by Sandra Byrd
I walked by the oven every ten minutes, looking in and praying the cakes wouldn’t be burned or flat or greasy or anything else. I cleaned the dishes in the sink and wiped down the labels on all of our spices. I repacked the chocolate tubs.
Finally, it was time. I took the cakes out of the oven.
Perfect!
I let them cool, and when one was ready, I brought it back to Patricia, who was in the cool room whipping up icing for yet another wedding cake. Next to her sat a pot of tempered chocolate and some leaf stencils.
“Here it is!” I said, offering it to her. She looked at it, sniffed its baked butteriness, and broke off a piece.
“Good,” she said. “Not greasy. Have Simone package the rest for the front”.
By that comment I knew Monsieur Desfreres had reported on my failed attempt. Patricia turned to her work, but just as I was about to leave the room, she called me back.
“Have you made chocolate leaves before?”
I set the rest of the cake down. “No, I haven’t”.
“Are you in a good mood?” she asked.
I looked at her questioningly. “Yes”.
“You cannot temper chocolate or work with it if you are upset, angry, or dull. It will cause the chocolate to bloom. The chocolate can sense your mood”.
I nodded. I didn’t know how I felt about that, but I had noticed that my recipes came out better when I was cheerful.
She showed me how to temper a bit of chocolate in a small, controlled pot and then paint the chocolate over a leaf stencil on waxed paper.
“You try it,” she said, as her chocolate cooled and hardened.
I took a deep breath and melted the chocolate, stirring the bits until it tempered. Then I painted a leaf, and made some swirls and strokes with the brush to imply veins. When both of our leaves had dried, I thought mine was the better of the two.
“You can see how my chocolate has a bit of white on it,” Patricia said. “It is not glossy and smooth. This is not a good day for me. I am tired of doing wedding cakes”.
Tired of doing wedding cakes? How about I do the wedding cakes and you do the dishes? I thought. But then the idea of being in charge of the most important cake in anyone’s life scared me, and I mentally backed off.
“Your leaf is adequate,” she said, breaking it off. She handed it to me to eat and bit into hers. “I am going to have a cigarette”.
She walked outside and sat at the patio table, and I went back to the bakery, nibbling on my chocolate. I’d noticed this morning that my pants pinched a bit. I’d have to lay off the baguettes. Tanya had asked how I planned to keep my weight down in France. My mother bought me The Bible Times Diet.
“Mom!” I’d said. “Really. What’s in here? The John the Baptist diet—you only eat insects and wild grapes?”
“Or the Elijah diet,” Tanya had chimed in. “You only eat what birds deliver in their beaks”.
The three of us had laughed. I missed them, and looked out at the helpful, but not friendly, Patricia. I know why French women don’t get fat. They smoke.
She came back into the kitchen and motioned to me. “Make ten chocolate leaves for this wedding cake. I will finish icing it, and then we will arrange the leaves on top with some acorns made out of chocolate ganache. It’s to be a three-tiered, autumn wedding cake”.
She showed me how to temper white chocolate and streak it through the leaves as they dried. I used three small brushes. The leaves turned out great, and I stepped back with a sense of accomplishment—a thrill, really. I helped make a cake for someone’s wedding day! A cake that would be in pictures for years to come.
Céline burst into the kitchen. I was surprised to see her. “Bonjour, jeune fille,” I said.
“I am not a little girl,” she told me. “I am a rather big girl. With another loose tooth. Have you talked with the tooth fairy?”
Patricia shot me a strange look.
“Lexi says Americans don’t have a mouse to come and get their teeth, they have a fairy, which I think sounds much prettier than a mouse”.
“Ah, bon,” Patricia said, smiling in my direction for the first time. I had found the key to Patricia’s heart—Céline.
They walked toward Philippe’s darkened office and turned on the light.
“Will you get me a goûter?” Céline asked me.
