- Salt and pepper to taste.
Book II - Advanced French Kissing
Chapter 1
Ariane
STAYING IN BED LATE ON Saturday morning was such a treat, thought Ariane as she stretched lazily in her large bed. A fabulous top-of-the-line king-size bed had been her present to herself for her twenty-fifth birthday. Every single morning when she rolled onto the fresh side of the bed to sleep another half hour before getting up, she thanked herself for it.
Daylight streamed through the heavy curtains of her bedroom overlooking the cobblestone courtyard of the building. The rays reflected off the mirrored sliding doors of the wall-to-wall closet she had built next to her bed. It made the room look larger. A bird chirped. Hers was an incredibly quiet place to live in Paris.
On the other side of the main building one could hear the hustle of the rue Saint Dominique, the sounds of families going about their weekend shopping, the hum of the engines of the delivery trucks blocking the street, and the yells of the drivers of the other vehicles frustrated by the slow pace forced upon them. The noise was at a peak around eleven thirty a.m., when the traffic was slowed down further by kids coming out of their Saturday morning classes. They scattered on the streets screaming with delight, celebrating the arrival of the weekend.
That side was the one Madame Caroline, the owner of the building, had picked to live on. “There’ll be enough quiet for me when I’m at the cemetery,” she always said.
The woman, who would be a century old in a few months, sat by her windows most of the day and enjoyed her view of the street. “This is what life is all about,” she would explain to whomever would listen, and lately Ariane felt she was the last one still listening. “I’ve buried a few husbands, all of my childhood friends, and most of my contemporaries. I have no one left to reminisce with, so instead of crying, I decided to live in the present and imagine the future. I watch the kids going in and out from school, I watch them play in the courtyard, and I know what type of adults they will turn into. You can always tell because no one ever changes. We just get more set in our ways when we change playgrounds.”
Ariane adored the old lady. She was as sharp as a tack and funny. Everybody had warned her that she was very moody and could be quite nasty, but so far, she had never lashed out at Ariane. On the contrary, she had been wonderful to her from day one.
They had met when Ariane was hunting for a place to open her own cooking school. Ariane had fallen in love with the building. From the street it was the usual, white stone, early-19th-century construction with a porte-cochère—the typical Parisian high entrance large enough for a horse and carriage to go through. Opening that door was like travelling back in time. In the cobblestone courtyard stood a smaller two-story structure. The ground floor had been the stable and carriage house, the second floor the servants’ quarters.
The architectural firm that had initially rented the place from Madame Caroline had kept the original sliding wooden doors. Carving out the central parts of the doors to replace them with glass panels, they had created a quaint open working space, large enough for the kitchen workshop Ariane had imagined. There was even enough space to put in a wall and create a small dining room. The second floor was an unfinished work in progress. Dividing walls had been torn out and a new tiled floor put in, but that was it.
To bid for it, Ariane had presented her project and business plan to Madame Caroline. Two months’ security, one month’s rent in advance, and the basic kitchen set-up she needed would absorb all of her savings. Aside from those savings, Ariane could also boast a modest line of credit with her bank. That and her culinary talents had summed up her assets. If Madame Caroline said yes, Ariane would give notice to her present landlord and move into the living quarters of the second floor so she would only have one rent to pay.
The old lady had reserved her answer.
Before making her decision, she’d wanted to speak to Ariane’s references and taste her cooking. That very day, Ariane had known she had a serious chance at getting the deal.
The following Friday, Ariane had served as Madame Caroline’s private chef for a party of three old ladies, not one of whom was a day younger than ninety.
Having bribed Jean-Michel, the young apprentice of the next-door butcher shop, to find out what Madame Caroline favored, Ariane had served a very moist roasted duck with steamed green beans tied together in pretty little bundles by a string of chives. There had been salad, a well-picked assortment of cheese, and a crème caramel. The crème caramel was the crown jewel of the meal.
