Madame Mirabou's School of Love

by Barbara Samuel

  He sighed in enormous irritation. “No, thank you. I’ll just have the sandwich, but I don’t want the olive bread. How about whole wheat?”

  “Sure. I’ll have that right out.”

  He didn’t bother to acknowledge me, just went back to his newspaper, which he flicked with a crisp annoyance.

  I had to struggle not to roll my eyes. But I’d lost that luxury, hadn’t I?

  In the kitchen, I hung the order and called out the change. “Special sand on whole wheat.”

  Mary spooned soup into a heavy pottery bowl. “Sorry. We’re out of whole wheat, too.”

  I looked at the board. “Did I mess up again?”

  “No, babe, that was me. The olive just didn’t go over that well, so we’ve run out of whole wheat. Tell them we’ll give them a free dessert.”

  Relieved that it had not been my mistake, I took the ticket again and went back out. As I came around the breakfast bar, Penny was rounding her corner with a tray full of food. It was only through a quick dodge from both of us that disaster was averted.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” I cried, reaching out to steady her.

  “No, my fault.” A lock of hair had come loose from her braid, and her cheeks were flushed. “Can you take the coffee around?”

  “Yes.” I grabbed the pot and headed to find out what else the man would want. “Sir? The cook offers her apologies—we’re out of whole wheat. Would you like some fresh rye or maybe sourdough?”

  “Christ!” He slammed the paper down on the table. “What kind of place is this? It’s not even one o’clock.”

  “I’m sorry for the inconvenience,” I said as mildly as possible. “I’m happy to give you a free dessert for your trouble.”

  “Why? So you can be out of that, too?”

  I took a breath. “Would you like a different bread for your sandwich this afternoon, or shall I bring you a menu?”

  “No, just give me the rye.”

  “No problem, sir. Thank you.”

  I swung the coffeepot around, filling cups as I went. A spot in my gut stung, but I ignored it, went back to the coffee station, started a fresh pot, and headed back toward the kitchen. Penny slammed out of the swinging doors with a wide tray laden with plates on her shoulder. “Coming through!”

  I plastered myself against the wall to let her by.

  She said, “Bring that tray table, will you?”

  I grabbed it and followed her. I opened the tray, then backed out of her way—and slammed right into a customer sitting at the table behind me. I felt the heavy thud of it, heard her little choked, “Ulp!” and turned around to comfort her.

  Which put my hip against the edge of the tray, and the whole thing swayed dangerously. Luckily, I saved it, just in time, and I saw Penny’s wide-eyed relief.

  I turned back to the woman I’d slammed into, bent down, and put my hand on her shoulder. “Are you all right? I’m so sorry.”

  “Fine, fine,” she said irritably, flinging her fingers at me to make me go away. I flushed.

  I straightened and headed back to my station. There was a new table, one that had obviously been seated at least a minute or two, because they’d already laid down the menus. I spied the man who’d asked for rye for his sandwich and realized I hadn’t turned in his revised order.

  I swore under my breath. What to do?

  I’d brazen it out, I decided, take the order of the new couple, then revise his as well.

  At the new table, I said breathlessly, “Hi, I hope you haven’t been waiting long.”

  “No. We’ll have the soup, thanks.”

  “Excellent choice. Would you like anything to drink?”

  “Just water.”

  It was easy enough to go back to the kitchen, ladle up the soup from the server’s station, fill a basket with rolls, and carry it quickly back to the table. It restored my equilibrium.

  Except the man was still waiting, and he glared at me as I passed. I winced, realized I still hadn’t turned in his order. I went directly to the kitchen, turned in the order, and felt a chill go down my back when Mary said, “Nikki, read the board.”

  I did. Out of rye. “This man is going to be so mad at me!” I winced and turned back to Mary. “What kind of bread, then? Only sourdough?”

  “No,” she said with a hand on her hip, as if I were stupid. “We got white, too.”

  I braced myself and went back to the table. “I’m really sorry, sir,” I said, “but we’re out of rye, too. No one liked the olive and that’s meant everything else is running out. Can we make the sandwich on white bread for you?”

