The French Connection

Shelley could sympathize. It wasn’t easy sitting in a room where the most distinctive feature was a beige filing cabinet. It set the tone for the whole office decor: cheap and nasty. Cheap, she didn’t have a problem with. Given her pitiful salary and unpaid college loans, Shelley couldn’t afford that kind of problem. But ugly—that was a whole other matter. Call her a throwback, but she was firmly of the opinion that the world would be a much better place if everything were rendered in tempera, covered in gesso and lit with a soft medieval glow.

Yeah, call her a throwback. She sighed.

“What was that, Shelley, dear?”

Shelley looked up. Sitting at the head of the conference table was Lionel Toynbee. Reading glasses slipped down his pencil-thin nose.

Lionel, founder and owner of Dream Villas, was checking the proofs for the latest newsletter of his travel firm that specialized in renting luxury European estates—estates that featured top-of-the-line plumbing against the backdrop of fading Flemish tapestries, grand marble staircases and massive gated entrances, preferably emblazoned with crests for families like Romanov and Medici, or even those parvenus, the Windsors.

“Shelley?” Lionel repeated, turning her two-syllable name into three, so that it became “She-el-ley.” It was a habit that she found particularly annoying, second only to the measly salary Lionel paid her. “The piece on the Montfort chateau comes across very well.”

Bowled over by Lionel’s rare outburst of praise, Shelley almost fell off her chair. But then she quickly realized the reference wasn’t to her prose. It was about the seventeenth-century villa built on the ruins of a medieval convent on the outskirts of Aix-en-Provence in southern France.

“But take out that line about the cool, damp walls of the subterranean caves. They make the place seem old. I was just there recently, as I’m sure you recall, and the feeling was one of timeless grandeur, not moldy decay.” Lionel tsked. “In theory, customers say they like atmospheric old things like caves, but they don’t really want to know the details. Talk up the whirlpools in the bathrooms instead. More jet sprays, less caves.” He turned to the next page.

“Fewer caves,” Shelley corrected under her breath, the curse of having a mother who was a tenth-grade English teacher. She took her blue pen and deleted the line and was about to flip the page when her eyes rested on a quotation from Madame la Comtesse de Montfort herself. Shelley stared at the words: “To savor the snow-white blossoms of the almond trees that cover the hills in springtime is to tantalize the senses with a pleasure so exquisite, it marks the soul ever after.”

She saw the passage was missing a closing quotation mark and was about to make a notation when she stopped and reflected. Would she, Shelley wondered, ever be able to forget the world of missing punctuation marks and experience a pleasure so exquisite it would mark her soul ever after?

The fax machine in the conference room hummed into action. She looked up. Was it a sign from above?

The cover sheet had a handwritten message scrawled in large letters: “MONSIEUR TOYNBEE. URGENT. PERSONAL.”

“Looks like something for you, Lionel.” She passed it across the table.

Lionel moved his lips as he read silently, then slowly lowered the fax to the table. “My God. Françoise, the comtesse de Montfort, has died.” He removed the yellow Hermès silk ascot from around his neck and patted the moist sheen that had popped out on his baby-smooth forehead.

Speaking of baby-smooth, Shelley had recently discovered a bill from a society dermatologist in the accounts payable folder of her desk drawer. But the evidence for BOTOX injections and dermabrasion was beside the point, especially in light of Lionel’s obvious distress—the ascot was, after all, silk. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I know you and Madame la Comtesse go back a long way.”

Lionel strummed his fingers on the fax. After a moment he looked up. “Wha-at? Oh, it’s not that. It’s the chateau. It’s aw-aw-ful! The family is threatening to take the property out of our catalogue before the start of high season.”

1

“YOU’LL NEVER GUESS WHAT happened today.” Shelley slid into the booth at the Down Home Diner and looked up. “Oh, Paul.” She pulled a wad of paper napkins out of the dispenser on the table. “If you’re not going to bother to wait to eat, could you at least not drip your cheesesteak all over the place?”

Paul Gufstavsen, the pride of St. Cloud, Minnesota, took the napkins and swallowed. “Listen, I’ve just come off a double shift at the hospital, so don’t complain. The important thing is I came.”

“From what I understand, you always were a bit premature.” The comment came from the horsey-looking woman who’d just arrived. She gave Paul an overly sweet smile that was anything but nice before turning her attention to Shelley. “Move over, girlfriend, I’m starving.”

Shelley scooted down while Abigail Braithwaite stashed her briefcase under the table and sidled the straight skirt of her St. John suit along the bench. Abigail had recently been made partner in a white-shoe law firm and was also an heir to a fortune based on little things—coal, steel and the building of the transcontinental railroad. So, naturally she could afford to wear St. John suits. Shelley’s couture, on the other hand, was exclusively T.J. Maxx.

Shelley waved off the waitress’s offer of menus and waggled her finger in Paul’s direction. “I’ll have what he’s eating but with Cheez Whiz and onions.”

