“Just over in Beaverton. It’ll be quick. She gets out in fifteen minutes—we’ll just make it.”
“Okay,” I said, but truly the only thing I could think of was my bed, and how nice it would be to be sleeping in it.
Twenty minutes later, we pulled up to Chloé’s class, where other tween girls waited outside, dressed in leotards, tights, and wraparound skirts.
Chloé waved enthusiastically when she saw me in the passenger’s seat. She bounded to the car and leaped inside. “Aunt Juliette! You’re home!”
I grinned. “I am! I missed you.” And I did—it was worth skipping my bed if it meant seeing my niece’s bright, crooked smile. “Are you glad school’s out?”
“Yes,” Chloé huffed, “but I think I’ll be just as busy this summer. Mom signed me up for all kinds of camps and classes.”
“Which you asked for,” Sophie pointed out.
“They all sounded cool,” Chloé admitted.
Sophie and I exchanged glances.
“I think you’ll have fun,” I told my niece.
“I hope so,” Chloé replied happily. “How was your trip? How was Neil?” she specified without pause.
“Who told you Neil was there?” Sophie asked her daughter.
Chloé shrugged. “Uncle Nico said so. He said Zio Ciro told him that they hope you marry Neil and move to Italy. You don’t want to move to Italy, do you?”
“Not anytime soon, don’t worry,” I assured her.
On one hand, I knew Neil had made a good impression with the Italian family, but I didn’t know it was that good. And on the other—Nico had no business telling our niece about my romantic life.
Sure, Caterina promised to keep quiet about Neil joining me on my trip, but even snipping one branch, the rest of the family grapevine seemed to function at high capacity.
“Neil is good,” I answered at last. “We had a lot of fun in Paris, and visiting with Grand-tante Cécile and Cousin Sandrine.”
“How is Cécile getting on?” Sophie asked.
“She’s good. Mentally not always in the present, but well in body and spirit. She looks a lot like Grand-mère.”
“And Neil liked Provence?” Chloé asked.
“He did. It worked out well for Auguste, to have an extra man in the house for chores.”
“Did you do anything romantic in Paris?”
“Chloé! That’s too personal,” Sophie chastised. “Apologize.”
“Sorry,” she mumbled.
“We had a nice time.” I looked at her over my shoulder. “We visited Ladurée…What are you doing?”
“Changing,” Chloé answered as she shimmied into a T-shirt and out of her leotard. “I’ve got a game.”
“When,” I asked, though my intuition told me I already knew the answer, “is this game?”
“I don’t know, like, now? Or fifteen minutes?”
I turned to my sister. “You’re taking me hostage. I’m never going home, am I?”
“Stop being so dramatic.”
“I get dramatic when I haven’t slept in twenty-four hours.”
“You haven’t slept in twenty-four hours?” Chloé poked her head near mine. “That’s cool.”
“It’s only cool when you’re in college.”
“It’s not cool in high school?”
“You’re growing in high school, so you actually need the sleep. College is that sweet spot when you’ve stopped growing and your energy’s still high.”
“Huh. Will you come watch my game anyway? We brought the good juice boxes.”
“Well,” I said, taking a deep breath, “as long as it’s the good juice boxes.” I picked up my phone to text Clementine about the change of plans, but my phone had gone black and refused to revive.
No phone and headed to a middle school girls’ soccer game? I was living on the edge.
I spent the game on the sidelines, cheering with the rest of the soccer parents. I gave high-fives and may have yelled something at the ref about his unflattering socks.
My inhibitions were somewhere around nonexistent, but the excessive cheering must have paid off. Chloé’s team won handily.
“We’re going to frozen yogurt to celebrate!” Chloé announced breathily once she jogged off the field. “Can you come, Aunt Juliette?”
“Aunt Juliette’s very tired,” Sophie said. “I’m going to talk to Grace’s mom and see if she can give you a ride home.”
Chloé nodded and shrugged, trying to be a good sport but clearly disappointed.
“In for a penny, in for a pound,” I said. “Let’s go. I could use some dairy.”
