The Ingredients of Love (24 page)

“Man, was she mad!” Adam whispered to me as we left the Librairie Capricorne with his brother asking over and over again who the lovely woman in the red dress had been.

Adam explained to him that it was quite possible at a reading for enthusiastic fans to make eyes at an author.

“Wow!” the dentist shouted, adding that he was enjoying being an author more and more. “Perhaps I should really write a book, what do you think?”

“For heaven's sake, don't you dare!” Adam said.

I remained dumb, and in the course of the evening became ever dumber.

However you looked at it, I'd blown it with Aurélie Bredin—as nice chief editor André Chabanais, who was always on the spot to help. And now even the fabulous Robert Miller had put his foot right in it.

After our not-actually-an-author had put on such an embarrassing performance, I was not even sure that the Englishman's attractiveness had not also suffered a serious downturn. “Oh yes, La Coupole. Lovely place, very lovely!” She must have thought he was soft in the head. And the business with the teeth! I could only hope that would not change her mind about inviting Robert Miller to her restaurant, because then I no longer had any chance at all.

I stared at my plate and heard the others as if from far off.

Then even Jean-Paul Monsignac, who was having a great time with our author, noticed. He raised his glass to me and asked, “What's the matter, André? You're not saying a word.”

I said I had a headache as an excuse.

I would really have liked to go home straightaway, but I had the feeling I ought to keep an eye on Robert Miller.

Adam, the only one I would have liked to talk to, was sitting at the other end of the table. He occasionally threw me an encouraging glance, and as we all left for home hours later he promised to drop in briefly at my place the next morning before he left for London.

“But alone,” I said. “We need to talk.”

*   *   *

I was just tearing up my new letter from Robert Miller to Aurélie Bredin when the doorbell rang. I threw the envelope in the wastepaper basket and pressed the door opener. I had actually intended to give this letter, which contained Miller's definite acceptance of the invitation to Le Temps des Cerises, to Adam, but after the previous day's events, the content was out of date. I'd lain awake half the night thinking about what I should do now. And I had an idea.

When Adam entered, he looked at the chaos in the hallway where the shattered mirror was still lying together with the heap of shards I'd swept up hastily the day before.

“Oh, what's happened here?” he said. “Did you have a fit of rage?”

“No. The mirror fell off yesterday morning. Just what I needed!” I explained.

“Seven years' bad luck,” said Adam, grinning.

I took my winter coat off the hook and opened the door.

“I hope not,” I said. “Come on, let's go and get breakfast somewhere, I've got nothing in the house.”

We walked the few steps to Au Vieux Colombier and went past the counter to the very back, where there are wooden benches and big tables. How often I'd been here with Adam before, and we'd discussed book projects and talked about the changes in our lives.

“Adam, you're my friend,” I said, as the waiter brought our breakfast.

“Okay,” said Adam. “Tell me what it is you want. Is this about the letter to Mademoiselle Bredin that I'm supposed to mail? No problem. Now that I've seen the girl, I can at least understand why you're so hung up on her.”

“No,” I said. “The letter's not a good idea, not after yesterday evening. And anyway, that would take too long for me. I want to cut straight to the chase.”

“Aha,” said Adam, biting into his ham baguette. “And what can I do to help?” he asked as he chewed.

“You've got to call her,” I said. “As Robert Miller.”

Adam nearly choked. “You're crazy, man,” he said.

“No, I'm not crazy.” I shook my head. “You and Sam have very similar voices and if you mangle the language a bit it shouldn't be too hard. Please, Adam, you must do me this favor.”

And then I explained my new plan to him. Adam should call Le Temps des Cerises from England in the evening. He should apologize to Aurélie Bredin and say that he'd been totally overcome when he first saw her, and then there'd been so many people standing around and he didn't want to say the wrong thing.

“Spin her some kind of yarn, beguile her with your gentlemanly charm—just make sure that Robert Miller is rehabilitated. You can do it.” I drank my espresso. “What's important is that you nail the date fast. Tell her that you're looking forward to a dinner
à deux.
Suggest the sixteenth of December because you have business in Paris then and will have the whole evening free for her.”

