Little Death by the Sea Read Online Free Page B

eyes
wide.
    “ Comment ?” He neatly avoided hitting a
woman walking a French poodle by driving the car onto the sidewalk
and then returning to the street.
    “ La voiture, c’est voiture .” She
tapped the dashboard of the car. “ Il est votre voiture?”
    “Ahhhhh, oooohhhh!” He closed his eyes and
smiled, nodding his head vigorously. Maggie wished he would keep
his eyes on the road. “ Mais, oui, yes, c’est ma voiture. Est-ce
que tu l’aime?”
    Now, that’s more like it, Maggie thought,
pleased with herself. He spoke quickly, beautifully. There was even
a glimmer in his eye now that wasn’t there during his labored
English attempts. Although, she noted that he’d used the informal
“ tu ” with her, something she knew that typically isn’t done
until you’ve known each other much better.
    “ Oui ,” she said. “ C’est très
belle .” She clutched her door handle as they revisited the
sidewalk, this time to bypass a little Renault that Laurent
obviously felt was going too slowly. “ Mais, vous...vous driv-ez
tres fou ..”
    She edged closer to the window and watched
the colored, striped awnings and tents of the city’s marketplace
spin by. Her eye caught a crazy-quilt of color: tulips, asparagus,
strawberries, bananas, hanging sausages, live chickens caught by
their feet and twisting at the ends of long ropes and all of it
flying by in a hectic haze.
    “Can we stop for breakfast?” she asked
breathlessly. “ Est-ce que nous arreton pour le petite
dejeuner?”
    “Why you are speaking la Française,
Mademoiselle ? Laurent’s English is very bad, non?”
    “ Je parle votre langue even worse and
you know it.” She turned to catch him looking at her curiously, a
smile hidden behind his lips. “Breakfast, oui or
non ?”
    “ Ah, mais oui !” He turned the car
abruptly into what looked like a brick wall but turned out to be a
sort of bricked-up alcove serving as a parking lot. Laurent was out
and helping her with her door by the time she had untangled her
legs from the straps of her purse where it had been sitting on the
floor of the car.
    She could still see the gaily colored tents
of the early morning market and knew they were on the outskirts of
Cannes. Laurent led her to a small café and ordered two coffees for
them. They settled themselves at a rickety outdoor table with a
view of the street and, surprisingly enough, the Chateau des Abbes
de Lerins. Laurent pointed it out to her.
    “You see des Isle de Lerins? La ?” He
pointed to the islands off the gulf and then turned and pointed to
the hill overlooking the water where the castle sat, tall and
ominous. “ Et la chateau ? Castle, yes?” He lit a cigarette,
shaking an unfiltered one from his Mediterranean-blue packet of Gaulouises , offering it first to her. She shook her
head.
    Out of the corner of her eye, she could see
their waiter leave the café and cross the street to a facing boulangerie where he purchased one croissant from the baker.
She watched him return to the café, place the roll on a small dish
and then bring it to their table with their coffees. She noticed
that Laurent seemed to be enjoying the morning and whatever part of
the air he wasn’t polluting with his cigarette.
    Smiling hugely, he took in a full breath
while surveying the view they had of the Gulf of Napoule.
    “Are you taking me someplace special?” Maggie
took a sip of her coffee.
    “Ah, mais oui . Is this not special?”
He waved his cigarette in the direction of the Gulf.
    “I mean, where we go from here. You know, The
Plan.”
    “Ah, yes, the plan.”
    Do the French say “Ahhh” before every
sentence they utter? Maggie wondered. As if even a comment must be
savored like a piece of tender lamb all smothered in rosemary.
Everything was a smacking together of the lips, a taste, a rolling
around in one’s mouth. She didn’t know whether she found it
contrived or charming.
    “I am to take you to a place. And then Roger
will come with the little