Chapter 17
“Margot?” Laurent said again, louder this time.
I hurriedly cleared my throat. “Hi, sorry, I don’t have a lot of time to explain, but can you do me a favor? I’m desperate.” My words flowed into each other I was speaking so quickly.
“Of course,” Laurent said immediately. My heart leapt at his lack of hesitation.
“I know you’re busy, and you have so many other more important things to do, but there’s this cheese…”
I explained the situation, trying to keep a note of hysteria from creeping into my voice. “Do you know anyone who might sell it?”
“I’ll try every contact I have.” Laurent sounded completely unfazed, as though being asked to procure a specialty cheese for a new girlfriend was a regular occurrence. My heart banged painfully in my chest, whether from stress or my feelings for Laurent, I wasn’t sure.
“Thank you, thank you so much. If you can, bring it to Le Jules Verne. We don’t need it until the final course, so you have a few hours,” I said breathlessly, trying to give Laurent all the information he needed as I hurried back to the métro. “And remember, it has to be from Galicia!”
I raced home, made myself presentable in record time, and arrived at work just in time to assess the situation before diners began arriving.
It wasn’t great. Security was crawling all over the restaurant, everyone looked on edge, and if the clangings and strings of expletives (in three languages) coming from the kitchens were any indication, Chef La Croix was not in a particularly cheery mood.
And I wasn’t going to make things any better.
I crept into the kitchen, hoping to catch one of the sous chefs and deliver my news quietly, or maybe I could just write a note? But as soon as I stepped through the doorway, knives paused and every head swiveled to look at me.
There was complete silence.
It was Chef La Croix who finally spoke. “Well?”
I wished he wasn’t holding a literal cleaver in his hands.
“I couldn’t get it,” I began, and everyone’s face turned to pure terror. “But I asked a friend!” I said hurriedly. “He knows a lot of people, and he’s going to do everything he can to get it. He’s a chef!” I added, as though that would make a difference.
Something very interesting was going on with Chef La Croix’s complexion. He was going redder and redder, and his face now looked distinctly fuchsia. I really did wish he’d put down that cleaver.
I was braced for an explosion of rage, but Chef La Croix only nodded, his head moving jerkily. “Alright. Let’s hope he comes through.”
Deadly silence followed. I took it as an excellent time to exit the kitchen.
I fled back to the dining rooms to find Le?la and Luc panting as they moved tables around at the direction of the security team.
“Le?la had to take over for me,” Yasmine said, coming to stand beside me. “I was ready to tell them to drag the tables themselves if it bothered them so much. All this trouble for two people.”
“There are some paparazzi outside!” Colette said excitedly, using perfect pointe technique as she stood on her toes to look out the window.
Once every table had been moved to the precise centimeter of floor space specified by the security team, Yasmine, Colette, Le?la, Luc, Paul, and I stood in an anxious line, waiting for the first guests to arrive.
The Prime Minister and her boyfriend were supposed to arrive early, to be seated before anyone else.
A member of the security team walked over. “I have just been informed the Prime Minister and Senor Costa are running late. At least thirty minutes.”
“Of course,” Yasmine growled. We all looked anxiously at one another.
“I guess…someone needs to let Chef La Croix know,” Luc said, looking like a man heading to the guillotine.
“La Croix?” The security member who’d just spoken to us grinned. “Like the sparklin—”
“Por favor, I beg you,” Luc said, cutting across him. He clasped his hands together in supplication. “Never make that joke. It will cause the end times.”
The grin slowly slid from the man’s face. Luc turned to the kitchens. A minute later I heard a muffled oath, a loud clanging, then silence.
“I’m glad I’m not you,” Colette whispered to me.
My sole job for the evening was to attend to Prime Minister Abascal and Senor Costa and ensure their evening was as close to perfection as possible.
Which, of course, couldn’t happen unless Laurent found that damn cheese.
I’d checked my phone just before heading onto the floor, but there was nothing from him.
After being calm for weeks, this visit was finally making me nervous.
I looked around the clean, minimalistic lines of Le Jules Verne, all decorated in shades of pale green and ecru, and tried to soak in some of the soothing ambience.
It failed. Miserably.
