Paris, France 1956
Claire was in the brasserie kitchen, cutting a sheet of sweet pastry into perfect rounds on the marble counter’s cool, floured surface, when Tante Vo-Vo slapped a bundle of letters down by her elbow with a loud thwap. “Mail!”
A great puff of flour swirled into the air. Claire jumped and her hand slipped, ruining her work.
That had been deliberate. Claire bit back a curse and scowled after her relative. Her aunt’s real name was Véronique, but Margot had dubbed her “Vo-Vo” after some kind of Australian cookie, and the nickname had stuck. Far from remaining the sweet, funny aunt of Claire’s childhood, since taking on the role of hostess at the brasserie, Vo-Vo had become grouchier by the day. All her life, she’d steadfastly refused to work at Le Chat-qui-Pêche, the family’s brasserie in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Only her fondness for her brother, Claire’s papa, had made her relent. But Vo-Vo’s affection had not extended to shouldering the burden with any outward appearance of good cheer. Every day, her lament was the same: she could be sunning herself on the Riviera by now, if only it weren’t for this place.
“Well, why doesn’t she go sun herself, then?” Louis, a student they employed as plongeur and general dogsbody, bore the brunt of Vo-Vo’s temper and often muttered a rejoinder to these complaints. “She’s rude to us and even ruder to the customers. Me, I’d do a better job of greeting and seating than Madame.”
“Hush.” If Vo-Vo were set free tomorrow, Claire doubted she’d go. And though frequently irritated and provoked by the older woman’s contrariness, Claire doubted they could manage without her, particularly when Papa was at his worst.
When Maman died two years before, Papa had crumpled. Age had seemed to catch up with him overnight. He became stooped and thin, the wrinkles around his eyes more pronounced, his cheekbones more prominent now that they had less flesh to plump them out. Papa had lost his English rose, his sweetheart, the woman who had shared his bed, his work, and all of his sorrows and joys for the past twenty-seven years. Watching him force himself to work at Le Chat every day despite his grief broke Claire’s heart.
The family had rallied to keep the brasserie going. Without a second thought, Claire had quit the restaurant where she’d managed to work her way up to the position of chef de partie and put her ambition for that coveted Michelin three-star rating on hold. The brasserie served traditional, hearty French food. It was the best of its kind, but still, haute cuisine it certainly wasn’t. Claire had to work doubly hard to keep up the skills she’d developed in the years since she’d finished at the Cordon Bleu, practicing diligently after closing, or early in the mornings, always sacrificing sleep in pursuit of excellence.
Her return to Le Chat’s kitchen was meant to be temporary, until Papa was back on his feet. But all of the sound and fury had left the big ox of a man when his beloved wife died. Now, two years on, Claire had begun to wonder if he’d ever regain his former ebullience. She wished she knew how to make everything better for him, but grieving, as Vo-Vo said, simply could not be hurried.
Claire swept together the wrecked pastry dough and shaped it, ready for rolling again. Papa had hit the bottle hard last night, so it looked like she would have twice the work in the kitchen today. She wanted to get a few preparations out of the way early, before the sous-chefs and the waiters came in.
Working with quick, light hands, so as not to transfer too much of her own body heat to the tender pastry, she glanced at the pile of mail Vo-Vo had so carelessly delivered.
The letter that met her eye had American stamps and was addressed in Gina’s handwriting. Claire exclaimed in delight. How long had that taken to reach her? She’d almost given up waiting for a response to her previous letter, which she’d mailed almost six months ago, and wondered if, like Margot, Gina had finally ceased to think of her Parisian friend and stopped writing altogether.
Finishing off the tart cases as quickly as she could, Claire shoved them into the oven for the blind bake, rested one hip against the flour-strewn counter, and ripped open the envelope.
A stiff cream stock card accompanied the letter. She slid it out of the envelope. An invitation . . . to Gina’s wedding! Well, well. A lot must have happened since her previous letter, when Gina had mentioned the young man she’d met. He worked at the State Department in Washington, and their respective fathers were business associates—two strikes against him, in Gina’s eyes. She must have changed her stance dramatically since last she’d written. Gina had fallen in love.
Married. Gina had sworn she wouldn’t settle down until after she’d made a name for herself as a writer, and certainly not with any of the eligible young men in her father’s social set. This Harold Sanders must have something special.
