scores. She said with all the guests they had, she wouldn't have time to sew anyway. Richard was in heaven. Marianne muttered something about being surrounded by a bunch of derned workaholics, but she was secretly thrilled to have the opportunity to spend the day alone with Christa and Madeleine.

On the drive to St. Saturnin-les-Apts, they talked about the history and geography of the place. Madeleine had done a lot of reading about the area and was a regular font of information. As they drew closer to St. Saturnin-les-Apts they talked about Marianne's family. Marianne told Madeleine some of her mother's story. Christa filled them in on current information Marcelline had given her.

Marianne's Aunt Marcelline had died many years before and the majority of the younger members of the family had scattered, mostly moving closer to the coast. There were still a few cousins and distant relatives who lived in St. Saturnin-les-Apts. One of Aunt Marcelline's grandchildren lived in the family home and would be expecting them.

When they arrived in the village the driver asked for directions. Christa started to pull MapQuest directions out of her purse. Marianne piped up and rattled off the directions from her thirty-year old memory. Her recollection was perfect. A few minutes later they pulled up in front of the Villeneuve home. It looked much better than it had the last time. Christa explained that the granddaughter who lived there ran the café and wine shop that had belonged to Philippe. St. Saturnin-les-Apts had been subject to some of the same gentrification as Gordes, although its remote location kept it small. Nevertheless, it was a vastly more prosperous place than it had been when Marianne last visited. As they got out of the car, the front door of the house flew open, and about a dozen of Marianne's relatives spilled out onto the sidewalk.

There was hugging and double-cheek-kissing and simultaneous babbling. Christa and Madeleine could follow little of it partly because of the rapid French but also because everyone was talking at once. Marianne's comprehension skills had come back quickly, and she babbled right along with the rest of the family.

The women were led into the house where a light lunch was laid out for them. They had wine and soup, fabulous bread, dried fruit and locally grown olives. After much chatter, eating and then a round of taking photos, Aunt Marcelline's granddaughter suggested that perhaps Marianne, Christa and Madeleine might want to visit Marianne's mother's grave while the rest of them cleaned up from lunch. Marianne kissed the girl's cheek and thanked her.

The three women walked side-by-side up the hill toward Marianne's mother's grave. The family didn't have cows any more so the grass was high and clumped. The ground was uneven and walking was difficult. Christa took her mother's arm on one side and Madeleine put her arm around Marianne's waist from the other side. The lilac bush was not in bloom during that season, but it was still there, hanging over the small gravestone. Someone had cleared the grave and put a poinsettia by the grave marker. Probably the same someone had washed the bench as well.

Marianne stood by her mother's grave for a moment, holding her daughter on her right and her granddaughter on her left. She thought she might cry, but then realized she was far to happy to cry, and she knew her mother (who was the happiest person she had ever known) would want it that way. They sat on the bench and Marianne pointed out the sights, based on the stories her mother had told her when she was a child. They sat and talked for a while, until the sun went behind a cloud bank and it became too chilly to linger.

They walked slowly back to the house where they chatted briefly with Aunt Marcelline's granddaughter before thanking her for her hospitality and bidding her farewell.

Before they left, Christa fetched a package from the backseat of the car. It was a bottle of fine cognac which she offered as a Christmas gift from her family to theirs. Her cousin thanked her and promised to drink a toast to their American relatives during the family's supper following Midnight Mass.

Christa asked her mother if she wanted to walk around the town. Marianne said she was ready to go home unless Christa and Madeleine wanted to explore. Christa and Madeleine exchanged smiles when they heard Marianne refer to Luke's house as "home". Madeleine said, "No, Maw Maw, I'm ready to get back. I have some presents to wrap and I promised Mom I'd make sure Daddy doesn't work every minute of the whole weekend."

The women talked little on the drive back to Gordes. Because Madeleine asked the driver to stop a number of times so she could take pictures, the trip took longer than it should have, but they were in no particular hurry. As they drew near Gordes, Marianne became agitated. Christa asked her if she was nervous about meeting Luke's son. She made a face and shrugged, "No. I'm not afraid of Paul." She laughed, and put her hands in front of her face, saying, "You'll think I'm silly."

"What is it, Mom?"

"This is the longest I've been away from Luke since we reunited, and I guess I'm just excited to see him."

Madeleine chuckled and poked her grandmother with her elbow, "He's a hunk alright. Let me ask you something: have you seen all of his movies?"

Her grandmother replied in a quiet, thoughtful voice, "No, as a matter of fact I have only seen a couple of his movies, and don't you dare tell him that. I saw a few of his really early stuff before I met him. After I married Henry, I never dared to suggest we see a Luke Payne movie. They were often so controversial and most of them were R-rated. Henry would never go to a movie that was rated more than PG. That was just as well, because I'm not sure how I would have reacted to a Luke Payne movie at that point. I'm guessing I would have laughed and or cried at inappropriate places. After you gave us that VCR player, I rented _When the Bombs Came Down_ and watched it one day when Henry was at work. I don't think I've seen any of his movies since then."

Madeleine grinned, "You might want to keep it that way, Maw Maw."

"Why?"

"Well, um. I guess you could say that people who've seen all of his movies have probably at one time or another seen about, um, all of him. I told you in the class I'm taking we have seen most of his movies. One of the ones we watched just before you sprung him on me was the movie he made right after _When the Bombs Came Down_. It was really steamy."

Marianne laughed. "I see."

Madeleine blushed. Christa and Marianne laughed.

Christa changed the subject so as to let Madeleine recover a bit, and said, "Geez, Mom, you've got it bad, don't you?"

Marianne said, "You have no idea."

"I am really, really happy for you, Mom."

"Maw Maw, if it's not to personal, can I ask you a question."

"As long as it doesn't involve Luke's physique."

Madeleine blushed almost purple and Christa poked her mother telling her to knock it off and quit embarrassing the poor child. Marianne poked her back and laughed, turning to Madeleine and asking, "What do you want to know?"

"Well, you were married to Kris Delios and then you were marred to Paw Paw. Were you as happy with them as you are with Mr. Payne?"

Marianne thought about that for a long time. She said, "I loved Kris. We grew up together. We were friends and we learned about life and love together. We were partners in life, in business, in love, in parenting. It never crossed my mind we would not grow old together. Kris and the Olympia Restaurant were my world. It was beyond imagining that I would ever have to live without either of them. The early years of our marriage was a deliriously happy time for me.

"After Kris sold the restaurant and left, I was humiliated and devastated. I could not give in or give up, however, because Christa was a little child. I had her to live for. I could not and would not let her see how devastated I was. We became a team. Our goal was to get her through college. She was my world in those years. It was my plan to send her off to college and then figure out what the hell I would do with the rest of my life.

"I came to France and met Luke after delivering Christa into the care of the University of South Carolina. Meeting Luke was a thrill that sort of kick-started my heart, and – since you brought it up – my libido. I guess it made me realize that my life wasn't over and I wanted to live and to love again.

"The problem was that as much as I was intoxicated by Luke, I realized that, at that point in my life, couldn't face the kind of life I would have had with him. So I went home and I married Henry.

"Before I went to France I already knew Henry was in love with me. I wouldn't date him because I thought he was boring. After I met Luke, I realized that marrying Henry might be the right thing for me to do. I'm basically a shy and backward person. I grew up in the kitchen of a popular restaurant. I like being behind the scenes, in the background. Henry and I were perfect together. He was the high school principal and the church organist. He was quiet, unassuming and exceedingly conservative in many ways, but he was a strong person in his own way, which I needed. He was also a dear and good man who loved me and whom I came, much more quickly than I expected, to love in return. I took to small town life better than I expected. Our life was quiet and peaceful and safe. In short, while it may seem odd – especially coming on the heels of my affair with Luke, I really was happy in Aiken with Henry.

