A Rather Charming Invitation Read Free Page A

tidied up the last of the dishes in the big kitchen where we prefer to cook at the end of a busy workday. We returned to our study, and he said wryly, “Well, Honorine got out of telling us the rest of her story rather gracefully. And I must say, you aided and abetted her. Sleepover, indeed. What will you do if she’s brought drugs or other problems to this little slumber party of yours?”
    “Oh, stop it,” I said. “Are you joking? That kid?”
    The phone rang, and this time Jeremy picked it up, but when he heard it was my father, he switched to speaker mode, so we could all take part in the conversation. Dad announced that Leonora was absolutely livid with Honorine, who, after a mother-daughter quarrel, departed without so much as a by-your-leave, and had now disgraced the family by nearly getting arrested in London.
    “Leonora says she cannot think what possessed her wayward daughter to trouble you two in this way,” my father said, having been instructed to deliver this message, “so she apologizes deeply for the inconvenience.”
    “Well, we owe her an apology as well,” I confessed. “We never answered the nice invitation that she sent us, weeks ago. Don’t tell Mom.”
    “I heard that,” came my mother’s crisp English reprimand, as she picked up the extension. “You are wasting your time, swearing your father to secrecy. We tell each other everything, don’t we, darling?”
    “Everything I can remember,” my father replied, playfully exaggerating his age.
    Jeremy just grinned at me. He’s fascinated by my parents, whom he sees as a wonderful pair of eccentric hermits with a mystifying synchronicity between them. From my father, I inherited my brown eyes and a fascination with tales from the past. From my mother, I got my copper-colored hair and a fairly unexpected way of occasionally blurting out my thoughts to clear the air.
    “Dad, what’s the story with Leonora?” I inquired. “Do you know her well? How come I never met her?”
    “Ah, oui ,” he sighed. “Leonora is my younger cousin. Her mother and mine were sisters. We grew up together in Burgundy.”
    Now it was starting to make sense, although I knew so little about my French relatives, apart from the kind of family lore that gets repeated, like heirloom silver being polished again and again. I was aware that my Grandmother Aimée had died in France when Dad was twenty years old and unmarried, before he came to the States to pursue his career as a chef. His father, an American sent overseas as a soldier, had died even earlier, when my dad was only fourteen. So, in coming to New York, Dad was really looking to leave France behind, and have the new experience of exploring his American roots.
    It was in New York that he met up with my mother, who was deliriously happy on her own, released from being under her English family’s thumb. I’m the only one in the family with a nostalgia for Europe and a hankering for a glamorous past I never had . . . well, until now. Life, these days, has exceeded even my wildest expectations. And now, finding out about our French relations was, to me, a bit like opening presents on Christmas morning.
    My mother interjected, “Leonora married into a very old, influential French family. So, that makes hers the most illustrious branch of your father’s family tree! She lives in Mougins, an elegant town not far from Cannes.”
    “Did you ever meet them, Mom?” I asked curiously.
    “Oh, yes. I met cousin Leonora and her husband Philippe once, before your father and I got married. It is actually a great honor that she has invited you to come to her home. They are really quite charming, very proper, with beautiful manners, and they’re very generous people. They gave us a gift of a beautiful Sèvres soup tureen as a wedding present. Go, you’ll have a nice time, as your French relatives are fond of doing things en famille .”
    “Besides,” my father said pragmatically, giving me a hint of what was to