Bon Appetit Read Online Free Page B

around.
    “Luc!” I wiped my hands on my apron and went to shake his hand. He greeted me with two kisses on the cheek, French style, and then gave me a hug, American style.
    “How are things going?” he asked, nodding around the bakery. He reached for one of my hands, took it in his own, and looked at it. “Red knuckles. Your training has begun,” he joked.
    Just seeing him dissipated the homesickness I’d felt for days. “I’m so glad to see you. Marianne is here, also?”
    “Ah,
oui,”
he said. “Getting a fitting for the wedding dress”. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a card.
“La Sophie
asked me to give you this”.
    I took it from him. It was a business card that listed her as the assistant manager of L’Esperance. A wave of homesickness enveloped me again as I imagined her driving my asthmatic Jetta to work each day. I smiled and slipped it into my pocket. “I’m very happy for her”.
    “I too am very happy,” Luc said. “She is so good I can leave and know things will be fine. You are ready to start school in September?”
    “Yes, and thank you. Philippe told me you insisted I come”.
    “I believe you will do a good job here,” Luc said. “You will not let me down. You will be an asset to the Delacroix bakeries”.
    Hearing him say that made me more determined than ever.
    He checked his watch.
“Je regrette
that I cannot talk longer,” he said. “I am only here for a short time, and there is so much to do. But I am glad to see my friend happy in France. And now, I must go. I am sure the others will tell me how things are going, and I will see you again when I come back for Christmas. It will be just about time for your exhibition, then”.
    “Ah,
oui,”
I said, barely choking the words out.
    He’d see me at Christmas. Luc had called me his friend, yet I was clearly not going to the wedding. No wedding. No navy polka-dotted dress. No good time together,
en famille
. I felt the corners of my mouth tug down. I wondered, fleetingly, what my exhibition was, before returning to the depressing news that there would be no wedding invitation forthcoming.
    Luc kissed my cheeks again in good-bye, and I did the same, mechanically. Then I turned away, not letting Kamil see my face, and went back to pouring flour.
    All the Delacroix had left town, and the bakery was closed. Even Odette had gone back to her family in Alsace. The village was dead. Everyone who had any money at all was on vacation, and even the little grocery store in town was abandoned with a Back in September sign hand drawn and tacked to the door. I had to take the train into Rambouillet for provisions. I sat in my cottage the first day, stunned, really. I e-mailed Tanya and poured out my self-pity at being left behind.
    The next morning when I woke up, I clicked on my new e-mail and found one from her.
    Hi Lex,
    I’m so sorry about the situation. I totally understand what you mean—you thought it was going to be like an exchange student program, where you fit in with the family. But maybe it’s more like, well, being an employee. In the long run, even though it’s lonely, isn’t that better? They’ll start seeing you more and more as a baker, not a kid. I’ve gotta run—am setting up next year’s classroom. But I’ll pray for you.
    Love,
    T
    Tanya was right. I was in France! And I was going to play tourist for a few weeks. Cheaply, yes, but still do it. Tomorrow I headed to Versailles. It had been my lifelong dream to visit the Château de Versailles. I could barely sleep that night, thinking about it.
    I woke the next morning and boarded the train. Apparently everyone else had decided to take the train to Versailles too. TheFrench had bugged out of town, but every tongue and dialect in the known world had gathered for the first time since Babel and swarmed into greater Paris.
    At the Château de Versailles, I stood in line for two hot hours to buy tickets to the palace. It took another hot hour to get in. I