"I truly think I was happier during those years than I would have been if I had followed Luke to L. A, where I would have been thrust in the spotlight (which I hate) and faced with the prospect of his relentless catting around."

Christa started and said, "You think he would have cheated on you?"

Marianne laughed and nodded, "I'd bet on it. He was not ready to settle down at that point in his life. I knew it. I think in his heart he knew it too."

She turned to Madeleine and too her hands, "Sweetheart, let me tell you something I hope you remember: happiness does not come from outside or from anyone else, it comes from inside of you. I've always been happy, because I've chosen to be happy in whatever situation I found myself. Now, I choose to be happy once again – perhaps one last time – with a man I have loved for a long time. A man who changed my life and whose life I changed. When the day comes that you have to make a choice, remember that you have to be able to live with yourself first and foremost. You have to be happy with the person you are regardless of the person you are with."

Christa put her head on her mother's shoulder and asked, "Mom, do you ever wonder what happened to Daddy?"

Huge tears filled Marianne's eyes and dripped down the front of her shirt. She brushed them away and said hoarsely, "Nearly every day." She waved her hands to ward off any more questions.

They were almost back to Gordes. She did not want to think about bad things when she knew Luke was waiting for her.

Christa leaned across to Madeleine and said, "Your grandmother is a living embodiment of a person who lives for the moment."

Marianne laughed and said, "'Il faut vivre chaque heure comme c'etait la derniere!'"

Luke met them at the door when they returned. Christiane and Georges had badgered Richard to stop working and join them. Paul had arrived in the late morning. He and Lucas had rested for a while. By the time the women returned, the clan had gathered in Luke's living room for cocktails. Luke introduced Christa and Madeleine to Paul and Lucas and then took Marianne's hand and said, "This is Marianne. I hope you will be friends."

Marianne took Paul's hand in both of hers and said, "I hope we will be as well." She grinned, winked and said in a stage whisper, "Or at least let's at least pretend to tolerate one another in order in order to disappoint those who are waiting for fireworks."

For a second, Paul looked shocked, then he laughed, genuinely amused. She had disarmed him completely and everybody knew it. He leaned forward and kissed her cheek, whispering, "Touché." She grinned at him and said softly, "What do you say?"

He grinned back and nodded, saying, "Any woman who can make my father look as ecstatic as he does right now and also cut me off at the knees like that deserves at least the benefit of the doubt." He grinned and kissed her on the cheek. Marianne was thrilled to think that she had overcome the hurdle of Paul so quickly and easily. She glanced at Luke; he looked as thought he might burst out laughing. She was afraid to so much as glance at anyone else.

Next she bent down to greet Lucas, who was sitting on the floor working a puzzle on the coffee table. He stood up and took her hand, saying with more dignity than any four-year old should have, "It's a pleasure to meet you, ma'am. I hope you speak English because I don't speak any French yet."

Marianne, Christa and Madeleine all looked surprised. Marianne said, "I'm delighted to meet you, too, Lucas. Tell me, where do you live?"

He said, "I live most of the time in Atlanta with my mommy or, when she's traveling, I stay with my maw maw. Some of the time I visit Daddy in Chicago or in other places when he is traveling."

Marianne smiled. That explained the "ma'am" and the delightfully familiar accent that seemed so out of place in Luke's family.

Lucas went back to his puzzle and the adults chatted over drinks until Chantal announced dinner.

They had agreed in advance that each family would exchange Christmas gifts in private so as to eliminate any awkwardness that might arise from the vast difference between the kinds of gifts they would be likely to exchange. Everyone brought gifts for Lucas, however, which they showered on him after dinner. Even Christa's family brought him a gift, which caused a moment of awkwardness. They had no idea Lucas lived in Atlanta, but Luke had told them he loved baseball, so they had bought him a Chicago Cubs baseball hat. He tried not to look disappointed, and announced that he would wear it when he was in Chicago visiting his father. He added that he was really loved the Braves best of all baseball teams. Richard, who shared season tickets with several other people in the orchestra, offered to make arrangements to take him to a Braves home game over the summer. After he climbed up in Richard's lap to thank him with hugs and kisses, he went running for the phone to call his mother and tell her he was going to a baseball game.

Christa glanced at the clock and looked at Paul, "Isn't it the wee hours in Atlanta. Won't he wake his mother?"

Paul had an odd expression on his face when he said, "Probably not."

After Lucas went to sleep in the guest room, the adults played cards for a while, until it became evident that Marianne and Christa were regular card sharks, at which point the rest of the group refused to play with them any more. After that, they sat around and talked. Luke and Marianne filled his family in on some of the stories about their first meeting and how they reconnected. The party broke up early and each family unit retreated to its own space.

Luke went into the bedroom while Marianne stood out on the veranda, seeing the kids off to the inn. Paul said something about taking Lucas back to the inn. Marianne said, "Paul, if you want to stay with him, just crawl in bed here. Don't wake him up. On the other hand, if you prefer, go on back to the inn. He'll be fine here. We'll watch out for him."

Paul kissed her cheek and said, "You know, I wouldn't say this in front of anybody else because it would ruin my reputation as a total bastard, but I like you. I am very glad to have you in my dad's life. He has a light in his eyes I haven't seen in a long time.

"If you don't mind, I'll take you up on the offer to let Lucas stay here. We only have one double bed in our room at the inn and the little dude kicks like a mule."

Marianne patted his arm and said, "We'll take good care of him."

Paul headed for the inn, and Marianne checked on Lucas. He stirred in his sleep and she whispered that if he needed anything, he should come fetch her across the hall. He mumbled something, sleepily acknowledging he had heard her. She pushed his hair off his forehead and kissed him. He smiled in his sleep.

Luke was already in bed when she crossed the hall to the bedroom. She left the door open, changed into her pajamas and climbed into bed. She snuggled under the covers and he drew her into the circle of his arms. He asked, "How come you left the door open?"

"Lucas is spending the night. I want to be able to hear him if he wakes up and calls us."

"Why didn't Paul take him back to the inn?"

"Because I told him not to disturb the child."

"I think today went well, don't you?"

She put her arms around him and gushed, "Oh, it was beyond wonderful!"

On Christmas Day the family slept in and then spent the day hiking and biking the trails around Gordes. Late in the afternoon, they gathered for a traditional American Christmas dinner. Chantal had picked up a lot of American recipes in nearly forty years in America. In addition, she invited Marianne and Christa to help not only with the menu and recipes, but with the cooking as well. Madeleine hung out in the kitchen, watching and learning, the way endless generations of young women have been indoctrinated into the Sisterhood of great cooks. The women cooked and talked and laughed. Chantal periodically disappeared into the living room to refill drinks for Christiane and the men.

Madeleine was a little offended that Christiane had not joined them in the kitchen. Her mother hushed her, "That is the way she was raised. She probably thinks we're uncouth for hanging out in here."

When Chantal came back in the kitchen Marianne asked her what they were doing. Chantal said, "They are all working."

Marianne said, "What?"

"They are working. Well, Mme. Christiane, Mssrs Georges, Paul and Richard are working. M. Luke is sitting on the floor coloring pictures with Lucas. Someone will have to help him get up off the flagstones when it is time to eat." She puffed, more offended by Luke sitting on the floor than by the rest of them working on Christmas Day.

Christa said, "I'm gonna kill him!" and headed toward the door.

Marianne stopped her. She put her arm around Christa and said, "Come. Look." They peeked into the living room where every single face was totally concentrated on their respective laptop computers. Every one of them was totally engaged in their work. Marianne said, "How can you deny them their passion?"

