Chapter 14
By the time they all left for France in time to spend the Fourteenth of July there, the
week before the wedding, everyone had had a good month. Marlene and the boys had
been to Lake Tahoe and Santa Barbara, while Tommy commuted in a plane he chartered.
The boys had been to day camp and had fun. Felicity had recovered, her body anyway,
and had made plans to go to Paris and check into classes there after Marie-Aurélie’s
wedding. Jamie and Violet had been to the games of all the teams they loved. He had
moved in with her and they wanted to get a dog.
Dominique and Bill were spending a lot of time in East Hampton in their very
relaxed unfancy house, and his boys were going to spend a weekend there before they
went back to college. Bill wanted them to meet Dominique. He had told Eileen, and she
agreed. She was proving to be a worthy and noble ex-partner. After all the years they
had spent together, they were family, and he wanted her in his life too. She wanted to
meet Dominique, although she wasn’t quite ready yet, but getting there.
Dominique had always loved the Fourteenth of July in the south of France when she
was a child, and still did. Each town was different with its own cachet and charm.
Juanles-Pins had always been a little tinselly, with American sailors based there, discos,
casinos, and bars, and families on the beach. It was a middle-class mishmash that had
gotten a little more glamorous, but not much. Cap d’Antibes had an old town and a port,
and little sailboats and big ones.
Monte Carlo was glamorous, and one expected James Bond to walk down the street.
Cannes had history, an elegant boardwalk, and old-fashioned hotels. It was kind of the
grand dame of the Riviera. Nice was a big city of good and evil, hoodlums and angels,
and a beautiful church. And Saint-Tropez, where Clément had rented the gigantic villa
they needed, was more of a compound, and to Dominique, Saint-Tropez was Mecca, for
the chic and the famous, the wealthy and the wannabees, with great bars, good
restaurants, sexy-looking people, great discos, and spectacular yachts bobbing off the
docks and at anchor just outside the port. It was the place to see and be seen, to cozy up
to celebrities. It was sexy and alive and glamorous, from the Gorilla Bar in the port, to
dancing at the Caves du Roy at night, next to Catherine Deneuve, or quipping with some
French movie star. It was where the action was and Dominique loved it. It seemed like
the perfect place for Marie-Aurélie and Clément to get married, because they were both
still in the world and with it, and somehow above it, because of their years and
experience. Saint-Tropez was the place to be.
The house Clément had rented had a little cottage for Tommy and Marlene and their
two boys, with a playground behind the cottage. There was a big, beautiful suite for
Marie-Aurélie and Clément with a view of the water, and an elevator, another smaller
but very handsome suite for Bill and Dominique, and four more very appealing guest
rooms for Violet and Jamie, Felicity, on her own for now, and whoever else they
wanted to invite. The house came with three maids and a chef and several gardeners,
pool toys of every size and kind, and an old, beautifully preserved Riva speedboat to go
from one small port to another and drop in on friends on a yacht. They had everything
they needed, and wonderful restaurants and shops all through the town, and paparazzi
lurking at all the key spots.
They were planning to watch the Bastille Day fireworks show on the first weekend,
and the wedding was the following weekend, in a tiny local church, with lunch
afterward at the house.
Dominique had worked especially hard on her mother’s wedding dress, the only one
she had ever had. In her research to find the right design,
Dominique had asked MarieAurélie if she had had a special dress in her lifetime that was a favorite.
She’d had many beautiful dresses, many of them haute couture, handmade for her. But there was
one she remembered particularly. It had a simple round neck and long sleeves. It was
white lace with a narrow waist, which she still had, even at her age, her figure having
remained the same. And it had a wide, bell-shaped skirt with a crinoline under it. She
said it swung just like a bell and reached just to her ankles, and it had lace shoes to go
with it. She said she’d always loved it. And it had tiny pearls encrusted in the lace.
Audrey Hepburn had worn one like it in a movie, and the dress had been made by
Hubert de Givenchy. She’d worn it sometime in the early sixties, around the time that
Dominique was born. She had loved the wide, bell-shaped skirt. Dominique had
researched it carefully and had found it in the Givenchy archives, and had made an exact
replica for her mother. Marie-Aurélie gave an excited cry when she saw it.
