matter. Are you okay with where they chose to bury your mother? Apparently the family was concerned you would not like the fact that they buried her so far away from town."
"Aunt Marcelline told me they buried her in her very favorite spot. I am sure they did because Maman used to tell me about sitting on a bench in her favorite place, trying to imagine that she could see all the way to the coast. She described the scene to me a thousand times. I sat on that very bench today and I know that she rests in the place she loved most. I am more than pleased."
A few miles from Gorges, Luke pulled onto what appeared to be a private road. We wound through olive groves that gave way to a vineyard. The road ended in a parking lot at a winery. Luke got out and walked around the car to open the door for me. I looked up and smiled at him. He took my arm and led me to the courtyard. We were greeted by the owners and seated immediately.
We were the only patrons in the restaurant. That was not surprising because it was after lunchtime and before dinner during their slow season. The owner brought out a bottle of wine and Luke tasted it with the kind of swishing and lip-smacking wine-lovers do, mostly to show off, I think. The vintner was delighted. They chatted wine-talk for a few minutes. Luke ordered pate and bread with our wine. The owner's wife handed him a menu. He waved it away and smiled at her with his movie-star smile and said, "Please make us a simple lunch. Perhaps some soup and a light salad with a mushroom omelet we could share or a piece of fish with some vegetables. Nothing fancy."
The woman looked at Luke as though she wanted to take her clothes off and climb in his lap right there in the restaurant. She headed back to the kitchen with obvious reluctance and clearly under a lot of pressure.
I laughed and said, "You shouldn't do that."
He tried to look innocent and said, "Do what?"
"Toy with that woman."
"I was not toying with her. I was merely flirting. I find I get much better food out of French cooks if I flirt with them."
"At least you're honest."
"That I am. I am very honest. Nobody ever believes me, but I always tell the truth. Then I don't have to worry about remembering what I've said."
"Why don't people believe you?"
"I'm not sure. It's the damnedest thing. Somewhere along the way people got the impression that because I've got a reputation for liking the ladies, that I'm somehow a liar and a cad. Maybe I am a cad by definition if that means someone who cats around a lot. But I'm not a liar. I admit to what I do. I make no promises or commitments. I ask for none. I never mess with married women. Somehow people think I lie, maybe because they think I should lie."
I nodded. "My personal experience is very different, but I have a little bit of a sense for what you mean. My mother was a lot like what you describe, only her standards were different. She pretty much only dated married men. She said they were a lot less likely to make demands on her. She didn't want anyone to make any demands on her... anyone other than herself, that is. She was very demanding of herself. In fact, she was positively a perfectionist when it came to the demands she put on herself. She didn't want to get married again, so she only went out with married men or a couple of Southern gentlemen whose Mama's held the purse strings and who would never sit still for sonny boy coming home with a French whore."
"I thought your mother was a cook?"
"She was. She also had a very nice little catering business on the side. She catered parties for the ladies around town. She provided other services for their husbands, as I recall. I don't think she was so crass as to charge a set fee. She was sort of everybody's girlfriend, and she accepted gifts and tips."
"Did that bother you?"
I put my face in my hands, pushed back my hair and leaned forward. I whispered, "I have to confess to you I don't think I ever really saw the whole picture until today. Like you, she made no secrets and was in no way ashamed of her life. She was very discrete in terms of her relationships with married men, but she never made any effort to hide what she did from me. If anyone had asked her a direct question about what she was up to, she would have answered it truthfully. Interestingly, nobody ever said anything to me about it at school or any place else.
"Of course, if they had Kris and his gang of greaser buddies would have kicked their ass. Maybe they did kick some asses and I just didn't know. I didn't realize how superb were my powers of ignoring the really obvious until today."
"Did you date a lot?"