Luke saw them standing there and seemed to read their minds. He looked up, winked and glanced at his watch, mouthing "fifteen minutes." They knew he was going to break up the work party soon, so they backed off.

Christa glared at Richard, but he was oblivious. Luke winked at her and shooed her into the kitchen. Marianne said, "Luke's right, you know."

"About what?"

"As long as you don't need him for something, why not let Richard work whenever he wants to. He loves it so much. I know he spends lots of time with you, so it isn't like you're a neglected wife. Why do you get on his case about it?"

"Because it isn't good for him to work so much?"

"Why not? He loves it. It makes him happy. How can that not be good for him?"

Christa shook her head and said, "Oh, you're probably right. He's in good company here with this gang of workaholics, I guess. I guess I'll let him have his fun in his own way."

"That's the spirit! Now, let's go have fun in our way. Do you want to mash the potatoes or shall I?"

"I gotta tell you, Mom, I think Chantal is going to mash the potatoes, and I'm betting there won't be one single lump. I saw a ricer on the sink."

"You think you can eat smooth mashed potatoes."

"I don't know. I've never had totally creamy mashed potatoes. We always leave lumps."

"This is Chantal's kitchen, she calls the shots."

"Are you ever going to get used to having domestic help?"

"Probably not."

"How do you manage?"

"I pretend it is a plural marriage. Chantal is the number one wife. I'm the newbie. I simply do as I'm told."

Christa laughed so hard she couldn't catch her breath, but she also couldn't tell Madeleine or Chantal why she was so hysterical.

A little later, Marianne marched into the living room and announced that dinner would be ready shortly. Lucas asked if there were to be biscuits at dinner. Paul rolled his eyes and said, "God forbid that the child should go a few days without biscuits."

Marianne stood up and said, "To be honest, I'm having biscuit withdrawal myself." She turned to Lucas and said in her broadest Low Country drawl, "Why of course, sugah, there will be biscuits! Just give me a few minutes."

He beamed and said, "You called me 'sugah' just like my mawmaw."

Marianne smiled and said, "Well, let's just see how my biscuits stack up against your mawmaw's."

She disappeared into the kitchen and in no time the smell of biscuits wafted through the house as a top note over the turkey, dressing, ham and all the other sides. Chantal brought the rest of the food to the table while Marianne took the biscuits out of the oven.

She offered the first one to Lucas and the second to Luke. They both smiled and nodded vigorously with their mouths full. They both held two thumbs up – way up! The rest of the dinner was equally fabulous. Chantal, Christa and Marianne had each contributed their specialties and collaborated on everything else. Everyone said it was the best Christmas dinner any of them had ever tasted.

Christiane said she was a little embarrassed that she had nothing to contribute. She looked sad when she said, "I've never learned to make coffee, much less make any contribution to a meal like that. It makes me feel somewhat inadequate."

Christa leaned over and patted her hand saying, "All good cooks need appreciative eaters. You fill an extremely valuable role."

Richard gave her an impish look and said, "I always thought that was what men were for."

Christa nodded and said, "That, and cutting the grass." Then she felt foolish, she was pretty sure none of the men at the table other than her husband had ever cut the grass.

Georges saved him, "Christiane always tells me my main job is keeping her feet warm at night."

The conversation was light and affectionate through the rest of dinner. No one wanted dessert immediately after dinner, so they took their coffee into the living room to talk for a while. Marianne and Christa had a hard time walking away from the table without pitching in to help with the clean up. Chantal shooed them away, saying she had hired extra helpers for the aftermath.

As they lounged around in the living room, digesting their marvelous meal, Marianne shook her head and sipped her coffee and said, "This is the first time in my entire life I have walked away from the table on Christmas and not cleaned up."

Madeleine asked, "Maw Maw, when you owned the restaurant were you open on Christmas?"

"No. We closed on Christmas Eve at 9:00 p. m. and we didn't open again until breakfast the day after Christmas. It was the only day of the year the restaurant was closed. It was funny: your dad's parents ran a restaurant. My mother cooked. I cooked. Mama Delios cooked as did all her daughters and daughters in law. You'd think that the one day of the year we closed we'd order pizza or something. Not so! As soon as we closed on Christmas Eve, we started cooking for our family Christmas meals. The first meal we prepared was for after church on Christmas Eve. The Delios family went to Midnight Mass at the Greek Orthodox Church. We typically had 'supper' around 3:00 a. m., in the kitchen at the restaurant.

"On Christmas Day we went to the Delios' house and ate every manner of Greek treat imaginable. The women cooked all day preparing the feast.

"After all that, the women arrived at the restaurant by 5:30 a. m. the day after Christmas to start baking the bread for breakfast."

Christa smiled and looked a little chagrined, "And I fuss at Richard for working too hard."

Christiane said, "There's no such thing as working too hard if you totally love with what you do."

Richard jumped up and kissed Christiane on the cheek, then turned to Christa and pointed at Christiane saying, "SEE!?"

Christa threw up her hands and said, "You are hopeless."

Richard cocked his head and said, "How many hours a day do you play the piano even outside of school."

"That's different."

Luke looked at her through narrowed eyes and asked, "Explain to us exactly how it's different."

"I play because I love to play."

Luke turned his hand palm up and made a graceful sweeping gesture that pointed at all the other adults, ending with himself, "And we, too, love what we do."

They were quiet for a while, sipping coffee and brandy and letting that sink in. They had not been paying attention to Lucas who had pulled out a very large piece of paper into the middle of the floor. He was intently drawing a picture of the room and all the people in it. It was an amazing drawing for the work of a four-year-old.

Christa commented quietly, "Looks like another artist is in the pipeline."

Paul smiled and said very softly, "I think he's got the makings of a set designer or an architect. He's fascinated with spaces and shapes. He drives his pre-school teacher crazy rearranging the room every day."

They watched Lucas concentrating and struggling to make the picture just right. Marianne was contemplating going into the kitchen to ask Chantal to serve dessert when Lucas sat up and looked around almost as though he were waking from a nap. Everyone in the room knew that feeling of being surprised by coming back to "normal" after a period of intense concentration. Lucas stood up and stretched, then he walked over to Marianne and climbed up in her lap.

He said, "I heard Madeleine call you Maw Maw. You are a lot like my mawmaw." He paused and looked from Marianne to Luke and back, "Poppi used to have Granny Lisa, but she died. Poppi was very sad for a long time and everybody was worried about him. But, now he is happy again and you are here. Does that mean you my Granny Marianne?"

Marianne did not look up to see the six pairs of eyes blinking furiously, nor did she see Luke's eyes spilling over. She focused totally on the child's question and said softly, "No. I am not your Granny. Grannies are part of the family. I am a really, really dear friend. I love your Poppi very much and, now that I have met you and your family, I think that I shall love you all, too. You could call me Miss Marianne if you want or you could make up some funny nickname like people do in the South."

He beamed and said, "Yeah, Maw Maw has all kinds of friends with funny made-up names. I have one for you."

"What will you call me?"

"Biz."

"Biz? That's interesting. What does that stand for?"

"Promise you won't laugh."

She shook her head, "You know perfectly well I'll laugh. That the point of a nickname, it's supposed to be funny. What does Biz mean?"

"It means, the Biscuit Lady!"

The entire room erupted in hoots and howls. The laughter gave everyone the excuse to wipe away the residual tears without embarrassment, but then Lucas threw everybody another curve. He started to walk back to his picture. Just before resuming his work he looked up at Marianne and said, "You know, Biz, I like you a whole lot and I wish you really were a part of our family."

Marianne's eyes filled with tears and she said, "Thank you." She swallowed hard and stood up, intending to head for the kitchen in order to bring out the pies. She looked around and saw every head in the room nodding. She didn't dare look at Luke. She hurried into the kitchen to compose herself.

