Opposites Attack: A Novel with Recipes Provencal Read online

  The men’s eyes widened. They spoke in French, then roared with laughter again.

  Yves, his face crinkled up with glee, said, “Al-ees, s-o-l-d-e means it’s on sale.”

  She dashed out and waited in the car. This trip wasn’t transformational. It was torture-ational, with three more months to go. She’d sublet her place in Hoboken. She had to stick it out.

  On their way again, Yves said, “That was Jean-Luc Broussard in André’s store. He must still be having writer’s block. He only comes into town when he can’t write, and he’s been seen around a lot the last couple of years.”

  “Who?”

  “A famous novelist, though everyone would love to know his own story.”

  “Why?”

  He turned on the stereo. Jazz filled the car. “Never mind. I am more interesting.”

  He began selling her on his wonderful house. View of the sea, swimming pool, pétanque court. Pétanque was like bocce, but with beautiful, metal, engraved balls, and one of the few things she showed any talent for.

  “Here we are, Al-ees.”

  “Wow!”

  A fantastic villa on the Mediterranean Sea sure beat a farm in the middle of nowhere. Maybe Liliane liked her, after all.

  Her enthusiasm rose higher when she stepped inside. The foyer floor was made of cool, white marble. She could see straight through the living room to the blue water below that was glistening like a blanket of sequins. The décor was a mix of antiques, palms, and wicker furniture. Kind of tropical chic.

  Yves called out to see if anyone was home. No response. Uh-oh.

  Her room was downstairs, off from an area that led to a patio.

  “You will have complete privacy,” he said, with another leer. “Would you like a glass of wine?”

  “Now? It’s so early. No, thank you.”

  “La, Americans. So uptight.”

  He led her to the bathroom that had a bidet (ooh la la) and a special way of heating the water that made it instantly hot.

  She stood outside the small room as he said, “There is not a big tank that controls the whole house like is common in the United States. Each bathroom has its own. You can burn yourself if you are not careful.”

  Alyce forced a smile and moved to the bedroom door. With her hand on the doorknob, she said, “I really need to study. When will your wife be home? I can’t wait to meet her.”

  He frowned. “I have no idea.”

  She closed the door in his pleading face and made sure it was locked. Then she flopped on the bed and picked up her main textbook, French is Fun.

  The feeling took over of a thousand hot needles boring into her brain.

  Where did she ever get the nerve to spend three months at a French language school and think, voila, she would be fluent? And she’d spent all of her severance pay on it, too! How had it slipped her mind that she was so bad at introductory Spanish in the seventh grade that the teacher urged her to pick another elective?

  Her dream to live up to Glorianna’s wild expectations (and her own) vanished as quickly as the smile on a Frenchie’s face when she attempted to speak their magnificent language.

  The only good thing about being thrown into Survival Mode was that it pushed Nelson way back in the things-to-obsess-about queue.

  Sometimes.

  3

  Scorched Earth and the Baffling Bidet

  Five kilometers away

  The fragrant late afternoon turned cooler as Jean-Luc Broussard held court in his favorite spot: his kitchen. He shook local extra-virgin olive oil into a cast-iron skillet and gently turned it in several directions to coat the surface.

  To his newly arrived houseguests, he said, “An American girl—a student, it turns out, at my sister’s language school—walked into my friend André’s store today. Her French was horrendous. She was wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap, big ugly sneakers, and hardly any clothes.” He motioned to the top of his thigh. “Tiny shorts and”—he pulled his shirt back as he thrust out his chest—”a tight top.”

  Robbie cut him off. “Did she at least have a good body?”

  He thought about that as he worked his long, prematurely white-gray hair into a rubber band. “It was toned, but there was no mystery. I prefer a woman to dress like a woman.”

  The achingly feminine Spanish beauty, Isabella, tossed her long black hair and smiled seductively. Robbie did not see it. Jean-Luc pretended he didn’t either.

