Henry nodded, and they started walking. Henry couldn’t quite tell if they weren’t talking about the dance because Rosie wanted a fresh start, or because he was being a chicken. He could feel everything they’d said last night hovering between them like an uninvited guest, but he still couldn’t seem to find the words to apologize for how he’d acted.
“Henry?”
“Sorry. I’m sorry.” Henry shook his head. “Did you say something?”
“Wow, you’re really out of it. Let me guess—Hampus found a bunch of deleted scenes from Bron/Broen and you guys were up way too late last night?”
“Something like that.” Henry forced himself to smile. He’d been up too late obsessing about Bodie and Rosie dancing and the way he’d acted like a sulky little kid. Which was way worse than bingeing Swedish crime procedurals.
“You’ve seemed tired a lot lately,” she said gently. “Like you’re having a hard time staying awake in class. And you fell asleep in the common room the other day. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, it’s fine. I’m fine. Better than fine. Just. You know. Gotta get everything right.”
“Henry, you don’t have to get everything right. Not if it’s keeping you from sleeping. You’ll cut your fingers off if you’re not careful.”
Henry nodded in response and then stifled a yawn. Rosie wrinkled her nose at him, like he was proving her point.
“Wanna cut through the park?” Henry asked her, changing the subject. Even though Rosie looked like she still had something she wanted to say, all she did was nod and start walking.
The branches of the trees were bare and leafless. It was that in-between season, after autumn leaves and before snow, where everything seemed dead and cold and a bit spooky, even in the late-morning sunshine.
Rosie stopped, suddenly, right in the middle of the park. Henry immediately saw why—there was a couple making out on a park bench, directly in front of them. But it wasn’t just any couple—it was Yumi and Marquis. Neither Rosie nor Henry said anything, but they found themselves, by unspoken agreement, crossing the street.
“So, um, the thing about brioche,” Rosie blurted out, her voice higher than usual, querulous, “is that you want room-temperature eggs and soft butter.”
And Rosie kept talking about brioche, but she didn’t make eye contact with him until they’d reached the banks of the Seine.
Henry didn’t know why they couldn’t joke about their friends making out. But as they drank their Cokes and shared their brioche, they never even mentioned Yumi and Marquis. And even though they spent the rest of the afternoon talking, Henry felt like there was too much that went unsaid.
Back at school for dinner, Henry still felt awkward as he pushed his coq au vin around on his plate. He was half paying attention to the conversation and mostly concentrating on not accidentally brushing his leg against Rosie’s.
“Well, it looks like everybody’s finally here,” Yumi said, scanning the cafeteria. “It’s go-time.”
“Go-time? Go-time for what?” Rosie asked, but Yumi was already climbing on top of her chair, glass and fork in hand. She wobbled once, then steadied herself. “Do you know what she’s doing?” Rosie asked Marquis, across the table.
“No, I do not,” he said, and Henry felt like he’d started to notice a different tone in Marquis’s voice when he talked about Yumi. It wasn’t exasperation anymore. It was . . . affection, for lack of a better word.
“Attention. Attention all.” Yumi banged her fork against her plastic cup. It didn’t produce much noise, but eventually, everyone stopped talking and stared at her. “Thank you so much for your attention, and for allowing me to break into your regularly scheduled Sunday evening activities. As you may or may not know, last night, Marquis and I shared a passionate embrace.”
“Oh no,” Rosie said softly. “I think I have that thing when you die because you’re embarrassed for someone.”
“Fremdschämen,” Hampus said. “It is a German word. Anna taught me when we were watching Henry do his presentation in French class.”
“Nice, man. Thanks,” Henry said. His French was bad. Good thing Madame Huppert graded them on effort rather than ability.
“Shhh!” Yumi glared at them. “As all of you most definitely do not know,” she addressed the room, “unless you are stalking us, we have decided to make our relationship official. We are both off the market, so single people of the École, better luck next time.”
“Did you know she was going to do this?” Henry asked Marquis in a low voice.
“I did not,” he replied.
