An Afternoon Can Last Forever, in Provence (part 2 of 2)

Continued from part one

********************************

She opened the door with her shapely rear end and backed out onto the porch, carrying a large round metallic tray festooned with sliced bread, white and red grapes, a variety of sliced cheeses, thick, roughly cut slabs of salami, two wine goblets and an open bottle of Rose. Rose, I’d read in a pamphlet at the Inn, accounted for more than half of the wine production in Provence. Though sweeter than I preferred, it meshed wonderfully with her array of snacks. We noshed happily, saying little, sneaking peaks at her beautiful hillside. Bobby had retreated to the shade of the barn as the noon time sun had begun to impact the temperature.

Though the silence was comfortable, I broke it casually. “I’ve been in France for almost two months now. It’s my first trip to your wonderful country.”

“Thanks for the compliment. We French love our country as well, but getting us to say it can be a struggle. I’ve been Americanized to the point that employing the tradition of French understatement, which we got from the British, I find tantamount to false modesty and simply unappealing to me. What has brought you to, uh, our wonderful country?”

I picked up a piece of sharp, brightly marbled blue cheese and bit into it, noting how it contrasted perfectly with the slightly acidic taste of the red grapes I’d eaten.

“Well, Margaux, what began as a pleasure trip quickly has merged into a soul-searching sojourn. I got to Paris about two months ago, anticipating the famous Parisian springtime weather, only to have each day greet me with rain and sad gray cumulous clouds. I adapted my wardrobe, and emotionally, began setting aside my tepid search for fun, while fully embracing introspection. I’m recovering from a divorce and going to write a book about my experiences. I’ve discovered both seem easier when the skies are overcast.”

“Your experiences in France?” She sipped her wine, watching me over the rim of her glass, her eyes unblinking.

“Yes, those too, I guess. But more like a memoir of my entire life.”

”You seem much too young to be writing a memoir.”

“I’m 49.”

“Ahhh…you have aged well. But, as we say in France, ‘the zero year birthday is almost upon you’. Though it flows more lyrically in French. Loses quite a bit in the translation.”

“Most things do.”

“Cynical, I see. What do you do, Jesse?”

“Right now I am trying out this writing thing. Fortunately, I made enough money in my prior life to afford a life of leisure, if I choose to do so. This trip is the first thing I’ve done that could be construed as self-indulgent, since I retired and got divorced.”

“Hmmm. Sounds like a lot of significant change, all at once.”

“It was. Or is. The divorce came first. Retirement seemed a natural step after that.”

“What did you do before you retired?”

“Well, I was born in San Francisco. I got into graphic design in high school, stayed with it at Cal, then hooked up with a hot new Silicon Valley tech firm during the dot com bubble, well before it burst. Stock options followed, and the rest, as they say in Silicon Valley, is mystery.”

She poured us both some more Rose and helped herself to some brie, spreading a generous slab of the soft white gooey cheese on a piece of sliced sour dough bread. She grinned, placed a sliver of sliced red onion on top, took a bite and leaned back, rocking gently, watching me.

“So now you want to graduate from images, to words, in your creative process?”

“Process? That’s a good way of putting it. Implies growth, though that might be a bit high-browed at this early stage. In a manner of speaking, yes. And it hasn’t been easy.”

“Writing can be a learned skill, but it’s a lot easier if you have a natural feel for it, so I’m told. I don’t have that knack. It was a struggle to get through medical school writing papers. So, you went to Cal?”

“Yes, I’m a Bear for life. I guess we’re rivals”

She laughed. “I did my undergrad studying at Cal. I think we may actually be blood brothers.”

It was my turn to laugh. “The world just keeps getting smaller and smaller, doesn’t it? Where did you sit at the Big Game?”

She shook her head. “I haven’t attended since I graduated. Divided loyalty, and all that. Maybe it’s a French thing.”

“What was your specialty, medically?”

“I was a Medical Oncologist. I guess I still am. But I’m retired, as you are.”

“Did you perform surgery as well?”

“No. Most of what I did involved helping people deal with and manage their cancer. Determining a course of treatment, and dealing with the resulting effects of it like pain and nausea. There is no curative therapy for that. There was some spiritual support, as well. Oncology can be emotionally hard but also rewarding. Surgery required more schooling.”

“How old are you, if I may ask?”

She hefted the Rose bottle then gestured toward me with it.
“Shall we open another?” A very female gesture, deflecting the oafish age question from the potential male suitor.

I grinned. “Of course.”

When she’d returned with a new opened bottle of Rose, she also carried a plate with replenishments for the snack tray.

She poured us each a glass.

She sat back down and propped her feet on the corner of the table, one ankle over the other, away from the food. “I’m 49. Just like you.”

I was stunned, and let it show. She looked to be in her mid 30s.

I tipped my wine glass toward her and said, “My compliments to the good Lord. You are blessed with incredible genetics.”

She smiled and nodded back at me. “Thank you. I get that a lot.”

“You get what?”

”Surprise at my age. Shock, even. Some don’t believe me.”

