Chapter Four

Christophe forgot about meeting the countess, and was busy in the vineyards. They had a late frost two days after he’d gone to the vintners’ dinner, and he was up all night making sure there were heaters working in all the vineyards, and the cold snap didn’t damage their grapes. The heaters were old-fashioned, but effective. A severe frost could have hurt their crop for the entire year. But fortunately it didn’t last long, and he and Cesare were up till dawn, doing everything they could to protect the vines. Cesare was tireless in situations like that, which was part of Christophe’s deep respect for him, which Joy had never fully understood.

Cesare had been trained in all the European traditions, as Christophe had been, and both men had added modern American techniques to their repertoire. Cesare fully grasped and was proud of his responsibilities as vineyard manager, which made him a kind of “farmer in chief” for the winery, overseeing the ongoing health and safety of the vines, from frost, pests, and other damages. And planting new vines, when they did. He could sense a problem almost before it happened. He saw to it that their crews were always organized and ready to work, their equipment sound. And he made sure that the leaves were pulled, the clusters trimmed, and the grapes picked at exactly the right time. Cesare communicated constantly with Christophe and consulted with him, deferring to his employer, and he was willing to be on call twenty-four hours a day. Every aspect of Château Joy’s wine production and their grapes was his priority, and his intuition was flawless, far more than Joy gave him credit for. She thought he was a crusty, cantankerous, dishonest old man, despite his meticulous attention to their wine. To Christophe, it was worth putting up with Cesare cheating them of a few dollars on his expense account, but to Joy it was a capital offense.

Camille found Cesare’s constant haggling over a few pennies, and his lies when it suited him, character flaws she had a hard time ignoring, and didn’t want to. She knew how important he was to her father and the winery, but she wanted to protect their finances too. And Cesare had begun to carry his grievances with Joy over to her daughter, and disliked her almost as much as he had her mother. He and Camille argued constantly now, mostly about petty things.

Cesare had never married and had no children. He had been a charmer and a womanizer in his youth, although he had calmed down somewhat in middle age, and his looks had faded with time. He wasn’t unaware of Camille’s beauty, and readily admitted that she was an exquisite girl, but he thought the harshness of character she had inherited from her mother, as he saw it, made her unattractive as a woman, and he wasn’t afraid to tell her so, which didn’t endear him to her either. They were constantly at odds with each other, unreasonably so, Christophe thought.

“You’ll wind up an old maid if you’re not careful,” Cesare warned her, when she had just challenged his latest accounts. He thought any insult was fair revenge. “Men don’t like women who argue over money,” he informed her. “I thought you were going back to university for business school,” he added hopefully. He had already mentioned it several times since her mother’s death. He couldn’t wait for her to leave. Christophe never gave him the problems Joy and Camille had, and he put it down to their being American. He had always preferred European women, even though he had left Italy thirty years before.

“I’m not going back to school for another two or three years,” Camille reminded him again. “Besides, my father needs me here,” she said with determination.

“He can hire another secretary to replace you,” he said dismissively, pushing his battered straw hat down on his unruly mane of gray hair that went in all directions in crazy corkscrew curls. He had turned into a cranky old man, particularly with her, since neither she nor her mother had ever been vulnerable to his alleged charm. And he had grown heavier with all the pasta he ate. He was a wonderful cook, but Joy had turned down all his dinner invitations. Christophe occasionally dined with him alone, and Cesare prepared fabulous pasta meals for him, while they sat talking late into the night about the vineyards and what they could do to improve their wine.

Christophe enjoyed his company, but the women in his family did not. Cesare was opinionated and querulous and had only one use for women. He didn’t think they belonged in business, and surely not running a winery, which he insisted only a man could truly understand. His lack of respect for Camille showed in his eyes and his manner when he spoke to her. He hadn’t been quite as bold with her mother, since Joy didn’t hesitate to get fierce with him, and occasionally they shouted at each other. Camille was gentler and respectful of his age, she had grown up with him as a fixture in her life, but she agreed with her mother about his loose relationship with the truth and money. He was a constant headache. But Christophe was kind and fair to his employees, and valued each of them for what they had to offer, despite their failings. He always saw both sides of the coin, as he did in Cesare’s case.

