When we returned, I made myself busy in the kitchen. Ludo quietly stepped in. With his thick French accent and slightly mischevious smile, he said: “So, I don’t know what to do, but I was invited to a dinner party next door, and I don’t want to go, because I don’t think it will be fun, they are not very interesting, and there will be a mountain of kids, and so do you want to come with me?”How sweet! I completely melted. “Of course!” I was so flattered he asked me. He likes my company!
“Good,” he said and smiled wider. “And at least we know the food will be good; Z is making it.”
It was true – The food, a never-ending bowl of the local fish soup (called bouillabasse), was extraordinary. Truthfully, the conversation wasn’t so bad either. Some of the characters around the table were incredibly boring, others were shy but had marvelous stories hidden beneath their passive façade, some were simply facsinating, and others simply talked too much. But the mix of conversations (all in French) entertained and exhausted me.
I had left Tequila at the house. Francis and all the children were there; I figured she could never get lonely. Of course, at some point during the meal, the dog heard my voice. I bit my lip when I first recognized the sound of breaking sticks beneath her clumbsy paws in the forest separating Chez Michel from the gorgeous table around which I sat. Sure enough, Tequila burst through the shrubbery, receiving applauds for her performance. She beamed with pride; she had found me. And I rolled my eyes. “Great,” I thought, “another table of guests for her to drool on, nudge, and beg from.”
But she was well behaved (for the most part), and when it came time to go home, the three of us found our way back down the dirt path, light headed with champagne and heavy-bellied from Tarte Tropezian and an ungodly amount of food.
All in all, a tremendous success.
No comments:
Post a Comment