“Again, shhh, please!” Yumi hissed at their table. “If you would like to follow our journey on Instagram, you may use our couple name, hashtag-Mumi, or follow us on Snapchat at MumiDoesParis.” Yumi smiled brilliantly at the cafeteria. “Thank you so much for your time and consideration.”
“You’re on board with this?” Henry asked as the cafeteria exploded into a surprisingly robust round of applause, and Yumi, atop her chair, bowed.
“I am on board with this,” Marquis said, and Henry wasn’t sure if he’d been brainwashed. “Hashtag-Mumi.”
“Decided not to go with Yarquis?”
“Yumi thinks Mumi has better brand recognition.”
“What is your brand?” Henry asked, dumbfounded.
“You know. Mumi.”
“Sure. Mumi,” Henry said, and somehow, he was able to say it with a straight face. Maybe it did have better brand recognition than Yarquis.
Yumi made it back down to her seat, and Marquis kissed her, and this wasn’t even anywhere near the most intense PDA he’d been forced to witness at close quarters, but Henry found himself looking away, anyway. Not so much because he was embarrassed—not like Rosie, who was concentrating very hard on a piece of roasted potato—but because he wanted what they had. With Rosie. He didn’t need to be #Renry or @HosieDoesParis—he certainly couldn’t imagine Rosie doing anything like that—but watching Yumi and Marquis announce a full-fledged social media campaign made Henry newly aware of how none of their friends even knew he and Rosie had kissed. He couldn’t help but wonder if Rosie had kept everything that happened between them on the DL because she was hoping something might happen
with Bodie.
Because Henry had replayed their conversation from last night a million times in his mind.
And the thing he couldn’t forget was that Rosie had never denied liking Bodie.
So what’s coming up this week?” Mom asked, folding her arms and resting them on the kitchen table as she looked out at Rosie from her computer screen.
“Not sure. Chef Martinet still hasn’t told us yet.” Rosie picked up the laptop and settled it onto her lap, getting comfortable. She’d ducked out of lunch early to Skype with Mom before heading down to the kitchen.
“Here’s hoping it’s not frogs’ legs,” Mom teased.
“Henry keeps telling me they’re good. Like little meaty chicken lollipops.”
“Henry.” Mom smiled warmly. “How’s he doing?”
Henry. Things had mostly gone back to normal in the week since Halloween. Rosie certainly wasn’t as frustrated with him as she had been that night, but she still wanted to know where she stood, and she wanted Henry to know she liked him, not Bodie. Rosie knew the rational thing to do would be to just talk to Henry about what, if anything, was going on between them, but his moods had been unpredictable lately, and Rosie was having a hard time mustering up the courage to bring it up. One minute Henry was building snowmen out of dinner rolls and teasing Rosie about getting flour in her hair, and the next he was alternately grouchy and exhausted, falling asleep on top of his math homework or snapping at Hampus for not keeping their table neat enough.
“He seems . . . tired,” Rosie said eventually, which was true.
Owen, munching on an Eggo waffle, popped into the frame.
“Bonjour, Rosie!” he announced, affording her a pretty good view of a half-eaten Eggo.
“Don’
t talk with your mouth full,” Mom admonished.
“Bonjour, Owen!” Rosie tilted the screen toward her to get a better view. “Ça va?”
“Ça va awesome,” he replied. “Crushing this Eggo. Then gonna crush this Monday.”
“Is everybody else still asleep?” Rosie asked.
“Don’t tell me you’re surprised,” Mom said wryly.
“Here—wait—Ricky’s gonna say hi.”
Owen held a cell phone up to the screen and pressed PLAY. Loud, operatic snoring filled the room. Rosie guffawed.
“Owen, is that my phone?” Mom pulled her readers down from their perch on top of her head and squinted through them.
“Um. Maybe.”
Mom held out her palm, and sheepishly, Owen handed over the phone.
Looking at the two of them, Rosie’s heart ached with the pain of missing her family. Had she even done the right thing, coming here? Her entire experience in the kitchen had been pretty much one big fail, and she’d already missed so much back home. She’d missed the first day of school and homecoming and Halloween and Owen’s birthday and next came Thanksgiving, all these calendar days that signified fall in East Liberty, the passing of time the way life had always been. Rosie wondered how it would be to spend Thanksgiving away from them. Maybe she should just pretend it wasn’t happening. Like Reed had, the year he’d learned the fate of the vast majority of Native Americans a couple hundred years after that allegedly cheerful first Thanksgiving.