My flight had landed at 3:14, but Sophie’s car didn’t pull up to my apartment until just after seven.
“It looks like Nico’s upstairs,” Sophie commented as she shifted her car into park. “We’ll come up and say hello.”
“Sure,” I said, reaching for my purse. Nico might have been waiting for me—or he might have been hanging out with Clementine, my pastry chef roommate, under the pretext of waiting for me.
I’d find out soon enough.
“You know you’re welcome to come back to our place for dinner, right?”
“Eh, I’m here,” I said. “If worse comes to worse, I’ll order pizza or something. I think I had a frozen entrée from Trader Joe’s in the freezer. I won’t waste away.”
Sophie hauled my suitcase upstairs, while Chloé slung my carry-on satchel over her shoulder.
I rapped on the door before turning the handle and stepping inside. “Hi,” I called out. “I’m back.”
A skitter of toenails over the floors, and Gigi was at my feet, trying to decide if she wanted to jump on my legs first or roll over for a belly rub. The belly rub won out. “It’s official, then, is it?” I asked, kneeling down. “You chew my shoes, I rub your belly—it must be love.” I used to think I wasn’t a dog person, but that was before Grand-mère passed and Gigi had, eventually, come home with me.
“Did Sophie kidnap you?” Nico called from the dining room.
“I heard that,” Sophie yelled back.
“I kidnapped her!” Chloé declared with pride. “I kidnapped her to watch my soccer game. It was all my fault.”
“Okay, everybody freeze,” Nico said, which made no sense until I’d put my things down and rounded the bend to view the dining room table.
Nico, Clementine, and Adrian, the sous-chef, sat around the sturdy French oak table, heads bowed over Bananagram tiles.
“Um…hi?” I said.
Clementine stood first. “We’re frozen. Adrian—hand off that tile.”
“I was just moving it away from the edge of the table.”
She shot him a glare that would crystalize Jell-O. “Frozen.” She turned to me. “Hey! I tried to call you. Your phone die?”
“It did. Long flight and all that.” I gave her a hug.
“I imagine it buckled under the weight of all those text messages from Neil.”
I blushed. “That too.” I turned to wave clumsily at the other party in the room. “Hi, Adrian.”
“Good to see you,” he said, standing. He was a good-looking guy, no getting around it. His hair alone made him notable, with its black curls, never mind the tan and the eyes. But the trouble was that he knew it.
When we’d first met—right around the time Nico hired him as sous, he’d attempted to flirt with me. At the time, I hadn’t been at all interested. Not only had his level of flirtation been off-putting, but having dated another one of Nico’s sous-chefs, Éric, I had no intention of repeating that life experience.
I was with Neil now, of course, but still felt a lingering awkwardness around Adrian. “Nice trip?” Adrian asked.
“It was,” I said. “Really nice. Ready to get back to work though.”
Over my shoulder I could tell that Sophie and Nico had greeted each other, argued, argued more, and were wrapping up to say a companionable farewell.
“Thanks, Soph, for the ride home,” I said, stepping forward
to give her a hug. “And thanks, Miss Chloé, for letting me come to your game.”
Nico snorted, but an elbow to the ribs ended it soon enough.
“I’m happy to stay, Juliette, if you need any help unpacking,” Sophie offered.
The image of Grand-mère’s letters tucked in my suitcase flashed before my eyes. “That’s sweet of you, but no—you guys go home and get dinner. I’ll be okay. See you guys for dinner on Sunday?”
“Dinner on Sunday,” Sophie echoed, and with a last round of hugs they tramped back down to the car.
A cook is creative, marrying ingredients in the way a poet marries words.
—ROGER VERGE
I turned back to the strange tableau before me. “So…game night?”
“Adrian and I were out looking at kitchen equipment. I came over to welcome you back and Adrian here tagged along,” Nico said. “But Clementine said you weren’t here yet. After an hour, I called Alex to find out that Sophie was picking you up.” He sat back down in his chair and leaned back, balancing the chair on the back two legs. “I knew I wasn’t going to see you for a while.”