Marianne came back with the dessert cart bearing traditional American pumpkin and pecan pie, contributed by Marianne, and a pumpkin and chocolate torte that Marie-Claire had invented, and which nobody touched. They ate dessert and then the rest of the family walked back to the Inn to pack and prepare to leave the next morning. Paul and Lucas had originally planned to stay on for a few days after Christmas, but Paul had received a phone call on Christmas Eve that required him to return to Chicago immediately after Christmas.

Luke and Marianne kissed them each good-night at the back gate. They stood there in the moonlight listening to the voices recede and finally fade as they entered the inn. Soon the chill drove them inside. Luke asked if she wanted an Armagnac She smiled and said, "It seems the last time you gave me Armagnac you took advantage of me."

He said, "And then you broke my heart."

She said, "Maybe we should drink something else."

He grinned, "I would agree except I happen to love the stuff. I think we should give it another shot. What do you say?"

She smiled and nodded. While he was pouring the drinks she sat biting her lower lip. He noticed and said, "That will give you chapped lips. Knock it off."

She stood up and said, "While you're doing that, I want to change. I'll be right back."

Luke leered at her in a joking way and said, "Are you going to slip into something more comfortable?"

She mumbled, "Something like that."

He poured the brandy and set the glasses on the coffee table in front of the love seat. Then he went to find Chantal in the kitchen. He thanked her profusely for her efforts during the holiday and handed her an envelope that she knew without opening it would contain an outrageous cash Christmas bonus. She planned to take off at least a week to spend with her family. He wished her Happy New Year and told her he would look forward to seeing her in a couple of weeks. She asked, "Will you be here or back in LA?"

He said softly, "If things work out as I hope, I will be here."

Tears came to her eyes. Gordes was her home. She longed to move back there full time. If Luke made it his primary residence she could do so. She also knew that if he took up permanent residence in Gordes it would be because he wanted to shelter Marianne from the busy-ness of LA. She said, "I will call you in approximately ten days to find out where you will be."

"Very well."

He kissed her cheek and returned to the living room. He stopped in the doorway. Marianne was sitting on the love seat in the same pink dress she wore on her birthday so long ago. She was wearing the pearl-and-cameo necklace, as well. The dress still fit perfectly, perhaps a little better because she was thinner. Her breasts were a little less full than they had been, her hair was gray (which actually looked fabulous against the pink silk) and her neck was a bit saggy. Luke did not notice any of results of time and age; he was so in love with her he thought she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

She patted the seat beside her and he sat down, as much to keep from falling down as anything else. She leaned close to him and said, "I thought and thought and thought about what to give you for Christmas. You have everything. There is nothing material I could buy you or make for you that you don't have or couldn't buy for yourself. So, I decided to give you the only thing I have that you might possibly want. I ran away from you before because I was afraid and because I believed you were not really ready to settle down. What I'm giving you now is me. I'm not going to run away again. The only thing I have to offer you is myself. Now. Tomorrow. Forever, or," she paused and then continued with a ragged voice, "at least until you don't want me any more."

He took a moment to compose himself and then said, "Well, then, I'm guessing I can quit worrying about whether or not you will accept the gift I have for you."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring box containing a large but not ostentatious diamond solitaire. He opened it, held it out for her to see and said, "Marry me."

"Oh, Luke, you don't need to go that far....."

He put his hand over her mouth and said, "Shh. I do need to go that far. I love you and I don't want to lose you again. I never want anyone to look at you the way that bitch who is married to Braddock Austin looked at you. I bought this the next day and have been carrying it around in my pocket waiting for the opportune moment to give it to you. This evening it cannot have escaped your notice that every person in this room, including even Paul, agreed with Lucas that we should be a family. This will make that happen."

She looked at him for a long time until she was certain that he was serious. Then she nodded, and he slid the ring on her finger.

They took a only couple of sips of the brandy before going to bed. Marianne laughed about the fact that the most beautiful dress she had ever owned kept ending up in a heap on the floor. Luke buried his face in her hair and said, "I think we should retire that dress after tonight. It has more than served its intended purpose."

The next morning, they walked over to the Inn for breakfast. No one heard them come in the back door; they paused in the doorway. Their combined children and grandchildren were already filling their plates from the breakfast buffet. The French contingent made do with croissants and coffee. The Americans tucked in to eggs, bacon and toast (Marie-Claire didn't even attempt biscuits) with an assortment of local jams and jellies. The group joked, laughed and made wise-cracks as though they were a family with a long history of inside jokes, not a collection of folks who'd only met a few days before. The merging of their families had already begun. Luke and Marianne wrapped their arms around each other and lost themselves in the joy they felt at being together in the presence of the people they loved most.

Madeleine noticed them first. She looked at them, cocked her head to the side with her eyebrows raised, and then grinned. She said loud enough to quiet the group, "Why do I think you two have some kind of announcement to make?"

Marianne beamed and Luke blurted, "Because we do."

He walked over to Lucas and chucked him under the chin saying, "I owe you a debt of thanks, Sport. Someday you'll understand why." Then he walked back to Marianne and put his arm around her. He said, "It should come as no surprise to you that I am not about to let this woman get away again. We are going to be married. We have not worked out details about when or where, but we will be married as soon as it can be arranged....."

Anything else he might have been about to say was drowned out by the commotion as Luke and Marianne were rushed by the rest of the family and smothered with hugs and kisses and exclamations of joy.

Luke and Marianne originally planned to go to the airport in Marseilles to see the kids off, but Christiane suggested they say their goodbyes in Gordes. Marianne whispered to Luke that perhaps the kids needed some time together to process the announcement they had sprung. He agreed.

After a long, noisy and very festive breakfast, Luke and Marianne bade farewell to their children and grandchildren in the driveway of the inn. After that, they returned to Luke's empty house.

He put in a call to his attorney in Paris to ask about the French marriage requirements. The attorney explained what was necessary in the way of residency requirements and documentation. Luke howled when the attorney mentioned the need a 'certification of celibacy'; he said with his reputation he would never be able to get that. The attorney explained that it really only meant a certification that neither of them was already married.

Luke wanted to be married before the Academy Awards in February. The attorney said they would be cutting it close, but he calculated out the days for residency and determined that they could be married by the first of February. Luke told him to get the paperwork started for the marriage contract and to grease whatever palms were necessary to expedite the marriage license. He gave the attorney the name of his lawyer in LA so the two of them could work together to gather the required documentation. He ended the conversation by saying, "I don't need to say this but I'm going to spell it out anyway: this is top secret. I don't want anyone to know about what we're doing."

He and Marianne holed up in Gordes to establish the requisite 40 days residency. Marianne thought those were among the happiest weeks of her life. Their days were spent walking the paths that wound through the countryside, riding bikes, reading and talking for hours about nothing in particular.

Via many emails and one long final transatlantic conference call, the family decided that Luke and Marianne would marry in a private ceremony in France the first of February. The children would not attend the wedding so as not to attract attention. The entire clan would, however, gather in L. A. for the Academy Awards the week after the wedding. Christa and Richard wanted to demur on attending the awards program because they felt it was really an evening for Luke's own family. That statement was met by a torrent of protest from everyone else on the phone. The entire family, including Christa, Richard and Madeleine, would be expected to gather in L. A. to celebrate the marriage and to attend the Academy Awards. There were to be no excuses and no exceptions.

Luke announced that he would not tolerate any borrowed clothing or jewels among his family group. He put Christiane in charge of making the arrangements with a designer from Dior to provide clothing for each of the members of his family. Each of them knew it would be an important evening for Luke. He wanted his family to look the part of something like the royal family of Hollywood, if only for that one evening. There were a few protests about that but they were faint and perfunctory.