“You’ll wind up alone,” Cesare warned Camille again as he strode out of her office, muttering to himself in Italian as he always did when he’d been caught at something, had no defense, and was angry about it. Just shy of twenty-three, she wasn’t worried. And the last thing she heard from him as he disappeared was some derogatory comment about American women. Her father passed him in the hall, Cesare rolled his eyes at him, and Christophe walked into Camille’s office with a questioning look. She got along with everyone else.

“Problem with Cesare?” He wasn’t upset about it, but saw that his daughter was annoyed, in just the way her mother used to be whenever she had to deal with him.

“The usual, he added twenty-seven dollars to his expense account. I don’t know why he bothers.”

“You should just let it go. He makes up for it in other ways. He was up with me all night twice this week when the weather turned cold.” It had warmed up again, and no harm had been done to their crops. “If we paid him overtime, we’d owe him a lot more than the twenty-seven dollars he adds to his expenses. He can’t help himself. It’s cultural, it’s a game to him to try and get something extra for free. It used to drive your mother crazy, and it wasn’t worth the energy she spent on it.” But Joy had been a precise woman, she balanced their books down to the penny, and she believed that honesty was a black or white quality, you had it or you didn’t. And she often quoted a French proverb to Christophe that he had taught her when they first met, “Who steals an egg would steal a cow.” She believed it, and applied it to their vineyard manager regularly. She was always convinced he was hiding greater dishonesty and was capable of stealing more, and devoted herself to making sure he didn’t.

“Mom never trusted him,” Camille reminded her father and he smiled ruefully.

“Believe me, I know.”

They chatted for a few minutes, and Camille went back to work on her computer. Everything in their big leather-bound vineyard ledgers was on the computer, but Christophe loved the old-fashioned traditions and wanted the ledgers kept up to date too, which had been double the work for Joy, and now Camille. He believed in modernization, but only to a point. And Camille had a marketing idea she wanted to discuss with him, which involved using social media to a greater degree to promote their wines, but she was waiting for the right moment to bring it up. And she knew Cesare would be hostile to it. He thought all things modern were dangerous and a waste of time, and he often swayed Christophe in that direction. It was Joy who had kept Christophe moving forward with the times, with her innovative ideas and excellent business plans to grow their business and keep it solid, and now it would fall to Camille to carry on where she left off, with even younger ideas.

Camille could already see a dozen ways to modernize their business and was excited to talk to her father about it, at the right time. She wanted to put some new concepts in place by summer, and she hoped her father would be open to it. Christophe was unpredictable that way. Joy had always been able to convince him, and he had enormous respect for her financial acumen and sound ideas. Camille knew she still had to prove herself to him, and in some ways, he still saw her as a little girl, and she looked like one. Camille had always appeared younger than her years. She had her mother’s fine features, but her long blond hair and the big blue eyes she had inherited from her father reminded everyone of Alice in Wonderland at times, which she knew made it hard for men like Cesare to take her seriously. But he hadn’t respected Joy either, and in fact was somewhat scared of her since she didn’t hesitate to go toe to toe with him. Camille had a gentler style, and she was younger, but Christophe knew she was every bit as smart as her mother, and would be more than capable of stepping into her mother’s shoes, and even running their winery one day. Just not yet, and he didn’t want to be overrun with modern ideas that were too high tech. He wanted to keep the traditional European aura to their label, it had worked well for them so far, no matter how modern Joy got things behind the scenes. The combination of their personalities and ideas had been a huge success.

