Bon Appetit (29 page)

“What business card?”

“Sophie’s,” he said. “I dropped into L’Esperance to get your address, and she scribbled it down for me”.

I’d have to tell her. She’d get a big kick out of it. She’d already e-mailed me that she planned to go to church in our Jetta tonight. The first time she’d ever celebrated Christmas at church.

“Well, thank you,” I said, my voice softening. “I love the book”.

“I’m glad,” he said. “I like my suspenders too. Listen”. He must have held the phone away from his ear and toward his body, because I could hear them snap.

I laughed. “I thought you’d enjoy something with the Eiffel Tower on it”.

“I do,” he said. “Well, anyway, I just wanted to be the first person from home to wish you Merry Christmas”.

“You are,” I reassured him. “Merry Christmas, Dan”.

“Merry Christmas, Lexi”.

We stayed on the phone for a few more seconds, neither of us wanting to hang up, but I finally did.

I went back into my room and lay on the bed, but I couldn’t sleep. Cars were coming up and down Maman’s driveway and people
were talking. How did they expect to stay up all night? None of them were napping, obviously.

And then there was my racing mind. Dan. Philippe. Céline. Rambouillet. Seattle.

I rolled over on my side and just began to drift off when I heard a sharp rapping at my door.

I groaned. This nap was not meant to be.

I sat up, walked into the living room and opened the door. Luc stood on my doorstep.

“Bonjour,”
he said, kissing my cheeks warmly. “And
Joyeux Noël
. May I come in?”

“Bien sûr
, of course,” I said. “Please”.

He followed me into the little living room. “This place is certainly cleaner than when Dominique is in residence,” he said, looking around.

I laughed. “Dominique is five years younger than me. I was messy at twenty too”.

“I have only a few minutes,” he said. “I am on my way to Marianne’s parents’ house for Christmas. But there is something very important I want to talk with you about”.

“Sure,” I said. I sat on the edge of my chair.

“You know I plan to open a third bakery in Seattle, non?”

“Yes,” I said, not sure how much of what I knew I should reveal. But he explained it all anyway.

“Well, I signed a lease on a shop in Fremont,” he said, naming a funky section of Seattle. “I thought it would be a great dessert café, someplace for people to meet in the afternoons and late at night for dessert. Unfortunately, I am a better baker and businessman than I
am a lawyer, and I didn’t read the contract too well. There is ample baking and display room, but I cannot get an eating-in permit for that location”.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Yes, I was too,” Luc continued, running his fingers through his hair. “So I consulted your friend Dan—of Davis, Wilson, and Marks, you know, the ones who do so many special orders with us?”

“Oui”.
I glanced at the Jacques Prévert poetry book just to my side. “I know Dan very well”.

“He has come to my rescue. I asked him if he could get me out of the lease, and he said he thought his friend could. But after his trip from France, he came to consult with me. He said that, after visiting Paris, he had a better idea. Why not make an upscale
pâtisserie
at the Fremont location specializing in wedding cakes and high-end catering, like a lot of the businesses he worked with wanted? ‘There are quite a few places like that in Paris,’ he said, ‘but not Seattle.’ He assured me that his firm would use the place and would mention it around. He even suggested you might enjoy working in such a place when your schooling was done”.

Dan had suggested an almost irresistible way for me to return to Seattle. But did he know Luc would tell me who had suggested it? Knowing Dan, he’d probably wanted it kept quiet to allow me to choose on my own. I sank back in my chair, trying to absorb the conversation.

“So,” Luc said, “I talked about it with Sophie and Margot and even Papa, and they all agree the idea is
fantastique!”
He smiled. “Now, Margot is staying to be chief pastry chef over all three bakeries, but if you like this job, you’d be able to do cakes and chocolates and
tartes at the new place in Fremont. I think we’ll call it Bijoux. Jewels. High end”.

“You’re offering me that job?” I asked. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“Oui,”
he said. “Full-time. Under Margot, of course, which could be a
problème …”

“Oh, I like Patricia well enough now,” I said, “and she used to intimidate me”.