  He continued with his story. When he reached the “But it’s already sold!” punch line, he laughed almost as hard as when it happened. “You should have seen her face when she found out solde meant it was on sale!”

  “Who are her hosts?” Robbie inquired.

  “The lucky devils are the Devreauxs, after the farmers Fabien and Fabienne gave her the boot. According to Yves Devreaux, worse than driving a moped through their barn was that she couldn’t distinguish the difference in the pronunciation of their names.”

  Robbie who spoke passable but not fluent French, replied, “It is subtle to the untrained ear.”

  “I wonder who will win her,” Jean-Luc mused. “The father or the son? It has become a Marlaison pastime to place bets.”

  Robbie had a good laugh as he watched Jean-Luc chopping the wild garlic he’d pulled out of the ground minutes before.

  “I would say the son, even though the father likes to jog and she looks like she has that dreadful athletic streak in her.”

  Isabella’s sly contribution was, “Maybe she will sleep with both of them.” Seeing Robbie’s reaction, “Why not?”

  He huffed and changed the subject. “That smells marvelous, Jean-Luc. Are you sure we can’t help?”

  “A Brit in my kitchen? That’s almost as bad as an American.”

  “What about me?” The Castilian Isabella put a cigarette to her lips. Robbie immediately had a lighter underneath its tip.

  Her ever-so-slight grimace at his gesture prompted Jean-Luc to say, “Guests are not allowed in my kitchen, either.”

  He hoped she would pick up on his true message. As ravishing as she was, she should not leave parental and pudgy Robbie and put down stakes with him. The Brit helped her as an artist, showed her paintings in his galleries, took care of her, gave her excellent advice even if she didn’t want to hear it. Why did so many women want to snatch Jean-Luc’s bachelorhood away?

  “With your guest cottage,” Robbie asked, “Do you ever host students?”

  Jean-Luc’s knife froze in midair. “Are you mad?” He stabbed the last slit into the leg of lamb and stuffed a sliver of garlic into it. The rest went into the skillet. “I need my privacy and I cannot stand to be around people for very long who do not speak French.”

  “I speak it,” Isabella purred.

  Robbie’s antenna finally went up. He glared at Jean-Luc and took a swig of his brown ale.

  The tension between them was interrupted by the phone ringing. He knew the caller would invariably be a creditor, past lover, lover-to-be, Raymond his editor, his sister (also a creditor), or a repugnant reporter.

  He removed the skillet from the burner and answered the Australian journalist’s rehearsed unctuous introduction with silence.

  “I’m sorry. Do you not speak English?” the man asked with embarrassment.

  “I speak it extremely well. I do not do interviews and you interrupted me while cooking dinner for guests. I said nothing because I have nothing to say.” Affecting a perfect Down Under accent, he closed with, “G’day mate.”

  After his guests’ eyes returned to their normal size, Robbie said with a haughty British clip, “Why don’t I have the gall to be that way with customers? The next time one complains the painting doesn’t match her sofa I’ll just break it over her head.”

  “It better not be one of mine.” Isabella lightly tossed her raven mane again.

  “Jean-Luc, you are your own worst bloody enemy. You complain you are not appreciated and yet you drive off anyone who tries to help.”

 
Jean-Luc rubbed the knot at the base of his neck as he returned to his glorious stove that had set him back 10,000 Euros. How the money had flowed just a few years ago. How quickly it had stopped. He would never admit Robbie was right.

  “They are not helping me. They are only feeding their egos and their bank accounts.”

  Isabella lightly pushed Robbie’s shoulder. “If artists spent all their time doing interviews, they’d never get anything done. You need someone to field these things, Jean-Luc.”

  “And the e-mails! An electronic leash. At least I don’t have a cell phone to bother me.”

  Robbie eyed him with disdain. “The world today quickly forgets those who keep a low profile. But enough about that depressing subject.”

  “Thank you.” In a new jovial tone, he added, “All that matters is preparing us a delicious meal!”