When he got back to his office after his brief visit to Camille, Christophe was surprised when his young assistant said that there was a Countess de Pantin on the phone for him. At first, the name meant nothing to him, and his mind went blank, and then he remembered the Frenchwoman he had sat next to at the vintners’ dinner. He didn’t expect to see her again, despite her allusion to a future invitation, which he hadn’t taken seriously and didn’t care about. It was one of those social things people said politely, like “Let’s have lunch sometime.” In most cases, sometime never came. And she was far grander than he was, in her elegant black Parisian suit and fashionable accessories. She had said she was only planning to stay in the Valley for six months for a change of scene. The chance that they’d meet again wasn’t great, especially staying home with his daughter at night, which was his preference, now that Joy was gone and he was a widower. It was a role he hadn’t adjusted to yet.

He picked up the phone, and the elegant countess greeted him in French, and then switched to English. “Bonjour, Christophe!” she said, sounding almost as though they were old friends, and he could hear laughter in her voice. She had a light tone that was an instant upper, unlike some of the noble Frenchwomen he remembered from his youth, who took themselves very seriously, depending on their rank and title. He could tell she didn’t, and liked that about her. She seemed like a happy person, although she was recently widowed too. But her husband had been much older, and sick for several years, she had said, so maybe losing him had been less of a shock than losing Joy at forty-nine, while she was still strong and beautiful and they had been so happy together, and thought they had long years ahead of them. He was still bereft and felt robbed to have lost her.

“I’m so sorry to bother you at the office,” the countess apologized. “Is this a bad time?”

“Not at all.” He smiled as he listened to her. She had a lovely voice.

“I won’t keep you long. I’ve just organized a little dinner party, on short notice, for next Saturday. Just a dozen people at my rented house. I might as well enjoy it, and I’ve been meeting so many interesting new people. I hope you can come.” He didn’t need to look at a calendar. He had no social engagements, although he was leaving for his trip to Holland soon, but he would be home on the date she mentioned. He just wasn’t sure if he was ready for a social life as a single man, in fact he was certain he wasn’t, but he didn’t want to be rude to her, and she was in the same boat he was. She was trying to make the best of it, which made him feel obligated to make the effort too. He couldn’t play the recently widowed card with her, and thought it might make him sound pathetic. And Sam Marshall had survived it, so could he.

“It will be very informal,” she added, “just jeans and a blazer for the men, you needn’t wear a tie, although your pink tie the other night was divine. I’ll have to give another dinner so you can wear it again,” she teased him, and he was surprised she had remembered it.

“I’d love to come,” he responded, flattered to be asked, although he had no idea if he’d be facing a room full of strangers, or people he knew. He dreaded running into people he knew slightly who hadn’t heard of Joy’s death, whom he had to explain it to, and tell them the bad news. It had happened to him several times at meetings, and while doing errands around St. Helena and Yountville, and the explanations were painful. But it couldn’t be avoided at first, unless he stayed home and became a recluse, which was tempting at times, but he knew that wasn’t healthy either, or good for Camille. For her sake, he had to at least pretend to be doing better, although he didn’t think he was. He still shed a few tears for Joy every day, mostly when he went to bed at night, or woke up in the half-empty bed. During the day, he was busy. “Thank you for inviting me, Countess,” he said politely and she laughed.

“Please. Call me Maxine, unless you expect me to address you as Monsieur Lammenais, and call you vous in French,” she said referring to the formal case used between strangers and very formal people. She was more informal than that, and sounded relaxed talking to him.

“Thank you, Maxine.” She told him the time and date and gave him her address. It was appropriately on a road called “Money Lane,” which suited some of the extravagant houses that had been recently built there, and some old ones. And from the look of her, and her style, he doubted that the house she had rented for six months would be modest.

