Chapter 13
Ifloated through work the next day, impervious to the strenuous attempts the diners at Le Jules Verne made to bring me back down to Earth.
The wheels started coming off barely thirty minutes into the lunch shift. There must have been something in the wine Paul was pouring because nearly every table I had was anxious or unhappy.
“You know, we tried to make a dinner reservation but couldn’t,” one particularly aggrieved couple informed me. “We had to settle for lunch, and it’s throwing our whole schedule off.”
“I’m so sorry about the trouble,” I told them. “Fortunately, afternoon is my favorite time to be in the Eiffel Tower. The light makes everything gorgeous.” But that did nothing to placate them.
They spent the entire meal checking their watches and ordering me to bring out the courses more quickly so they could get back to their itinerary. Each time I brought out a new dish, they scarfed it down as I was still explaining it, clearing their plates in under a minute.
As I was removing dishes, I caught a glance of a sheet of paper at the man’s elbow. It was their itinerary for the day, each hour filled with at least one activity.
My quick look was enough to see that they had four museums to visit, and they’d be ending their day with a ballet production of Sleeping Beauty.
(I’d seen that ballet last week and knew it was a solid three hours.) They gestured for the check the moment they finished their final course (I was expecting it and had the bill ready and waiting), then left nearly at a run.
“Well, I hope they enjoy their trip,” Le?la said, passing by as I cleared the table. I looked at her and grinned. She’d been steadily gaining confidence and was no longer so silent and worried-looking at work. Now she was even making quips.
During the break between the lunch and dinner shifts I made a beeline for the kitchens. There, I sat on one of the tiny stools and recounted my dinner with Laurent to Chef La Croix. He found the experience very trying.
“How, how can you walk through every precise step of a recipe when you bake, but when you fill a pot with oil and put it over a fire you never think to test the temperature?” he said despairingly, eyes turned heavenward. “I am certain Alain Passard’s staff do not hurt him like this.”
I was in such high spirits that his reaction didn’t even slow me down. Plus, I didn’t find Chef La Croix nearly as terrifying as I had before.
When I got to the part of the evening where I underbaked the tarte flambée crust, Chef La Croix actually dropped his ladle and covered his face with his hands.
“I would prefer to be stabbed with a steak knife than present an underdone tarte,” he said, his voice slightly muffled. “I would rather be force fed a PB&J sandwich, with its flabby white bread and offensive flavor profile, every day until my death rather than pull a dish out of the oven early.”
Chef La Croix regularly expounded on his hatred for peanut butter and jelly, and I let him continue for some time before interrupting.
“And we’re going to La Forêt next week,” I said, grinning like a maniac.
Chef La Croix dropped his hands. “You don’t deserve a nice meal. You don’t deserve anything more than American white bread and water for the remainder of your life.”
He sighed heavily. “But I’m happy for you. Now please, let me get back to my risotto. And never, never let me hear about you underbaking a crust again.”
Yasmine was hardly any better. Though supportive of my cooking attempts, she actually made fake retching noises when I went on too long extolling Laurent’s virtues.
“Sorry,” she said, not looking a bit of it. “It’s just that you’ve been on one date with him.”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s not bad to be excited about a new date.”
Yasmine smiled. “I’ve never met anyone who’s been on so many terrible dates yet remains such a hopeless romantic.
You’re right. Just promise me that when he starts acting like a jerk—if he starts acting like a jerk,” she quickly amended when I shot her a look, “You dump him. Remember that guy you dated who complained nonstop about you baking late at night?”
“I do, and I did dump him,” I reminded Yasmine. “He certainly didn’t deserve my midnight croissants.”
Yasmine still looked serious. “Just tell him that if he ever makes my happiest friend cry, I’ll scratch the hell out of every one of his nonstick pans.”
I grinned. “I’m sure that’ll have Laurent shaking in his patent leather shoes.”
It had been unseasonably cold all week, and the skies opened just as the dinner shift began. Rain came down in buckets.
“The weather is terrible,” a woman at my first table said. Her tone suggested I had purposely conspired with the weather gods to ruin her day.
“Paris certainly likes to keep us on our toes!” I said, pouring them water. “We have vin chaud on the menu if you’d like something to warm you up.”
“We should get a discount because of the weather,” her partner said. I simply smiled at that.
When I brought their first course—a gorgeous citrus salad with fresh crab—they appraised it with pursed lips.
“It’s not very much food,” the woman said.
“This first course is an apéritif,” I explained. “Your meal includes seven courses, and nearly all our diners feel they’ve had a satisfactory amount of food by the end of it.”
