My Grape Year: (The Grape Series #1)

by Laura Bradbury

  “Jell-O.”

  “What is Jell-O?”

  “It’s flavored gelatin. It’s a popular dessert in North America. I always used to have it at birthday parties and—”

  “Gelatin, like on a slice of paté?”

  I’d never made the connection before. “Sort of, but instead of being savory, it’s sweet.”

  “Sweet gelatin?” He couldn’t keep the look of horror off his face.

  “Yes,” I said, getting a bit defensive now. “This one is grape flavored.” I pulled the squashed box out of my jean’s pocket and showed him. He read it carefully.

  “Raisins de Bourgogne?” he read, his voice incredulous.

  Oh God. I hadn’t noticed. I grabbed the box back and read it again. The flavor was called “Burgundy Grape.” That pretty much sealed my shame. I tried to shove it back in my pocket but Franck was too quick. He stuffed it into his. His lower lip was trembling as he tried to hold back his laughter.

  “Mémé came into the kitchen then, otherwise I would have asked Franck to help me dispose of the Jell-O and collaborate in the story that it had accidentally fallen on the floor.

  “Oh!” Mémé declared. “Is this what you made?” She peered into the bowl, and for the first time ever I saw her looking cowed. “It looks very interréssant!” she said, at last. “I’ll take it outside. Come with me, Laura, so you can do the presentation. You get some bowls and spoons, Franck.”

  I had no choice but to follow her, so I tried to muster all the self-confidence I could about my Jell-O. No way out but through.

  “Here it is.” Mémé set down the bowl in the center of the table, and the Jell-O jiggled as Jell-O has a habit of doing. Its lurid purple color glowed through the clear glass in the sunlight. How was I going to explain this?

  “This is a dessert that is traditionally North American,” I began. “It’s what we all ate growing up. It’s called Jello-O.”

  Franck’s whole family stared at the bowl, locked in stunned silence.

  “What is it exactly?” Stéphanie finally asked.

  “It’s flavored gelatin,” Franck supplied.

  “Like the gelatin on paté?” Stéphanie echoed her brother’s question, sounding equally as incredulous.

  “That’s it.”

  “But sweet?” Oh God. Why didn’t I forsee this?

  “Yes. Grape flavored.”

  Mémé clapped her hands. “Wonderful! Who wants some?”

  It was clear from their round eyes that nobody did, but luckily Franck’s family had excellent manners.

  Franck’s father, André, said politely, “S’il vous plait, Mémé,” and held out his empty bowl. Mémé handed the big serving spoon to me, and I served a couple of wobbling spoonfuls.

  André took the bowl back and stared dubiously at it while I served the others.

  “Bon appétit!” Mémé dug into her bowl. She seemed to keep her first spoonful it in her mouth for a long time before swallowing. “Interesting,” she said. “You North Americans are certainly…innovative.”

  Stéphanie took a spoonful, swallowed it, then pushed away her bowl. “I’m sorry, Laura. I just can’t. It’s not that it tastes bad exactly, it’s just that, for us, the idea of gelatin as a dessert… It’s always a savory thing and never eaten by itself. It’s just too strange.”

  Michèle and André managed to take a few more spoonfuls than Stéph but couldn’t finish their bowls either. Franck just sat back and looked at us all, amusement making his lips twitch.

  Emmanuel-Marie dumped it out on the tray of his high chair and said, “C’est dégeulasse!” before beginning to smoosh it between his fingers.

  Mémé was the only one who finished her bowl. “It was strange,” she admitted. “And it wasn’t very good, but it was interessante.”

  I covered my face with my hands. “Oh my God,” I groaned. “I can’t believe I thought making Jell-O for you was a good idea. I’m so, so sorry.”

  “Not just Jell-O!” Franck leaned over and kissed me, then gave way to the unholy mirth that had been consuming him ever since the kitchen. He whipped the flattened box out of his jean’s pocket. “You haven’t learned the best part yet. Do you know what the flavor for this particular Jell-O is?”

  “No!” I tried to grab the box from Franck’s hands, but he held it too high above his head.

