Chapter 12 #2
I was tempted to just throw the towel in on this whole dinner and ask Laurent if he had any more frozen pizzas lying around, but I figured I couldn’t send him away without providing a single bite of food.
We stood together by the stove, and there Laurent taught me the very important skill of measuring oil’s temperature before you drop food into a searing vat of it.
“I can’t believe I never thought to check the temperature,” I said, laughing to cover my embarrassment.
“It happens to everyone,” Laurent said. “You should have seen the disasters I made my first few months at culinary school.”
Once we’d hit the optimal temperature, I dropped in spoonfuls of batter. This time they did not explode but only sizzled enticingly and turned a pleasant golden brown.
“I think they’re excellent,” Laurent said, once we’d sat down to eat the acras. “Beautifully flavored.”
I tried one. It tasted alright, but the texture was off, maybe because the batter had sat on the counter for such a long time before I’d started frying.
Laurent was highly complimentary of the fritters, and the salad too, which I’d brought out at the same time since it was so late and I was starving.
I thought I’d done a good job with the salad, but even a perfect green salad is still just a green salad.
It could never really impress a chef of Laurent’s caliber.
That meant it all came down to the main course, the tarte flambée. I’d made the dough before Laurent had arrived, and it had rested longer than it was meant to, but I thought it was still salvageable.
Laurent poured us each another glass of wine, the red this time, and we went into the kitchen. There, we made stiff small talk as I spread the dough onto a baking sheet, trying to get it as thin as possible so it’d have the traditional cracker-thin crust.
I mixed together fromage blanc, crème fraiche, salt, pepper, and a tiny grating of fresh nutmeg, then spread it across the dough. After sprinkling bacon lardons and thinly-sliced onions across the top, I put it in the oven (which I had made triple sure was set to the correct temperature).
Tarte flambées don’t take long to cook, but Laurent and I struggled to fill the silence.
It was mostly my fault. I was so anxious about the food I had already ruined and the food I was sure I was about to ruin that I could barely pay attention to what Laurent was saying. I was on my third glass of wine now, every atom in my body screaming out against the awkwardness of this evening.
Laurent had been excruciatingly polite all evening, but in the way you would be to a boss or distant cousin. He had probably decided I was an idiot after the debacle with the cooking oil and was counting the minutes until he could return home and make his own palatable dinner.
He seemed nervous himself, straightening my row of spices and aligning my cookbooks so each spine was perfectly perpendicular to the counter. Or maybe he just thought I was a slob on top of being a terrible cook.
I tried to hide my relief when the timer went off and I could pull the tarte flambée out of the oven. In my anxiousness to move dinner along, I forgot to check the bottom of the crust the way I’d done every other time I’ve made this recipe. I didn’t realize it until we were sitting down to eat.
“It’s underbaked,” I said, letting the piece I’d just taken a bite from drop back onto my plate. I ducked my head so that Laurent couldn’t see the color rising in my cheeks.
He was, again, full of compliments, but we both knew it was a less-than-stellar rendering of tarte flambée. This was supposed to be the showstopper of the meal.
Tired and demoralized, I gave up even trying to force conversation. Instead, I went back into the kitchen to wait for the tarte tatin to finish baking.
Just this final course and this meal would be over. Then I could go back to giving Laurent polite, formal greetings when we occasionally passed each other in the hallway.
Dinner had been a full-blown disaster and the conversation even worse, but, for some reason, the thought of this being the only time I ever really spoke to Laurent depressed me.
The timer buzzed, jolting me from my reverie.
I pulled the tarte out and set it on the counter.
While I waited a few minutes for it to cool, Laurent came over and tried to get a conversation going about our hobbies, but it fizzled out.
I wanted to ask him about cooking and running a restaurant, but I was too embarrassed to even mention food after this subpar meal I’d served him.
As soon as I judged enough time had passed, I inverted the tarte from the skillet onto a serving platter, so that the apples were now on top. I leaned in closer to appraise my work.
