Brioche in the Oven

by Victoria Brownlee

  Amberjack Publishing

  An imprint of Chicago Review Press Incorporated

  814 North Franklin Street

  Chicago, Illinois 60610

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to real places are used fictitiously. Names, characters, fictitious places, and events are the products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, places, or events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 by Victoria Brownlee

  Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, in part or in whole, in any form whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Brownlee, Victoria, 1985- author.

  Title: Brioche in the oven / Victoria Brownlee.

  Description: Chicago : Amberjack Publishing, [2019] | Summary: “A mature cross-cultural romance about an Australian transplant to France whose relationship is tested by cultural misunderstandings, a surprise move to the French countryside, and the tiny matter of a baby on the way”-- Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2020005757 | ISBN 9781948705660 (trade paperback)

  Subjects: GSAFD: Love stories.

  Classification: LCC PR9619.4.B78 B75 2019 | DDC 823/.92--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020005757

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  ISBN 978-1-948705-660

  eBook ISBN 978-1-948705-677

  To my parents,

  for sending me to France

  when I was young and impressionable.

  Each sort of cheese reveals a pasture of a different green, under a different sky.

  —ITALO CALVINO

  Chapter

  1

  I STARED AT THE TEST in disbelief. It was hard to come to terms with the fact that such a life-changing moment could be happening while my pants were around my ankles. A baby, un bébé—no matter what language I said the word in, it sounded terrifying.

  Merde! I thought, pulling up my pants and flushing. How did I manage this? When I’d picked up the test the night before, it had been more as an aid to settle what I thought was just an overactive imagination. I’d never dreamed that it would come back positive. I stuffed the tiny, life-changing blue dye stick into my bra and took a deep breath.

  “Bonjour, ma belle,” Serge’s voice called out from the kitchen.

  “Bonjour,” I said, joining him.

  “Did you sleep well?” he asked me in French, handing me a large mug of coffee.

  We’re going to have a baby, we’re never going to sleep again! I wanted to scream. Instead, I replied with: “Très bien. Et toi?” I felt like I was on autopilot, not really thinking about what I was saying, and distracted by trying to figure out when I was going to tell Serge that he was going to become a papa.

  He nodded and walked over to hug me. I ducked away from his embrace, figuring that a test stick falling out of my bra might give the game away rather quickly.

  “I’ve got to run,” I said, switching to English and blowing him a kiss. “I need to stop at the chemist before work . . .”

  And pick up a few more pregnancy tests, I added in my head.

  “Is everything OK?” he asked.

  “Of course, just stress headaches,” I said. At least the “stress” part was true.

  I took a quick sip of coffee—and immediately spat it out, remembering that too much caffeine wasn’t good for pregnant women.

  Serge looked at me sideways, and I waved my hand in front of my mouth. “Too hot,” I told him with an apologetic look as I regretfully tipped the remainder of the delicious liquid down the sink.

  “No problem, Bella,” he said with a smile. Serge had taken to calling me Bella recently. A combination of belle and Ella. It was charming and adorable, just like him. I had a vision of me telling him the news then, of his muscular arms engulfing me, and of his face beaming with joy, but for some reason I couldn’t quite make the words come out of my mouth. I had to get my head around the implications of being pregnant in France first.

  I’d only started dating Serge earlier in the year, although our friendship had been brewing since my first day in Paris when I’d stumbled into his fromagerie and had christened him Mr. Cheeseman. We’d been through a lot together, from my innocent bet that I could eat 365 types of French cheese in one year, to him then helping me win the bet; from him stealing a kiss after a decadent cheese dinner, to me stealing a kiss back after realizing I was in love with him.

  When I first arrived in Paris, I hadn’t been looking to get into a relationship. Regardless, I had quickly fallen head over heels for a villain named Gaston. It was a ridiculous rebound tryst that, in hindsight, was as foolish a relationship as I could have gotten myself into. But Gaston was suave. And at the time, nursing a broken heart from a failed long-term relationship in Australia, I fell under the spell of his French charms—the very same “French charms” that led me to walk in on him in bed with two other people—neither of them me—a few months later. That was, I hoped, the last lesson I’d ever need on how to stop falling for idiots.

  After my own rather dramatic down-and-out-in-Paris moment, I realized what a fool I’d been to remain oblivious to the real hero in my story, Serge. He wasn’t the type of guy I’d normally go for—which mostly meant that he was kind and cared about what was important to me—but I’d been blind to true love for long enough. So, I’d fled Paris to accost him on a cheese-buying trip in the Loire Valley and tell him how I felt. It was a grand gesture and, thankfully, for both my happiness and my pride, it had worked.

  And Serge had ended up being everything I’d never imagined I could have in a boyfriend. He was sturdy and sweet, adventurous and determined, a hopeless romantic, and a fierce advocate for French culture and tradition, which manifested in his absolute devotion to, and adoration of, French cheese.

  Since my declaration of love, our relationship had blossomed beautifully, and I adored the man. Sure, we had our differences, including his abhorrence for all things technological—including my own cheese-devoted Instagram account, which had gained his fromagerie a bit of a cult following among Anglophone tourists—but in other matters, we mostly saw eye to eye.

