Opposites Attack: A Novel with Recipes Provencal Read online

  Opposites Attack

  A Novel

  with Recipes Provençal

  Jo Maeder

  Copyright © Jo Maeder 2013, 2014. All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters and what happens to them are strictly the creation of the author’s imagination féconde.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced; stored in a retrieval system; or transmitted in any form or by any means: electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the author.

  Cover designed by Ploy Siripant. Daubière watercolor by Jay Lindsay. All photos from author’s private collection. Scallop and fennel recipes courtesy of Mary-James Lawrence from her book Mary James Dishes It Out: Favorite Recipes and Personal Teaching Notes. Wild boar daube recipe adapted from hers.

  ISBN paperback: 978-0-9855482-2-3.

  ISBN ebook: 978-0-9855482-3-0

  Published by Vivant Press

  To reach the publisher, or the author for speaking engagements and interviews:

  [email protected]

  P.O. Box 696, Oak Ridge, NC 27310 USA.

  1. Learning to speak French — Fiction 2. Cultural differences — Fiction. 3. Francophile — Fiction. I. Title: Opposites Attack/A Novel with Recipes Provençal/by Jo Maeder

  eBook editions by eBooks By Barb for booknook.biz

  For Dennis and Eve,

  and our irreplaceable Meg

  Then farewell, Horace; whom I hated so,

  Not for thy faults, but mine.

  —Lord Byron

  Contents

  1. My Nelson

  2. A Better Fit

  3. Scorched Earth and the Baffling Bidet

  4. Where’s Wacko?

  5. Get Thee to a Nunnery

  6. The Muse Whispers

  7. Dream Cottage. Nightmare Hosts.

  8. The T-Word

  9. A Litter of Loirs. A Gaggle of Girlfriends.

  10. Besotted

  11. The Password

  12. The Bad Boy Nap

  13. La Vie en Rogues

  14. The Offer

  15. Guns and Grunks

  16. Fury. Food. Repeat.

  17. Tears, Fears, and Bouillabaisse

  18. The Mansfield Mafia

  19. The Talk

  20. Monsieur. The Reality Check, Please.

  21. Paris, Hypothetically

  22. Siren Song

  23. Hog Heaven

  24. The Summer Feast

  25. Triangles

  26. Drenched in Failure

  27. The Horse

  28. Truth

  29. The Loirs and the Notebook

  30. The Devil and His Paycheck

  31. Property and Promises

  32. The Nelly and Carmelita Show

  33. Clustier Fouquoi

  34. Loose Ends

  35. An Offer She Can Refuse

  36. Adieu?

  37. LAGNIAPPES

  Recipes Provençal

  Discussion Questions

  Excerpt from NAKED DJ

  Also from Jo Maeder, WHEN I MARRIED MY MOTHER

  About the Author

  A Message from Vivant Press

  1

  My Nelson

  My dear, darling Alyce,

  Or shall I call you Sabrina? Soon you’ll be breathlessly transformed and broadened like Audrey Hepburn in that wonderful movie—and back in Nelson’s arms where you belong. Thank heavens that heartless conglomerate let you go. It freed you for this fantastic adventure! I admire your determination to pay your own way but please don’t hesitate to ask for help. No one will think of you as a gold-digger. You-know-who already has that distinction.

  I have so much faith in you, Alyce. Now you must believe in yourself. Trust me when I say you are different from all the other women who have tried to capture my Nelson’s heart.

  Placing an ocean between you is the true test! Nelson’s father behaved exactly the same wishy-washy way when we were dating. I said “ta-ta” and took off for London. The moment my plane lifted off the tarmac at JFK he couldn’t live without me. Work on you and have a fabulous time. Pretend Nelson barely exists. Just watch. Like father, like son!

  Of course, Ronald didn’t have a You-know-who and their son to distract him. It may not be that easy. Which is why I’ll be coming over with my assistant Luther for a little visit. I’m overdue for a shopping spree in Paris. A side trip to the South of France to see you is just what I need after my recovery. I’ll be looking for chic, sensible shoes in Paris, I can assure you. Ah, the French. They know a woman doesn’t have to squeeze into pointy-toed shoes with heels that could double as a weapon to be sexy. I can’t wait to see you covered in that special “je ne sais quoi.”

  Alyce, you are so young. But time flies. Before you know it, you’ll be wishing you had settled down in your 20s the way people used to do. I can’t believe my Nelson’s 33 and I still have no grandchildren. (Legitimate ones, that is.) Curses, I must stop saying “my” Nelson, mustn’t I?

  Most truly yours,

  Glorianna Hope Smythe Mansfield

  Scarsdale, New York

  2

  A Better Fit

  April 23rd

  Marlaison, France

  At last the “liberté” bell rang. Alyce hobbled to the classroom door, almost making her escape.

  “Al-ees!” her instructor called out. “Madame Girard would like to see you in her office.”

  Claire never spoke to a student in English. This couldn’t be good.

  The French word for foreigner is étranger; close to “stranger.” How perfect. Add to that her freshly scraped knee and elbow. At least “ibuprofen” needed no translation.