The sixteenth of December was perfect in two respects. Firstly, it was Aurélie Bredin's birthday, and secondly, I'd discovered that the restaurant—as on every Monday—would be closed. Would
normally
be closed.

This increased the likelihood that I would find myself alone with Aurélie Bredin in Le Temps des Cerises.

“Oh, and one other thing, Adam. Make it obvious that she should keep the arrangement to herself. Say that that editor is likely to butt in if he hears his author is in the city. That will ultimately make the thing more credible.”

If it did actually come to a rendezvous on the sixteenth of December (which I optimistically presumed would be the case), Adam would ring again that evening.

But this time as Adam Goldberg calling off the date on Miller's behalf.

The reason for the cancelation was an idea of genius—for which I congratulated myself when it struck me at half past two in the morning—because it would strike at Aurélie Bredin's pride and make it impossible for her ever to want to contact Robert Miller again. And another thing that was not so bad was that the savior who would console her in her loneliness and pain would already be standing in the starting blocks—that is, outside the restaurant.

“
Mon ami,
you're really taking on a lot—that sounds like a bad American B movie. You are aware that things like that never work out, aren't you?” Adam laughed.

I leaned forward and gave him a piercing look. “Adam, I'm really serious about this. If there's anything I want in life, then it's this woman. All I need is an undisturbed evening with her. I need a
real
chance, do you see? And if, in order to achieve this, I have to embroider the truth a little, then I'll do it. I don't give a damn about any mixed-up Americans—we French call it
corriger la fortune.
”

I leaned back and looked out through the dark green iron window frames of the café into the Parisian dawn. “Sometimes you just have to give fortune a push in the right direction.”

 

Thirteen

“Mademoiselle Bredin, Mademoiselle Bredin,” someone called out behind me as I left the house and entered the stone passageway that led to the Boulevard Saint-Germain. I turned round and saw a tall man with a dark winter coat and a red scarf looming up out of the darkness.

It was late afternoon, and I was on the way to the restaurant. And the man was André Chabanais.

“What are you doing here?” I asked in astonishment.

“As chance would have it—I'm just coming from a meeting.” He pointed to the Procope and smiled. “My office is getting so full of manuscripts and books that I can't meet more than one person there.” He waved his leather briefcase. “Well, this is a pleasant surprise.” He looked around. “You live in a really lovely area.”

I nodded and marched on without reacting. My joy at seeing the chief editor was not unbounded.

He walked beside me. “Can I accompany you for a while?”

“You already are,” I snapped, and increased my pace.

“Oh dear, you're still mad at me because of yesterday evening, aren't you?”

“So far I haven't received any apology,” I said, and turned into the boulevard. “First you invite me to La Coupole. Then you don't even inform me about Miller's reading. What do you think you're playing at, Monsieur Chabanais?”

We walked silently down the street side by side.

“Listen, Mademoiselle Bredin, I'm really sorry. The business with the reading happened very quickly and of course I
intended
to let you know about it … But then something always got in the way and in the end I simply forgot about it.”

“You're trying to tell me that you didn't have the thirty seconds it takes to say, ‘Mademoiselle Bredin, Miller's reading is at eight o'clock on Monday evening'? And in the end you forgot? What sort of apology is that? People don't forget things that are important to them.” I walked on angrily. “And then you got them to say you weren't there when I called your office.”

He reached for my arm. “No, that's not true! They informed me that you'd called, but I really was not there.”

I shook his hand away. “I don't believe a word of it, Monsieur Chabanais. You told me yourself in La Coupole how you get your secretary to get rid of unwanted callers, how you stand there and make signals to her … and that's all I am to you, isn't it? An unwanted caller!”

I have no idea why I was so angry. Perhaps it was because the reading the evening before had ended in disappointment and I was blaming the chief editor for that even though strictly speaking it wasn't his fault.

