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And sometimes I just let my mind just wander, slowly, languidly, indulgently remembering.
My walks get longer by the day.
Memorizing the cobblestones on my way into town and the names of the shopkeepers sweeping their stoops ready for the lazy winter town's visitors. My rusty French quickly takes on the gentle drawl of this mountain region, as well as the occasional chance to learn a few German words from the Swiss visitor just a hop over the border.
I learn to cook on the grill so I can be outside as much as possible. Simple meals of grilled vegetables and meats slathered in crushed herbs and olive oil that tastes like the grassy orchards they came from.
And bread.
Every day I make bread. In all shapes and sizes and flavors. One morning I mix some shitake mushrooms and anchovy paste into the dough, laughing to myself as I imagine him watching in horror at me desecrating his precious sourdough recipe.
And when I grill a piece for dinner, coating it in an inch thick layer of butter, I tell my vision of him, "It's actually delicious, you know. You would've actually liked it, if you'd just let go of your grip on the stick up your butt."
And that night, when I dream, he envelopes me in his arms, and whispers that for me, he'd try anything.
Everything is almost perfect.
Almost.
"Claude, can you stack up more wood in that outside box? Merci bien!" I tell one of the local men one morning. One day, on one of my walks, he'd poked his head out of his cottage down the road asking if I needed any firewood. My supply was fast dwindling and I wasn't yet ready to carry and stack my own firewood, so I'd thankfully accepted his offer to bring me some.
From the first time he came, he had astutely picked up on how fast I went through my firewood, probably because I was keeping my cottage warm with its doors and windows open all day, and he's dropped in a few more times, a few days apart. Each time arriving with a wheelbarrow of fresh firewood and going home with a loaf of bread, and some other treat I had taught myself to cook. He was generous with his time and his feedback."This is not how we do it in France, mademoiselle"a regular comment about my weird fusion creations, but always with a laugh and a promise to try my new concoction anyway.
"Oui, Mademoiselle. Should I bring more inside, as well?"
"Yes, please,” I call out from the kitchen. “And then, please, come in and try my marinara. You have to try it and see if you can guess what the secret ingredient is."
"It's soy sauce," a voice replies in a definitely not French accent.
And it’s suddenly like an apparition come alive.
Standing in the cottage, in a royal blue bomber jacket, navy pants, hair soft, eyes blazing blue.
"Kingsley."
I’m not even sure if I actually say his name, or I imagine it, like I’m sure I’m imagining him standing there.
"Hi, Luna."
I don’t know if it’s seeing him, or hearing him say my name after all this time that makes me breathless, but I have to grip the side of the stove for a moment, dragging a slow breath into my lungs.
"More, mademoiselle? Ah, pardon," Claude says, almost banging into the six-foot-four visitor that has seemingly appeared in the living out of nowhere.
"Claude, il est Kingsl— er, désolé, Monsieur B."
Kingsley looks at Claude like if he could knock his head between two blocks of firewood he would. But he just reaches out his hand. "Bonjour."
The two men exchange a few sentences in French before Claude waves me goodbye, kissing me on two cheeks, whistling with his loaf of sourdough under his arm.
"Charming fellow.”
I nod, tightening the strings of my apron, just to give my hands something to do. "He is."
"Come here often?" Kingsley asks, with a cocked eyebrow.
"A few times a week."
He nods. "Was I.. interrupting something?"