“It seems very basic for the price we’re paying,” the man told me. Despite Luc requesting all diners to leave their umbrellas in the rack up front, this man had insisted on bringing his with him. He’d even dragged a chair over to lay the umbrella on it.
For a moment I was distracted, watching the chair’s fabric saturate with water. Once they left, I’d have to take the chair to the staff room and blast it with a hair dryer.
“I very much hope you enjoy the salad,” I told them, smiling wide. “I’ll return when you’ve finished to explain the next course.”
The rest of the meal was just the same: they were unimpressed by the food, they complained that their sodas didn’t have enough ice, they wanted to know when it would stop raining.
I should know by now that some people are just intent on being miserable, but it still bothered me to have unsatisfied guests. I kept hoping that, if I just presented this new course, just fixed this new problem they had, then they’d become happy and have a good experience after all.
But that didn’t happen, and as I brought out the final course, the woman actually rolled her eyes, as though nothing could offend her more than the two cups of chocolate mousse I was now bearing toward them.
Despite their unhappiness, the couple had stayed for quite a while (and eaten every bite of their meal).
It was late by the time they left, and I wasn’t expecting any new diners.
But there was an elderly couple at the front.
I heard them explaining to Luc that they’d had a terrible time getting a taxi and were late for their reservation, but was there any way they could still have dinner?
Luc beckoned me over. “Can you take the Iliescus?” he asked in a low voice. “They were going to be Colette’s, but I sent her home because all her other tables left.”
“Of course.” I smiled at the couple. “Welcome to Le Jules Verne.”
The restaurant was nearly empty by now, so I led them to one of our best tables, right next to the floor-to-ceiling windows.
It was true that the rain obscured most of the view, but, at that moment, the Eiffel Tower lit up.
The Iliescus were momentarily mesmerized by the twinkling, golden lights.
I caught myself watching the light show, too.
It was still captivating, even after all these years.
Paul, who’d been on his way out the door, hurriedly came back, shrugged out of his jacket, and put his suit coat back on. He patiently explained the wine list to them. When I brought out their first course, their faces lit up.
After explaining the dish, I chatted with them for a few minutes.
They were Elena and Vasile Iliescu, they told me, in accented but fluid English, on holiday from Bucharest. It was their first time in Paris.
From the way they spoke, I sensed it would likely be the only time, and that this was a trip they’d dreamed of for years, maybe decades, planning out every detail.
And after it was over, they’d reminisce about it for the rest of their lives.
They were dressed beautifully, in the way their generation always did.
The dress code at Le Jules Verne was only smart casual, basically no t-shirts, shorts, or sneakers, and we had a difficult enough time enforcing that.
But Monsieur Iliescu was wearing a dark gray suit, and his wife was resplendent in a red and black dress, her makeup carefully done, and a sparkling brooch holding back her hair.
I wanted every person who eats at Le Jules Verne to leave happy, but for people like this—for whom the meal meant so much—I get a sort of desperation to have the experience surpass even what they’d imagined.
Fortunately, the Iliescus were delighted with everything. Madame Iliescu admitted she didn’t eat seafood much, but when she tasted the crab salad, she chewed for a moment, then her eyes went big.
“Oh! That’s good salad!” she declared, and my heart leapt.
I talked to them more between courses, asking them about Bucharest and telling them about a trip to Transylvania I’d taken with a college friend years ago.
They told me about their grandchildren and the rural village they’d grown up in.
This was only the first night of their stay in Paris, and Monsieur Iliescu pulled out a creased piece of paper with their itinerary carefully written out to see if it met my approval.
I gave a few suggestions here and there, but, on the whole, I told them they’d planned a wonderful trip for themselves.
When they finished their meal, they asked me to take a photo of them, then a photo of the three of us, which Yasmine stepped in to take. Afterwards, Madame Iliescu took my hands between hers.
“Thank you for this evening,” she said fervently, as though I’d done much more than just be a decent server for a single meal. As I watched them leave, all the annoyances from earlier in the day faded away.
“Every now and then it’s worth it, isn’t it?” Yasmine mused beside me. I could only nod.
After work, I walked home leisurely. It had stopped raining, and all of Paris smelled clean and verdant.
When I got to my floor, I turned down the hallway and saw the outline of a small package next to my door. I was grinning before I even picked it up. I smelled through the wrapping that it was another quiche, this one with tarragon in it, and maybe goat cheese? There was a note as well.
Attempt 2. Eagerly awaiting all your thoughts -L
I ate the quiche before bed and didn’t stop smiling until I fell asleep.