He pursed his lips and I could tell he wasn’t as excited as I was. “How about a couple of steaks? You know I don’t go in for fancy food.”
“At least give it a try. Besides, it’s my cooking. Doesn’t that mean something? I’m making some pastries for dessert, too.”
He gave me a meaningful look. “Can’t I taste you instead?”
I tried to smile without biting off my tongue, but his comment made me squirm.
“My parents are leaving earlier than planned, a matinee or something. Got the wrong tickets so they’ll be home sooner.”
“We don’t need Josh then. Call me when they get back and I’ll come over, okay?”
“Man, then we can’t—you know.”
“It’s better for you,” I told him lightly, even though we’d talked about this a hundred times and the topic was getting old. “Teaches you patience and fortitude.”
“But I don’t want to learn patience,” he said, leaning into me. “I want you.”
Okay, call me a wimp because I couldn’t help it. I was a sucker for his smooth words.
My cell phone rings before Jean-Paul gets back from paying the bill, and my heart jumps strangely inside my chest. It’s Mathew. At last. After playing phone tag for two days and listening to his infuriating voice message, he’s finally calling.
“Hey,” I say, feeling cautious.
“Hey, Chloe, how’s it going?” It’s Mathew speaking back at me, and it feels very strange to hear his voice. So familiar, and yet so distant, too. Crazy déjà-vu crashes over me as the memories of that horrible last night in New York hit me. I feel as though I’m living The Worst Night of My Life all over again. I didn’t think it would still feel so fresh, but I’d been stabbed in the back by my best friend—my boyfriend.
During this trip to Paris, I kept stuffing that night into a dark corner of my mind, but after a day at Jean-Paul’s shop, baking delicacies with his mother, going to the hospital, jumping out of a taxi, sightseeing with Jean-Paul, and talking with him in the private solitude of the Opera House, I feel as though I’ve lived another life already.
I wish I could erase all the old memories. Get rid of my old life. I don’t think I want that life any longer. Mathew and I have been together a long time and we’ve talked almost daily while I’ve been on this trip, but it suddenly feels as though I hardly know him. There are so many secrets between us.
“My mom told me you’re lost over there,” Mathew tells me, “But you don’t sound lost.”
“I missed my tour bus so I’m still in Paris, but I’m totally fine.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I’m perfect.” I back up, trying not to sound so eager. “I mean, everything is going to be okay. In fact, I can get a taxi all by myself and get to the airport in the morning. And—I’ve already been in touch with the tour people,” I add, thinking about Gerald Polk. “So it’s all good. I’ll be home at the originally scheduled time tomorrow.”
“Well, that sounds easy. I had the impression it was more of a crisis.”
It is, I think to myself. I’m having a crisis of my soul. “The story probably got bigger by the time you heard it, especially since I sprained my ankle a little.”
“Can you walk or do you have a cast?”
“It’s just twisted, but I’m being careful. And then I get to rest it on the airplane,” I say, laughing stupidly like I’ve just made a joke.
There’s a moment of silence and I see Jean-Paul returning. He smiles when he sees me watching him and I smile back, trying to keep the grin from spilling all over my face and exploding into the air and across the sidewalks and drifting into the flower boxes, but I don’t think I’m very successful.
“You working today?” I casually ask as Jean-Paul slides back into his chair across from me.
“Uh, yeah. I guess my mom told you.”
“Your voice message told me more,” I bite back. I can’t help it. I still feel ticked off.
“I haven’t had a chance to tell you about the musical, Chloe,” he says and the whine in his voice irritates me. “I just heard about it myself last night.”
I feel like a robot, trying to let it wash over me, fighting to stay neutral and calm. “I understand.”
“Hell, don’t get mad about that!”
I hate it when he cusses at me. “Is there something else I should be mad at—that I’m not already upset about? Maybe we should clarify your statement.”
“Cut it out, Chloe. I can’t take it today.”
My smile freezes on my lips as every bone in my body wants to explode.
Jean-Paul lifts an eyebrow. “You okay?” he mouths to me.