  “Fine,” he said. “whatever. Just bring me something to eat so I can get back to work.”

  I took his order directly to the kitchen. “This is the one I keep screwing up,” I said.

  “Give me two minutes,” Mary said.

  “I’ll be right back.” I swung by the coffeemaker to make sure there was enough coffee, checked on the progress of my other tables, delivered a ticket to the soup folks, which did make me feel guilty.

  Mary had the plate ready when I went back in—and it was a beauty. The gorgeous sandwich, piled high, a side salad looking like an ad for farm-fresh produce. “Take him a brownie,” she added. “No one can hate you with a brownie in front of him.”

  “I have my doubts, but it’s worth a try.” I carried the sandwich carefully, and picked up a brownie on the way out. The man was checking his watch as I arrived. “Do you know that I’ve been here for half an hour?”

  “And at last, here it is,” I said as cheerfully as I could. “Along with a brownie, compliments of the chef.”

  “No, I don’t want it,” he said. “Just bring me some more tea and the check and we don’t have to talk to each other anymore.”

  I picked up the brownie. “I really do apologize, sir. It’s my first day and I’m just making every possible mistake with you. Sorry.”

  He just looked at me.

  “Right. Tea.”

  I put the brownie on the sidebar, where it was understood mistakes went, for the servers and kitchen help. Pitchers of tea with ice stood in a row and I grabbed one, swirling into the dining room, thinking it was going to be very, very good to get off work. I picked up the man’s check and carried the tea out to him. “Is it all right?”

  He nodded dourly. If he hadn’t had such a sour expression, I thought, he could have been good-looking. But I suspected he always had that pinch around his mouth.

  I put his check down, and reached over to pour tea into his tall, empty glass. Small cubes of ice tumbled out, and amber tea. And then, in slow motion, I saw a big chunk rush out of the pitcher, into the glass, and in an agony of extra-super-slow motion, I saw the big chunk of ice hit the glass just right, and it very, very slowly fell over, splashing right onto the plate with the finally-made sandwich, and pouring like a river right over the edge of the table.

  Into his suited lap.

  He jumped up and threw his napkin on the table. “Fuck!” he cried. “You’re the worst waitress I’ve ever had in my life.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, let me—”

  He waved me back. “Just stay away from me.” He stormed out.

  The area around me was dead silent for an agonizingly long time, customers staring down at their own plates, those at a distance wondering what the heck had happened. To the table closest to me, I said, “Sorry about the disturbance,” and bent over the table to start cleaning up the mess.

  5

  Nikki’s Perfume Journal

  SCENT OF HOURS

  August 1, 1978

  THINGS I LIKE TO SMELL

  The seeds of the rue plant. Sharp, pungent, resiny. Old world, protective against witches.

  Notes: not so good when the seeds are green. Have to be ripe and dry.

  I left the restaurant at two and headed for my car. Every muscle in my body ached with a kind of twisted tension, and I smelled of sweat and grease and bread. At the car, I unlocked the door and tossed my soil
ed apron inside. A breeze swept down from the mountain and over my hot face, and instead of getting in the car, I slammed the door and headed up the hill toward Barr Trail instead.

  It was a hard uphill climb to the base of the trailhead, but it felt good on my overstressed body. As I walked, blips of the day fell away—the walking club, the tangle of going back and back and back to get the order of the businessman, wrong, over and over. The slow-motion spill of tea—

  Ugh!

  There were a handful of cars in the parking lot, but no visible humans. At the foot of the path, I read the sign, carved into wood, that warned hikers of the climb to the top of Pikes Peak:

  WARNING

  BARR TRAIL CLIMBS 7300’ IN 12.6 MILES. 8 HOURS TO SUMMIT AT BRISK PACE. HIKE EARLY IN THE DAY TO AVOID DANGEROUS AND COMMON AFTERNOON THUNDERSTORMS. EXPECT WINTER ON TOP, DRESS FOR IT. HOW ARE YOU GETTING OFF THE MOUNTAIN? COG R.R. MAY NOT, SUMMIT HOUSE WILL NOT, PROVIDE DOWNHILL TRANSPORTATION. ROAD CAN BE CLOSED BY SEVERE WEATHER.

