Freedom Fries and Cafe Creme

by Jocelyne Rapinac

  ‘Yes, he was. Well, you see, I’ve been suspicious for a while. He finally confessed. You and I should have a serious conversation. Good thing that I have a quick mind to think things over,’ Mary-Whitney said with confidence and a wry smile.

  Hello, I am still here! I’d have liked to add. I could leave right now with my box of Coeurs Noirs, if I’m bothering you in any way!

  But it seemed impossible just to sneak out …

  Had Mary-Whitney even noticed me? I touched Anne-Sophie’s shoulder lightly.

  ‘Let me introduce you to my friend Jessica,’ she said, and I could hear just how edgy she was feeling.

  ‘Hello,’ I said.

  ‘Enchantée!’ Mary-Whitney answered vivaciously.

  Does she speak French, then?

  She started laughing loudly but I couldn’t understand why. What was funny? The situation suddenly seemed very bizarre. I was still dying to leave but I knew I couldn’t, having seen Anne-Sophie’s I am begging you to stay stare. I put the box of chocolates safely in my bag. I didn’t know exactly why, but it seemed like a good idea.

  Without appearing to be at all embarrassed by my presence, Mary-Whitney announced: ‘So, my Spaulding obviously has a crush on you, doesn’t he?’

  This sounded pretty direct to me.

  ‘And I don’t have much time to fight with you over him. I’ve got an important job, you know. Plus, I have four children, and a busy social life.’

  An embodiment of the multi-tasking superwoman of the new millennium, I thought. There were just so many of them. How did they find the time and energy to cope with all their tasks and responsibilities? Well, sometimes they possibly didn’t give enough attention to their husbands …

  Still smiling strangely, Mary-Whitney went on, ‘But Spaulding is my husband, and it’s a role I still believe he’s up to. I want him back. But …’ and she sighed ‘… it’s certainly not the first time that he’s been led astray by the power of feminine seduction.’

  So why don’t you take better care of your Spaulding and slow down the pace of your superwoman-of-the-new-millennium social life? I would have liked to ask her.

  ‘His last extramarital conquest was a beautiful, sensuous brunette with gorgeous curly hair. He met her at his karate class.’ Looking the speechless Anne-Sophie up and down, she added, ‘Strangely enough, the complete opposite of you.’

  Of you as well, by the way, I could have added.

  Anne-Sophie is tiny but she’s quite sexy and coquettish, with her blue eyes and her bobbed hair. I could see that, despite feeling very tense, she was trying to stay calm and polite, which demanded great effort. I didn’t know how long she could take it, though.

  ‘He wanted to have pasta every night!’ continued Mary-Whitney.

  ‘A drink, madam?’ asked the pretty waitress, appearing at our table.

  ‘Yes, a double Bourbon with ice, please!’ Mary-Whitney replied at once.

  ‘And for you, mesdames? More champagne?’

  ‘We’re fine right now, thanks,’ I said.

  ‘Pasta every night, you’re telling me?’ asked Anne-Sophie.

  Mary-Whitney started laughing loudly again. ‘Come on – pasta! Carbs are very bad for you, everybody knows that!’ she declared with conviction.

  I was so tired of people counting carbohydrates.

  ‘Everybody knows that you need some carbohydrates, like everything else,’ I offered, ‘but in moderation, of course …’

  Ignoring my remark, Mary-Whitney didn’t take her eyes off Anne-Sophie, who ventured, ‘I understand that you have a problem with Spaulding. Let me reassure you that I haven’t done anything … Believe me, I—’

  ‘Charming French accent, very charming, dear. Keep it, it’s lovely,’ Mary-Whitney interrupted. And she started laughing once again.

  Anne-Sophie preferred to keep silent. I knew how much she hated it when people told her that she had an accent, even if they found it charming. She had been trying to work on her American-English pronunciation, doing her utmost to obtain a ‘ch’wing-gummy’ American accent, as she called it. She hadn’t been too successful. But we Americans, don’t we just love the French accent? I know I do.

  While I was distracted by this thought, the strange scene continued to unfold before me.

  ‘I believe you, I believe you,’ Mary-Whitney was saying, with a new burst of laughter.

  This woman was truly dreadful!