“Oh, I believe you. My time in France has opened even further my eye for beauty. I gave up trying to guess ages a few weeks ago. It’s not important. Beauty is beauty. Attaching a number diminishes it.”

Her smile was warm and inviting. I took the invitation to continue.

“Why did you retire so young?”

“When I retired, I moved back to France after my father’s death. My father died of a brain tumor. It was a powerful message of how far we have to go, in the war on cancer. His death made retiring early rather easy, on multiple levels. He left me some money in addition to this place, and I had grown a little tired of the American rat race. I’d had a particularly intense internship in an emergency room in a hospital in northern Michigan. I knew once I was through there, I’d no longer have be going that route, but it still really affected me. The gruesomeness. Oncology seemed too abstract, too removed from the real, day-to-day care people needed. I know cancer treatment is important. But I began to question why I had chosen a field where my efforts had dramatically less direct results. The daily grind of caring for and treating cancer patients made me long for the adrenaline rush I got from the immediacy of death, and thwarting same, which was ongoing in that emergency room. That pressure seemed to heighten my awareness more than the still noble pursuit of long-term, ongoing cancer care.”

“Oncology is a very necessary field, Margaux.”

“I know it is. It just seemed further from my ideal of what it is to help people. Hands off as opposed to hands on. And my internship drove that home, powerfully.”

“What about family? Did you ever get married? Have kids?”
She sighed and looked again out at the rolling landscape of both vibrant and muted colors, where a marriage of contrasting visual love was at play in the warm Spring French sunshine.

“I was close to getting married a couple of times. Backed out each time, the second one on my wedding day. Left him at the alter.” She looked at me and shrugged.

I watched her; still obviously struggling with the inner turmoil such a decision would create for anyone. The ‘children’ question faded into the fabric of silence now enveloping us.

I reached over and filled her wine glass, and mine, and then touched mine to hers and nodded.

Her fragile grin was the best she could offer, which I accepted.

There were now a half dozen Roe deer dotting the hillside, visible from only the neck up, until a periodic dip to nibble on something made them invisible.

I broke the comfortable silence. “We have more than a few things in common. Besides the same fashion consultant and hair colorist, we are approaching our ‘zero’ year having never worn the parenting suit.”

She looked at me for a long time, sipped her wine and set it on the table.

“It’s by far my biggest regret.”

“My marriage is mine.”

”Really? At least you took the plunge. I couldn’t even do that.”

“Plunge may be the operative word there. I loved her, but we did not mesh in most of the important areas. It began badly and got worse from there. Lasted only two years. Soured me on both love, and my ability to successfully seek it out and maintain it. I haven’t been remotely close to the alter since.”

“Wow. This got sad in a hurry.”

“Like life itself?”

She shook her head. “Though saddled with regrets as I lean on 50, I still see life as a glass half full. I would have thought my internship in an American inner city emergency room would have created a cynic, but it simply revealed a bleeding heart.”

“Detroit?”

She nodded. “A city waiting to die, one young person at a time.”

“That’s not a Pollyanna viewpoint.”

“I’m not a Pollyanna. It doesn’t truly matter how much water is in the glass. It only matters if you are thirsty. Optimists are not dumb or naïve, just hopeful.”

This had become thought provoking very quickly, with both of us revealing more than we‘d anticipated. I believed revealing oneself to a stranger was much easier. There was always an exit.

“I tend to be more cynical, though I shoot for skeptical. Probably why I have let only two years of rotten marriage sour me on the entire concept. Unconsciously embracing what I’d probably been harboring inside anyway.”

“Your glass is what then? Empty? Half empty?”

I leaned toward her with my empty goblet extended. “Well, at least I remain thirsty. You tell me?” I said as she poured more wine into my glass.

“Would it be arrogant to say full?” she asked, filling my glass.

Our eyes met.

“No, just accurate.”

We passed the afternoon with a delightful combination of small talk, shameless flirting, off-color jokes, some soothing Chopin in the background, and introspective thoughts on our lives.

We were well into our third bottle of Rose when she lobbed a grenade my way.

“You made an interesting comment a while back, which I let float by. But it’s too tasty a morsel to not revisit. May I?”

“I guess that should make me nervous, but I’m not. Fire away.”

She smiled at me and ate a grape. “You were explaining why a two year marriage, which failed, turned you off to the entire institution. I think you said, quote, ‘Unconsciously embracing what I’d probably been harboring inside anyway’, unquote.”

It was an impressive exact quote, given the amount of alcohol we’d drank.

I thought for a moment, watching as a trio of large Baton Blue butterflies flitted about in their frantic air dance above a blooming yellow rose bush. The cacophony of colors continued to astound the senses.

“Well, I have already copped to being a cynic. I guess that’s an extension of that. And probably a big reason why my marriage didn’t work out. I must have gone into it skeptical and doubtful. We had no chance. And yes, I have blamed myself for its failure, not my wife.”

“Did your parents get divorced?”

“They remain happily married in San Carlos, California; in the same home I was born.”

Her eyes got large and an ear-to-ear grin bisected her pretty face. “I’ve been to San Carlos. More than once. About twenty minutes drive north from Stanford up the El Camino.”