  He jammed a long two-prong fork into a leg of lamb and placed it in the garlic-seasoned skillet. The large yellow kitchen filled with sizzling sounds and heady aromas.

  “You’ll be having herb-stuffed leg of lamb, roasted rosemary potatoes and a fresh arugula salad. Now, what wine would work? A Greek Retsina would be a nice change, yes?”

  They moaned their approval, yet Isabella didn’t take the hint to change the subject. In her fairly good English that had an added zip from her Spanish accent, she said, “I suppose there is much to lament when you are a success. More to live up to, more questions about your work, more money to worry about.”

  She was 40, childless, and had that gaze he’d seen trap many a man. In addition, her toenails and fingernails were coated in deep red polish that reminded him of talons dripping with blood. Forty. He wasn’t so far from that landmark birthday.

  He focused on his cooking. He was particularly pleased this time with the mixture he sprinkled over the lamb: mint, parsley, basil, thyme, and chives. Transferring the chunk of meat to a plate then a pan for roasting, Didon rose from her place on the kitchen floor and followed him closely until he let his faithful canine companion lick clean the plate.

  “What’s this?” Isabella exclaimed a few minutes later as the rosebud he had surreptitiously taken from a vase on another counter magically appeared next to her wine glass.

  “Put it in water before you go to bed,” he said. “It will open tomorrow.”

  “Are you trying to steal my woman, Jean-Luc?” Robbie stood up and took off his jacket. “I’ll punch your big nose in if you are.”

  “You have nothing to worry about now,” Jean-Luc said, “but call my nose big again and you will.”

  He slid the roasting pan with the lamb into one of his expensive ovens and set the digital timer to remind him to check it in three hours. Slow roasting at a low temperature was the only way to cook lamb. He hated that digital timer. Nearly all ovens were made with one now.

  Out with the old, in with the new.

  Jean-Luc’s company retired to the guest cottage not long after dinner. They were passing through Marlaison and catching a plane to Barcelona the next day. Isabella had picked at her dinner. Jean-Luc could see the wheels spinning in her lubricated brain.

  He returned to his computer, fully intending to work on his latest novel, but the air was charged with excitement. Isabella mixed with an approaching spring shower was sure to unleash the whims of Aphrodite.

  He played chess online with someone named KingTut and won in four moves.

  It started to rain. A trancelike state settled over him.

  His mind drifted to Colette.

  He shook his head, went back to his computer.

  He needed to escape the memories of Marlaison. But he had no money. He thought he’d learned his lesson as a teenager when he quickly went broke after his first bestseller. When money came pouring in again, what did he do? Throw it around as if he were an oil baron. His excuse, to himself, was that the inspiration for the wildly successful book caused him to feel he had exploited Colette and therefore did not deserve his good fortune.

  Never mind that no one alive—save for Raymond—knew the real story.

  He knew.

  His many literary awards were now packed in a box and hidden at his sister’s after he threatened to destroy them.

  In The Deer Park, Norman Mailer wrote that life demands that one must grow or else pay more for remaining the same. Was it possible to change now? Would he ever get the chance to even try?

  “Am I disturbing you?”

  Isabella’s sultry voice blocked out the sound of the soft rain caressing his office window.

  Swiveling around, he took in her good looks as she leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed to accentuate her cleavage as she tried to warm herself up in the cool night air. She was still in her pink and red flowery dress; still woozy. Her hair and skin were damp.

  “Do you need something?” he asked in what he hoped was a detached tone. “Forgive me for any oversights. This is a one-man operation.”

  “Are you a one-woman operation as well,” she asked, “or are you still juggling several at once?”

  “My tempestuous cruel Muse rules me now. If I do not spit out another book soon…” He swept his arms around the room. “I will lose everything.”

  “You are exaggerating.”

  “I am not. The grass here is not greener, Isabella. It is scorched earth.”

  She responded with equal intensity. “I will take any kind of earth over the quicksand I am in.” She did not break her intense gaze.