  “Raisins de Bourgogne!” Franck announced with delight, lobbing the box over my head to Stéph. She caught it and read with disbelief.

  “Unbelievable,” she said. She passed the box to André and Michèle. They all burst into laughter—everyone except me. I dropped my head down onto the table and hid there.

  I felt the warmth of Franck’s breath near my ear. “It’s funny Laura, not disastrous. It makes us love you even more. To be perfectly honest, I’m relieved to discover there is something you can’t do. You can be scarily over-achieving, you know.”

  I banged my head softly on the tabletop.

  “Come on,” he said. “Laugh. They all love you.”

  He kissed the whorl of my ear, and I lifted my head.

  Mémé patted my back. “Cooking and baking isn’t everything,” Mémé said, comfortingly. “You have many other good qualities.”

  If only the Beaupres could see how kind Franck and his family were, I knew they would be reconciled to me contravening the “No Dating” rule.

  Besides, I was learning that there were many more unwritten rules that were even more important than the four official Ursus rules—three of which I had already broken. One of them was, Do not make Jell-O for French people under any circumstances.

  CHAPTER 36

  Madame Forestier drove me to school on my last day. The French students, of course, would be cracking the books to prepare for their baccalauréat exams in ten day, but for me it meant I would be saying good-bye to my school friends, apart from Sandrine and Stéphanie, who I saw every weekend in Villers.

  It was such a contrast to the first day I was driven to school by Madame Beaupre. I had felt so lost and so unsure. Now school had served its purpose—springboarded me into a social life and also helped me learn French. But—as I was spending more and more time in Beaune’s cafés anyway as the classes became increasingly devoted to review and studying—it seemed natural to make the final break.

  I felt I hardly knew the Forestiers. They were a rarity in Burgundy—a couple where both Monsieur and Madame held down full-time and all-consuming jobs. They were gone by the time I left for school most mornings and came home most nights well after I went to bed. In their house, I felt like I was living in a self-service hotel. They were kind the rare times when I saw them, but invariably harried and distracted. If they had been my first host family instead of my fourth, my year would have been completely different. At least by then, I was so well ensconsed in my gang in Villers-la-Faye that the Forestier’s hands-off approach suited me perfectly.

  Still, I thought fondly back to my months with the Beaupres. They still felt like my true French family. I tried not to think back to those difficult winter months trapped in Noiron with the Girard offspring, then my months beside the belltower with the formal but not unpleasant Lacanche brood. I met Franck during my time with the Lacanche’s, but I never did manage to feel at ease with Monsieur Lacanche, who still struck me as someone who had the authoritarian soul of a despot, even with his family.

  At school that day, I said a series of au revoirs to my friends, and a bunch of us went out to a café called le Sporting for lunch. Unlike my usual haunt, the Café du Square, this spot was not favored by the students from Stéphanie’s school.

  We played a game of pool and drank a celebratory round of kir, then one by one my school friends left to study.

  Thibaut was the last one to leave. He stayed behind to help me arrange the pool cues that everyone had left in a haphazard French way all over the room.

  “Good luck on your bac,” I said as we gave les bises good-bye. It was strange, although I had spent quite a lot of time
in the past year with Thibaut’s tongue in my mouth, the idea now seemed completely unnatural. Already, I couldn’t imagine kissing anyone except Franck.

  “If you give me your address, I’ll write you,” Thibaut said as we walked out of the café onto the sunny sidewalk.

  I looked sideways at him, amused. “No you won’t.”

  “You’re right, I won’t,” he admitted as we crossed the ring road to go to the school. “How about this? If I don’t pass my bac and have to go back to Saint Coeur next year, I’ll be sure to torment le Dragon for you.”

  I laughed. “Now that’s friendship.”

  The next week I was invited to attend a huge celebratory meal at the Clos de Vougeot, which Monsieur Beaupre and I had cycled around in September. These dinners were legendary in Burgundy and put on by a renowned group called les Chevaliers du Tastevin, which roughly translated as “The Knights of the Winetasting Cup.”

