A Wedding in Provence (2 page)

“It took all those years to bring us to this weekend,” he said. “We needed the wrong turns and the detours and the false starts. Look where we ended up.”

“My big blue sea,” Olivia said.

“Marry me,” Brody said.

Olivia walked into the garden of La Maison Verte, expecting to find Emily already there. She had told Brody that she’d head downstairs early so she could steal a few minutes with her best friend. She sat in one of the wrought-iron chairs and within a few minutes, Ulysse, Emily and Sébastien’s white retriever, padded over and dropped to the ground at her feet. This one’s not ferocious, she thought. She petted him and whispered
“Bonsoir, Monsieur Ulysse,”
into his ear. He put his head down but his wagging tail swept the tiny stones on the path behind him.

Olivia leaned back in her chair and looked around. The inn and gardens were exquisite, no doubt due to her friend’s remarkable sense of style. Emily had never run a country inn before, much less one in the south of France, but she had always been able to transform any space into a place that invited you to linger. Look around. Breathe. She even had that skill at twenty when they’d been roommates at Berkeley. Their small suite was every friend’s favorite hiding place thanks to Emily’s found art, wallpaper made from magazine collages, furniture covered with tapestries.

Now she had become mistress of the manor, though this
place looked more like a hidden jewel. The house was covered with ivy, and the stucco walls were painted a rusted orange color as surprising as it was pleasing. The building twisted and turned so that here in the garden Olivia felt as if the house had taken her in its arms. And the garden itself was both lush and bursting with color, though somehow it calmed rather than assaulted the soul.

She considered the champagne bottle resting on ice in the glass bowl but decided against it. Linger. Look around. Breathe.

Soon she’d give up breathing. Her daughters were due to arrive tomorrow morning along with Brody’s mother and Jake, his best friend. Jake, the cowboy who hated marriage, would perform the wedding ceremony. Why had Brody insisted on that? Would the guy take it seriously? Give it up, Olivia told herself. You already agreed.

Now she felt an undercurrent of fear, like an itchy scalp, that this wedding in France was fraught with peril. For starters there were her daughters: One was a mess; the other wouldn’t mess up. Brody’s parents: His father had walked out on their fifty-five-year marriage a couple of months before and no one could understand why. Fanny was coming to the wedding but not Sam, who had cut off all contact with everyone. And then Brody’s best friend, Jake: Well, he had warned Brody against marrying Olivia.

Linger. Look around. Breathe.

The inn was tucked into a valley; vineyards carpeted the land as far as Olivia could see. Late evening light bathed the hills so that the many shades of green seemed to vibrate and
shimmer. Towering above them stood Cap Canaille, a cliff of red rock that ran along the edge of the valley and jutted out into the Mediterranean.

Tonight they were alone at the inn with Emily and Sébastien, her French husband, whom Olivia adored. Tonight she’d sleep with Brody in that gorgeous room in the inn and they’d forget about everyone else. Tonight she’d drink champagne.

“The bride,” Emily said and Olivia startled, sending Ulysse into a flurry of movement and barking and flying stones.

“He’s me,” Olivia said. “That’s what I’d be doing if I weren’t so well behaved.”

“Since when are you well behaved?”

“Can we open that champagne without waiting for the guys?”

“Same old O,” Emily said. Only Emily called Olivia O. Once Brody had tried it and Olivia silenced him: “Find your own nickname,” she had told him. Olivia is Olivia to everyone in the world except Emily. And Emily, of course, is Em.

“I’m rattled,” Olivia said. “I know you think this is a good idea. Want to let me in on the reason?”

“For a wedding?” Emily opened the champagne while Olivia held out two glasses.

“For a wedding with guests.”

“You want me to leave?”

“I want everyone else to leave. And they haven’t even gotten here yet.”

Emily poured the champagne. “It will be wonderful,” she said. “You don’t have to do anything but drink champagne for three straight days.”

“Deal.”

Both women dropped into their chairs, side by side. Olivia leaned over and clinked glasses again with Emily.

“To you. To your beautiful inn. To your amazing generosity.”

“To our friendship.”

“You guys getting married?” someone called and both women spun around.