Paul asked, "Dad, do you think it would be okay for Lucas to come to the awards?"

Luke didn't answer until he managed to get the lump out of his throat at the thought that Paul wanted to bring his son. "If he wants to attend, I would love to have him there. He needs to understand that it will be a long time for him to sit still."

"He really wants to be there. He's already worked out that an Ipod and a video game ought to help." He chuckled, "The kid's only four but he can work all the angles. He's figured out a way to make you happy and get me to give him some cool electronic toys in one shot."

At the end of the call, Luke asked, "Does anyone mind not coming to the wedding?"

There was a long silence followed by a chorus of "nos". Christa spoke for the group, "Luke, you and mom shared Christmas with us. You're going to include all of us in the celebration of your amazing career award. We think it would be appropriate for the two of you to marry in the company of your friends and family in Gordes." The rest of them murmured their agreement.

Marianne suggested that Marie-Claire and Jean-Michel witness their wedding, since they witnessed the birth of their love so many years before. After they got off the phone with their children, they walked over to the inn and asked the Roberts to witness their wedding. Through tears, kisses and hugs, the Roberts agreed with pleasure.

Chantal came back from her vacation and immediately had a wedding to plan. She joked with Luke about expecting an even bigger bonus than usual that year. He responded by adding, "How about a raise now?"

She smiled and replied, "Whatever you say, boss."

The marriage took place at the town hall in Gordes at midmorning on the first Saturday in February. Virtually all of the permanent residents of Gordes, many of whom were distantly related to Luke and/or Chantal, turned out. A number of Marianne's relatives from St. Saturnin-les-Apts attended as well. Marie-Claire and Chantal supervised a buffet luncheon laid out on long tables in the town square. It was a private wedding that was a community event. The loyalty of their friends in Gordes was such that no one took any photos other than the official photographer Luke had hired and no one so much as mentioned the wedding to any outsiders, even their closest friends and family. If the news of the marriage leaked to the outside world, it would not come from their neighbors in Gordes.

Marianne had been concerned that the press would pick up on the story when the banns were published ten days before the wedding. She was delighted to learn that nobody in the press considered a marriage in such a remote village between Jean-Luc de la Peine and Marianne Delphine Corbett was noteworthy.

They spent the first few days of their marriage at home in Gordes, then they went to Paris for fittings of gowns Luke had ordered for Marianne from Dior. The trip to Paris was quick and clandestine; they hardly left their hotel suite other than for Marianne's visits to the designers at Dior. The designers made the necessary alterations, after which Luke and Marianne headed for LA. The dresses and suits were shipped to Luke's house in Malibu by overnight courier.

Luke did not want anyone to see them together. He went so far as to suggest they travel separately, but Marianne would have none of that. Instead, they traveled as a the de la Peines from Gordes. Luke spoke little, especially once they got on the Delta Jet bound for L. A. Their cover story was that he didn't speak any English. Marianne put on a heavy French accent when she spoke with the stewardesses. Luke whispered that she should have been an actress; she was that good.

When they arrived in LA, they went directly to a waiting limo where they were whisked off to Luke's house in Malibu. Diane arranged for someone else to pick up their bags and deliver them to the house. Chantal had returned directly from Gordes to open the beach house and prepare it for the festivities to come. She and Diane worked together as a team, as they had done for decades. They had a long-standing joke that it took both of them to keep Luke's life and career on track. Luke would have agreed with them had he ever heard them say it.

Luke wanted to have a huge party after the Academy Awards, which would be essentially a wedding reception and introduction of Marianne to his friends as well as an opportunity to celebrate his movie career. Instead of renting a ballroom, he instructed Diane to rent the two houses on either side of his home. That way the party could spill out onto the beach and guests could move from house to house.

Diane had said, "Luke you're one of the permanent residents of Malibu who bitches the loudest about the noisy corporate parties in the rental houses on Malibu Beach. Are you sure you want to do this?"

He said, "I hate those loud obnoxious corporate parties, but this won't be one of them. It will probably be a loud, obnoxious party, but it will be attended by the residents of Malibu and my friends in the business. I think that my marriage and my career deserve a party, don't you?"

Diane agreed, and added, "What, exactly, do you have up your sleeve, Luke?"

He hemmed and hawed a minute, and then said, "I think you and Chantal deserve to hear my plans from me directly. Plan to meet me at my house when we arrive home on Thursday. I want to talk to you and Chantal together. In private."

He ignored the choked gasp on the other end of the phone.

When the limo pulled up in front of the house, Chantal and Diane greeted them with hugs and kisses, and not a few tears from Diane. These women had each worked for Luke for most of his career. They had both seen many women come and go, yet they somehow accepted Marianne into Luke's life – and theirs – , and she deeply appreciated it.

After the initial round of greetings was done, Luke turned to Marianne and said, "As a caterer, I'm guessing you will probably manage to insert yourself into the preparations for the party. If Chantal is agreeable to that, you are welcome to contribute. Right now, however, I want to talk to Diane and Chantal alone, if you don't mind."

Marianne shrugged and smiled at the three of them, saying, "Not a problem. I'm exhausted. I'm going to bed."

Chantal asked, "Do you want me to send up a plate later?"

Marianne looked at the clock. "No, thank you. I'm sure I'll sleep through. I'll eat a big breakfast."

Luke, Chantal and Diane went into his office and closed the door. They remained there for a long time. When they came out, all three of them were in tears. Chantal went to her apartment and a car picked Diane up to take her home. Luke poured a drink and called his lawyer, leaving a long, detailed voice message. Then he went up to bed.

He was very grateful Marianne was already asleep. He did not feel like talking.

5 - The Academy Awards

Christiane and Georges arrived on Friday night so as to get over their jet lag before the ceremony on Sunday. The rest of the family arrived on on Saturday morning. Luke didn't have room for the entire group at his beach house, so he rented a house a short distance up the beach from his place. Luke had ordered _haute couture_ gowns from Dior for the women and had thrown in new tuxedos from Armani for the men, and even a miniature version for Lucas. Luke had been in the movie business a long time, and knew the critical importance of appearances at Hollywood events. In recent years, there were very few times when the Hollywood pantheon went on parade in gala attire. For the most part even movie premiers were no longer black tie events, which Luke thought was unfortunate.

The Academy Awards, however, remained the Big Night of the year. Luke told Marianne that Lisa had always referred to it, disparagingly, as Prom Night. Whatever one called it, this particular night was important to Luke, and he meant to stage-manage it down to the last detail.

Originally, the plan was for the family, including Marianne, to by-pass the Red Carpet and meet Luke inside the auditorium. While they were waiting for the kids to come to lunch at Luke's house on Saturday, he and Marianne sat on the beach. He took her hand and asked her if she would be willing to accompany him for his grand entrance. He knew it would be hard for her, but he said he wanted to share his greatest triumph with his dearest love, if she were willing to humor him.

She put her hand over his and said, "Of course, I'll do it, if that's what you want. I know I'll be terrified. Please don't make me say anything to those interviewers and don't let go of my hand for an instant, but I can do it, if you want me to, at least this once." She looked up into his face and added, "You know I'd do almost anything you asked."

He kissed her. Just then, the kids walked up. Paul laughed and said, "Oh, geez, already with the mushy stuff. He put on an Archie Bunker Brooklyn accent and added, 'It's the middle of the daaaaaaaaaaaaay!'" They all laughed.

The family spent the rest of the day relaxing and talking. Marianne showed everyone the wedding pictures so many times that finally even Madeleine said, "You know, Maw Maw, you might want to give that a rest." Everyone laughed, but nobody disagreed.

