grateful for the shopkeeper's thoughtfulness.
I quickly changed into the new undies, and stepped into the dress. It clung in the right places and sort of floated around the kind of bulgy spots where clinging would not have been a good thing. It was like wearing a cloud. If the designer had made it specifically to order for me it could not have been more perfect.
When I put on the pearls I looked in the mirror and almost cried. I have never considered myself beautiful or even pretty. Frankly, I think I have that sort of bird-like quality that a lot of French women have, which I never thought was particularly attractive. That night, I know I looked lovely, perhaps especially to a man who was used to being around French women.
My room was a disaster. I had done no packing and I had to leave for the airport before noon the next day. I decided to worry about that after dinner.
I don't remember going downstairs. I was in some kind of trance, I think. I started down the hall toward the back entrance to go to Luke's house. I was surprised to find him waiting for me in the dining room of the inn, sitting in the same chair where he had been on Thursday morning - could that have been only four days before?
I stopped at the door and looked at him. He looked me up and down, long and slowly, and smiled. He said, "You look almost as lovely as you did on Thursday."
"Don't be sarcastic."
He stared at me for a long minute, with an odd look on his face, then he stood up and walked over to stand in front of me. He crooked his index finger and used it to tilt my chin up to look at him, "You thought that what I saw the other day was a sweaty, dirty, smelly woman who wasn't fit to sit and eat breakfast in polite company. What I actually saw was a woman who looked so radiantly happy it made me want to weep. You're a lot less sweaty and grimy tonight, and you smell a hell of a lot better, but you still have that look of luminous joy about you. That kind of happiness comes from inside. It shines out from every pore. Every time I look at you it makes me ache because I am torn between the desire to take you in my arms and try to absorb some of it by osmosis and the feeling that I am somehow not worthy of approaching such radiance."
We stood there staring at each other for a few minutes -- intentionally memorizing every feature -- and I think we could both have fallen to weeping at the slightest provocation.
I smiled and whispered, "What do you say we save the tears for later? After dinner, anyway."
He slid his arm around my waist and led me out the back door, saying, "Excellent idea. Marie-Claire would kill us both if we are too emotional to do justice to this birthday feast she and Jean-Michel spent all day preparing."
I put my arm around his waist and leaned my head on his shoulder. Thus we arrived at his house. As we reached the top step to the veranda, Jean-Michel picked up my camera, which I had left on a table by the pool, and took our picture. I can barely stand to look at that photo because he caught us each looking directly into the camera and you can see into our very souls. It's really a terrifying shot.
Marie-Claire had made menu cards for us to keep. I have mine in the box there. As I sit here, I don't remember what we ate. I do remember that it was exquisite. The food and wine were perfectly matched and perfectly paced. The meal took hours. We laughed and talked and told stories. We shared our entire lives, I think, in those few hours. One of the things Luke told me that evening was that while he was in Nice that day he had called Braddock Austin and agreed to take the part in The Bombs Came Down. He said he did it because I talked him into it. He was nervous about it, but he was hoping for the best.
After dessert and coffee, Marie-Claire and Jean-Michel packed their dishes and the leftovers and prepared to wheel the cart back to the inn. I thanked them profusely for the birthday supper. They promised to have a big breakfast ready at 10:00 a. m. in order to hold me over until I got home. I made a crack about how, after the dinner, I shouldn't want to eat for a week. They were delighted. We shook hands and kissed cheeks. And then they were gone, leaving me alone with Luke. At least I thought I was alone with him. I turned around and Luke was gone, too. I assumed he went to the bathroom.
In a few minutes he was back with a bottle and two brandy snifters. He asked, "Have you ever had Armagnac?"
I grinned, "First of all, you know the answer to that. I had never even heard of cognac until the other day. What is Armagnac?"
"If brandy is a Ford, and Cognac is a Cadillac, Armagnac is a Rolls Royce."
"I guess that's good."