Luc grimaced. “Margot is not Patricia. But we only have a one-year lease. If the business is successful after that year, it will become a permanent Delacroix bakery. If not, then”—he kissed his finger tips and opened them into the air—
“pouf
. There would be no more job. You understand?”

“I do,” I said. A risk.

“Good,” he said. “I will need your answer in a few weeks. Many changes happening, you understand. Someone else will have to be hired soon if you do not like this job. You can always stay in Rambouillet and bake breads”.

“Merci,”
I said, dazed.

Luc looked at his watch and jumped up. “I must go, or I will not make it to Marianne’s mother’s house. I do not want to have the mother-in-law hit me with a broom for being late on Christmas,
n’est-ce pas
?” He grinned.

“Definitely not,” I agreed, smiling.

“You think about this and let me know,” he said. “Okay?”

“I will pray about it,” I said. Saying that aloud was almost the only witness I had with them.

“Okay, pray then,” he grumbled good-heartedly. “But let me know. I think it would be a good job for you, Alexandra”.

I nodded.
“Joyeux Noël
, Luc”.

“Joyeux Noël
, Alexandra”. He kissed my cheeks, rushed out the door, and then got into his car and drove off.

No wonder Philippe had been asking me about Seattle. He’d been testing to see if I would really want to stay here once there was a choice.

But stay here with him? Or just with the bakery?

I played French Christmas carols and let the tiny lights on my Charlie Brown tree twinkle as I waited for Céline and Philippe to pick me up. Our church was having a midnight service to mirror the midnight Mass much of France would attend.

I drank a mug of chocolat chaud to stave off my hunger. We wouldn’t eat Christmas dinner until one-thirty in the morning, probably the same time as my family in Seattle!

At 11:20, Philippe’s car pulled into the round driveway. Through the window I could see there was someone—an adult—in the passenger seat. Céline sat in the back.

I grabbed my coat and Bible and turned out the lights. By the time I’d finished, Philippe was at the door.

“Joyeux Noël!”
he greeted me, kissing each cheek. He looked really nice, dressed up for Christmas, as was I, in my red dress. “You look
fantastique!”
he said.

“Joyeux Noël,”
I responded. “And so do you!”

He walked me to the car. “I’m sorry,” he said in a low voice. “Gabby called me just before I left and said her car had engine troubles, and asked if I could pick her up and bring her to church. I didn’t feel I could say no to someone on Christmas Eve. Her family does not go to church, and her Papa is nervous about driving in the dark anyway”.

“No
problème,”
I said, more amused by her manipulations than disappointed she was with us. I couldn’t help wondering if Gabby had conveniently pulled a plug in her engine and would just as conveniently put it back after Christmas.

I got into the backseat, next to Céline.
“Joyeux Noël!”
I said and reached over to squeeze her hand.

“Merry Christmas!” she responded in English, I supposed because we were on our way to church. “First church, then food, then gifts!”

I laughed with her. Children were the same the world over.

“Good evening and Merry Christmas!” Gabby said brightly. “It’s nice that you can join us. I imagine you would spend the whole evening alone, otherwise”.

I said nothing about spending Christmas with the Delacroix family. “I’m glad I can join you too”. I bit back a smile.

We pulled up in front of the church door, and Philippe let the three of us out while he parked the car.

We exchanged holiday kisses and greetings with others and then sat down. Philippe joined us, taking care to sit between me and Céline.

The church was semidark, with lit candles casting warm flickers all around. There were boughs of evergreen on every pew, and the cinnamon pine scent they cast throughout the church felt both warm
and intimate. In the back, out of sight, a cellist played Christmas carols, and I sang along to them in my head.

We’d come early to get a good seat, and I opened my Bible to Matthew and read the Christmas story again while I waited. After doing so, I flipped to the end of the book and reread Matthew 28:19, the passage that had inspired me to come to France last year.

Have I done that, Lord?
I asked silently.
I’ve made a quiet, occasional point of telling Patricia and Luc that I pray, and I do try to keep you in conversation naturally
. I looked over at Céline, who rested against her father’s shoulder.
I’ve been kind to Céline. But making disciples?