Sunday, the day of the Awards dawned bright and clear. Luke and Marianne took a walk on the beach early in the morning and then stopped by the house where the kids were congregated. They approached from the beach and walked into a moderately chaotic scene.

The day had been planned out by Paul, Christiane and Christa with almost military precision. Paul's company had VIP tickets to the viewing area just outside the door of the auditorium. He, Christiane, Georges and Madeleine planned to go there early to watch the stars make their entrances. Everybody knew that for Paul, Christiane and Georges the entire event was strictly business. Christiane and Georges would be laying the ground work for the Cannes Film Festival in May, and Paul would be twisting arms of studio execs to get first run movies for his theater chain. Madeleine was going along for the experience. They planned to leave the house by 1:00 p. m.

Christa and Richard would bring Lucas with them later in the afternoon, so Lucas could have a nap and to minimize the amount of time he would have to be still. Their limo would drop them off at the back of the auditorium shortly before the show was to begin. They would join the others in the reviewing area in time to watch Luke and Marianne make their entrance.

Just as Luke and Marianne walked into the living room house, Christiane and Christa were barking orders and Madeleine was mapping out a bathroom schedule.

Nobody noticed Luke and Marianne. Marianne took his arm and said, "Come on. Let's not interrupt them. I don't want to go in there and get all wound up. I'm nervous enough."

They walked back down to the beach to his house where they relaxed in Adirondack chairs arranged around a fire circle, watching the waves. In the late morning, Christa and Madeleine brought Lucas out to play in the sand, in the hope he would tire himself out enough for a nap. The women joined Luke and Marianne. A caterer came out and asked if they wanted anything. All three women asked for sweet tea with mint. The waiter and Luke exchanged disgusted glances. Marianne thunked Luke on the back of the head, "I didn't ask you if you wanted any."

Luke asked for a Diet Coke. Marianne, who hated any kind of carbonated soft drinks, made a face and drawled, "Now, if you want to talk about somethin' totally disgustin'...."

They laughed and talked while Lucas played in the sand. Soon Luke could resist no longer, and he joined Lucas on the ground, where they concentrated on building a sand fort.

Too soon, Chantal came outside and said, "Mesdames, the hairdressers and makeup artists are here. Mme Christa and Mlle Madeleine, they have finished with Christiane. If you please, you should go now to meet them." She pointed up the beach to the house where they were staying, then she turned to Marianne and said with the dignity of a courtesan, "Madame." She held her arm out directing Marianne toward Luke's house.

Marianne stood up and kissed Christa and Madeleine. She grinned and said, "I guess my Pumpkin Coach is waiting."

Somehow Marianne managed to get through the preparations without freaking out too much. They had set her dressing room up in the guest bedroom to allow Luke's barber to work on him in his room. First, the hairdresser did her hair. Then the makeup artist painted her face. She thought she looked like someone else, but even she had to admit she looked pretty good, for someone her age. Both the attendants helped her into her dress which was heavy ivory silk that fell in soft folds around her slender body. She put on the cameo-and-pearl necklace herself and turned to the dressers, asking, "What do you think?"

Both women stood with their hands folded in front of them beaming. The hairdresser spoke first, "Mrs. Payne, you look magnificent. You are gonna knock the socks off Hollywood."

The other woman laughed, "Yeah, and the best part is that Mr. Payne has managed to somehow keep you and your marriage a secret. He has always loved to pop surprises. This is the biggest one ever. It's gonna be a hoot."

Marianne turned and looked at herself in the mirror. She was old, but she was healthy and in love. The love showed, and in many ways counteracted her age. She knew that she had perhaps only looked that good once or twice before in her life. She blinked furiously to prevent tears from messing up the makeup or spilling on the dress. She stood up and walked across the hall. Luke's dresser was tying his bow tie.

Marianne stood in the doorway with her hands folded primly in front of her waist. "May I come in?"

Luke shooed away his dresser and opened his arms. Marianne stepped into the circle of his embrace, being careful not to get makeup on his pristine shirt. They said nothing, but merely stood staring at each other for a long time.

Luke said, "I know the rest of this day will be terribly difficult for you. I promise I'll never put you through anything like it again, but I am so very glad you agreed to do it this once."

She smiled up at him and touched his cheek, whispering, "It will be worth all the crowds and noise and photographers to see the man I love be so honored by his professional peers."

She helped him into his jacket and then they walked down the stairs hand in hand. Chantal and Diane were both waiting in the living room. Chantal's son and Diane's husband were there as well. They were dressed in formal attire and sipping champagne. Luke said, "Chantal and Diane have been with me through most of my career. They have always been consummate professionals and we have always guarded the boundary between professional and personal. They helped my career more than anyone. Tonight, I have invited them to join my family."

Marianne applauded and exclaimed, "Oh, how perfectly wonderful!"

She noticed that both Diane and Chantal seemed a bit more somber than she would have expected. Come to think of it, so did Luke. She wondered what was up, but didn't have time to dwell on it because the butler they had hired for the day informed them the cars were waiting. Chantal and Diane and their escorts were driving separately. They planned to join Paul and Christiane's group in the VIP area. Luke and Marianne would ride alone.

She started trembling as soon as they settled into the back seat. He took her hand and said, "It will be okay."

She managed to stop shaking, but she was still nervous. The line of limos moved slowly and frequently not at all. Marianne fretted that they would be late. Luke patted her hand and told her not to worry. After a particularly long delay, she said she thought they could get out and walk faster than the car was moving. He told her that he was sure they could and often people did walk for blocks and blocks to arrive early. He said that defeated the whole purpose of making a big entrance. Minor celebs and Hollywood newbies walked to avoid being late. His stature was such that he intended to make an entrance. He told her to quit fretting. The show would not start without them.

Marianne concentrated on breathing slowly so as not to hyperventilate. Her heart pounded furiously. Luke looked like the picture of calm and serenity. She touched his wrist and felt his heart pounding as fast as hers. She smiled and said, "I'd love to learn how to do that."

"Do what?"

"Look so calm when you're as wound up as I am."

He shrugged. "I guess it's more experience than anything. I've been here and done this before, lots of times. It's always nerve wracking especially when the god-damned traffic backs up like this." An irritated look passed over his face and was replaced immediately by a totally placid visage. "It's very exciting, but part of the game is not to act too excited about it. Remember, this is the Super Bowl of the movie business. The key thing is that the Academy Awards is all about business. We all have to play our parts."

He smiled at her, "Your part tonight is Cinderella, and you fill it magnificently."

"Aren't I a little old to be playing Cinderella?"

"Okay, your part is an elderly Cinderella, but a fabulous one nonetheless."

That made her laugh and she was still laughing when the car stopped and someone yanked the door open. Luke stepped out to wild cheers and applause. The éclat of flash bulbs was blinding even inside the car where Marianne huddled in the hope that Luke would forget she was there and not make her get out.

Luke stood by the car for a very long minute accepting the ovation. In his younger days, he always appeared in public with several beautiful women in tow. After he married Lisa, Hollywood got used to him showing up at the Hollywood functions alone, because Lisa hated being in the spotlight. It was obvious from the crowd's reaction they thought he was alone this time, as he stood there smiling and waving. He hesitated long enough to be sure everyone thought he was alone.

Then he stepped aside and turned to draw Marianne out of the car.

As she alighted from the car, she looked up into his eyes and smiled; her eyes were full of love. He would not dare kiss her and risk messing up the makeup, but he raised her hand to his lips and kissed it in a courtly gesture. She grinned. He grinned back.

In that moment, for the two of them the crowd, and indeed the rest of the world, disappeared. The stared at each other with naked adoration. When looking at the pictures later, Marianne referred to it the 'Nancy Reagan gaze' which made the family laugh, even though they all acknowledged that Marianne and Luke did look at each other with the same kind of expression Nancy Reagan reserved for her beloved Ronnie.