"Me? Absolutely not. I never really dated anybody at all. I sort of grew up in the restaurant kitchen with the Delios kids. They treated me like one of their own my whole life. Kris and I grew up together. We worked too many hours to have time to date anybody else. So when it came time for school functions that required a 'date', we went with each other. I don't know how or when we started becoming more than sort of buddies or quasi-siblings. I can tell you that to this day, Kris Delios is the only man I've ever even kissed, much less done anything else with. I have not dated since Kris left me because I have been too busy. And, frankly, I loved having my life revolve around Christa. I missed Kris for a long time. I don't think about him much anymore. I filled up my life with my job and being a mom. I've never had room for a man."
"How do you think your mother would feel about that?"
"My mother would be chewing my ass on a regular basis for not dating after my divorce, and probably throwing men at me right and left. I miss her terribly, but I honestly am grateful I don't have to listen to her nagging me about my decisions on that issue."
He laughed. "Your mother sounds like a pistol."
"My mother was a piece of work.... a fabulous, marvelous piece of God's own art." I suddenly remembered an event I had forgotten and I started to laugh and cry at the same time. Luke demanded that I share the joke.
"It's very personal."
He looked around at the deserted restaurant and said, "Who'm I gonna tell?"
I looked around. There was nobody else there. I would never see him again. I wiped my eyes and tried to rein in the giggles. "Well, you see, when Kris and I got married at the ripe old age of 18, immediately after we graduated from high school, we were both totally and completely ignorant of, um, conjugal matters. After the first few nights, we sort of started getting the hang of it, but it still just didn't seem right to me." I put my face in my hands and said, "Oh, God, I can't believe I'm saying this out loud.... Anyway, I thought we were doing something wrong because my mother would go in the bedroom with a man and for hours there would be laughing and carrying on. There would be bumping around and frequent falling-out-of-bed which usually ended with sharp swearing from the man and riotous peels of laughter from my mother. After about a week I asked Kris one night when we were going to get to the funny stuff. He didn't know what I was talking about. The problem was, neither did I. I had to ask my mother what the funny business involved."
Luke lay his head on the table and laughed so hard he cried. He could not get himself under control, so he got up and walked outside and then went to the men's room. When he came back he was still laughing. I had the hiccups and was trying to fix my makeup which had run all over my face from the laughing tears.
He sat down and said, "I have spent the last five minutes trying to talk myself out of asking this, but I'm too much of an American to resist. Please, please, please tell me what she said."
I shook my head and shrugged, "She told me I'd have to figure that out for myself."
He leaned forward and locked eyes with me, daring me to look away, and asked, "Did you?"
I smiled and said softly, "Eventually. Sort of. And that's all I'm going to say about the subject, so don't ask any more questions."
He poured more wine, and dribbled a few drops on the stone floor. "A libation to the memory of your mother. I think I'd have loved her."
I laughed, "Oh, she'd have loved you, too! I am sure of that!" I raised my eyebrows in a rather suggestive manner, and he blushed.
I pretended to write something down on a piece
of paper. He asked me what I was doing. I told him I thought I must be the only woman in the world who had ever made him blush. I wanted to record the event for posterity. He rapped my hand with a butter knife.
That lightened up the mood and helped us move on to other subjects. We ate a fabulous meal and washed it down with unbelievable wine in a setting that looked like a movie-maker's version of Provence. I asked him if there had been any movies made in that area. He said he doubted it because it was too remote. We both thought it would make a wonderful movie set but at the same time we liked the fact that it was far enough off the beaten track it had not yet become popular with the movie people who, Luke said, tended to come in with their trailers and sound trucks and take over small towns.
After coffee and a 'toute petite patisserie' that madame insisted we taste, we took a walk through the olive groves and then headed back to Gordes.
We were almost there when I turned to him and said, "You promised to tell me your story. I spent the whole day yammering about myself. I really do want to hear your story."
"We will have all day tomorrow to talk about me. I hope you don't have any plans because I made arrangements to use a boat belonging to a producer friend of mine for a day of cruising and fishing out of Marseilles. I would really love your company."
"You do not have to entertain me. You're on