I groaned and rubbed my eyes. “I love my niece and I’m glad to have had time with her, but holy mother, I’m tired. And starving—frozen yogurt doesn’t stay with you, you know?”
Clementine put her hands on her hips. “Let’s find you something to eat. You probably don’t want caffeine at this time of night.”
I waved her concern away and walked toward the coffee machine. “Nah, caffeine just bounces off me. One of the benefits of my genetic material. I’ll make an espresso.”
Clementine shook her head. “You sit down. I’ll make it.”
“Thanks. I should raid the fridge, though. I haven’t eaten anything but airplane food or frozen yogurt since…yesterday. I’ll make toast or something. There’s always toast.”
“You know what I think is funny?” Clementine asked. “How little chefs cook in their down time.”
Nico flailed his hands. “We cook all day—why should we cook all night?”
I filled a glass with tap water. “Éric cooked for me,” I said, feeling brave and more than a little pleased with myself. After six years of silence, I wasn’t going to hide my relationship with Éric any longer.
“Éric?” Adrian asked.
Nico shook his head. “My sous-chef at L’uccello Blu. Talented guy, beautiful plates. And my sister dated him. Never told me.”
“I told you,” I said. “I told you weeks ago. What you haven’t told me is why you’re playing Bananagrams at my kitchen table.”
“When was all this with Éric?” Clementine asked after the coffee grinder ground to a halt. “You don’t mean Éric Tovati?”
I nodded. “It was a long time ago.”
“They dated for a year,” Nico muttered bitterly.
Clementine gave an approving nod. “You’re one for secrets. Good job. I met Éric a long time ago—he was hot. Talented, but, you know…”
I was so tired I couldn’t stifle my giggle as I opened the freezer. “I know. I was young, it was fun. Hey, look—chicken tikka masala. Score.”
“Now that’s just sad.” Adrian stood, crossed the room, and shut the freezer door. “You can’t come back from Italy and eat freezer food. Sit.”
“I’m fine,” I protested. “I ate Picard’s in France—leave it to the French to know how to freeze food better than the rest of the world.”
Adrian shook his head at Nico. “I can’t believe you’d let your sister eat a frozen entrée after all that.”
“I cleaned her oven. She’s in good shape,” Nico answered, unperturbed.
I frowned. “You cleaned my oven?”
“They were just sitting around, waiting for you,” said Clementine. “So I put them to work.”
In my peripheral vision I could see Adrian pulling eggs, cheese, and vegetables from my refrigerator. “How did that go?”
“Gigi got a walk, and the oven’s spotless.”
“Good work,” I said. I glanced from Nico to Clementine. My brother had it bad if he was willing to be talked into cleaning an oven that wouldn’t be inspected by health services. “Caterina will be disappointed, though. She was looking forward to scrubbing out the oven.”
Nico lifted his eyes to the heavens. “How did I wind up with you and Caterina for sisters?”
“I’m so sorry,” I drawled, then turned back to Clementine. “So you figured after all that labor, they deserved a little fun?”
“Bananagrams, fun for young and old,” she said. “And it’s the one game I could find.”
“Makes perfect sense,” I said. “I’m going to plug my phone in so Neil doesn’t think I died.”
I took the opportunity to drag my luggage to my room and remove the spoils. I threw them all into a tote and carried them back to the dining room. “We can have a tasting party, if you like. I brought these back mostly for restaurant purposes, but y’all are here, so…”
“Y’all? Neil really is rubbing off on you,” Clementine teased.
I shrugged. “It’s a good word. You should try the honey and see what you think. It’s the one that’s made at the family chateau.”
“Have a seat,” Adrian ordered. “Your food’s done.”
I obeyed, and Adrian slid the plate in front of me. “That looks really, really good,” I told him. “Thank you.” He’d made an omelet, and a bite revealed ham, gruyère, and bright green spears of asparagus. A small green salad rested next to it, as well as a piece of baguette he’d found somewhere. “This makes it nice to come home.”
Clementine set a cup of coffee near my plate and sat back down by her game tiles. “But you had a good time, though?”
