There's Something About St. Tropez (9 page)

Sara's lips tightened. “I'm thinking about that,” she said uncertainly.

“Then keep right on thinking, sweetie, because there's only one answer and you know it. Meanwhile, take that shower please, and leave me alone with my thoughts. And trust me, your problems are minor compared with mine.”

Sara wasn't too sure about that but she went anyway. Sara was the kind of girl who had always done as she was told.

 

9.

 

 

In the room next to Belinda's, Billy was arranging his new leather travel photo frames on the dresser. There were several pictures of Little Laureen of course, including one in her pink tutu, taken just a few weeks ago. And there was another earlier one on a chestnut-colored horse, bigger than a pony but not overly large, just enough for her short plump legs to manage.

Billy had never forgotten that terrible scene in the movie
Gone With the Wind
, when the little girl was thrown from the horse and Clark Gable had carried her lifeless body back into the house. He had always made sure his own daughter was mounted on the safest beast in Texas.

There was another photo of a younger, smiling Laureen in T-shirt and shorts perched on her mother's knee with a happy-looking Billy in his ten-gallon hat behind them, holding on to the back of the big old rocker that had been in his family for six generations and was a permanent part of their porch furniture. From the photo you could see that it was a big porch, wide with strong rails around it, all painted white and with cushioned swing chairs and chaise lounges in the vivid flowery patterns that Betsy, Billy's wife, had loved. Betsy had enjoyed color, that was for sure, and Billy had no doubt that was where Laureen had gotten her penchant for bright pinks and oranges. Little Laureen was definitely not a girl for white.

Of course there was his favorite picture of Betsy, his much beloved wife. Laureen looked a lot like her mother; a quiet face, never quick to show emotion. The same china blue eyes and long brownish hair, streaked by the sun. To many folk Betsy must have seemed a quiet, plainish-looking woman, but to Billy, who knew her so well, she was beautiful.

With Betsy gone Little Laureen was the most precious thing in Billy's life. His enormous ranch; his homestead; the helicopter he flew to survey his land and for hopping into the nearest town for dinner; the Gulfstream V that he rarely used but was there if and when he needed it, like for instance for trips into Dallas for doctors and hospitals when Betsy had gotten sick, but also just for fun if she'd wanted to go to the coast for a change. Things like that. Anyhow, now all of it was for Laureen.

One day Little Laureen would be no longer “little.” She would be a grown woman with a mind of her own—which by the way she already had. Meanwhile, it was Billy's job to get her out of the post-traumatic stress state she had fallen into after her mother died of cancer, over a year ago. He had tried hard. Doctors had tried, psychiatrists, the whole damn works. And nothin' doin'. Little Laureen was still into that funk and Billy was hoping against hope that this trip to France would bring her out of it once and for all.

Billy stepped out onto his balcony and took a look around. He shook his head, marveling. The sea sparkled, blue as the sky only shinier, the air smelled of flowers and the sun shone. There was a swimming pool where Laureen could practice her dives, a tennis court if she cared to take lessons, and St. Tropez town was just down the road.

Billy was kind of glad Chez La Violette had turned out to be a dud. Had it not, he and Little Laureen would never have met all these nice folk. And there was no doubt the company would be good for her. And maybe for him as well.

Still, Little Laureen was on his mind as he walked across the corridor to her room to check on her.

 

Laureen was sitting on the bed in what was the smallest room she had ever seen. In fact the bed took up most of the space while her four suitcases took up the rest. She had to climb over the suitcases to get to the bathroom—which consisted of a tiny stall shower, a pedestal sink and a toilet—then climb back over the bed and the other suitcases to get onto the balcony.

A single night table held a lamp with a flowery yellow shade, and there was a narrow wooden armoire to hold her tutus. Plus a tiny table in the corner with the smallest TV Laureen had ever seen.

A painting of what she guessed was a Mediterranean beach scene, all blues and turquoises and yellows, hung over the bed, which had no pillows, just a strange, long sausage-shaped hard thing, guaranteed to break her neck. She wondered if the French were like the Japanese who, she had heard somewhere,
slept with their heads perched on wooden blocks. It sounded horrible to her.

Still, it didn't matter. Nothing did anymore.

From outside her open window Laureen heard the clatter of dishes and the hum of voices. Her room overlooked the courtyard where people were already taking lunch. She thought again about the pancakes but somehow, now, she was no longer hungry.

Opening the first suitcase, she tossed the tutu collection onto the bed. Most were in shades of pink but there were a couple of orange ones, the color of fresh tangerines that were her new favorites. Since her mother died Laureen had taken to wearing the tutus full-time. No one knew why she did this, not even her daddy. It was Laureen's secret.

The tutus had caused quite a sensation in school until Billy had taken her out and hired a private teacher instead. The fact that he spoke French had been the bonus in Laureen's life. Of course she'd heard Spanish spoken every day around the ranch, where many of the workers and ranch hands were Mexican, and she had a working smattering of that language. But French was new. It piqued her interest—and that had sparked her daddy's idea that they should go to France for a vacation.

Now, he knocked on her door and called out, “All right if I come on in, Little Laureen, baby?”

Billy peeked in the door and took in the tangle of tulle on the bed, the open suitcases that took up most of the small floor space, the tiny TV and the old armoire. His daughter was used to a thousand-square-foot suite of her own. He shook his head, dismayed.