Indeed, when she had quizzed the local merchants to get information about Madame Caroline, Patrick, the owner of the local bakery, had given her precious information. He had told her that crème caramel was Madame Caroline’s favorite dessert. The old lady regularly scolded him for not having some always readily available for her.
Ariane had served the meal and watched over her judge’s expressions as she ate. Afterwards, she’d lingered on in the kitchen waiting for Madame Caroline’s friends to go. When they did, Madame Caroline came to speak to her. After making sure the kitchen was clean and inspecting the oven and the pots drying on the countertop, Madame Caroline had said, “I’ve spoken to the head of the school where you taught these past years. She speaks very highly of you. She said you managed to tame classes of rowdy teenagers and convinced even the biggest ‘hard-asses’—her term, not mine—that cooking is cool.”
She’d paused as if puzzled. “One day, you’ll have to tell me what you said to butter them up like that, because as far as I’m concerned, cooking is the most boring occupation there is.”
Ariane had resisted the urge to jump up and down in excitement. Yes, she was going to open her own school in that fabulous location. Keeping a poker face, she’d waited for Madame Caroline to speak again.
“Here’s my proposal for you. I will rent the carriage house to you for the advertised rent, and I will pay for the renovation of the second floor—nothing fancy mind you. I’ll only put in a bathroom. All this in exchange for three meals a week, one of them being Sunday lunch, for the duration of the lease.”
Ariane had shaken Madame Caroline’s extended hand, and the agreement had been sealed.
During the following years, Ariane and Madame Caroline had become friends—at least, that was the way Ariane felt. They had shared almost every single one of the Sunday lunches, and, more often than not, they also shared the two evening meals Ariane brought to the ancient lady’s apartment. Even when she did not stay for dinner with Madame Caroline, Ariane often sat with her while she ate and told her about her days, her students, or some new recipe she was working on. Madame Caroline reported on the interesting events of the street she watched over.
Ariane’s only concern with their deal was the lack of written agreement. As Madame Caroline impatiently pointed out every single time someone dared to keep her waiting, she was not getting any younger and could kick the bucket any minute. Without a written lease, Ariane wasn’t sure what kind of rights she would have the day Madame Caroline was called to face her maker.
But every single time Ariane tried to bring up the subject, using as much tact as she could muster, Madame Caroline chased the question away by waving her hands as if it had been an annoying insect buzzing around her.
Her answer was always the same: “Pas de cela entre amies.”
Her “No such thing between friends” had also been the answer when Ariane had asked about a rent increase at the end of the first year. The low rent had made Ariane’s life much easier when she started out, but she knew it wasn’t right.
Somehow, Ariane found a way to make her peace with her pleasant but unsettling situation. At the end of the second year she decided to put aside every month an amount equal to the difference between the rent she was really paying and what she would have needed to pay if her rent had been adjusted to fair value as provided by French law. Thanks to that decision and her strict discipline, Ariane hoped that her savings
account would become fat enough to allow her to fall back on her feet and set up a new shop elsewhere if she ever had to leave on short notice.
The coming weekend Ariane would be doing a double feature at Madame Caroline’s. They would have lunch Saturday and Sunday to catch up on the Sunday lunch she had skipped the previous week, when she had organized her first intensive weekend workshop.
Ariane went through her checklist in her mind. Everything was ready in the kitchen downstairs. The only thing missing was fresh bread. She would have to go to the bakery… or not. Ariane dreaded going there so much she hadn’t had bread in a week, and, come to think of it, with what she had prepared, Madame Caroline wouldn’t need bread that day either.
Nevertheless, she would have to speak to Patrick sometime… soon.
Last Sunday morning, when his teenaged daughter, Martine, had come to drop a bread basket at Ariane’s place, she had walked in on Ariane while she was kissing another man.