I nod my head tightly, but get up from my chair and walk to the corner, not wanting Jean-Paul to overhear. “You can’t take it, Mathew?” I whisper fiercely into the phone. “What about me?”
“I don’t want to fight, okay?” He sounds resigned. “Let’s save it for when you get home tomorrow. That’s when we’re supposed to talk, remember?”
I take a breath, struggling for control. “How can I forget?”
I don’t want this conversation to spoil my last hours here in Paris, and it’s starting to. I just wish Mathew would be upfront with me. He keeps denying that anything is going on with Parvati. Even if there isn’t, she’s still poisoning our relationship—and he does nothing to stop it.
We say a tentative goodbye and I hang up, staring out at the busy Champs Elysées, feeling the heat of the road, the breeze of congested traffic blowing past my face. Mathew and I are not going the direction I want to be going. His plans became my plans by default. But what if I want to be a foreign exchange student? What if I want to go to a different college, and have roommates and make new friends?
Even if I never see Jean-Paul again, meeting him has made me realize for the first time that there might be somebody else besides Mathew out there waiting for me—maybe even my soul mate. I’m not sure I could call Mathew a soul mate. Maybe a soul fling—or a date for Prom. It’s painful to grasp that we don’t have much else going for us, except choir and the familiarity of Eleanor Roosevelt High. And even then he’s the singer, not me.
Shame creeps up my neck. I looked good on Mathew’s arm, and I liked the status of acquiring the gorgeous guy from Texas. Now that really shows a lot of character on my part! It’s taken me awhile to wake up and see what’s going on in my very own life. It’s painful to think that I could be so stupid and shallow, but it’s time to start being honest with myself.
Of course, Mathew still denies anything happened with Parvati, even when he was caught red-handed. He assures me everything is great, we’re good, quit being so suspicious. His voice repeats the same old words, and I’ve spent weeks trying to get myself to believe them.
Whatever. I’m starting to get bored.
Once Sera admonished me, “Follow your instincts. Instincts are usually right.”
My heart, my gut, my head—maybe it’s all the same thing.
“Keep your eye on the ball,” my dad’s voice whispers in my ear. I think it means the same thing. He was telling me to figure out my own dreams. Figure them out, keep my integrity, do what I want to do—and then go for it.
“Are you okay?” Jean-Paul asks when I return to the table.
“I think so,” I say, giving a small laugh. “But I’m not really sure.”
I watch him turn off his cell phone. He must have just made a call himself—or received one.
“What’s up?” I ask, dying of curiosity.
“Just Mireille.”
Oh. I wait to see his reaction. I’m not sure if this is good news or bad news. Especially after what he told me earlier about their relationship.
“This morning she told Maman that she has decided to quit working at the shop.”
“But it’s only for a day or two a week.”
He shrugs. “Mireille has been offered a position to help her uncle at the university as an assistant for the summer. It’s perfect and will give h
er good experience. Maman told her she didn’t have to make a fast decision, to keep both jobs if she wanted to since the assistant position doesn’t pay much, but Mireille is adamant. I guess you could call her strong-minded.”
I can’t help thinking that Mireille is keeping her eye on the ball. Maybe I need to follow her example.
Thirteen Days Earlier
Tonight was the night of my big dinner date with Mathew and my hands shook as I cut the shortening into the sifted flour. In a few minutes I had created a light, delicate pastry for rolling out on the floured counter. I stuffed the puff pastries with spiced chicken, then finished kneading a ball of bread dough to get it rising. I ran to the corner vegetable market to grab a crate of strawberries to make fruit tarts. The biggest of the berries I set aside to dip in melted chocolate for after dinner. Last of all, I grabbed one of my mom’s good tablecloths, and a couple of scented candles.
“It looks gorgeous,” Sera said when she arrived to inspect the menu and taste-test. “These puff pastries are delicious.”
“You do seem to have a knack, Chloe,” Mom told me as she slipped a Beethoven CD into her player. Beethoven is manuscript revision music. The great master inspired my mother to even greater prose.
“Think Mathew will like them as much as steaks?”