“Of course!” I went to the front of the bakery and picked out two cookies and a chouquette drizzled with chocolate, then brought them back to the office, where Patricia was getting Céline settled.
Céline sighed. “I wish my papa was here, but he had to go to Provence today to bake while Papi came up here. So I am staying at Tante Patricia’s”.
“My father is looking at a site for a new bakery in Versailles,” Patricia explained. “It would be the largest, most expensive bakery we have. The flagship, as I think you say in English”.
“Versailles is where my church is,” Céline announced through a bite of cookie. She looked at me. “But you know that. It’s your church too”.
Patricia turned on her heel. “You went to the Anglican church in Versailles?”
I nodded. “Yes. I saw a flier at school. It’s the only English-speaking church around here, right?”
“Right”. Patricia nodded. “So you saw Céline and Philippe there?”
“Yes”.
“Ah yes, I remember. You are a Protestant, like them,” Patricia said. “Bon. Please prep some apple slices for tarte tatin before you leave today. I have a special order for five for tomorrow, and I will have to make them as soon as Céline gets to school. Philippe will not be back until Friday”.
She left, and I was alone with Céline.
“She’s mad because she had to leave her boyfriend in Provence,” Céline announced, licking chocolate off her fingers. “She saw him at Oncle Luc’s wedding, and Papa said she’s been as lovable as dried bread crust ever since”.
The reluctance to make wedding cakes made a little more sense.
“I don’t know why you want to be a baker,” Céline said. “I think food is boring”.
“I heard that. But you don’t look bored,” I pointed out, watching her lick her fingers.
“Eating food isn’t boring. Making food is”.
“I’ll bet I can change your mind,” I said. “Come with me to slice the apples, and I’ll show you”.
We walked past the bread-baking room, where the others rolled dough in preparation for the dinner bread rush. Once in the prep room, I pulled out a large sack of fresh apples.
“Nothing is as good as an apple in September,” I said. Céline wrinkled her nose. “I told you we’d have fun, didn’t I?”
She nodded, grinning her gap-toothed grin again. “How?”
“Pick an apple,” I told her. She did, and handed it to me. “Pick another one”.
I peeled each apple, leaving them round. “Now, I’m going to cut out some holes for eyes, a nose, and a mouth”. I carved into the apples, then went to the spice shelf and picked out four whole cloves. “Put one of these into each eye socket,” I instructed. She did, giggling.
I selected about twenty pieces of the long grain rice we usually ground for rice flour. “Put ten in each mouth, for teeth,” I said.
Céline popped them all in, and we stared at our creations. “Now what?” she asked.
“Now we wait”. I put them on a shelf next to the ovens, where they would be constantly exposed to dry heat.
“How long do we have to wait?” Céline asked.
“Till your papa comes home on Friday,” I said. She clapped her hands and laughed.
Patricia, walking by, barked out, “Get back to slicing apples. I have orders to fill”.
But I saw her softened face as she left us in her wake. I set about peeling, coring, and slicing twenty pounds of apples.
Friday morning I got up, having made it through the week, excited to have been at the larger bakery in Rambouillet but knowing I’d be back in the village for a few days t
he next week. And we were baking at school soon! Breads, the backbone of every Western culture, especially French.
I glanced at my new French Bible, sitting patiently on my kitchen table. “I’m sorry, Lord,” I said. “I don’t know how I have the best of intentions on Sunday and then the whole week gets away from me”.
I determined to figure something out for accountability.
I stood near the table, quickly checking my e-mail before leaving the house. There was one from my mom, home from Italy, describing their new house and asking if I’d be home for Christmas.
No, I thought. But I didn’t tell her yet. Frankly, I wasn’t sure where “home” was.
There was also an e-mail from Tanya.
I’m spending Thanksgiving with Steve and his family, she said. I think it’s getting serious. I already knew it was serious. I might be making chocolate leaves for her cake before another year passed.
And then there was an e-mail from Dan. My heart did a double beat.
