“A few neighborhoods, including the cafés and hotels. Though I’d think most of your allies are there. I worry about Madame Hebert and Monsieur Chirac. They’re close friends and admirers of Monsieur Renaud.” Ines picked up the discarded paper and tossed it in the trash behind the counter.
“I know them.”
Since I couldn’t contribute to the discussion, I listened, and gathered as much information as possible. This boycott made me more determined to mend the rift between Girard and my aunt. He longed for her still. Only the hurt caused by unconsummated passion could lead the man to take such lengths to rid himself of her.
“Auntie?” I asked, interrupting the discussion by the counter. “I’m guessing he wasn’t like this before?”
“Combative? Unreasonable? Extreme?” Aunt Evelyn offered.
“Bigoted.”
Both women pressed their lips into thin lines. The grooves at the corners of their mouths deepened.
“I mean,” I continued, “let’s call this boycott what it is. We know you use locally sourced ingredients: lavender from Provence, honey from local hives, etc. France doesn’t grow tea leaves. All tea is imported. To accuse you of this is to accuse every other tea peddler in the country. I bet he wasn’t like this when you dated. I can’t see you associating with this kind of crap behavior.”
“You were involved? Oh my,” Ines said, her mouth agape as she cupped her cheeks in her hands. “That would explain much. Up to this point, Monsieur Renaud has had a sterling reputation in the city. This is very vindictive.”
“No, he wasn’t like this.”
“Why don’t I look into this?” I asked.
Aunt Evelyn looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “How?”
“Marc works for Girard as a pastry chef. He would know more about this.”
“Marc Santos?” Ines smiled. “Oh, he’s quite handsome. You and Evelyn have good taste in men.”
My aunt and I both thanked her at the same time, prompting a giggle from Ines. She finished packing up the madeleines. “I will do my part and keep an eye on the business owners on this street. I’ll make sure the lies don’t spread.”
“Thank you, Ines. Give my love to your mother and father.” Aunt Evelyn leaned in and they exchanged a set of cheek air-kisses.
I carried the box of cookies as we left the bakery.
The moment we stepped outside, my aunt uncorked her pent-up rage. “Of all the things he could do. The man’s determined to drive me off the continent.”
“Have you considered that this might not have come from him?”
“It had his name on it. Girard is very careful about how his name is used. He would never allow something like this to be circulated without his endorsement.”
My eyes didn’t deceive me that night at the restaurant. He still loved her, had always loved her. They belonged together. Even if they themselves questioned it, I didn’t. With my life littered with uncertainties, there were few things I was sure of, but this was one of them. I was as certain of this as I was that my favorite color was pink. It wasn’t logical, but it was true.
Our walk back to the tea shop had given Aunt Evelyn time to work herself into a froth. She stormed to the sink and began to scour her hands. Drying them, she threw the used towel against the backsplash, and then broke two madeleines in transferring them from the box to the plate. I rescued the rest by volunteering to take over the task.
“It’s going to be all right, Auntie.” I placed the final cookie on the plate.
“Why? Because you’ve had a vision?”
She parroted my words back to me. Instead of being irritated, I laughed. “No, because we can do more than observe.”
Thirty
After the frustrating morning, late afternoon proved no better. Aunt Evelyn, disappointed, allowed me to cheat and use tea to ensure I could still produce a vision. I predicted an unexpected visit from a grandfather from Manila, which tasted like a cinnamon-sugar-dusted churro fresh from the fryer. I hadn’t made any progress since yesterday, to my aunt’s annoyance.
Aunt Evelyn busied herself with phone calls all evening. With my lessons suspended for the night, she focused on saving her business and seeking aid from the fortune-teller society. While she rallied her contacts, I finalized my breakfast date with Marc, caught up with the cousins’ group chat, messaged the aunties, and called Ma.
The cousins were envious of my sudden Parisian trip. Auntie Faye and the others had pooled their resources and hired a private investigator. Auntie Ning let it slip that it was standard procedure for anyone marrying into the family. In Girard’s case, it acted as a protective measure. Ma updated me on what was happening at the firm, and I spoke with Dad. I missed them both.