“I’m bringing a French chef up from the city, from Gary Danko’s, I hope you’ll approve.” He was impressed again. She was apparently going all out for her small dinner party, which didn’t surprise him. Gary Danko was the fanciest restaurant in San Francisco, and the meal would be elaborate. He thanked her again and they hung up, and he got busy at his desk, planning his next trip to Europe and emailing the people he was hoping to meet with, and forgot about her dinner by that afternoon. He had other things on his mind, and he was startled the next day when a delivery boy arrived with a thick creamy white envelope addressed to him in an elegant handwriting in dark brown ink with the initials “B.H.” written in the lower left-hand corner of the envelope, indicating it had been delivered by hand to him, and not by mail. And when he opened the envelope, he saw a matching cream-colored card with a gold crest engraved on it, and in Maxine’s elegant handwriting the words Pour Memoire, which meant “reminder” in French, with the details of the dinner. In the style of a true countess, she was following formal French traditions. His other friends in the Valley would have sent him an email or a text to remind him of the dinner, not a card with her crest engraved on it. And she had added in parentheses at the bottom, “So glad you can come. À bientôt! M.” Until soon.

He left the card on his desk and forgot about it again, after wondering briefly who would be there, and which of the local groups she was courting. She was much more European and traditional than the people he knew in the Napa Valley, even the most important ones, like Sam and several others. He didn’t know what her own background was, and it didn’t matter. She had been married to a count, which explained her doing things formally.

He remembered the dinner the night before, when he saw a notation on his calendar and mentioned it to Camille, as they ate the chicken Raquel had left for them in their kitchen. They hadn’t used the dining room since Joy died, and Christophe didn’t want to. He was happy eating in the kitchen with his daughter.

“I forgot to tell you, I’m going out tomorrow night. I hope you don’t mind.” He looked apologetic and Camille was surprised.

“Of course I don’t mind. It’s good for you to go out. Are you going to Sam’s?” He was the only friend her father was seeing these days, because he understood best how Christophe felt after losing Joy. But he was good company for Christophe, and they had gone out for Mexican dinners a few times, which they both enjoyed. It gave them a chance to talk about business and the problems they had in common, although Sam’s operation was far larger than Christophe’s.

“I was invited to a dinner party,” Christophe said, as they finished dinner. “It sounds a little grand to me, but I felt awkward turning it down.” Camille was glad he hadn’t. He needed to see people, and Camille knew her mother would have wanted him to, and had said as much to Camille before she died. She didn’t want him to lock himself up and mourn her forever. He needed a life, and even a woman one day, although Camille couldn’t think of that without tears coming to her eyes. She wasn’t ready for that yet but neither was he.

“Who’s giving it?” Camille asked as she rinsed their dishes.

“A Frenchwoman I sat next to at the vintners’ dinner I went to a few weeks ago. She’s here for six months. She just lost her husband. The one with the two sons I mentioned to you.” Camille had assumed that they were much older than she, and the countess an old dowager.

“That sounds nice, Papa.” She had an old college friend coming to the Napa Valley for the weekend with his girlfriend, and he had invited her to dinner at Bouchon. She had turned him down so as not to abandon her father for the weekend, and now she could go. She looked pleased. “I’ll have dinner with friends tomorrow.” He was someone she knew from Stanford who had taken a job in Palo Alto, and she hadn’t seen him since they graduated. It would be fun to catch up.

“I should have asked to take you with me,” he offered generously, “but I didn’t think of it, and to be honest, I think you’d be bored.” Camille nodded and agreed.

Camille spent the following day with her friends at Meadowood, where they were staying. It was a hotel and a club, and they were going straight from there for a casual dinner in Yountville, at Bouchon, which she liked. She hadn’t previously met her Stanford friend’s girlfriend, and she found her lively and fun. She didn’t have a date to make it a foursome, but they didn’t care, and it was fun for Camille to spend some time with people her own age. She hadn’t done that since her mother got sick a year before. Working at the winery and keeping her father company now precluded having anything or anyone else in her life.