Reed wandered through the back of the frame, still in pajamas, hair mussed.
“It’s aliiiiiiive,” Owen whispered dramatically, leaning so close in to the camera that all Rosie could see was his nostril.
“Mom!” Reed yelled from offscreen. “We’re out of Eggos!”
“Owen, how many times have I told you? Don’t put the empty box back in the freezer.” Mom sighed.
“Did you eat the last Eggo?” Reed asked, coming into the frame.
“I ate the last four Eggos.” Owen winked at Rosie. “Deal with it.”
Reed flicked Owen on the side of the head. Rosie winced sympathetically.
“Ow!” Owen shrieked. Then he shoved Reed so hard he tumbled from view.
“Boys!” Mom said sharply. “Enough!”
But by the sounds of the scuffling, they hadn’t had nearly enough.
“I’m sorry, Rosie,” Mom said, apologetic, “I’ve got to—”
“Go.” Rosie waved her away. “I have to head down to the kitchen, anyway.”
“Love you, Rosie-girl.”
“Love you, too.”
“Did you just bite me?!” Rosie heard Reed say, incredulous.
“I’d do it again!” Owen retorted.
“Boys! Stop!”
Mom hung up, and the image frozen on the screen was of her blurrily standing up, probably about to separate the two of them by physical force. At that moment, Rosie would have given anything to be in the kitchen back home, even if Reed and Owen were biting each other. Although if Rosie were there, she’d have just busted out the waffle maker and no biting would have been necessary. She could picture it now, a huge stack of fluffy pumpkin waffles with maple syrup and spiced cinnamon butter, the perfect breakfast for fall. Something that tasted like crisp, cool air and golden-orange leaves and bundling up in her favorite sweater. Something that tasted like home.
Rosie closed her laptop and stood—time to leave the kitchen in Ohio for the kitchen at the École. Bodie Tal was coming out of the boys’ hall just as she left the girls’ hall. They hit the stairs at almost the exact same time.
“Hey,” he said. Bodie always sounded so relaxed, like he’d just wandered off the beach and decided it might be fun to show up here and cook something.
“Hi,” she replied, hoping Bodie couldn’t tell how reluctant she was to talk to him. It wasn’t his fault that she’d had that disastrous conversation with Henry at the dance, but when she looked at Bodie, that was all she could think about.
“Skipping lunch?” Bodie asked.
“No, just left early so I could talk to my mom.”
“Funny. I was talking to Dad.”
“Isn’t that, like, a nine-hour time difference?” Rosie asked. Bodie held the door to the kitchen open for her.
“Yeah. His shooting schedule’s crazy, though. He’s always up at the weirdest hours.”
Rosie nodded and started walking toward her station.
“Hey, Rosie.” She stopped, and turned to look at him. “I have a feeling today’s gonna be a good day.”
And then he winked at her. Winked. Rosie could feel herself frowning quizzically as she left him, face probably contorted into a particularly unflattering expression. As she walked over to her station, Priya’s eyes were boring into hers like she was trying to mine their depths for state secrets.
“Bodie Tal! Again!” Priya hissed. “And winking at you, by the looks of it. What did he say?”
“We’re getting married,” Rosie answered, deadpan.
Priya’s mouth opened and closed, like a fish.
“Priya! I’m kidding! Obviously!”
“Étudiants.” Before Priya could say anything else, Chef Martinet, up at the front of the room, clapped her hands to get their attention. Standing next to her was a man she hadn’t seen in the kitchen before. He was big, maybe not quite as big as Hampus, but almost, with a ruddy beard obscuring much of his face, and a round belly straining the buttons on his chef’s coat. He looked familiar, Rosie thought. Maybe it was just because he looked so much like a chef, like a cartoon someone would use to sell ready-made meals in the grocery store. “For this week, we shall have a special guest. Please, allow me to introduce Chef Petit.” The man waved at them. Rosie couldn’t help a little half smile. This one she knew—petit meant little, or small. And this chef was anything but. “Chef Petit will be taking over the kitchen this week. We will have pastry week, and then return to cooking afterward. I know you will give him the same respect you give me.”