  ‘Well, after losing interest in the Latina prima donna and her pasta – my Spaulding didn’t have much choice since she went back to her native Sicily – he started to wonder if he should buy a few Yves Saint Laurent or Karl Lagerfeld suits. Then he began learning French, this “extremely useful and beautiful language, which opens the door to the rich and fascinating culture of France”, as he put it. He watched a programme on PBS called French in Action, in which the main female character never wore a bra under her ample top, and she was quite busty. The French can be so lewd!’ And she laughed again.

  Anne-Sophie and I said nothing.

  ‘He was also talking about eating some bizarre food …’ Mary-Whitney took a little note from her pocket and, smiling in that odd way again, she read it out with a terrible accent: ‘Fwa graz, gojugere, paine deepice …’

  She threw the note on the table in disgust. I took it and read in silence.

  Foie gras, gougère, pain d’épices. Gougère and pain d’épices were my favourite Anne-Sophie recipes.

  I’m quite a Francophile but not a foie gras fan, since I know how the poor geese and ducks are brutally force-fed until their livers nearly burst.

  With a devilish smile, as if talking about French food had suddenly given her more confidence, Anne-Sophie took up the note and read the list of dishes out loud, with, of course, the proper accent.

  ‘Oh, excuse my French!’ Mary-Whitney blurted out.

  ‘Well, your husband is a colleague of mine with whom I’ve talked a lot about food …’

  Was Anne-Sophie going to make a confession after all?

  ‘Ah-ha! After la cucina italiana, calorific French cuisine! That’s even better!’ Mary-Whitney shouted a little too loudly. Some other customers – and they seemed to be more numerous now – turned to look at our table. They appeared to be interested in our little scene, particularly since the pianist, who might have provided a distraction, or at least drowned out Mary-Whitney’s voice, was away taking his break. I felt a little embarrassed.

  Could it be that even if Mary-Whitney was the embodiment of the multi-tasking superwoman, she was really quite distressed by the awkward situation Spaulding had put her in? Were the peculiar smile and laugh merely her way of externalising her distress?

  ‘You can easily figure out why he doesn’t want to eat my Sunday tofu casseroles any longer. These exotic Italian and French dishes are more appealing to him – my Spaulding, who most of the time never paid any attention to what he had on his plate before he met the Latina prima donna, and now you. It seems to me that he really admires you two because you can do wonders with food.’

  She stopped and inhaled deeply, as if needing oxygen to start up again, but then merely sat there, silent and pensive. She took a large gulp of her double Bourbon.

  Anne-Sophie and I stared vaguely out of the window, hoping that she would simply leave.

  ‘As if all that were so important. As long as what we eat is healthy!’

  ‘Health is important for sure, but …’

  But food also has to be appetising as well as attractive, as Anne-Sophie would have asserted. I could picture Mary-Whitney preparing her boring tofu casserole. I don’t like tofu at all, even if I’m American and live in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

  ‘You agree with me, though.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  She didn’t allow Anne-Sophie to finish.

  ‘Then my Spaulding started to talk about the amazing home-made pastries you sometimes brought to share with your colleagues. Anyway, he needs to be careful with sugar, you know.’ />
  Anne-Sophie and I were speechless. What next? Was Mary-Whitney going to sue Anne-Sophie because Spaulding’s health was declining thanks to too much sugar from her cakes?

  ‘Jessica?’ Anne-Sophie whispered imploringly.

  I knew that she needed some help here. Even if things had been smoothed over a little by the topic of food, I was still in a better state of mind than she, since I was just a spectator. I decided to do my best.

  I turned to the asparagus-shaped woman and said in a serious tone as if I meant it, ‘Mary-Whitney, why don’t you tell us what we can do for you? You seem to have something on your mind. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here, would you?’

  ‘You’re right.’ Mary-Whitney looked at me with gratitude. ‘I’m getting there.’

  She took a sip of her Bourbon. ‘Of course, Anne-Sophie, I wouldn’t need your help if you moved back to France. That’s what all the French do, once they’ve had enough of American food. Am I right?’ She punctuated her question with a burst of laughter.

  ‘Actually, I eat quite well here. There’s a wide choice of ingredients, and I cook at home most of the time.’