“If he doesn’t adore this dinner,” Sera said, “Then he’s a bigger idiot than even I give him credit for.”
“That’s a backhanded compliment.”
Sera smiled serenely.
At seven o’clock I rang the doorbell to Mathew’s apartment.
I couldn’t wait to see his face when he saw the gorgeous spread I’d created. It had taken all day, in between folding laundry and packing for my trip to France.
A tickle of danger sat in my stomach, wondering if he was going to be all over me tonight, but I figured I’d just get him out of the apartment if things got out of control and he started trying to undress me. I could have self-control for both of us.
I rang the doorbell a second time. Where was he? My whole day sat in the box in my arms. If I had to wait much longer, the chicken pastries would be cold and the chocolate strawberries would melt.
The apartment door suddenly opened. Mathew leaned against the doorjamb in his 501 jeans and a T-shirt. He hadn’t even changed from work yet. But I could smell cologne, so maybe he’d already showered.
“Chloe—what are you doing here?”
“I know I’m early, but the food was ready and I decided not to wait until you called me when your parents arrived. So here I am! Surprise!”
“Surprise?” he repeated the word as though he’d forgotten the definition.
“Let me in, silly. I brought dinner and presents—Happy nine-month Anniversary!”
“Um, let me get my shoes, and we’ll go somewhere,” he whispered as though he hadn’t heard a word I just said. “I’ll be right back.”
Then Mathew shut the door.
In disbelief, I stared at the numbers on the apartment door. He closed the door on me. Before Mathew could lock the door—or run out the window—I turned the knob and walked in on my own. I felt like I was on automatic pilot, my feet going forward without taking time to think things through.
My heart slammed against my ribs. Something wasn’t right and I could feel it in my gut. I had the strange sensation that I was walking through a mine field, and a bomb was about to explode.
Still holding the box of food, I moved through the foyer, past the empty dining room, and into the family room.
A rush of heat rose from my toenails to my skull.
Parvati was sitting on the couch. And she was hurriedly fastening up the buttons on her blouse, which hung half open, revealing a lot of cleavage. She was also wearing a tight, short skirt with bare legs and high heels. The girl was dressed to kill.
But Mathew was the one who was dead meat.
“I’ve just decided,” Jean-Paul tells me. “That we need to celebrate.”
“Celebrate what?”
“Mireille’s great new job.”
“Seems like she should be here to celebrate.”
He shakes his head. “We can celebrate anything anytime, Chloe.”
“But you already paid the bill.”
He gives me a sly grin. “They can start a new one.” He motions to the waiter and orders a giant chocolate éclair for us to share. It comes on a heavy stoneware plate with swirls of chocolate and raspberry confection along the white doily—and a mountain of whipped cream. He watches me take a bite, then picks up his fork, holding back a laugh.
Under the café table, I kick his shin. “Have I got something on my face?”
“Whipped cream,” he says, then sticks a glob from his spoon onto my nose.
“Hey, what was that for?”
“A new celebration.”
I grab my napkin. “For what, may I ask?”
“I just realized that it’s almost been thirty-six hours since falling in my store and ruining a whole box of perfectly good pastries. We should celebrate.”
“So you’re going to make me relive the whole embarrassing scene?”
“Bien sûr ,” he says with a wicked smile.
“I’ve got a better idea.”
“What’s that?”
I carefully dip my spoon into the mound of fluffiness, then pull back and let him have it. The rich cream splatters across his cheek, but he sits in his chair calm and unfazed, then wipes it off and licks his finger. “Pretty good, but not nearly as delicious as my whipped cream specialties. People come from miles all around just to buy from the Dupré La Patisserie.”
“Has conceit has always been one of your specialties, too?” I tease, even though he totally deserves to brag about his pastry shop.
We start flinging serious spoonfuls at each other. Jean-Paul soon has it in his hair, and I can feel a soft trickle sliding down my neck. An older couple at the next table laugh behind their napkins at us, but pretend they’re focusing on their own meal.
I’m blissfully forgetting about my conversation with Mathew when my phone rings again.