  Still, I couldn’t help wondering if thrusting a baby into our relationship was just asking for trouble. We’d been seeing each other for less than a year. We hadn’t even had a major argument yet. We certainly hadn’t discussed having children together. Could a mutual love of cheese, Paris, and each other be enough to get us through this?

  I was relieved to have the day ahead of me at work to continue to mull things over. All this introspection felt a little too serious for this early in the morning.

  It was cold when I stepped outside. The summer warmth had seemed to evaporate as soon as I’d flipped the calendar over to October. There’s a specific smell in Paris that I’d come to associate with autumn and winter. It is a combination of warm air escaping from the Métro grilles and of cooking aromas wafting from school canteens. Occasionally sneaking into the mix is a slight waft of urine, but thankfully the frequent autumn rain helped wash that away.

  I wasn’t surprised to find Tim already in the Food To Go Go office when I arrived. Since getting additional funding earlier in the year, he had been putting in long hours at the office. The company was understaffed but somehow managed to keep growing despite everyone, including Tim, wondering how it was even staying afloat. But Tim was determined, and his passion for good-quality delivery fo
od seemed to fuel our success.

  “Oh, hey, Ella,” he said. He sounded exhausted.

  “Everything OK?” I asked.

  “Rough night with the baby.”

  I sympathized. “She’s still not sleeping?”

  “No, she’s like the devil. I feel like I’ll never function normally again.”

  “How old is she now?” I asked.

  “She’s nearly ten months,” he lamented.

  “And it’s still bad?” Normally I would have dismissed Tim’s baby complaints. Why have kids if you enjoy sleep? I’d figured. But I had more at stake now.

  “Oh, God, yes and more. My advice is don’t have a baby—at least not if you want to maintain some semblance of a normal life. Compared to being a parent, this shite is easy,” he said, waving around at the empty desks in our office.

  I laughed, hoping Tim was exaggerating, but his face remained somber, the dark circles under his eyes almost making him look like a zombie. Shit, I thought, sitting down and turning on my computer.

  I raced through some work but kept getting distracted by thoughts of the pregnancy. I needed some time to obsess over the morning’s events and figure out what the hell I was going to do. I asked Tim if he wanted me to grab him a coffee. He got up and hugged me.

  “Get me a three-shot latte, Ella. It’s going to be a long day.”

  Thankfully our new office was a short walk from Flat White, which I consider to be one of Paris’s best coffee shops (completely unbiased by the fact that I’d worked there for close to a year, or by the fact that I still received a friends-and-family discount). I was relieved to see Chris’s smiling face behind the machine when I walked in.

  I fell onto a stool by the counter. It felt comforting to be in the café, on familiar turf, the warmth of the oven and the aroma of chocolate chip cookies almost making me forget about the pregnancy test that, by now, I’d stashed away in my handbag. I often found myself pining for the ease and familiarity of working at Flat White. As much as I liked working in an office, I certainly missed the social interaction that came with the café.

  “So, what can I get for you, El?” Chris asked, his Australian accent making me feel even more at home. “The usual?”

  “Sure,” I said without thinking. “No, wait . . . Do you have decaf?”

  “Huh? Of course, we don’t have decaf. Blasphemy! What’s going on?”

  “Nothing’s going on,” I said, while hoping that the sudden rush of blood to my cheeks wasn’t as visible as it felt. “I’m just cutting down on coffee. I’ll grab a hot chocolate.”

  Chris raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything more. He was always the gentleman with me, which was surprising because he was quite the ladies’ man about town otherwise. Despite both of us being from Melbourne, we’d only met when I’d started working at Flat White shortly after arriving in Paris, and we’d been friendly ever since. I’d found him handsome in those early days, but nothing had ever happened between us because I wasn’t French, and Chris had a penchant for dating (mostly emotionally unstable) French women. But now, I was grateful for his friendship. Outside of his relationship dramas, he was serious about coffee, and he was a sturdy friend. He almost felt like the brother I never had.

  “And I’ll get a triple-shot latte for Tim,” I said.

  “Still with the baby troubles?” Chris asked, all too aware of Tim’s change of pace since becoming a father, not so secretly mourning the loss of his drinking pal.

  “Yep,” I said. “Better give us some of those cookies as well.”

  “You bet ya.”

  I walked slowly back to work, cradling our takeaway cups to keep them warm. Taking a sip of my drink, I was rudely reminded that it wasn’t coffee, and that I was destined to be ordering hot chocolates for some time to come. And then I started thinking about how having a baby would affect my life in France, and how it would affect my relationship with Serge.

  Is it even a good time for us to be considering a baby? I was in a good place at work, and I felt at home in Paris. I had colleagues and friends and felt like I had a good support network. And Serge had just decided to open another branch of his fromagerie and was scouting locations. He was motivated and was looking forward to expanding his business. Surely a baby would slow that down. Perhaps he would even come to resent this interruption to his plan.

