Chapter 24
Before we leave Montmartre, we go inside the little blue boulangerie. The bakery looks like what a perfect piece of bread should taste like: homey, and full of a toasty golden glow. They’ve only just opened, so the baguettes are extra fresh and piping hot, straight from the oven.
At the front display case, I press my hands against the glass. We look at the array of breads on display—the pains au chocolat, the crêpes, the giant rolls—as if we’re looking through a pet shop window at a litter of newborn puppies.
But all we want for now are baguettes.
“Two baguettes de tradition, s’il vous pla?t,” Tyler says to the big-bellied man behind the counter, who wraps two golden-brown baguettes as long as lightsabers in some paper. The bread feels warm as I take it from him.
Next door, there’s a fromagerie, and the cheese smell is extreme—the stench would almost be too much if it was coming from anything but artisanal French cheese.
We agree that Brie would go best with the baguette this morning, but that doesn’t narrow things down that much.
There’s a wide array of Bries—truffle Brie, pistachio Brie, cherry Brie. But we go with a classic creamy Brie.
“Ooh, we should get some marmalade, too,” says Tyler, peering at a shelf of jars behind the ruddy-faced lady at the counter.
“Isn’t the bread and cheese enough?” I say.
“No, we need a little bit of sweet with the salty,” insists Tyler.
I shrug. “If you say so.” I’ve never really cared about the fruit spread or dried apricots on the edge of a charcuterie board.
Tyler asks the fromage lady what varieties of marmalades they have, and she cheerfully lists off the wide variety—strawberry, apricot, lemon, grapefruit, even jalapeno.
“Do you have any grape?” Tyler asks.
The cheese lady’s jolly demeanor morphs to outrage. She roars in English, “We in France do not use our grapes for marmalade!”
I don’t blame her. I give Tyler the side-eye. I’ve been patient with his love of Jar Jar Binks for years, and now he loves grape jelly more than anything else? I really must be falling for him if I can tolerate these choices.
But Tyler is unfazed. He squints at the jars and points. “What about that one? A pinot noir marmalade. That’s close enough to grape jam.”
Pinot noir marmalade? I make a face, and so does the fromage lady, as if she’s forgotten they still have it on the shelf, but she nevertheless wraps it up for us. We carry our still-warm bread, wrapped-up hunk of Brie, and jar of marmalade outside.
We walk on the cobblestone back to our scooter. Tyler throws open the seat compartment, scoops out our helmets, and throws our breakfast inside. “Quick, quick,” he says, sounding slightly panicked. “We need to get to the bank of the Seine.”
“Okay, okay,” I say, fumbling with the chin strap of my helmet. “Relax. We have plenty of time to get back to the hostel by seven.”
And I thought I was the uptight one.
“It’s not about curfew,” he says, starting the engine. “We need to start eating the bread before it cools off!”
I grin in my helmet and tighten my arms around Tyler’s waist as he peels off into the Paris almost-dawn. I like his priorities.