Chapter 24
Laurent left three weeks later. All his things, so recently unpacked, were packed up again and shipped to the Berlin flat his new employer had helped set up.
He’d quit his hated office job, ended his lease with Madame Blanchet, regretfully informed Fatima that he could no longer work the gala, and suggested the sous chef he thought most prepared to take his place.
Now he and I stood inside his apartment. It was bare except for one suitcase, one extremely expensive cat carrier with an extremely expensive cashmere blanket lining the bottom, and one extremely spoiled gray cat ignoring us as she tore apart a catnip mouse.
“So,” Laurent said.
We were doing our best to make this separation as painless as possible. Laurent already had his train booked to visit me in four weeks, and I’d be going to see him two weeks after that. We had scheduled times to call each other every day. It wouldn’t last forever. But I still was miserable.
“It’s only right that you take this job,” I said. “Everyone knows that Germany’s culinary scene needs all the help it can get.”
My delivery was weak, but Laurent smiled all the same. “That’s my sunshine girl,” he said, and he pulled me into an embrace. “Thank you for supporting me.”
“I’m in the business of making dreams come true,” I said, my voice muffled against his shirt collar. “Just promise me you won’t get grumpy if a diner asks for curry sauce on their coq au vin. Remember, they don’t know any better.”
Laurent laughed, his chest rumbling against mine.
“And you won’t turn into terrible, workaholic Laurent?” A desperate note crept into my voice.
Laurent hugged me tighter. “I promise. If I start sleeping in the kitchens and skipping showers, I’ll reel myself back in.”
“You skipped showers? Wow, no wonder you got dumped.” We smiled at each other, both of us trying our hardest to keep things light. If we could laugh, then nothing was so bad. Right?
“Here,” I said, “I brought you something.” I pulled a small box out of my purse and pressed it into his hands. Laurent opened it to reveal six perfect macarons.
“I thought you deserved some that weren’t broken.” I said softly.
Laurent smiled at the memory. He gently lifted a macaron and bit into it, chewing slowly.
“Pistachio,” he said, grinning wider. “You got the flavor just right.”
His phone buzzed in his pocket. “That’ll be my taxi.”
Laurent looked sad but excited. I couldn’t imagine how I looked; I had about twenty emotions pulsing through me.
Laurent kissed me again, then bent down to pick up his suitcase and cat carrier. I walked him to the door and held it open for him.
“à bient?t,” I said. It was a deliberate choice of words. It meant, not goodbye, but closer to “bye for now.” You only used it when you knew you’d be seeing the person again soon, when being reunited was a sure thing.
“à bient?t, Margot,” Laurent said. His golden eyes held mine for a moment. Then he slipped into the taxi and was gone.
***
As winter trundled on, frost congealed on the windowpanes, snow turned to slush, and we passed around mug after mug of vin chaud and hot toddies at Le Jules Verne.
At the start of the year, I’d excitedly told Yasmine what Laurent had promised on Christmas.
If she had any lingering doubts over our relationship, she hid them well, shrieking in surprise and promising to take me to look at rings so I could get an idea of what I’d like.
Every time I thought back to that conversation it was as though I had a little flame inside me, banishing the gloominess.
Preparations for the gala continued. I worked as hard on my recipes as ever, trying not to let the fact that Laurent was no longer part of it dent my enthusiasm. He’d be at the gala, he’d promised, so he could see what I’d worked so hard on.
A frozen February morning found the culinary team doing test runs of our recipes in the kitchens again.
“I want every recipe to be a well-oiled machine by the day of the gala. You should be able to make this food in your sleep,” Fatima declared, looking surprisingly stern in a ruffled apron.
I was making the macarons today, three colors to match my three fillings: lemon, pistachio, and fig.
I had the recipes finalized down to the exact gram of almond flour I needed, so this meeting was mostly to assuage Fatima’s concerns and butter up (as it were) a group of visiting high-roller donors with food.
Things were already bustling when I entered the kitchens.
