Bon Appetit (26 page)

“Borrow them,” she said when I inquired about the price. “When you return them, you can tell me all about your great triumph”.

Unexpectedly, she too was a French
vrais amie.

Lastly, I ended up at the flea market.

It felt sad, being there alone. I kind of wished Patricia had been able to convince Philippe to come with me, and Céline too. Last time it had been the three of us, and we’d had so much fun. It reminded me, in a way, of my first trip to Paris when I arrived in France.

“You’re here with me, aren’t You?” I said quietly to God. I felt the gentle reassurance of Him.

First I went to the porcelain booth and selected several small, fine cups and saucers. Then I went to a booth that sold old costume jewelry. I picked through it for quite a while before deciding what I wanted to buy. I found a booth that sold only fans, beautiful, old-fashioned ones. I bought one for Nonna for Christmas. Then I bought one for Céline. That gave me an idea.

I went back to the costume jewelry booth and bought some clip-on earrings and long ropes of beads. A few booths over, I bought some dress-up clothes, extra small, extra gaudy.

Finished picking through the booths for my exhibition, I started looking for gifts.

Not all of the booths sold used items. Some were brand new. One booth sold men’s silk ties. Way in the back were several pairs
of suspenders. One of them, a tasteful black, had gray Eiffel Towers scattered on them.

I bought them. How could I not?

On the way back to the train there was a
bouquiniste
, a bookseller, set up by a bridge over the Seine. I stopped to browse, and one book in particular caught my eye. It was a beautiful, out-of-print book on pointillism with Seurat, one of Philippe’s favorites, on the cover.

After lugging my bags home on the train, I made myself a cup of
chocolat chaud
and sorted through my purchases, setting materials for my exhibit to one side and gifts to the other. I wondered what Anne’s exhibition would be. She was keeping hers a secret too. Not to protect it from each other, but to surprise each other.

I’d have to remember to get her a Christmas gift too.

I looked out my window and saw the lights blazing in Maman’s house. Dominique was coming home this weekend. I’d still never been invited inside.

I looked at the gifts I’d bought and suddenly had a most unwelcome thought.

Perhaps I’d spend Christmas alone.

A
bout sixty percent of us passed the written examinations, including everyone at my table—me, Anne, Désirée, Juju, and Jean-Yves. That left twenty-four people for the exhibition. Chef divided us into two groups as the exhibition room would not accommodate all of us and our guests at once. My table of eight was paired with four from another table. We were to exhibit first, on the Monday of the third week of December.

“Bon,”
Patricia said at work that day. “We will all be there”. Like a benign stage mother or a big sister, I felt she was as nervous on my behalf as I was.

The week before, I’d been at the village bakery only once. Odious was in the corner chatting with a young woman I didn’t recognize. Odette dragged her to meet me as soon as I arrived. I noticed her uniform and her name, Dominique, embroidered on it.

“Dominique! Meet Lexi—she’s the person using your house for now,” Odious said.

Dominique approached me and coolly held out her hand. She reminded me of Désirée.
“Enchantée,”
she said.

“Enchantée,”
I responded. “Thank you for letting me borrow your home. I hope I’m not inconveniencing you”.

“I will stay with Maman and Papa until after the first of the year,” she said, waving her hand as if she were shooing a mosquito. “It’s fine”.

I reached for my chef jacket, but Maman came running forward.

“Ooh la la,” she said. “Lexi, I am so sorry, I forgot to tell you. Since Dominique is back, she will be at the village bakery until the end of the year. I know Patricia could use your help in Rambouillet during the holidays, so she’s scheduled you there through … the end of the month”. She wavered slightly before saying it. “You can have today off. Perhaps you can do some Christmas shopping or prepare for your exhibition. How is that?”

“That’s fine,” I said, hanging up my chef’s jacket. Somehow, I didn’t feel like I’d been given a day off. I felt dismissed.

Maman was certainly chipper. A result, I figured, of Dominique’s return. Luc was back too. Philippe had told me that Luc had driven Marianne to her parents’ house in Bretagne for Christmas, but that he’d come back for my exhibition. I took a deep breath. Everyone would be there.

Seeing Maman with Dominique, their heads close together as they talked, made me miss my own mother. We chatted on the phone once in a while and e-mailed each week, but it wasn’t the same as being together in person. For months—years, even—I had
wished Mom would minimize her mother hen hovering. Suddenly, I wanted less distance and more hovering.

I went to the back of the bakery to talk with Kamil. “I’ll be there next Monday,” he said. “You will do just fine”.

“Thanks,” I told him. “You’ve been a good friend”.

“One outsider knows how another feels,” he said. By that, I think he was talking about his Algerian ancestry, as he’d been born in France. Funny that he still felt like an outsider. I wondered if Buki from church did too.

“I hear you’ll be baking at Rambouillet soon,” I said.

“Yes!” His eyes lit up. He glanced over at Dominique basking in Maman’s fuss. “I’m looking forward to it”.

I grinned with him and left. I went home and put on Bing Crosby’s Christmas music as well as my favorite,
C’est Noël
. Then I sketched out the final layout for my exhibition.

The following weekend, the school hummed as we prepared for Monday’s exhibition. From time to time, I looked at what the others were preparing, but mostly I was so focused on getting mine right, that I didn’t have time for more than the most casual glance. We each had screened-in sections in the walk-in, designated by number, where we stored the pastries, cakes, and chocolates we made. Breads, of course, would be made on Monday.

A few times, Désirée looked over my shoulder, trying to ascertain what I was doing, and what Anne was doing, as well. But mainly she focused on her own work.

Saturday I spent time at school making petits fours and decorating them just so. They would store well for two days. So would my lemon crème brûlée, which I made Saturday evening.