The crowd went crazy. Flashbulbs exploded. Luke and Marianne were the focus of attention from everyone on the runway and in the reviewing stands. Luke put his arm around her waist and turned her in one direction and then another. They waved. Then they walked hand in hand toward the entrance of the auditorium.

One of the TV interviewers stopped them. She gushed and flirted with Luke for a few minutes and then she turned to Marianne and asked what designer made her clothes. Luke answered for her, "Dior Paris." The interviewer asked Marianne about the origin of her necklace. Luke answered, "That was a gift from me." He started to move on.

The interviewer stepped in front of Marianne and said, "You're not on my list. What is your name?"

Luke started to push her ahead without answering. Marianne looked at the interviewer and smiled, "My name is Marianne." She started to walk away.

The interviewer elbowed her way back in front of Marianne and said, "Do you have a last name?"

Marianne smiled sweetly and said, "Yes." Then, pushed by the crowd from behind and with the added help of Luke's elbow pushing the reporter out of the way, Marianne swept forward toward the door. Luke put his mouth next to her ear and yelled above the din, "That was freaking fabulous." She smiled and winked.

When they approached the VIP viewing area, the entire family, plus Chantal and Diane, were applauding and cheering. Lucas was jumping up and down in the front row behind the barrier. Luke asked the security people to let his family through. The entire group entered the building and walked down the center aisle, together. They were among the last to arrive. There was a closed circuit TV showing the telecast of the arrivals out front. The people who were already seated knew Luke's family was coming and the audience gave them a standing ovation as they entered. Marianne whispered, "Oh, God, I hope we're not in the front row!"

Luke whispered, "Not to worry. That's Jack's row. We're about three rows back on the side, near an exit, in case Lucas gets antsy or anybody needs to go to the bathroom."

She smiled at him and said, "You have thought of everything, haven't you?"

"Not at all. Thinking of everything is Diane's job ....." His voice broke and turned away from her, focusing on the sea of beaming faces turning toward them. He stopped here and there along the aisle shaking hands and hugging people. Marianne knew most of those people were world famous in the movie business. She recognized only a few of them. Once they were in their seats, Lucas decided he wanted to sit on Luke's lap. That ended up to be a very photogenic little scene and the TV cameras kept turning to them throughout the evening. Luke muttered, "This is worse than being in the front row."

Marianne said, "Well, it is almost over."

"Ya think? How many Academy Awards shows have you ever watched?"

She looked sheepish and said, "Um. None."

Luke laughed so hard he got the hiccups and had to go outside for a drink of water. He returned during a commercial break, and Marianne grumped, "It wasn't that funny."

Luke started to break up again and said, "Oh, yes it was."

They didn't realize it but the cameras were on them again as they were talking and laughing like a couple of teen-agers misbehaving in the movies. The MC ad libbed, "Mr. Payne, I'm wondering if you and your lady friend would mind either piping down or taking it outside."

Marianne blushed about eighty six different shades of red and put her hands over her face. Luke grinned and made the lip-zipping motion. A ripple went through the room. Nobody missed the glitter of Marianne's diamond wedding band sparkling in front of her face. The MC paused for a long pregnant moment, more or less inviting Luke to say something else. Luke merely chuckled and zipped his lip again. The MC introduced the next presenter.

Marianne whispered to Luke, "Did I do something wrong?"

Luke took her hand between both of his, lacing his fingers with hers, and said, "Not at all."

The program droned on endlessly, it seemed to Marianne. A steady stream of people whom Marianne had never heard of took the podium and introduced more actors whom she had never heard of and talked about movies she had not seen. She was bored. She looked around at her family. Richard looked as bored as she was. All the rest of them, to varying degrees, were paying close attention. Christiane, Georges and Paul were all typing furiously on their smart phones throughout the evening. She knew they were hard at work. Christa seemed fascinated. Madeleine and Lucas were both so excited they were having trouble sitting still.

Marianne glanced at Luke. Holding his hand, she could feel his nerves building as the time drew near for him to receive his award. His hand trembled ever so slightly and was just the tiniest bit clammy. His face and posture were calm, and attentive to the proceedings. She took his hand between both of hers and smiled at him. He looked into her eyes and smiled back, holding her gaze for a long time. She could feel his heart slow as he somehow found his center of calm. For the umpteenth time that evening she had a feeling he was up to something, but she did not know what it could be.

Finally it was time for the Life Achievement Award. Braddock Austin took the stage to gave a brief summary of Luke's career. He quipped, "Luke's a lot older and has made more movies than most of the life-time recipients, so they had to give us extra time for this part." He finished with a litany of a few of the many, many acting awards Luke had won, and ended with the statement, "Luke Payne is one of the five or six giants of his generation. I am happy to call him my friend. I am proud to call him my colleague. I am privileged to call him to the stage now to receive this recognition of his fifty-plus years of total devotion to his craft."

Luke reached around and touched each of his children. He tousled Lucas's hair. He embraced and kissed Marianne, and wiped his mouth to make sure he hadn't picked up too much lipstick. Then he turned and walked down the aisle and up the stairs to the stage, with the posture and stride of a man half his age.

Braddock greeted him with a bear hug and motioned him toward the microphone. Luke accepted the statuette, looked at it for a long, lingering moment, and then set it on the podium.

He looked around the room with his trademark lopsided grin, making eye contact with various friends, colleagues, rivals and ex-girlfriends. He smiled and nodded, acknowledging each of them.

He quipped, "As Braddock pointed out, I'm very old and have made a lot of movies. I have many people to thank." He looked at the MC and said, "I hope nobody has any ideas about giving me the hook." Everybody laughed at the very thought of anyone trying to rein in a star of Luke Payne's magnitude and reputation.

He said, "One of my earliest memories was my dad sneaking me onto the set of the motion picture _Gone With The Wind_. They were filming the railroad yard scene and my dad believed (rightly, it turned out) that they were making movie history that day. He wanted me to see it. My mom was a wardrobe mistress who ended up in the scene because they ran out of extras, so, after she and the other wardrobe ladies had dressed all the extras, she put on a Confederate Uniform and joined the line of writhing bodies lying on the ground. My dad was a mechanic who helped build the ramp they used to pull back the camera in order to pan back far enough for the shot of the entire scene. I fell in love with movies that day. I planned to be a mechanic like my dad, or, maybe, a set designer.

"A few years later, I was hanging out with my surfer buddies strutting our stuff on Venice Beach when a casting director invited us to be extras in a movie. The movie was _Gidget_ with Sandra Dee." He chuckled and looked around the room, "Is Sandra Dee here?" She was in the back.

He bowed to her and blew her a kiss, "You were my very first love even though you never even noticed me."

When the laughter and applause died down, he continued, "After about eight hours of work, they paid me about what I typically made in an entire week of working on the crew. I decided that day that walking around in a bathing suit showing off and flirting with pretty actresses was a whole lot easier, not to mention more profitable, than knocking myself out building sets and lugging heavy equipment around behind the scenes. I decided then and there to become an actor.

"My parents insisted that acting wasn't that easy. I told them I intended to do whatever it took. They wished me well, but I know they both would have preferred for me to stick with 'honest work' behind the scenes.

"My first movie role was in a western. I played a cattle rustler who got hung. In my second movie, I played a bank robber who got hung. In my third movie, I played a train robber who got hung; that character was actually tried and convicted and hung in a regular execution whereas the others were hung by lynch mobs. And so on. I had my assistant look it up the other day. I've been lynched, executed or murdered in some other way more often than any other single actor. The reason my characters came to such violent ends was because they generally deserved it. I think my characters committed something like 20 murders and robbed almost 40 banks, trains, stores or stagecoaches."

