Roulette (15 page)

Jules would undoubtedly have missed the train to Avignon if I hadn’t shown up at his office the next day to physically tear him away from his work. I finally have to yell, “Your only brother is getting married! Let’s go!”

Once he is away from his desk, Jules opens up considerably. We talk the entire three-hour journey about his childhood and how he developed his interests in genealogy and the law. And mathematics. And languages. He seems shy about his accomplishments.

Even though I’ve known him for only a little over a week, I’ve come to admire him. He is awkward but also incredibly kind and thoughtful. He is the type of person who might have been dropped on his head—half a bubble off the level when it comes to interacting with other people—but no less endearing or intelligent.

The high-speed train pulls into Avignon station at 5:18 p.m. exactly.

Margot is waiting for us at the end of the long, sloping ramp that leads from the upstairs platform. The sun is cutting through the white slats that line the enormous barrel roof of the modern structure. She looks so beautiful, and so relaxed—so unlike her former, ambitious New York City self.

She’s always been a dark beauty, but very erect and full of purpose. Rigid. Her time in Provence—or, more likely, her time in the presence of the man who loves her—has loosened and softened her. She’s wearing a colorful, multipatterned scarf around her neck and a bright orange cotton coat. She exudes vitality.

“Oh! Miki! You’re really here!” She pulls me into a hard hug, then holds me at a slight distance to get a better look at me. “It’s so good to see you! Someone rational!” She turns to Jules and gives him a similarly forceful embrace, which he pretty much tolerates. “Make that
two
rational people!”

Margot’s eyes skitter over my shoulder. “Zoe! How are you?”

I turn to see a petite, fashionable woman walking toward us. Her red hair is smoothed into a chic bob, and she has a stunning slash of matte red lipstick across her lips. I hear Jules mutter something disparaging under his breath.

“Miki, this is Jules and Étienne’s cousin Zoe Mortemart.”

I shake her hand, and she seems nice enough, except for the whole sizing-me-up-from-head-to-toe thing. “Hi. Nice to meet you,” I say.

“Oh, hey! Are you Simone’s daughter? I heard you were in town!”

Oh, hey
indeed. “I am, actually. Have we met?” I’m trying to stay cheerful, but with Jules rolling his eyes behind the woman’s back and Margot trying not to laugh at my obvious discomfort, it isn’t easy.

“We have now!” she chirps. “I work at
Paris Match
. It’s great to meet you! Wow. This weekend just got a whole lot better. Would you be willing to do a quick interview at some point?”

“Zoe!” I’ve never heard Jules raise his voice before now, and he sounds pissed.

“What?” she replies innocently. “Don’t act all aggrieved. I’m just doing my job.”

“Now, now, you two.” Margot smiles at the bickering cousins. “It’s our wedding weekend. Zoe, you promised to keep your newshound instincts on a tight leash, remember?”

“Oh, fine!” She rolls her eyes. “Only for you.” She leans in and kisses Margot on both cheeks. “Congratulations, by the way. You look fabulous, as always.”

“Hardly!” Margot says, looking down at her bright but casual outfit. Then she turns to Jules and says, “Now, wipe that scowl off your face, and let’s go. We can’t all be introverted geniuses.” Margot slides an arm through mine and leads us out to the parking lot.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

T
he May air is crisp and clear when it hits my face. So unfamiliar. The air in Los Angeles often makes me feel like I am in need of a squeegee to wipe away the thick pollution, or just the human congestion—all those exhalations. The spring air in Paris felt fresher, but still wet and thick.

The Provençal air feels brand new. As we cross the promenade, I take a very deep breath. This will be perfect—a clean slate.

“Isn’t it incredible?” Margot asks. “I think that was the first thing I fell in love with when I got here: the air. It’s like a drug. Be careful; it’s very addictive.” She pulls me along, and Jules smiles some small, knowing smile and keeps up with Margot’s leading pace.

The drive east out of Avignon is slow with after-work traffic, but Margot talks the whole time, asking Jules all sorts of questions about the land dispute he’s working on for her and Lulu, and then she laughs with Zoe about the latest scandals in Paris. Then she is interrogating me as best she can about Landon.

“You broke it off with a hot cardiologist?” Zoe asks with disbelief, as if I declined the Nobel Peace Prize. She is twenty-five, and apparently the idea of being purposely single at thirty strikes her as appalling.

“I think it’s for the best,” I answer slowly.

“Maybe you’ll have the same luck I did,” Margot says, catching my eye in the rearview mirror. “I met Étienne soon after I moved here.” She returns her attention to the road ahead.

“Right after she broke off her engagement in New York,” I add with a smirk.

Jules looks up. “You were engaged to be married?”

Margot nods.

Jules looked affronted on his brother’s behalf.