I put my materials into the walk-in cooler, in Box 7, and Anne and I went to a café together. Neither of us was working that weekend in order to be ready on Monday.

I noticed Désirée was still at the school, nearly by herself, when we left.

“Do you think that’s okay, given our last conversation?” I asked.

She nodded. “Eric is there until they close the doors at ten,” she said. Eric was the security guard she was dating.

“Okay”. I picked at a croque-monsieur, but I was too tired to eat very much.

The next morning I went to church. Although I was tired and had a lot to do, I felt encouraged and strengthened by it. Buki was gone, which was a disappointment. But hope seeped in through my ears in praise music, my skin in hugs, and my spirit in communion.

Philippe came up to me afterward, even warmer than he’d been in the past few weeks. Maybe work was easing up. He looked happier, more relaxed than I’d seen him in months.

“Where’s Buki?” I asked.

“Back to Nigeria for Christmas,” he said. “To visit her family”.

Dominique was with her family for Christmas, and Buki with hers. I knew where Céline and Philippe would be. I just didn’t know where I’d be.

I slipped into my coat. “Can Céline and I drive you to school?” Philippe asked. “I know you’re going to work on tomorrow night’s exhibition, and I can save you a little time”.

I smiled. “Sure”.

Céline was beside herself with happiness when she saw we were going to be in the car together. “Are you coming to my house?” she asked.

“No,” I answered. “I’m going to work on my exhibition”.

“Oh,” she said dejectedly. “More baking”.

“Perhaps we can give Lexi something to look forward to afterward,” Philippe said. “Father Christmas will visit the town next Friday. Would you like to come with us? And then Patricia will take Céline for the evening if you’d like to have dinner. To celebrate passing your exhibition, of course”. He smiled.

I sensed a new joviality in him, but he wasn’t divulging the reason, and I didn’t know if it was too forward to ask.

He pulled up at the school and parked the car.

“I’d love to,” I said. “I only hope I pass!”

“You will,” Philippe said, then leaned over and slowly kissed each of my cheeks before I got out of the car. I liked his aftershave. It was masculine without being overpowering.

“Au revoir
, Lexi!” Céline bounced in her seat as I got out. “See you tomorrow night!”

When I entered the school, Désirée was already there, as was Jean-Yves and a few others. Anne was not. But I had my entire cake to assemble, and I couldn’t worry about anyone else.

I took the three large layers out of Box 7 and brought them back to my work station in the cool room. I cut some dowels and slipped them through the layers for stability, then piped a heart-shaped squiggle of royal icing, which would dry firm, to keep them in place. I took an hour to ice the layers, smoothing them with an
offset spatula, then dotted pearls all over the cake with a special icing I found in Paris that had the opalescent sheen I was looking for.

Anne came in as I was piping the pearls. “Oh!” she said. “Where did you find that kind of icing?”

“I blended it,” I told her, excited and anxious. “Need some?”

“Oui,”
she said. “It’ll be just the thing”. When I was done with the pearls, she borrowed my piping tubes and took them to her own table.

A few hours later, my cake was done, and Jean-Yves helped me carry it back to Box 7. I got out some sugar and prepared to make my spun sugar creation, and near the end of the night it, and the macarons, were done.

I had almost everything I needed in my box. The props I’d bring tomorrow, and I’d make the bread and cookies then too. I looked over my list and checked the mille-feuille.

My heart squeezed a little at that thought. Dan loved mille-feuille.

Anne finished about the time I did, and we decided to have a quick dinner together again at the café, as neither of us was prepared to cook that night. The night was freezing, snow falling over the city, and we linked arms to keep from slipping on the sidewalk.

Anne pulled open the door to the café, and out rushed steam and warmth and chatter. I ordered
cassoulet
, my all-time favorite French dish. I chipped the edge of my cassoulet, savoring the warmth of the beans, the smoke of the sausage, the crumbly crispness of the bread crumbs framing the meal like fine artwork.

“Ready for tomorrow?” I asked.

Anne nodded, and bit into her noodle dish. “I think so. My
mother is coming in the morning, taking the train with my
patron
from my old bakery. I am thankful they are coming”.

“So many people from the Delacroix bakeries are coming to see me,” I said. “I only hope I don’t let them down”.

“Are you worried?” she asked.

Surprisingly, I wasn’t. “I feel confident in my work, but it’s maybe not the kind of thing they’re used to seeing. It’s the best of French traditions with American sensibilities. I think that’s probably what I do”.

Anne nodded. “I go back to the bakery in Paris on Tuesday”.

“How is it?” I asked her. We’d been so busy preparing for the exhibition that I hadn’t really asked.

“Okay,” she said.
“Pas mal. “Not bad
. But she said nothing more.

I pushed away my doubt, unable to deal with it right then.

We paid and left the café to go our separate ways, and Anne gave a cry of surprise. “Oh!” she said. “My keys! I have left them at school”.

I looked at my watch. The school would close soon. “Come on, let’s go back and get them”.

When we got to the school, the security guard was having a loud argument on his cell phone and didn’t even glance our way as we rushed past him. Anne went to the bread room, where she thought she’d left her keys. I went to the walk-in for a last peek at my cakes.

When I opened the door to the cooler, someone was already in there.

“Désirée!” I said, and she nearly jumped off the floor as she heard my voice. “What are you doing here?” I had seen her leave hours earlier, before Anne and I had even left.

“Oh,” she said. “Just checking on my stuff”.

She stood in front of box number two, which was Jean-Yves’s. Her box was number five, an odd number on the other side of the room, next to mine.

“That’s Jean-Yves’s box,” I said.

She nodded. “He asked me to check on something for him. I was just about to do that”.

I yanked open Jean-Yves’s box and scanned its contents. Everything looked fine. Unsabotaged, from my practiced eye. “What did he want you to check?” I asked.