Katherine promised herself every day that she would not have a glass of wine until five o’clock, and then only one. There were times, many of them, when circumstances beyond her control almost required that she break her rule. Mme Pomfort’s company might have tempted her by itself, but when the kitchen door slapped shut behind her, she heard voices and realized they had company. J. B. Holliday’s voice would make a decibel measure tremble anywhere, but it was particularly difficult to deal with in a small, enclosed space like their living room, never mind what he was saying. And what he was saying made Katherine reach without conscious thought for a tumbler and fill it to the brim. She took a big gulp and ruined her entrance into the conversation by having some of it go down her throat the wrong way so that she coughed and sputtered for a full minute.
“Hey, Kathy,” J.B. said over her distress. “I’d get up but I’m too damned comfortable. Tell this husband of yours I can make him a rich man, indeed I can.” The record producer had settled into the only large, upholstered seat in the room, the chaise usually shared by Katherine and one of the dogs, and she doubted very much if J.B. could get up at all, much less bobbing up to be polite.
She glanced at Michael. Being married to someone a long time was helpful at moments like this. He hated talking about money because, she had long realized, it underscored his embarrassment at having none. It was his style to carry a roll of bills and to peel them off easily when she asked him to pay for the beef roast or the incredibly cheap silver tongs she found at a flea market table, but that was small stuff. He couldn’t afford, say, a new car if the Citroën had engine problems. Right now, with J.B. talking like a big shot who had plenty of money and large investment ideas, Michael needed rescuing.
“J.B., I’ve been meaning to ask you about that handsome son of yours. He’s a sweet boy, but I wonder if he should be a little more careful when he’s on that board thing and flying down the hill? What if a van is coming around the corner, or an unwary tourist who’s already lost and confused, since any tourist who winds up here surely is lost?”
Michael’s shoulders relaxed a bit. J.B. chuckled from some deep place, a little like a motor turning over. “Brett? That boy’ll be the death of me yet, but I sincerely doubt he’ll die in the process. I live for the day he’s old enough to set loose on the world, I tell you. These days, if he’s not raising hell somewhere else, he’s hanging around that girl who lives in the house with the junk-filled yard. She’s something else, that one. All tease and no mistake.” He laughed, slapped one hand on his thigh, and winked at Katherine.
Was Brett making some kind of play for Jeannette? The thought made Katherine uneasy. Brett was seventeen and American, raised on hip-hop, sexy movies, and God knows what else, which made him seem older. His parents may have tried to counter the popular trends, but his mother confessed to Katherine that he’d been caught with some pot back in the States when he was only sixteen. Meanwhile, Jeannette was motherless and naive. It was too much to expect her father would care. He’d probably see Brett’s attentions as an opportunity, although Katherine refused to define to herself what she meant by that. Katherine moved a talk with Jeannette to the top of her growing list of projects for the next couple of weeks.
“She’s young,” was all she said. “I think it would be a good idea to mention the possibility of oncoming traffic to the boy, though. Michael, we’re due at Adele’s in fifteen minutes, sorry as I am to break up your visit.”
Michael opened his mouth, no doubt to protest having to go into that gloomy house again so soon, but Katherine caught his eye and he shut his mouth abruptly and stood.
“Don’t want to keep you from the widow’s side, for sure.” J.B. started the process of rising from the chaise, windmilling one arm while the other clamped onto the seat. Michael went to the door to whistle the dogs in as J.B. patted a file folder on the chaise. “I’ll leave this with you, Mike, and we can talk about it when you come over for rehearsal. I’m telling you, this will be a gold mine. You’ll leave those Crazy Leopards in the dust.”
Michael mumbled something Katherine couldn’t hear as the two men walked out to the SUV with her trailing behind them.
J.B. turned around. “Say, Kathy, any developments over there, at the castle, I mean? I’m guessing the cops must be finished by now.”
“Still investigating, although Adele has been assured it’s really a formality.”
“Good, good. I’m chewing on what I should do about that deal we had going. Maybe I should meet the widow.”
“I think Sophie Bellegarde, her daughter, is pretty much running the business right now.”
“That right? Well, we’ll see. No big rush, right, Mike? We’re good to go on our deal.” He slapped Michael’s shoulder and lifted himself into the driver’s seat, tapping his horn several times as he backed out of the driveway. She started to drag out a long hose for watering before she remembered her white lie that they were supposed to be leaving for Adele’s in a few minutes. Instead, she ducked back into the kitchen and topped off her wineglass. It was five minutes after five, so she was on solid ground with her conscience.