  I didn’t realize what a big deal it was until I mentioned it at Franck’s over lunch that weekend.

  “You’re going to a Chevaliers du Tastevin dinner at Clos de Vougeot?” I had never seen Franck’s father’s pale blue eyes so wide.

  “The Ursus Club organized my invitation. I haven’t been given much information, but it sounds like fun.”

  “Fun?” Michèle said. “Many people dream of going to one of those evenings their whole lives! They are a sacred ritual in Burgundy. Usually you have to be wealthy or famous, or both, to be invited. They stared at me, as though suspecting I had been hiding a secret identity all this time.

  “I have no idea how my name got on the guest list, to be honest.”

  Franck squeezed my knee. “Can you bring a guest?” His eyes sparkled with mischief.

  “That wasn’t mentioned. Sorry.”

  “I’m joking,” he said. “Invitations to Clos de Vougeot are highly coveted. They don’t throw them around like confetti.”

  I was told by the Forestiers that I needed to dress up for the evening, so I went out with Stéphanie and Sandrine to Beaune and found a black dress with a tight bodice and a flared skirt that stopped just below the knee. When I put it on that evening at Franck’s house—I was spending the weekend with the Germains again and Franck was dropping me off for the soirée—I felt a little awkward. Was it the right level of dressy for Burgundy? As I slid on my high heels, I heard Franck’s now familiar footstep on the stairs.

  The sail curtain to his room parted, and he came in. I was sitting on the edge of the bed. “Do you think this will do?”

  Franck had gone completely still, his eyes fixated on the bodice area of my dress.

  “You look beautiful,” he said, finally. “I’m not sure it’s safe letting you go amongst the Knights of the Wine-Tasting Cup looking like that.”

  “I’ll be fine.” I got up and pressed a kiss against his jaw. “I’ll be safeguarded by all those Ursus members. And when it’s over, I’ll be coming back to Villers to you.”

  “I can’t wait.” Franck’s fingers played across the bare skin on my back between my criss-crossed shoulder straps. “Can I mess you up a bit now though?”

  An hour and a half later, Franck dropped me off in front of the massive stone entrance to the Chateau de Clos Vougeot. The whole place was strategically lit to highlight the twelfth- to sixteenth-century stonework. It was still light out, but I had no doubt it would be spectacular once night fell.

  First, we were treated to an apéritif of kir in the courtyard, where I chatted with several Ursus members and kept an eye out for the Beaupres. I smiled to myself. Monsieur Beaupre was surely running late, as usual, and driving Madame Beaupre crazy.

  The chevaliers mingling in the crowd looked impressive with their red-and-yellow-striped robes and neck sashes and huge silver winetasting cups hanging around their necks.

  The sound of trumpets silenced the crowd, then a parade of men in full Chevaliers de Tastevin regalia including the robes and square red and yellow hats, strutted around, led by men blowing on coiled hunting trumpets.

  We were escorted into the main dining hall, which was spectacular and lavishly set for what looked like over three hundred people.

  I sat down at my designated spot between two Ursus members I had met only briefly before. I tried to count the number of different shaped glasses in front of my place setting but lost count before more hunting trumpets heralded the arrival of the food on gargantuan platters, which was carried aloft by the waiters.

  The first course was placed in front of me—a thick wedge of what looked like duck terrine, artfully displayed on salad leaves and paired with a dollop of jelly. A white wine was simultaneously poured into the glass on my far left.

  The leisurely pace of Burgundian meals that I had grown accustomed to was absent here. Everything was run with such clockwork precision that we guests settled down to the business of consuming the courses as they were served, so as not to disrupt the schedule. After the terrine, there was the fish course—steaming monkfish medallions in a sauce redolent of saffron, served from oval copper dishes shined to a golden glow. Just as I mopped upthe last bit of my sauce with a piece of fresh baguette, my plate was replaced with another containing two piping-hot poached eggs in red wine sauce a local specialty known as oeufs en meurette, which was served with mushrooms and thin, crisp slices of garlicy baguette.

