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She stared at the folder, one last time as the car sped through the streets. "Three children, seven grandchildren, university professor," she repeated quietly to herself, trying to memorize the key points, desperate not to make a fool of herself. She knew she could not screw this up.
She smiled at her bodyguard as he open the door, leaving the blue folder behind on her seat as she exited, greeting the crowd of assembled cameras and reporters with a slightly nervous smile and nod.
"This way, Signora," The hostess directed her quickly when she ducked into the shadowed restaurant entrance, leading her to a quiet, private table in the back corner, away from prying eyes, that was already flanked by a small army of guards.
Brigitte made a mental note to thank her husband for respecting their compromise, allowing her a semblance of normal life as she frowned at the thought of what it would be if she was constantly surrounded by this tiny army.
"Great," she thanked the hostess as she stared at the table, trying to determine if the seats were already assigned. "Maybe Emmanuel is on something with this late thing," she thought to herself as she just went for it, sliding into the chair on the right hand side.
She could sense the arrival of her lunch date before she could see her, an energy, a buzz sweeping into the room.
"You got the memo!" Jill beamed when she reached their table, delighted at the coincidence.
"I’m sorry?" Brigitte replied, confused, almost panicked as she stood to greet her: what memo?
"We are matching!" Jill laughed warmly as she went in for a hug, pressing the traditional air kiss to each cheek.
"Oh, yes!" Brigitte giggled, some of the nervous pressure relenting. "It’s a funny… coincidence?" She replied, searching for the word in her third language.
"It is! It is. Have you ordered?" Jill gently probed as they took their seats.
"No, I was waiting for you. I, uh, was not sure what to order for you."
"Oh, I’ll drink anything! Have you been here before? Is there something in this menu you’ve had?" Jill asked as she pulled out her reading glasses, tired of squinting at the small print.
"I’m not picky," Brigitte smiled, "Emmanuel is the sommelier."
"Joe doesn’t drink, which means I have to do all the work myself. The things we do for the men we love, right?"
Before Brigitte had a chance to reply, a waitress had appeared at their table. "Can I get you anything?" She inquired, clearly nervous.
"Yes!" Jill answered reassuringly. "Brigitte, red or white?"
"I normally drink white."
"Great! Can you bring us a bottle of your favorite white? Thank you so much!"
"A bottle?" Brigitte clarified.
"You’re right. We’re going to need at least two. Now tell me, do you have photos of your grandchildren on your phone or are you a wallet photo person? Because I have both, and I’m dying to see your adorable little ones!"
Brigitte opened her phone, excusing herself as she scrolled for the most recent photo taken at one of their monthly birthday gatherings, the birthday boy up on Emmanuel’s shoulders, their other grandchildren packed tightly at their sides.
"This is them," Brigitte beamed as she passed the device over to her lunch mate.
"Oh, they’re adorable!" Jill replied as she pinched the screen to zoom in, her sharp eyes not missing the way Emmanuel kept one hand on his grandson to keep him balanced and the other on his wife, as if she was keeping him balanced.
Jill was a firm believer that you could tell a lot about a person by the way they were with their family. After all, for her family, no matter how complicated they could be sometimes, was everything. Looking at this photo of the two of them clearly adored by and adoring of their grandchildren, she just knew they felt the same about theirs.
Jill handed the phone back over with a teasing, "the eldest looks like you."
"Emma?" Brigitte clarified as she slipped her phone away again. "She looks like her Maman."
"Let me guess, she looks like you," Jill laughed. "In our family, the Biden genes were too strong."
"I’m sure you’re just being modest," Brigitte smiled at her, waiting for Jill to return the favor, Jill looking through her phone until she landed up a full photo gallery, passing the device over with full permission to scroll. "You have a beautiful family."
"So do you. Ah! Thank you," Jill pivoted as she saw the waitress return to the table with a large bottle of white, smiling kindly as they waited for her to serve the win and give them another moment to peruse the menu. "To new friends!" Jill toasted, raising her glass.
"À amitié," Brigitte replied with a clink before sipping the cold liquid. "This is good."
"Oh yeah, we’re going to need another one of these!" Jill laughed brightly.
"So," Brigitte started after a moment of the two sipping on their wine in an almost awkward silence. "You still teach?"
"Oh yes! I told Joe no one was going to stop me! But you understand, teaching is a calling, being a teacher is who I am. I couldn’t ever imagine giving that up, could you?"