As she rooted around in the refrigerator for something to go into a casserole other than celery root or cabbage for the third or fourth time this week, she wondered if she would enjoy having lots of money. On days when rainwater dripped into the corner of her studio or when she didn’t have the train fare to go to Paris to catch an exhibition, yes, she admitted to herself, she wished they had more money. But there was always enough for the small finds she uncovered at the flea markets, which were her main entertainment until the cold of autumn shut them down, and for paints and canvases, which occupied her the rest of the year.
Michael, on the other hand, had never let go entirely of the bitterness of betrayal that began when the four musicians he had counted as his best friends went on to form the Crazy Leopards all those years ago, leaving him behind but taking with them the two songs that he had written, which would make them famous. He never talked about it now, but when the washing machine needed parts, or Jean wanted too much for repairing the low wall along the edge of their property, she knew some festering heat rose in him for what might have been. Probably it wasn’t the money, but the public insult that made him hard to live with at times. “The past is never over, is it?” she said to the cat, which had nosed open the door and was checking the dogs’ dishes for leftovers.
“Man, he drives me crazy at times,” Michael said, shooing the cat out gently with one boot a few minutes later as he joined Katherine in the kitchen and reached around her to open the battered old refrigerator. Opening a bottle of beer, he headed out to the patio.
“What’s the deal he’s talking about? An album with you?” she called, rinsing a knife and setting a pot of onions and beef on the stove. When they had browned a bit, she would sacrifice a half bottle of the heady Burgundy she’d picked up the other day at the little cave in Noyers, a small miracle of Pinot grapes aged and bottled thirty kilometers from her kitchen stove.
“No, a new digital studio in Memphis, which he claims would be completely booked with big musicians for their next albums.”
“He came to you for money? Why in the world would he think we had any to spare?”
“No, not quite. He wants introductions.”
“Introductions? To whom?”
“Who do you think?”
“Eric? The Leopards? You told him no, of course?”
“Told him I didn’t have any pull. He mentioned the business with ‘Raging Love.’ Not sure how he heard about that.” Michael looked at his wife, who had stopped what she was doing and come to stand in the doorway.
“I’m sure I didn’t. I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever had a conversation with him … oh, damn. Maybe I did, but it was under the influence of too much good wine the first time we had dinner at the house they rented, and I’m not even sure what I said, only that you had proven your point with Eric.”
“I thought we agreed that’s over and done with. I got the hundred thousand in the settlement, and there’s no more to be had. Now you’ve gone and opened up a can of worms.”
“Darling, I am sorry if I said anything I shouldn’t,” Katherine said, coming out and kissing the top of his head. “It couldn’t have been much. I was probably name-dropping. You know me, I want everyone to know how talented you are and that you were in the music business at such an interesting time.”
“You could just as easily say I was in the construction business, since that’s what I did for ten years after the Leopards dropped me. Moved lumber and nailed studs, more the true story of my career. If I hadn’t hurt my back, that’s what I’d be doing right now.” He moved his head away, took a long drink from the bottle, and looked up at her hovering over him. “I wasn’t in the music business, not in any way that means something today.”
“You were, and you still are. You’re writing songs and I know you’ll sell some soon.”
“Kay, it pisses me off when you do something like this, you know that. I don’t want to talk about the Leopards, about Eric, about those songs. It’s history. Now, what if J.B. makes my begging Eric for a favor part of any deal to record new material? Your bringing the old stuff up could kill any new chance I have.”
Ever since they settled in Reigny, Katherine had fought occasional moments of panic where she saw vividly that she would be lost without Michael. Her instinct since childhood was to run from anything even remotely uncomfortable, and, thousands of miles from their past life, he was the only one she could run to. When they argued, which they rarely did, the ground shifted ominously underneath her.
She retreated into the house, leaned down, and petted the cat, which had taken over the chaise vacated by J.B. It jumped up at the violent nature of her strokes and stalked away. It wasn’t her fault if that annoying man had pumped her for information to the point where she couldn’t help mentioning the Crazy Leopards and Michael’s brilliant songwriting. Damn that J.B. anyway. She wanted to like him, if only for what he was doing for her husband, but he had a big mouth.