Christophe dressed as Maxine had suggested, in pressed jeans, with a white shirt and dark blue blazer Joy had bought him at Hermès in San Francisco, and no tie. She had always kept him properly dressed. Shopping wasn’t a pastime that interested him, and he was much happier on a tractor, or in his heavy work boots, walking through his vineyards, but he looked more than respectable and very handsome, when he got into the Aston Martin, and drove to the address the countess had given him. He had her reminder card on the front seat of his car, with her phone number on it too, in case he had a problem or couldn’t find the house. But he knew the area well, and was there in fifteen minutes, driving fast from Château Joy.

He rang the buzzer at the gate, a man answered on the intercom, and the gate opened automatically after Christophe said his name. The house was even grander than he had expected. It was a large, sprawling one story house with modern architectural details, manicured gardens, a huge pool, and a pavilion at the end of it where the guests were gathering, drinking mojitos, martinis, and cosmopolitans before dinner, served by a waiter in a starched white jacket. And there was a long dinner table covered with flowers and candles, and gleaming crystal and china on a white tablecloth in the garden next to the house. It looked like a magazine spread, as Maxine drifted toward him in a diaphanous pale pink chiffon dress to the floor, with high-heeled gold sandals, and her long dark hair loose down her back. For an instant, Christophe had an acute pang of missing Joy, although Joy had never owned a dress like this one, and had never entertained as formally.

Joy loved having dinner parties at the château, but they were always cozy and informal, with lively discussions and good music on the stereo. The atmosphere Joy inspired was congenial and warm. Maxine’s style was entirely different, elegant and formal, and sophisticated in the extreme. Her clothes were French haute couture, and she was thinner than Joy and taller, and strangely intimate and subtly sexy when she kissed Christophe on both cheeks, French style, as though they were old friends. There was something faintly bold about her, whereas Joy was courageous and strong, but she wasn’t as outgoing or effusive as Maxine. Joy was like an acrobat of great skill in everything she did, whereas Maxine was more like a ringmaster, with an eye on everything and every detail as she introduced her guests to each other, most of whom had never met before and all of whom were strangers to Christophe, which was rare for him in the Napa Valley, where he knew almost everyone.

There were two couples from LA who were in movie production and had recently bought sizable vineyards they were planning to run from a distance. Christophe could tell they knew nothing about the wine business, and it was a status symbol for them more than a passion. A Mexican couple whom Christophe had read about but never met—he was one of the richest men in Mexico—and their two bodyguards were standing by at a discreet distance. A couple from Dallas who had made a fortune in oil, and a Saudi couple who had houses all over the world, and had fallen in love with the Napa Valley and were thinking of buying a house there. He had recently bought a hotel and a department store in San Francisco, and thought it would be fun to own a home in the Valley and bring their children over in the summer, when they weren’t in the South of France, at their home in Sardinia, or on their yacht in the Mediterranean. The one thing they all had in common was a great deal of money. They were the kind of visitors to the Napa Valley whom Christophe usually avoided. These were a wealthy international set, and the couples from LA and Dallas were blatantly nouveaux riches and anxious to flaunt their new fortunes. They were interesting and pleasant but far more exotic than the kind of people he was normally drawn to. He preferred the serious local vintners, with whom he had a great deal more in common. For him, this was a very racy crowd. His own ancestry in France was dignified, noble, and respectable, but these people all existed in a rarefied world he knew nothing about, and didn’t really want to. He noticed that he and Maxine were the only single people among them, but at least they were all strangers and none of them asked him where Joy was or what had happened to her. He found himself seated to Maxine’s right at dinner, at the head of the table, which was polite and generous of her, but he was slightly embarrassed to find he was treated like the guest of honor. But despite his initial reservations, the conversation at the dinner table was lively and interesting. They all traveled a great deal, and had discovered the charm of the Napa Valley only recently. The dinner was predictably delicious, with many courses, and he was surprised and touched when he realized that all the red wines that were served at dinner were from the Château Joy label, and everyone complimented him on how excellent they were. She had chosen his best and oldest vintages, and he was proud to see how well they held up in a crowd like this one. The Saudi couple said they preferred it to Château Margaux, and Maxine smiled at him, and he thanked her for serving his wines at dinner, while the others were talking.