Brody walked down the path toward them, the sun low in the sky behind him. He wore a pale blue shirt, jeans, his cowboy boots. Olivia felt her heart ease.

“I’m pathetically straight,” she said. “Otherwise I would have run off with this woman years ago.”

“Thank God,” Brody said. “Have you finished the champagne?”

Emily stood and reached for the bottle.

“First, good evening,” Brody said. He leaned forward and kissed Emily on both cheeks. Then he walked to Olivia, pulled her up and into his arms.

“Good evening, my love,” Olivia said. “You look very handsome.”

“You’re just trying to seduce me into marrying you,” Brody said.

Emily handed him a glass and they all clinked and drank.

“I love you guys,” Emily said. “Who finds love at our age?”

Olivia was fifty-five, Brody was fifty-two. She had met him when her theater company was on tour across the country. As artistic director, she tagged along for the first few shows because a battle was brewing between the director and the actors. After a performance in Laramie one night, Olivia had gone for
a drink at the Old Buckhorn Bar and ended up sitting next to a man who was reading a novel while everyone else was downing shots of whiskey. Now, they were getting married.

“Emily!” Sébastien called from the inn. Ulysse bounded toward him.

“Our master calls,” Emily said and headed back down the path.

Brody leaned over and kissed Olivia’s head. “Marry me,” he said. He’d been saying it for months, ever since he asked her and she said yes. He claimed to like the sound of it on his lips, her expression each time he asked her, and the certainty he had that she’d say yes. Yes.

“Et voilà!”
Emily called.

She walked up the path, a tray of aperitifs in her hands, followed by Sébastien who carried two bottles of wine. Ulysse shadowed him, almost bouncing as he walked. Happy old dog as long as his people were near.

Olivia greeted Sébastien with a kiss on each cheek; Brody threw one arm around his back. Brody had met Emily and Sébastien a couple of months earlier when they’d closed down the inn and traveled to San Francisco for a week’s vacation. Olivia had loved the ease with which her old best friends and the new guy in her life forged instant friendships.

“I’ve come to tell you all about
le mariage
,” Sébastien said.

The others groaned.

“We have years of experience! We have wisdom! We have wine!”

“Spare me,” Olivia said.

She had been married for twenty-two years to a man who had lost himself in his work. After she finally left him seven
years ago, she thought she’d never marry again. She already had kids; she was too old for more. Even after she met Brody she didn’t consider marriage. She lived in California—lots of people had a significant other or a partner in their lives. When Brody had proposed, on the top of a mountain near Tahoe, she was shocked and wildly pleased. Marriage? At our age? Yes!

“Who else will give you advice?” Sébastien persisted. “We’ll start with the wedding night.”

“No!” Olivia shouted. “Not that! My virgin ears!”

Sébastien poured himself the last of the champagne and toasted them. “To hot married sex!” he proclaimed.

They all settled into their chairs and Emily passed around the small bowls of olives, tapenade on toast, crisp potato chips.

“This is your life?” Brody asked. “Every day?”

“Not even close,” Emily said. “We wake up to breakfast for ten people. We spend the morning telling folks where to get kayaks, where to taste wine, how to score dinner reservations. If the cleaning girl doesn’t show, I’m in the rooms, seeing things no one should see. At the end of the day, if we’re still awake, we can share a glass of wine with each other on our terrace, hiding from the guests.”

“But you love it,” Olivia said, more a statement than a question. She so idealized her friend’s exotic French life that she couldn’t imagine otherwise.

“I love it,” Emily said wearily.

“We would not want to do anything else,” Sébastien said, more sure of himself. “After my mother died I needed to come home to France. Now I have lunch with my father in Marseille every Sunday. I will know when he is sick, when he is dying. I will be with him, not four thousand miles away.”

Sébastien and Emily met in business school in Manhattan. Emily wanted to expand her work as an interior designer. Sébastien wanted to learn English and to make money. They spent twenty-one years in New York; he worked on Wall Street and Emily designed the interiors of public spaces. They hated their jobs and only marginally enjoyed their city. When Sébastien’s mother died, two years ago, leaving him the inn in Cassis, they quit work, put their house on the market, and booked flights to France, all within the week.

“What did this place look like when you first took over?” Brody asked.