  She nervously entered the Marlaison Ecole Française director’s office and saw her battered luggage neatly stacked by the door. In an instant her throat shifted into the tight dryness she felt whenever a teacher asked her a question and she had no idea what she’d been asked, much less how to answer (which was every time).

  “Madame Girard, please don’t kick me out. I know I’m a terrible student but—”

  “Non, non, Al-ees, it is much too soon to give up,” the director said almost too sweetly as she motioned for Alyce to sit down. “It is only your first week.”

  She smiled as if nothing could possibly be wrong, even as Alyce tenderly lowered herself into the chair.

  “We have another place for you to stay,” she said. “A family emergency came up for the Lambournes. And you may call me Liliane.”

  The relaxed, sunny room that overlooked a lush courtyard felt like a cold, harsh interrogation chamber as Alyce considered what a disastrous choice her previous hosts had been. A 26-year-old city girl who spoke no French living on a farm with a couple in their 80s who spoke no English and served her the very rabbit she’d been cooing over? If only she hadn’t stroked its soft fur, gazed into its big dewy eyes, and intently watched its nose that moved so rapidly it seemed motorized. It must have known what was coming.

  Then she accidentally put a hole in the side of their barn that morning when she tried to ride a moped for the first time because she couldn’t—surprise—understand their instructions on how to operate it.

  Alyce leaned forward. “I promise I’ll pay for the damage somehow. Can I work in the kitchen here?”

  She couldn’t tell if Liliane was on the verge of laughing or taking her over her knee and giving her a spanking.

  “I am sure your moped mishap was unintentional,” she answered. “The school has paid for the repair. You are fine, yes?”

  It was Liliane’s cautious look that made her realize she w
as as concerned about having a lawsuit on her hands as Alyce’s well-being, perhaps more so.

  Alyce let out a sigh and leaned back in her chair. “Yes, I’m fine. Just a few bruises. Mostly to my ego.”

  Alyce studied Liliane, who probably wasn’t that much older than she and was already married with two children. With her exotic looks and long auburn hair pulled up sensually into a loose twist, she looked ready for a photo shoot. How did she do it all so effortlessly?

  Aware she was staring at her too long, Alyce bent over to re-tie a loosened lace on one of her running shoes — not that she’d be jogging anytime soon.

  Liliane practically purred, “I am sure you will do well with the Devreauxs. They have two young children, and Julien from the father’s previous marriage. He and his father speak excellent English, though you should speak French as much as possible to get the most out of your stay.”

  Alyce forced a smile back. “I’d love to speak French, if I could speak French.”

  There was a playfulness in Liliane’s delivery of “Julien Devreaux is 22. I think you will find our young men mature for their age.”

  Alyce’s spirits perked up, especially with not one email from Nelson. But 22? Non.

  “Monsieur Devreaux is coming to get you.” She stood and shook Alyce’s hand while uttering an “I wish you well” that she could have sworn had a dark tone.

  A male staff member gathered up the luggage. He and Liliane rattled on in French.

  Alyce’s lost look prompted Liliane to say, “You will get better, Al-ees. We had a student from China who did not even read letters and was eventually able to converse.”

  Was it possible to feel any more stupid?

  “Perhaps you would like to sign up for one-on-one tutoring in the afternoon.”

  She’d already considered that but the cost stopped her. Plus three hours every morning five days a week was enough agony, thank you.

  Alyce waited in front of the school for her new host, breaking into a dumb smile when people passed and spoke to her in French as if she knew what they were saying. Her first insane year in Manhattan, straight out of a Minnesota community college, was a trip to the Mall of America in comparison to this total-immersion nonsense. At least in New York she knew when she was being insulted and could give it right back.

  Within minutes of meeting Monsieur “Call me Yves” Devreaux, Alyce knew to stay on her guard. He may have been married, but it didn’t seem to make a difference from the way he puffed on a cigarette, checking her out. He had thinning hair and nicotine-stained, slightly bucked teeth. He did have nice wheels, though.

  Nelson, quite the car buff, had spoiled her in that regard (and many others).

  As they cruised down a two-lane road, she ignored Yves’ ogling as she focused on the creamy stucco villas with tile roofs and bougainvillea-covered walls; the wrought-iron terraces crammed with more flowering plants. On the wide sidewalks men and women moved along, casually elegant.

  There was something so sexy and sophisticated about a French accent, so natural and carefree about the South of France. For years she had collected Provence Living magazine, neatly stacking them on the floor next to her bed in her tiny studio apartment, watching them grow steadily toward the top of her nightstand. As the number of issues increased, so did her longing. During countless subway rides to and from work, she’d flipped through glossy pages of rustic French homes, fields of lavender, luscious feasts resting on bright sunflower-patterned tablecloths, and yearned to step right into each photograph.

  And now she had! Wanting to fit in somewhere, however, and actually doing it were two different things.

  Yves Devreaux tapped her bare (good) knee. “You have never been to France before?”

  He said it with a tone she noticed the French have that made it hard for her to tell if they were intrigued or appalled. She tried to answer in French that she’d never been outside America before. He quickly lost patience.