Margot laughs and pats his thigh. “Oh, Jules. Look at you, all protective of Étienne’s honor. Seriously, we need to get you a girl to take your mind off things. Miki’s available,” she adds.

Poor Jules. He turns bright red.

I reach from the backseat and squeeze his shoulder. “Don’t worry, Jules. I understand. She’s the sister I never had, always saying the very thing that will make you feel the most discomfort imaginable.”

“I do not!” Margot gasps with false innocence. “That’s Lulu!”

We all laugh. Apparently, Jules and Zoe have both visited numerous times and know the dynamic Montespan sisters already.

Margot turns to Jules. “On the other hand, if we’re going to make
everyone
uncomfortable, shall I ask the question that’s on everyone’s mind? Is Miki already in love with someone else? Is that the real reason she broke it off with her boyfriend and quit her fabulous job at USC?”

“Margot!” I cry. I lean between the two front seats and say, “Do not answer that, Jules. She’s baiting us.”

Margot hums and nods her head knowingly. “That’s a definite yes.”

Zoe perks up from her endless texting at the sound of that. “Oh! You broke up with the cardiologist because you met someone else? Now I get it.” She nods her head. I need to stay away from this woman, or she is going to drive me nuts.

“Oh. My. God.” I blush in the backseat. “Cut it out, you guys. I’m a single woman at a foreign wedding. I need a good old-fashioned fling.”

Zoe continues, “Agreed! I’ll fight you for one of those sexy bad boys coming in from London!” She elbows me in the upper arm, and I nod vaguely. Charming.

Jules tries to sink even lower into his seat. Making him cringe is apparently one of Zoe’s favorite pastimes.

Margot smiles in the rearview mirror again as she changes the subject. “Here we are, Miki. This is the village where we go for coffee and the bakery.” She is navigating the car through a narrow, steep street that leads to a medieval town square. She pauses for a bit, pointing to the café and the
boulangerie
in the opposite direction. She drives down another narrow street, and, after she makes a hairpin turn, the entire valley spreads out before us. Margot pulls the car to a halt in the middle of the deserted street. “Isn’t it unbelievable?”

I stare. There isn’t really anything else to do. Jules and Zoe stare, too. The sun is setting and the surrounding fields and trees are etched in gold and copper and hints of ochre and fiery orange. Some of the spring fields are still fallow, but every cropped stalk creates a shadow and reflection of the setting sun. It is van Gogh and Cézanne and Monet and Millet all rolled out at our feet.

“It’s incredible, Margot.” I turn to look at her serene profile and feel her happiness like a punch in the gut. I sit back quickly so she won’t see my threatening tears. I fear I will never be that happy, in that carefree way. We wind our way under the arch of trees, and I am once again reminded of my fantasy of being on the back of Rome’s imaginary scooter, with the spring leaves just beginning to refill the canopy over the curving road.

Margot slows the car and turns down a rocky dirt lane that leads for about a mile through more scraggy oak groves, and then the panorama opens wide again, this time to the south, across the valley in that direction.

When we come to a stop in front of a stone farmhouse, Lulu comes running out of the house with two tall, handsome men. I wonder which one is Margot’s fiancé; then I don’t have to wonder, when the taller, dark one comes to Margot’s side as soon as she steps out of the car. He pulls her into his arms and swings her around. She laughs and kisses him quickly on the lips, then pushes him off. “Cut that out and come meet Miki.”

Of course, Étienne Mortemart is yet another stunningly handsome Frenchman. Is it in the water? Deliver me.

He bends slightly in a formal greeting. Margot says my full name when she introduces us. “Mikhaila Voyanovski Durand, please allow me to present Étienne Mortemart, my fiancé.” Margot shivers visibly when she says the word
fiancé
, and I cast aside my own selfish thoughts about scooter dreams that are very obviously
not
going to come true. I decide, instead, to dive headlong into Margot’s ocean of nuptial excitement. I grab Étienne into a brief hug.

“I’m so happy to meet the man who does this to Margot!” I say, then point at her.

He knows what I mean, and I love him even more on Margot’s behalf. He leans in slightly. “She does it to me also,” he confides in a throaty French accent that makes me feel as if I am never going to escape the whispering reminders of that single night in Saint Petersburg.

I smile at the sweet concession and then try harder not to see his resemblance to Rome. His height, the spread of his shoulders, something about the way he smiles that inclusive, mischievous pirate smile. It is distracting. And Margot notices. I think for a minute she thinks I’m coming on to him.

“What is it?” she asks.

“Oh, god, sorry. Nothing. Étienne just reminds me of someone, that’s all. Sorry.” I shake my head and smile again. “It’s really a pleasure to meet you.”

Lulu is bouncing up and down, just as I’ve always remembered her. She and Zoe are babbling about some gallery exhibit in Avignon they both want to see, while Jules and Étienne take our luggage out of the trunk.