"I did, actually. Give it up, I mean. For a while, at least. Emmanuel was the Finance Minister, and we were ships passing in the night for a whole year. When it became clear to me I was not going to see him except when I watched the Parliament channel on TV every night, I knew I had no choice. As much as I love teaching, my husband is my life," Brigitte explained quietly. "I’m lucky I can teach adults now, but it’s not the same as it was before."
"Yes! I remember reading that, you’ve started a school?"
"For adults who are unemployed and maybe didn’t finish traditional schooling, yes. It’s not quite as impressive as your university, but it gives me a chance to share some of my favorite pieces of literature. And anyone I can convert to the love of Flaubert is a win for me."
"Oh! The author of Madame Bovary!" Jill smiled, before pausing, trying to recall the plot of the novel. With a slight chuckle as she realized it, Jill continued, "I think I can guess why you love it so much."
"For the record," Brigitte protested, "it was my favorite novel before I met Emmanuel."
"So this was life imitating art?" Jill asked with a conspirator’s smile.
"I don’t know if I would go that far," Brigitte waved off. "After all, we’re very happy."
"No arsenic then?" Jill chuckled.
"Oh, God no!"
"We all have our favorites for a reason," Jill continued, the literature teacher inside her coming to the surface as they settled into a familiar subject to both of them. "I love teaching the classics too. My class is about to start The Great Gatsby."
"Fitzgerald," Brigitte nodded. "You know he spent a fair bit of time in Paris," she smirked with pride.
"A lot of the great artists have passed through your streets, that’s true. But Gatsby is a very American novel."
"That’s true," Brigitte allowed, before adding mischievously, "I’m not the only one who enjoys teaching what they know."
"How?" Jill questioned, surprised by comparison.
"Given in my first conversation with your husband his first comment was about how many times he had to ask you to marry him before you said yes -"
"He just won’t let that go!" Jill interrupted with a playful eye roll.
"I could see him standing there in a center of yet another party he was throwing hoping you’d walk into the room."
"You know, I hadn’t thought of it that way," Jill mused aloud.
"Or you could think of yourself as the green light at the end of the dock," Brigitte offered.
Suddenly Brigitte’s phone began to ring. Sneaking a quick glance at the screen, she offered apologetically to her lunch date, "I have to take this. One second.
"Yes, chéri? … No, I’m still at lunch. … Yes! She is here right now and we’re being incredibly rude. … Yes, yes. Have a good meeting. … I will. … I know, I know. I love you too. … No! I really have to go now! I am hanging up. … Fine! Bisou, bisou!"
Jill grinned softly as she watched the exchange. Even without knowing a word of the French passing back and forth, she recognized in the soft tone, the light pink dotting Brigitte’s cheeks as she blushed, the way her whole body seemed to relax instantly as she heard the voice on the other end of the call, Jill knew exactly who had called. She shook her head a little as her hand twitched towards her phone while she waited, a similar instinct drawing her towards her husband.
"I’m so sorry," Brigitte apologized profusely as she placed the phone face down on the table. "He gets moody if I don’t answer when he calls me."
"Since I think he’s supposed to be on his way to meet my husband right now, I’ll thank you on Joe’s behalf for being so diligent," Jill winked.
"He is. He wanted me to pass along his hello, by the way."
"That’s very kind of him!" Jill paused with a frown as she realized upon searching for a refill that the bottle was empty. "We’ve run dry! Let’s see if we can track down another one of these."
"And maybe a little something to eat?" Brigitte suggested, beginning to feel after the two glasses she had downed on her nervous, empty stomach relatively quickly that anything more would become an issue for her to think in, let alone speak, English.
"I’m so sorry! You probably were expecting an actual lunch, weren’t you?"
"It’s okay, we don’t need a full meal, but perhaps a little something. I’m not very fluent in English, and -"
"Getting tipsy certainly will not help!" Jill laughed seeing where she was going. "Although, for the record, you’re doing a fabulous job. I took Spanish when I was in school, but I’ve forgotten more than I think I ever learned. I’m working on it again, though."
"You could practice with my husband, he speaks a little. He took it at university."
"How many languages do you two speak?"
"Enough," Brigitte laughed. "The good news is, he doesn’t really understand Latin, so if I’m particularly annoyed with him, I can mutter to myself and he’s none the wiser."
