Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
M y body anticipates the day’s events before my eyelids open. I sense the encroaching morning light pouring into the room as my hands grip the bedsheets tighter. A swirling breeze sends in notes of sea salt and earthy cypress.
It’s debut day for Conseils Sur la C?te —literally translating to tips about the coast.
I squirm all over the mattress, scrunching my toes and curling into the fetal position with the duvet consuming me completely.
I was elated to finally send my write-ups to Solange earlier this week. She didn’t have any complaints as she translated the mirror-image to French. My guess is because we’re on a strict schedule to get the forty-pager to the printer in order for the copies to hit shelves on Thursday morning. So she couldn’t have had the time to consider what could be improved for the next go around. This debut issue would be a bit hodgepodge given that we’re using stock photography, pictures from my Canon, and local businesses’ advertisements to feed the visual attention. Sure the pixels might be dodgy, but I doubt she’d let it go to print if things were too blurry.
I finally crawl out of bed, only to find out it’s only a few minutes past six, meaning the kids won’t be up and ready for breakfast for at least a good hour and a half. So rather than sit with my impatience, I figure I’ll take a walk to the boulangerie to quell my toe-tapping nerves.
Not a sound emanates throughout the entire villa, save the magpies chirping outside and the distant snores coming from Nick and Angela’s bedroom. I tiptoe down the winding marble staircase. I still feel like a stranger even though I’ve called it my place of residence for well over a month.
Once I’m outside, the cheery morning brightness greets me, and I strut with newfound confidence down the driveway. Jamie’s car is gone, shocker. But my mind doesn’t linger too long on where he was all night or who he was with. Because it doesn’t matter to me.
Along the sidewalk, a few cars whiz past me, nearly sending my sundress flying north. But I pay no mind, biting my lip, wondering what those first few readers will think when they see my words. I can’t wait to tell Damien how it goes. He’s requested that I send him every copy.
Ascending the cobblestone paths, everything is just as I suspected: locals mull about the shops with their crochet produce bags. They huddle arm in arm, walking leisurely but with intent. Cafés welcome their regulars for morning coffees and pastries.
I’ve placed imaginary thumbtacks on the shops that had agreed to display the free magazines. Swallowing hard when I come to the first place, I plant my feet firmly on the stone walk and stare at the boulangerie. Under a yellow and white-striped awning, a window display shows off baguettes and a stack of Conseils . The front cover shows a ground-level view of one uncommonly straight street in èze. An electric blue sky serves as the backdrop for a polished chestnut door in the foreground enshrouded in leafy vines. Adjacent, a stony walkway with a strip of terra-cotta tile running straight through lets the eye follow it just until the narrow road starts to wind again. My knees still have scrapes from where the tiny stone debris scuffed at my skin. But it was worth it for a shot like that.
Solange took inspiration from other travel magazines with a bold cursive title and a few headline snippets sprinkled along the left and right. I wrap my arms across my torso and take wide steps to the bakery, beckoning me with the warm, yeasty scent of fresh croissants and baguettes.
Inside, the thin-framed boulangère greets me with a short-lived smile. At this time of day, she’s used to the neighbors who know what they want and how much. She leans her left hip into her palm and raises a brow while I peruse the glass display, stocked with everything from sourdough boules to cream horns. To my far right, a few women chat at two white tables, pecking at their breakfast pastries. A stack of the magazines sit on the table behind them. I watch one grab a copy and flip through the pages.
My heart nearly skips a beat.
“Mademoiselle?” the boulangère says to me. I glance back at her quickly. Given that no others have stopped in the shop yet, her impatience baffles me.
To stall, I point to three different bread loaves. While she wraps them in paper and twine, I slyly watch the woman reading. She flicks through rather quickly and, unless she can read five hundred words a minute, she isn’t actually taking it in.
The boulangère hands me the bread and holds out her hand for my euros.
“Um,” I mumble. “Six croissants aux amandes.” Thank goodness Milo loves the almond ones, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to nail that pronunciation. “Et six croissants r...” I stumble through “réguliers.” Noted for my next lesson with Emi.
The baker woman smiles at me. A real genuine smile, not a polite “thank you for your money, now get out of my store” smile.
“Merci d’avoir essayé,” she says and packages up the pastry while I return my attention to the women in the corner. The one who had picked up the copy passes it to her friends.
“Se lit comme un livre,” one of them says, tossing it back on the stack.
It reads like a book? Not exactly the five-star review I was looking for.
Queasiness stirs in my stomach. I need to get out of here. With a nod to the owner and my baked goods piled in my canvas tote, I make my exit.
Just steps out of the boulangerie, I come to the next pin-pointed display: a popular breakfast and lunch café. At the outdoor tables, a trio of men light cigarettes after finishing their juice and coffee. At first, I think they are actually enjoying the magazine, given that it’s splayed out across their table. But then one man exhales smoke and smears his cigarette butt all over the write-up I’d done on that very restaurant.
I inhale deeply, shuddering at the thought of anyone else reading this. I’m tempted to go around town and hoard every copy so no one else has the chance to lay eyes on it.
My stomach drops as I remember what Sylvie had told me a few days ago. That she’d bring plenty of copies from the fish market before arriving at the villa this morning.
