Rattled by the realization, she reached into her pocket to pull out her phone. As she did so, a little green sprig fell onto the pavement. She picked it up, staring at it in puzzlement. It was a four-leaf clover. Where in the world had that come from? She’d been in Paris for over a decade and had never seen a four-leaf clover here. She looked at the four little rounded leaves, bewildered, then dropped it back into her pocket. How bizarre.
Taking another large, fortifying sip of the pastis, she scrolled through her phone contacts. Who could she call? Almost all of her friends were connected to Etienne or the restaurant. She could not ask any of them for help, but it was clear she needed somewhere to go at least for tonight. She thought for a moment. Phoebe. Of course. Her closest nonwork friend in Paris. She called Phoebe, but there was no answer and Phoebe’s voice mail box was full as usual. Georgia called again immediately.
“Come on, Phoebs, pick up,” she whispered with a touch of desperation. A click and then...
“Georgia May!!!” a cheerful British voice yelled loudly and tipsily. Georgia winced and held the phone away from her ear.
“Hey, Phoebe.”
They’d met in French class years ago and bonded over their shared struggle to unravel the complexities of the French language. Originally from Liverpool, Phoebe now worked for a fashion branding and marketing company in Paris and lived in a gorgeous and exorbitantly expensive apartment in the chic Le Marais neighborhood in the third arrondissement. They often met up on Georgia’s day off to swap work stories and drink a little too much very good wine. Phoebe had excellent taste in wine. Well, in everything, really.
“How are you, babe?” Phoebe shrieked. Georgia could barely hear her over the earsplitting thump of some truly terrible electronic dance music in the background.
“Where are you?” Georgia yelled over the din.
“I’m in Oberkampf at Panic Room with some of the girls from work,” Phoebe yelled back. “The Polish models wanted to see some Paris nightlife. Lucky me, I’m playing tour guide.”
Georgia’s heart sank, imagining Phoebe dancing the night away in a sweaty nightclub.
“Hold on, I’m going to the loo so I can hear you,” Phoebe shouted. A moment later, the music faded to a low throbbing pulse of bass through the phone. “That’s better,” Phoebe came back on at normal volume. “What’s going on?” She sounded slightly more sober.
Georgia took a deep breath. She was not used to asking for help from anyone, preferring to rely on her own grit and determination, but tonight it was all too much. She needed a friend. “I’m in trouble,” she admitted frankly. “Phoebs, I need your help.”
Thirty minutes later, Phoebe met Georgia in the opulent stairwell of her apartment building. For clubbing, she was wearing a white leather miniskirt, which she actually managed to look fabulous in, and was teetering on the most outrageous pair of black leather spiked Louboutin ankle boots. Her hair fell down her back in a milky sheet of pale blond. She threw her arms around Georgia in a hug, enveloping her in a cloud of equal parts sympathy and vodka.
“I don’t know what’s happening, but I’m sure it will be all right,” she whispered loudly in Georgia’s ear. “Also, why are you holding knives?” She stepped back and peered at Georgia’s knife kit, then looked up, wide-eyed. “I think we need wine.”
She unlocked the door to her apartment and waved Georgia into the living room, then disappeared into the kitchen andreappeared a moment later with a pricey bottle of chilled Vouvray. She poured them both generous glasses and then collapsed on the velvet sofa next to Georgia, kicking off the spiked ankle boots and curling up like a cat.
“Okay, tell me everything,” she urged.
Georgia took a large, fortifying swallow of wine and confessed the entire horrible evening including Etienne and Manon in the refrigerator, and her own retaliation with the overcooked fish and Antoine Dupont. When she was done, Phoebe shook her head slowly, her mouth a perfect O of surprise. “Oh my word, babe. I don’t know what to say. Etienne is an arse, a complete arse. Sure, he’s super sexy and talented in the kitchen, but he’s a prick. Always has been. Good riddance to bad rubbish. I don’t blame you for serving that bad fish. Etienne deserved it!”
