Cooking for Picasso (28 page)

“Do you play cards?” Martin asked eagerly. “I have a brand-new deck of cards.”

“Yes, I do,” I said gently, “but I can't play now. I know some folks around here who love to play cards. I'll introduce them to you next time. But right now, I have to go.”

“Oh,” said Martin, failing to hide his disappointment. “Okay.” He really was so sweet.

I left, determined to see this through for Mom's sake. I retraced my steps to Gil's new kitchen, then slipped outside beyond the terrace, and set off on the winding footpath that led away from the main house, weaving past terraced orchards with a view of the olive groves, vineyards and farmland beyond. Scattered along this path were smaller, freestanding stone outbuildings with terracotta-tiled roofs, looking like miniature versions of the main building, which gave them a sweet, playhouse appeal.

“I
suppose
a painting could be hidden in one of those,” I muttered with waning conviction while eyeing the terrain. But whenever I paused to push a door open and peer inside, I saw that these were just rudimentary stone structures with earthen or cement floors; and while they may have provided useful winter storage for supplies or food, they were hardly the place to harbor a Picasso masterpiece.

I was now approaching a larger outbuilding which might be a good candidate—a barnlike structure near a small parking lot, with a dilapidated old picnic table in the grass nearby, where, judging from coffee stains and crumbs, the construction men had eaten their lunch. The men were gone, since they began their workdays at the crack of dawn; but they'd left a few construction vehicles parked nearby. I approached the building eagerly; yet as I reached the front path I heard the unmistakable vroom of a motorcycle approaching.

Sure enough, Gil came rumbling up on his Ducati and waved, so I couldn't duck out of sight. I waved back, hastily concocting a reason for being here as he parked and began eyeing me quizzically.

“Is everything all right? How did class go today?” he asked, walking up the front path. He looked to be in a much better mood than I'd seen him lately.

“Class was fine. Heather was great,” I said brightly. “I never realized how many little storage buildings there are here! They're so cute, like dollhouses,” I babbled on in an admiring tone. For some reason, acting a bit daft around men seems to work when you want to flatter or distract them.

Gil actually brightened with enthusiasm, like a boy who wants to show you his baseball card collection. “Over there is the old water mill that ground the grain they grew right here in our fields,” he said, pointing off in the distance. He was so pleased by my interest that I felt a bit ashamed, but I continued acting fascinated and wide-eyed while he obligingly pointed to each outbuilding: “And there's the silo where they stored it. Beyond it is a henhouse, and a smokehouse…” His descriptions made me mentally cross each of them off the list as Grandma's likely hiding places. That left only this one.

“And what is
this
building we're standing in front of?” I asked, trying to sound casual. “A barn?”

“No, a
pigeonnier,
” Gil said. He pointed to a row of tiny windows at the attic level, now closed up, but where, presumably, pigeons once flew in and out with wild abandon. “A dovecote,” he explained.

“This whole building was all for pigeons?” I asked incredulously, while trying to assess whether Grandma Ondine would have raised pigeons. “Did people eat them, just like pheasants?”

“Sure, but pigeons were
really
prized for their excrement,” he said.

When I made a face, he insisted, “Seriously—it made great fertilizer!
Pigeonniers
were status symbols ever since Roman times. When you totted up the value of a manor house, you included how much pigeon shit it produced! Anyway, we're converting this
pigeonnier
into a VIP guest villa. It won't be finished till next year, when we'll expand it and gussy it up. For now, I'm using it as my office. It'll give me some privacy from the guests in the high season.”

I was thinking to myself,
Grandma would hardly park a Picasso among pigeon dung
. But just to be sure, I asked, “What was this
pigeonnier
originally like, inside? Did you have to change it much?”

“It
was
like a barn inside, actually,” Gil said, reaching into his pocket for a set of jingling keys. “We had to install all the basics: windows, sliding doors, electric wiring, all the heat and air-conditioning; we're still working on the plumbing and bathrooms. It's nice now. Come see for yourself.”

