So, Isa, dish out the details. What’s the deal with Diego?” Pippa asks.
I shrug and bite into the best fraisier cake I’ve ever had. I chew slowly, hoping they’ll find something else to talk about—something that isn’t “the hot Spaniard.”
It’s finally Friday. Week one in Chef Grattard’s kitchen has come and gone and all I have to show for it is a bandaged finger and spoon thirteen sitting at the bottom of the rack. Not exactly what I had in mind.
To celebrate this grand accomplishment, Pippa invited us to Pâtisserie Lulu, her favorite spot in Lyon, where we’ve been sitting outside, watching people walk by on the street.
The only good thing to came out of this week is my new uncanny ability to memorize Chef Troissant’s instructions. It turns out fear is a great motivator. Take yesterday, for example: she was teaching us about French cheeses and opened a wooden box containing a small wheel of Époisses de Bourgogne. It has a sticky orange rind and a smell reminiscent of sweaty gym socks and filthy barn animals that’s led to it being called the stinker of all cheeses. While everyone else scattered in disgust to various parts of the kitchen, somehow I managed to focus through the nausea-inducing smell and hang on to Chef Troissant’s every word. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think she was a little impressed.
“This is so good.” I take another bite of the fraisier and lick a dollop of cream off my fingers. “What does she put in this stuff? Is this champagne?” I pass my plate around so they can try it.
“I told you, Chef Lulu’s brilliant.” Pippa bites into a fruit-filled pastry. “Cherry and thyme. It’s delicious. Here, try this one.” She gives me a bite and I close my eyes in pure, sugary bliss.
“This French churro-thingy is amazing. It’s filled with mascarpone and dulce de leche.” Lucia dunks her fried pastry into a small porcelain cup full of hot chocolate. When she brings it to her mouth and chews, her body sags into the chair in evident pleasure. “I’m not sharing mine,” she teases.
“Okay, Isa, I’m not letting you off the hook. Back to the hot Spaniard . . .” Pippa says, and I roll my eyes. “I need to know, does he run around the house in his underpants?”
I shush her, glancing around at the nearby tables. Lucia giggles into her cup.
“No, he doesn’t run around the house in his underwear.” The heat rises to my face just thinking about the image. “He’s staying in a cottage in the back, and only comes inside to raid the fridge.”
“He can raid my fridge any day of the week,” Pippa snorts. She and Lucia, lean into each other. All the sugar must be making them giddy.
“Looks aren’t everything,” I say, trying to sound blasé. But the underwear image is stuck to my eyelids and doing weird things to my brain.
“But he must be smart too. His school is one of the best in Spain. A few kids from the royal family have gone there,” Lucia says, with a little too much enthusiasm. I don’t know why, but the fact that she knows that insignificant detail bothers me—more than I care to admit.
“You wouldn’t believe the first thing he ever said to me.” I tell them how we met in the market before we knew who the other was. “He told me he wanted to take me to a field! I mean, how creepy is that?”
“I think it’s kinda nice,” Lucia says hesitantly. “There are some beautiful fields around here.”
“Call me crazy, but I’m not in the habit of meandering into desolate fields with total strangers. That’s how girls go missing. Or worse!”
They burst out laughing, clearly not taking any of it seriously. In her laughing fit, Lucia stumbles forward and almost spills all her chocolate onto the table. We blot the mess with a pile of napkins.
“Oh come on, Isa. Give the guy a break. He doesn’t strike me as the serial murder type,” Pippa says. “Too hot.”
“Maybe he just wanted to go to a field and pick cherries,” Lucia adds. “I’d go with him.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Maybe I do need to work on this city-girl paranoia thing.
“All I’m saying is,” Pippa adds, edging closer and looking only at me, “if you don’t want him, someone else will.” Then she points at herself and Lucia. “We have two takers at this table.”
Lucia gives a loud um-hum.
I shift on my chair, suddenly uncomfortable. Why am I so bothered by the idea of Diego being with someone else? It makes no sense.
They can have at him, for all I care. Right?
“A date with the guy is not gonna kill you,” Pippa suggests.
“I don’t…” I begin to say, searching for the right words to express the nagging doubts I’ve felt connected to anything to do with guys, relationships, and love. Lala gave up her family in Miami to marry Gramps, then moved to middle-of-nowhere. Mom gave up her career to be a wife and a mother. Maybe I’m selfish for thinking in this way, but I don’t want to sacrifice my life for love.