“That’s it! That’s it! Oh my God, you found it.” Dominique had sent it to Paris in an
enormous wooden crate to protect it, and they had had it driven down to Saint-Tropez. It
was sitting on a garment rack with a sheet over it to hide it. Marie-Aurélie was going to
wear it on her wedding day, and it moved Dominique to tears when she saw how happy
it made her mother.
After a week of fun and play with the whole family there together, great meals at home,
and evenings in small, noisy restaurants, with all of them laughing and talking, the
wedding day finally arrived. Dominique and Marie-Aurélie’s two granddaughters
helped her put on the wonderful dress and a huge lace wide-brimmed hat to match it,
and Dominique had even been able to find someone to make the shoes, and they fit
Marie-Aurélie perfectly. Clément drove to the church so he wouldn’t see her. Jamie
went to the church with him, wearing the blue summer suit he’d brought, and Violet was
proud of how he looked. The two men waited for the rest of them to arrive at the church.
The organ played as Marie-Aurélie came down the aisle on Tommy’s arm. Dominique
had attached a wisp of delicate veil to the hat and Marie-Aurélie looked exquisite, as
tears rolled down Clément’s cheeks as he waited for her. They said their vows, and
Tommy and Marlene’s sons delivered the wedding rings in good order, and
MarieAurélie and Clément became man and wife, for better or worse, for the rest of their
lives. Bill was there with Dominique, standing beside her, and Violet and Jamie held
hands.
These were the moments that life was made of, to balance the harder ones, to make
life worthwhile, and bond good people and families together.
A cheer went up in the little church when they were declared man and wife, and
Clément and Marie-Aurélie walked out, standing tall, walking straight, so proud to
belong to each other, with a shower of rose petals thrown in the air and fluttering around
them.
As they were leaving the church, Violet was dabbing at her eyes and smiled at
Jamie.
“They’re so beautiful, aren’t they? I’m sure my grandfather approved. I’m sure he
would have married her if he could have, and he’s glad she’s happy now.”
“You’re just as beautiful as she is,” Jamie said, as the organ continued to play
Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” which had accompanied the happy couple out of the church.
“I know you don’t like the idea, but your grandmother is married now…will you marry
me?” he asked her softly, they could hear the others outside, laughing and talking. It was
a happy day, and it finally felt right to her, and maybe he was right, because MarieAurélie was married. Violet looked at him and nodded.
“Yes…I will…can I still keep my MVP ring?”
He laughed and kissed her. “Yes, you can. You’ll always be my MVP.” They walked
out of the church arm-in-arm, and at lunch, Jamie stood up and made the announcement.
“Violet and I have something to share with you. We’re getting married.” A cheer
went up from the small crowd and Clément stood up to toast them.
“Bravo! Good man! You will make an honorable woman of her, like her
grandmother,” he said, in his heavily accented English, and they all laughed.
Bill watched them enviously, wishing he could do the same for Dominique, but their
time hadn’t come yet. It was just beginning, and Clément and Marie-Aurélie had waited
forty years for their moment.
Everyone toasted Jamie and Violet, and Tommy asked them when they were getting
married, and the happy pair looked at each other, confused for a minute, and Jamie
leaned toward her. “When are we getting married?”
“What about Labor Day?” she said spontaneously. “Then we can all get together
again in six weeks, at the end of the summer.” The group voiced their approval and
Dominique spoke up.
“Let’s do it in the Hamptons,” she suggested. Everybody nodded and Violet and
Jamie liked the idea.
“We can do it on the beach, and have a barbecue, and swim all weekend.” They
were going from one wedding vacation to the next. Labor Day was right before Fashion
Week and Dominique would be busy. But the last weekend of summer would be perfect
for the wedding. It was turning out to be a summer of weddings, even though the first
one had been canceled. But the second one had been a dream come true.
They all hated to leave Saint-Tropez after the weekend, and promised to make it an
annual vacation. On Monday, they all went home, and Felicity went to Paris to look into
classes for the fall and a studio to rent. Clément and Marie-Aurélie left for their
honeymoon in Florence, Venice, Rome, and Portofino. And now they had Labor Day to
look forward to.