He poured us each tiny portions in the bottom of large snifters. He showed me how to swish it around and warm it in my palm. At first that felt pretentious and silly. Until I tasted it. The expression 'nectar for the gods' must have been coined for that stuff! We walked down the path to a bench where it was very dark and we could see the stars hanging low against the velvet black sky. We could see planes passing over, descending on their approach to Marseilles. Suddenly, there was a meteor shower. Dozens if not hundreds of shooting stars streaked across the sky like what we know of now as a laser light show. I had never seen anything like it. I leaned back against Luke and gazed at the heavens in rapt wonder. He took me in his arms and kissed me.
That kiss lasted a very long time, and a whole lot of communication went on while we were kissing. Questions were asked and answered in the affirmative without a word being spoken.
By the time we came up for air a cloud had covered the moon and it was very dark. We laughed and stumbled and tripped our way back to Luke's house. The laughing and carrying on lasted almost all night long. Luke knew all about the things that made my mother laugh during sex. We had a lot of fun that night. At one point I fell out of bed, and ended up with a terrible bruise on my hip that was sore for days and days. We made all kinds of silly plans. He planned to return to LA in a week and he asked me to join him. We got very carried away with a lot of crazy talk.
The next morning, I woke later than usual for me, but way before Luke was ready to get up. I roused him enough to let him know I was going back to the inn to pack. He had insisted, and brooked no objection, that he would take me to the airport. He mumbled that he would meet me at breakfast.
I put on the dress but didn't bother with jewelry or underwear. I tried to sneak in the back door, but Marie-Claire was baking bread. She stuck her head out the kitchen and smiled at me. I wanted to be ashamed, sneaking in at 7:00 a. m. in such a brazen condition of dishevelment, and with my underwear in my hand, but I wasn't ashamed. I was so happy I think I could have flown home to Charleston without a plane.
When I came out of the shower, I discovered that Marie-Claire had put a pot of coffee in my room. I drank the coffee and packed my bags in some kind of besotted daze.
7 - Coming Home
A little before 10:00 a. m. I heard Luke come in the back door. I could hear him and Marie-Claire talking in the kitchen. He was gushing to her about the wonderful dinner party she had masterminded the night before, and she was preening and reveling in his praise.
I brought my suitcases downstairs, set them near the front door and joined Luke and Marie-Claire in the dining room. When I walked in the room, I looked at him and thought I would explode with happiness. The minute I sat down at the table it was as though some kind of rose-colored veil lifted from my vision and I saw the scene very differently. Some kind of rumbling voice welled up from deep in me and said, "Who the hell are you kidding?"
Luke and I ate breakfast. Actually, what we did was to push our food around on our plates and pretend to eat breakfast, much to Marie-Claire's consternation and despite all her clucking about how we would waste away and die if we didn't eat. I don't know what Luke's problem was, but I was concentrating every ounce of control I possessed to prevent myself from utterly falling to pieces.
When breakfast was mercifully over, we went into the hall. Luke looked at my two small suitcases, and said, "Is that all the luggage you brought?"
I nodded and explained that I came with one suitcase and the other packed inside of it. Between the cloth
es he bought me and my purchases, I ended up splitting my stuff between the two bags for the return trip. Neither bag was full. Luke and Marie-Claire exchanged amused glances.
We drove to the airport in silence. Luke drove the car himself presumably so we could talk without a driver eavesdropping. It wouldn't have mattered. We had nothing to say. I had made him promise to drop me in front of the airport and not to come inside. I did not want photographers taking photos of a tearful farewell.
We both remained dry-eyed throughout the trip. He kept insisting that he expected me to join him in LA as soon as I could arrange my affairs. I promised that I would think about nothing else. I never promised I would do it. I promised I would think about it. I never lied to him. I did, however, intentionally mislead him because I don't think I could have stood it if he had known what I was planning to do. God, forgive me.
We pulled up to the front of the terminal. He kissed me one last time. I know he believed we would see each other again very soon. I am sure that he could not imagine that I would not simply close up my life in South Carolina and join him in Hollywood. I am sure that it never crossed his mind that I might chicken out. I tried not to so much as a hint that I was having second thoughts. It seemed to me it was easier for both of us