The subject line said, “Hi, Lexi!” I sank into my chair to read the rest.
How are you? I’ve been really busy at work, and of course our softball season lasted all summer. I’ve thought about you quite a bit, but not knowing how things were going for you, felt like I didn’t want to interrupt. I walked by Blue C the other day and thought of our sushi date. I was going to go in, but then I thought, nah. No one to give me a refresher course on how to use the chopsticks. Maybe if you come back, we’ll go again.
Anyway, I am going to be flying through Paris in November. I think I mentioned that my sister is doing a year abroad in Belgium. Well, she fell in love with a Belgian guy, and they are getting married there. I thought, if you have the time, maybe we can meet up and you can show me the sights? You’re probably an old hand by now. If you don’t have time, or have found your own Belgian guy, don’t worry about it.
Talk with you soon.
Yours,
Dan
I still felt something. As much as I’d thought I wanted those feelings to be passé, they were not—and I wasn’t sure I wanted them to be. I wished I didn’t still feel his hand over mine at Blue C as I showed him how to work the chopsticks, but I did.
I took a deep breath and shut down my laptop. Then I ran to the train so I wouldn’t be late for school.
Once there, I kept my mind on my work as best I could.
Anne leaned over to me. “Everything okay?”
I was surprised, since she hadn’t initiated conversation before. She moved over to work more closely, which was fine, since Désirée was chatting up Monsieur Desfreres.
“Yes,” I said. Not at all, I thought.
She made light conversation throughout the day, and I tried to respond, wondering if this was a change in our relationship and if I understood what was happening in any of my relationships. Or within myself. I was glad it wasn’t a day to work with chocolate, because I was sure anything I touched would have seized.
After the distracting day at school, I walked to the bakery. I tied on my apron and went into the back. Patricia showed me a barrel of apples and told me that I should peel, core, and slice them.
“Philippe is here,” she mentioned, tossing her head toward the office. I saw the light on, and Philippe talking with an older man. Her tone was casual, but the look in her eyes was intense. I glanced from Philippe to the older man.
“My papa,” Patricia said, answering my unspoken question.
The patron—the big boss, Monsieur Delacroix.
I got to work, and a few minutes later, Philippe and his father came out of the office. They headed straight toward me.
Phillipe smiled, friendly and encouraging. “Lexi, this is my father, Monsieur Delacroix”.
Monsieur Delacroix held out his hand, and I shook it. “Pleased to meet you,” I said. “Thank you for allowing me to come and study, and to go to school”.
“Certainly. Luc’s idea,” he said. “Time will tell if it was a good one or not”. He wasn’t rude when he said it, just matter of fact, like his sister, Maman.
I turned back to slicing apples, and he walked up front with Philippe. Soon, I heard him leave the bakery, and the atmosphere felt like it’d exhaled a collective breath.
Philippe came back to the prep room holding a shrunken apple head. “Is this the kind of thing you sell in America?”
I laughed. “No, it was for Céline”.
He smiled. “I know”. Then he held something out in his hand. I saw Patricia peeking her head around the corner. “I picked these up—I hope it’s okay. You’ve been so kind to Céline, I wanted to return your kindness. Can you go?”
I took them in my hands and accepted his offer, which brought a big smile to his face and a blush to my cheeks. He was even more attractive when he smiled.
I spent the rest of the day wondering if the invitation was only to pay me back for my kindness to Céline, and if it mattered to me either way.
Five
There are people in the world so hungry that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.
Mahatma Gandhi
I recognized the car when it pulled into Maman’s circular drive. I’d been watching out the window and suddenly felt anxious when I saw Philippe get out and open the gate before driving in. Why I was nervous to visit a museum with two new friends who I’d already seen in church today, I didn’t know.
Before I stepped back from the window, I looked up at the big house. It was barely perceptible, but I saw it. A lace curtain was drawn slightly aside to view the driveway, then dropped back into place.