Diners began arriving, and I made my way to the staff room, cooling my heels and checking my phone compulsively as I waited for the VIPs to show up. Still no update from Laurent. Hopefully this delay would buy him enough time to come through.
A full seventy minutes after their scheduled time, a security guard announced that the Abascals had arrived. I smoothed my clothes, then went to stand by the elevator doors. When they opened, the first to step out were two new security guards. Behind them was the couple.
They resembled each other: tall, thin, dark-haired. The Prime Minister was smiling widely and shaking hands all around; clearly, she was used to the political game. Her boyfriend, standing behind her, looked annoyed. I hoped it was just nerves before a proposal and not anything deeper.
I stepped forward to greet them. “Good evening, and welcome to Le Jules Verne. I’m Margot Delcour,” I said in Spanish.
“You have an accent,” Senor Costa said, as the Prime Minister warmly shook my hand.
“That’s very perceptive of you,” I said, careful to keep any note of sarcasm out of my voice. “I’m originally from Alsace. Allow me to show you to your table.”
As I led the couple and their trailing security team across the dining rooms, I took the time to shrug off my irritation.
I knew I had an accent in Spanish, but I also knew that it was slight.
Again, I wondered why Senor Costa had come here if all he really wanted was to eat Spanish food and be served by Spaniards.
He’s proposing tonight, I reminded myself. This has to be one of the best nights of his life. I’d fake a Spanish accent and dance a flamenco if that’s what he needed.
Like many people, Senor Costa had informed us he’d be proposing during the final course.
I suppose people felt it added some element of surprise, but I always thought it only extended the anxiety.
Why not propose right away and spend the rest of the evening exulting in the glow of being newly engaged?
But my job was to pull off the logistics, not offer feedback. That meant I really had to rustle up the cheese that would apparently play a starring role in the proposal.
“Here’s your table. It’s one of the best in the restaurant,” I said cheerfully, once we’d reached Le Comptoir.
“There’s no view of the city,” Senor Costa pouted. He sounded like a child.
“Ah, Le Comptoir’s view is of the inner mechanics of the Tower,” I said. “Look, you can see the pulleys and wheels working as the elevators go up and down. No one else in all of Paris has this view.”
Allowing Senor Costa to continue staring out the window, I pulled out a chair for the Prime Minister.
The table had been carefully set with 100% linen napkins and covered by a 100% linen tablecloth.
Paul came over just then to explain the wine options and make recommendations. They chose a Spanish wine, of course.
“Here is your first course,” I said several minutes later. “It’s a citrus and crab salad featuring—”
“There’s no fennel, correct?” the Prime Minister asked. “We saw it on the menu, but we don’t like the taste.”
“No fennel at all, Prime Minister,” I said with a smile.
Between the two of them and their special requests, I got enough steps in to meet my exercise goal for the entire week.
He wanted a different type of pepper, she wanted her salad dressing on the side, he wanted the temperature turned up, she wanted the music turned down, they both wanted new napkins after every second course.
I wondered how two such picky people could ever have found a partner they were content with.
But they had. These two difficult, fussy, demanding people had each found a person who had chosen them, who had picked them alone from among the billions of people on the planet.
And here I was, standing on the periphery, imagining what that could feel like.
No use moping about that now, I told myself as I hurried back to the kitchens to get a knife that was “less sharp” for Senor Costa. I wasn’t going to let any hint of my negative feelings show. Every question they asked, I knew the answer to. Every request they had was cheerfully carried out.
As I brought their empty plates from the fourth course back to the kitchens, I decided the evening was actually going pretty well.
Except for the damn cheese. I’d been running into the staff room to check my phone every chance I could, but there’d been just one text from Laurent: still trying.
Pushing down my panic, I brought out the fifth course. It was roast duck, beautifully glossy, with a raspberry reduction sauce and caramelized vegetables.
“My grandparents had a poultry farm,” Senor Costa mentioned, and I pressed him for details, doing anything I could to stretch out the time. There was just one more dish before the final course, when they expected to see tetilla.
But dinner had been going so well, maybe they wouldn’t care? I allowed myself to hope, but when I brought out the sixth course, a trio of profiteroles, Senor Costa frowned.