I looked around the room. My eyes were drawn to a woman sitting one row over and two rows ahead of me. How did I know her?

Of course! One of the women in Anne’s English group. I spotted another. It was so wonderful of them to come to her exhibition. It made a big impact on her—an impact, I know, for Christ.

I smiled and bowed my head. I know what He was saying. Anne wouldn’t have been here, with them, without me bringing her.

But just one person?
I asked inside. It seemed so … insignificant.

I remembered another passage I had read in Matthew, before the one instructing us to make disciples of all nations. I flipped through Matthew until I found it in chapter 18, verse 12.

What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off?

Yes, Lord, you are the God that cares about the one. And so do I
.

I closed my Bible and let myself get carried away by the cellist. We stood and sang Christmas carols—in English. I felt homesick and home-settled all at once. It made me even more confused.

After church, we dropped Gabby off at her house before returning to Maman’s.

“I’m opening gifts tonight
and
tomorrow,” Céline said. “We are going to my grandparents’ house in London. More presents!”

“Well, if you have too many, I can forget about the one I got for you,” I teased.

“Non, merci,”
Céline said in all seriousness. The three of us laughed.

I went into the cottage alone to grab the gifts I had for Céline and Philippe, and then walked up to the big house. I knocked on the door, and Maman opened it and greeted me with two big kisses on each cheek.

“Welcome!
Joyeux Noël
!” she said. She relieved me of my gifts, and after quickly checking the tags to see whom they were for, led me into the big kitchen.

I hadn’t been in a huge French house before. This house, while updated, was at least three hundred years old. Large beams held up the vaulted ceilings, and windows were everywhere, with the shutters pulled back. The floor was polished hard wood, and the kitchen was, well, amazing. A beautiful, tomato red Lacanche oven. Normally, I wasn’t an envious person, but oh, for that oven.

Because I’d worked with everyone there, I felt perfectly at home and comfortable. Having her family around her—even though
Dominique was nuzzling her boyfriend in a corner—made Maman happy. Only Luc and Marianne weren’t there.

“So Luc and Marianne are at her maman’s house?”

“Yes,” Maman said. “For now, of course, her mother wants to be near her. And I can understand that,” she said, indulgently.

I did too. I bet my mother would want me nearby if I’d been away for six months.

We gathered around the huge farm table and Maman and Patricia brought out the courses.

First, we had the
entrées
, what Americans think of as appetizers. Fresh shucked oysters, small platters of beautifully arranged fresh vegetables. Next came the roasts—turkey, duck, and beef. I stuck with the duck. I grinned. I was certain my father would not be serving duck in Seattle.

Then came the salade—fresh greens lightly tossed with vinaigrette. No Frenchwoman would dream of buying store-bought salad dressing, at least none I had met. Each woman mixed up an alchemy of oil, vinegar, seasonings, and mustard. Maman’s tasted especially good. When I asked her about the secret ingredient, she told me there were two and whispered them into my ear—champagne vinegar instead of balsamic and yeast.

Then came the cheese course, and the beautiful Bûche de Noël. It was a large log—half a tree trunk, I’d have joked, if I thought a joke would go over well. It had been decorated with carefully sculpted marzipan woodland creatures and meringue mushrooms. There were piped icing leaves, weeds, and a sprinkling of ladybugs.

“It’s gorgeous!” I exclaimed. Maman straightened in pride.

“Thank you,” she said.

After dinner, we scattered through various parts of the sitting and living rooms and opened gifts. Since I had only two to offer, I brought them to Céline and Philippe.

“Me first?” Céline asked.

“Sure,” her papa said. Céline took my box and very carefully opened it. Inside were dress-up gowns, costume jewelry, feather boas, and a false tiara left over from the Princess Diana age.

Her face went pale with surprise and then pink with pleasure. She put the tiara on her head. “Is it beautiful? Do I look like a fairy?” she asked after kissing my cheek.

“Très jolie,”
Philippe assured her. “You look very pretty”.

Next, I handed a gift to Philippe.

“For me?” he said, genuinely touched.