Part 34 (2/2)
Was there a wince? It was hard to tell in the midst of my own embarra.s.sment.
”The only problem with my idea was that the school didn't have a sailing team.”
I told myself there could have been a lot of reasons for her new tone of voice. She could have been commenting on the incomprehensibility of a landlocked school not having a sailing team.
”What I found instead,” she continued, ”in the listing of activities beneath his yearbook picture, was that Jason had been a member of the cross-country team, the Outdoor Club, and the French Club. I asked the librarian about those things, not expecting they were going to get me anywhere, except, it turns out, Monsieur Weber, the faculty member responsible for the French Club, is still at the school.”
”Great. That's great, Barbara.” I may have gone overboard in my enthusiasm.
”That wasn't the end of my good luck, George. Monsieur Weber is still in touch with Jason because, it turns out, Jason is actually living in France. In a bastide.” She got a shot in on me. ”Do you know what a bastide is?”
I knew, but I didn't tell her.
”It's one of those fortified towns built during the Hundred Years' War, when France and England only fought when the soldiers weren't needed in the fields.”
”Ah.”
”They're all over the Bordeaux region, and what Monsieur Weber said was, the one where Jason lives is the most beautiful bastide of all.”
A slow smile crept over her lips, enough to make me question whether my punishment was over. It was a smile of promise, one that invited me to smile along with her. ”So,” she said, as I watched her lips part, her teeth sparkle, her tongue flash, ”I guess it's no wonder that a guy like Jason Stockover would own a bed-and-breakfast there. Don't you think?”
MONFLANQUIN, FRANCE,.
September 2008.
CARTE BLANCHE TO MONFLANQUIN.
I still did not know about Barbara. My heart told me to believe everything she said. My head told me I had to watch out, because she didn't need me; if Josh David Powell could employ a woman to stay married to me, the Gregorys could certainly insert a woman into my office. I was clearly susceptible. The cost of doing something like that meant nothing to these people. Years meant nothing. I certainly meant nothing, except as a tool. A p.a.w.n.
A denizen of the fourth circle.
Get out of town, George. Go to France.
I didn't go for any of the reasons she gave me. I went because I had Mitch's $100,000 to spend. And because I had the time to do it. That is what I told myself.
I FLEW INTO CHARLES DE GAULLE, TOOK A LONG AND EXPENSIVE taxi ride into Paris, and boarded a train south to the city of Bour-deaux, where I rented a Renault with a stick s.h.i.+ft and drove east. It was a sunny day, the air was warm enough to go without a jacket, and I was almost enjoying myself. I stopped in Saint-emilion for lunch and drank wine because I was in the heart of one of the great grape-growing regions of the world and felt I should. The bottle I had was a merlot from the Medoc region, and I was disappointed. Perhaps I ordered from the wrong chateau, or the wrong vintage, or didn't let it breathe sufficiently. Or maybe I just was not sophisticated enough to appreciate what I was having, but I did not finish the bottle.
From there on, however, the drive seemed even prettier and more interesting than it had before.
I arrived at Monflanquin late in the day. ”At” because one gets to the town well before one gets into the town. It is a walled city built on top of a hill overlooking a broad valley. I had to find the motor vehicle entrance and then wend my way around and around until I got to the top, where there was a large open square flanked by homes and shops and restaurants. For all that, it was surprisingly easy to find my destination on a side street leading off the square, and, miracle of miracles, a place to park directly in front of it.
My surprises only grew from there. The address Barbara had given me was a gray stone building sharing common walls with the buildings on either side of it and housing not just a bed-and-breakfast but a gift shop on the ground floor. Inside the gift shop was a large man wearing an ap.r.o.n and shorts. The ap.r.o.n I could accept. The exposed knees, s.h.i.+ns, calves, and ankles were a shock. Then the man greeted me and I realized he was not French but English, which made the sight a little less shocking because it is a well-known fact that the English tend to do strange things when they see the sun.
