Mistral's Daughter by Judith Krantz

Author:Judith Krantz [Krantz, Judith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Contemporary Women
ISBN: 9780307803498
Google: RddLiKvC7IIC
Amazon: 0553259172
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 1984-08-01T16:00:00+00:00

The restaurant Hiely in Avignon was located in one large but unassuming rectangular room, plainly paneled in wood, its comfortably large tables spread with plain yellow cloths, its plain parquet floor highly polished. On a center table stood a whole smoked ham surrounded by bowls of fresh fruit, and platters of cooked lobsters and bottles of wine reclining in individual baskets. However, there was no other display, the windows were undraped, there were no flowers on the tables and the unupholstered wooden chairs stood around the table in a dignified and reasonable manner that indicated that this place was devoted to gastronomy with a philosophy of total concentration.

As Julien Mistral and Teddy Lunel sat facing each other at a quiet table in a window alcove Teddy wondered why nobody had ever warned her that love at first sight would strike her dumb. Veteran of thousands of first dinners she had never found herself so at a loss for speech. They had already said so much to each other, in front of other people and protected from its consequences by the fact that they were in public, even though unheard, that now that they were finally alone together she was tongue-tied, reduced to a few banal words about the food.

Julien Mistral, who had never hesitated to make his opinions known, a man to whom shyness was the most unfamiliar of states, found himself almost as silent as Teddy. A lamentable performance, he told himself. He was choking with things that had to be said but he too scarcely managed to push his food around on his plate. Where to start? Not at the beginning because this had started a long time ago; yesterday seemed another era of his life. He couldn't begin in the middle because this strangely solemn, awkward dinner was the middle. They didn't know each other after all, yet he could see no future for them that was not a continuation. The necessary presence of this woman must never be withdrawn from him.

To Teddy the rather ordinary lamplight in the room seemed to tremble as much as her hands as she tried to make a show of eating. She found herself singularly unwilling to use any of her easily summoned arsenal of allure. She wanted only to touch Mistral, to hold him. She had no impulse to flirt because they had gone beyond flirtation the instant that they had admitted to each other that neither of them had slept the night before.

Mistral's face, that famous face, so much more beautiful than she had ever imagined, was grave. He didn't try to joke, he seemed to be thinking, and the inconsequential comments she might have used to bridge this moment stuck to her lips before they were spoken. The questions that she wanted to ask him were either unimportant or too important. There was no middle ground. Teddy had to know everything about Julien Mistral from the day he been born — his life was dense, complicated, foreign —

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