“You should have told me, I’d have sent them to you,” he said politely as she gently touched his hand, which felt like a butterfly landing on it, and then she moved it away again.

“Of course not, Christophe. You can’t just give away your wines. And the man at the wine shop gave me very good advice about which ones to buy.” He had selected the most expensive ones, and Christophe knew instantly how extravagant she had been. Some of his wines were more costly than their distinguished French competitors.

Maxine put music on after dinner and some of the couples danced, but Christophe didn’t. He couldn’t imagine dancing with anyone but Joy, but he enjoyed talking to Maxine and the others by then, and had relaxed. She served strong French fruit liqueurs after dinner, and brandy. And it was one-thirty in the morning when the group began to disband. Much to his surprise, it had been an exceptionally lovely evening, with an excellent meal and a very elite group he would never have met otherwise. Maxine had orchestrated it all with elegance and style, to perfection. This had been no “little dinner party.” It was a world class rarity even in the Napa Valley, which was known nowadays for its snobbishness, and newcomers with big money. When he got up to leave after the first guests, she whispered to him, and asked him to stay for a few minutes after the others left.

“It’s always so much fun to gossip a little,” she said, with a twinkle in her eye, and he laughed. It was the sort of thing he and Joy always did in the car on the ride home from a party, and he nodded, and then realized as the guests left that it made it look as though he was Maxine’s date and he was spending the night with her, which made him feel awkward again. But she wasn’t inappropriate once they were gone. She took off her very high-heeled gold sandals with the red soles of Christian Louboutin, and sat in one of the lounge chairs next to the pool in her filmy dress and bare feet, and suddenly looked very young, as they chatted about the people at dinner. She told him everything she knew about them, other than the fact that they were very rich. She said that the Mexican man had a sexy young mistress who was a movie star, the woman from Dallas was having an affair with an important vintner, which startled Christophe to hear, and the Saudi had three other wives in Riyadh, whom he didn’t travel with or take to dinner parties, but he bought fabulous jewelry at Graff in London for all four of them, and the one who had come to dinner with him was his most important wife and related to the king of Saudi Arabia. She knew the dirt on all of them, and loved sharing it with Christophe.

“How do you know them?” he asked, both amused and fascinated by her. He had never met a woman like her, and there was something very sensual and enticing about her. And he could clearly sense that she liked him, although he was not in the same league as the others by any means. He had done extremely well, and his family ties were illustrious and successful in France, but he didn’t come close to the billions of dollars represented by the fortunes at the table that night.

“I’ve just met them here and there,” she said vaguely. “I tried to get your friend Sam Marshall to come, but he was busy.” His secretary had emailed her immediately, he hadn’t taken her call.

“To be honest, this wasn’t his kind of evening. He wouldn’t have enjoyed it. Sam stays in his own world.” He was as successful and affluent as they were, but lived it differently. He wasn’t interested in yachts and fancy houses, although he had a beautiful home, but mostly he engaged in his business, and his life in the Valley, among more down-to-earth people. Christophe came from a more worldly background, and the Saudi knew two of his uncles, who did lead a grand life and summered in the South of France, but Christophe had never been attracted by it. But at least it was familiar to him. Sam would have been like a fish out of water, and hated every minute of it.

“My husband was so much older, and sick for several years, and we lived such a reclusive life once we moved from our house in Paris to his château in Périgord, that even though I miss him terribly, I have been starving to meet people, and there are so many interesting people here. The Napa Valley seems to draw people from all over the world,” she said happily, as she smiled at Christophe.

“It does,” he agreed, “not always the right people. I have to admit, I prefer spending my time with the people in my business, who own the wineries. But tonight was a rare opportunity for me. I never meet people like them,” he said honestly. “You must miss Paris, though, this is a backwater compared to the life you could live there.” She was so stylish and elegant, and so worldly that he couldn’t imagine her among the more ordinary people in the Valley, even the big vintners like Sam.

