Chapter Eighteen

There were twenty valet parkers waiting to take cars when Camille drove up to the entrance of the party. She took the ticket stub and put it in her purse, and made her way across the gravel and into the garden where people were entering. It was like traveling back in time to the court of Louis the Fifteenth, and the garden that had been installed for the evening was meant to look like Versailles. Women were managing their enormous skirts, men were adjusting their wigs, guests held up their masks to cover their faces, and Camille took out her cellphone to call Phillip and find out where he was.

“Where are you?” she asked him, when he answered.

“I’m at the bar, of course. My date bailed on me. She has German measles, she got them from her little cousin.”

“That’s what you get for dating twelve-year-olds,” she teased him, and he laughed.

“She’s older than you are, but not by much. Hurry up, I’m bored.” He hadn’t seen any of his friends yet, the guests were mostly the established people in the Valley of his father’s generation.

“Where’s the bar?” Camille asked him. “I’m wearing a pale pink dress by the way. Maxine is in light blue, warn me if you see her.”

“I’ll send you a text. The bar is all the way at the back. There are three or four others, but the caviar and foie gras are at this one.” Sam went all out for the Harvest Ball every year, and he and Elizabeth were greeting guests at a central location.

It was another fifteen minutes before Camille found Phillip, holding a glass of champagne for her, which he handed her. She took a sip. The party was so elaborate that it was almost like a wedding, with two or three hundred brides.

“You look gorgeous,” Phillip said, admiring her. She really was exquisite, and it struck him when he saw her all dressed up in the spectacular gown. “Where’d you get the dress?”

“Don’t ask,” she said as she twirled for him. “My fairy grandmother gave it to me,” and as the skirt moved, he saw the sparkly shoes and smiled.

“Now you really do look like Cinderella. Am I going to turn into a pumpkin at midnight, or a white mouse?” he teased her.

“No, you’re the handsome prince, you don’t turn into anything. You just run around looking for the other shoe for the next ten years, trying it on ugly women with big feet.”

“That sounds about right.” He laughed. “And what do you do?”

“Scrub the castle floors until you find me. Or in the modern version, maybe I go out and get a job.”

“You have a job,” he reminded her. “You run a winery.”

“Oh, that,” she said, laughing behind her mask. And at that exact moment, she saw Maxine in the distance and hid behind Phillip. Maxine was heading straight for Sam, who was talking to Elizabeth. She had on a very pretty dress, and Sam looked happy. “Do you think Liz and your father will ever get married?” she asked, always curious about them.

“Who knows? Maybe not. They seem to like things the way they are, and my dad couldn’t spend all that time in Washington. He has to be here for the winery.”

“Maybe she’ll give up politics,” Camille said and Phillip laughed.

“Not likely. My dad thinks she ought to run for president. I don’t think she will, though. Vice president maybe.” They walked slowly toward the dinner tables then, and Phillip had had her seated next to him, with his date on the other side, which was now an empty place. He didn’t miss her and he was having fun with Camille. They greeted all the guests they recognized, and he danced with her before dinner started. They noticed Maxine at a table nearly in the parking lot, as far away from Sam’s table as he could place her. She was sitting at a table of old people, intently engaged in conversation with one of them.

“She could talk to a rock if she had to,” Camille commented.

“Only if the rock has a lot of money,” Phillip said and they both laughed.

They danced to the band and the DJ and after a while, they’d both had enough of greeting people, and snuck off to the garden where she and Phillip used to play as children. It wasn’t being used for the party, and only close friends knew where it was. It was deserted when they got there, filled with roses and a little gazebo. There was a marble bench that looked like it was from an English garden, and a set of swings. Camille walked over to them, drawn to them by memories. She remembered being there, with their mothers sitting and chatting on the bench, while they played tag and Phillip chased her through the trees.

“I used to love coming here when we were kids,” she said, and he smiled and walked behind her to push her on the swing.

“You were very brave,” he said, lost in his own memories. “I knocked you down once and you scraped your knee, and you told your mother you’d tripped.”

“I remember that,” she said, smiling, as she stuck her feet out to pump, and admired the sparkling shoes that peeked out from under her enormous skirt. “You were always nice to me. Except the time you put a frog in the picnic basket.” He laughed when she said it and she did too. It all seemed so long ago now, and had been part of the happy childhood they had shared, with parents who loved them, and sheltered lives. And then as they grew up, inevitably, real life had intervened. “Do you suppose we should go back to the table?” she asked him and he shook his head.