Eagerly, Claire slid Gina’s letter from the envelope. A small photograph fluttered out and she crouched to pick it up. Not the formal engagement picture Claire expected to see but one of the happy couple smiling and windblown aboard some kind of boat—a yacht, Claire thought—Gina’s hand on the big wheel, Hal’s arm slung casually around her shoulders. On the back, Gina’s bold scrawl: “Gina & Hal, Summer ’54.” Hmm, yes. This fiancé was certainly handsome. They made a stunning pair, both blond and tanned and athletic, their faces alight with happiness and hope.
Suddenly wistful, Claire returned the photograph to the envelope with the invitation. She was thrilled to think of Gina being so happy, but for Claire, traveling to the wedding in Connecticut would be impossible. She could never afford it, and anyway, she couldn’t leave Papa or Le Chat. Claire turned her gaze to the letter, scanning the initial greetings and inquiries after herself and her family.
As always, Gina wrote in English, and Claire read each sentence carefully. We plan to have the wedding in the spring. Much as I would give for you to be my bridesmaid, dear Claire, I know you won’t be able to attend. But if the mountain wouldn’t . . . Guess what? We are coming to you! We’ll honeymoon in Paris, and Hal is even talking about getting a posting there. Can you believe it?
Claire exclaimed aloud in delight, eagerly devouring the rest of her friend’s news. Gina had a punchy, entertaining style—no doubt honed as a political correspondent.
But enough about me. Tell me about you, ma chère. I know you are busy with Le Chat, but why no mention of anyone who might have caught your eye? Can it be that there are no attractive men left in Paris? Impossible!
Attractive men? Claire thought about her wasteland of a love life with a grimace. She didn’t have time for anything but this place.
Gina told her all about the wedding plans. She was going to wear her mother’s dress. She didn’t care if it was old-fashioned, she’d felt close to her mother the second she’d put it on—as if Rose had enveloped her in a loving embrace. That’s right, thought Claire. Gina was motherless as well. Something they now had in common.
Still nothing from Margot on my side of the Atlantic, added Gina. What has happened to that girl? She was the busiest correspondent back in Paris.
That was true. It was most unlike Margot simply to stop writing. And equally unlike her to turn her back on her friends. Claire hoped nothing bad had happened to her. She wished there was a way to find out, but she didn’t know anyone else in Sydney, not even the address of Margot’s family home.
Eagerly returning to the start of the letter in case she’d missed anything, Claire’s gaze snagged on the date. Five months ago! Somehow Gina’s news had been severely delayed in the post. So her friend hadn’t forgotten her. In fact, Gina must be wondering by now whether Claire had stopped writing to her. Had something similar happened with Margot, perhaps? Maybe she ought to begin writing to Margot again, just in case.
With a happy sigh, Claire finished a second reading of Gina’s letter and put it in her apron pocket. Then she moved swiftly to rescue her tart shells from the oven before they burned. She left them to cool, their sweet scent filling the air, while she prepared the crème pâtissière for the strawberry tarts. “Louis?” she called. “Come clean this up, please!”
Receiving no answer, Claire washed and wiped her hands and went out into the brasserie, which was empty of patrons. She loved this time of day, when she had the place mostly to herself. Gentle sunlight streamed through the art nouveau swirls in the stained-glass windows, scattering color like gemstones across the tiled marble floor. Brass gleamed; bentwood chairs and wood-paneled walls glowed with polish; banquettes covered in burgundy moleskin were clean and free of crumbs. Outside, café-style chairs all faced the street beneath the dark red awning, like a theater awaiting an audience. The round tables, marble-topped and banded with brass, were bare.
And there was Louis, loafing on the sidewalk beneath the brasserie’s old-fashioned sign of a tabby cat with a fishing rod and line. He leaned on the top of his broom handle and smoked a cigarette as he chatted to another young man, a fellow student Claire vaguely recognized.
“That boy!” muttered Claire. “I don’t know why we pay him good money to stand about, blaguing with his friends.” Then she caught herself. She was beginning to sound like her aunt. Louis was young and cheerful and industrious most of the time.
Claire decided not to roust him, but she kept an eye out to see if he would go back to his work. Soon enough, the other young man loped off in the direction of the Métro station, and Louis resumed sweeping.
