enough, so I did not ask any questions about Madame's other guest, besides I was exhausted and not thinking clearly. Maybe that was the cause of everything that happened after that.
Frankly, I had reservations about dining with a stranger. I knew that is the way they do things in Europe. You know how backward I can be. I rather dreaded the prospect of having to spend my mealtimes with a strange man, and I even spent a little time before I fell asleep trying to figure out if my budget would stretch far enough to allow me to eat in town. I did not have the money to pay for meals in town when we had pre-paid for my meals at the inn. I would have to either go hungry or dine with Madame's other patron.
3 - Gordes
The next morning I awoke before dawn. My second-floor bedroom had a private balcony. I wrapped myself in a sheet and went outside to watch the sunrise. The building was oriented generally to the southwest. Looking to my left I saw the looming, blackness of mountains in the distance. To the right, the land fell off toward the coast; I knew the Mediterranean Sea was just beyond the horizon, but I could not see it, although I sometimes imagined that I could see something that looked like water. Directly in front of me was one of the famous and fabulous lavender fields of Provence, in full and glorious bloom. Beyond that were ancient olive groves. Walking paths wound through the entire area. I made up my mind to walk every foot of every one of those paths before it was time for me to go home.
I couldn't see the sunrise from my balcony because it was behind me. What I could see was the play of light and color on the landscape in front of me. No one who has ever seen a sunrise in Provence would wonder why painters flock there. The beauty of the landscape made me cry. I could suddenly understand why my mother rhapsodized about the beauty Provence even many years after she left it.
As soon as it was light enough for me to venture out alone, I tied on my sneakers and headed out for the path that passed directly behind the inn. It was approximately 6:00 AM when I left the inn.
I walked for miles through olive groves and along trails that bordered the lilac fields. People talk a lot about the visual beauty of Provence. The thing that struck me almost as much on that trip were the smells. The lavender was intoxicating. The air was fresh and clean.
Soon I noticed that people were beginning to cook. I could smell all kinds of wonderful scents wafting from kitchens all over town. The French don't eat big breakfasts, but the soup pot containing lunch goes on the stove early in the morning!
By 9:30 AM or so, I was hot, tired, thirsty and my legs were shaking from the effort of climbing up and down hills. I was used to walking a lot, but we didn't have hills like that in Charleston! I returned to the inn, dying for a drink of water and hungry for breakfast. I had totally forgotten there was to be another guest.
I burst into the front hall like a typical American. I was so hot and thirsty, all I could think of was making a bee-line to the chilled bottled water I knew would be waiting on the sideboard. Just before I charged through the door to the dining room, I heard Madame's soft voice talking to someone, and I managed to recover what little manners I had, pausing in the doorway instead of barging in on the conversation. I was very sweaty and probably starting to smell a little 'ripe.' I hesitated, wondering if it would be better for me to go to my room and clean up first. Madame was talking in French to a man. His voice sounded like sandpaper rubbing together, and his French was so perfect I took him for a native.
When she heard me behind her, Madame turned and invited me to sit down. I declined, making some reference to smelling like 'cochon.' The man at the table, whom I could not see because Madame was standing directly between us, said in perfect American English, "Then you are in good company. Women have been calling me a pig for years. Please join me."
I could not place the voice, but I knew I had heard it before. Madame scurried into the kitchen. The man turned to me with a huge grin and said, "Your French is perfect, but the rest of you is 100% pure American. Please sit down."
For a moment I thought I might hyper-ventilate. The man sitting at the table smiling at me and joking about being considered a 'pig' was none other than the movie star, Luke Payne.
Try to recall where his career was in 1973. He was in the early stages of what has turned out to be a spectacular career. At that point, he had already won one Oscar for best supporting actor. He was churning out a couple of movies a year, each one more amazing than the last, but he had not yet broken through to the top rank of movie stardom. That came later.
I had never been much of a movie buff, but even I knew who he was. And even I was susceptible to his amazing charm.