  “Tell me in English why you are here for so long. You are trying to get over a man, non?”

  She hardly wanted to bare her soul to this guy, but it was such a relief to speak her native tongue, he could have been a serial killer asking to eat her liver and she wouldn’t have cared.

  “Sort of. First, I lost my job. I was an assistant media buyer at a big advertising agency in New York called BOLD.” She said harshly, “They fired a third of their employees and renamed themselves BOLDER. Can you believe it?”

  “What is this job, media buyer?”

  “When a company hires an ad agency to market a product, a budget is created to place the ads. Media buyers choose how it’ll be divided among various media. They hold a lot of sway. But I was just an assistant. I should have been promoted since I practically did the job anyway.”

  “Where is the man in this story, eh?”

  She took a sip of her bottled water, hoping to flush away the bitterness. “There I was with a job that I’d worked so hard to keep and, poof, it was gone. I felt, what’s the point of having a career if it can be taken from you at any moment?”

  She didn’t tell Yves that she then drank too much French wine and told Nelson she was sick of working and wanted to be married and a mommy.

  “We’d been dating six months. When he didn’t propose or ask me to move in with him or offer to help me out, I said, ‘Maybe I’ll just go live in France.’ He thought it was a great idea! I wanted to stuff a baguette down his throat.”

  Alyce still kicked herself for thinking she had a chance with a cute, rich guy like Nelson. Mind you, she’d had no idea he was loaded when she met him. She just saw those gold-flecked brown eyes under a shock of blond bangs and that sweet smile. Their eyes locked and that was it.

  It only took a few years for him to ask her out. Once he did, it was like a fairytale. Rose petals all over their bed at the Delano hotel in South Beach. Hot-stone massages in the Hamptons. Long drives in the country in his sleek black Porsche Boxster. She should have known it wouldn’t last.

  Yves jarred her with another tap, this time on her thigh. “It is a drastic step, non? Why not just take a two-week vacation?”

  She scrinched over to the right. “Because when he said we should see other people —”

  “Ah! You wanted to stuff two baguettes down his throat.”

  She couldn’t help but crack a smile. “No, I wanted to start over with someone new. Moi. How can I meet the right guy if I’m not happy with myself? Two weeks wouldn’t be long enough to change that much.”

  “Other than your scrapes, you look fine to me, mademoiselle.”

  She made an attempt to pull her shorts down lower and felt a dull ache in her right elbow. He took another quick glance at Alyce’s legs and athletic shoes.

  “Are you a runner?”

  “I jog.”

  “So do I! We will run on the beach.”

  “I won’t be running anywhere with my injuries.”

  “They are not that serious.”

  The car was slowing down. Yves said, “I must stop here for a moment.” He parked in front of an antique store. “Please come in.”

  Antique. Another French word commonly used in English. Her first class at MEF had covered French words she already knew: à la carte, chic, cuisine, déjà vu, femme fatale, petite, rendezvous, touché. It had given her the false impression that learning this language would be easy.

  There was a man behind an old carved wooden desk who had to be the owner, and another man in a denim shirt and faded blue jeans with wild white hair and an unkempt beard. She couldn’t place his age. His face looked too young for the gray hair. And he was smoking—a habit Alyce could not fathom anyone developing. They both blatantly checked her out. The owner smiled. The old/young man? It was like he was studying her intently and pushing her away at the same time.

  All she understood was “étudiante” when Yves explained who she was. The owner let out a French-sounding “hohn-hohn-hohn” and the white-haired guy made some remark that had “Americ
an” in it, causing everyone to crack up but her.

  She noticed a dog at the strange guy’s feet. Actually, she smelled the dog first. He—or she—looked like it slept in mud. And they let it in here? But she loved animals and put the back of her hand in front of the dog’s mouth.

  “Hi, there. How are you today?”

  Instead of licking her hand, it farted.

  The men howled. Her face flushed with embarrassment.

  She wandered around the store. She heard Yves say “baguette” twice. The men had another good laugh.

  Right, she thought. Real funny. Ha. Ha. Ha.

  She lingered in front of a jewelry case, her eyes going straight to the diamond engagement rings, her mind straight to Nelson.

  A necklace with an emerald pendant, her May birthstone, caught her eye. There was another big tug at her fragile soul as she thought about her birthday not far away and being all alone for it. She noticed a tag on the necklace that said: Solde. She held it up to her neck for fun and admired it in a mirror.

  The owner called out to her in French. She thought he was reprimanding her for touching something that belonged to someone else. She quickly put it back and apologized. The men looked confused. Yves began to speak to her in English but the old/young guy stopped him. She understood he was telling Yves to speak in French, as he was supposed to, because she’d heard that 20 times a day for the last week.

  They moved closer to her. The owner was saying numbers that had to be prices. The nauseous dread that hit in class surged forth, but this was worse. She was in public.

  The owner slowed down his speaking and increased his volume as though she were a baby with a hearing problem. She looked at Yves with pleading “Please tell him to stop” eyes.

  “But it’s sold! How can I buy something that’s sold?”