Sometimes, one’s faith in people was justified. With an approving nod, Claire was about to turn away when she caught sight of the brasserie’s upstairs neighbor, Madame Vaughn, who was hurrying past the brasserie with her head down. Claire couldn’t have said precisely why, but she sensed that Madame was distressed. She didn’t seem to notice Louis’s greeting and had entered via the building’s lobby door before Claire might have stepped out to call hello.
Claire thought about darting out via the side door of the brasserie into the stairwell to catch Madame there before she went upstairs to her apartment, but something about the determination in the older woman’s gait and the way she hadn’t so much as glanced in at Le Chat made her think better of it. Had it been Margot or Gina, she wouldn’t have hesitated to barge upstairs and demand to know what was wrong, but although she’d come to know Madame quite well over the years, theirs was not that kind of friendship. As the years had gone by, Claire had revised her estimate of Madame’s age downward—at a guess, she was possibly ten or fifteen years older than Claire’s twenty-six—but there was still enough of a gap that Claire didn’t like to overstep or presume.
A rap on the service entrance door goosed Claire out of her reverie. Her truffles! She hurried back to the kitchen, eager to catch Madame Theroux, whose specially trained pigs snuffled out these earthy, scented fungi beneath the floor of an oak forest in Sorges. Claire loved to listen to Madame speak so knowledgeably about truffles and mushrooms and other forage, which she brought, packed in their native soil, to Paris with her throughout the season.
“Coming!” Claire called, as the rapping sounded again. She opened the service door to the alleyway and stepped back with a gasp.
Gina stood in the doorway, a slim suitcase in hand.
“Sur-prise . . .” The word came out deadpan rather than with the festive lilt their reunion deserved. It was patently redundant. Plainly her sudden arrival had floored her friend. If it had been summer, Claire would have caught several flies in that gaping mouth of hers by now. The alley where Gina stood was full of trash from the neighboring shops and apartments, as well as from the brasserie itself.
“But—but how?” Claire reached into the pocket of her apron and fished out a letter, which Gina recognized as one she’d sent ages back. “The wedding’s not till May.”
“The wedding’s off.” The short declaration burst from her like a firecracker but the glib story Gina had rehearsed fizzled on her tongue. She couldn’t make herself explain why she had arrived in Paris months before her projected honeymoon. Not right off the bat, anyway. And she was certain that by now, her pale blond hair was falling out of its chignon, and beneath her eyes were dark thumbprints of fatigue. Before Claire could think of how to respond, she asked, “May I come in?”
“Oh! Yes. Of course,” said Claire, stepping aside. “Sorry. It’s just that I had no idea . . .” She stopped abruptly, perhaps sensing Gina’s reluctance to expand on her short statement. She didn’t ask why on earth Gina would wish to enter the brasserie via the alleyway, and Gina didn’t enlighten her.
Gina had caught sight of the inimitable Madame Vaughn in the street, and the presence of someone connected to her own circle of acquaintance back home had made the humiliation that had simmered inside Gina for weeks now rise up again, ready to blow the top off her composure. Madame Vaughn would either congratulate or commiserate, depending on how busy the gossips had been on this side of the Atlantic, and Gina couldn’t bear to receive either.
Without thinking, she’d ducked into the alley to avoid that encounter. Then she’d shrugged and picked her way along the dirty cobbles until she’d found the brasserie service entrance. She’d stepped in something noxious—yet another low in a succession of nadirs she’d suffered lately.
Nadirs. You could have more than one. Always precise with language, Gina had actually looked it up. Family, love life, career, finances . . . Every one of them gone down the pissoir. It had all happened so quickly—shock after shock—and yet she could scarcely remember the woman she’d been before her perfect life had come crashing down.
The sight of Claire standing there—the same warmhearted Claire she’d always known, with her wiry, active frame and her ruddy round cheeks and her mad red hair—made Gina’s heart lift a little. Carefully she wiped her shoes on the doormat and took off her winter coat and hung it on the coatrack by the door. Then she stepped into the warm, comforting embrace of the brasserie kitchen, with its long, ancient farm table laden with baskets of fresh vegetables and its Carrara marble benches and gleaming copper pots and pans. She set down her suitcase—or tried to—but Claire swooped on it before it hit the floor. “Mind, there’s flour everywhere! I’ll put it in the office for you.”
When she returned, Gina said, “Sorry to land on you like this but I couldn’t wait. Don’t let me interrupt your work.”
“Did you only just arrive in Paris? You must be hungry,” said Claire. “Let me fix you something.”