Both Céline and Philippe came up to the door to greet me. “Can we come in?” Céline asked. Her father shushed her.
“Sure,” I said.
“I want to see if it’s any different from when Dominique was here. Dominique is my cousin, you know”.
“I know,” I said. I let them in, glad that I’d tidied up a little.
Céline ran into the living room and plopped herself down on one of the chairs. Philippe pointed at the chalkboard hanging on my kitchen wall. “I recognize that,” he said.
“Yes, it’s from your bakery”.
“My father’s bakery,” he corrected. I nodded, picking up the barb in his tone.
“Yes, your father’s bakery,” I agreed. “It was in the garbage in the back, and I pulled it out and asked Patricia if I could keep it”.
He smiled and read what I’d chalked in.
“No baguette?” Philippe asked.
“Non,” I answered, not explaining. Friend or no, some things a girl kept to herself.
“Jean 3?”
“Since the pastor’s teaching through the book of John at church, I’m reading along”.
“Ah,” Philippe said. “Menu for the body and the soul”.
I nodded.
“Bon,” Céline said, apparently satisfied I hadn’t changed too much. “Let’s go”. She looked at the board. “Chouquettes?”
“I’m practicing at home. Next week I leave them behind to make macarons and petits fours,” I said.
“Mmm,” Céline said as we left the house. Philippe opened the back door of his car for her, then opened the passenger door for me before walking around to his own side.
Before he could get in the car, Céline said, “Odette calls you a chouquette”.
“Oh,” I said. “That’s nice”. She must really think I made them well.
“No, it’s not,” Céline insisted.
“Why not?”
“If you call someone a chouquette, it’s because they think you have nothing up here”. Céline tapped her head.
Still Odious.
Philippe carefully pulled out of the driveway and drove in a restrained manner all the way to Paris. I was amazed. Luc had told me all Frenchmen drove like crazy people.
The three of us chatted along the way, uncomfortably at first, circling like birds around topics but never landing, then becoming more relaxed. After forty-five minutes, we pulled into a
parking lot near a bridge over the Seine River.
Philippe opened my door and Céline’s. We walked up the stone stairs from the water’s edge to the busy street above and stopped across from the entrance. As soon as we reached the top, I gazed at the Musée d’Orsay. Various families and street artists were scattered about the grounds like confetti, some sitting, some standing, several eating a quick meal from a cart.
I love impressionist art. I like the idea that the borders are blurry, and that everything in life isn’t as crisp and clear as we think it should be. This, to me, was the most important place I wanted to visit in Paris.
“Coming?” Philippe asked, ready to cross the street.
I grinned. “Mais oui!”
As it was early autumn, the lines weren’t too long, but as it was Sunday, there was a small crowd. We stood in the queue, chatting while we waited to get in.
“Have you ever been here?” I asked Céline.
“But of course!” she said. “I think it’s boring”.
Philippe looked at her. “You won’t when you’re older”.
“I’m glad you came,” I told her, and she smiled, happy to be wanted. She reached for my hand and put her small one inside of it. We talked about art and artists. Once inside we wandered the long marble halls full of artwork. I looked up at the glass ceiling, light tumbling through the panes of glass like water, splashing on the tiles and the artwork below. Bleached white sculptures, flat and unglazed, commanded the floor—a woman on horseback, hair trailing behind her like the horse’s tail; a bronze, headless man, muscles flexing. I felt his energy.
We headed toward the first floor. Intense art students squatted and sat on the floor, hair in their eyes, lead in their hands, deep in thought as they sketched page after page, imitating the masters.
“Do you want to see my favorites?” asked Philippe.
“Of course!”
We walked up another floor till we reached the pointillists.
“When you step away from the paintings, you see nothing but blend, like any other impressionist,” Philippe said. “But when you get closer, you can see there are actually no brush strokes at all. Only tiny dots. They blur in the eye from a distance”.