She paused for a long time, staring off into space, reliving the moment of that meeting. Her daughter watched the encounter play out on her mother's face as if it were happening for the very first time.
I backed away and said, "Oh, no. I couldn't intrude on your breakfast in my current state." As I sit here today I don't know whether I said it in English or French.
He answered in English, "Oh, for God's sake, sit down. You look like you're about to collapse from heat exhaustion. Drink some water and some juice before you pass out. Marie-Claire will be back in a minute with a proper breakfast. And I don't mean one of those pansy French breakfasts of croissants and jelly. We're having a real American breakfast of eggs and meat and bread."
What was I to do? I sat. I drank my water and juice. I waited for Madame to bring me eggs, meat and bread. I ate what she put in front of me. I didn't even miss the grits.
Luke had that kind of effect on people. He told me to sit; I sat. He told me to eat; I ate. I still don't understand it, but it happened just that way.
How can I describe him? You know what he looks like. You know the rakish grin that denies its own rakishness. Even today he comes across as the Bad-Boy-who-really-isn't-all-that-bad. Now, it's kind of a joke because he's an elderly man and he probably couldn't be all that 'bad' any more. In 1973, it was a sort of a joke, too, but I was not 100% sure which side of the line the truth lay on, so I wasn't sure whether the joke was on him or on me.
He was very handsome, but he had a sort of dangerous demeanor that indicated you might want to watch your step around him. He also had an animal magnetism that worked on women like a Klingon Tractor Beam. He was irresistible ... and he knew it. He capitalized on that, and he never apologized for it. I was glad I had been sweaty when I sat down, because I got a whole lot more lathered up sitting there with him staring at me over the rim of his coffee cup.
The most embarrassing part was that I could tell he knew exactly what I was thinking, and I could tell he thought it was hilarious. I wanted to be mad at him for laughing at me. Instead, I found myself laughing, too. The situation was so utterly ridiculous, there was nothing to do but laugh. Besides, who was I to resist his charms, when so many women who were far more experienced than I had fallen prey to them?
Presently, Madame brought brought our plates. For a French cook, she did an awesome job creating a traditional American breakfast. She apparently learned because that was what Luke wanted when he visited, and Luke Payne pretty much got whatever he wanted, when he wanted it, wherever he went. We ate and talked and ate some more. By the time we pushed back our plates and poured the last of the coffee, I was having such a great time, I almost forgot he was a movie star and I was a short order cook who was very sweaty and growing nastier by the minute.
Eventually, I realized I was starting to smell really bad. I pushed back my chair and excused myself. He stood too and followed me out into the hall. He said, "You know if you're going to spend the week here, you'll need to be introduced around town. If you have no plans, come into town with me. I'll introduce you to the folks you need to know, like the owner of the caf?, the lady who owns the patisserie and the post-master. I have to go buy supplies, anyway."
I didn't know what to say. I was eager to get away from him because he intimidated me so. But, at the same time I was not immune to his charm. Besides, I knew enough about Fre
nch culture to know that he was right about my needing an introduction in the village. Despite the voice in the back of my head telling me that the sensible thing for me to do would be to politely decline, and ask Madame to introduce me around, I said, "What time do you plan to leave? I'd like to clean up a bit."
He grinned and leaned against the door jamb, "I'll be ready whenever you are. My house is next door. The back yard has a gate that opens onto the walking path. I'll wait for you on the veranda. Come over whenever you're ready."
I smiled back at him and winked, "You'll be amazed at how soon that will be."
Less than a half hour later, I walked through the back gate to his veranda and pool deck. I paused on the top step. The house itself was probably at least two hundred years old. The pool deck and veranda had been recently added, but the contractors had used old stone and wood and had done something to the concrete to make the new addition blend in and match the older part of the structure building. I was pretty sure just looking at the outside that the inside had been redone in an equally amazing way to look old but to actually be modern.
Luke was sitting on a chaise by the pool, reading from an unbound document of some sort. He looked up and smiled. I raised my