“Bless you!” Gina took a seat at the end of the table. “I have to admit I’m famished.” The relief of having arrived finally in Paris, of sitting with Claire again in Le Chat’s cozy kitchen, was so strong, she could have cried.
Claire seemed to size her up as a couturier might size up a client before a formal fitting. Only with Claire, it was less a measuring and more an intuition, a sixth sense. She always gauged precisely what someone was hungry for. Snapping her fingers, she exclaimed, “Cassoulet!”
Gina’s heart sank a little. A hearty dish, but un petit peu compliqué to make. Gina knew from experience that there were several steps involved in assembling the traditional casserole. Right now, she could eat the leg off a table. If she had to wait for cassoulet she might faint.
She needn’t have worried, however. Claire whipped out a glazed pottery dish that had been sitting in a warm oven. She set it on the kitchen table in front of Gina, then grabbed a bottle of wine from a rack by the door and poured a generous glass.
“Oh, no! I can’t. It’s far too early,” Gina forced herself to protest.
“Pfft,” said Claire, gesturing with her free hand as she topped up the glass a little. “It will put some color in your cheeks. Go on. Drink.”
The wine was a light, zingy claret that perfectly complemented the rich meal. A combination of pancetta lardons, spicy Toulouse sausage, duck, lamb, and white beans in a thick gravy that came with a topping of herbed golden-brown breadcrumbs, the cassoulet was hearty and heartening. For once Gina forgot about her waistline and ate with relish and gusto. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d consumed what Claire would call a proper meal.
Her friend kept up a stream of chatter, now and then eyeing Gina with a puckered brow when she thought Gina wasn’t paying attention. Yes, Gina thought wearily, she must explain about the wedding, about all of it. But she was so tired, and the wine was weaving a web of lassitude through her body, and right now she couldn’t bring herself even to begin.
“Gina—” Claire broke off as her aunt erupted into the kitchen, muttering about early bird customers, and grabbing menus.
“Look who has come to visit, Tante,” said Claire.
Her aunt stopped short, then her scowl turned into a beaming smile with almost comical swiftness. “Is it you, Gina? Mon ange! Why didn’t you tell us you were coming?”
“Vo-Vo!” Gina stood and leaned over to kiss the older woman on both cheeks. Claire’s tiny aunt took Gina’s shoulders in a firm grip, looked her up and down, and said, “You need some meat on those bones! You’re as bad as this one.” A jerk of her head in Claire’s direction. Then she rounded on her niece. “And don’t even think of asking for the night off, mon chou. We’re fully booked!”
As Vo-Vo stomped from the room, Gina couldn’t even summon the energy to ask why she was in such a bad mood. Claire started making some kind of custard—Gina knew she really ought to remember the name of it—working as she talked.
Unable to focus on what her friend was saying, Gina went back to eating. As her stomach filled with the warm heaviness of Claire’s delicious cooking, another strong wave of fatigue washed over her. Was this what it was like to be swept away by the tide, to swim against it until your arms and legs gave out? After all of that struggle, to succumb and let the undertow drag you down . . .
“Ah, Gina, ma pauvre, you’re falling asleep sitting up!” Claire exclaimed. “Why don’t you check into your hotel now, get a good night’s sleep, and then we’ll meet up tomorrow morning—the usual time and place. I’ll get Louis to hail you a taxi.”
“My hotel.” Gina swallowed. “Well, you see—”
“Orders!” Vo-Vo bustled back in, ripped a page from her little notepad, and rammed it down on a spike that sat by a stack of menus on the counter. She went out again, muttering curses about customers who came demanding to be fed well before Le Chat was even open.
Under Claire’s sympathetic gaze, it took every ounce of strength Gina had not to weep the whole sorry story into her wine. She made herself smile at her friend. “You’re busy. I’ll go.” Forgoing the rest of her meal and half of the claret, Gina got slowly to her feet.
She began to clear, but Claire said, “Leave it. Louis will do that. Oh! And here he is now. Finally,” she added, as he popped his curly head around the door and gave Gina a nod and a shy smile. “Louis, help Gina with her suitcase and find her a taxi, will you?”
Claire gave Gina another hug and whispered in her ear, “I’m so sorry, I can’t stop. But we’ll talk properly, yes? Come around tomorrow morning, early as you can, and we’ll go somewhere we won’t be interrupted.”