“My mother had an accident yesterday and I was in the hospital the whole afternoon,” said André Chabanais. “That's the truth; and you are anything but an unwanted caller to me, Mademoiselle Bredin.”

I stopped. “Oh my goodness,” I said, taken aback. “I'm … I'm very sorry.”

“Do you believe me now?” he asked, looking me straight in the eye.

“Yes.” I nodded, finally looking away in embarrassment. “I hope everything's all right … with your mother,” I said.

“She'll be okay. She fell down an escalator and broke a leg.” He shook his head. “Yesterday was not exactly my lucky day, you know.”

“That makes two of us,” I said.

He smiled. “Nevertheless, it is of course unforgivable that I didn't let you know.” We walked on past the lights of the store windows on the boulevard, giving way to a group of Japanese who were being led through the city by a guide with a red umbrella. “How did you actually hear about the reading?”

“A friend of mine lives on the Île Saint-Louis,” I said. “She saw the poster. And fortunately Monday is my day off.”

“Thank goodness for that,” he said.

I stopped at a traffic light. “So,” I said. “This is the parting of our ways.” I pointed toward the Rue Bonaparte. “I have to cross here.”

“Are you going to the restaurant?” André Chabanais stopped too.

“You guessed it.”

“Sometime I must visit Le Temps des Cerises,” he said. “It's really a very romantic little spot.”

“You do that,” I responded. “Perhaps you could bring your mother when she gets out of the hospital.”

He pulled a face. “You won't let me have any fun, will you?”

I grinned, and the light turned green. “I must go, Monsieur Chabanais,” I said, and turned away.

“Wait a moment. Tell me, is there anything I can do to make up for my negligence?” he shouted as I stepped into the crossing.

“Try and think of something!” I called back. Then I ran across the street and waved to him once more before turning into the street leading to the Rue Princesse.

*   *   *

“What are you doing at Christmas?” Jacquie asked as I helped him to prepare the
boeuf bourguignon
that was on the day's menu. Paul, the sous-chef, was actually well again, but he would be arriving a bit later that day.

We'd browned the chunks of meat in two pans, and now I put it in the big sauté pan and shook a little flour over it.

“No idea,” I said. It was only at that moment that I realized that this would be the first Christmas I would really be alone. A strange idea. The restaurant would also close down on the twenty-third of December, not reopening until the second week in January. I stirred the pot with a wooden spoon, waiting for the fat to bind with the flour. Then I poured the Burgundy over it. The wine hissed briefly, the smell of the liquid rose to my nostrils, and the pieces of meat bubbled in the dark sauce.

Jacquie came over with the sliced carrots and mushrooms and swept the vegetables off the big wooden chopping board into the pot.

“You could always come to Normandy with me,” he said. “I'll be at my sister's: She's got a big family and at Christmas it's always very lively, good friends drop in, and neighbors…”

“That's very sweet of you, Jacquie, but I don't know … I haven't actually thought about it at all. And everything is different this year…”

I suddenly felt a lump in my throat, and coughed. Just don't go all sentimental now, I told myself, that won't achieve anything. “I'll sort things out somehow. I'm not a little girl anymore, after all,” I said, and in my imagination saw myself sitting alone in front of my
Bûche de Noël,
that delicious chocolate cake that is always served at Christmas—my father always used to bring it to the table with a great fanfare when everyone was already saying that they were about to burst after eating Christmas dinner.

“For me you'll always be a little girl,” said Jacquie, and put his meaty arm round my shoulder. “Somehow, I'd feel a lot better if you came to the seaside with me, Aurélie. What will you do all alone here in Paris where it does nothing but rain? It's not nice to be all alone at Christmas.”

He shook his head worriedly and his white chef's hat wobbled threateningly. “A couple of days in that lovely fresh air and a few walks on the beach would do you good. And I've promised to cook and could really do with your help.” He looked at me. “Promise me that you will at least think about it, Aurélie … okay?”