“Esme,” Louis said again, his voice penetrating Esme’s embarrassment. “Are you all right?”
Esme looked at him, opened her mouth to speak and shut it again. Was she dreaming? Was it possible that just when her thoughts had been so cluttered with images of the French lover from her past, he should appear right in front of her?
That was when Louis smiled. It was a slow smile that started in the cupid’s bow in the middle of his mouth and spread outward to the upturned corners where it crept up his cheeks and crinkled his eyes. Inside, she crumpled.
She had imagined, of course, the way she suspected many grown-up women did when it came to the subject of their first love, especially on days when they were up to their armpits in shitty nappies, that she and he would be reunited one day. Of all the fantasies in all the world she had simply not fathomed one as outlandish as this.
After all, here, standing in front of her was the man whose very name to her defined longing, defined lust, defined true, true love. He occupied a space in her head that no one else in the world had ever or could ever share, could even come close to sharing.
Of course she had lain awake at night, especially over the past couple of years, with Pog’s safe, squashy body next to her purring with snores as she imagined cruising the Grand Canal in a gondola in Venice, Louis sitting opposite her stroking her feet.
Naturally she had fantasized, on the nights when Rory wouldn’t settle without her there beside him, of returning to Venolat alone and finding her old lover leaning against the boulangerie door, lightly dusted in flour, a roll-your-own cigarette hanging from his lips and a look on his face that said, “What took you so long?”
Of course she had thought of him when she worked her bread. Who had she been kidding? Every time her pale strong hands kneaded the dough from the starter Louis had given her all those years ago, she thought about him, just fleetingly, and mostly about his skin. How smooth it felt. How salty it tasted. It was her favorite part of him and the silky dough as it rolled and shifted beneath her touch always reminded her of it. It didn’t mean she loved Pog less. It just meant she remembered loving Louis. She remembered it well.
And now, after all this time, after so many dreams and imaginings, here he was standing right in front of her and a slightly soiled Barcelona chair while she had someone else’s Hubba Bubba gummed up in her hair.
Her hand dropped limply to her side and she shook her head slightly, feeling the nail file wiggle and wobble above her right ear. She had not been prepared for this. She was clueless. She did not know how to get the gum out of her hair. She did not know how to confront the man who had stolen her heart, or at least borrowed it for a few wild, wonderful weeks, then broken it. And if she didn’t know how to do either of those things separately, she sure as God made little green apples did not know how to do them together.
Louis’s eyes soaked all this up. And then he simply took another step toward her, reached out and took her hand.
“Come,” he said, and tugged gently at her. Esme felt the tingle of his flesh on hers and the years dropped away as though they had never existed. Every cell in her body vibrated with joy at being reunited with the forgotten sensation of Louis’s touch. She felt an overwhelming urge to gasp or cry or scream or something. She floated on air, she neither knew nor cared where she was going, she simply let herself be pulled by him, everything she knew about herself melting away and falling on the floor in invisible puddles behind her. Wherever Louis wanted to take her, Esme realized, she would go. Whatever he wanted her to do, she would do it. Never mind Pog. Never mind Rory. Never mind The Blind Goat and the father-in-law and the House in the Clouds. This was it. This was her destiny. Her escape. He was the one.
“Excuse me, mademoiselle,” the one said, the sound of his voice extracting Esme from her trance. Louis had taken her to a counter and he was now using his mesmerizing tone to address a languid clone of the brunette she had seen earlier. “Have you some scissors I may borrow for a moment? My friend is in need of them.”
He looked back at Esme and smiled again, giving her hand enough of a squeeze to nearly stop her heart. Then he took the scissors from the baleful girl at the desk, gently released Esme from his grip and moved closer, so close that she could feel his breath on her neck, and it sent goose bumps so intensely up her spine she felt each and every one separately.