Aware that Louis was waiting for her, Gina gave him a perfunctory smile and followed him out. “Don’t worry about the taxi,” she told him. “I’ll walk.” She deliberately left her suitcase behind.
Was it the lack of sleep, the wine, or the heavy meal? Her brain felt sluggish. All the way to Paris, her mind had raced with worry. Once there she’d had no thought beyond getting to Claire. Now even deciding which direction to take seemed beyond her. Feeling Louis’s interested gaze upon her as she hesitated, Gina randomly turned left and walked purposefully away from him.
The movement of her body seemed to turn the gears of her mind. Her brain started to churn, her thoughts spinning around and around. She needed coffee. She needed to find someplace to live, a job. Most pressing of all, she needed a place to sleep that night.
She couldn’t remember ever seeing a realtor in Paris, though they must surely exist, mustn’t they? Or did one inquire of the concierge at each building if there were any apartments there to rent? She didn’t know. She’d never had to worry about any of the practicalities of life before. For someone who’d always prided herself on wanting independence, she felt stupid and naïve, and very alone.
Once out of sight of Le Chat, Gina slowed her pace, wandering until she found a public bench by an allée where a group of old men were playing pétanque. She sat down and tried to order her thoughts. She had some money saved but she needed to be careful with it until she secured some form of employment. Journalism—freelancing—wouldn’t pay immediately. Once she’d found her feet, she’d knock on some doors, but full-time employment for English-speaking journalists in Paris was scarce. She’d probably have to find something else in the meantime. She wished she hadn’t been forced to leave her typewriter behind.
All right. She’d find a place to stay. Then she’d look for a job. It could be anything. She hadn’t been too proud to wait tables at Le Chat when Claire was shorthanded, years ago. She knew how a restaurant was run. Maybe she could find a place that would hire her. Or she could try retail—she’d never served customers in a boutique before, but how hard could it be? Although she might need a résumé for that, and she didn’t have any relevant experience. She didn’t have a work visa, either. It would have to be somewhere they didn’t care about visas. When she got back on her feet, she’d buy a typewriter, try to sell some articles freelance. One of the editors she knew might support her visa application. Maybe she could talk to someone at the embassy. She had a few contacts there.
But first, Gina needed somewhere to stay. She wandered the streets of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, inquiring at different pensions, but all of the more respectable places were beyond her budget. The tariffs were even higher in the hotels, and anyway, if Gina was going to make her home in Paris, what she needed was an apartment. By the time she’d worked her way to the edge of the arrondissement, she was nearing despair. Her feet ached and she felt weary down to her bones. If only she’d swallowed her pride and admitted everything to Claire.
The idea of begging for charity from her friend made her feel nauseous. Gina gritted her teeth and went on. At what seemed like the hundredth place she tried, the concierge asked about her budget.
The concierge seemed kind, but Gina had to swallow past the lump in her throat before she could bring herself to disclose how much she could afford to pay. The woman’s eyebrows drew together. “Are you in some kind of trouble, mademoiselle? Pardon me for saying, but you look as if you could afford far better.”
“I’m afraid I only have limited resources at the moment.” She thanked the concierge and was about to leave, when the woman said, “Let me show you a room. It won’t be what you’re used to, but it is cheap.”
They took the elevator as far up as it would go, then climbed a winding staircase to the top floor of the building. The concierge produced a bunch of keys and found the correct one. “Here.”
She held open the door for Gina to come in, but Gina didn’t follow her. The room was so small it would have felt crowded if the two of them had stood together inside it. There was a bed and a dry washstand and little else. Nowhere to cook or eat food, no running water. Nowhere to hang her clothes.
It was a chambre de bonne—a maid’s room—the concierge said.
“And the bathroom?” Gina inquired.
“Public baths down the street,” said the concierge. “The shared lavatory is down the hall.” She nodded to a small cabinet against the wall that Gina hadn’t noticed. “There’s a commode, as well.”
Gina had not realized people went to public bathhouses actually to bathe. If she’d thought about them at all, she’d imagined they must be much like a day spa. And the commode . . . She shuddered. She couldn’t stay here long. But it was only temporary, after all. Surely she could get enough work to dig herself out of here.
In any case, she had little choice in the matter. It was the first place in a decent neighborhood that she could afford. “I’ll take it,” she said. She’d retrieve her suitcase from Le Chat and then tomorrow she’d try her best to find a job.
