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She winced. “Yes, it’s me, First Course,” she answered in French and wanted to crawl into a hole at how she sounded. “Thea.”
“Thea! You’re here to help our lovely Nanine, yes?” he asked, again in French, as his face grew shadowed. “Everyone in the neighborhood has been so worried.”
“Yes, I hope to.” She switched to English. “You know how she is. My other former roommates are arriving soon as well.”
“All six courses back in Paris,” Antoine said, his dark eyes showing a telltale wetness before pointing to the photo she had out. “You are cataloguing memories, I see. I remember the night. Nanine had given you each a special gift of fragrance, I believe. You could smell the love between all of you in the air.”
Thea fought back her own tears. “It was a beautiful night. Antoine, the news about Nanine was such a shock. She’s always been so healthy.”
“Maybe her heart gave so much, it finally couldn’t give any more,” Antoine muttered. “Always a big heart for everyone, Nanine. Especially lately.”
She made a conversational sound before asking, “What happened lately, Antoine?”
He shook his head. “I would not feel right, talking about Nanine’s business. She is better telling you.”
If there was one thing about the French Thea appreciated, it was that they valued others’ privacy. And yet Brooke would want her to push. “We are all friends, are we not?” she asked badly in French, hoping to be more persuasive. “It would help us—”
“Oui, but you must be thirsty, Thea.” The change to English as much as the shift in subject was as good as a period at the end of a sentence. “Café crème? Croissant?”
She nodded vigorously. Antoine called out in rapid French to the waiter who had stopped his serving and was openly listening to their conversation. He darted inside after Antoine sent him off with a flick of his hand.
Antoine gave a Gallic shrug. “He thought you were a tourist. Welcome home, First Course. Tell Nanine her first café back at Fitzy’s will be on me.”
Clearly she wasn’t cut out to be Sherlock. She hoped Brooke wouldn’t be upset. “I will, Antoine, and thank you.”
His smile was a little watery as he went inside. She dashed at her own tears and told herself to hold it together. The waiter finally arrived with her coffee and croissant with a brief smile. Progress, Thea thought, as she ripped open two brown sugars and poured them into her café, stirring slowly to maintain the light-as-air foam on top. She closed her eyes and took a sip. The sweet blend of roasted coffee and rich milk saturated her senses, and for a moment, there was peace.
Everything seemed possible. Even her own transformation.
Not that she expected her renewed recipe for a delicious life to be a cakewalk. More like making bread. She would need new ingredients to come together for herself, ones she’d have to mix and incorporate until she found the perfect dough. Then she’d have to let it all sit, rise, and take shape. Fire had a way of sealing everything together, and therewasfire inside her—her drive, her passion. When she got the right recipe, she knew she’d come out a masterpiece.
A masterpiece, huh? The Paris air is making you delusional, Thea Rogers.
No one could call her a masterpiece right now. She fingered the baggy tan T-shirt over her wrinkled black cotton drawstring pants and eyed her giant tennis shoes. Should she change before seeing Brooke? Her friend would be dripping style like always, all the way down to her fashionable heels. Thea tucked her feet together under the table in shame. Wearing a size eleven was the bane of her existence, especially in Paris where the steps on most stairs ran more to a size seven shoe.
She glanced in the café’s glass windows and caught her reflection. Her brown hair was overdue for a cut and hung in a shaggy mess down her back. Because when did she have time for a haircut? Usually she put it in a ponytail.
Back home, she looked like everyone else. The one-length plain Jane hairstyle wasn’t supposed to stand out. Neither were her boring, neutral clothes.
Her mother said she was a late bloomer. That was stopping now.
She signaled to the waiter for her bill when he appeared. As she was opening her purse for her money, her journal fell to the ground and another slip of paper danced in the air before falling to the ground. She bent down to pick it up and read the phrase she’d cut out of one of Brooke’s old fashion magazines.
Your dreams are just around the corner.
Emotion rolled through her, and her eyes tracked to the end of the pedestrian street as she tucked the paper back into her journal. Her eyes latched onto a man who came around the corner wearing a navy pinstriped suit.
Her heart immediately started pounding.
Suddenly all she could feel was a rumbling throughout her entire body, as if a Métro train were passing underground. She grabbed the table’s edge to steady herself as she watched him come closer.
His hair was thick, curly, and ink black. He had golden skin, which she fantasized came from sunbathing on his yacht in Saint-Tropez. Black designer sunglasses hid his eyes, but his bone structure would rival that of a Greek god.
When he flashed a dashing smile and called out a greeting to her waiter, she pressed her hand to her chest, where her pulse was galloping. He was as a local, and an affable one at that.
As he turned the next corner and disappeared from sight, she slumped in her chair. She was out of breath and trembling. She couldn’t even lift her coffee cup right now.My, oh, my…
Mr. Pinstripes was like no other man she’d ever seen. He certainly bore no resemblance to any of the Joe Schmoes she’d dated back in Nowheresville. She tried to catch her breath as she told herself she was being stupid. She didn’t have a shot with a man like him.