“It's okay, Daddy, I like it,” Laureen said quickly.

Billy looked astonished, then pleased. He felt a lump in his throat as he gazed at his girl. Laureen with her pale round face, its bones lost beneath the pudge of youth, her blue eyes with their new habitual unfeeling expression, her long brown hair straggling limply over her shoulders, her legs with the dimpled knees and her plump hand holding the fairy wand, that Billy sometimes thought she might truly believe, with one special wave, would enable her dreams to come true, and bring her mother back.

Laureen had adopted the ballerina ensemble immediately after Betsy died and now it was impossible to part her from it. “Let her be,” the doctors had told Billy. “It's a passing phase, a fantasy world that might help her get over it.”

Billy hoped they were right and he'd simply let it go, providing her with the tutus and the tiaras and the ballet shoes and hoping for the best.

“Well then, hon,” he said. “What d'y a say you take a shower, then you and I'll go downstairs and maybe meet some folks and have ourselves a bite of lunch?”

Laureen said, “I'm tired, Daddy. I think I'll just lie down and take a nap.”

Billy looked worriedly at her from beneath knitted brows. He still wore his ten-gallon cowboy hat and Laureen had to look up and under it in order to meet his gaze.

“It's okay,” she promised, “Truly.”

“You sure, now?”

“
Daaaaaaddy . . .”

Billy threw his hands in the air, giving up. “Well okay then. I'm not too hungry myself. Might do exactly what you're gonna do, baby girl, and take that nap.” He held out his arms. “Come and give your old daddy a kiss then, before I go.”

Laureen stood up on the bed. She put her arms round his neck and leaned against him, breathing in the familiar scent of his grassy cologne that always reminded her of the pastures at home where the horses grazed.

“Daddy,” she said. “Don't the French have pillows?”

Billy checked the bed then said, “Let's find out, shall we?”

He called reception and asked Caroline Cavalaire the same question. Laureen could hear her laugh over the phone.

“
Oui, bien sûr.
Of course we do. The ‘sausage' on the bed is called a bolster. In the daytime we keep the pillows in the armoire, and that's where you will find them.”

“Merci beaucoup, Mademoiselle Cavalaire,”
Billy said. And sure enough, there were the pillows, stashed in the armoire.

“Strange folk, these French,” he said to Little Laureen, arranging them on the bed for her.

“Maybe,” Laureen said.

When he had gone, she went to the window. Her balcony was so tiny there wasn't even room for a chair and only enough space for one person to stand.

Holding back the yellow curtains, she gazed down at the happy scene, catching snippets of French conversation. Watching. Listening. Longing. And crying silently.

 

It had taken Nate exactly five minutes to unpack his duffel and stow his possessions, which consisted of two pairs of surfer-style bathing shorts in a
Hawaiian print of dark blue with red hibiscus; half a dozen plain white Hanes T-shirts; two pairs of khaki shorts and one pair of J. Crew chinos with a bright yellow woven belt bought on impulse in the same store. There was a crumpled pale blue Brooks Brothers seersucker jacket, plus a French bicycle racer's outfit in snug yellow and black Lycra. A small leather duffel held his shaving kit and toiletries and he had not packed even so much as one pair of socks. Sandals and barefoot were Nate's aim and he intended to stick with that. He kind of missed the privacy of Chez La Violette, though.

Out on his small balcony he looked down onto the pretty courtyard where people were already drifting in for lunch. Ancient-looking waiters, who he thought had probably worked here all their lives, were busy carrying ice buckets on stands with bottles of that famous rosé wine he'd heard so much about. He couldn't wait to try it.

A quick shower, then in khaki shorts and a T-shirt he ran down the steps to join them. He chose a corner table where he could watch the action—couples of various ages, cool in summer pastels, all talking softly in that attractive French language. He decided on a lobster risotto then, suddenly famished, began devouring the basket of olive bread, slathering it with sweet Normandy butter. The waiter showed him the bottle of local rosé wine he'd ordered, so chilly that drops had formed on it and ran down into the surrounding napkin.

“From grapes grown just down the road,
monsieur
,” the waiter told him.

Pleased, Nate thought all that was missing from the picture was Sunny Alvarez. He'd only met her less than twenty-four hours ago, but he couldn't get her out of his mind. He thought with Sunny beside him, life at this moment would have been perfect.

Taking his first approving sip of local St. Tropez rosé, iced and crisp and with a nice tang to it, he happened to glance up at the windows overlooking the courtyard. For a second he saw Little Laureen standing there. Then suddenly she was gone.

There had been something about her though, her stillness, her solitude, that was disturbing. He wondered uneasily what she was up to.

 

10.

 

 

Bertrand skittered into the Hôtel des Rêves, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible. The oilskin cape was wrapped tightly around his binoculars, hidden from view under his arm. His blue shirt was grass-stained, his shaggy blond hair was a bird's nest, and his sneakers were black with mud. Casting a nervous glance round the entrance hall, he made for the stairs.

“Bertrand?”

Caroline Cavalaire's voice stopped him in midstride. He turned reluctantly to face her.

“Bertrand! Just look at you!” Caroline spoke to him in French. “You look as though you spent the night in a field.”