Holding the scissors in one hand, with the other he lifted up the hair from the back of her neck, and Esme felt the cold shock of the shop’s air-conditioning tickle the sweat that her thick red curls had up until then concealed, every bead revealed sending shivers through her body.
Slowly, carefully, Louis ran his fingers up behind her ear through the tangle of her hair, inching his way gradually, his fingers firm and hard on her scalp, making tiny circular movements with his strong, clean, breadmaker’s hands.
I am going to have to tell him to stop, Esme thought, fighting to keep from closing her eyes and groaning with pleasure. I am a married woman about to behave very badly in a posh shop with the man who broke my heart fifteen years ago. I am going to have to scream at him to stop. But the feeling of his fingers on her head, the smell of him, the force of him, the ecstasy she was holding at bay: She was totally powerless to fight it.
Louis himself came to her rescue. His fingers located the stuck nail file and stopped their rapturous head rub. Deftly, he isolated the curl on which the gum was riveted and in one seamless move, snipped at it with the scissors, then plainly presented Esme with the nail file, its sticky little friend and about six inches of one of her copper-colored ringlets.
It was a disgusting sight, like something left way too long at the bottom of a handbag, and Esme wished he would throw the whole sorry mess away. It occurred to her then, though, that she should probably say something. That she had said nothing since confirming that she was who he thought she was when she first saw him. But words escaped her. Words saw what was in her head and ran a mile. Words formed a picket line and refused to let her cross it.
Louis raised his astonishing eyebrows, leaned over the counter and gracefully dropped the file, gum and curl into the wastepaper basket. Then he stood up straight and looked at her again.
“Bloody hell,” said Esme at last and her heart thumped as Louis smiled his slow, spreading smile again.
“My pleasure,” answered Louis as though she had just thanked him, which, she realized with a clunk inside her head, was exactly what she should have done.
“Yes, yes, of course,” Esme said, taking hold of her senses and lining up words in an almost orderly queue to make an entire sentence. “I’m meeting Charlie for lunch. Next door,” she said, as though one and a half decades had not elapsed since the three of them last saw each other. “You remember Charlie, don’t you? We were staying together in Venolat. Anyway, I’m meeting him there”—she looked at her watch—“about now actually.” She was scared to stop speaking. She could not let Louis slip away. “I don’t suppose . . . Well, you could always . . .” He looked at her, amused. “Louis, would you care to join us?”
She couldn’t believe what she had just done. Why? But why not? With Charlie around she felt sure she could trust herself to act normally and to go home to her family whom she loved and who loved her. It would be fine. And he would probably say no, anyway. She was certain he would say no.
“I can think of nothing better,” Louis said, smiling and opening out his arm, inviting her to walk in front of him. “After you, madame.” And Esme, knowing that one of the things Louis liked most about her was her bottom, walked as gracefully as she could out of the shop, thanking God and his ridiculous sense of humor for the fact that her skirt was still twisted on back to front so he would not be looking at the remains of a juicy wodge of someone else’s bubble gum, which she was currently concealing with her bag.
A crisp maitre d’ was on the phone when Esme and Louis got to the top of the stairs at the Orrery, but upon seeing them his face registered welcome relief.
&
nbsp; “Mr. Edmonds,” he said into the receiver, “she has just walked in. I will pass you over to her. Thank you, sir. See you soon.”
Esme took the phone being offered. “Charlie?” she said. “Where are you?”
“Oh, Es,” the raddled voice of her friend came back at her. “I hate to do this to you but something has come up at work and I don’t know if I’m going to be able to make it to our lunch. I know you came down to London especially and I wouldn’t stand you up for all the world you know that but the Client from Hell has demanded a two o’clock meeting and I really need to—”
“You must come, Charlie,” Esme butted in, trying to keep the panic out of her voice. “Louis is here.”
Charlie was silent for a moment.
“I’m sorry?” he asked.
“Louis,” she repeated as calmly as she could. “Louis, the baker from Venolat. You remember.”