"If he’s anything like Joe, he’d have a sixth sense for when you’re talking about him."
"It sometimes feels that way, yes."
"Can I get you anything else?" The nervous waitress reappeared, gripping her little order pad tightly.
"Yes!" Jill answered brightly. "Can we get another bottle of this good stuff, and then a -" she took a quick glance at the menu, scanning the anti-pasta until she found a cheese dish that seemed good to share "one of these," she said pointing to the item on the menu. "Thank you so much."
"So Emmanuel never learned Latin?" Jill asked curiously after the waitress had again left them alone. "I don’t know why, but he seems to me like someone who would. Maybe it’s the nose. I just feel like the Romans would put his profile on the side of a coin or something."
"No, but he has picked up a few phrases," Brigitte blushed furiously, a mix of the wine flowing through her system and the memory of the way he whispered some in her ear a few nights ago.
"I bet he has," Jill smirked, delighting in the way it made Brigitte turn a darker shade of red. "Oh look! Saved by the bell!" She laughed heartily as the waitress returned with the second bottle, and promises of food to be delivered shortly.
"Are you happy to be back in Italy?" Brigitte asked, hoping for a safer subject, recalling some line in the briefing packet referencing something about Italian heritage.
"Yes! I love Italy. Joe and I have come a fair amount over the years, and every time I’m here, I just fall a little more madly in love with it.
"I’m hoping we can sneak off to a little bistro tonight. Grab a little dinner one on one. What about you?”
“Oh, Emmanuel and I are thinking of taking in an art show tonight -“
“That’s fun, but, no, I meant do you guys like Italy.”
“Oh! Yes. We love Italy. I’m partial to Rome, but Emmanuel prefers Naples. God, he’s such a romantic,” she said wistfully, realizing only after the words were already out of her mouth that she had said too much.
“You can’t leave it there!” Jill whined, wanting the details.
“The playwright whose work we rewrote together was from Naples,” Brigitte blushed. “And that’s all you’re getting!”
“Damnit! Maybe I need to get you some more wine!” Jill laughed.
“No, I think I’ve had enough,” Brigitte rejected the last in the second bottle kindly. “I’m having a very hard time stringing English words together right now.”
“More for me!” Jill smiled as she dumped the last little bit into her glass and sipped on the light liquid. “I really should see if I could order this back home,” she mused as she took a photo on her phone of the label.
After signaling to a bodyguard to track down the waiter for their check, Jill turned to her lunch date, “well this has been a blast! I am looking forward to working with you these next four years, Brigitte.”
“My husband has to be reelected in May for that,” Brigitte pointed out.
“Tomato, tomato,” Jill dismissed with a wink. “Come on! Let’s go face the press.”
Carefully the two ladies exited the restaurant, trying not to draw attention to themselves, until they were faced with a large row of blinking cameras, and loud photographers shouting for their attention.
“On your right,” Brigitte pointed out as Jill started to search for her, her arm accidentally bumping hers as she searched to locate her again.
“Oh, there you are!” Jill giggled. “Here we go.”
If Brigitte didn’t suspect she was a little drunk before, she certainly knew it now as she struggled to follow Jill’s answer, deciding nodding as if she agreed was the best choice.
“It was wonderful,” she started. “It was nice, two friends, just like sisters.”
“Exactly,” Brigitte added, feeling like her interjection was needed.
“What did you eat?” A voice called out from the back.
“Well, practically nothing,” Jill answered honestly, a fact she was sure became clearer by the second.
Someone finally took pity on Brigitte and provided a French translation as Jill talked about their shared love of Italy allowing her to process what was happening as Jill turned to her with a “right?”
“Exactly right,” she answered quickly. “Emmanuel is going to be so mad at me,” she thought before managing to string together some semblance of a statement in English.
“I’ll see you tomorrow?” Jill said as they approached the cars to depart.
“Yes. Thank you,” Brigitte replied.
“Nice to meet you,” Jill smiled one last time before the two of them went their separate ways to depart, Tristan slipping two aspirin into Brigitte’s hand as soon as the door had shut.
Jill was excited when she saw the seating plan at that night’s dinner had placed her next to Emmanuel. “Maybe he will fill in some of the gaps Brigitte left yesterday,” she thought to herself as she approached her seat.
Instead, she was greeted with a man wearing a worried brow and a slight frown. “What the hell did you do with my wife?”