Abigail nodded. “You can get me the same.” She held off until the waitress left before flaring her nostrils at Paul. “Only a heathen—or someone from the hinterland—would have a cheesesteak without Cheez Whiz and onions.”

Paul munched, undisturbed. “My midwestern heritage is a burden I proudly bear. Besides, I seriously doubt that cheesesteaks were a staple of your tony family, even if they do come from the area. Tell me again. Where exactly is the family estate located along the Main Line?” He turned a puzzled brow in her direction. “I seem to have forgotten.”

Abigail sat up straighter, if such a thing were possible. “Stop trying to act the innocent. It’s Haverford, as well you know, having visited more than once when you and Shelley were what I can only euphemistically call an item. Thank God she saw the error of her ways and told you to take your little stethoscope elsewhere.”

Shelley cleared her throat to restore order. “Abby, stop picking on Paul. Anyway, as you well know, our breakup was entirely amicable.” Translation: she no longer got sex, but she still picked up his dry cleaning.

Not that Shelley’s comments would in any way establish a permanent détente. To say that Abby, her best friend, did not get along with Paul was the understatement of the year. Even Abigail’s initial evaluation had been less than enthusiastic. “I can understand the appeal of his blond, Scandinavian good looks and his above-average intelligence, but beyond that—I mean, if he’s going to be a doctor, does he have to be an ear, nose and throat specialist?”

And when Shelley related these comments back to Paul—she had been in that stage of their relationship when she thought they should share all—he had responded, “I don’t know where she comes off criticizing me. Not when she talks about going to Brandeis instead of Bryn Mawr as her act of rebellion—a gesture undoubtedly lost on the vast majority of the population. Hell—” a rare example of Paul blaspheming and evidence of his rancor “—I don’t even get it.”

The relationship had only deteriorated over time. No matter. She needed their attention—divided or otherwise—now.

“If you two ever stopped to listen to yourselves, you’d realize you sound like something out of a bad Tennessee Williams play—without benefit of an intermission,” Shelley forged on. “And I really need you to focus on something else for a change—me.”

Abigail sniffed. Paul gazed at his food.

Shelley nodded. “Good. Thank you. It’s like this. I wanted to talk to you because I just found out today that the comtesse died.”

Paul looked up. “Which one was she? The condo on the Algarve or the villa in the Piedmont?”

“Paul, we’re talking about a woman who recently died. She was more than just a piece of property.”

He picked up his cheesesteak and took a healthy bite. “Shelley, I’m a doctor. I see death every day.”

Shelley seriously wondered if Paul witnessed death every day in an ear-nose-and-throat residency, but she didn’t press the point. It wasn’t worth it—much as their relationship hadn’t been, either.

Abigail patted her hand. “I’m sure it was very upsetting. A donation to a charity of the family’s choice is always appropriate.” She leaned back and smiled benevolently when the waitress brought their order—it was like the queen at the grand opening of a pensioners’ home in Bournemouth. Then she turned to Shelley. “So, which property was it anyway?”

Shelley started to mentally count to ten but quit at six. “The comtesse owned the chateau in Aix-en-Provence, north of Marseilles.”

Paul paused in thought. “A quaint abode. Eight bedrooms, five and a half baths, four with whirlpool baths. Vineyard. Swimming pool. Riding stables nearby.”

“As you can imagine, Lionel is totally distraught.” Shelley said.

“I bet. He makes a pretty penny off that property and he’s probably scared stiff that the family is going to pull the plug on the contract.”

“Was she also one of his, you know…?” Abigail nodded discreetly.

“Lovers?” Shelley supplied the word. “I’d say it’s a reasonable guess.”

Paul snorted. “Please, Lionel didn’t get his inventory by using the Yellow Pages. We all know that he’s slept with or attempted to sleep with half the aging aristocracy of continental Europe—his personal touch has been in places you don’t want to know.”

Abigail shivered and looked down at her untouched food.

Shelley pointed a finger at her chest. “Not that I’m defending the horny bastard, but you have to admit the one place he’s never put his mitts on is me.” Being a naturally modest person, she didn’t mention that while maybe not in the same league as Jennifer Lopez or Nicole Kidman in the looks department, she wasn’t exactly chopped liver either. Auburn shoulder-length hair combined with a firm, rounded derriere and well-toned legs gave her a definite Julia Roberts allure—Julia Roberts with an extra fifteen pounds.

Paul shook his head. “Shell, get real. It’s not like you have any property on the Riviera worth renting.”

What could she say? McCleerys weren’t Riviera types; not only did they freckle in direct sunlight, they lacked that essential je ne sais quoi—inherited wealth. “Okay, I get your point. But I’d still like to get back to my dilemma. You see, Lionel is intent on keeping the rental for the coming high season.”

“Simple.” Paul shrugged. “He goes over and wines and dines the comtesse’s daughter and weaves his usual magic.”

“That is just so irritating,” Shelley protested. “Why do you necessarily assume that some woman would agree to just about anything if she was showered with a little attention?”