I must have been dressed peculiarly for the region as well, because the first thing the bare-legged man did was greet me in my own language. He wanted to know how I was doing.
I told him I was fine and that I was interested in renting a room for the evening. He said that I appeared to be an acceptable lodger and it took me a moment to realize he had made a joke. It took another moment after that to laugh.
Barbara Belbonnet had used her cell phone to take a picture of Jason Stockover's photograph in his yearbook. While more than twenty years had pa.s.sed and the camera image of a boy in sport coat and tie had not been ideal, this large man making jokes to me was most definitely not the same person. The boy in the photo had dark wavy hair and rather delicate features masked by an expression of smugness that promised cheer to those he liked and misery to those he didn't. This fellow in front of me not only had a British accent but a bald head and a wide-open face. The accent could have been affected, the hair lost, the smugness decimated by the realities of life beyond prep school, but this man, clearly, had never had delicate features.
”All alone, are you?” He posed the question as if being alone was an exciting thing to be.
I told him I was.
”Would you happen to have a pa.s.sport?” he asked, getting out a hardcover register book and opening it to a page that contained the day's date and handwritten column markers that read nom, adresse, and nombre de pa.s.seport. The way he asked, I had the impression that not everybody who stayed there did have one. Or perhaps he was just being friendly. In any event, I handed mine over. He noted where it had been issued. ”San Francisco!” he said with genuine enthusiasm. ”I have had some adventures there, mon ami, I can tell you that.”
”Yes,” I said, not wanting to know. ”Actually, I'm from Boston.”
”Boston.” He was busy writing things down.
”Cape Cod, really.”
”You don't say. Could I have the address, please?”
I gave it to him. He transcribed and then handed back the pa.s.sport along with a key attached to a heavy bra.s.s fob that would no doubt rip a hole in my pants pocket if I tried walking the streets of Monflanquin with it. ”Number four, just at the top of the stairs behind you, two flights up. Need help with your luggage?”
”No, no. I've just one bag, and I can handle it.”
”D'accord, as the locals say.” He smiled.
I glanced around the shop. Knickknacks, mostly. Some framed vintage photographs and some paintings that had probably hung on walls for years without being noticed until their owners died and the estates were liquidated. But there was some fun stuff, too. Carafes and winegla.s.ses and boards with comical renderings of various aspects of life in wine country. Posters and coasters and little figures made from pewter or blown gla.s.s. Chess sets with medieval warriors carrying French and English flags. Postcards, games, scarves, a display of tour books, and a rack of flamboyant sungla.s.ses.
He saw me looking at the sungla.s.ses. ”Very Posh Spice, don't you think?” And I had to go through various mental synapses to realize he was referring to Victoria Beckham, formerly of the Spice Girls. ”Oh, yes, very much so,” I said, as if I knew what I was talking about.
I turned to go to the door, to go out to the car for my bag.
”You know,” he said as my hand went to the handle, ”my partner spent some time in the Boston area. Back in the halcyon days of his youth. You'll have to talk.”
”Oh, good,” I said. ”I would like that very much.”
THE PARTNERS LIVED TOGETHER on the second floor. The door to their apartment was open when I walked past with my suitcase. A short hallway led from that open door to a darkened sitting room, where a soccer game was on television. I could not see who was watching it, but I a.s.sumed someone was. I put down the suitcase and knocked.
”h.e.l.lo,” I called.
There was movement. A figure appeared at the end of the hallway. A lean man, a little less than six feet tall in bare feet, wearing a T-s.h.i.+rt and jeans. A man whose hair, if not wavy, was at least still on his head.
”Yes?” he said. Like the man on the first floor, he did not bother with French.
”Are you the fellow from New England?” I asked.
He came forward, out of the darkness. It was the boy in the prep school yearbook, two decades along. I felt a surge of elation and held out my hand even before he finished telling me he was from Connecticut.
”Ma.s.sachusetts,” I said.
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