He paused, grinned and then looked around the room, "I guess you could say I was one bad-ass son of a bitch." The crowd responded to that quip with another standing ovation.

After Luke quieted the cheering and whistling, he continued, "After my breakout role in _When the Bombs Came Down_ ," he was interrupted by a tsunami of applause, "... I tried a lot of other stuff. I did some heavy drama, some romantic comedy, and a bunch of action pictures. For the most part I quit stealing and killing and starting being, um, a bit more loving." He winked and the audience laughed. "Over the years, I suppose I have done a little bit of everything there is to do in the field of acting, and I absolutely loved every second I spent on a movie set, or preparing to make a movie, or thinking about making movies, or talking about making movies or watching other peoples' movies. I love this business. I love the craft of acting. It may not be brain surgery or feeding the hungry but I think it feeds souls. It has sure as hell fed mine.

"I have been privileged to work with giants like Braddock Austin, as well as virtually every other great producer and director in the last fifty years. I have worked with every one of the major actors of my generation, as well as a several of the superstars from the generation before who were my teachers and mentors. More recently, I have been privileged to work with and mentor actors in the next generation – or, maybe, two generations, come to think of it.

"I have never met an actor I didn't like, although I understand there are a bunch of actresses in this town who are not especially fond of me, on account of I'm a sexist pig, or something." He paused and tried (rather unsuccessfully) to look sheepish. A few old timers and most of his old girlfriends were bold to laugh.

He went on, "I've even loved most of the directors I've worked with." There was more laughter, but it was a little uncomfortable; everyone in Hollywood knew about the legendary feud between Luke and one of the industry's top directors who fired him from a movie early in his career and who would never work with him again. Nobody but Luke and the director ever knew what the fight was about.

"I have made more than 100 movies. Officially I have made 104. In fact it's more like 114, because I made 10 movies early in my carrier on which I was an extra, paid under the table, and they don't count in the official total. It was a privilege to work with the cast and crew of every one of them.

"I have won just about every award in the business, and I hardly deserved any of them. Acting is such a collaborative medium every award should be given to the entire crew.

"My parents are no longer alive, but I believe their spirits are with me tonight as they have been with me throughout my career. My gratitude and love for them knows no bounds.

"My first wife put up with a lot of crap from me, but she gave me two wonderful children, both of whom work in the business. She died a few years ago. I never had the decency to tell her I was sorry for being such an ass when we were married. That is one of my few regrets in life.

"My second wife, Lisa, loved me and put up with me for more than 20 years. I was a better husband to her than I had been to Janice, but she still put up with a lot of nonsense, especially when I was developing difficult characters. I am grateful for every day I had with her, and I have missed her terribly. After Lisa died, I went back to work because I didn't have anything else to do.

"Girlfriends, wives and others who came and went, but for most of my career has always been my principal personal anchor, with assistance from my housekeeper Chantal. Unfortunately for me, she was never able to gain much influence over my personal behavior, but she ran my household with professional efficiency. When my relationships crashed and burned or when I got bad reviews, Chantal was always there with coffee and aspirin (her cure for everything) and enough kind words to get me through.

"My professional rock has always been my assistant, Diane. She has been with me for more than 40 years. She has talked me into doing movies I didn't want to do and talked me out of doing other movies I wanted to do but which would probably not have panned out. She has protected my money even when I wasn't watching out for it, watched my back when I needed it, provided professional advice when I asked for it, and kept her mouth shut a lot of the time when I'm pretty sure she had a hell of a lot she wanted to say to me." Diane laughed through her tears. "She even bailed me out of jail twice and, then, managed to prevent those two little incidents from making the news. This award truly belongs as much to Di and to Chantal as it does to me. Probably more."

Suddenly it dawned on Marianne where he was headed. She put her head in her hands and scrunched up her face to try to keep from crying. Madeleine put her arm around her grandmother. Diane and Chantal were openly weeping. The audience had figured it out, too. Audible sobs broke out here and there around the room.

"A couple of months ago, I became reacquainted with the woman who talked me into making _When The Bombs Came Down_. To this day I can't tell you whether it was the movie or the affair with the woman that made the bigger impact on my life. For many years I believed that I had built up the illusion she was the love of my life as a sort of defensive mechanism because she was the only woman who ever dumped me, and I couldn't stand the rejection. I longed to have another shot at her. When we became reacquainted, I realized she actually is the great love of my life. After more than 30 years of separation and marriages to other people, we were married last week in France.

"Tonight I want to tell you that I am honored, humbled and unbelievably grateful for this award. I will take it with me and cherish it as I retire to France in order to spend more time with Marianne and my family. I consider this my retirement gift from my colleagues and friends in the most wonderful business on earth.

"You know the old show business saying: 'you gotta know when to get off.' I think now is the time for me to make my exit.

"I thank you, from the bottom of my heart for the best career a person could ever have."

The audience leaped to its feet in a thunderous ovation that went on in wave after wave of shouts and whistles for more than ten minutes. The telecast ended while the audience was still applauding. The MC was not able to regain control in time even to sign off.

Braddock Austin led Luke off the stage. A security guard opened the door beside the row of seats where Luke's family was seated and beckoned them to follow. He led them to the backstage interview area where pandemonium had erupted. Luke was trying to give an impromptu press conference but the reporters were all shouting questions at once and wouldn't let Luke get in a word.

The family entered the room and stood just inside the door. Luke invited Chantal and Diane to join him for photos. Then they stepped aside and his children stepped up for a photo op. Marianne stood between Christa and Madeleine in the shadows just in side the door, shaking and crying. Too soon, Luke beckoned her to join him.

She stepped up on the stage and the room fell silent. The reporter who interviewed her in the front blurted, "What did you say your name was?"

"Marianne. Mrs. Jean-Luc de la Peine."

Luke pulled her beside him and let the photographers snap their photos for a few minutes. He told them she would not answer any further questions, and then cut the interviews short by saying that he had a party to attend.

The party was in full swing by the time they arrived. Luke led Marianne into one of the rental houses and introduced her to dozens of people. She thought it odd that he never accepted a drink or food, nor did he offer her any. He never let go of her hand and he never stopped moving except for the briefest of pauses as he greeted his friends.

When they had made their way all the way through the first house they moved on to the second. Again they greeted many people without stopping to talk. By the time they got to the third house, Luke's residence, Marianne asked if they could stop to eat something. Luke shook his head, squeezed her hand and kept moving. Eventually, he led her out a side door where a limo was waiting with the motor running. The entire family was in the car.

Luke nodded to Lucas who picked up the intercom to tell the driver they were ready to leave. Marianne asked what was going on. Luke told her they were leaving for France.

Marianne looked around and said, "We're a little over dressed for commercial air travel, don't you think?"

Luke said, "We're not traveling commercial. I chartered a plane. I know you're hungry. The caterer is delivering dinner to the plane. We'll take Paul home first, then we'll drop Lucas, Christa and Richard in Atlanta. After that we'll take Christiane and Georges to Cannes and you and I will drive home to Gordes.

"I figure we'll have enough time to recover in Gordes before we have to go the Cannes Film Festival in May."

Marianne started to object, but decided to defer that argument for a while. Instead she snuggled up against him and held on for dear life.

Lucas scooted down from Madeleine's lap and climbed up on Marianne's. He asked, "Can I call you Grammy now?"

"Yes, you may, Sugar. We're family now."

He nestled his head and started to doze off, mumbling, "I'm glad."

Marianne ruffled his hair and kissed his forehead, "Me, too."

Luke murmured, "Me, three."

She leaned against Luke, and relaxed for the first time in days. He smelled of soap and something spicy.

