Queen of Babble

“But it is especially nice to see a young person with a passion for something,” he goes on. “Too many young people today-they care for nothing but making money!”

I glance nervously at Luke. Because of course if what Dominique said is true about Luke choosing a business degree over medicine, he is one of the “young people” his dad is talking about.

But Luke is showing no guilt that I can see.

“I’ll take you up into the attic if you really want to see it,” Luke volunteers. “But don’t get your hopes up that any of it’s in decent condition. We had a pretty bad leak last year and a lot of the stuff stored up there got ruined.”

“It’s not ruined,” Monsieur de Villiers says. “Just a little moldy, perhaps.”

But I’ll take moldy Lilly Pulitzer over no Lilly Pulitzer any day.

Luke must sense my eagerness since he says, with a laugh, “Okay. Let’s go.” To his father, he adds, “Don’t you think you’d better go inside and have some coffee? You might want to sober up before Mom gets here.”

“Your mother.” Monsieur de Villiers rolls his eyes. “Yes, I suppose you are right.”

Which is how a few minutes later, after thanking the elder Monsieur de Villiers profusely for the lovely tour and dropping him off in the chateau’s enormous-but, as Dominique mentioned, hardly high tech-kitchen, I find myself in the cobweb-filled attic with the younger Monsieur de Villiers, riffling through old trunks of clothes and trying unsuccessfully to contain my excitement.

“Oh my God!” I exclaim as I open the first trunk and find, beneath a bone china tea set, an Emilio Pucci slip skirt. “Whose stuff did your dad say this is? His mother’s?”

“There’s no telling, really,” Luke says. He’s examining the rafters above our heads, ostensibly for more leaks. “Some of these trunks have been here since well before I was born. The de Villiers, I’m sorry to say, are definite pack rats. Help yourself to whatever you like.”

“I couldn’t,” I say-even as I’m holding the skirt to my hips to see if it might fit. “I mean, this skirt right here? You could get two hundred bucks for it on eBay, easy.” Then I gasp and dive incredulously back into the trunk.

But it’s true. I’ve found the rarest of rare-Lilly Pulitzer’s elusive tiger-print housedress…with matching kerchief.

“Well, I’m not going to go to the trouble of selling it,” Luke is saying. “So it might as well go to someone who can appreciate it. Which, from the way things look, is you.”

“Seriously,” I say, bending down and finding what appears to be a wadded-up-but genuine-John Frederics blue velvet hat, “you have some great stuff in here, Luke. All it needs is a little TLC.”

“That’s a pretty good description”-Luke spins a wooden chair around and straddles it, backward, leaning his elbows on its back while he watches me-“for Mirac in general.”

“No,” I say, “this place is gorgeous. You guys have done a fantastic job of keeping it up all these years.”

“Well, it hasn’t been easy,” Luke says. “When the Crash came-in 1929-my grandfather lost nearly everything-including that year’s crop, to a blight. We had to sell off a lot of the land just to afford to pay the taxes on the place that year.”

“Really?” Suddenly the unopened trunks all around me aren’t nearly as interesting anymore. At least, not as interesting as what Luke is saying. “That’s amazing.”

“Then came the Nazi occupation-my grandfather avoided having SS officers housed in the place by claiming my father had contagious yellow fever…which he didn’t, but it tricked the Germans into going elsewhere. Still, the war years weren’t the best for winemaking.”

I sink down onto the top of a trunk next to the one I’ve just plundered. There’s something lumpy beneath me, but I hardly notice.

“It must be so weird,” I say, “to own something that has such a history. Especially if…”

“If?”

“Well,” I say hesitantly, “if owning a chateau isn’t exactly your dream job. Dominique was saying something about how you actually wanted to be a, um, doctor.”

“What?” His back straightens and his gaze, in the golden light that flows in from the diamond-shaped panes on either end of the long, sloped ceiling, is impenetrably dark. “When did she say that?”

“Today,” I say i

“No, it’s not true,” Luke says. “Well, I mean, sure, at one time-Jesus, what else did she say?”

That you’re an attentive and thoughtful lover in bed, I want to say. That a girl doesn’t have to worry about taking care of her own needs when she’s with you because you are totally willing to take care of them for her.

“Nothing,” is what I say instead. Because of course Dominique didn’t say any of those things. That’s just my totally dirty, filthy imagination talking. “Oh, except some stuff about how she wants to turn Mirac into a hotel or a spa for people to go to while they’re recovering from plastic surgery.”

Luke looks even more startled. “Plastic surgery?”

Oops.

“Nothing,” I say, turning crimson. Oh. No. I. Did. Not. Just. Do. It. Again. I turn back to the trunks to hide my blush. “Gosh, Luke. This stuff is amazing.”

“Wait. What did Dominique say?”

I fling him a guilt-stricken look.

“Nothing,” I say. “Really. I shouldn’t have-I mean, it’s between you and her. I…I know it’s none of my business-”

But it all comes spilling out anyway.

“-but I don’t think you ought to turn this place into a hotel,” I say all in a rush. “Mirac just seems so special. Commercializing it like that would just ruin it, I think.”

“Plastic surgery?” Luke repeats, still looking incredulous.

“I guess I can understand the appeal,” I say. “Since you wanted to be a doctor and all, but-”

“I didn’t-” Luke springs up from the chair and takes a few quick steps toward the far end of the attic, raking one hand through his thick, curly hair. “I told her I wanted to be a doctor when I was a kid. Then I grew up and realized I’d have to be in school for another four years after college…plus three more years as a resident. And I don’t like school that much.”

“Oh,” I say, sinking back down onto the lumpy trunk-top. “Then it’s not just because doctors don’t make as much money as investment bankers these days?”

“Did she-” He spins around to face me. “Is that what she told you I said?”

I can see I am treading on rocky terrain here. I hop up and, eager to change the subject, say, “What is this lumpy thing I’ve been sitting on?”

“Because it’s not true,” Luke says, striding toward me as I bend to lift up the long white object. “It had nothing to do with the money. I mean, it’s true that for the years I’d be in school, there’d be no money coming in. And, yeah, okay, that’s a concern. I’m not going to lie. I like having my own money so I don’t have to depend on my parents for support. A guy wants to be able to pay his own bills, you know?”

“Oh,” I say, unwinding what appears to be a length of white satin from the long, hard object it’s been wrapped around. “Totally.”

“And, okay, I looked into the postbaccalaureate premedical programs at a few schools-because, you know, not having been premed in college, even if I wanted to try to get into med school now, I’d have to take some postgrad science classes.”

“Sure,” I say, still working at unraveling whatever’s been wrapped inside what appears to be some kind of tablecloth.

“And, yeah, okay, maybe I applied to a few of them. And maybe I got into the ones at Columbia and New York University. But I mean even if I go full-time, with summers included, that’s another year in school that doesn’t even count toward whatever medical degree I eventually go for. Is that really what I want? To be in school for another five years? When I don’t have to be?”