After a long breath, I say, “I just don’t want to give up anything for a guy.”
Pippa nods in understanding. “I broke up with my boyfriend before I came here.” She sets both hands on the table as she says, “It had to be done.”
“Really?” Lucia asks. “Why?”
“He was older and thinking about the future. I mean, I don’t know where I’ll be at the end of Grattard’s course!” Pippa says.
“Was it hard to break up?” Lucia asks.
“A little,” Pippa says, resting back on her chair. “He was pre-med at King’s College. He knew a lot about the human anatomy.” She lifts both eyebrows, and her cheeks crimson. Lucia and I cram closer over the table, leaving no space between our shoulders. Pippa’s British accent makes her story all the more compelling.
“Once, we sneaked into a lab after hours and fooled around a bit,” Pippa snickers. “Nothing too wild. Making out, that sort of thing.”
“When was this?” I ask.
“Last semester,” she says.
What was I doing last semester? Not making out in a lab, that’s for sure.
“Were you in love with him?” Lucia asks.
“Not really.” Pippa shugs. “He was nice and all, but I just wanted a good time, you know?”
I nod. Like I know. But I really don’t.
“At our age, who wants anything serious? Who has time? We’re in school for a million hours every day. And an apprenticeship is going to be even more work. I don’t want to be pining after some bloke who’s sucking all my energy. There’s no room for distractions, ladies. I mean, less than ten women hold three Michelin stars in the entire world! It’s total bollocks.”
We all go silent for a moment. I consider the odds stacked against us. It is total bollocks.
“Totally,” is all I can say, even though I’ve never had what you’d call a “proper boyfriend.” Tack it onto the list of things I’ve sacrificed for extra time in the kitchen. The most I’ve advanced in the “fooling around” territory was that time my next-door neighbor and I made out one afternoon after school. He was a year older than me and we’d grown up together, so inevitably, after the awkward puberty phase passed, we had an “I’ll show you mine, you show me yours” moment.
We finally made out, but it was wet and sloppy. He fumbled with the clasp of my bra and after a long five minutes of trying and failing, I told him to stop. I mean, how hard can it be to undo a hook? Then Mom showed up, so that put an end to the misery—thank goodness.
It was weird and uncomfortable. It wasn’t love and it definitely wasn’t a good time.
After he left, I lay on top of my bed, frustrated, wondering if all guys were this awkward and inexperienced.
I bet guys like Diego are perfectly comfortable with all of it—bra clasp and all. An image of Diego pushes itself into my mind. Suddenly I feel warm, flushed, and uneasy.
What am I thinking?
I take the last bites of the fraisier, hoping to distract myself with the taste of strawberry and champagne. But no matter how hard I push against the image of Diego, it refuses to leave. It roots itself to the back of my mind like a weed that won’t die. And what’s worse, part of me wants it there.
“Sometimes I hate being a girl,” Lucia says with an air of resignation. She leans back on her chair and takes the last bite of her pastry.
“Why?” I ask.
“We have to deal with all this extra stuff guys don’t even think about,” she says.
“What extra stuff?” I ask.
“Womanhood stuff,” she says in a solemn tone. “If Legrand got a girl pregnant, do you think it would matter? He’d still have his own restaurant in ten years—or less! And all the Michelin stars. It’s not fair.”
“Absolute rubbish,” Pippa says. “I’m picking career. I don’t see what’s so much fun about changing nappies. Trust me, I’ve done it all. I’m the youngest in my big Jamaican family, so my mammy’s house is usually a menagerie of nieces and nephews. I love them all, but they are rowdy, dirty, and loud. I can’t imagine having to take care of a kid all the time.”
“Not me. I want to fall in love. And I want to get married and have babies,” Lucia says, her voice full of conviction and idealism. “When I’m older, I mean—not now. My mom got married and she works as an English teacher. She didn’t have to choose.”
“All I’m saying is, from what I’ve seen so far, when you fall in love your brain shuts down,” Pippa says. “I’ll be damned if that’s gonna be me. I’m reaching for those stars and nothing is going to get in my way.”
“What about you, Isa?” Lucia asks.
I don’t hesitate when I say, “I want all the stars.”
“Frente al amor y la muerte, no sirve de nada ser fuerte” was one of Lala’s favorite Spanish sayings. It means it’s useless to fight against love or death.
