A Rather Charming Invitation (5 page)

“I do,” I replied. But I knew he meant that I was helping this stranger muscle into the family. “Look,” I said, “I realize the last thing you need right now is even the suggestion of another step-dad. But think of it—you’re getting married, and no matter how close we are to your mom, it’s as if she’s losing the only man she cares about—you. So, don’t you think she’s entitled to good companionship?”

“I don’t deny it,” Jeremy said stiffly. “I merely suggest she could have done better.”

“On the other hand, she could have done a lot worse,” I warned.

Jeremy shook his head, then gazed upward and broke into a sudden smile, saying, “Look.”

We’d reached an old, curving, narrow street of cobblestone, lined with fascinating hobby and antiques shops. Heirloom furniture, rare books, coin and stamp collectors—but he was pointing to a jewelry store. Beneath the main sign it said,
Classic Wedding Bands for Timeless Young Lovers.
We drew closer. The place specialized in wedding rings designed in various retro styles like Deco and Art Nouveau. The shops on this street were open late tonight, so Jeremy took my hand and said, “Let’s go in.”

We had agreed to keep our wedding bands simple, yet for weeks we’d searched in vain, because somehow everything we saw seemed overblown, and had left us unenthused. But tonight must have been one of those occasions when the tide of fate turns, and things that were once difficult suddenly become effortless. For here in this little shop, we immediately spotted displays of appealing, original designs, quite unique from one another, without the usual look of modern, mass-produced bling.

As we peered into the glass cases, the smiling, bald-headed proprietor pulled out a particular set of rings that we pointed to: elegantly understated, modestly priced matching bands of antique gold with a nicely engraved Deco swirl. We tried them on, examining them in the light.

“That’s it,” Jeremy said positively, “this is the one I like.” I nodded in happy agreement. The jeweler measured us and said he would size them, and have them engraved on the inside in the script we selected, to say
Penny and Jeremy
and the year.

“There’s an excellent engraver on this street who does all our work,” the jeweler assured us. He took down our names and address. Jeremy paid for them, and, feeling his mission accomplished, drifted to the front of the store, as men do when they’re waiting for a woman who’s still browsing.

“This wedding band will make a perfect complement to your engagement ring,” the jeweler told me, pointing to the ring on my finger. It was of a similar antique gold, which Jeremy had had specially made with a ruby that his mom handed down to him, who in turn had gotten it from her mother. I trembled slightly at the thought of soon meeting Jeremy’s ruby-bequeathing grandmother in person.

“I’d like to get my fiancé a groom’s gift,” I confided in a low voice to the jeweler, nodding surreptitiously toward an interesting case of men’s cuff- links, tie-clips and rings, all with unusual designs. But before I could examine them further, Jeremy chose that moment to come drifting closer, eager to move on. The jeweler smiled at me without betraying our secret conversation, for he knew I’d be back.

On the way home, the night air had a velvety freshness to it, with the scent of budding blossoms and leaves on the trees, so welcoming after the cold, nearly scentless winter. We passed other people who were also lingering in the longer daylight hours, meandering by with a pleasant nod to fellow strollers, instead of the usual hurried indifference.

“Boy, everyone’s in a good mood tonight,” I commented. Jeremy gave me a smile.

“Are they?” he asked, his hand tightening in mine. He drew me closer into his arms, and gave me a long, lingering kiss that made me feel as if we were on a little planet of our own, suspended in time and space, spinning sweetly, with only the support of sheer air and light, yet as secure as any star in the nightly firmament. It felt deliciously dangerous to be this much in love.

W
hen we arrived home, the whole first floor of the townhouse was bright with lights. “Bet she’s invited all her friends to your sleepover jamboree,” Jeremy commented, putting his key in the lock.

We stepped into the vestibule, and peered into the reception room, where Honorine was quietly and happily ensconced at the little walnut desk with a computer on it. She didn’t even hear us come in, because she had earphones on her head, and suddenly began singing to herself in French to the jazzy tune she was listening to, loud, in the way people do when they can’t hear their own volume.