She topped up Georgia’s empty glass with a great glug of wine and then scooted closer and put her arm around her friend. Georgia laid her head on Phoebe’s shoulder, miserable but grateful for the comfort. Phoebe smelled like vodka and Miss Dior perfume, a somehow reassuring combination. Maybe Etienne had deserved it, but now that her fury was waning, Georgia was beginning to regret her hasty action. She had been humiliated, but that didn’t make it right. She felt sick when she thought of the events of the evening—Etienne’s betrayal, the staff’s complicit silence, and her own retaliation. Altogether they meant the unraveling of her entire life. And Etienne. She closed her eyes, grieved at the memory of his infidelity. She’d thought he loved her. How foolish she’d been.
“This is the worst night of my life,” Georgia murmured desolately. “I’ve lost my job, friends, boyfriend, and apartment. I don’t even have anywhere to stay tonight.” She felt wrung out and completely unmoored.
“You can stay here with me for as long as you need to,” Phoebeassured her, squeezing her shoulder comfortingly. “And tomorrow we’ll figure out what to do. Things will look better in the morning, you’ll see.”
Georgia sat up and drained her glass of wine. “I hope you’re right,” she said grimly. “I don’t see how they could get much worse.”
4
Unfortunately, things didnot look better in the morning. Georgia woke late, sprawled across Phoebe’s guest futon, swathed in one of Phoebe’s silk negligee and robe sets that no doubt cost a fortune but barely covered her bum cheeks. She had no clothes of her own other than her soiled chef’s whites. High on her to-do list was getting back into the apartment she shared with Etienne to gather her belongings as soon as she could be sure Etienne would not be there. She rolled to a sitting position on the edge of the bed. Her head ached dully. Too much pastis and pricey Vouvray on an empty stomach.
She blinked and the entire catastrophic evening came back in a rush. She groaned, putting her head in her hands. It had not been a dream then. It was all terribly real.
“Okay, Georgia, pull yourself together,” she whispered, forcing herself to take stock of her situation. “You have to figure out what to do now.” She needed a shower, food, and coffee, probably not in that order. Her stomach was gnawing itself raw. Food first then. The shower could wait.
She tiptoed into Phoebe’s gleaming and seldom-used galley kitchen and gingerly took inventory of the contents of the fridge. A wilted bunch of carrots and a half-full cup of yogurt that had spoiled. Thankfully, there was an excellent boulangerie just down the street. Quickly, she changed back into her rumpled chef’s whites, pulled back her riotous hair into some semblance ofrespectability, and let herself out of the apartment with a few euros in hand.
Ten minutes later, she was seated at the two-person dining table in Phoebe’s kitchen, looking out over the rooftops of Paris. On the table in front of her sat an espresso she’d managed to make with Phoebe’s expensive and befuddling Italian espresso maker, the only well-used appliance in the kitchen, and a small grease-stained paper bag. She added a lump of sugar to the bottom of the tiny white cup and stirred, then opened the paper bag and inhaled the aroma of fresh croissant. It was still warm. If you were going to be jilted and publicly humiliated, at least there were still French pastries to comfort you, Georgia thought glumly. It was a small mercy. She closed her eyes and bit into the buttery, flaky pastry, savoring the crack of the thin layers against her teeth. But instead of luscious butter, she tasted something terribly wrong.
With a muffled cry of disgust, she spit the mouthful of croissant back into the bag. It was as bitter as the skin of an almond. So bitter it puckered her mouth. What in the world was wrong with that pastry? She peered in bewilderment at the croissant, then dropped it into the bag. She took a cleansing sip of espresso, but promptly spit it out too. It tasted exactly the same. Not pleasantly bitter like a good espresso should taste, but as bitter and inedible as an unripe grape picked too soon off the vine.
Oh no. Georgia froze, a terrible suspicion flitting through her mind. All those momentary glitches in her ability to discern flavors over the past few months. The garlic that tasted like cinnamon. The bitter rind of an orange rendered as bland as water. Was it happening again? Had it gotten worse?
“Oh, please not this,” she murmured. She leaped from her chair, eager to prove herself wrong, and rummaged through Phoebe’s kitchen looking for anything edible. She took a bitefrom one of the wilted carrots—bitter. In desperation, she snatched a sugar cube from the sugar bowl and set it on her tongue, praying fervently that all she’d taste was pure, sweet cane sugar. But a moment later, she spit it into the sink and stared at the little white lump in horror. It was true. All she could taste was bitter.