  ‘So no move back to your beloved France planned?’

  Anne-Sophie shook her head.

  ‘Not like the Latina prima donna going back to her native Sicily, then?’ Mary-Whitney pulled a sad face. No more horse-like laugh.

  ‘No.’

  Mary-Whitney seemed to be thinking. She had tried to warn off the little French lady, but that was clearly not going to work since the fault was all her Spaulding’s. When she spoke again, I realised that she’d decided to work with the situation.

  ‘Fine! What should I do now then? Have a French haircut, wear French clothes? Buy some healthy French food – if such a thing exists?’

  ‘Of course it exists,’ Anne-Sophie and I chimed in unison, both of us surely thinking about the fabulous French caterer that had opened the previous year in Central Square.

  ‘But no takeout food – you’ll have to cook yourself!’

  And hopefully far more interesting stuff than tofu casseroles! Oh, please!

  ‘But I don’t have time to cook! I work late almost every night!’

  Do you want to rescue your relationship or not? We’re giving you good advice here, so take it or leave it!

  The balance of power had shifted and now I was really starting to have some fun.

  ‘But I always buy healthy takeout food, most of it made from whole grains and veggies. That’s why we stay so thin in our family.’

  But you’re hardly the picture of health, I wanted to tell her, observing Mary-Whitney’s uneven sallow complexion.

  Mary-Whitney scrutinised Anne-Sophie’s figure suspiciously. ‘Look at you – even with all your scrumptious cooking, young French lady, you’re still quite slim.’

  Anne-Sophie smiled enigmatically once again, feeling a twinge of pride at being French.

  ‘The French don’t eat foie gras, meat and heavy dishes with sauce every day, you know,’ I couldn’t help telling Mary-Whitney.

  I was tired of hearing my fellow Americans say they didn’t understand how the French stayed so slim in spite of their rich, fatty diets. They didn’t eat rich, fatty food all the time; they consumed a lot of fruit and vegetables, and they didn’t eat constantly, either! But when they did, they sat down and ate slowly to appreciate what they had on their plates. I wanted to scream this vital piece of information at her, but managed to restrain myself.

  ‘Really?’ sighed Mary-Whitney.

  Mary-Whitney’s sighs had now taken the place of her strange smile and laugh. Since learning that Anne-Sophie intended to stay in Boston, Mary-Whitney’s fighting spirit appeared to have waned considerably, maybe because she knew she was really going to need help to save her marriage.

  ‘Then it’s … er, well, I’m sure you’ve heard of the French red wine paradox,’ Mary-Whitney ventured in a subdued voice.

  ‘Yes, there was a show on TV about it a few weeks ago. Pretty funny, actually, don’t you think?’ I said, looking at Anne-Sophie.

  Her brief fierce glance reminded me of a witch considering what kind of potion to prepare in order to poison the asparagus-shaped superwoman.

  Mary-Whitney continued, ‘Er, I don’t know. I worked in France for six months, tried their food, drank red wine every day at lunch and dinner, like them, and gained around twenty pounds. Of course, I lost it all when I came back, thanks to the Slender Quick diet, and if—’

  ‘It’s in the genes,’ Anne-Sophie declared, smiling. ‘It’s in the genes. And there’s nothing you can do about it!’

  ‘Of course! I don’t see any other explanation,’ Mary-Whitney agreed, letting out yet another big sigh.

  ‘There is a further explanation,’ I offered. ‘It’s not only genetic, it’s what is actually consumed, and how the eating rituals are followed, so it’s also cultural.’

  ‘Of course. It’s also cultural …’

  But Mary-Whitney would probably never change her lifestyle. And why should she? To get her Spaulding back? No, he was the one who simply needed to stop his childish behaviour. But if he was really unhappy with Mary-Whitney there was little to be done.

  However, the woman was a fighter.

  ‘I’m afraid that I need your help, Anne-Sophie. Can you teach me how to cook healthy French food? I could perhaps cook on the weekends.’

  I knew that at this point Anne-Sophie would have liked to shout a loud ‘Ça ne va pas, non?’ But she was too flabbergasted by the question and still feeling rather proud to be French at that precise moment. Instead she remained silent, waiting to hear what was to come next.