“A disaster,” Emily said. “This garden didn’t exist. The house was a mess—the additions on each end didn’t match the original.”

“The pool was cracked and empty,” Sébastien added. “A jungle of weeds grew from the bottom.”

“An old rusted bicycle lived in the pool!” Emily told them. “And you can’t imagine the collections tucked into every corner of the house. Owls. Cuckoo clocks. Wild-eyed dolls.”

“My mother was odd,” Sébastien summed up.

“Crazy.”

“Oui,”
he said.
“Elle était folle.”

Sébastien reached out and took Emily’s hand. “Emily created this place from nothing. I will show you photos later. You will not believe what she had to work with.”

“And Sébastien did most of the work,” Emily said proudly. “The guy hasn’t put on a suit since we left New York. Now he wears a tool belt. It’s much sexier.”

“See,” Sébastien said, “it is all about
le sexe
.”

Emily rolled her eyes. “If I’d seen this place, I never would
have come,” she told them. “We spent a full year renovating before we opened the inn. Even now there are three million projects to keep Sébastien busy.”

“The caretaker’s cottage is next,” Sébastien said. “We can rent two more rooms once we finish that.”

“You need a hand this weekend?” Brody asked.

“No!” both Emily and Olivia shouted at once. They all laughed.

“No way are you disappearing into guy land,” Olivia said. “I need Brody here. At my side.”

A bell rang loudly, sending Ulysse into another flurry of barks and yelps.

“C’est qui?”
Sébastien asked, looking at Emily.

She shrugged. “No guests this weekend,” she said. “That’s for sure.”

“Someone got here early,” Olivia grumbled. “They’re going to ruin my one good night.”

The bell rang again, more insistently this time.

Sébastien pushed himself up and walked away, sipping from his champagne glass. “I send the person away,” he said.
“Je reviens tout de suite.”

“It’s probably some tourists who think they can get a room last minute,” Emily said.

“Are you booked all the time?” Brody asked.

“Pretty much. It’s a blessing and a curse. Success in the first year. I wasn’t quite ready.”

“You seem to be doing great,” Olivia said, but she wasn’t sure. Emily looked tired. Of course she’s tired—she’s running an inn. Olivia watched her as she opened a bottle of white wine. She was still beautiful at fifty-five but her skin was lined,
her once blond hair mostly gray. Olivia experienced a time warp whenever they got together. They were supposed to be twenty.

“I am,” Emily said. “It’s just a lot to take on.”

“Can you hire help?” Brody asked.

“I will. For now, this place needs me here. Once we’ve been in operation for another year I may bring on a manager.”

They heard voices, loud voices. A woman was yelling. Sébastien said,
“Non!”
in a voice Olivia had never heard before, an angry, forceful voice. Emily stood and one of the champagne glasses fell to the ground, shattering against the stones.

“Merde,”
she muttered.

“I’ll clean that up,” Olivia said. “You go see what’s—”

Emily walked over the broken glass and headed down the path.

“Should we go?” Olivia asked Brody.

He shook his head. “Their business. Ours is to sit here and get drunk.”

“I should clear away that glass.”

“Later,” Brody said, reaching for Olivia’s hand.

She loved his calm in the face of all drama. He had the power to settle her, to make her believe in love and marriage and partnership.

“Arrête!”
Sébastien shouted.

“Sounds bad,” Olivia said.

“Probably some privileged tourist who can’t imagine that they won’t accommodate him tonight.”

“How do you know it’s a man?”

“I doubt Sébastien would shout at a woman like that.”

They heard a crash—another glass breaking? Someone falling? Both Olivia and Brody leapt to their feet. They headed down the path toward the noise.

When they emerged from the garden they saw a woman standing beside Sébastien at the bottom of the drive. The gate for cars was closed, but beside it the door hung open. Emily stood at the top of the drive, watching.

The woman was talking in hushed tones—was she crying?—and then she threw herself at Sébastien, wrapping her arms around him. He pried her off of him, and held her away with his hands on her shoulders.

He said something to her in a low voice, his French too fast and quiet for Olivia to hear. She glanced at Brody and raised her eyebrows. He tilted his head as if to say, Should we get out of here?