Page 78 of From Paris, with Butter
I recalled the image of him plunging his bare hands into a ramekin full of custard and shuddered.
No. I had to think of something else. And quickly. If I didn’t get to the gala on time, half the desserts wouldn’t be ready when the event began. I couldn’t let Fatima and the others down like that.
“What am I going to do?” I whispered.
I’d been on the brink of a meltdown all month, and this was really looking like the thing that would push me over the edge. How ironic. It had taken me so long to build up the courage to bake for the gala, and when the day finally arrived, I’m thwarted by a strike.
“I can’t miss this,” I told Yasmine.
“You won’t,” she assured me. “We’ll figure something out. Umm, what if you try to flag down a random driver and ask them to take you to the gala? Maybe pack a knife in case they’re crazy?”
“Yasmine.”
“Well, what better option is there?”
I looked blindly around my apartment, as though the answer was written on the walls. “I’ll think of something. I’ll call you back when it’s figured out.”
I hung up the phone and dropped my head into my hands. Maybe I could go onto the street, and there’d be a taxi. It was a long shot, but I was due for a bit of luck.
I quickly showered, changed, and gathered everything I needed beforestepping outside.
There was nothing, of course. My street was too residential to see many taxis at the best of times, and with the strike, I was sure they’d all be in the busiest parts of the city.
What was I going to do? I stood there, frozen with anxiety, trying to work out a solution. When a voice spoke beside me, I nearly jumped out of my skin.
“Margot?” Madame Blanchet was frowning at me. “Why are you crying, chérie?”
I wiped a hand across my face. “I need to get to the gala, and the métro workers are striking, and there are no taxis, and I don’t know how to get there, but I need to get there. Like, rightnow.” Saying my predicament out loud made the tears come even faster.
To my surprise, Madame Blanchet smiled. “I wondered why you hadn’t left yet. Come on, I’ll get you there.”
She started to move away, but I remained rooted to the spot. She must have misheard me. Or her age was finally catching up with her.
“Margot,” Madame Blanchet said, more firmly now. “Come along. It wouldn’t do for you to be late.”
She took my arm, and I allowed her to lead me toward the apartment building. Instead of going inside, she made a beeline for a storage closet.
My mind was spinning. “How am I getting to the gala?”
Madame Blanchet produced a set of keys. She selected a large brass one and fit it in the storage closet’s lock. With a feat of strength I wouldn’t have thought her capable of, she wrenched open the door. Inside were the normal repair tools and extra supplies one would expect. But in the center of the closet, looking almost comically out of place, was a bright pink Vespa.
No. She couldn’t be serious. I glanced at Madame Blanchet. She most definitely was serious.
“Madame, I don’t know how to drive that.”
“Of course not,” she said kindly. “I’mgoing to drive it. There’s plenty of room for two.”
I looked again at the Vespa. I’d never seen a model like it on the streets; it had to be decades old. There was rust encroaching across the pink paint, and thebasket hung sadly on one hinge.
“Madame, I don’t think this is safe. It’s difficult enough to drive in Paris, even when you’re not driving a, a…”A neon pink death trap,I wanted to say, but I refrained.
“Margot Delcour.” Margot Blanchet removed her glasses. Her gaze became even more piercing. She folded her arms. My tiny landlady, who spent her time crocheting baby blankets and singing arias to her dog, was suddenly terrifying.
“I have watched you bake astonishing things for nearly six years. Astonishing things that you have done nothing better with than give away to people, like myself, who don’t appreciate half the time and skill you put into them. This day is your chance to prove yourself. I’m not going to let you be late.”
I swallowed hard. “You know how to drive it?”
Madame Blanchet smiled, and the imperious spell she’d cast broke. “But of course I do. I learned when I was twenty, and I don’t remember it being hard at all.”