“I like it better here. We can see the fireworks when they start, and everyone is so drunk by now, and having a good time, they won’t care where we are.” Camille took her shoes off when she got off the swing so she wouldn’t hurt them in the damp grass. They went to sit on the bench their mothers had sat on, and she put the shoes under it, as they looked up at the stars together. And then the fireworks started, and they were better than ever this year. They went on for more than half an hour, and Camille looked at his watch nervously when they ended.

“Simone told me to keep an eye on Maxine, so I could get home before her, and she wouldn’t see me come in wearing this dress. I have to walk past the château to get to my house.” And they had no idea where Maxine was. They had been in the private garden for well over an hour, enjoying the intimacy of it, their memories, and peace from the other guests. “Maybe we should go take a look and see where she is,” Camille suggested, and he chased her down the length of the garden as he had when they were children, and it was only when they got back to the table that she realized she had forgotten her shoes under the bench.

“I can go back and get them,” he offered gallantly, but just as he said it, Camille could see that Maxine was leaving, and waiting for her car in the long line of departing guests.

“It’s okay, I’ll come for them tomorrow. I have to get home.” She looked panicked, and wondered how she could now without Maxine seeing her and knowing she’d been at the party in her dress. She explained her dilemma to Phillip, and he grabbed her hand and headed through a small side gate with her.

“I know where they parked the cars. They’re supposed to leave the keys on the seat.” She followed him in bare feet down a long grass path, and they came out in a huge parking lot, normally used for winery vehicles, which had been removed for the night. They found the winery van she had come in, and she stood next to it.

“Thank you for taking such good care of me,” she said, “I had so much fun with you. It was like being kids again, sitting in the garden,” and had reminded her of her mother.

“I enjoyed it too,” he said and kissed her on the cheek, as she noticed a pair of rubber flip-flops someone had left in the backseat and she put them on, and he laughed at her again. No matter how grown up she was, or how elegant the dress, he always had a good time with her. “I don’t remember hearing anywhere that Cinderella went home in flip-flops,” he said.

“She did if she forgot her shoes in the garden.” She hoped Simone wouldn’t be mad at her for leaving them, but no one would find them where they were.

“I’ll bring them to you tomorrow. Drive safely.” He waved as she pulled out, and took a back exit on the property that she knew well to get on the St. Helena Highway to get home. With any luck at all, Maxine was behind her, still stuck in the gridlock of guests leaving, and she could make it home before her. The evening had been a huge success, and she was glad she had gone.

She was only a mile or two from home, hoping that Maxine wasn’t there yet, when she smelled fire from the open window and saw smoke in the sky. The smoke obscured the stars in some places and looked very black, which she knew meant it was an active fire that hadn’t been controlled yet. Because of the heat and dry summers, fire was one of their great fears in the Valley, and there had been some devastating fires over the years.

The smoke got worse as she approached their property, and she pressed the pedal to the floor once she reached the driveway. She could hear the fire by then, like the sounds of rushing water, and as she turned the last bend in the road, she saw a wall of flame behind the château, stopped the van, and leaped out. The fire seemed to be coming from Simone’s cottage, and when she got there, she saw flames surrounding it, which extended all the way up to where her barn was, and they were moving into the vineyards. And then she saw the small figure through the flames. It was Simone, trying to decide how to get through, with Choupette in her arms, and Camille couldn’t see how to get to her either. The flames were higher than the cottage and sparks were flying everywhere. Camille had her cellphone in her hand by pure instinct, she called 911, and as soon as she’d given them the address and her name, she unlaced her dress and took it off. She knew that if she tried to get through the flames in the gauzy dress she would set it on fire, so she stood there in flip-flops and underwear, trying to figure out how to get to Simone and the dog, and then she saw Alexandre standing off to the side leering at her, and she pointed to Simone and shouted at him over the roar of the flames.

“Your grandmother! Get your grandmother!” she screamed at him. He just stood there and laughed at her and she wondered if he was drunk again. There was no sign of his brother or Maxine, and Camille kept waving to Simone to move back and not stand so close to the flames, and then she ran over to Alex and shouted at him. “For God’s sake, get her out of there!”

“Are you crazy?” he shouted back at her. “No one can get through that,” but Camille was going to. She couldn’t let her be burned alive. The back vineyards were already burning, and the flames were moving toward the château, but all she could see was Simone, bravely standing there, waiting to be rescued with Choupette in her arms. The smoke was overwhelming, and as Camille looked for a hose to create an opening so she could get her, she heard sirens in the distance, and in less than a minute, a string of fire trucks had come up the driveway, stopped at the château, and firemen were rushing toward the flames with hoses. She grabbed one of them by the arm and pointed to Simone, and he slipped an oxygen mask on and nodded, just as two men in asbestos suits joined him, and the three men walked through the flames, put an asbestos blanket over Simone and carried her out. They deposited her as far away from the flames as they could, and Camille rushed to her, as she emerged from the blanket, holding Choupette who was stunned. Camille was still in her underwear, and one of the firemen handed her a jacket and went back to fight the flames.

