Page 4 of The Grump

“I agree. You truly do have a knack for coming up with new recipes.”

“They come easily to me. It’s like I wake up in the morning and can practically feel the taste in my mouth. And it ends up tasting exactly the way I imagined.”

Avery winked. “Thank goodness you have the creative gene. I’m just good at executing.”

We both truly loved our work. Some days I still couldn’t believe I was making chocolates for a living, but I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“By the way, I forgot to tell you. Isabeau and Celine are visiting today.”

I almost choked on half of the praline. “What? When?”

“I spoke to Celine this morning, and it totally slipped my mind.”

“When are they coming?”

She checked the clock. “One hour, give or take.”

I jumped to my feet. “That still gives me time to make some of their favorites, and we do have that sherry they both love.”

Avery laughed. “I’m sorry. I should’ve told you before. You always get frenzied when they visit.”

“I know, but I like to spoil them. They’re so good to us.”

“Yes, they are.”

“All right. Do we have pistachio?” I muttered to myself even though I knew we did. Celine absolutely loved my pistachio recipe. Isabeau was more traditional. Her favorites were the sherry pralines, and we always had plenty of those. The two of them hadn’t visited in a while, and I was ecstatic to see them. “Let’s get to work.”

“Need my help?” Avery asked.

“No, you finish doing your thing.”

“Thanks.”

Celine and Isabeau were two spectacular women. The confectionery made pralines for all of the LeBlanc & Broussard establishments. They were sought after on their restaurants’ dessert menus and sometimes served with drinks at the bar. We also gave away a lot to charity, especially now during the Christmas season. We had several visits planned at local kids’ hospitals. Celine liked to say that the LeBlanc-Broussard confectionery was spreading joy, and I quite agreed with her. Ipersonally thought we had the best pralines in the city, and that was saying something because competition was fierce in New Orleans.

I whipped up everything I needed for the pistachio pralines in twenty minutes and shoved them into the oven, then started preparing a platter with small bites. Nothing fancy, just charcuterie. It was what Avery and I had for lunch almost every day. Both Celine and Isabeau had liked it the last time I offered it to them.

I kept an eye on the clock, but things were going smoothly.

When I had five minutes to go, Avery asked, “Want to freshen up?” She had just put on some lipstick and combed her hair. Avery and I looked a lot alike. We were both petite, but her hair was much thicker than mine. I was also a bit curvy from all the pralines—but my mantra was that life is too short to forgo pralines.

“You read my mind,” I told my sister, then kissed her cheek for good measure before heading to the bathroom.

Another of my favorite parts about work was that I was spending all of my time with my sister. We were a small team, with only two other employees to run errands for us and help with packaging, but mostly it was just the two of us. The confectionery wasn’t big enough to warrant more personnel. We were at the outskirts of the city in a small redbrick building with large windows. All of our gorgeous packaging with the LeBlanc & Broussard logo on it was stored in a separate room. Even though the company had been renamed the Orleans Conglomerate a long time ago, I was happy that they didn’t change the logo for the boxes. “Conglomerate” felt cold and faceless, but having the family names on the boxes was completely different. “LeBlanc & Broussard” seemed upscale and more personal.

I inspected myself in the mirror. First step, I let my hair down so it fell in messy dark brown curls, then ran my handthrough it a few times until I was happy with the look of it. I didn’t bother wearing makeup at all at work because it would simply melt off. But every time these two were visiting, I felt severely underdressed and under accessorized. They were always so put together—true Southern ladies, all style with no attitude. So I put on my favorite lipstick and some mascara.

When I opened the door to the bathroom, I heard Isabeau’s distinctive voice. Celine was laughing with my sister. I hoped to convince them to stop by more often.

“And you have the sherry ready. Oh, these girls, they’re something else,” Celine said.

“Hi,” I greeted, stepping into the kitchen.

“My darling,” Isabeau exclaimed. They both kissed my cheek.

“I’ll have pistachio pralines ready in a minute,” I told them.

“You didn’t have to bother for us,” Celine said, but her tone was distinctively appreciative.

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