Phoebe sat down across from Georgia and pulled a croissant from the bag. “I’m starving,” she announced, taking a big bite. “I was clubbing all weekend in Saint-Tropez with a bunch of Moldovan models. They hardly eat anything.” She pulled a face. “Now, tell me everything.”
Georgia broke the flaky, knobby end off the pain au chocolat and inhaled. Bliss. She nibbled the buttery bite. “There’s a lot to tell,” she prefaced.
Phoebe waved away her statement like a pesky gnat. “Skip the boring bits. Tell me what happened with your hunky oysterman scientist?” Her eyes gleamed.
“Nothing happened.” Georgia thought briefly of Cole, and her face flamed, recalling their evening of passionate kisses at the Oyster Shuck. The memory made her feel both sad and indignant. Now there was an ocean between them. An ocean and his silence and his inability to move on from his tragic past. “Well, not quite nothing. I kissed him,” she admitted. “Or he kissed me. We kissed... a lot.”
“AAAGH! I KNEW you were going to snog him!” Phoebe crowed jubilantly, pumping her fist into the air in a victory gesture. “Tell me everything. Is he a good kisser? He is, right?”
“I don’t kiss and tell,” Georgia demurred, then relented almost immediately. “Okay, yes. When he kissed me, I completely lost my equilibrium,” she confessed. She stopped, rememberingthe sensation. The world had tilted on its axis. “I’ve never felt that way with anyone before.” She dropped her gaze and toyed with her espresso cup. “And then right afterward, I found out that he and Star had been keeping a secret from me. A big one.”
“Oh no.” Phoebe took a sip of espresso, eyes widening in alarm. “What happened? Give me all the details.”
“Star has a degenerative neurological condition called Lewy body dementia. That’s why she contacted me out of the blue, because she’s sick and running out of time.” Georgia heard the plaintive edge to her voice as she told Phoebe all about the night of the Oyster Shuck, the shock of walking in to find Buck sitting there, and the aftermath—the revelation of Star’s illness. When she paused for breath, Phoebe was staring at her aghast.
“Oh. My. Word. Babe, that is so heartbreaking.” Phoebe breathed. “And what awful timing too. I’m so sorry.”
“But wait, there’s more,” Georgia said miserably. And then she told Phoebe about the next morning, about finally getting an answer to her long-held questions surrounding Star’s disappearance, about discovering the terrible reason her mother had left and why their family had fallen apart.
When she finished, Phoebe sat back with a dramatic sigh. “That’s epically tragic, Georgia, for all of you. Poor Star. So she’s been watching you from afar all these years, loving you but not able to be a part of your life?”
Georgia nodded. “It feels like such a waste, all that time we could have had together. And my dad and Aunt Hannah keeping the truth about why she left us from me for so long and telling her I didn’t want to see her.” She shredded part of her croissant into tiny flaky bits with suppressed fury. “I’m so angry with all of them for what they took from me. First Star because she couldn’t be a good mom to me, and then later when she got clean, my dad and Aunt Hannah wouldn’t let her near me.”
Phoebe looked thoughtful for a long moment. “Yeah,” she said slowly. “I see your point. Of course you’re angry that your dad and aunt kept these big things from you, and it makes sense that you’re hurt that your mom failed you. I’d feel the same way...”
Georgia heard the hesitation in Phoebe’s voice. “Is there a ‘but’ coming?” she asked warily.
“Just that at the end of the day, it sounds like your family really still loves you,” Phoebe said carefully. “I mean, yes, your mom couldn’t take care of you and left you when you were little, which is awful. But she never stopped loving you. She made some really bad choices, but then she tried to do the right thing, even when all her options were terrible options. She didn’t leave you because she didn’t love you. She left you BECAUSE she loved you. She left because she thought it was the best thing for you. And then she turned her life around and waited all these years, hoping for the day you two could be together again.”
She picked at her French manicure and said wistfully, “It’s kind of beautiful, honestly, in a really tragic way. I think my stepmother would be happier if I just didn’t exist, like if I vanished from the planet she would not mind at all. And frankly, I’m not sure my dad would notice if I did.” She glanced at Georgia, her pretty face suddenly sad. “At least your mom still loves you. And your dad flew all the way from Texas to make sure you were okay. You have a family that cares about you, and that counts for a lot, even if they did mess up pretty epically. No family gets everything right, but it sounds like they keep trying to love you, and that has to count for something.”
Georgia gazed past Phoebe’s pink silk shoulder, out the tall French doors leading from the kitchen onto the tiny balcony, looking contemplatively over the rooftops of Paris.
“Maybe you’re right,” she admitted. “I know they love me,but they failed me in such big ways, I don’t know if I can forgive them. And even if I could, how can I stand to lose my mom again just when we found each other? It feels impossible. I don’t think I can bear it.” She was quiet for a moment. If she just kept away, went back to rebuilding a life for herself in Paris, maybe it wouldn’t hurt quite so much. “My life is here,” she said at last, with conviction. “What I want is here. I need to concentrate on that now.”
Phoebe nodded reluctantly. “If you’re sure...” she said, then paused and changed the topic. “Tell me what else happened while you were there. Did you get your spark back?”
“Yes, and even more than that,” Georgia told her honestly. She thought of those wild, exuberant days at Anemone, of her sense of taste returning flavor by flavor, of the sensation of delight she’d managed to capture once more. She recalled the revelation about her gift and the legacy of the Stevens women. That had changed everything for her. And although the conversation with Star and Buck had been painful, at least she knew the answers to the questions she’d been asking for almost thirty years. They may not have been what she hoped for, but at least she knew the real story now. That was something, right? Plus, she had done as Michel had asked. She’d gone away and rediscovered her spark in the kitchen. Even more than regaining her sense of taste, she’d regained her ability to find delight in life again, to find joy in watching for orcas, digging in the garden with Star, playing a game of Scrabble, waking to the scent of flowering apple blossoms and the sea. Her time on the island had been life-changing.
“I feel like on the island I learned how to live again,” she confessed.
“Babe, that’s amazing!” Phoebe reached across the table and squeezed Georgia’s hand. “I can’t believe so much happenedfor you there. It was everything you hoped for! Plus getting a snog from a super sexy scientist turned oysterman. Pretty epic if you ask me.”
“Pretty epic,” Georgia agreed. Phoebe was right. The snogging had been very, very nice. She couldn’t deny that. She thought of Cole and grimaced. There was a sharp twist in her heart when she recalled how they’d left things.
“Well,”—Phoebe pouted—“I have to get ready for work in a minute, but first, what are you going to cook for Michel?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” Georgia admitted, relieved to turn her attention to less emotionally fraught topics. “I thought I’d take a walk through the Marché des Enfants Rouges today and then on Thursday browse Marché Richard Lenoir and see what inspires me.”
Paris was legendary for its delectable covered and open-air food markets where local farmers and artisans sold a mouthwatering assortment of cheeses, cured meats, and fresh produce and baked goods. Wandering through the markets was sure to be inspiring.
“Ooh, sounds like a yummy plan,” Phoebe agreed. She stretched languorously. “I’ve got to get to work. Make yourself at home. You know where everything is.”
Georgia nodded. Suddenly she was so tired she just wanted to lie down and sleep forever.
“Phoebs, thanks for letting me crash here until the competition.” She took the final sip of her espresso and dabbed up the buttery croissant crumbs with her finger.
Phoebe waved her hand. “You can stay as long as you need to. You know that, but of course you’re going to win the competition and be the new head chef at La Lumière Dorée and then you can live anywhere you like. Paris will be your oyster.”
