Free Write The out of place couple

 The Out of Place Couple

It was a brisk October day, the coolest yet with the  Tramontane not quite at its strongest. It was too cool to write outside. Inside, we nodded to the couple owners of where we buy our pizzas and settled in at a small round table.

Chocolate chaud for Rick, Thé Vanille and a chocolate croissant for me. I hadn't eaten, Rick had. 

Sherlock was with us. Because we are leaving him with a sitter at our home for the next two weeks, we didn't want to leave him alone this morning. He had a couple of dog biscuits before settling in so we could write.

Prompt: We saw a well-dressed couple, a couple that would have been more at home in downtown Geneva's high priced shopping area than this old French village.

 Rick's Freewrite

They were clearly first-time tourists, at least the first time in Argeles-sur-mer. Too well dressed for this relatively poor village in the south of France.

And very late in the tourist "shoulder season" of late October, almost November.

He was dapper, shaved bald, aviator-sunglasses, with a cream colored summer-weight sport coat.

She could have been dressed for a party with friends or business associates, smart, forest-green sweater, straight-lined skirt, three-inch heel shoes. And blond hair that could not have been natural, as they were easily in their 60s maybe 70's.

They wandered with no apparent destination, looking all four ways at the intersection of Liberation and Republique, trying to decide which way next. 

They started toward the church up the hill, but then the  wine cave caught his eye, so he lingered a couple of minutes before drifting on. 

They may have come from Spanish Catalonia for the day, curious about the seaside town they had heard about periodically or they were heading to Spain from one of the larger cities in France -- Toulouse, Lyon, even Paris -- and had stopped in search of a croissant for petit dejeuner. 

Or perhaps they were searching for a house to buy, to enjoy in their new retirement.

D-L's Freewrite

 Marcus cultivated his inner Yul Brynner.

He'd been only 20 when he noticed his hair was thinning. He blamed his mother because he had read hair loss was passed on by the mother, boobs, via the father's DNA. More the luck for his big-breasted sister.

Baldness had not hampered his career as a lawyer in a big firm then later his own.

He made sure his wealth showed on his body. 

Walking through the vacation village, the first cold day of October, he still wore a sports coat, an Armani. His pants were creased and his trained trainers bore the name of the world's best tennis player.

Elodie walked beside him. She'd held up pretty well from their college days and raising two children.

Her blond hair looked natural, but he always pointed out if the tiniest dark root peeked out. 

He'd fired a secretary, a legal aide really and a good one, because she let her roots show.

"Coffee?" Eloise pointed to the café they were passing.

"Why not." He rubbed his hand over his pure Yul Brynner pate.

Too bad the village was deserted with no one to appreciate him at all.