While I was at MIT, I spent most of my holidays at the Montespans’ house in the Berkshires. Rather than flying back to Los Angeles to what might very well have turned out to be an empty house—or, more accurately, a staffed house—I became the Montespans’ de facto third sister during those visits. Lulu was still a teenager then, irresponsible and wild, and Margot clung to me like a raft. Her family was notoriously bohemian, and Margot . . . wasn’t.

I hug Lulu and marvel at her new maturity. She is still her same Tigger-ish self, but she seems more grounded somehow. Then I see why.

“Hi, I’m Trevor McCormick. Nice to meet you, Mikhaila.”

I take the British man’s offered hand. Lulu answers for me before I can speak. “Oh, she’s Miki, silly. No one calls her Mikhaila!”

He smiles and finishes shaking my hand. “Okay, then. Hi, Miki.”

“Hi, Trevor, nice to meet you.” He is kind of scruffy around the edges—rough-cut, light-brown hair that hasn’t been trimmed in a few months; a few days’ growth of beard—but the sharp eyes give him away. He looks like he is playing at being louche, more than anything.

We turn toward the house, and Étienne pulls Margot into a one-armed hold. It is exactly how Rome held me when we walked down the street. This is going to be a hell of a long weekend with all these swooning young lovers everywhere if I persist in translating every gesture into a Miki-and-Rome reenactment.

Thankfully, the sight of a little girl, probably two or three, who comes bounding out of the house, takes my mind off Rome. She runs up to Margot, who bends down to grab her and swings her into a wide turn and tosses her in the air.

“
Mar-mar . . . vous êtes revenue
!”

Make that young lovers
and
love children.
Hell.

“Uh . . .” The stunning revelation that Margot has a baby makes me lose my poise. My open-mouthed shock sends Margot into a fit of laughter. Étienne takes the baby and holds her easily on his hip.

“How could you not tell me you have a baby?” I ask, eyes wide.

“Miki,” Étienne says, “this is my daughter, Ariel. From my first marriage.”

Jules and Trevor are smiling at my attempt to recover. “Oh.”

“Why don’t you and Margot catch up and we’ll get dinner ready?” Lulu offers. “Obviously, a lot has been going on, and she needs to fill you in.”

“Zoe,” Étienne says, “you and Miki are going to share the small bedroom. Hope that’s okay.”

“Of course!” Zoe replies.

“Perfect,” Margot says. “Let’s get a glass of wine and go sit by the fire in my study. It’s starting to get cool. Come on, Mik.” She pulls me next to her, and we all trail back into the house.

Margot’s study—her refuge—is a rich, book-filled sanctuary. Two comfortable leather chairs are angled in the cozy bay window, and a low fire crackles in the small grate.

“Wow, Mar, this is phenomenal.”

She closes the door behind us with her hip. “I feel so lucky. It still doesn’t feel like this is really my life.” She hands me one of the glasses of wine.

We both sit down, and I let my eyes wander over shelf after shelf of books and box files. “I love it in here.”

“Me, too,” Margot agrees. “Come in anytime you want to hide if it gets too chaotic this weekend, with my crazy parents running around, or Étienne’s glamorous cousins from his mom’s side or his British ex-in-laws. It’s going to be only about forty people . . . forty very strong personalities, if you know what I mean.” She winks and takes a slow, appreciative sip of the wine.

“I feel bad taking you away from all your guests like this,” I say.

“Don’t be silly. You’re a guest, aren’t you? I can see those people anytime. When my mom and dad get back from Aix tonight we’ll hang out with them, but until then I’m all yours.” Then her tone changes. “So. What the hell’s going on?” She looks so concerned, so earnest, I just kind of collapse into the safety of a very old, very trustworthy friend and burst into tears. Margot leans forward and hands me a box of tissues from her desk.

“The doctor is in,” she says with a supportive smile.

“Oh, Margot. What a mess. I mean”—I try to smile—“everything is so amazing. I am so excited about Voyanovski and all the new opportunities that are coming my way.” I sort of sputter through the words, as surprised by my outburst as she is. “I’m so relieved to be free of Landon, and even giving up my place at USC feels like this huge weight off my shoulders. But . . .” I take a deep breath.

“You
have
met someone else, haven’t you?”

I nod slowly. “It’s just so stupid.” I wipe the tears away and sit up straighter. “I thought it was going to be this one-off, a kind of . . .” I stop, distracted. I look out the wavy glass panes of the bay window behind Margot’s shoulder and watch the last edge of the sun fall behind the mountains to the west. Even the red of the sunset reminds me of him. It’s becoming ridiculous. I refocus. “I thought it would be a spot of fun. We both agreed it was just going to be
fun
.”

“Was it?” Margot asks.