Bon Appetit Read Free

cheerfulness.
    “That is indeed the question, isn’t it?” Odette said, the smile she’d given Luc’s mother evaporating. Clearly I wasn’t important enough for politeness. It occurred to me that the name “Odette” and the word
odious
were closely related.
    Patrons came in and bought their daily bread. Odette jovially greeted each one by name, and I simply smiled and said,
“Bonjour”.
They looked at me uncertainly.
    I handed over breakfast breads and boxed-up pastries, my stomach growling with each warm chocolate croissant I surrendered. Odette ran the cash register.
    The customers petered to a trickle, and Madame came to get me. “Odette can handle it now,” she said. “You’re here to help me”.
    I followed her into the back of the bakery, where several men were prepping bread. It was smaller than L’Esperance, where I’d worked in Seattle. Madame and her brother, Marcel, had inherited the family business from their father. Marcel usually worked at the bakery in Provence, several hours to the south. His son, Philippe, managed the bakery in Rambouillet, not far away.
    “Clean this up, please,” Madame said. Bowls lay everywhere, mixers dripped with chocolate
ganache
, and a huge pile of cookie sheets, stacked like a deck of cards, needed scrubbing.
    I nodded cheerfully. Luc had warned me I’d be the low girl on the totem pole.
    As I stood in the washing room, cleaning and hanging the utensils, I watched Madame work. She slung dough and barked orders in salty French. The bakers ducked away from her and kept a low, respectful tone when talking to her. I grinned.
    “Something is amusing?” Madame stacked another set of pans in front of me. “I could use a good laugh”.
    “Oh, no,” I said. “Nothing at all, Madame”.
    “Bon
. Call me Maman. I am the maman of the bakery”. She went out back and smoked a cigarette, then came back in to make puff pastry for éclairs. She reminded me of Patricia, her niece, the baker in charge of the pastry room in Seattle. Patricia was here now too in Rambouillet. I’d see her again when I worked a shift at that bakery. I was a floater, a
commis
, helping wherever I was needed with no permanent home.
    That thought struck too close.
    One of the bread bakers walked by and looked at my face. “You are sad?”
    I shook my head. “Tired”.
    “Ah,” he said, and left. A few minutes later, he came back with a chocolate croissant. “To wake you up”. He handed me a cup of coffee. “Take a break. Not be sad anymore”. He hadn’t fallen for my tired talk.
    I looked to see if Maman approved, and she nodded. I went out the back door and sat at the picnic table set up for staff breaks.
    I bit into the pastry and remembered something I’d once read.The croissants in France are so light they must be made by angels, and the coffee, so thick and black, by the devil. I sipped my coffee, hot and strong, and agreed.
    Church bells chimed the start of the workday. It was eight o’clock in the morning, my first day of work in a real French bakery. It was eleven o’clock the night before in Seattle. Tanya was probably still roasting marshmallows at the lake.
    I drained my coffee and went back to the kitchen. The day went quickly as I cleaned the dishes, the back bakery room, and neatened the supplies. At lunchtime, I heard a happy shout.
    “Poupée!”
    As I turned, I saw Maman open her arms and smile, and ten years dropped off her face. “Are you ready for the celebration tonight?”
    “Oui,”
a little girl answered. “I can’t wait!”
    Maman gave her a treat and went back to work. The little girl—whom Maman had called
poupée
, or doll, a term of endearment—turned and looked at me. She offered her hand.
“Bonjour
. My name is Céline”.
    Such perfect manners. Such a sweet spirit. Totally unlike the only other Céline I’d ever known at a short-lived job in Seattle. Little Céline’s school uniform was starched, her hair tied back in a neat ponytail with the