Page 1 of Delicious
CHAPTER1
Mason
After the pleasant, recorded female voice announces my stop, the doors to the subway car finally open, and I race out the exit. I sprint past an accordion player snoozing in an alcove, instrument cuddled close like a beloved pet. It’s too early for him to start working. Not too early for me, though. I’m running late.
The Paris Métro smells like urine and stale air, and there’s trash on the ground, debris from people partying last night, but I love it anyway.
I’ve always thought the underground feels like a form of quantum travel. You go down a few stairs in one part of the city and show up a while later in an entirely different place. It’s real-life teleportation. Plus, it’s fun for a California kid like me. Transport with no traffic. I can read or mess around on my phone or people watch. So long as I hang on to my wallet, everything’s copacetic.
I do keep losing things, though. I’ve never been pickpocketed, but I’ve accidentally left more than a few personal items behind over the past few months—a blue knit cap, some lavender-scented candy, and multiple umbrellas come to mind.
The worst loss was my Moleskine notebook in which I copied down favorite recipes and recorded my notes and modifications to them. That stung more than forgetting my favorite sweatshirt, although I’d ended up re-creating my book, for the most part, by googling the recipes I remembered and doing my best. Nothing so bad as Hemingway leaving a completed manuscript in a taxicab, I suppose. I hadn’t written in more than a quarter of it, but I hate it when anything disappears. Even though I figured it was futile, I checked the lost and found daily for two weeks. It never turned up. Setting aside those quibbles, the Paris Métro system is efficient and egalitarian, and I could ride it for hours.
But not this morning. I overslept, and I have places to be.Merde.
I dash up the concrete steps and emerge out into the gray of early morning. A street sweeper—a person, not a machine—is busy cleaning the cobbled street with a broom that appears to have been made out of twigs by a sinister fairy-tale character. I’d question what year it was if I weren’t at a modern stop that lacks the classic ornate railings and creepy art nouveau font spelling out “Métropolitain.” I don’t spare a moment to take in whatever the urban design is here but skid to a stop like a tourist in front of a large area map posted on the wall.
While I’m on a student visa, not a permanent resident, I’m not exactly a tourist, either, and I don’t look like one today by any means. I’m wearing a white chef’s jacket with white buttons and black-and-white chalk stripe pants. My name, “M. Gray”—M. for both monsieur and Mason, I suppose—is embroidered on my pocket, and I’m wearing black Chuck Taylors.
I scan the sign frantically but can’t figure out which way I go from here—merdeencore—so I take my phone out, look up the walking directions, and set off. Inevitably, I go the wrong way at first and have to retrace my steps.
Google says it’ll take ten minutes, but if I run, I should make up some time and hopefully not piss off the famous instructor on the first day. I slide my phone into my pocket and head down the rue de l’Ambroisie along the Parc de Bercy, a modern green space next to the Seine.
Even though it’s morning, before most businesses open, there’s activity on the streets. For each shop or restaurant shuttered behind metal roll-up doors, there’s another accepting deliveries or cleaning windows and front steps. I pass a bakery with a line out onto the sidewalk, and my nose perks up at the scent of fresh bread. Fucking yum.Paris, amirite? I’m not sure I’ll ever get tired of this place.
My phone buzzes with a text, and I pull it out as I’m jogging across the street. The message is from my best friend, Alden, who lives in California, so it’s late evening his time. I slip in my earbuds and call him.
“Hey,” he says. “How’s your first day?”
“Hasn’t started yet. I’ll find out. I’m late to class.”
“Oh, sorry. I get confused. Do you need me to call you later?”
“Nope. I’m okay to talk for a few,” I pant, hanging a right and checking the time on my phone. “I’m almost there.”
“Yay. What are you learning this time?”
“It’s a short course in pâtisserie and viennoiserie,” I say, in a bad French accent. My French is still pretty horrible. I can have simple conversations, order in a restaurant, and generally follow my classes because there’s a lot of demonstration and hands-on instruction. But I’m not having an in-depth philosophical or political conversation with anyone anytime soon.
I can picture him wrinkling his nose. “What’s viennoiserie?”
“Flaky pastries like croissants.”
Alden lets out a happy sigh. “I like those.”
“Me, too. And I’m really hoping we’re learning macarons—those are the bomb.” I can’t tamp down my enthusiasm. Today I’m starting at a new-to-me school (of course it’s been around for more than a hundred years) to move into more-advanced techniques. I can’t fucking wait.
“Sounds tasty.”
“I’m sure it will be. How’s it going at work?”
Alden is the shyest, geekiest guy I know—but I love him dearly. We’ve been friends since elementary school. He’s started a new job as a bookkeeper at a law firm and, by the sound of it, has a crush on one of the lawyers there. It’d be nice if something comes of it. While j’adore my best friend exactly how he is, he could stand to come out of his shell and live a wee bit more.
Me? I’ve dated some, but my focus right now is on building a career as a high-end pastry chef, and that’s kept me moving around the globe. Not exactly the recipe for finding true love. Where I’ll end up, I have no idea, but having this course on my resume will look good. I don’t want it just for the prestige, though. I really want to learn what they’re teaching.
When I get to the school, I say goodbye to Alden and slide in the door one minute before the class is supposed to start. It’s in an old stone building that looks like it used to be a castle or something, because of course it does. I pass through an archway that probably once had knights guarding it and get in a line where a woman is checking people in on an iPad.
From here on out, everything’s in French. But I think I can handle it.