  I stepped on the path, which was dark red mud, and started walking. Just a little way, that was all I needed to do. Just walk a little way uphill.

  The breeze tasted sharper here, cooled by the snowy shadows up higher. At city level, the snow melted fast, but in the mountains, it lingered a long time. There were times there was snow on the Peak in June.

  But I wasn’t going to the top. I’d heard the walking club volleying dates for their annual walk up the mountain, but that wasn’t me. I was just—I didn’t know what. Walking on the hems of the mountain. Trying to get away from my failures, failures that seemed to be piling up like dead moths. I’d failed as a wife, as a mother, as a productive human being.

  I wasn’t even a good waitress.

  I could walk, though. It was a vigorous incline, with switchbacks to make it more manageable. A wooden rail fence protected hikers from tumbling down the side. I climbed for about ten minutes, then paused to look at the view. I could see down over the city of Colorado Springs, stretching endlessly between hills and bluffs, crawling up and down the terrain. Behind me, above me, rose the mountain, which made my problems look small.

  And there, alone on the mountainside, I could let go of some of my tears. I was embarrassed at how badly I’d performed. Furious with Dan for putting me in the position of having to wait tables at the age of forty-three. Despairing over my bleak-looking future. Everything in the past six months had been a lesson in mortification, and I was getting sick of it. Enough already!

  A figure on the path below made me wipe my eyes, take a deep breath. The man wove in and out of view, visible, then not. It was safe enough here, but I had my cell phone in my hand just in case.

  When he rounded the last switchback, however, I saw it was the man from Annie’s, the beautiful British gypsy. “Hello,” he said, dipping his head in greeting as if to underscore the formality of his speech. “Do you remember, we spoke yesterday?”

  “I remember.” I wanted to be wary, but it was difficult. His glossy curls, those dancing eyes with their sooty lashes, the slightly amused lips.

  “Am I interrupting something?”

  “No.” I resisted the urge to wipe my face, make sure there were no tears there. “Just didn’t have the best day.”

  “I hope you’re not climbing far in those shoes.”

  “What?” I looked at my feet, shod in white tennis shoes now smeared with reddish mud. “Oh, no. I wouldn’t. I mean—” I halted. Just stop stuttering, Nikki. Close your mouth.

  He smiled.

  I took a breath. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” With one long-fingered hand, he gestured to a spot next to me. “May I join you for a moment?”

  “Please.” And I just had to add, “Yes.”

  “It’s beautiful here, isn’t it?” He leaned easily on the fence, his arms beside mine. He wore a long-sleeved shirt, the palest imaginable shade of green, with tiny darker green lines making a grid of squares on it. The sleeves had been turned up twice, to show his chai-colored wrists, square and polished-looking. His hands were long, with smooth oval nails.

  I focused on the view. “Yes. It calms me down.”

  “I followed you here,” he said. “Do you mind?”

  With a slight frown, I looked at him. “Why?”

  His nose was wonderful—hawkish and strong, high-bridged. He smiled, showing his big, very white teeth. “Why did I follow you or why would you mind?”

  “I don’t mind. I just don’t know why.”

  “I saw you leaving Annie’s, and wanted to see how you’d done.”

  With a snort, I scraped mud from the bottom of my shoe, onto the rock sitting there. “Very badly.”

  “That is not what Annie said.”

  “No?”

  “She said you’d done very well in terrible conditions.”

  “Really?”

  He touched my hand. “I followed you because you looked so . . . sad.”

  It suddenly didn’t matter in the least if he was lying. There was kindness on his elegantly handsome face, and anything that made me feel less like dog puke was good. Tears sprang to my eyes again, and I bowed my head quickly to hide them. Blew out a short breath. “I’m too old for this,” I said. “It was a stupid idea. I should have just applied at a bank or something.”

  “No, no!” he protested, and his hand stayed with mine, anchoring it. “New things are always hard. It will get better.”