“Jesus,” Charlie finally said. “Are you pissed already? You need help, Esme. You’re obviously seeing things.”
Esme laughed in what she hoped was a sophisticated and casual fashion given that Louis was standing less than a yard away. “No, silly,” she said. “I mean it’s actually Louis, the real thing. I just bumped into him in the Conran Shop. After all these years—can you believe it?”
“Frankly, no,” answered Charlie. “Are you sure it’s him?”
Esme snuck a look at Louis, standing at the desk next to her, looking perfectly in place the way he always had.
“I think I would know,” she said. “Don’t you? It’s given me something of a surprise, Charlie, and I’ve invited him to join us for lunch.”
“Well,” said Charlie, clearly flabbergasted. “What a bugger I shan’t be there to watch the whole lovely thing unfold.”
Esme stood on her toes and squeaked into the phone with the exertion of not unleashing a string of Granny Mac’s most venomous invective on him.
“Look,” Charlie said calmly, obviously enjoying her discomfort. “I think the two of you should take the booking and I’ll pay for the lunch. How’s that for a deal? I have an account there and—”
“Oh, we couldn’t possibly,” Esme interrupted loudly, aware the maitre d’ was tapping his pen on the desk and trying not to look agitated.
“Bollocks,” said Charlie. “You could possibly. You will possibly. Listen, Es, I really have to dash but say hello to Louis from me and I want details, darling, details when you are through so ring me later and tell me everything. Oh, and have the foie gras.” With that he hung up and the line went dead.
Esme handed the phone back to the maitre d’ and smiled wanly.
“Table for two as guests of Mr. Edmonds?” he asked, and she nodded, afraid to look at Louis but aware, somehow, that he was smiling at her again. She had never wanted to eat anything less in all her life.
Seated at their table overlooking a pretty, leafy park across the road and the hustle and bustle of Marylebone High Street, Esme wondered how long she could keep staring out the window and saying nothing. She snuck a look at Louis, who had never felt the need to fill silent spaces with unnecessary words and so was sitting there, cool as a cucumber and perfectly happy to be sneakily looked at.
His hair, Esme could not help but notice, was just as black as it had been when she last saw him, but perhaps it was receding a little at the front. This suited him though, she thought. How typical! He still wore it unfashionably long at the back but this, too, was right for him. Those black eyes must have held a thousand more secrets by now but little about his face had really changed. The dark skin was still smooth as satin—maybe there was more stubble, but maybe not.
He was wearing a very dark gray Saville Row suit and a very pale gray business shirt and matching silk tie. He looked positively edible and it made her feel sick. How could she possibly be sitting here opposite him? It was like being in a dream.
A suited waiter appeared at her elbow with all but the click of his heels.
“Bread?” he questioned, proffering her a basket. She looked across the table at Louis, whose faint left dimple appeared.
“Have you any sourdough?” Louis asked.
“No, sir,” the waiter replied. “Just the kibbled wheat slice and our chef’s own fresh-made rolls.”
“We will both have one of each,” Louis said, and Esme’s heart quickened for the hundredth time in the past half hour. If she got through this lunch without a coronary, she promised herself she would find a religion, join it and go to church or temple or synagogue or wherever the hell she had to every day for the rest of her life.
Chapter 10
After nineteen years of being flat and dull, once Louis added his starter to Esme in the hot salty flour store of the Venolat boulangerie, she rose. The bits of herself that she had never been sure of before suddenly all made sense. Her pieces fell into place. She felt like a black-and-white drawing, abandoned for years in a tatty book by some spoiled child, then discovered, dusty and dirty, and colored in perfectly, without one single stroke going over the lines.
“If you tell me he completes you I will seriously have to slap you,” Charlie told her, but Esme laughed aside his cynicism. She felt happy, truly, deliriously, deliciously happy, for the first time in her life and nothing could change that. Nothing could turn her back into the old colorless Esme of before.
