Bon Appetit (28 page)

“Thank you!” I said and flung my arms around her. Then I flung them around Philippe for good measure. Both laughed, but Patricia disentangled herself faster than Philippe.

“Oui, oui
, now get to work,” Patricia said. “In two hours, we will go to the café for a celebratory cup of café crème”.

I spent the morning making the decorations for the Bûche de Noël we’d sell for the next week. Every couple of minutes I peeked down at my embroidered name and smiled.

“Ready?” Patricia asked a few hours later.

“Oui”.
I wiped off my hands and slipped on my coat. We walked a few blocks to a café she preferred, and she ordered for us.

“So, you’ve done very well,” Patricia said. “We were all most proud of you. I knew you’d do well. I asked Papa a week or two ago if I could get your new chef jackets and he agreed”. She lit a cigarette. “Of course, making his special cakes last night didn’t hurt.
Politique
, but smart”.

I smiled and sipped my coffee.

“I want to talk to you about something
très serieuse
. I haven’t made an announcement yet, but I am moving back to Provence. Xavier and I talked in November, and he said he’d like to marry me, but if it’s not to be me, then he needs to move on to someone else. He put up with the absence when I was in Seattle for a year, but now that I’m home …” She shrugged and exhaled smoke rings. “It’s time”.

“Congratulations!” I said to her. “How exciting”.

She waved her hand as if to say,
of course, of course
.

“So here’s where you come in,” she said. “I’d like for you to take my job at the bakery in Rambouillet”.

“You would?” I asked. “But I could never do your job. You know so much, and I’m so new”.

“I think you’d do fine, and there are enough people around you can ask questions of. But I have to tell you something. The job is going to change. Most of our cake baking, petits fours, and other pretty things will be made at the new bakery in Versailles and delivered. We are going to streamline the organization. You’d still be making mousses, custards, and a few chocolates, but most of the work will be breakfast pastries and breads. Things that are everyday staples for the village. The gâteaux will mostly be delivered”.

“Oh,” I said. Still, it was a job. In France.

“It would pay enough for you to get your own apartment, of course, and you never know where the future would lie. Perhaps after a few years, it would be Versailles for you. Who knows?” She shrugged and lit another cigarette. “Take a few weeks and think about it. I won’t be leaving until after Epiphany on January 6. I’m telling the family at Christmas. Okay?”

I nodded. “Okay. I’ll pray about it”.

She rolled her eyes, but kissed my cheek in a very sisterly way. “You do that”.

“Where are you going?” Anne asked. She’d called up on Friday night.

“To see Father Christmas with Céline and Philippe,” I said.

“Have you ever noticed that you put her name before his most of the time?” she asked.

I didn’t answer, but no, I hadn’t noticed. Funny that she had.

“Then Philippe is taking me to a café where they have live music,” I added. “Without Céline”.

“Should be fun!” she said. “I’m working early tomorrow, so it’ll be an early night”.

“Any news on a permanent job offer?” I asked.

“Not yet,” she said. I didn’t want to share anything about mine until she heard about hers.

Céline and Philippe picked me up about an hour later, and I was ready to go. I had a tiny tree in my cottage with a few presents under it.

“Who are those for?” Céline asked, breaking away from her dad.

“One is for you,
jeune fille!
” I said.

She clapped her hands in delight.

“We’d better get going,” Philippe said, “or we’ll miss Father Christmas”.

We drove to the village center and bought a chocolat chaud from a vendor. Christmas music filled the village square, and while there was no snow, it was frosty and delicious out. Céline and Philippe looked cute with their red cheeks, and I imagine I did too.

Soon a great cheer rose from the crowd as
Le Père Noël
arrived in a horse-drawn carriage. He got out and made merry noises to the children, who jumped up and down. Céline pressed forward with the other kids and got a bag of treats as her reward. She offered me a peppermint.

“Merci,”
I said, and she grinned. “Another tooth gone?”

“Yes, and this new tooth fairy is draining my bank account,” Philippe grumbled.

After a few more minutes, we drove down the main street, with its twinkling with holiday lights, and delivered Céline to Patricia’s apartment.

Then Philippe and I went to the café. A small quartet played jazz softly in the background, and the maître’d seated us.

“Table
à deux
?” he asked.

“Oui,”
Philippe answered.

I ordered the veal, as Philippe said it was very good. The café wasn’t fancy enough for me to wear the red dress I’d worn with Dan—and that would have felt strange, anyway. Instead, I wore a cashmere sweater with a loose cowl neck, also red. I knew red was a good color on me.

“Congratulations on your schooling—the
diplôme
, the exhibition, everything,” Philippe said. “You’ve done very well. I really enjoyed your exhibit”. He grinned. “I knew you were a romantic”.

“Yes,” I said. “I am. And with my best friend getting married soon …” The conversation felt awkward. “I’m glad to be done. And to have the monogrammed uniform”.

“Oui,”
he said. “They were delivered to the village, and Maman unpacked them. I imagine Odette was not too pleased when she saw it”.

I sipped my wine and ate a stuffed olive before smiling. I was certain Odious was not happy.

“I meant to ask you,” he said. “Do you have plans for Christmas?”

“No”. I shook my head. “Not really. I plan to go to church”.