He let me in, smiling as if he were flattered that I'd chased him down to his private lair. It was big and open, like a huge loft with high ceilings and exposed beams. The floors had been painstakingly refinished, but the place was mostly empty, except for two modest beds, and a few provisional chairs around a table. One windowed alcove served as a study with a desk, lamp, and computer.

“Not much in the way of furniture for your VIP's,” I teased.

“It's temporary, of course,” Gil said, looking embarrassed. “There wasn't much to work with. The dairyman who sold me this
mas
left some old country-style stuff, which my business partner's got in storage. Some of it might work.” Gil's mobile phone rang then, so he stepped away to take the call. I heard him say, “Yeah, Maurice, what's up?”

I wandered around inspecting the place carefully, but there was really nothing more to see, and I could find no possible trace of Grandmother Ondine.

“Rick was
here
today?” Gil exclaimed suddenly. “Why the fuck didn't he phone? What note? What does it say, then?” There was a pause, and he said in exasperation, “Yes,
read
it to me, now!”

I pictured Maurice quaking at his front desk as he recited the note Rick scribbled. Sure enough, Gil's expression became livid. He listened awhile longer, then hung up and turned to me, still glaring.

“Well, you're busy,” I said hastily. “See you tomorrow.”

“Hold on!” Gil said, looking at me intently now. “I've just heard from my staff that you've been sneaking all around my
mas
. I've got a fair idea of what you've been up to!”

For a wild moment I thought he'd somehow found out about the whole hidden Picasso thing. Then I realized how unlikely this was. “I don't know what you mean,” I said warily. I wondered if his kid, Martin, had already tattled on me to the staff, just because I wouldn't play cards with him.

“What were you doing in the men's area?” Gil asked sharply.

Now I was sure that Martin ratted me out. “I took a wrong turn,” I said, feeling defensive. “Your son Martin is very sweet but I just got lost, that's all.”

The effect of hearing his son's name was immediate. It was as if Gil's tough-guy mask just fell away from his face, and he looked raw and vulnerable.

“You saw Martin?” he asked in a completely different tone.

“Yes,” I said, realizing I'd blundered, because clearly it wasn't the kid who'd told him. “He looks just like you. You ought to introduce him to the class. They'd adore him.”

“Yeah, I know,” Gil muttered. “He's a good little guy.” Then he recovered. “Look, you still haven't explained what you were doing there. We've got security cameras in the hallways near the construction site. Today you've had a starring role!” He was standing near his desk and he punched up his computer to show me. I peered at the screen, and there I was on the video, undeniably skulking in the corridors of the old section with my flashlight and duffel bag, looking like a cat- burglar.

“Who are you, really? Are you Rick Vandervass' girl?” Gil demanded. “Is that why you're collecting recipes and spying on local restaurants and sneaking around my
mas
?”

“Are you kidding?” I said, astonished yet relieved that he was so far off the scent. “I just met that guy in your lobby today!”

“Come on,” Gil said, “people saw you go off with Rick and they said you looked pretty cozy. Are you his spy? This isn't my first time out at the rodeo. I've had bartenders who turned out to be bookies, waitresses who were food bloggers in disguise, and line cooks who stole my best recipes and sold them to the competition. So you can just tell
whoever
you're working for that he can kiss my ass.”

“You must be joking! It so happens that I had a last-minute appointment in town today to see a lawyer about my grandmother's estate,” I replied. “And I must say Maurice was no help at all at finding me a car. Rick offered to give me a lift. End of story. But quite frankly, even if I decide to go out with someone, it's still none of your business. You don't see me quizzing you about
your
girlfriend.”

“What girlfriend?” he demanded, momentarily thrown.

“Heather, the pastry-slinger,” I said. Then I was horrified with myself. Heather was perfectly nice. Why had I said that?

“Well, that would be well-nigh impossible,” Gil said calmly, “since she doesn't fancy my type.”

“Oh? What type is that?” I asked automatically.

“Males,” he said. At my blank look he added, “Aw, for God's sake. Heather has lesbianic preferences, okay?” He watched with satisfaction as it sank in.

