Page 52 of From Paris, with Butter
Sabine Berlioz
The email blurred. I blinked and read it again. And again.
Laurent was talking about something as he soaped up the dishes, but I couldn’t hear him.
My greatest fear had been found out and put into writing by this woman: I wasn’t good enough.
How could I have forgotten? I should never have let Yasmine convince me to volunteer for the gala, never have let any competitive streak with Laurent make me lose my head. Sabine was right; I wasn’t cut out for this.
Unbidden, a memory floated to the surface: My mother sitting beside my ten-year-old self in front of the oven as we watched my very first batch of macarons bake. Macarons were a serious undertaking, my mother had told me gravely. I remember wanting to make her proud so badly I’d given myself a stomachache.
When my mother judged it to be the right time, we’d pulled the macarons from the oven, and appraised their glossy shells.
“They look very good,” my mother had said. “But how do they taste?”
She’d lifted two from the silicone mat and passed one to me. I’d let it dangle in my hand, my attention wholly on her. My mother flipped the macaron shell over, split it in half, inhaled its scent, then popped the entire thing in her mouth.
I remember how it felt like the world had gone still. I remember every detail: the smudge of almond flour on my mother’s cheek, a few stray curls falling out of her chignon, how just the corner of her mouth had quirked up to give me that first rush of hope, her mouth splitting open, and finally, her laughing in pure delight as she opened her arms and I ran into them.
“Margot, they’re wonderful,” she said as I held her tightly, enveloped in her scent of vanilla and spices. “Absolutely outstanding, mon amour. And just think, if your first batch of macarons is this good, you’ll be doing laps around me soon enough.”
But she was wrong.
Laurent noticed I wasn’t responding. He came around and put a hand on my shoulder.
“Everything alright?”
I responded by bursting into tears.
Laurent’s arms came around me. “What happened?” he asked urgently. “Margot, what’s wrong?”
I couldn’t speak, so I just passed over my phone with Sabine’s email still glowing on the screen.
Beside me, Laurent went tense. He held me and stroked my hair, murmuring soft things, as I cried myself out.
When I petered out to just a few sniffles, he offered me a tissue and directed me to his couch. Then he dragged over a chair and sat on it so that we faced each other, knees touching.
“Margot, forget about that email,” he said firmly. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t matter?” I cried. “Sabine basically fired me!”
As a new rush of tears came, something soft gently pushed against my knee. I opened my eyes and saw Minerva staring at me, her own yellow eyes unblinking. Insistently, she pushed against my knee again. When I reached a trembling hand out to pet her, she jumped into my lap and curled herself into a donut.
I took a gulp of air. “She doesn’t think I’m good enough. She and Fatima thought my ideas were amateur,” I said, and the final word was half a sob.
I glanced at Laurent. He looked just as he did the night I’d met him, full of glowering anger.
“Margot, you are an outstanding baker. Truly you are. Fatima knows how lucky she is to have you. As for Sabine…That might be slightly my fault.”
His words were so unexpected that I paused in wiping snot from my face (I’ve always been a messy crier) to stare at him.
Laurent looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Sabine and I know each other. For most of our lives, in fact. We went to school together, and Sabine is the sister of my former girlfriend. She’s hated me ever since her sister and I broke up.”
I shook my head, as though to help this startling piece of information sink in. “You know Sabine? You dated her sister? Is that how you got the gala position?”
“No! A mutual friend suggested me to Fatima because he knew I wanted to get back into cooking. I thought Sabine and I would hardly see each other.”
I frowned. “But I thought your girlfriend cheated on you with a coworker?” I clapped my hand over my mouth as soon as the words were out.