  ‘If I prepare the kind of food my Spaulding discovered thanks to you, I’ll have a chance of winning him back, even if I do gain weight.’

  Actually, your Spaulding might like it if you became a little plumper, I thought. It might remind him of his curvy Latina prima donna.

  ‘I don’t know about that …’ Anne-Sophie mumbled.

  ‘It probably seems surprising, but it’s not that stupid an idea, when you think of it. I’ll pay you good money for it,’ Mary-Whitney added. She had clearly recovered some of the self-control a multi-tasking superwoman of the new millennium is supposed to have. ‘And you could give me advice about a French-style makeover.’

  ‘I don’t want your money.’

  That was the very answer I would have given myself.

  ‘Well, think about it. Here’s all the information you need to reach me: emails, home and work phone numbers, fax, cell phone … Just think about it.’

  Mary-Whitney finished her double Bourbon, got up eagerly and left a fifty-dollar bill on the table.

  ‘That’s for the Bourbon and more champagne. Celebrate Valentine’s Day on me!’ And the asparagus-shaped woman with her unstyled hair, baggy dress and overlong worn-out coat laughed once more as if to show that she had completely regained her strength. Was it the effect of the Bourbon? Or the thought that she had found the solution to getting Spaulding back by believing that Anne-Sophie would help her?

  She vanished as suddenly as she had appeared.

  ‘Was it a dream, or should I say a nightmare?’ asked Anne-Sophie, pulling herself together while signalling to the waitress for another round of drinks. Then, looking at the fifty-dollar bill on the table, she exclaimed, ‘Someone is going to get a big tip tonight …’

  ‘Actually, that was all quite funny,’ I ventured.

  Anne-Sophie frowned at me, but then started giggling.

  ‘Yes, the whole thing is laughable, but what am I going to do now?’

  ‘Ignore Spaulding at work from now on. Nothing needs to be discussed further. And don’t worry, I have a feeling you won’t have to do anything. You’ll never see that woman again.’

  ‘Good. Jessica, thank you, I trust your judgement as usual.’ Anne-Sophie leaned over to hug me.

  ‘No problem. She’s really something, isn’t she? No wonder Spaulding wants some time off from her.’<
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  ‘Enough of all this foolishness! Dear friend, pass me the chocolates. I’m suddenly craving these sweet treats for the intense pleasure and comfort I need right now.’

  I took the chocolates out of my bag and ceremoniously handed them over to her.

  ‘Hmm, champagne and chocolates, at the top of my number-one city in the world, qui dit mieux?’ I said, smiling.

  Pierre Hurel was back at the piano by then, playing a popular piece of his, ‘The Crush’ – so appropriate, I thought, my eyes following the pretty new waitress as she moved from table to table.

  A year has passed. I’m at the Zenith Bar waiting for Anne-Sophie, just like every Tuesday night. Tomorrow will be another Valentine’s Day, and for the first time I’ll have a real date. I’m pretty excited. I met Regan a year ago. She was the new waitress here at the Zenith Bar that I couldn’t keep my eyes off on the night of the St Valentine’s Day tragicomedy.

  Funny how my prediction that Anne-Sophie would never see Mary-Whitney again was proved right.

  A few weeks after that fateful evening, Spaulding went into work and announced that Mary-Whitney had had a big promotion, and the family was moving to Portland, Oregon, the following month. Such an opportunity couldn’t be passed up.

  It seemed that Spaulding didn’t have any choice but to go along, since Mary-Whitney had always been the main breadwinner, and he was too weak to leave the comfortable life he led with his wife – even if he was constantly tempted by extramarital affairs.

  The saddest thing for him was that he never had the opportunity to say goodbye to Anne-Sophie properly. She didn’t go to the farewell party that the office organised for him. She simply couldn’t make it. It was a Tuesday night, after all, and we were together having our weekly happy hour, and with champagne, s’il vous plaît!

  Jessica’s Favourite Anne-Sophie Recipes

  Gougères (Savoury Choux Buns)

  A gougère is a choux pastry puff often served as an amuse-bouche. It’s a speciality of Burgundy, where Anne-Sophie is from. The recipe makes 10–12 small gougères or one large one to serve 6 people.