“Wow.”

She laughed and sipped some wine. “Yeah. Is this weird for you?”

“More than you know. But not in a creepy way. In a mind-blowing way. What brought a med student to San Carlos?”

“Oh, there was a little dive bar, The 1139 Club, there on San Carlos Avenue near the train station. I met my first fiancé there. Bill.”

“I’ve spent some time in that bar. It had a small town charm with just enough seediness to give it an edge. I liked it. How close to walking down the aisle did you get with Bill?”

“We were engaged about three months, I was poised to graduate, Detroit loomed, and we decided it was a bad idea. We were right. Our union would have made yours look like your parents.”

I laughed.

“Okay, I’ll turn the tables…gently. Why is the ’no child’ regret heavier than never having a husband.”

“Ah, so you were listening. Well, that’s kind of easy now, but when I made the vow to never marry, after I turned forty, I’ll confess, it was not easy.”

She got up and walked to the railing and leaned on it. She’d pushed her sweatshirt sleeves up past her elbows in response to the warm afternoon. So had I. She gazed out at a paradise that was all hers. Apparently, her child cavorting through the rows of vibrant flowers with the butterflies and bees was all that she lacked.

She rose to her tip toes and looked at me.

She sighed and returned to her chair, picking up her wine glass and draining the last inch.

“Shot of courage?”

“No, not really. I have not talked about a lot of this stuff for years, you know. Some of this, this whole afternoon, has involved ripping off a band aid. And there’s some surprise for me to discover the wound hasn’t healed.”

“You, of course, may take the fifth.”

“No, I’ll answer. You appear to be earnest and interested. You deserve a response.”

“Thank you. I am being totally genuine.”

She nodded. “Back to your direct question, however. I am not a feminist, by any stretch. Being raised in Paris makes a woman a woman. There is no modern day Simone de Beauvoir model for today’s Parisian woman. She was a failed feminist, anyway, letting Sartre walk all over her. I never felt the need for a man. I had boyfriends through high school and college, but nothing serious till grad school. And by then, I was almost fully formed as a woman. My views on men and relationships were healthy. My dad was a strong figure in my life, up till his death. No man I ever met came close to his standard. I know the cliché about that. Sue me. I loved my dad, he was a great man, and he raised me after my mom died when I was 14. It was inevitable that I would compare any potential mate to him.”

“And also inevitable that they would fall short.”

She looked at me, startled.

She got up again and walked down the four wide steps to the dirt and stood facing her field of dreams, hands thrust in the back pockets of her jeans. I remained seated and took a sip of wine.

This was a knife edge we were balanced on. We could fall either way, or be sliced in half.

I noticed the wine bottle was empty, as was her glass. A fourth bottle could take this one of two ways. I waited and watched her.

She stood still like that for five minutes, occasionally shaking her head, as if holding a conversation with herself, which she probably was.

When she returned to her chair I saw her glance at the wine bottle, start to reach for it, stop and turn and sit down. No shot of courage this time.

“This is true confession time, Jesse. I mentioned my mom dying when I was a teenager. She was raped and killed by a man one night in Paris. A man who knew my father. There had been a business deal that went sour, not my father’s fault, but this man decided to exact revenge, in the worst way. Since then, other than my father, I’ve had trouble trusting men. When I left my fiancé on my wedding day, it was because I had a panic attack that almost killed me. I couldn’t breath. My dad was the only person I told about it. Men scared me.”

Past tense.

I absorbed this while watching her. She shot a furtive glance at me and looked away, then grabbed the wine bottle and retreated inside, letting the screen door bang close behind her. I had not grown tired of looking at her ass. For the fourth time that afternoon, I heard the oddly comforting, muted pop of a fresh wine cork being removed.

When she returned, I realized what I wanted to say. What I needed to say.

She poured the wine without asking and sat facing me, crossing her legs.

“I’ve never had this before.”

“This?”

“Yes, this. Whatever this day has been. This comfort level with another woman. The chemistry, the willingness to divulge and share…even trust. You welcomed me into your garden, onto your porch and inside your soul.”

”Spoken like a true writer.”

“From your lips to God’s ears. Have you?”

“Had this?”

I nodded.

“Not even close.”

“Makes me wonder, ‘why now’? You know, where were you when I was looking for a soul mate?”

“Where the hell were you? I’ve even been to your home town.”

“And I yours.”

“And in the south of France the two shall meet?”

“Apparently.”

I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Our cryptic exchange had established very little, in spite of its intense rhetoric. Were we inclined toward each other? Toward anyone? We’d both chosen disengagement as a path through life, for very different reasons. She didn’t trust men, I didn’t trust THIS man.

Amazing how saying “never” can open doors when it seemingly is designed to close them. How giving up can open up the senses to people you used to not even see, let alone engage with. It can be freeing in an odd way, paving the way for a ‘what the hell have I got to lose’ mentality.

I felt us approaching those gates, pearly or otherwise, hands grasping the bars, questioning previously assumed truths. Can one afternoon and four bottles of wine do all that?

A gorgeous hillside of flora and fauna may be a delivery room for the birth of so much, but can love be born there?