I surveyed the room in amazement. The cluttered, old- fashioned reception parlor, previously overwhelmed with mail, files and news clippings waiting to be sorted, had quickly yet brilliantly been transformed into a neat, orderly front office.

On closer inspection I saw that the unopened mail was now carefully arranged into desk trays, labelled according to the week of the postmark. Honorine was still clacking away at the computer, but she must have felt my gaze now, so she looked up, blushed a little, and smiled. “Oh, it’s you!” she cried, pulling off her earphones.

“What’s going on with the computer?” Jeremy asked.

“Hope you don’t mind!” she answered, beaming. “But I got so bored watching TV. I was dying to go on the Internet.” She slid her chair aside so Jeremy could see the screen, and she demonstrated how she’d got it working again. “It’s just that the older software was fighting with the new. Mostly, it needed an upgrade, and a couple of other changes, to tell it which voice to listen to. You see?”

Jeremy, suitably impressed, said, “Are you a programmer?”

“No, not at all. Really it’s not that complicated,” she said modestly, “once you figure out how to get in and talk to it . . . See . . .” Honorine clacked away some more, whizzing through a demonstration of the new system, brisk and efficient. “Now it should be much faster for you.”

I could see how hard she’d worked to impress us. “Honorine,” I said. “You’re incredible.”

I gave Jeremy a meaningful look. “Well?” I said. “Who says a philosophy student isn’t marketable?”

Excited, Honorine reached into her backpack lying beside her on the floor, and she pulled out a wad of papers and handed them to Jeremy. I peered over his shoulder. Page after page, in French and English, were recommendations from her teachers, saying that Honorine was scrupulous, hardworking, highly intelligent, as honorable as her name implied; and one teacher in particular made a point of saying that Honorine possessed an exceptional mind that was
très subtil
.

Subtlety, evidently, is highly prized in a philosophy major. So is argument and persuasion. I read on. Honorine was versed in five languages, including Chinese. Jeremy, who’d initially taken her for a slacker, was profoundly impressed by both her accomplishments and sincerity.

“You know,” Honorine suggested shyly, blushing a little, “perhaps . . . you think . . . I might be a suitable personal secretary here in London. Do you know of anyone who needs an assistant?” She turned beseechingly to me, obviously asking-without-asking for a job.

“Well,” I admitted, “it’s true we need someone, but honestly we really don’t know how it will work or where things will lead . . .”

Her face lit up with pleasure. “
Parfait!
” she cried.

“Now, hold on,” Jeremy cautioned. “For one thing, you are vastly overqualified.”

“It could just be temporary,” she assured him quickly, “only until I can find my true vocation.” If anybody else had put it that way, they might have sounded affected. But in Honorine’s voice, it seemed totally natural. “A little experience for me, without a long-term commitment for you.”

I saw that it wasn’t really fair of me to leave Jeremy the role of “the heavy” in all this, what with Honorine’s face all alight with hope. So I added more cautiously, “I think we should see what your mother has to say. Why don’t we ask her when we go to visit this weekend? All three of us?”

Honorine understood the bargain, and now she had a look of confident determination. “Yes, I will come with you. I know we can lay out a convincing case,” she declared. “
Bonne nuit!
” she said brightly, and scampered up to the guest bedroom.

Jeremy waited until she was completely out of earshot; then he said, “Look, she’s a nice kid, and you handled her fine—you got her to agree to go back home. And I wouldn’t want to hurt her for all the world. But you really don’t want to get mixed up with a runaway; if anything happens to her, your entire family will blame us.”

“But we need a good assistant. Someone special, not just a secretary. Doesn’t it seem as if fate has already taken a hand?” I argued enthusiastically. “Like there’s a
reason
she appeared on our doorstep at this point in our lives.”

“Maybe so,” Jeremy said affectionately, “but all I’m saying is, tread carefully.”

I had been rummaging through a drawer where I kept all my maps. “Look, the odds are that Honorine’s mother won’t let her stay with us in London anyway,” I said. “Let’s see where we’re going this weekend. Hmmm . . . Mougins . . . must be away from the coast, so that would be the opposite direction from Great-Aunt Penelope’s villa in Antibes. . . .” It was our villa now, but we still referred to it as Great-Aunt Penelope’s. “There it is. Mougins is an old town up in the hillside. Not terribly far from Cannes, as the crow flies . . .”