Orienting herself, Gina realized that after all of that wandering, she had ended up only a couple of blocks away from Le Chat-qui-Pêche. She checked her watch. Hmm. It was almost five o’clock. Claire would be busy preparing for the dinner rush. Maybe she could slip into the office unnoticed and retrieve her suitcase.
A light drizzle began. She put out her hand, palm up, to feel the tiny spots of rain and thought of her umbrella, which was of course packed in her suitcase. At least, she hoped it was.
As the rain intensified, she stepped under the awning of the shop next door to her apartment building for shelter. Then she realized she stood outside a bookstore. Of course! She knew this street well. She had visited this establishment countless times, because it stocked a selection of books that were in English as well as a large array of new and used ones in French. She could never decide on her absolute favorite bookstore in the city because each district of Paris yielded some fresh and interesting find, not to mention the fascinating and eclectic bouquinistes who peddled all kinds of literature from stalls along the quays of the Seine. But Florie’s was one of the best. Gina decided to take refuge from the rain there and forget her troubles for a while.
Simply entering a bookstore never failed to make her feel better. The look and feel and smell of books—whether leather-bound and tooled with gilt or dog-eared and warped from many readings—she loved them all. But what she loved even more was what the books represented. Take one set of black marks on a bound stack of paper from the shelves, and you held an entire world in your hands. It was the only kind of magic she believed in, the ability of authors to fling her into other places, other times, other people’s minds and hearts. She had always burned to weave that magic, too. A dream that would have to be put on hold while she earned a living.
As she went inside, a bell tinkled cheerily overhead and a sight greeted her that was familiar and almost as comforting as Claire’s embrace. An elderly, wirehaired fox terrier lay by the feet of an even more elderly bookseller, who was cradling a steaming mug of coffee in his liver-spotted hands.
“Mademoiselle Winter!” The bookseller’s face lit with a smile that was all the more charming for being unexpected. With his heavy eyebrows and downturned mouth, Monsieur Florie always appeared grumpy when his face was at rest. “It has been too long.”
The warmth of his welcome was a balm to Gina’s ragged soul. “Bonjour, Monsieur Florie. I trust you are well.” Pricking up his ears at her voice, the fox terrier, whose name was Ricki, hauled himself to his feet and came to her. She crouched to greet him, scratching the place on his spine that he couldn’t reach, which always turned him into a shaggy little puddle of bliss.
As she fussed over his dog, Monsieur told her all about his latest acquisitions, and which books might suit her taste. Gina’s fatigue, coupled with the time she’d spent away, made her a little slow to catch the meaning of his rapid, guttural French, but she did her best. “You will want to see all of the new stock,” he told her, rising from his chair. “Come, let me show you.”
“Actually,” said Gina, struck with inspiration, “I was wondering if you might have a job for me, Monsieur.”
In the short lull between the lunch rush and dinner preparation, Tante Vo-Vo jerked her head at Claire. “Come sit down with us for a minute. Your papa has something he wants to say.”
Surprised, Claire took off her apron, wiped her hands on it, and followed her aunt to the booth closest to the office. It was seldom that the family had the time to sit down together but whenever they did, it was always at this booth.
Papa shuffled up to them, looking sorry and sheepish, but much more alert than when she’d looked in on him that morning, still in bed after an evening of miserable drinking, tears staining his cheeks. He was a big man, and before her mother’s death, he had been the epitome of the garrulous Parisian host. Now, he seemed nervous and tongue-tied. He crushed his chef’s hat between his hands and twisted it.
Wary of his hesitancy, Claire glanced at Vo-Vo, whose expression seemed curiously benign. Her aunt nodded at Papa.
“Mignonne,” he began, “I know now isn’t a good time, but . . .” He trailed off.
“Sit down, Papa.” Claire smiled up at him encouragingly and slid over so he could take a seat beside her. Perhaps if he wasn’t obliged to look her in the eye he’d find it easier to come out with whatever it was he needed to say. The suspicion that he’d bought a fancy new oven they couldn’t afford or forgotten to put in the produce orders crossed her mind, but neither transgression would make her aunt look so happy. Claire turned to Papa and placed a gentle hand on his arm. “What’s on your mind?”
When he continued to hesitate, Vo-Vo said, “If you don’t tell her, I will.”
“We’re leaving Paris,” Papa blurted out. “Your aunt and I. We’re selling Le Chat.”