The newly-promoted head chef was just as capable as Laurent had told Fatima she’d be.
From the scent wafting across the room, I could tell they were making the eggplant gratin.
My heart twisted knowing they were working on the recipes Laurent had so carefully crafted.
Even if Fatima had (hopefully) been exaggerating, I’d made macarons so many times in my life that I could practically bake them in my sleep.
As I worked through the steps, I chatted with Fatima and the culinary team.
Sabine didn’t seem to be here today. Maybe she’d lost interest in haunting me now that Laurent was gone. Now there’s a silver lining.
I was sitting on a stool, taste-testing different flavors of harissa with the sous chefs, when my timer went off. Wandering over to my side of the kitchens, I opened the oven. And nearly cried at what I saw.
The macarons were overbaked. More than that, they were burnt, scorch marks marring their colorful tops. I pulled them out in horror.
What had happened? The oven temperature was correct, the baking time had been correct.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d messed up macarons so badly.
They were close to my signature dish; I’d been making them perfectly since I was a teenager.
These were worse than my very first attempt, when I’d still been in grammar school.
The scent of charred almond flour began wafting across the kitchen. Several chefs turned and looked at me pityingly.
“Oh, Margot, what’s this?” Fatima was suddenly beside me.
“I’m sorry,” I stammered, my cheeks hot.
“I think maybe this oven runs hot.” It happened, quite often, in fact, and I knew I wasn’t solely to blame.
But I should have checked the macarons more often, should have seen they were cooking too fast. I’d gotten overconfident, and now Fatima was looking at me and my ruined creations with a deep furrow between her eyes.
“These things happen,” she said, not unkindly. “But I can’t have these served to our guests.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said again, my voice barely more than a whisper.
“It’s alright,” Fatima said, patting my back. “I’ll see if the cooking team can whip up a dessert quickly.”
My embarrassment only deepened when I realized Fatima didn’t even trust me—their only baker—to come up with a replacement dessert for the donors. I guess she didn’t want to take another risk on me today.
Shamefaced, I started packing my things when a voice spoke behind me.
“Oh dear. What’s wrong with those macarons?”
Merde.
I turned to see—of course—Sabine standing behind me, an exaggerated look of concern on her face. Immediately, I turned away. I didn’t have the energy to come up with a single thing to say to her.
It didn’t matter. Sabine apparently didn’t seem to need me to participate in the conversation. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her slender finger slide across the macarons, pause at one of the blackest, and push it. It crumbled into charred crumbs.
“Oh goodness. It’s such a terrible feeling to let people down,” Sabine continued quietly, seemingly to herself. She lifted her head and gave me a ferocious grin. “At least Laurent isn’t here to see it. Get used to that feeling.”
As I reeled, she turned to Fatima. “Should we do something about this?” Sabine asked, twitching her head in my direction. “We can’t have this happening the day of the gala.”
“It won’t,” I said, looking desperately at Fatima. “It was one mistake. I know the oven now; it won’t happen again.”
“Fatima, this is why I was concerned about taking on a non-professional. There are just skills we can’t expect them to have.” Sabine shook her head sadly. If she could have managed it, I’m sure she would have had a single tear roll down her cheek, just to complete the image of her despondency.
How on Earth had I ended up arguing with Laurent’s ex-girlfriend’s sister to keep my role at a gala I never wanted to work at in the first place?
My commitment had gone beyond doing a favor for Yasmine or even making Laurent proud.
I wanted to go through with the gala for myself now. To know that I had it in me.
“Please,” I said to Fatima. “I’ll make the macarons again as many times as you want. You can trust me. I promise they’ll be perfect for the gala.”
Fatima hesitated, then smiled at me. “Of course we trust you, Margot. Come back next week and try again. I’m sure it’ll go much better.”
Sabine made a noise that, in a less elegant woman, would be called a snort, but I ignored it, too grateful for a chance to redeem myself.
