Chapter 4 #2
“Sit down,” Chef La Croix said once we were in the empty kitchen. It wasn’t immediately clear where he meant, so in my nervousness, I took a seat on the floor. Chef La Croix raised an eyebrow.
“The kind of people we hire these days,” he grumbled, but he didn’t suggest where I could sit instead. Nervously, Yasmine folded her legs and sat on the ground beside me.
“Take it,” Chef La Croix said, pushing bowls of soup into mine and Yasmine’s hands. “And have out with it. What’s wrong with it? There’s something flat in the flavor.”
Even in my terror at being so close to Chef La Croix (well, his feet) I was curious about this new dish. I took a spoonful of soup and let it rest on my tongue before swallowing. “It’s excellent,” I squeaked, admiring the velvety texture, the layers that built on each other.
“I agree,” Yasmine piped in.
“Yes, I know,” Chef La Croix growled impatiently. “But it’s short of perfect. It’s missing a layer.”
I took another taste and frowned, trying to frame my thoughts in the way that would cause the least amount of rage from Chef La Croix. I didn’t even consider trying to sugarcoat it. The only thing that elicited Chef La Croix’s wrath faster than unwarranted criticism was unwarranted praise.
He turned toward me, eyes boring into mine.
I quailed under that gaze. “Well, I, um…
“Spit it out,” he growled.
I quickly swallowed a mouthful of hot soup. Chef La Croix watched impassively as I choked for several moments, my tongue scalded.
“I…I thought at first it needed fresh herbs, but I think the soup’s flavors are too light for that. It’d be overpowered.” I swallowed again, this time from nerves. “Maybe an herb-infused olive oil, drizzled over just at the end?”
Chef La Croix took a spoonful of soup from his own bowl and swallowed it. There was an alarming moment of silence.
“Ye-es,” he said slowly. “Perhaps chives or even tarragon if I can keep it light enough. That’s not a useless idea.” He gave a tooth-baring grin that was known to strike terror into the heart of every cook at Le Jules Verne. I returned it with a wavery one of my own.
“How did the strawberry soup go over with the diners?” Chef asked, naming the chilled starter that had debuted over the summer.
“Accolades all around,” I quickly replied.
Then, because she apparently had a death wish, Yasmine added, “One table said they found it a little oversalted.”
Chef La Croix, who had closed his eyes as he sipped another spoonful of soup, immediately snapped them open.
“Who said that?” he demanded. He stood, looming over us as his face darkened.
“Were they British? I’ve told you, I don’t want to hear their complaints.
A country that has built its cuisine on the back of boiled cabbage does not understand properly seasoned food.
They live in eternal jealousy of us, this kind of behavior is to be expected of them… ”
I was shaking in my boots, and even Yasmine looked to be regretting her burst of honesty. Chef La Croix continued in this vein for quite some time until a rap on the door rescued us.
Our savior, a cheery delivery man, stepped in.
He brought with him several rounds of Reblochon, the soft Alpine cheese that was an integral component of the salad currently starring as the third course on Le Jules Verne’s menu.
Chef La Croix opened the boxes and lifted the cheeses out, taking care to smell each one and weigh it in his hand.
“Yes, much better than the crumbling piles of garbage they tried to give me last time,” he murmured, setting the cheese in a neat row. The delivery man held out a form to sign, and Chef La Croix dashed off a florid signature.
The man glanced at the signature, then looked again more closely. “Monsieur La Croix?” he read.
I knew what was coming,
Chef La Croix’s face darkened. “Yes. That is my name.”
The delivery man grinned, and I silently willed him to just bid us farewell and take his leave.
But they never could.
The man looked between the signature and the chef, who was positively glowering by now. He pointed at Chef La Croix. “You have the same name as the bubbly water drink?”
“Get out of my restaurant!” Chef La Croix roared, the noise echoing around the kitchen. “And never, ever mention that abomination of a drink in my presence!”
The man fled without looking back.
Chef La Croix turned to me and Yasmine, still looking thunderous. “Do you have anything to add?”
“No, Chef,” I said meekly.
“See you for the dinner service, Chef,” Yasmine added.
“Don’t speak of this to anyone,” Chef La Croix said, as though we’d just overheard a state secret. “Now, get out.”