“Bien sûr,”
he said. “Of course. Even my papa and Patricia go to church on Christmas. But after?”

“No,” I said.

“Maman asked if you’d like to join the family at her house that night. Everyone will be there”.

Finally! An invitation. I wouldn’t have to celebrate alone. “I’d love it,” I said.

“You’ll get to see what Christmas is like in France,” he said. “Of course, I am sure it is wonderful in Seattle too. You must be eager to get back”.

I carefully set my glass of wine down and looked at the table. “I like France, and I like Seattle,” I said. I was sure Patricia had talked to him about the job.

“There’s no place for a woman like her own home,” Philippe said. “Even Patricia is eager to get back to Provence. Dominique is glad to be home, and so is Marianne. It’s okay to live somewhere else for a while, but after a time, one gets homesick. A woman misses her family, and then life is not so kind anymore.
C’est
natural”. He shrugged. “It seems like a good idea to bloom in your native soil”.

“Oui,”
I said, as the waiter delivered our main course.

Was he trying to push me back to Seattle?

C
hristmas Eve morning was crazy, filling orders at the Rambouillet bakery. We worked like an athletic team. We talked little, but each of us knew what the others needed, and we stepped up to the plate and made it happen. Later, most of us would celebrate at Maman’s house, so for now we focused on the work.

Philippe put some Christmas music on in the back, and it made the entire area festive. Céline played with her
fèves
in the office and ate cookies nonstop.

“Should I save one of the Bûche de Noël?” I asked Patricia. “For the dinner tonight?”

“Non, non, non,”
she said, clucking her tongue and wagging her finger. “Maman makes the Bûche de Noël. She has always, every year. Even when my own maman was alive”. Her eyes misted a little. “My maman was not a baker. Papa did it all”.

“Okay,” I said. “Should I bring anything?”

“Non,”
she said. “And do not worry about gifts—no one expects you to bring any”. She clapped her hands and flour flew into the air.

“I bought one for Céline … and one for Philippe,” I said. “Is that all right?”

She grinned. “But of course!”

We went back to work, and after filling all of our orders, we closed the bakery at noon. We’d be off for a few days, at least some of us would. Patricia would be going back to Provence after January 6.

As we shut off the lights, I looked around the
laboratoire
and wondered if it should be my home. The bakery in Versailles would open after the first of the year. This was the last year Bûche de Noël would be made at Rambouillet.

Patricia drove me home, which was nice in one sense, because I got home much, much faster than I would have on the train. Much, much, much faster. As soon as Patricia screeched into the driveway, I leapt out, thankful for my life.

I saw Dominique, all dressed up, getting out of a car also. I looked down at my flour-and-chocolate-batter-splattered uniform, then at her neat, chic attire. Apparently, she hadn’t been at the bakery in the village that morning.

She kissed a handsome young man who didn’t bother to get out
of his sports car, then she waved as he screeched out of the driveway. He would certainly catch up to, and possibly even overtake, Patricia on the way back to town.

I waved at Dominique, and she gave me a little Queen Elizabeth wave back before disappearing into the big house.

It reminded me that I had better start packing. No matter where I went, I’d be leaving her cottage soon.

I walked inside, looked at my chalkboard, and smiled. My lowtech French day planner. Jean 21 was listed as my Bible chapter. I would read it after Christmas. I wanted to read the Christmas passages this week.

I put on some music and hot water for
café presse
. Just as I settled into a chair and put my feet up, there was a knock on the door. I got up and opened the door.
“Oui?
May I help you?”

“Special delivery”. It was the FedEx man. Or, should I say, Exprèsse Fédérale? I signed for the package and took it inside.

It was from Davis, Wilson, and Marks, with Dan’s name as the return address. I sat down and opened the box. Inside the FedEx box was a perfectly wrapped gold package. I pulled the beautiful tie off the top and used my new letter opener to slit the tape on the side. The wrap fell away and in my hand lay a box. When I opened it, I drew in a breath and smiled.

It was the leather-bound volume of Jacques Prévert poetry I had admired—and bypassed—at the
bouquinistes
Dan and I had visited.

Inside was a card with a quote written in Dan’s hand, followed by a note.

I sank back into the chair, humbled and chastened by the fact that I’d thought Dan had overlooked me when really, he’d gone out of his way to remember just what I liked. I thumbed through the book, my heart rent by the words of Prévert as well as the feelings the gift stirred inside me. Part of me had wanted to believe he’d forgotten me, because if he had, he’d have made a decision for me. Now I was faced with making a decision on my own. Realizing the depth of his feelings pierced the thin sheath of self-protection in which I had held back my own.

And yet, my feelings on all scores were not exactly settled. Later, Christmas would start with a drive to church with Céline and Philippe, both of whom I adored. Then we’d head back for a middle of the night meal and gift opening after the rest of the family attended midnight Mass.

I needed a nap. I was already dog tired after the events of the past week and had pressing, unclear decisions just ahead.

As I was about to settle down, the phone rang.

“Hi, Lexi? It’s Dan”.

“I know who it is. Calling at home rather than work this time, eh?” I teased.

“Yeah”. He laughed. “I wanted to wait until I could see through online tracking that my package had been delivered. A few days ago my assistant gave me a list of all the business gifts she’d sent out—and your name was on it! I’m so sorry. She got your address from a business card”.