“Make yourself to home, Lucille.”
I took the coffee after she fixed it and sat in a spindle-back rocker across from the one she always sat in.
“Juliette Thiessman is selling Dominique a lot of produce from her garden for our dinner tonight. I guess that’s why her gardener’s working overtime.” I concentrated on stirring my coffee.
Thelma settled herself in her rocking chair and straightened a pile of soap opera and gossip magazines on a little table next to her. “Oh, he’s working extra hours, all right. But it’s not hoeing and weeding. It’s that little side business he’s got goin’ on for Charles.”
I bumped the stirrer too hard against the cup and nearly sloshed hot coffee on my lap. “What business would that be?”
“Well, of course he’s never said, but you tell me what to think when a man shows up in my store first thing in the morning smelling like he just took a bath in a vat of perfume?”
“Uh … I don’t know.”
“He’s driving Charles’s girlfriends home, that’s what. After Charles finishes having his way with them in that little love nest he’s got in the woods. At first I thought the perfume was Juliette’s. Then I remembered what my grandmamma, a wise and proper lady, always said: A woman should pick one special fragrance to be her unmistakable scent for life and that’s how a man will remember her. Men find it very erratic, you know. Sort of a … turn on.”
She plucked at imaginary lint on her dress. Her cheeks had gone pink.
I’d heard that before, too—about the erotic and sensual power of scent, especially a woman’s signature perfume—when I worked as a translator at the perfume museum in Grasse, France, before I came home to run the vineyard. But right now I didn’t know what to say to Thelma because I had a feeling she knew more about my relationship with Charles than she let on—and this was another setup to see if I’d spill any information.
I sipped my coffee. “It does sound very romantic, though it’s hard to wear perfume with what I do all day. Really screws things up when you’re trying to make wine.”
“Don’t you see, Lucille?” She sounded frustrated that I had missed the point. “That’s how I
Now I’d lost her. “Knew what?”
“That it wasn’t Juliette who’d been in the car. Juliette wears Chanel Number 5. Trust me, I’ve got a nose like a bloodhound. In fact, all the Johnson women have very keen oligarchy systems.” She touched a finger to the side of her nose. “That poor man comes in here regular as rain for a morning cup of coffee just reeking of Dior or Ralph Lawrence or whatever the latest one was wearing. It’s just about killed Juliette, don’t you know?”
I sat up in my chair. “Juliette knows about this?”
“Lordy!” Thelma waved a hand at me. “She’s known for ages.”
“How do you know she knows?”
“When a man’s cheating on his wife the way Charles cheats on Juliette, she knows. Lately I’ve been thinking that it’s finally getting to her, after all this time,” she said. “Wouldn’t surprise me if she broke down and did something about it.”
“Like what? You don’t mean something violent?”
“There are other options, Lucille, that are less … drastic.” Thelma shrugged. “Maybe she’ll leave him.”
“Did she say that?”
“Not to me. But something’s weighing on her mind.” Thelma jumped up and bustled over to the glass-fronted cabinet where she kept the bakery items. She picked up a white towel and began rubbing imaginary spots on the glass. “I think she’s found somebody new herself.”
I heard the catch in her throat, a tiny quiver. Then the room grew quiet, except for the rushing sound of the air-conditioning system and an indistinct squawking from the television in the back room. I held my cup with both hands and rocked in my chair, taking in what she’d just said. The old wood creaked, sounding like a baby animal crying. I stopped rocking.
“I heard she and your grandfather are very old and special friends,” she said in a sad, quiet voice. “That she knew Luc’s wife, your grandmother, way back when in Paris.”
“Yes,” I said, “that’s true.”
It was an open secret that Thelma had a mad crush on Pépé. The likelihood of them ever getting together was about the same as the sun colliding with the moon, but my gallant grandfather had taken her to dinner at the Inn the last time he was in town, charming her with the European politesse and old-fashioned chivalry he showed every woman, being especially kind to a lonely spinster whose relationships with men had always ended in heartbreak and disaster, until she finally found vicarious comfort in her soap opera hunks.
“Well, he is available,” she said. “And he’s quite a catch.”
“My grandfather is an honorable man. She’s a married woman.”
“There’s a remedy for that, child. It’s called divorce,” she said. “And who could blame Juliette what with Charles having lovers coming and going all the time?”
“I think you’re wrong, Thelma. Pépé’s one great love was my grandmother. That’s why he never remarried. And I don’t think he ever will.”
“Someday when you’re my age,” she said, “you’ll realize that just simple companionship is more than enough. They could still be together and he wouldn’t have to marry her. She never gave up her French citizenship, so she could go back and live there easy as you please.”
I finished my coffee and stood up. I didn’t want to think about the consequences of what she was saying. Pépé cared for Juliette, that I knew. And, okay, Juliette was a little in love with my grandfather. But what Thelma was implying, that there was some romantic liaison between them that went beyond the very proper behavior I’d witnessed at their party last week, was ridiculous—had I been that blind?
“What do you need, child?” Thelma took my coffee cup and put it in the trash.
I needed to think she was wrong, that her theory was way off base. “Pardon?”
“Besides the muffins. You said you needed a few things.”
“Oh. Milk, bread, peanut butter.”
She wrapped my muffins while I got the items and paid her.
“My grandfather respects Juliette as an old and dear friend,” I said as she walked me to the door. “He’s fond of her, but not in the way you think.”
Thelma’s smile was tinged with sympathy and regret. “You’re his granddaughter. The man’s been alone for more than thirty years. Let me tell you something, Lucille. Juliette Thiessman is a strong-willed woman. If she wants your grandfather, she’ll get him. You can bet the farm on that.”
She adjusted her glasses, blinking hard, and I couldn’t tell if she was holding back tears. Then she squared her shoulders and patted my arm. “I do run on sometimes, don’t I?”
“Not at all,” I said. “Anyway, I guess it’s not up to either one of us what they do, is it?”
“Nope.” She glanced at her watch, back to her old brisk self. “Lordy, will you look at the time? I’m missing
“Oh, gosh. You don’t want to miss that.”
“Oh, honey, it’s television. This is July. They won’t finish their candlelight dinner on his yacht until sometime in August. Then he’ll take her to his bedroom.”
“Then he asks her?”
“No. They’ll argue—she’s very temperamental—and carry on until she finally tells him she’s pregnant. He’ll pop the question by Labor Day.”
I grinned. “You’d better get back so you don’t miss any of it.”
“I just love Shay,” she said. “He deserves better than Amber. It’s not his baby, you see. But he’s an honorable man and he’ll take care of her because he’s a gentleman. Toodle-oo, Lucille.”
The sleigh bells rang as I closed the door. An honorable man and a gentleman: Had she been talking about Shay or my grandfather?
My phone rang as I was putting the groceries in the Mini.
“Hey,” Kit said. “Pay dirt.”
“You found something in the archives?” I felt breathless. “Maggie’s accident?”