“What happened?” Camille shouted at her over the uproar. Simone looked shaken but still lively and alert.

“I don’t know, I smelled gasoline, and then Choupette started whining and barking, and I saw flames outside the windows and coming down the road from your house. My poor chickens…” she said, looking distressed, and Camille put an arm around her as they watched the firemen fight the blaze in the cottage, while others ran into the vineyards, and they were told to go down the driveway as the fire moved toward the château. And then Camille remembered Alex, and the terrible expression on his face as he’d watched his grandmother walk back and forth trapped behind the flames. But he had disappeared, and Camille didn’t see him anywhere.

They were standing between two fire trucks, as Maxine came home in her rented Rolls. They told her driver to park on the side of the road, and Camille saw another car behind her she didn’t recognize, and she went back to watching the fire approach the château. She wondered if they were going to lose everything that night as a thin snake of flame rushed down the hill through the vineyards, and other firefighters rushed to put it out.

“My God, what’s happening?” Maxine said as she came running up the hill, still in full costume from the party. And with Camille in her underwear under the fireman’s coat, she didn’t realize that Camille had been there too. She had left her wig and mask in the van on the way home. “Where are the boys?” she shrieked at Camille who said she didn’t know, but she knew she would never forget Alexandre’s face as he was prepared to watch his grandmother burn alive and just laugh at her. It was seared into Camille’s mind forever, as Maxine ran toward the château, and two firemen stopped her.

“You can’t go in there,” they said. They were hosing down the roof, and it was at risk to burst into flame at any moment.

“My sons are in there!” she shrieked at them.

“There’s no one in the house, we checked,” and as they said it, Alexandre and Gabriel came around the corner of the château and walked toward their mother. And as they approached, their clothes reeked of gasoline and were stained with it.

“What did you do?” she screamed at both of them, and Alexandre looked at her angrily. The firemen were too busy to pay attention to them, but Camille was watching them closely.

“We did what you told us to do,” Alexandre said to Maxine.

“I told you to get rid of her, as in chase her away, I didn’t tell you to kill her and burn the house down.” There was no question how the fire had happened. The stench of them alone told the whole story, and Camille was looking at them in horror as Phillip ran over to the group with a panicked expression and immediate relief when he saw that Camille was all right. He had been in the car behind Maxine, and had grabbed the first one he could find to get there.

“Chief Walsh was leaving the party when he got the alarm. He told me and Dad where it was. I came as fast as I could,” he said to Camille and looked at Maxine in a rage. He had heard what she just said, and had fully understood from the gasoline on the boys’ clothes how the fire had started.

“You almost killed your grandmother!” Camille shouted at them, and Maxine looked at her sons in a fury.

“You’re idiots, both of you, do you know what kind of trouble you caused?”

“You inherit everything if she dies, Mother,” Alexandre reminded her, speaking of Camille as though she wasn’t there. But she heard every word they said, and so did Phillip and Simone. As Alexandre said it, Phillip hauled off and punched him as hard as he could, and the two men got into a brawl, as Gabriel stood to the side and looked like he wanted to run, and Alexandre kept shouting at his mother, “You told us to get rid of her.” Two firemen had to stop what they were doing to break it up, and the police and sheriff arrived shortly after, with Sam and Elizabeth right behind them. Gabriel tried to make a run for it then, jumped in the car he’d been using and tried to drive through the vineyards, but one of the sheriff’s cars stopped him. And the chief on the scene confirmed that it was arson. There was gasoline all around the château and the cottage.

As Phillip, Simone, and Camille watched them, Maxine and her sons were handcuffed and arrested for arson and attempted murder. Maxine hadn’t been there when it happened, as she kept explaining to the police, and she said she knew nothing about it. But her sons had already said in front of witnesses that she had ordered them to do it. It had been her idea. She kept insisting that it wasn’t what she meant, as though terrifying Camille into paying her off was more acceptable than attempted murder. The three of them were put in two police cars and taken to jail. The Marshalls, Elizabeth, Simone, and Camille stood in the driveway watching firemen hose down the château and the nearest vineyards. The cottage was badly damaged, and the horse barn where Camille lived was gone. The side of the château closest to the flames was blackened as they all stood there praying that the house, the vineyards, and the winery didn’t go up in smoke that night. It all depended on which way the wind would turn.