“We have to think of a dress,” Dominique said to Violet on the flight from Nice to New
York. They were flying back to New York with Bill and Jamie. Tommy and Marlene
were stopping in London on the way back to L.A., and then spending August in Santa
Barbara. “Do you have anything in mind?” Dominique asked Violet about the dress.
“You hit one out of the park for Bonne Mamie. That dress was perfect on her. Maybe
something vintage,” she said thoughtfully.
“Do you really want to get married on the beach?” Dominique asked, groping in her
mind for designs she’d seen that would be pretty, and suitable for Violet.
“Maybe not the actual wedding, but we could have the reception on the beach,
something relaxed and informal. I used to love all those baby doll dresses Twiggy wore
in the sixties. Maybe something like that.”
“I’ll play with it and let you know what I come up with.” Her mother smiled, and
sketched a few little drawings on the back of a paper napkin, while Violet slept the rest
of the way to New York, and Jamie and Bill talked sports and business.
When Felicity got to Paris, she looked into courses offered at the Louvre and the
Beaux-Arts, and found one she liked at the Beaux-Arts. She was studying the curricula
of the various courses, and stopped for a café filtre at the Café Flore. When she looked
up, she was surprised to see her old friend Fred Miller from Yale sitting two tables
away from her. She hadn’t seen him since she’d run into him when she was hesitating
about marrying Taylor.
“What are you doing here?” she asked him. “I thought you were moving to Berlin for
the art scene. Are you still living there?”
He shook his head. “No, it didn’t work out. A little too avant-garde for me. I’m
thinking about taking classes here, and just floating around Europe for the summer in the
meantime till they start. What about you? Did you marry that guy?”
She shook her head too. “No, it didn’t work out either.”
“I’m glad. It didn’t sound right to me.”
“It wasn’t.” She didn’t go into detail. “I’m thinking about taking classes here too,
and renting a studio where I can paint, with a living space. My grandmother lives here,
so I have family here. I just went to her wedding. She’s eighty-five. She waited forty
years to marry the guy. It was really sweet.”
“I’ll probably be that old by the time I get married,” he said with a smile.
“Yeah, me too. No rush,” she said, and handed him the curriculum from the BeauxArts for professional artists.
He looked it over with interest. “I think I’m going to sign
up. Now I’ve got to find a studio too. I hear there are some great old ones on the Left
Bank.”
“I’ll let you know if I see anything for you, when I look,” she said.
“Text me your number,” he said easily, and she did. “When are you coming back, or
are you staying in France for the summer?”
“I’m going back to New York tomorrow. I’ll come back in September, after Labor
Day. I’ve got another wedding then. My sister.”
“Must be contagious,” he said, and moved over to her table. “I’ll let you know if I
find a good studio. Someone told me about a building that only rents to artists. That
might be cool.” Paris was beginning to sound like a great idea for the fall, Felicity
thought as she smiled at him. And he said casually, “I’m glad you didn’t marry that guy.”
He looked shy as he said it. “Maybe we could have dinner sometime when you come
back. I’ve hardly seen you since Yale, except when we run into each other by accident,
like today. Maybe that’s destiny trying to catch our attention.” It was an interesting idea
she hadn’t thought of, but maybe he was right. It was worth exploring.
“Yeah, maybe,” she said, finishing her coffee and smiling at him. She felt peaceful
after the week she had just spent with her family.
“Let me know when you get back, and I’ll stay in touch and text you if I find a
studio.” They paid for their drinks then and left the Café Flore together. “It is funny how
we keep running into each other though, isn’t it? Kismet, or Fate, or whatever. Or just
blind luck.” He grinned at her and gave her back her Beaux-Arts brochure. “See you in
September,” he said, and waved as he walked down the street, and turned to wave at
her again, and she waved back and walked away in the bright July sunshine. It would be
nice to see him again, and maybe have dinner sometime. They had been good friends at
Yale. She liked the idea of taking classes in Paris. She had been happy there before.