I did Fatima one better. Over the next several days, I got permission to go back to the kitchens as often as I needed.
I cooked the macarons three times, carefully watching their baking progress and adjusting the oven temperature.
The following weekend, I sat in front of the oven and watched them the entire time they baked.
When they came out, they were absolutely perfect.
“I knew you could do it!” Fatima exclaimed. “You’re doing yourself credit, Margot.” That helped my cracked self-esteem, but Sabine’s words about Laurent remained floating around my head.
But Laurent had been different then, I told myself. He knew better now.
Two weeks after my disaster in the kitchens, I stood at the Gare de l’Est station, eagerly awaiting Laurent’s train. It’d been a full month since we’d seen each other. I was so excited to be reunited that I was going to need to restrain myself from tackling him on the platform.
When his train pulled into the station, I moved to the front of the crowd. I was there in time to see Laurent be one of the first people to step off the train. In his hands was a bouquet of calla lilies, which he barely saved from annihilation as I flung myself into his arms.
He caught me up and swung me around, heedless of the people surrounding us.
“I’ve missed you horrifically,” he said, after we’d kissed. “Everything’s so dreary without you. There’s no sunshine to counter my grumpiness.”
Laurent was only here for two days, and we spent the entirety of them together, not wanting to lose a single moment with each other.
At meals, during walks across the city, as we lay curled together in bed, Laurent regaled me with tales from his new job.
Taking over a restaurant was always daunting, but Laurent was confident things were going well.
“All the sous chefs and line cooks and servers work together well. It’s really encouraging,” Laurent said.
We were sprawled out on my couch, enjoying our final evening together. Laurent looked tired but elated, and he couldn’t keep the excitement out of his voice whenever he spoke about his new job. I didn’t want to bring the mood down, so I didn’t mention anything about my latest encounter with Sabine.
I did tell him about the burnt macarons, and his laughter and stories of his own kitchen disasters raised my spirits.
Laurent was happy at his new job, he and I spoke every day, we’d just spent a wonderful few days together, and we already had our next two visits planned.
We’re doing it, I thought. We’re making this work.
“Tell me what you think of this idea,” Laurent said, his eyes bright.
“I thought of it because of your fusion suggestion for the gala. I want to do a plated meal that mixes Provencal and German recipes. I was thinking we’d start with rosemary and thyme pretzels with a lavender honey mustard dipping sauce.
Now, do you think if I also included lavender in the breading for the schnitzel that’d be too much? ”
“Lavender schnitzel? I think that sounds ghastly,” I told him, and we both erupted into laughter. “But Fatima did love your lavender-honey glazed lamb for the gala. The culinary team got really creative with the presentation; you’ll love it when you see it.”
Laurent stiffened.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“I can’t come to the gala,” he said. My stomach tightened.
“It’s during Berlin’s restaurant week. I offered the owners anything they wanted to let me come back to see you at the gala, but they wouldn’t budge.
The restaurant is already booked solid that week; there’s going to be swarms of food critics and diners who want to see what I cook.
It’s critical to start off on the right foot. ”
Laurent’s eyes were wide and pleading. “I got permission to visit the week after. I know it’s not the same, but we can go over every moment of the gala and how amazing your food was. You understand, right? You know I tried everything I could to be there?”
For a few moments, I couldn’t even manage a smile. I understood Laurent’s situation, but it was still a gut punch that he couldn’t attend an event that he knew was so important to me and that was causing me so much anxiety. Now I’d have to go through it all without him.
Laurent looked so miserable, though.
“It’s OK,” I sighed, resting my head against his chest. “I know you’d be there if you could. When you come the next week, I’ll bake you samples of everything I made, and you can give me your unfiltered opinion on whether I poisoned the gala guests or not.”
“I’m sure everything you make will be delicious,” Laurent said, his arms tight around me. “Thank you for being so understanding.”
I hugged Laurent back, but that didn’t stop my thoughts from racing. For once, even I couldn’t pull something positive out of a situation.