He had had her pinned against the wall, her skirt rolled up to her hips. And she’d probably been moaning like a mad woman. Just thinking about that moment with Peter was enough to create a pool of heat between her legs. Martine’s arrival had been the perfect cold shower Ariane needed to get a grip on herself and not give in to the advances of a man who was flying off to a different continent the next day. She was thankful to Martine for that, but she feared the young girl was upset. She wondered if Martine had spoken about it with her dad.
But her Saturday-morning lie-in wasn’t for worrying about things like that. She had another half an hour of sleep before the alarm would ring. Ariane rolled over to the fresh side of the bed and closed her eyes.
Chapter 2
Caroline
AT 12:30 P.M. SHARP, Ariane served lunch for two in the dining room. The day maid had set the table for them. The only thing Ariane would have to do was bring the food and sit down to lunch with her. Caroline loved to eat but couldn’t be bothered to find her way to the kitchen unless she needed a fresh bottle of Champagne. She hated kitchen work so much that if nothing was ready for her, she would rather skip the meal than prepare it.
Unfolding the embroidered linen napkin and setting it on her knees, Caroline congratulated herself again for her presence of mind. Indeed, it had been so clever of her to trick Ariane into feeding her three meals a week. Caroline was certainly getting the better half of the bargain.
Ariane’s yearly rent was a drop in the bucket of Caroline’s income. She had enough money stashed away that, even if she lived to be three hundred and never collected any more rent from the several buildings she owned in Paris, she would be fine. Her closest relatives were very distant cousins who had no idea how filthy rich she was. They would find out soon enough when they inherited whatever she had not distributed, given, or willed away to her favorite causes.
In the meantime, charity started at home, and she was treating herself as well as she could.
That day she was going for a double treat: while savoring Ariane’s delicious food, she would pry out of her tidbits of information to satisfy her insatiable curiosity. She had seen something last weekend which made her raise her eyebrows. She needed some explanation in order to fit together the final pieces of the puzzle.
She dug in to her pissaladière, the delicious onion-based French cousin of the Italian pizza, but before putting the first bite in her mouth, she paused long enough to ask, “So how did your workshop go, Ariane? Was it worth it going two weeks non-stop?”
“It was exhausting,” Ariane said. “I’d probably do it again, though, but during a holiday period, when I have no school during the week.”
“Did you get to meet nice people? From my point of view, I noticed some interesting male specimens.” As Ariane did not comment, Caroline chuckled and continued. “Two were more boys than men. So very young. But then, at my age, everyone looks young. I still see one of those kids around in our street.”
“That would be Charles, and he would be very offended if he knew you called him a kid. He was upset with me for calling him a boy. He’s a very sweet man, and he was sent to me by Jean-Michel.”
“I see. One more glorious loss for the female cause. Do you think they’ll get married? Now that this new law has been voted in and same sex marriage is legal in France, I would very much like to see one of the first ones celebrated in Paris. I’d like to hear ‘the groom may kiss the groom’ or ‘the bride may kiss the bride.’ I think I’d get a kick out of that.”
“Jean-Michel is very active in the LGBT movement. He knows a lot of people. Maybe you could ask him to tag along when he’s invited to one. I’m sure he’d be happy to have you as his date.”
“I’ll have to think about that. A date with Jean-Michel sounds like fun.” Caroline smiled, thinking that it would indeed be interesting. “Now tell me about the others. There was a big man. Was he a lumberjack or a weight lifter on steroids?”
Ariane laughed at Caroline’s description. She could sum up a person in a single sentence. As always, Ariane knew precisely whom she was talking about.
“That was George Sweet. He does give this impression of physical power. He’s like an ancient oak with legs. He did say at some point that he had worked in construction while going to school. That may have helped him build up. Or maybe he chose construction because he was already that big. I don’t know. Anyway, nowadays his activity is mainly intellectual. His weapon of choice is the pen. He writes historical novels and seems quite successful at it.”
