Vachon traveled frequently to the United States and often came to my restaurant, though not in the past four months. Now I knew why.
“Jean-Louis, it’s been too long since you’ve been to Les Mirettes,” I said, with a cuckold’s amiability. ”I can’t tell you how much Carolyn enjoys seeing you.”
Vachon studied my innocent face and relaxed completely. He was safe.
“You are a lucky man, Edward, being married to Carolyn. If you ever get tired of her, give me a call.”
And there was the problem: I wasn’t tired of her.
Four years ago, blond, blue-eyed Carolyn, whose face had looked out from a hundred magazine covers, came to my restaurant with a group that I knew. They invited me to join them for a drink, and I sat next to her. As we talked, I remembered her pictures because her eyes had an intelligence that, through the makeup and poses, seemed to say, “Isn’t this silly?”
She treated her beauty like an inheritance — unearned, but appreciated. Of all the models who came into Les Mirettes, Carolyn was the only one whom I never saw glance at herself in the long mirrors.
She was from South Dakota; I grew up in Brooklyn. We were country and city, but from that first evening, the chemistry was good. The following night, at my invitation, she returned to the restaurant alone. And the next night, she ended up eating in the kitchen, talking and laughing with my crew, who threatened to quit en masse if I let her get away.
I was thirty-four when we made that impetuous marriage trip to France, and Carolyn was twenty-four — young enough to make the age difference interesting.
There is one invaluable skill that I think comes easier when you are from a city: the ability to talk to anyone, and a successful restaurant owner must know how to work both the stove and the crowd. But how do you handle seven hours with your wife’s lover? What do you say — “What’s new? How’s your business? How’s my wi...”
Stop it! I told myself. But the anger, so alive it had a voice, whispered to me, “He’s right next to you! One punch! Do it now!” At this range, I could knock Vachon out with a single blow. Afterward, I would quietly tell the flight attendants, “Shhhh, he’s sleeping.” And if he started to come around? I could hit him again. What husband would not be tempted?
It is impossible not to compare myself to Vachon, to ask: Who is truly the best man? I will concede right now that he is far better-looking. Vachon is handsome in a sleek, self-aware way and possesses an almost courtly demeanor. “Half-prince, half-tennis pro” is how someone once described him. Vachon looks like men wish they did: I look like they do. I look like the man who comes to fix the washing machine.
But there are similarities between us. We are both driven men who have become rich because people will pay well to satisfy the whims of their taste.
Fifteen years ago, Vachon inherited the vineyard from his father. He understood how good the wine was and how underpriced it had been, so he canceled the vineyard’s long-standing European contracts, came to the United States, and began selling only to restaurants — at ten times his father’s old price. And he made a killing.
“Vachon vines” now have cachet and are one of the standards by which the top restaurants distinguish themselves from the second tier. Vachon has made his name famous — and I know how much that pleases him.
High above the Atlantic, the brilliant August sun turned the white clouds below into an ethereal wonderland. I was not in the mood for beauty.
“Jean-Louis,” I said, idly turning the wedding band on my finger. “I’m surprised to find you here, firing in coach.” In fact, I’d been astonished when my travel agent located the Frenchman’s reservation.
He responded with a “What can you do?” shrug. “I had a meeting this morning in Montrouge that could not be changed, and I must be in New York tonight. This is the only flight that fit into my schedule, and first class is sold out. And what is your excuse, Edward?”
“A last-minute reservation,” I answered, and it was true — somewhat.
Yesterday, the owner of Les Tifs mentioned Vachon’s arrival from Paris. I called my sous-chef, told him he was running the kitchen that night, and gave him a list of instructions. Four hours later, I left for Paris — for the sole purpose of taking this flight back, in this seat.
Why, I’ve asked myself a thousand times, did the affair happen? Carolyn and I had fought no fights, had suffered no silences. I had not cheated on her, nor, I thought, she on me.
For the first two years of our marriage, Carolyn only went on one-day photo shoots. But, I was rarely home, my life was at the restaurant. During the past year, she went back to a full schedule, including location shoots in Bali, Tangiers, and Rio, and runway work at the fashion shows in Milan and Paris. There was too much distance, too many nights apart. Either you’re together or you’re not; it’s one of the basics, and both of us had missed it.
A salesman doesn’t sell a product, he sells himself, and Vachon never stops selling. How can a woman tell which whispered words of love are real, for winning a woman’s heart is the greatest sales pitch of all.
“Jean-Louis, my friend,” I said, “you are remarkable. Who else could make his wine the most popular one in the United States without ever hiring a salesman there?”
“I worked hard those first two years,” he said, “taking the wine myself from restaurant to restaurant. That was before the dinners, of course.”
Among restaurateurs, an invitation to a Vachon dinner is as prized as an invitation to the White House. Every April, Vachon gives eight dinners: four on the East Coast, two in California, one in Chicago, and one in Texas. His guests are the men and women who own the finest restaurants in the United States. We are each asked to invite someone else, and we always do, for every meal is an epicure’s feast, and every course is designed to complement the Frenchman’s wine.
At the dinners, Vachon, always wearing a dark, European-cut business suit, listens intently to every owner’s words, flirts just the right amount with every woman, and never mentions the business of wine — not once. But, a week later, one of his staff will call from Provence and ask if the restaurant is interested in placing an order. Once, an owner said “no,” and he never received another call from Provence, nor an invitation to dinner. No one is sure if the story is true, but no one will take the chance that it isn’t.
It was at one of these dinners that Carolyn first met Vachon, and there was no connection, no chemistry between them. After Carolyn and I sat down, with a mischievous smile she began whispering interesting possibilities into my car. New love is a fine and imaginative thing.
At the following year’s dinner, after we’d been married, I saw Carolyn looking at Vachon, appraising him. Later, when the three of us were talking, I noticed that her arms were crossed in front of her — a barrier in body-language terms.
This spring, after dinner, while I spoke with three other restaurant owners, Carolyn talked with Vachon, and this time there were no crossed arms. Twice, my wife touched his shoulder as she laughed; I knew that gesture, and its touch. Afterward, in the taxi, Carolyn never mentioned Vachon, but she talked a little faster and her words came out a little brighter. That’s what she does when she’s trying to hide her thoughts. I’ve never brought this flaw to her attention.
In the past four months, I heard that extra animation in her voice a dozen times, but I always ascribed it to the wrong things: to a gift, to a birthday, to the moment. I never reached for the larger answer. I never thought the unthinkable.
In summer, the time difference between Paris and New York is six hours. Flight 587 left at 12:55 P.M. and would arrive just before three o’clock. The timing would be perfect.
I worked the conversation with Vachon until we were talking like brothers, discussing his business, my business, the latest strikes in Paris, and a dozen other things. I marveled at how cool he was, joking and laughing with the man whose wife he was bedding.