Chef Martinet was still talking, but Rosie wasn’t listening anymore. Pastry week. It was unbelievable! Finally, finally something she’d be able to do! And she was going to learn pastry here, in France, the capital of pastry. This was why she’d come here. This was the moment that was going to make everything worth it, all her failure and frustration.
And then, just like that, Chef Martinet walked out of the kitchen, leaving them alone with Chef Petit. They were learning pastry, and Rosie got a week-long break from Chef Martinet? It was an almost-Thanksgiving miracle.
“Bonjour, petits chefs!” Chef Petit said—he earned a few chuckles from the room for that—and Rosie realized where she knew him from. He was the boulanger, from the boulangerie she’d gone to almost every Sunday with Henry. And he clearly recognized Henry in the front row, as he tossed Henry a special “Bonjour,” and a “Ça va, mon ami?”
Rosie was so excited, she found herself bouncing up and down on the tips of her toes. To learn from this man, to be able to make bread the way he did . . . Her mind boggled at all the possibilities. They probably wouldn’t start with bread, though. Bread was complicated for something that seemed so deceptively simple, and it took so much time.
In two straight lines they broke their bread. She heard it in Dad’s voice. The little girls at the long table, the squiggles on the table that may have been croissants or baguettes or brioche. Rosie breathed, in through her nose, out through her mouth. Focused on Chef Petit.
As Rosie expected, Chef Petit said they were starting with pâtisserie. Specifically, with classic French tarts, and today, with the tart shells. With the three most widely used different kinds of crust.
Finally, something Rosie knew! Her hand shot in the air, and Rosie noticed that the only other person in the room with his hand in the air was Bodie Tal. But Chef Petit must have recognized her, too, because he called on her, not Bodie. And she felt like Hermione, rattling off the differences between pâté brisée, a standard, unsweetened dough for sweet or savory fil
lings; pâté sucrée, a sugared dough achieved by creaming the butter and sugar; and pâté sablée, a crumbly, delicate, almost cookielike dough, sometimes enriched with almond flour. Ten points to Rosie! She felt flush with triumph. Finally, she wasn’t an idiot.
“Excellent,” Chef Petit said genially, and he began to expound further upon what Rosie said.
“What a bloody showoff,” Priya said, teasing. Rosie bumped her with her shoulder.
Chef Petit wrote the ingredients for pâté brisée on the whiteboard, informing them that they’d be making all three doughs today, then setting them in the fridge to chill until tomorrow—all crust, no matter what you did with it, was improved by a good chilling. Tomorrow, they’d do quiche, and tarte au citron, and a fresh fruit tart with crème pâtissière, and they’d move on to puff pastry and tarte tatin, and Rosie could barely restrain the shout of joy that threatened to erupt from her chest. But she restrained it, and moved through the kitchen as sedately as possible, collecting her ingredients and measuring cups.
The mood in the kitchen was different, and Rosie didn’t think it was just her. Chef Petit was playing music; a bouncy French tune emanated from the speakers that had gone unused since Chef Martinet had played the welcome video. Rosie laughed as Seydou did a funny little two-step while he moved out of her way, giving her access to the flour. There was levity in the room that had nothing to do with the sunshine streaming in through the windows. Even Clara shot her something that might almost have been a smile as she passed her the flour scoop before heading back to her station. Maybe Rosie wasn’t the only one who was stressed out by Chef Martinet.
“I’ve never seen someone smile like that while scooping flour.”
Rosie looked up at Bodie, waiting for the flour, smiling at her.
“Well.” She added a final scoop to her prep bowl and stood, sidling out of his way so he could get to the flour. “I’m happy.”
Happy didn’t even begin to cover it.
“Good,” he said. “You’re welcome.”
“For what?” Rosie asked.
“This.” He gestured vaguely around the room, sprinkling his pants with flour in the process. He either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
Love À La Mode Page 17