Ariane went to the kitchen to fetch the next course, and Caroline waited for Ariane to return with the roasted free-range chicken and the mashed potatoes before asking about the other participants.
“There was Jena and Thomas,” Ariane said. “They were newlyweds, and the workshop was a wedding present. Isn’t it sweet?”
“Not sweet, ludicrous! No insult intended to your teaching or cooking talents, my dear, but the very idea that anyone would want to spend any part of their honeymoon in a cooking seminar seems absurd to me. ”
“You may have a point there. They never played hooky, but they were the first ones to rush out every single night.”
“Who were the last two?”
“Peter and Mary Doyle. A brother and sister from New York.”
“Oh, why didn’t I think of that?” Caroline said to herself and smacked her forehead with her hand. “Now that you say that, I realize they do look alike.”
Ariane’s expression had turned questioning, and Caroline explained. “I saw them arrive together on the first day. Then, a few hours later, I saw her leave with Monsieur Muscle while her partner stuck around with you. I couldn’t figure it out. Not that I can’t understand love at first sight, mind you. I very much do. The fact of the matter is, if it were a religion, I would be a faithful member of that church. I would tour the world to testify about it! I have no problem understanding how one could arrive somewhere with one man and leave with another. I think I actually pulled that stunt myself a few times, but that’s another story. I digress. It’s what happened the next day that didn’t make sense to me. Once a woman has dumped her husband on the spur of the moment, she can’t very well come back the next day with her new lover to the class her husband is attending, can she?”
“I suppose not,” Ariane said, an amused smile on her face.
“Now that I know it’s a brother and a sister, it makes perfect sense.”
“Oh, Madame Caroline, you crack me up. You should write novels with that overactive imagination of yours.”
“Are you making fun of me?”
“No, not at all. On the contrary, I admire your sense of observation. I think it’s great the way you notice stuff no one else sees and fill in the blanks. You need to since watching life through your window is like watching a movie without the soundtrack.”
“That’s a good analogy. However, most of the time I don’t miss the dialogue. Every so often we all use lies or disguise the truth to suit our needs. Without the dialogue I can concentra
te on the body language. Often it’s more telling than anything else.”
“Really?”
“Yes. For instance, last Sunday morning, when Martine came for your bread delivery and rushed out, I could tell she was upset by the way she walked out of the building.” Caroline took a bite of her perfectly seasoned chicken and watched as Ariane refused to meet her gaze and concentrated on drawing patterns in her mashed potatoes with her fork. Ariane was clearly going to need a little more prompting to talk about that subject.
“It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out. Something was going on between you and the brother. What did you say his name was?”
“Peter.”
“I very much doubt Martine was upset with what she saw, per se. The kids, nowadays, they’ve seen everything. I was told you can even watch sex on the internet. It’s probably not what you and that man were doing that shocked her. So it got me thinking, she must know about you and her dad. She’s upset because she’s caught you with another man and she doesn’t know what to do with that information.”
“Oh, merde! You think she knows something happened between Patrick and me?”
“Ariane, everyone knows. No one understands what your deal is, but everyone knows there is something. Or should I say there was something?”
“What do you mean, everyone knows? We’ve been very discreet.”
“Well, I could be responsible for that.” Caroline cringed a little. “You see, I asked a few questions at the beginning, when you first moved in. Patrick was already alone at that time. His wife had walked out on him a while back. I noticed he was circling around you like a shark. His crème caramel is crappy, but he’s handsome. Actually, I think he’s hot. Don’t give me that look. I don’t play tennis anymore, but I can still spot a good player when I see one.”
“I had no idea you had ever played tennis.” Ariane’s tone was teasing.
“Yes, I did, and I was very good at it. So, Patrick. He’s hot, he’s funny, he makes a killer baguette and a devilish Mont Blanc. A woman could do worse. The only possible drawback I see is the fact that he’s saddled with a daughter. However, you’re good with kids and you seem to like that one. We all wondered…”
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