  Not in my world. Things had been going from bad to worse for quite some time. “I guess we’ll find out.”

  “In six months, we’ll have a cup of coffee,” he said, “and we will laugh about this. What do you think of that?”

  It was hard to hold on to my despair in the face of that cheery good humor. I held out my hand to shake on it. “A cup of coffee— it’s Niraj, right?”

  “Yes.” He clasped my hand in his, and his palm was taut and cool. “Niraj Bhuskar. You’re Nicole.”

  “Right.” We stood there on the sun-warmed side of the mountain, beneath a brilliant blue sky with clasped hands. A ripple of something cool and hungry went through me. I looked at his mouth, his brow, wished to put my hands in his thick, glossy hair.

  He looked back at me and it seemed to me that some of the same things were in his eyes, in his face. “You have beautiful eyes.”

  “Thank you.” I tried to think of what you said when you first started liking someone, how you let them know, what was stupid and what would be sophisticated.

  He let go of my hand before I could think of the right phrase. For a long moment, we stood side by side, looking at the scenery, and I felt pressure in my chest, a wish to say something. “What sort of work do you do?” Lame, but better than nothing.

  “Computers. I work at home, which is why I go to Annie’s so often. It breaks up the monotony of my own company.”

  “No family?”

  “No.” He dipped his head in a way that telegraphed his disappointment. “I followed a woman to Colorado, but she proved to be”—he gave the hesitation a smile—“the wrong one for me.”

  “Where did you follow her from?”

  “London.”

  “Is that where you’re from? Don’t laugh if that’s wrong—I’m not that good with accents.”

  “You are correct with mine. I was born in London. My family is still there.” He paused and gave me a crooked, halfway smile that conveyed a pleasurable wickedness. “Which is one reason I am here.”

  I chuckled. “My mother is in Arizona, and I’m glad.”

  “Do you have siblings?”

  “Two sisters.” A Stellar’s Jay, dark blue with a darker head, flew across my field of vision. “One is a soap opera actress in LA. The other is an army wife in Hawaii.” Something in me was easing in his company. Tension drained down my spine, softening my neck. “How about you?”

  “Two brothers and two sisters. They all live in London. My father runs a grocery. One brother helps him. The other—” He shrugged. “Doesn’t do much. I have one siste
r who will likely not marry, and the other is a writer and runs her family with an iron fist.”

  “What sort of writing?” I asked.

  “Serious non-fiction about the problems of society. Essays, books. My parents are very proud of her.”

  “Are you?”

  He pursed his lips ruefully. “I’m proud of her, but I do not read her. She’s too serious about everything.”

  I smiled. “And you are not serious?”

  “No.” He leaned on the railing, looked across the vistas. “I’m afraid I’m a man of pleasures. Give me fresh air, good company”— he inclined his head my way—“good food, and I’m happy enough. My sister needs to save the world.”

  I discovered I liked the slightly exotic lilt layered atop the proper British phrasings. I liked the angle of his cheekbones and the way the wind ruffled his hair. My breath came easier in my not-so-tight chest. On the top of my head, sunlight baked the part of my hair. “I know a lot of people like that. Who want to save the world.”

  “And what about you? Do you have a family?”

  “I did. I’m divorced. I have a daughter who is fifteen—she lives with her father.” A pang stabbed through my heart. I rubbed it.

  “You miss her.”

  “Like a hand,” I agreed.

  “I’m sorry.”

  I met his eyes. “Thank you.” Behind him, purple clouds had eased over the mountains. “The thunderstorms are coming. I guess I’ll get off the trail now.”

  “Do you mind if I walk back down with you?”

  “No, please do.” Still too formal. Why was I speaking like a Victorian heroine?

  The footing was treacherous—slippery logs and mud. I stepped carefully, but even so, my foot skidded out from under me, and I went down on one palm. I hopped up immediately, unhurt, and patted the mud off my left hand with the other one.

  “Are you all right?” Niraj asked.

  “Yes. Thanks.” I laughed. “It’s just been that kind of a day.”

  “You’ve kept your sense of humor anyway.” He touched my elbow, a gentle assist, then let go.