“Yeah.” I realized as I said it that I’d had a wonderful time, but now that I was back in my kitchen, with the people in my life, the time with Neil seemed like a dream. A strange, wonderful, but fleeting dream. “I took lots of pictures. I promise I’ll be chattier about it once I’ve eaten.”
“And slept,” she added. “All right, you guys. Let’s play!”
They were off. It took five minutes and several non sequitur exclamations until Clementine won the game, just as she’d said she would.
“I won, I won,” she chanted. “I won, and now I’m going to taste the honey as a victory lap.”
“You were lucky,” Nico griped. “I picked up two q’s in the last thirty seconds.”
Clementine shrugged and grinned.
Adrian rolled his eyes, then pointed at my plate. “You’re done?”
I glanced down. The plate was completely empty. “I don’t really remember eating all of that.”
He stood, removed the plate, and placed it into the dishwasher. “That means you were hungry.”
I sipped at the espresso and sighed. “The English have their tea—but this is the drink of my people.”
“Did you sleep during your flight?” Nico asked.
“No, not really. Partly because the in-flight movie was the Wes Anderson movie I’d been wanting to see but never found time for.” And partly because I’d been too busy missing Neil to be able to settle. Though now I had no doubt that I could sleep for a week solid. On that note…
“I think I’m going to go to bed,” I said, yawning for punctuation’s sake.
Clementine tilted her head. “You just drank an espresso.”
I waved a hand. “It’ll help me walk in a straight line to my bed. Otherwise, you would’ve had to carry me. I’ll see you all sometime tomorrow, I’m sure. Night, all.”
Gigi trotted alongside my heels. Together we traveled down the hallway to my most anticipated destination: bed.
I had hopes and dreams of sleeping for two weeks straight, but the date and time on my phone informed me that I’d only made it for six hours.
Quel bummer.
I got up and slipped into my lounge clothes. Gigi looked up at me from the bed, clearly perplexed over why I would get up while it was still dark outside.
I
flipped on the bedroom lights before opening up my suitcase. If I couldn’t sleep, I could at least make a dent in my unpacking. I threw clothes into piles before finally—and most importantly—unpacking Grand-mère’s letters.
My mind wandered as I cleared a desk drawer out for the letters. I remembered the door at the chateau I couldn’t open, and the memory of a key in the prep table.
No time like the present. I tiptoed into the kitchen, turning on as few lights as possible. It felt familiar, digging through the table late at night. What was it about this table that it didn’t want to reveal its secrets in the light of day?
Only a moment’s worth of digging revealed the key I’d remembered. I turned it in my fingers—it certainly looked like the sort of key that would have opened that door.
What I wanted was to get on a plane, fly back to Provence, and try the lock myself. The more practical and affordable solution, though, would be to put the key into an envelope and mail it to Sandrine.
I brewed up a quick mug of tea before returning to my room. Gigi lifted her head in acknowledgment, watching as I settled into my chair with my laptop. After a moment’s consideration she leaped off the bed and onto my lap, snuggling close as I pulled up the photo files. Now that I was back, I considered the logic of printing the copies. As much as I wanted to touch and handle the original letters, I didn’t dare risk any damage—my link to Grand-mère’s past was tenuous enough.
“If she’d told you anything, you’d tell me, right?” I asked Gigi, scratching her ears. Gigi looked up at me and blinked. I nodded. “Thought so.”
I continued to pet Gigi’s soft white fur as I began reading the first letter.
August 16, 1938
Dearest Cécile,
Bonjour from Paris! I am fully moved into Tante Joséphine’s pied-à-terre. Her housekeeper, Madame Giroux, is very kind, though I have my doubts about the cook. I am glad to be settled because the pastry school begins on Monday.
Anouk is contented here; Tante Joséphine has taken to her well (it helps that she does not shed); my only hope is that Tante Joséphine does not slip her too many treats, which may upset Anouk’s stomach. We have taken a few walks out in the neighborhood and have found it to be very pleasant. I believe we will be very contented.
Reservations for Two Page 8