It looked good. It looked beautiful, actually. I’d taken my time to carefully arrange the apples, and now they spread across the pastry like a glossy golden flower. It smelled good, too, the caramel mixing with the scent of crisp apples and buttery pastry.
“That looks wonderful,” Laurent said, peering over my shoulder.
I cut us each a slice and topped them with a dollop of freshly-whipped sweet cream. Without waiting for Laurent, I grabbed a forkful. Pausing with the bite of tarte right before my lips, I wished with everything I had in me that it would taste alright.
I took a bite, trying to discern any flaws. Too much sugar? Too much salt? Underbaked crust?
But…no.
I glanced at Laurent. His eyes were closed, and his fork dangled limply from his hand as he chewed slowly.
I stared at him as the seconds ticked by, awaiting his verdict.
He was wearing a new button-down shirt, and this one also stretched tightly over the thick muscles in his arms. He had the sleeves rolled to his elbows, and I saw a shiny pink scar on his forearm, probably from some long-ago cooking mishap.
I took in his dark blonde eyelashes and his carved cheekbones, which moved slightly as he chewed.
His hair was beginning to dry in the heat of the kitchen, returning to its usual tousled state.
Finally, Laurent opened his eyes. He smiled at the tarte, then at me. His mouth quirked, and I thought I’d get another half smile, but he kept going, his grin stretching wider and wider until he was laughing in delight.
“It’s perfection on a plate.”
With that, the floodgates opened.
With me so relieved at one of my recipes finally working out and Laurent no longer pressured to drown me in compliments to make me feel better, we suddenly had a thousand things to talk about.
He wanted to know exactly how I’d made the tarte, what other things I’d learned to cook from my mother, how I’d liked living in Martinique, what my favorite dish from Le Jules Verne was, how I’d gotten my puff pastry to come out so light and airy, and on and on and on.
I poured us each a new glass of wine, then pulled him back into the kitchen where I made a new puff pastry right then and there.
“The trick is to use light, even strokes to roll it out. Then you want to do book folds, turning it ninety degrees after each fold,” I told him.
“Hold on; I need to write that down.”
Laurent pulled out his wallet and opened it to reveal a small leather notebook.
Seeing it made me smile. “I keep a notebook on me, too. For recipe ideas and such.” I laid mine next to Laurent’s. Mine was quite a bit more battered than his (which was, of course, in pristine condition), but seeing the two little notebooks together filled me with an inexplicable happiness.
“I can’t go anywhere without mine,” Laurent admitted.
“People always tell me to just use the notes app on my phone, but it’s not the same.”
“Absolutely not,” Laurent agreed. “Plus, what if there’s an extended power outage?
The phones will lose power, and we’ll be the only ones with scrawled ideas for (Laurent flipped through his notebook) Japanese duck à l’orange and some concoction of celery and scallops that I had a dream about but now sounds horrifying. ”
He turned his notebook to a blank page and, in perfect, tiny handwriting, copied out what I’d told him about making puff pastry.
As he wrote, I looked at what else was visible from his open wallet.
There was his ID, a punch card for a gelato store and, in the clear photo window, a picture of Minerva glaring down the camera, a catnip mouse between her paws.
“May I see what else you’ve written?” I asked Laurent.
He passed his notebook to me. I flipped through the pages, smiling at what I saw.
There was a page labelled “Dinner Menu for Mom’s Birthday” with the note “nothing too spicy!” and another page labelled “Healthy, light breakfast menu for Noelle.” I flipped the notebook shut and grinned at him.
“Laurent Roche, I’ve discovered your true self. If I’m a secret grump, then you, Monsieur, are a secret happy person.”
Laurent’s eyes widened. “I’ve never heard anything so offensive in my life. My entire personality is built on being a grump. I’ll have you know that today alone I’ve complained to two shops about the quality of the fish they’re selling.”
“That’s just, like, a normal Thursday for a French person,” I said with a shrug.