As we fled to the elevator, I could still hear Chef La Croix in the kitchens, muttering dark oaths about the atrocities of sparkling water.
Once outside, Yasmine and I breathed in the warm evening air.
“I hope Chef doesn’t work himself into too much of a state,” Yasmine said, smoothing her hands over her cherry red blouse.
The color made her glow under the streetlamps.
“You all take work so seriously, I swear. One of these days everyone at the restaurant is going to drop dead of a collective stroke.”
I smiled. Yasmine liked to make a great show of being above it all while the rest of us agonized over every little detail at Le Jules Verne, but I knew that, despite her blasé air, she cared just as much about getting things perfect.
She’d worked at Le Jules Verne even longer than I had and was the best server I knew.
“What have you been baking?” she asked.
I dug around in my purse. “My creation from this morning,” I said, handing her a little paper box.
Yasmine lifted the lid, and the scent of parmesan and pastry wafted out.
Inside, nestled like golden-brown eggs, were a quartet of gougères, savory cheese puffs.
I was always hard on my baking, but even I could admit these looked gorgeous.
They were buttery and cheesy, with a crisp, golden crust and a sprinkling of parmesan and black pepper across the top.
When I’d taken them out of the oven this morning and tasted one, it was so light it had practically dissolved on my tongue.
Yasmine pulled a gougère out and bit into it, her eyes closed. “Oh, Margot. These are delicious,” she said, shutting her eyes as she chewed. She took a second and appraised the glossy cheese puff as it rested on her palm. “You played around with the recipe. It’s better now.”
“It’s not traditional, but I added a bit of cheddar to contrast with the Gruyère,” I said, pleased Yasmine had noticed.
I’d spent hours tinkering with the ingredients, creating so many batches that even Madame Blanchet—a great devotee of my baking—eventually pleaded that she couldn’t take any more off my hands.
“You should bake professionally,” Yasmine said, picking up one of her favorite topics. “Or at least sell these on a streetcorner so the masses can enjoy them, too.”
I shook my head at her praise but couldn’t help but smile.
We turned the corner onto the Boulevard de Grenelle. The street was full of stately apartment buildings crowned with ornate balconies and flower boxes spilling over with red and pink geraniums. Linden trees lined the boulevard on either side.
Beyond them was the edge of the small, elegant Square Nicole de Hauteclocque which was so perfectly manicured it reminded me of a jewel box.
The sun had just slipped below the horizon, and everything was so still and quiet we might have been walking through a landscape painting hung in the Musée D’Orsay. Paris At Dusk, I would have called it.
“Margot,” Yasmine said. The sound of my name jolted me back to the present.
“Sorry,” I said, “Lost in thought. Did I tell you the Chilean man, Mateo, emailed again? Now he’s thinking about having us bring out the engagement ring with the dessert course. He’s worried that if I put it in her champagne glass there’s a chance his girlfriend will drink it without noticing.”
Yasmine smiled as she shook her head. “How do you still get excited over each engagement? I would just tell him to toss the ring at her and be done with it.”
“Oh really? You wouldn’t just drop it in the soup bowl?”
“Look, that was one time, and like I told everyone, it was an accident. That girl had me taking pictures of her for nearly half an hour while she twirled her pasta like an idiot. My arm got tired, and her phone just happened to fall into the soup tureen.
“Right. Of course,” I said solemnly. “It could have happened to anyone. Now, most people might not have laughed hysterically—to the point that you collapsed to the ground and Luc started taking bets on whether you’d pee yourself—as the girl plunged her arms into the soup to fish her phone out, but that’s why you’re such a good server, Yasmine. You really make each meal your own.”
I looked slyly at Yasmine, and we burst into laughter on the street.
“I’ll be so glad when I’m out of there,” Yasmine said, still grinning.
“No more running around with rickety trays, or serving people for seven courses, or dealing with their unhinged dietary restrictions. God, Margot, do you know what I’m going to do if another person walks in and tells me they’re severely gluten intolerant then flips out when we give them a substitution for bread? ”
“All I know is they should probably get a very good protective case for their phone.”
“Advice I would give anyone,” Yasmine agreed, nodding sagely.
At the next street corner, Yasmine peeled off toward her apartment. She waved as she popped the final gougère into her mouth.