  And does he even want children? I’d been shocked when he told me that he’d been married before, but I knew that things with his ex-wife had been tense long before they decided to divorce, which was why I’d assumed they’d never had a child themselves.

  And what about me? Do I want a baby? And do I want a French baby? Back when I was in Australia, I’d thought I wanted to have kids. Then, after my sudden breakup with my long-term boyfriend Paul, I told myself I’d need to be 100 percent certain with a man before even contemplating adding children. And while I was certain about my love for Serge, I couldn’t be certain about how he’d react to my news. Oh, God! Will I have to raise this baby alone? Just when life was finally trotting along smoothly . . .

  I was then struck by another harsh realization. Being pregnant meant no more French wine, no gooey cheese—Oh, mon Dieu! No gooey cheese!—and I could only imagine what else.

  Plus, I knew nothing about growing a child, let alone what to do with one once it was born.

  I tried to calculate when I became pregnant. I figured that it couldn’t have been more than six weeks earlier. Serge and I’d had a pretty raunchy weekend in Provence toward the end of summer, and I was sure that we hadn’t been as careful with protection as we could have been. I guess that much is obvious now!

  I’d like to say the sex had been worth it, but that would have to be assessed over the next eighteen years or so. Regardless of how it happened—and not to get distracted by the memory of the delicious act itself—it was a relief to realize that the pregnancy was still sufficiently early to leave us with options. Even so, these were decisions I’d have to make with Serge. He was my life in Paris, and our relationship was the whole reason I’d stayed in France. But how can I tell him that I’m worried about how much pressure a baby will put on our relationship? That if things don’t work out, we’ll have even more difficult decisions to make?

  It was in moments of agonizing like this that I desperately missed working with Clotilde. She’d recommended me for the job at Food To Go Go, where she was working, after we’d become flatmates, but she’d moved on months ago to pursue a career in modeling. Now, she spent most of her time travelling and working overseas. She would have known what to say to make me feel better. Pretty much since the day I’d met her, she’d been great at helping me sort out my life in France. Even when I’d busted Gaston—who, in a complicated turn of events, turned out to be her cousin—she’d taken my side, navigating me through with plenty of wine and moral support. After Serge, she was the person I was closest to in France, and her recent string of trips abroad had made Paris a little lonelier. Thankfully, she would be back this weekend from her monthlong work stint in New York. If I didn’t have the guts to tell Serge about the baby by then, I was sure she’d help me figure out a plan.

  I forced myself to ignore any more thoughts of having a child so I could focus on work. Somehow, I even managed to shelve the question of how to tell Serge as a future-Ella-problem. But when six o’clock rolled around and the office emptied out, the pressing feeling was back in my tummy. Hoping it was in part due to hunger, I used my phone to check the food safety recommendations for pregnant women just in case we were destined for a cheese dinner (not an unusual occurrence, as fromage was pretty much a prerequisite at any meal with Serge).

  The search results were as bad as I was expecting. No soft cheeses unless they were pasteurized (which in France they hardly ever were, so au revoir, Chabichou, Sainte-Maure, and Valençay); no mold-ripened soft cheese (bye-bye, Brie and Camembert); and no blue-veined cheese (farewell, Roquefort). I tried to look on the bright side; there wa
s still Comté. And Cantal and Gruyère. All was not lost.

  “What shall we eat tonight?” Serge asked with a raise of his eyebrow when I got home. He held up a Neufchâtel, the heart-shaped cow’s milk cheese from Normandy. I could see more cheese varieties lining our kitchen bench.

  “I’m not sure I feel like cheese,” I said, trying to sound cheery despite wanting to cry.

  Serge looked at me like I was a stranger. “Ella, ça va?” he asked.

  “Of course, I’m OK, I just thought maybe we’d eaten enough rich food recently. Perhaps we should have a cheese break. A cheese detox?”

  “This seems like a very bad idea, Ella.”

  “You’re right. Can we just keep it simple then? Some thirty-month-old Comté?”

  I knew full well that aged Comté was hardly “simple,” but if I was to live through the next nine months on a cheese-restrictive diet, then why not go all out on those varieties I could still consume? I was sure bébé would agree with my logic.

  “Good idea,” Serge said, seeming relieved. As he began placing packages back in the fridge, I thought about all the wheels of Brie and ash-coated goat cheeses that were screaming to be eaten, regretting not having had the chance to organize one last sweet goodbye party with them.

  Serge made us pork chops and Puy lentils while I pretended to have some work to finish on my laptop. He brought me a glass of red wine, which taunted me as I googled the chance of getting a false-positive result with a pregnancy test (very slim) and then looked up ways to tell your boyfriend that you’re pregnant. I felt uneasy as I read through articles suggesting things like: “Why not present the father-to-be with the positive pregnancy test and a little baby outfit?” or “Give him a t-shirt that says ‘World’s Best Dad.’” But all this seemed a little contrived, especially for a down-to-earth guy like Serge.

  It was too hard keeping the pregnancy a secret with offers of coffee, wine, and gooey cheese flying about. That, and I knew I’d need Serge’s help figuring out how to navigate the French medical system.