“Roger and I have been married for fifty years,” she once told me. We were in her farmhouse kitchen, where she expertly rolled pie dough between her fingers as a Spanish ballad played in the background. Her soft curls were up in a loose bun over her head. Even in her seventies, Lala’s hair was dark brown, not even a hint of gray. She kept a standing appointment at the hair salon every four weeks to make sure of it.
“Pour me a cafecito, mija,” she said. This is how I knew she was about to tell me one of her stories about leaving Cuba after Fidel Castro’s revolution in the fifties. When it came to Papi and me, Lala tried hard to instill an appreciation for our immigrant roots. She even kept a record of our family’s history in her red notebook, along with special recipes and comments on ingredients and methods. The same notebook she passed on to me.
I reached for the tartan-print thermos, the one I brought with me to Bessenay, and poured us each a mug of her signature café con leche. The secret, she said, was to add a stick of Mexican cinnamon to the pot of milk as it simmered to a rise.
We sipped on our warm mugs of coffee and I retook my spot at the table, peeling apples across from her.
“I was twenty-five when I came to this country on one of the freedom flights—that’s what they called them,” she recalled. “President Johnson sent his planes to Cuba twice a day. Three hours later we had a new life in Miami.”
She sprinkled flour on the countertop, wiped one of her hands on her apron, and took another sip of coffee. I followed the movement of her hands, entranced by the deep ridges in her skin. To me, they were the most beautiful hands I’d ever seen. I wondered if I’d have hands like hers someday.
“My tía Gilda was waiting at the airport when I arrived. And I still remember what I was wearing—a blue, billowing dress with buttons along the back that I had bought with my own money.” Lala paused, a faint smile on her red-tinged lips. I don’t remember ever seeing her without lipstick. “I was a nurse in Cuba. Graduated top of my class at the University of Havana.” She beamed with pride. Her nursing degree became a thing of the past as soon as she landed in Miami. If she wanted to work as a nurse again, she would have to start all over—improve her English and go back to nursing school.
“On the second day I was in this country, Tía Gilda took me to a cousin’s wedding at the Fontainebleau Hotel. I had to borrow a dress from my cousin Rosita—soft pink with a tulle skirt that flowed down to my midcalf. Let me tell you, mija, I was something back then.”
I chuckled at the way she shimmied her hips. I knew she was right. I’ve seen the pictures of that wedding—she looked like a vintage movie star.
The music changed to a tropical beat and I could almost imagine Lala entering the Fontainebleau’s grand lobby. In previous versions of this story, she’d described in great detail the dazzling stairways, majestic chandeliers, and dramatically colored murals.
“I told my tía I didn’t want to go, that I didn’t know anyone. But she wouldn’t hear it. She said I didn’t leave Cuba to sit at home—y vestir santos. She said, ‘You’re too pretty to be single.’ And it wasn’t like I hadn’t had my share of suitors in Havana.” Lala pushed a strand of loose hair behind her ear, then reached for the rolling pin and began flattening the dough.
“I had plenty of suitors, let me tell you. But I wasn’t interested in any. They wanted me to leave the hospital and stay home. Bah.” She waved a hand in the air like she was swatting away an invisible force. “Latin men. They’re all the same. Don’t fall in love with a Latino, morenita. They expect you to be their wife and their mother.”
I was twelve at the time, so I rolled my eyes and just said, “Okay, Lala.”
A pile of tart Granny Smith apples lay sliced on the table in front of me. I tossed the green peels into the compost can and began preparing the caramel syrup while Lala worked her magic on the dough.
The syrup was our own family recipe—butter, flour, water, white and brown sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
“Roger was the first person I saw when I walked into the ballroom,” she told me. My hands stopped stirring the syrup. This was my favorite part of their story. Every time she told it, Lala’s face would light up with the unmistakable glow of a woman in love. What was even more amazing was knowing someone could carry those feelings for fifty years.
“Roger was a handsome man. Tall with thick, dark hair.” She divided the dough in two equal parts, wrapped it in plastic wrap, and set it in the fridge.
“He was wearing a dark suit and black tie. When our eyes met, it was like I was landing in a new country all over again. He came to our table and asked me to dance. The band was playing ‘Dos Gardenias’ . . .” She hummed the song to herself, then moved to the radio. “I think I have it here,” she said, fishing for a CD inside a basket. “This is the original, by Antonio Machín,” she explained as the sound of a 1940s orchestra filled the kitchen. A man’s silky voice sang a bolero, a serenade set to a rumba beat.
