The owner of a red 1968 Fiat convertible popped up the rear of his car and pulled out a tool chest that had been somehow tucked against his motor. A one-armed man cocked open the hood of the recalcitrant Renault with his shoulder and plied a wrench. A collection of heads—38 percent of them gray and 60 percent silvery white—gathered once more around the obstreperous vehicle as phrases flew: “Carburetor?” “Air filter?” “No, maybe the spark plug.”

Sébastien’s mother took a picture of me and wandered over to my side of the road. “It’s always like this,” she said. “Fortunately these old cars usually don’t take long to fix. Although I’ve known of at least one time when they finally had to tow a car back. Are you having fun?”

“It’s wonderful!”

She smiled at that, but I kept my guard up. Last night’s salad episode had marked me.

Our route wound into a small range of mountains, steep rock cutting up through the vines and trees. A herd of goats cropped grass on a long, green slope that curved downward toward a creek and then arched up again in a field of lavender, where a little stone house tucked in between two bushes. We must have stalled every fifteen minutes, and every time in a place no one could regret getting stuck in. I didn’t regret it, anyway. I could have ridden in that red Torpedo and stalled every few miles from one end of France to the other and still been happy. We stalled by lavender fields, in river gorges, and in a village of golden stone about the size of a chessboard, with tiny bridges arching over a disciplined, finger-width river that had flowers growing along its banks.

“Having fun, crevette?” Sébastien murmured, pinching my nose.

I frowned and put my fists on my hips. “I am not a crevette.” We had discussed this several times already in our relationship.

“Sure you are,” Sébastien murmured. He grinned. “You have a pink nose again.”

“I do not!” I said indignantly. “And if I do, it’s only because you keep pinching it!”

He laughed. “Pinky shrump,” he whispered in English as we climbed back into the car, his tone a caress.

By lunchtime, leisurely and heavy on olives, eaten high in the hills, everyone was relaxed, except for me, surrounded by salad-wielding French. I eyed the olive tapenade for potential traps, but nothing happened. Well, Sébastien’s stepfather turned his full attention on me, and I think it might have slipped out that I had never seen Bullitt and didn’t know what kind of car Steve Mc-Queen had driven in it. “A Buick?” I offered. Well, they both started with a B-U.