“Huh,” I replied, resenting Gil for trapping me into this mortifying conversation. “Are all chefs as paranoid as you?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” he admitted, more quietly now. It dawned on me that he must feel I'd made a fool of him, egging him on to chatter about his passion for this place,
pigeonnier
and all. He only wanted to know why. And after all, I
was
being cagey. “So—what did you and Rick talk about in the back of his car?” he asked, still looking suspicious, more about his partner than me at this point.

“He acted just like you—he asked me how long I've known you, and if you went off to meetings a lot, and how the construction was going, and if I thought you'd be ready to open in time,” I said.

Gil asked instantly, “What did you tell him?”

“What
could
I tell him?” I retorted. “I said you've got a nice place, and business looks good.”

“But—why did he pick
you
to chat up?” Gil wondered. I recalled the smirking chauffeur exchanging knowing looks in the rearview mirror with Rick.

“He thinks I'm your latest girlfriend,” I said, feeling exasperated. “Perish the thought.”

Gil actually blushed. “There are worse fates,” he muttered. “But what gave him
that
idea?”

I didn't want to remind Gil of the fiasco at the Café Paradis with tourists snapping pictures of us being escorted out by police. So I shrugged. “You're up to no good, I can smell it,” Gil said. “Your aunt told me you've got personal issues, but obviously there's more to it than she knows!”

Now it was my turn to be paranoid. “What exactly did my aunt tell you about me?” I demanded.

He said gently, “That you're here because your mum fell ill, so you're standing in for her. Which I guess explains why a woman who isn't particularly fond of cooking is taking my course.”

I gave him my most enigmatic, Mona Lisa smile. He said, “Okay, I'll walk you back to the main building.” We stepped outside and he locked the place up. Oddly enough, I found the walk quite restful; Gil, despite his boundless energy, was also capable of companionable silences. All we heard was the occasional hoot of those famous scops owls in the South of France, persistent in their lonely commentaries.

And just as we rounded a curved path leading to the front door, a whimsical little cloudburst caused soft rain to briefly shower through the branches of a tree, whose lovely pink blossoms were already drifting to the ground. I happened to be walking beneath the branches just as the rain made a cascade of pink petals come fluttering down, wetly and fragrantly, filling the air all around me.

All I could do was stop and catch my breath in childlike delight, turning my face up instead of trying to hide from it. The whole thing was over in seconds; but it was such an unexpected, sensual gift that I could only stand there, shocked, laughing and showered by the perfumed Mediterranean rain.

A moment later it was gone, and the sun peeped through the clouds. Gil had stopped, too, but he was on the outer curve of the path, so he hadn't passed under the tree. Now he smiled.

“That was just incredible!” I gasped. Gil looked as if he were seeing me for the first time.

He moved closer, reaching out to pluck a few errant blossoms from my hair, saying quietly, “Beautiful.” I must have automatically backed up, breaking the spell, because a look of comprehension crossed his face before he said lightly, “I must remember to add a flower-shower to the spa menu.”

When we stepped inside the
mas
we parted at the lobby. I went up to my room to change clothes. Recalling the look on Gil's face, I felt strangely exposed; and out of habit I did a quick mental check to assess how much of myself I'd given away. It was like searching my pockets to see if I'd lost my house keys.

At least, when he interrogated me in that
pigeonnier,
I didn't blurt out anything about the lost Picasso painting. I found myself wishing my mother had kept her wild ideas to herself. The best thing I could do now was to stop sneaking around like a criminal, go back to being a normal person and finish this cooking class, I decided. Then, rather unwillingly, I recalled something Mom used to say while she sat there sewing in her kitchen in New York.
When you reach the end of your rope, make a knot and hold on.

I sighed and went into the bathroom to towel my hair dry. My mother's stories, my grandmother's notebook—I'd been clutching at these straws as if they were a lifeline I just couldn't let go of; because on the other end of the line, I could see my small-but-indefatigably-optimistic mother—so far, far away—yet still hanging on.