I deflected the questions concerning my lessons. Being so far away, they couldn’t do anything to help. I treated my sense of helplessness as a potent, communicable disease, which I kept to myself. No need to worry those I loved back home.
I went to sleep with a single selfish worry: Would Aunt Evelyn’s focus on stopping Girard’s boycott distract her from teaching me?
* * *
* * *
Marc and I had agreed to meet at our usual spot. Seeing him waiting for me near the top of the stairs, leaning against the metro sign, banished the chaos swirling in my life. He wore his leather jacket with another dark tee underneath and distressed jeans. His dark hair appeared still wet from an early morning shower. As my thoughts traveled in that direction, I tugged on my blouse’s collar to let out a small swell of steam from the heat growing inside me.
Marc noticed and grinned. “The forecast for today is supposed to be cool.”
I stepped into his open arms and stood on my toes to kiss his cheek, but he turned his head, our lips meeting in a deep, passionate kiss. The breeze swept in, enveloping us in its embrace like a translucent veil. It dissipated once the kiss ended.
I reached up and ruffled Marc’s now-dry hair. “Better than any blow-dryer.”
He laughed. “Agreed. How are your lessons going? Doing well I hope.”
“I’m tanking. Aunt Evelyn says I’m an odd case, and now she’s preoccupied with the store. Hopefully she won’t forget why I’m here.”
We took the metro to an Australian eatery Marc said was known for its pancakes. It was packed with tourists, so we squeaked into a cherry-red vinyl booth. I selected a stack with seasonal fruits, chocolate, and crushed hazelnuts for us to share. He insisted the portions were generous.
Marc handed me a sheet of paper from his messenger bag. “Have you seen this?”
“The boycott notice, yes. My aunt is furious, with just cause.”
He creased his brow. “I’m disappointed in him. This isn’t the man who offered me a position in his kitchen. This is coded, racist language from someone I consider a mentor. So I did a little digging.”
“I hope you found something.”
“I did. This garbage,” he said, tapping the paper, “wasn’t written by him. This came from the desk of Claude Chirac. Claude is a xenophobic kiss ass who hangs around my boss. Vivianne, the kitchen manager, told me she overheard them talking. This might be a case of Claude trying to gain Monsieur Renaud’s favor.”
“When I asked my aunt, she said that this didn’t sound like the man she once knew. She’s rallying her supporters to counteract the boycott. Did you find out anything about their past relationship?”
Marc shook his head. “No one in the restaurant has been there longer than fifteen years.”
“Auntie Faye found a picture of him from an old roommate. He looked like how I saw him at the restaurant.” I showed the picture on my phone to Marc.
He whistled. “That looks like a photo she took of him.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You know the saying, about a picture having a multitude of meanings? It was probably taken by her. It’s in the way he’s looking at the lens, that this is for her, that he’s giving a piece of himself, that he loves her.”
He pulled his phone from his pocket, tapped, swiped, and then placed it on the table for me to see, a photo of me laughing while holding a pistachio ice cream cone in Montmartre.
“I look at this and remind myself that there’s so much more to look forward to,” he whispered.
I bit my lower lip. “That’s not fair. I don’t have one of you.”
“That can be easily remedied,” he said, grinning.
Before we could take a picture together, the pancakes arrived with their decadent aroma of butter, syrup, and sugar. They were drenched in maple syrup, and crushed hazelnuts mingled with spears of tart strawberries and slices of bananas at the top of the stack. The hotcakes themselves were liquid gold captured in suspended animation and pressed into fluffy disks. My fork sank into them as though they were marshmallows.
“These are so good,” I declared in between bites. “Like unreal good.”
He lifted a piece with his fork. “After Guill brought me here to eat, I keep coming back trying to figure out how they’re made. It’s the baking powder and shortening ratio, and some sort of secret ingredient the chef is adding. The air pockets resemble sponge. I also haven’t ruled out the flipping technique—that can also make a difference.”