“By the end of that song, I knew it was useless to fight. It was love and resisting would be futile. That gringuito stole my heart on that dance floor.”
As if on cue, Grampa Roger sauntered into the kitchen, carrying a bunch of wildflowers he picked from Lala’s garden. They didn’t say one word to each other as he poured water into a vase, arranged the flowers, and placed them by the windowsill above the sink. Before leaving, he kissed Lala on the cheek and whispered something into her ear. Lala’s cheeks went pink and a smile spread across her face. Grampa glanced in my direction and winked. My faced turned pink too. They were too much sometimes.
After he left, Lala and I finished our coffee, and when the dough had rested enough we covered the pie dish and then filled it with apple slices dripping with syrup.
After dinner all three of us sat on the porch to devour a big slice of pie. Grampa Roger always said this was his favorite meal to eat in the whole world.
“It’s dessert. Not a meal, Roger,” Lala countered, elbowing him softly.
I sided with Grampa Roger every time. It was my favorite meal too.
Frente al amor y la muerte, no sirve de nada ser fuerte. Lala taught me about giving in to love, but she never explained how to give in to death.
A server appears by our table outside Pâtisserie Lulu and clears our dishes. “We’ll be closing soon,” he says in French. “Last call for pastries.”
“Last call, ladies,” Pippa says, tossing her head back in the direction of the pastry counter.
“This place is so much better than a bar,” Lucia remarks.
“I’m going inside. Getting a box to take home,” I say, rushing in. Since the fortune cookie bag incident three days ago, I’ve been contemplating what kind of dessert says “I’m sorry I was such a raging lunatic.” But mostly, I’ve been stuck on what kind of dessert would make a hot (and thoughtful) Spaniard forgive a neurotic American. I’ve come up short, every time.
Inside the pâtisserie, the pastry cabinet runs the length of the shop. Row after row of the most decadent creations fill the glass shelves with a full spectrum of colors and a symphony of flavors.
I’m pleasantly surprised when I find large bags full of gourmet chocolate discs in the chocolatier section. They’re the size of a dime, perfect for the chocolate chip cookies I promised Jakub. I reach for a top shelf and grab two bags.
Next, I move to the pastry cabinet and its overwhelming selection. What would Diego like? Is he a fruit tart kind of guy? Or does he prefer a more traditional éclair? I get one of each, just in case. I add a sampling of macarons: pistache, fleur d’oranger, coquelicot, and one called the Marie Antoinette, stuffed with raspberries and rose crème. My box is almost full, but there is still room for a couple of flaky palmiers and a crème caramel cup.
“C’est un cadeau,” I tell the counter attendant, and in response he wraps the box with a pretty bow and places it inside a gift bag.
I’m rehearsing what I will tell Diego—some version of “I think we got off on the wrong foot”—when his motorcycle pulls up in front of the store.
My initial surprise turns into unease as he gets off the bike and kisses Lucia on both cheeks. He nods toward Pippa and smiles. I watch him and Lucia from inside, talking and pointing, gesturing with their hands, surely speaking Spanish or Catalan. I shouldn’t feel jealous. I shouldn’t feel anything, really. But I do. I feel everything.
“Mademoiselle?” The counter attendant gives me my box. The big bow now seems like a silly gesture.
When I step outside, the only thing that comes out of my mouth is a “hey.”
Diego says hey back. This is our first exchange since Tuesday. Somehow, we’ve managed to stay out of each other’s way all week.
Pippa is the only one who seems to notice the gift bag in my hands. “That’s some big bow you’ve got there. Who’s the lucky guy?”
Thankfully, Lucia interjects, cutting off my response. “Diego and I are grabbing tapas,” she says eagerly. “You guys want to come?” She’s already strapping on a helmet.
“I have to get home and pack,” I say, reaching for my backpack so I can half hide the gift bag. “I’m flying out to see my mom tomorrow.”
“Sorry, I have other plans,” Pippa says, but I can see the I’m not playing third wheel on her face.
“Ready?” Diego asks.
Lucia gets in the sidecar like she belongs there. She doesn’t even complain about the dog hair.
“Must be the Spanish thing,” Pippa jokes as we watch them disappear around the corner.
“Do you want to share a cab?” is all I say.