  “Isabella, you are a beautiful, talented, smart woman. I thought you had more sense. Robbie may not be what you want, but he is what you need.”

  She shifted, pouted. “He was out the moment his head hit the pillow. If I hear him snore one more time I’ll—”

  “Wait until you hear me lose my temper.”

  “It is a sign of passion!” She paced his office; her sexy black sandals, click, click, clicked across the pine floor. “He is boring. And he wants to marry me! I cannot do it.”

  “Then don’t. But do not drag me into this.” He turned back to his work.

  She walked behind his desk that was in the middle of the large room, faced him, and leaned over with a look of such longing he had to glance away. He silently asked his Muse to give him a sign. His answer was a warm sensation between his legs.

  “Fine,” he said, “if you decide not to make your plane tomorrow, you are welcome to stay. But not for long. I must write.”

  Alyce woke with a start, momentarily disoriented. Where was she? Oh, right. The villa of her new hosts. She glanced at French is Fun, face down on her chest. She’d read three words and fallen asleep. The window in her bedroom was open. She could feel it was cooler now, and much later. What time was it?

  She checked her cell. Even though it didn’t work here, not even for texting since she turned off her phone plan to save money (and not be tempted to call Nelson), she could use it as a camera and clock. Five o’clock. Wonderful. Now she wouldn’t be able to go to sleep tonight. And she was just getting over her jet lag.

  She eyed French is Fun again. She had nothing to worry about. She already had the printed version of Tylenol P.M.

  She changed into jeans and a light fleece jacket and ambled onto the patio. A young man wearing sunglasses was stretched out on a lounger. On closer inspection, she found him to be quite cute in his baggy cargo pants and Bob Marley sweatshirt. As he listened to his iPod, he nodded to the beat, causing his long brown hair to fall into his face. It didn’t take long for him to sense her presence.

  “Bonjour, Al-ees!” He turned off his music, put his shades on top of his head, and stood to greet her with a handshake. “I am Julien.”

  Liliane was right about him being mature for his age. He had a totally different vibe from his dad—and amazing green eyes, even with the late afternoon sun behind him.

  They sat for awhile drinking sparkling water (“water with gas,” was what the French called it, he said) and talked about music, movies, her impressions of the French, his of Americans. The s
ky behind the house turned gorgeous shades of blue, violet, pink, and orange. She took a photo of it with her cell.

  “Wait until you see the sun rise over the Mediterranean,” he said.

  Outside of the classroom, she thought, everything about Marlaison was pure magic.

  She spoke too soon. Yves walked onto the balcony and seemed to be glaring down at them. Or was it that French bemused look again? Then his mother appeared. Alyce could have sworn she did the same. She stood up, waved, and was about to say hello but they disappeared. Maybe this wasn’t going to be such a good fit after all. Or were they on their way down to meet them?

  When they didn’t show up, she turned to Julien. “What does your father do?”

  “He is a heart surgeon.”

  “But he smokes!”

  “He thinks his jogging will save him.”

  “And your mother? Does she work?”

  “Yes, and she is not my mother,” he said with little emotion. “Maman is dead.”

  “Oh.” Alyce wanted to know more, but merely said, “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

  “Me, too.”

  She nervously rubbed her hands on her thighs. “I need to introduce myself to her. I’m being rude.”

  “Let me take you for a tour of Marlaison and dinner after you do that.”

  Her hands stopped moving. “Maybe later, Julien.”

  “Zhoo-lee-ahn,” he corrected her. She repeated it several times.

  “Where are your little sisters?” she asked, looking toward the house.

  His shrug was followed by a look of keen interest.

  To diffuse him, she said, “I can’t wait to get married and have children.”

  He reached for his ear buds. “Why must you be married to do that?”

  “You are way too young for this conversation.”

  He smirked. “You brought it up. And you are not the oldest woman I’ve asked out.”

  “Is that what your offer was? Well! In that case…”

  “Yes?”

  She turned and stood up before he could see her smile, but knew he heard it in her voice. “Now I’m really not interested.”