And she was ready for a change from New York. She had turned the page after Taylor
and was open to a new life. She realized that she had been spared a marriage that would
have been a disaster. He could even have killed her. As Bill had predicted, Taylor had
made a plea bargain with the district attorney, and was going to spend two years in a
psychiatric prison hospital, in a program for sex offenders. It was a prison facility for
sex crimes. She wanted no contact with him. All she wanted now was to work on her art
and heal from the experience. She was feeling better every day, and grateful to be alive.
The dress Dominique came up with for Violet was pure whimsy. It was a newer version
of the old baby doll dresses, with a white organdie top, a Peter Pan collar, and a big
ballerina tulle skirt with an overlay of white lace. It was all innocence and fantasy, part
Barbie doll and part Cinderella, with a big, wide soft floppy hat covered in white tulle
and a hint of veil around her face, and a short train behind the dress with a bunch of
white violets at the waist. It was as lighthearted and magical as Violet was herself.
Dominique and Bill found a house to rent for the Labor Day weekend, a big old
Cape Cod style home on the water with a dozen bedrooms and its own beach, and easy
access to the main beach. There was a big sandy garden, where a minister they found
agreed to perform the ceremony, and Dominique organized a barbecue with a brightly
decorated taco truck, a hot dog stand, pizza, and an ice cream truck. It was going to be
pure fun, and they would light big paper lanterns that would sail up in the sky as they
each made a wish. It would be as childlike and creative and different as everything
Violet loved to do. And she fell in love with the dress her mother had made for her. She
twirled in it and felt like a fairy princess.
Everything they planned for Violet’s unconventional wedding came together with
ease. Jamie’s parents, brother, and sisters had said they wouldn’t miss it. Tommy and
Marlene and their boys had been counting on it since July. Felicity was going to be
Violet’s maid of honor, and Dominique made a dress for her too, in the palest ballerina
pink with a smaller tulle skirt. Clément and Marie-Aurélie said it was too long a trip,
but Jamie and Violet were going to honeymoon in France so they would see each other
there. Dominique was throwing the wedding, and Bill would be there. He was around
all the time, and came to all family events. Marlene and Felicity were friends now, ever
since the unhappy events surrounding her canceled wedding, when Marlene had been so
kind to her.
The weather had been beautiful all weekend, and they spent their days on the beach.
On the day of the wedding, all the catering trucks arrived on time. As the sun set, the
ceremony began and was perfect, and Violet looked beautiful in her fantasy dress. Bill
had hired a local band, and everyone danced and ate and had fun, and lit the lanterns
and sailed them up into the sky on the beach, over the ocean with a harvest moon
overhead.
Every minute of it was perfect. It was a night when dreams came true, and everyone
had a good time and was happy.
Violet came over and sat down next to Felicity, who was texting someone with a
serious expression.
“Who are you texting?” Felicity seemed like herself again. The summer had been
good for her. The nightmare was over and behind her.
“A friend from Yale I ran into in Paris,” she said to Violet, reading the response with
a smile. “He’s taking classes at the Beaux-Arts too, and he just saw a studio he thinks
I’ll love, near Bonne Mamie.” She smiled at Violet after she read it.
“What kind of friend? A girl or a guy?”
“A guy. We were good friends in school and lost track of each other. We ran into
each other twice in the past few months, just by coincidence. That’s all. Just two artists,
two old friends.” Violet didn’t comment but there was a light in her sister’s eye she
hadn’t seen for a long time, and she was happy to see back again. For now, that was
enough.
Violet and Jamie’s wedding was everything a wedding should be, full of excitement
and joy, love, hope for the future, and gratitude for the past and people who loved each
other. It was a night that blessed them all.
Bill and Dominique sat watching the others dance and laugh for a few minutes. They
had danced all night too. She smiled at him, happy he was there, and that they were
finally building a life together.
“If it took my mother and Clément forty years to figure things out, I guess sixteen for
us isn’t so bad,” she said, and he laughed. They had figured it out now, where they were
going and where they wanted to go, together. He kissed her as a falling star flew through
the sky overhead. It was a good omen for the future, for all of them, a blessing, and a
promise of more happiness to come.
They lit another lantern together, at the end of the night, and sailed it into the sky. It
flew straight up toward the heavens with the wish that it had taken them sixteen years to
make, and had finally come true.
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