She was quiet for a moment, and then looked at him. “You know how complicated French inheritance laws are. My husband had five children, and three-quarters of any estate must go to the children. The division of his property has been incredibly complicated, with them owning three-quarters of everything, and my owning the other quarter. It blocked everything, and they wanted to move back into the house in Paris, and the estate in Périgord. We had no children together, and it was all so unpleasant. I couldn’t bear it, it just made me too sad. They were always jealous of me because I was kind to their father. He has four sons who are monsters and a daughter who detests me. My friends told me I was very foolish and much too honorable. But I loved Charles, and I didn’t want to see everything he loved torn apart. I took a very small amount and sold my share in everything to them, and I left. I wanted to get as far away from them as possible. I don’t even want to see the house in Paris again, it would break my heart. It was my home with him for five years, the happiest years of my life. The château in Périgord was a bit dreary and badly in need of repairs, no one had touched it since his grandparents. And I thought the Napa Valley would be a wonderful change. I have no memories here. It’s a fresh start for me. I don’t know if I’ll stay. I might go to Los Angeles for a while, probably in the fall. Or Dallas, where people are so welcoming, which is how I met the couple who were here tonight. I spent a month there before I came here, and I have an old friend in Houston, who married a Texan from a big oil family. She introduced me to lots of people. But for now, I’m happy here, in Napa. I’ve had a double loss really, my husband, and our whole way of life. My stepchildren ruined everything for me. They were very unkind to my sons too. They lost their own father last year, who was also very old, and now they’ve lost their stepfather too. It’s been a hard year for us.

“I’m looking for a new home, to start all over again. My boys are happier in France, but I’d like them to spend time here with me. And I have an eighty-seven-year-old mother, I want to bring her over once I settle down. I don’t want to move her until I decide where I want to stay.”

Christophe hoped she had gotten a handsome settlement from them, for ruining her life, as she described. She was certainly living well in Napa in the rented house, and entertaining lavishly, but it sounded like she had gotten screwed over and severely abused by her stepchildren. And she didn’t seem confrontational, she hadn’t wanted a legal battle with them, and had given up her share in her husband’s estate for a relatively small amount, rather than go to court and fight them. He respected her for that.

“Well, I hope you find the home you’re looking for, Maxine,” he said sincerely. “You deserve peace of mind, among kind people. The Napa Valley is a wonderful place. There are some very good people here, among the real locals, though they’re not as glamorous as your guests tonight,” he said kindly, and she looked at him with a grateful smile.

“Thank you, Christophe,” she said warmly. He set his glass down then and stood up. It had gotten very late and was almost three in the morning. He had stopped drinking a while earlier and switched to water so he could drive home. He was exhilarated after the evening with her friends, but not drunk.

“I had a wonderful time. Thank you for including me,” he said as she walked to his car in her bare feet as the filmy dress floated around her. It was by Nina Ricci in Paris, but he wouldn’t have known it, even if she’d told him. All he knew was that she looked beautiful, was intelligent and charming, and had gotten a bad deal from her stepchildren in France. Beyond that, he knew nothing about her, except that she was good company and fun to be with, but he didn’t need to know more than that. He wondered if they would become friends, or if she would move on to somewhere else, and was too fancy for the Napa Valley. She probably thought that his life was ridiculously simple, and she wasn’t wrong. But he loved his life as it was. And she was a rare butterfly from another world, with jeweled wings and brilliant colors, lovely to watch, but not of his world.

She kissed him on both cheeks again when he left, and then floated into the house, as he drove home in his Aston Martin feeling as though he had spent the evening on a UFO, filled with remarkable, fascinating aliens, and now he had been deposited back to earth. And as always, it was a lonely feeling as he drove home, wishing he could tell Joy all about it. But those days were gone.