“No true grump makes thoughtful menus for birthdays, or visits a gelato shop enough to have (I paused to pull out the card) one purchase left before he gets a free scoop, or keeps a photo of his cat in his wallet. I didn’t even know people still printed out photos. ”
“I chose that photo of Minerva because she looks like she wants to murder the entire human race,” Laurent said. “That’s a very grumpy thing to do.”
Even as he spoke, I was shaking my head and grinning. “Own up, Roche. I bet you even smile when it’s a nice day outside or you see a little kid laughing while eating an ice cream.”
“You have entirely the wrong idea of me,” Laurent said archly. “I hate both children and nice weather. Ice cream is fine, though.”
He moved his wallet away from a splatter of oil that I’d missed. “I will tell you one thing I do love above anything else, and that’s a clean kitchen.” Without waiting for me to respond, he stood and opened a cabinet, then began pulling out cleaning supplies.
“Oh, don’t worry. I’ll do that later.”
“I insist. You made the entire meal.”
I was tired enough to let him have at it. Laurent topped off my wine glass then got to work, piling dishes into the sink and scrubbing down my countertops. He really did seem to be enjoying himself. I watched his biceps strain the fabric of his shirt as he washed the dishes, his back to me.
Yasmine was right. His arms did bear more than a passing resemblance to many of those Greek god statues in the Louvre.
As Laurent tidied up, I started to get nervous again.
I still had no idea if this was an actual date, or if Laurent was just being polite to a neighbor, or if it had started as a date but had then become so insane it was now no longer a date.
(Or if it had started as not a date and my baking had been enough to win Laurent over? One could hope.)
But even if this wasn’t a date, I could still see Laurent again. If he didn’t initiate, then I would. I should wait a few days to not seem too eager, I decided. And I should suggest something simple. Coffee? Or was that still too much?
Maybe I could knock on his door, tell him I was on my way to pick up coffee, and ask if he needed anything? I think that’d be OK. The important thing was to start small. And I shouldn’t say anything at all to him for at least three days so I didn’t overwhelm him.
Baby steps, that was the way to do it.
I smiled at Laurent, secure in my plan.
He smiled back. “I want to take you to dinner.”
“What?”
Of course this night had one more curveball to throw at me.
“I want to take you to dinner,” Laurent repeated. “There’s a place called La Forêt that I think would be perfect. “You made this wonderful meal for us, so for our second date, I don’t want you to do any work.”
As he rattled off the restaurant’s selling points, I stared wonderingly at him. Not only was Laurent perfectly confident that this had been a date, he also knew he wanted to see me again.
“That sounds wonderful. My next night off is Tuesday,” I said, still not quite believing this was happening. I was expecting at any moment to wake up and find myself back in the smoking, oil-soaked ruins of my kitchen.
“Perfect. And gelato afterwards? I’ll get that free scoop,” Laurent said, grinning.
“I expect nothing less from a man who probably keeps a gratitude journal and has an album of his favorite sunset photos saved on his phone.”
Laurent raised an eyebrow. “A pretty snappy comeback for a woman who I expect has hated the human race at least once when a diner showed up to Le Jules Verne in athleisure clothes.”
“Wrong again. I adore it when diners show up in nothing but a sports bra and spandex shorts. It’s the perfect outfit for a fancy dinner.”
My pulse raced as we grinned at each other. There was a flush of color in Laurent’s face. I told myself it wasn’t just due to the wine.
Laurent asked if he could take a piece of the tarte tatin home, so I wrapped half of it up for him.
At the door, we said our goodbyes. I thought he might kiss me on the lips, and he seemed to consider it for a moment, leaning forward and then pulling back.
But I guess no one’s confidence is unshakeable all the time.
In the end, we kissed on the cheek. Not that it wasn’t thrilling to have his cheek pressed to mine.
He smelled like pastry and woodsy-scented shampoo (and slightly of burnt oil, but that one’s my fault).
When we broke apart, I wondered if I looked as dazed as he did.
“I’ll see you on Tuesday then,” he said when we broke apart. “à bient?t, Margot.”