'He told me I was going to be his wife on our first date," Sophie Grégoire blurts out, laughing girlishly.
The new Mrs. Trudeau, the Quebec media personality who married Justin Trudeau, the 33-year-old heartthrob eldest son of late prime minister Pierre Trudeau, is clearly in the honeymoon of her 30-year-old life. Not only has love bloomed, but so have the career opportunities.
Since her marriage in May, she has landed two new television gigs -- a regular segment on beauty two mornings a week on a new show called Coup de pouce on Radio-Canada in Quebec and a job as a national correspondent on celebrity and Quebec culture for eTalk Daily, CTV's entertainment program.
But, she says, it is the love in her life that fills her with a sense of purpose and calm. "There are other stresses that come with all of this," she says, referring to the scrutiny she is under as a member of the Trudeau family. "But nothing compared to the calming sensation that I have every day." She places one of her little hands over her heart on the lacy front of her white blouse, a sophisticated confection by Quebec designer Renata Morales. "I've been waiting for this state of mind and heart for a long time."
With her girl-next-door friendliness and fresh-as-a-peach appearance, Grégoire, an only child of a Montreal stockbroker and a former nurse, is Canada's answer to a Jennifer Aniston type -- a sweetheart personality who immediately makes you feel as though you could be her best friend, sharing in the story of her life.
She is willing to tell it all, but not out of indiscretion. A Catholic who was schooled by nuns, Grégoire has a philosophical streak and a strong belief in fate, which give her an exuberant confidence.
It's as though she figures that providence smiled upon her in order to help her understand her purpose, now that she sees it, she feels compelled to explain.
"Justin and I didn't end up together for no reason," she says. "We have values that come from the same roots -- not only social causes, but [values about]life itself. We talk about that very often -- why are we here? And we think about what we have to do, first, to be happy, but to be happy for us also means to make other people that we love happy."
Later, I begin to ask about the day of the wedding, wanting to know how it felt to be part of the great (and in recent years, sad) epic of the Trudeau family. After the ceremony in Montreal's Sainte-Madeleine d'Outrement church, the couple drove away in Pierre Trudeau's restored 1960 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL roadster that was adorned with yellow flowers and, in the middle, a single red rose, the signature sartorial flourish of the prime minister, who died in 2000.
But before I can finish the question, Grégoire interjects, "And it was a sunny day when it was supposed to rain." She sighs and then laughs. Like a sign from on high? "I totally believe that," she states emphatically. "It was meant to be." Why? "Because what Justin and I share is real and simple, and when there's so much love, I believe in energy. So all this is connected," she says with her charming brand of confidence.
The couple first met about 20 years ago, she tells me. "All my life, I went to school with Michel [the youngest Trudeau son who was killed in an avalanche in 1998] The parties I would go to were at his house. Then, at a graduation party -- I was there with my boyfriend at the time -- I was at their place in the Laurentians, and I remember Justin serving us food. But, he didn't even notice me," she confides, laughing, "I was three or four years younger than him. When you are 12 and 16, those are two different worlds."
They met again in 2003 when they were paired to co-host Le Bal Mercedes-Benz during the Montreal Grand Prix. "Justin looked at me and he said, ' I think I've seen you before.' And I said, 'Well, I went to school with Michi all my life.' We hadn't seen each other for 15 years or more. Some of my friends knew Justin, and I would get news here and there, but I was not more interested than that, because I didn't know him." She pauses. "I did think he was cute, though," she adds as an afterthought. Well, she's not the only one who thinks that, I say. "But I've got him now!" she says through a peel of laughter. "Sorry!"
Contrary to reports, Trudeau did not ask her out after their night of hosting the Grand Prix ball. "We had a chemical something happen," she says. But she didn't hear from him for four months, and when she did run into him on the streets of Montreal, she refused to give him her telephone number when he asked for it. After the ball, she had sent him a note via e-mail as she routinely did to people she had encountered through her work.
But he never responded. And, she says with a scolding tone of voice, "He was very flirtatious that night! So I said, 'Cross-check! No way! Off of my list!' " Sounds like she has read the popular book, The Rules, about how to play hard-to-get and land your man. "No," she responds, "I don't believe in being tough with a man. On that special occasion, it was what I had to do.