Jeremy groaned. “Somehow, the minute that kid showed up,” he said, “I knew, in my heart of hearts, that our goose was already cooked.”

“Don’t be silly,” I replied. “It’s only a weekend in the country. Good food, nice company. What’s not to like?”

S
o Jeremy, Honorine and I went winging our way to visit what I had begun to think of as
ma famille française
. I was pretty excited. Deep down, I’d secretly hoped that I harbored the potential to be a devastating French female . . . I merely needed a little exposure to that side of my lineage. Perhaps I could learn by some sort of osmosis. Take Honorine, for instance. She just had that natural sleek, radiant quality that is somehow the heritage of French girls, mysteriously acquired amid all those school days of wearing navy blue cardigans and white Peter Pan blouses and good wool pleated skirts and serious shoes, and being fed
pain au chocolat
after school without guilt. Yep. A weekend in a little French country house would be a great crash course for me.

When we landed at the airport in Nice, I immediately felt the soft sunlight streaming in the windows, indicating that the Riviera had already gotten a head start on the warm weather. Since we were in town just for the weekend, we’d rented a car at the airport.

“We could stop by the villa to check it out,” Jeremy said, tempted by the relaxed atmosphere.

“Detour to Antibes now?” I said, glancing at my watch. “That would make us quite late. Besides, Celeste would be highly insulted if we showed up without warning. She’d think we didn’t trust her to look after the place.” Celeste had worked for Great-Aunt Penelope, and was now our housekeeper. She had a naturally proprietary air, and she liked things to be properly scheduled,
comme il faut
.

“How do you know she’s not down in the wine cellar, drinking up the sherry?” Jeremy teased.

“You don’t have sherry,” I retorted, thinking of his recently stocked collection. “You have port.”

From the back seat of the car, Honorine was watching us in amusement. Jeremy steered the car out of the airport labyrinth, and we were climbing up to the
Moyenne Corniche
road, which wove its breathtaking way along the cliffs above the splendid coastline of the Mediterranean Sea. We were immediately enveloped by the cheerful Matisse colors of blue-white-and-yellow for sky, clouds and sun, brilliant in the Côte d’Azur’s inimitable combination of brightness and softness. The air was redolent of flowers, fruit and that salty sea, that sparkled and shimmered as if the fish were dancing just beneath its surface. Every harbor we passed was dotted with fishing boats and yachts. I inhaled contentedly, leaning my head back, letting the Riviera once again soothe me and smooth me. But, since I wasn’t exactly born into this lifestyle, I didn’t dare close my eyes, for I still can’t quite believe my little Cinderella luck.

We headed north from Cannes, away from the coast, climbing up, up into the hills, where the winding local roads lead eccentrically to one rotary after another, so it was like circling halfway around a clock and then darting away onto an even smaller road with yet another rotary to circle. I’d never seen this part of the South of France before, so very high up, and miles away from the coast. The air was a bit more humid, and the vegetation more lush.

As we reached the medieval town of Mougins, the steep roads narrowed even more, with ancient walls rising high on both sides, at times to the point of absurdity. There was a fairly dicey moment when Jeremy had to slow the car to a near stop in order to get through a terrifyingly narrow passageway under an old stone bridge.

“Another coat of paint on this car and we wouldn’t make it,” I observed, as we squeezed through the tight pass, with the stone walls pressing in on either side of us. But after all, I told myself, these villages had been built not for cars, but for horses, donkeys and mules, long before today’s fancy restaurants and spas began attracting modern traffic.

Higher and higher we climbed, with a brief, stunning glimpse of fertile farmland spread out in valleys far below, impeccably sculpted into neat lines of contrasting shades of green—endless rows of vegetables, herbs, silvery-branched olive trees, and gnarly fruit trees openly basking in the abundant sunshine. Beyond this, off in the horizon, were other villages, with plumes of smoke rising from the tiny chimneys of faraway stone farmhouses, and villas with terracotta-colored tiled roofs.