Page 7 of A French Adventure
As the kilometres flew past and the sign for the exit to the large wholesale flower market at Nice St. Augustin approached, Olivia smiled to herself. She’d take advantage of the unexpected stopover in Monaco and visit the market. Buy a few extra flowers for tomorrow – her day for delivering weekly flower arrangements to the luxury yachts moored in Port Vauban marina, Antibes. She always made a few impromptu sales to chief stewardesses from visiting yachts who saw her and bought mixed bunches to arrange themselves back on board.
After parking the car, Olivia walked into the large flower hall and inhaled deeply as the heady perfume hit her nostrils. She felt so at home here. Although still early, the place was busy and Olivia waved at several of her florist friends as she made her way round the stalls. But everyone was intent on buying supplies, not chatting. It didn’t take long for her to buy a box each of daffodils, tulips, variegated carnations and a smaller box of early peonies, ready for Antibes market later in the week. Next on the list were red and yellow roses, some lilies and boxes of cut jasmine and eucalyptus leaves to mix in with arrangements.
As Olivia loaded them carefully into the boot of her car, her mobile pinged with a text message. James. Sitting in the car, she read his short message.
Sorry. Boss wants to go to Corsica. Back in a week – maybe.
Olivia heaved a sigh of disappointment. James was rarely in harbour these days and when he was, the owner seemed to be on board, which limited his time away from the yacht.
Quickly she typed a reply.
Was looking forward to seeing you. Enjoy Corsica.
Thoughtfully, she dropped the phone into her bag. It was at least a month since they’d managed to spend more than an hour together. And with the summer season coming up, Olivia knew James would be at sea for most of it, port-hopping around the Mediterranean.
Olivia sat for a few moments deep in thought. Would she ever meet that special somebody? She had to believe that she would. It would be nice to have a land-based boyfriend, someone who kept to the arrangements they made, someone who didn’t take her for granted, someone who made her feel special. Actually, it was a long time since James had done that.
Enough was enough. Time to move on. Accept that it was over. The next time she saw James, she’d tell him it was over – if he hadn’t totally ghosted her by then. At least her mother would be pleased.
Driving back to Antibes along the A8 as the early-morning commuter traffic increased, Olivia decided her plan for the summer would be to grow the business and to work on getting more of a social life.
Once home, she parked up in the garage and, taking the boxes out of the boot, she went into her flower room – originally the utility room for the villa. Now filled with her floristry paraphernalia and a floral fridge unit, it was the coldest place in the house. Shelves lined one wall filled with floristry equipment: floral tape, pin frogs, water tubes, cutting tools, vases, chicken wire, floral foam, paddle wire, cellophane paper, decorated paper and small cards for messages. There was a sink on the far wall, in the middle of the room the long wooden table with a metal top that Daphne had invested in years ago and an air-conditioning unit fixed to the wall ready for action in the height of summer. Planning to come down later and make a start on thearrangements for the morning, Olivia simply placed the boxes on the table and went upstairs. Time for a coffee and breakfast.
As she poured coffee into her favourite mug, her phone pinged with a text. Olivia smiled as she read the message from Maxine inviting her to aperitifs that evening if she was free. Just what she needed. Maxine might be old enough to be her mother, but unlike her mother she was fun to be with. However, the suggestion at the end of the text that if she saw Vivienne to bring her too was awkward. The woman had been so abrupt yesterday that Olivia wasn’t sure whether or not she’d be rude to her. She could sense muted movement in the above apartment, so she could at least tell Maxine that Vivienne was alive and kicking. Footsteps coming down the stairs confirmed that too – and then there was a knock at the door.
Hesitantly, Olivia opened the door.
‘Good morning. I’m sorry to disturb you so early but I wanted to catch you before you left for work,’ Vivienne said, holding out a bottle of wine. ‘Please accept this as an apology for my bad manners the day I arrived. It’s not an excuse, but it wasn’t a good day for me.’
‘Thank you,’ Olivia said, taking the wine. ‘I’m sorry for your bad day.’
‘I need to apologise to Maxine as well. Could you tell me where she lives please?’
‘I can do better than that,’ Olivia said. ‘She’s invited me for aperitifs this evening and said if I saw you to ask you too, so I can take you there. If you’re free of course?’
‘Definitely. What time?’
‘Seven thirty, here?’
‘See you then. And thank you.’
Olivia closed her door as Vivienne left to return upstairs and, picking up her phone, sent Maxine a text to tell her the good news.
6
Maxine smiled as she read the text message from Olivia.
See you later. Weird woman is nicer today and is coming tonight.
Pierre had introduced Maxine to his old friends, Trent and Felicity, the first time he’d brought her down to the Riviera. He and Trent had met at university and despite their careers taking different paths, they had remained good friends ever since. Trent had openly admitted to Maxine in the weeks after Pierre died how much he missed him and that his death had been a personal wake-up call for both himself and Felicity. Maxine found Felicity difficult on occasions and sometimes had to bite her tongue to stop herself from responding to a particularly old-fashioned snobbish remark – one that usually concerned Olivia’s lifestyle and her lack of a husband. But Maxine and Olivia had soon become firm friends despite the difference in their ages.
Maxine knew that Olivia would not only ask her advice about things but would also talk to her woman to woman in a way she couldn’t with her mother, and whilst Maxine wouldn’t dream ofburdening Olivia with the dark thoughts that still crept up on her in the middle of the night, she did talk to Olivia about how much she missed Pierre. Last year, after a particularly difficult exchange with her mother, Olivia had called in to see Maxine and Maxine, sensing that Olivia needed a hug, had simply opened her arms to her and held her tight.
‘Thank you, I needed that,’ Olivia had said. ‘If there were more of us, we could regularly have a group hug.’
‘Any time you need a hug just say “needy”,’ Maxine had instructed.
‘Only if you promise to do the same,’ Olivia had replied, and Maxine had nodded.