No, no, no. Angela can’t read this. Nick can’t read this. They’ll think, What is this girl getting herself into? Writing garbage and taking time away from the job we hired her for .
What I’d intended to be a nerve-relieving stroll to town turns into a hightail back to the villa. Doesn’t matter that the fully risen sun now accosts my bare skin, making me break out in a sweat. What matters is that I get to the villa before anyone’s finger touches the front cover of the magazine.
I must not have seen his car as I nearly trip across the gravel driveway in my sprint to the kitchen, because not a few steps inside as my vision adjusts to the interior, I bash right into Jamie. Our elbows smack each other right in the funny bones.
“Oof. Kat, you all right?” His eyes search the frenzy in mine.
“Yeah, great, great.” I push past his arm, not failing to realize the inches between our bodies yet again. But I plow through the feelings and straight to the kitchen, where Sylvie has just finished scrambling a dozen eggs.
“Sylvie,” I say, nearly out of breath. “Les magasines. Where are th— I mean. Où sont-ils?”
Sylvie readjusts her gray ponytail and nods her head toward the direction of the ocean.
“A l’extérieur,” she says, wiping her hands on her linen apron. “La terrasse.”
My wrists hit the chilly marble island, where platters of fruit sit adjacent to the cheese tray. I drop the bag of bread and pastries on the counter and stagger past Sylvie. Jamie has made his way to the kitchen entry with a curious gaze. I nearly run into him again on my way outside.
“Kat, wait.” His voice reverberates through my bones, but I lock my focus on the sea directly beyond the terrace’s overlook.
“I-I can’t.”
“Wah!” Milo jumps out in the hall, pelting me with his new water cannon. “Got you!”
A line of lukewarm water strikes across the lower half of my dress. But I haven’t the time to consider how embarrassing this looks. Behind me, I hear Jamie’s muffled reprimand to his brother as I stumble onto the patio, where Angela and Nick are already midway through their copies of Conseils .
My shoulders drop as Angela sips an espresso. Neither acknowledge my presence for a few seconds until Angela lowers the magazine below her gaze and eyes me up and down, wrapping a fluttering scarf around her neck. “Bien joué, Kat.”
She likes it?
I stand frozen, waiting for Nick’s reaction.
“Oui, oui,” Nick says in his overtly Britainized French. “Bravo.”
Something compels me to take the third seat at the breakfast table. The shade of the chestnut tree and the wafting sea breeze soothe my already sun-scorched shoulders.
“Well written,” Angela says.
Elation permeates every cell in my body. I take a croissant from the pastry basket next to the vase of carnations.
“Café, Kat?” Nick says, pouring me a cup. “You know,” he says to all of us, “the town needed something like this. Something to slow everyone down—the tourists really. Get them to appreciate where they are, eh?”
I nod fervently. My emotional jitters are now combining with those brought on by the coffee. As I reach for a glass of juice, I realize the half-drunk one in front of me belongs to someone else. The round table had been set for three. That’s when I hear the extra voice plummeting down the far side of the terrace. By now, I recognize that booming, deep-belly tone.
“Ah, Nick,” Howie says, walking across the patio with his copy of the magazine in one hand and a coffee in the other. “Oui, oui. But to slow the traveler down, you must first grab their attention, eh?”
The few bites of croissant churn in my stomach, souring my appetite completely.
Jamie walks outside, his hands on Milo’s shoulders, restraining his brother from making a beeline for the pastry assortment.
Howie continues his spiel, though I so wish he wouldn’t.
“Miss Kat,” he says to me, leaning against the limestone balcony. He holds up Conseils . “You write beautifully, you do, and it’s a great effort. But may I suggest, next time, you think more like the tourist, huh? Meet them where their minds are. Greet them in the clouds before anchoring them on the ground.”
The blood drains from my face, but Jamie’s interjection saves me from having to form an immediate response.
“Spoken like a true airline CEO,” Jamie says, swatting his godfather’s arm, not a crease forming on Howie’s polka-dotted Continental-branded polo shirt.
I thank Howie for the advice before gathering myself, still partly drenched from Milo’s water attack. “I think I’ll go check on the girls.”
“I do hope you continue with it,” Angela says, lifting her copy but not making a single effort to glance in my direction.
While I could spend an hour dissecting whether she meant that as encouragement to isolate myself from her son or true creative support, I’d rather dunk myself in an ice bath to repel the soul-sucking idea that I might’ve just blown my entire Young Soarers portfolio with this debut issue.
Jamie takes a step toward me as I make my way off the terrace, but I swear I catch him and Nick sharing a terse glance, and Jamie retreats. Agony stirs in my chest as I make my way back upstairs to flop on my bed. I obviously had no right to expect an immediate success.
A little chuckle bubbles through my diaphragm as a voice in my head starts getting louder. It’s an imaginary Emi saying, “Mon Dieu, Kat! Give yourself a break. At least you know what doesn’t work for the next Conseils issue. Now, pick yourself up and let’s go swimming topless again!”
Imaginary Emi has a point. I did just co-launch a travel magazine while au pairing for one of Europe’s most suffocating families and letter-writing a romantic French heartthrob.
Kat McLauren is making waves in the world. I take a moment to pat myself on the shoulder before returning to the drawing board to drum up new ways of catching and keeping readers’ attention.