  I barely had time to contemplate the mystery of how all of this was being served hot and without a single mistake, when a thick slice of veal topped with morels in a creamy mustard sauce appeared in front of me. The accompanying wine was a delectable Hospice de Beaune from 1985, which was both powerful and perfectly balanced.

  I took a deep breath after this course. I barely had time to talk to my table mates, who all seemed as focused on their delicious food and wine as I was, like elite atheletes during a prestigious sporting event.

  “I wonder what’s next?” I asked the man to my right.

  Just then tiny glasses of sorbet swimming in Marc de Bourgogne appeared, answering my question. This was a trou Bourguignon, meant to refresh the palate and help digestion before the cheese course.

  “Most meals in Burgundy are a marathon,” my neighbor commented. “This one is a sprint.”

  I laughed and just then caught the eye of Madame Beaupre who was seated three tables further along. I waved at her and she waved back, but with some reserve. Were they still upset about Franck, or was it something else entirely? I wanted to talk to them, but just then a plate of cheese materialized in front of me, along with my favorite l’Ami du Chambertin, which Madame Beaupre had introduced me to, as well as a creamy Brillant Savarin and a sharp Comté. I had lost track of which wine I was drinking, but this red looked like it merited the wide-bowled glass, into which it was reverently poured. I took a sip. Perfection. The best wine was always served with the cheese course and this one had to be a Grand Cru.

  I wondered if I could get up to go over and say hello to the Beaupres after my cheese course, but everyone stayed seated at their designated places. Nobody even dared take a bathroom break, from what I could tell. I could hardly blame them—some crucial delicacy would be missed and going to the bathroom wasn’t in keeping with the synchronized nature of the proceedings. Mother Nature be damned.

  Giant escargots made of white chocolate, accompanied by prune liquour, were wheeled in on trolleys, only to be ceremoniously splintered and transformed into shards of chocolate-coated, crunchy almond toffee.

  Would I even be sober enough to be able to convince the Beaupres that Franck was a good thing for me? Or maybe, I reasoned optimistically, the alcohol would ease the discussion. It still mattered to me very much what the Beaupres thought of me and that they approved of Franck.

  I was still pondering this when a group of red-and-yellow-outfitted men went up to the elevated stage at the front, picked up their instruments, and led all of us in a rousing rendition of the “ban Bourguignon.” I could now clap and twirl my hands and sing “la la la” with the best of them.

&nb
sp; Just as I was about to get up and sneak over to the Beaupres under the cover of all the raucous singing, I heard my name called out repeatedly.

  One of my neighbours pointed to me, and the singers beckoned me up on stage. I walked none too steadily, concentrating hard on putting one foot in front of the other.

  Once on the stage, I turned and smiled at the crowd, but I couldn’t make out any individual faces under the bright lights.

  “What is your name again?” the lead singer asked me, and then pushed the microphone under my mouth.

  “Laura,” I answered.

  “And how old are you?” he asked.

  “Eighteen.”

  “Ahhhhhh…une belle jeune Laura, mais dis donc, qui l’aura?” It was a play on my name—a beautiful young Laura, but the question is, who will get her?

  And then he was off, making suggestive but playful jokes with my name while I blushed. He also made several comparisons between me and fine wine, and women in general and fine wine, and at long last made me sign my name in an enormous ledger, then placed my very own winetasting cup around my neck. The trumpets started up again, and the singers led everyone in another raucous “ban Bourguignon” as I was ushered back to my seat.

  I was unsure exactly what had just happened, but I was certain that it was certainly a once-in-a-lifetime experience. A few other people were beckoned to the stage and gently roasted like me. I didn’t dare get up, as anyone who did became the butt of the singer’s ribald jokes.

  More hard liquers were served, and I opted for a marc this time, and then, after many speeches and songs later, coffee and petits fours appeared.

  At long last, things wound down, and people began making their way towards the doors. I teetered a bit, unused to the combination of high heels and six or seven glasses of wine. I hurried, though, to catch the Beaupres before I missed them.

  I gave them both les bises and noticed that they seemed tired. “That was quite an experience,” I said with a smile.