I reached my building and stepped inside. When I opened the door to my floor, I was immediately greeted by the scent of roasting chicken.
Another late dinner for my new neighbor, I thought idly. Just as I reached my door, the one next to mine—my new neighbor’s—swung open. Out stepped a man.
A wall sconce was out (again), so the man was mostly in shadow. It wasn’t until he took a step toward me and a blond curl fell across his forehead that I stopped with a start.
“No,” I breathed. “You are not my new neighbor.”
But the insufferable man from the restaurant, the man with the cancer-stricken sister, the man who’d driven me to one of the worst days of my professional life, had indeed just stepped out of the apartment next to mine.
What had I done to deserve this bad luck? It must have been something in a past life. I couldn’t think of anything I’d done in this existence to warrant this kind of negative karma.
The man recognized me at the same moment. If I hadn’t been overwhelmed with horror, his wide-eyed shock would have made me laugh.
We stood in the dim hallway, appraising each other.
This is your chance to make things right, I told myself. You’ll figure out his favorite dessert, bake it for him, and move past the entire incident at the restaurant. You should be grateful for this opportunity.
Well, that was a bit of a stretch. But, still. At the very least, he would never again catch me being rude.
Forcing a smile, I stuck out my hand. “You must be my new neighbor. I’m Margot Delcour. I live right next door. What a coincidence for us to meet again.”
The man gave no sign of reaching for my hand, but I wasn’t giving up that easily.
“I’m glad we were able to sort out the confusion at Le Jules Verne, and I hope you and your sister enjoyed the rest of your meal,” I said, smiling wider despite the awkwardness. “Madame Blanchet said you just moved in.”
Silence. Yawning, endless silence.
“You’re from Provence?” Smiling even wider, I gave a double thumbs-up, which indicated the level of desperation this hellscape of a conversation had put me in.
“I’m from Aix,” he said slowly, as though each word pained him.
Despite the man’s obvious lack of desire for a conversation, I would consider it a moral failing to not learn anything about this person with whom I’d now be sharing a (poorly-insulated, sometimes rat-infested) wall.
And if my new neighbor thought he wasn’t giving me enough to work with, conversation wise, then he was quite mistaken.
I had once waited on a table of born-again Buddhists on a silent retreat, and by the end of dinner I not only knew their names, home countries, and general life goals, I’d also counseled two of them through relationship troubles they were struggling with. This was child’s play.
“I love Aix,” I said, beaming widely. “I used to go on holidays there with my grandparents. It’s most beautiful at the end of summer, don’t you think? When it’s cooled down a little and the lavender is all in bloom.”
This was an excellent opening to many potentially fascinating conversational paths of the man’s choosing. He took none of them.
Straining a little now, I plowed on. “You must be an excellent cook. I’m always smelling something delicious when I get home from work.”
The man’s face darkened. “No,” he said shortly. “I don’t cook. You must be smelling my takeaway meals.”
I knew enough about cooking to know that takeaway food didn’t smell like a meal simmering for hours, the flavors slowly building on each other. Even at this very moment I could smell the chicken currently roasting in his oven.
A little smirk played across the man’s face. “I do takeaway mostly these days. I’ve had a hard time finding a restaurant that meets my standards.”
Touché.
I took stock of what I’d learned about this man. My new neighbor was glowering, impatient with the service industry, excellent at holding grudges, and a compulsive liar about cooking. Excellent.
When the previous occupants of his apartment—two cousins extremely dedicated to their Daft Punk tribute band—had moved out, I’d thought things could only go up from here. Instead, the universe had tossed something even baffling my way: a man who lied about roasting chicken.
What could cause such a twisted personality? Was he breaking a ritual fast and didn’t want to get caught? Had he signed a blood oath to PETA that’d he’d only ever make vegan food and was now regretting it? It was nonsensical.
The man was edging sideways, clearly trying to get around me.
“Please,” I said, trying one last time to right this ship. “I must have missed your name.”
The man paused. “I’m Laurent Roche.” He sounded perplexed, as though he couldn’t understand why I’d ever need that information.
He was right. Neighbor or not, I had no intention of speaking to this Laurent Roche again. Looking away, I stepped aside so he could move past me.