She had been Louis-ed and she was never going back. Without him she might have gained fifty pounds and ended her days as an ancient stand-up comic cracking jokes about being ginger and never getting laid. Without him the suspicion she had that she was too odd for most men might have turned into a mean streak a mile wide and manifested itself with a short unattractive haircut and steel-capped boots. Without him she might never have discovered the pure and glorious sensation of knowing, knowing deep down inside at the most intimate level, with absolute certainty, that the man she loved loved her straight back.
It was different from knowing that Granny Mac loved her, or Charlie, or her distant father in his own peculiar way, or her dead mother, for that matter. They had to love her. That was how families, how best friends worked. But Louis—he could have just scuffed his toe outside the boulangerie that night and never so much as looked her way, let alone felt her desperate longing from across the square and eventually plugged, so to speak, that hole.
What Esme loved most about him was what he loved about her.
He loved her hair, especially where it was kinkiest and reddest, down where it had been viewed by spectacularly few people. He adored her freckles, was forever counting them and giving them names, in French, as he kissed them separately and succulently. He noticed straightaway her perfect feet. Her bottom fitted perfectly in his two hands, nestled expertly in his lap. He treated her breasts like crown jewels, lifting and holding them with reverence and kissing the nipples as though they were rings on a fat pope’s finger. Just hearing him say her name made her tingle all over. He made her feel like the ridiculous fairy-tale princess she had always wanted to be. She couldn’t get enough of him nor he of her.
After deflowering her in the dusty upstairs room that first fantastic night, Louis had taken her back down to the bakery and refloured her on the counter. The scales had fallen, clattering, to the ground as her foot caught them when Louis rolled her underneath him, the weights bouncing loudly on the stone floor and spinning away in different directions. It was a sound she would never forget.
Then, momentarily sated, he had taken the linen sheet off the stack of bread baskets and wrapped it around her, and she had sat naked beneath it on her favorite stone step and watched him work.
First, he stoked up the fire, then, reaching above his head to a rack hanging from the ceiling, he pulled down a paddle with a handle long enough to reach the back of the oven. Swiftly but carefully he upended the baskets of dough that he had stacked earlier two at a time onto the paddle, then expertly sliced a flowery L into the top of each one with a little razor-wheel contraption that he held between his teeth as he slid the loaves two
at a time into the oven.
The dough, spongy and floury and so ready and willing to head into that fiery furnace, had reminded her of herself, only moments before. So full of promise! So teetering on the brink of becoming something much, much better, something it was made to be.
When every last boule-to-be had been safely tucked in the crackling oak-fired oven, the well-worn wooden paddle lifted back into its ceiling rack, the floor swept, the scale weights retrieved and the baskets stacked neatly under the bench, Louis slipped up and sat on the step behind Esme, wrapping himself around her. They sat like that, his lips nuzzling her hair, her cheek, her ear, for a long, lovely time, until Louis lifted his head, sniffed the stifling air, and excused himself to bring the perfect loaves out, two at a time, and place them on the waiting empty racks.
“It’s all in the rise, see?” he told Esme, holding up a pair of fat happy boules in front of her. “Look, see the gloss on the crust? Perfect.”
How he loved his sourdough. And how Esme loved that about him. He emptied the oven, wiped the sweat off his brow with his discarded T-shirt, then pulled Esme to her feet and kissed her deep and lazily as the sweet, sweet smell of the cooling bread embraced them like a warm blanket.
Finally, Louis pulled away and whispered that his uncle would soon be arriving, that she should go home and he would see her again at midnight or later, if she preferred. He led her naked and glowing upstairs to the flour room, where he retrieved her clothes and dressed her, lingering over the tiny buttons on the ancient, delicate camisole. He kissed her hip bones as he knelt and gently pulled up her Marks & Spencer bikini briefs, then ran his tongue lightly around her belly button, tickling her.
By Bread Alone Page 15