It’s my mother checking to make sure I won’t forget to set an alarm for at least five a.m. and get up on time to get a taxi.
“In fact, order a taxi tonight so you won’t have to wait,” she suggests in true Mom fashion.
“Mom, I know exactly how many hours I have left and what time I need to leave,” I tell her. I actually do not want to know these things. I don’t want to think about them. My unauthorized time in Paris is coming to an end and I want everyone to stop reminding me.
“Can’t I stay until next week?” I plead with her, jokingly, but my mother’s indignant scream can probably be heard clear up to 126th Avenue.
“I’ll lock myself in the bathroom until you get here,” she threatens with glee.
I don’t let her get away with it. “At least take your manuscript in with you and get your book done.”
“Since when did you turn into a taskmaster?” she says, but she knows I’m joking because she’s finally laughing. “Call me when you get to the airport, please, so I know you’re actually there and getting on.”
I make the promise and snap the phone closed, staring at it. I’m sure Sera is going to be next or my teacher, Madame Sauvant. Or Robert. Or maybe even Gerald Polk.
“You are popular,” Jean-Paul tells me.
I let out an evil laugh. “Not anymore. I’m going to pretend my life in New York doesn’t exist for the rest of this night.”
“Doesn’t matter, because you’re popular with me,” Jean-Paul says, and hands me a damp napkin for the last smudge of cream on my cheek. “And you cannot leave Paris without seeing the city from the top of the Eiffel Tower. To be a true Parisian, you must watch the day turn into night.”
“That sounds wonderful.”
“It is,” he agrees, and flings a bit of water from his glass at me. “You missed a spot.”
I gasp. “You will pay, French pastry boy. There’s no place
you can hide.” I oblige him with a shot from my glass, but it’s nearly empty and only a few drops splatter his chin and collar. Snapping my fingers, I pretend to call the waiter. “Garçon! Bring me a pitcher of your coldest water!”
Jean-Paul gives a mock bow. “Let’s get out of here before he actually shows up with it. You are a dangerous woman, Chloe.”
I love how he says my name. And calls me woman. So different from Mathew. My boyfriend’s connotation means only one thing, and it has always ticked me off.
The sun is dropping below the horizon, the sky turning a blue gray, and I feel a thrill of excitement. As it grows darker, lights begin to twinkle all over Paris. Old-fashioned corner streetlights flicker on one by one. Even traffic and buses and taxis have slowed. Side streets are emptying of everything but groups and couples looking for good restaurants to disappear into.
Paris is becoming a fairy tale city. I have the urge to stay up all night just so I can memorize it forever. Usually by now, the tour group was in our hotel rooms, talking and showering and comparing souvenirs, the chaperones ordering lights out.
Robert did bring the tour group to the Eiffel Tower on our first day, but we merely walked the brick square and gawked upward. The tower rises elegantly from the center of the city and Robert told us it was spectacular to go to the top at night when all the lights come on, but of course, we didn’t have time for that.
When Jean-Paul and I arrive, the Eiffel Tower Square is still milling with perpetual tourists. And then there’s us. Jean-Paul, a true Parisian and me—a wannabe. We purchase food from vendor carts for dinner; melted cheese sandwiches and slushy drinks and warm beignets. I never get tired of them, but Madame Dupré’s are the best. Then we wander the square and the lawns and eventually find an empty bench to finish eating and watch the line of people climbing the stairs to the top of the tower.
After that we stand in line to get tickets to the elevator. The man in the ticket booth tells us that from ticket to top takes about two hours because the crowds are huge tonight. Looks like a few tour buses arrived just before we did.
Just as we’re squishing ourselves into the elevator, and right before the doors close, Gerald Polk appears in my vision, two feet away, and swiftly enters before I can so much as blink. A cry of surprise and dismay drowns in my throat. Jean-Paul’s hand grips my arm, pulling me closer to him. Gerald stands facing the elevator crowd, smiling at us with a hard look in his eyes.
Paris Cravings: A Paris & Pastry Novel Page 15
