Penny laughed. “You’ll be blamed for everything that goes wrong. The wine, the tablecloths, the wind, Emile’s singing. It’ll all be that American woman’s fault. That’s what I always feel when I come down here, as though everyone’s gloating over my mistakes.”
Katherine had taken advantage of a glorious day to drag out her easel and continue working on the painting that was giving her fits. The sheets were flapping on the clothesline, the ripe cherries that hadn’t been claimed by the birds were in a bowl on the kitchen counter, and a chance meeting with a farmer’s wife at the poubelle, where big plastic recycling and garbage bins were lined up for community use, had netted her a volunteer assistant for the set-painting job at the fête. But Penny’s dire predictions about the possible outcome of her big play for becoming a successful event producer made her stomach flutter.
There was no word yet on the cause of Albert’s death, no one was gossiping, at least not to her, about the gun, Michael was still in a touchy mood, and her work for the painting show wasn’t going well. She had almost decided to call the difficult painting Poor Little Lambs, although that might not explain the tractor. She could have done without Penny and Yves showing up for a chat.
Penny obviously didn’t have enough to do, and Yves? He needed to feel he was being admired, and so trailed along with Penny while he enjoyed his long midday break from the shop. He had come over at Penny’s insistence to apologize for the drama he’d caused, he explained, and having said that much, said nothing more, certainly not that he was sorry. Now they were talking of happier things, like the fête.
“Mistakes?” Katherine knew what the villagers thought of her friend but was surprised that Penny had absorbed any of the muttered insults uttered in slangy French that trailed behind her as she walked through her renovation-in-progress.
“Oh, you know. The lap pool went over some invisible line in the creek, the sound system on the patio kept an old lady from her beauty sleep at nine P.M. Whatever I do to improve the property, it always seems to offend somebody, and people around here gossip all day long.”
“They were worried they would lose their access to the fishing spot below the mill, and this is such a quiet village, tucked into a little valley of sorts, that any amplified music can seem too loud. Henri even spoke to Michael about his guitar playing.”
Penny rolled her eyes. “Such a dull place, not at all what I expected. If it weren’t for you and Michael, I would move in a heartbeat.”
“But wait, not because of me, cherie? I am heartbroken.” Yves, parked in the rattan chair, placed one hand over his heart, or where it would be, Katherine thought, if he actually had one.
Penny chose to ignore his comment, but said to him instead, “I’m not sure I’m up for a duet with you, so what will you sing? Not that ridiculous number about yourself, I hope.”
“Why do you call it ridiculous?” Yves said, his voice rising. “It is a classic troubadour’s storytelling. I add to it for every performance so that it is the ongoing saga of my adventures. It is a song tradition. All cultures have it.”
“Maybe.” Penny shrugged. “But it’s usually not about the singer.” She made a small shape of irritation with her mouth. “I mean, how egotistical is that?”
“I won’t let you criticize my project,” Yves said, pointing a long finger at her. “I said something insignificant about…” His voice trailed off and his finger moved hesitantly toward the treetops.
“Precisely,” Penny snapped. “Insignificant. A casual insult shared with the whole world, and through a microphone, no less.”
Yves shrugged. “You take things too personally. It was not the whole world but a little party, and it was not about you, it was about life in general. All I said—”
“—was that you were not interested in old women.”
“Non, non, my dear Penny. I have explained to you that I was talking about—how do you say it, Katherine—the girls from one’s past, les vieilles copines?”
“Bad enough either way, but don’t let’s quarrel,” Katherine said, her face close to the canvas as she frowned at her version of a tractor, which seemed more baroque on the canvas than when she had sketched it in the pasture. She guessed that her friends were in the prickly stage of making up from a quarrel in which Penny had undoubtedly told Yves they were finished, and Yves had agreed and now they were faced with finding a way to justify getting together again before Penny left her Americanized French house in October for her French-themed apartment in Chicago. It was their way, Katherine thought with an inward sigh. With few suitably aged, unattached people in the neighborhood and no desire to expend the effort of finding a mate farther abroad, Penny and Yves would keep circling each other, at least until their physical passion was consummated. She wondered if they were having an affair. They behaved more like people in the flirtation stage of a relationship. In her and Michael’s day, no one questioned the idea that sex was as much a part of beginning a relationship as was sharing one’s drugs or food. It led to problems, that free-for-all approach, but on balance she thought it was preferable to this pouting. As it was, Katherine understood her role was to be the audience for their posturing. Right now, she was impatient.
“Penny, what do you think? Does this look like the mayor’s tractor from where you sit?”
“It’s lovely, Katherine. Don’t worry,” said Penny, who hadn’t bothered to glance at the painting. “You worry far too much about these things. It’s a new gallery and they’re not particular at all. Oh, I didn’t mean that the way it came out,” she said as Katherine straightened up and turned toward her.
Katherine felt a flush of something like anger warm her face, and forced herself to take a deep, slow breath. Children, she reminded herself. Penny and Yves were emotionally the equivalent of ten-year-olds, charming but thoughtless, likable but unable to see that the world didn’t absolutely revolve around themselves. She needed to be patient. She was, after all, a professional artist with an advanced degree, preparing for a solo show in a good gallery in a region of la belle France that prized art, for heaven’s sake.
“Voilà. You see?” Yves said, his voice rising. “These little meanings, they are not what they seem. So, darling Penny, you must remember that and make up.” He jumped up, pinned Penny in her chair, kissed her noisily on the lips, and stood straight, brushing his fallen locks off his face. She glared at him for an instant, then softened.
“I’m sorry, cherie,” she said to Katherine, who was standing still, a brush suspended in her hand. “I meant to be encouraging, but obviously went quite wrong. It’s a lovely sky, the painting is sweet and quite pastoral in its theme, and we are going to drown you in compliments and Crémant de Bourgogne at the opening. And now, if there is no more news about the Bellegarde scandal, I must go.”
“Scandal? Don’t be ridiculous, Penny. You sound like Pippa Hathaway, trolling for mystery and mayhem in all of this.”
“What does she know about it?” Penny said.
“Nothing. She is apparently interested in finding something that might make a good story, and stopped me, practically drooling with curiosity.”
“Did she run you down with her little car?” Yves said. “She drives through town like the demon, you know?”
“No, she said she was out for a walk, but I think she was really looking for news. She’d seen the police cars.”
“I hadn’t met her before your party. Does she live here all year?” Penny said.
“I’m not sure. She says her father lives in London.”
“She plans to go to London for one month every year,” Yves said, and the women turned to him, the same question in their eyes. “She paid Mme Robilier to feed the cats and hold her mail in April. Madame says the cats are too shy to be petted and only peek from under the lilac hedge when she puts their food out.”
Penny shrugged impatiently, and kissed Katherine and Yves. “Unless Adele was having an affair with my plumber and pushed her bossy husband down the stairs to get rid of him, I really don’t think Albert’s death qualifies as a mystery. Although,” she added as she started down the flagstone steps, “I can see why someone might be tempted to give the old man a shove.”
“Quit it, Penny,” Katherine said in protest, but there was no answer, and in a second, the iron gate screeched in a protest of its own as Penny closed it.