"And it worked!" she says.
He said he would find her contact information from the e-mail, because he had kept it. He did. He phoned. They went for dinner. Talked for four hours.
Sang karaoke. Went for ice cream. Headed back to his place. Talked for another two hours. (Always in French. "He is so happy he ended up with someone who speaks French, because his father always used to say, ' Tu es plus elegant en français,' " she beams.)
"And then there was a serious moment when I saw his face change," she tells me. "We were having a serious discussion about life and whatever." And he said, 'I'm 31 years old,' And I was like, 'Yes, I know.' And he said, 'I've been waiting for you all my life. You're not getting out. You'll be my wife and we'll have a life together.' We cried and that was it! We've been together ever since."
Wasn't she scared? "It took me more time than him to really decant everything. But something in the back of my mind said, 'This is it. Go!' " She moved in three months later and suspended work. "We travelled everywhere.
"I was exposed to amazing and enriching situations, everything from meeting the Dalai Lama to going up to the Arctic."
About a year later, Trudeau formerly proposed after visiting his father's grave on the day that would have been his 85th birthday. He gave her a vintage-looking diamond ring that he designed with Dominic Lucas, whose Montreal jewellery-business family also created some pieces for Margaret when she was married to Pierre. How many carats? "No, I never asked," she says. "I just know I love it."
Then I ask her the question that surely everyone has wanted to know. Doesn't she feel, as a woman, that she helped heal this family that has suffered so much recent loss? "Oh," she says with an intake of breath, "You have no idea. I have felt the family change in a way since I've been there. Not because I think I do anything -- no, no, no, no -- but [because of]my presence as a woman? Yes." Changed them? "I think," she begins tentatively, shyly. "Margaret tells me. It's very emotional for me to think about this, because it becomes even more the reason for why Justin and I are together." She pauses. "My mission is to bring love and stability, definitely."
Does she feel she is filling a gap? "No, I don't think that. Because the gap will always be there. But I think that I have brought maybe a new breath of fresh air, something positive, hope, happiness."
Of their surprising decision to co-operate with the media -- she and Trudeau allowed a photographer to sell exclusive rights to their wedding day to Maclean's and 7 Jours, a magazine in Montreal, with no reported financial gain for the couple -- she offers a simple explanation. "At first, we talked about it, and I told Justin that I'm not sure I want to share this -- it's such a personal event in our lives. But at the same time, ever since I've met Justin, each time we've been seeing people on the street or people come up to us at an event or whatever, they have been so amazing to us. And I thought the least we can do is share this kind of day with them. Because they are curious and they are interested. And for the people who are not, well, that's fine, too."
A sweetheart bride. A rising media star. She astutely understands the importance of her moment. "I would lie if I said that I didn't have to weigh the options carefully," she admits, when asked if her marriage made her more cautious about what she will do in her media career. (Educated at McGill University in commerce and at the University of Montreal, where she studied communications, Grégoire has worked on a variety of television shows, mostly marginal ones and only in Quebec. She also worked as a personal shopper in Montreal's Holt Renfrew, where she retains a few clients to this day.) "Justin gives me advice, yes, but he has total faith in me, and vice versa, so all this came very naturally."
She has a relaxed attitude about her career, saying that she only accepted the jobs because she liked the team of people involved. There are clearly other roles on the horizon.
"It's a priority for me in my life to become a mother," she says. "When it happens, it happens."
And then there's the prospect of becoming a political wife. Trudeau, a former teacher in Vancouver, is now studying for his masters in environmental geography at McGill, but has long been pegged as a potential Liberal candidate.
"I'm not going to try and see too far out," Grégoire says. "If it happens, we'll be ready for it. If it doesn't, it wasn't meant to be. But one thing is for sure, if he does go into politics, it's not going to be now. It's not going to be for a long time."
Drink this young woman up, Canada. Poised, self-possessed, funny and spirited, she has a lot in front of her. "I do think I'm prone to happiness," she confides near the end of the interview. That is the one thing she didn't need to say.