Jenny Oliver - The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

‘You’re late today, no?’

‘Yes, I’m really late. Stupidly late.’

‘I’m having dinner with him tonight. I’ll put in a good word.’

‘I fear it might be too late by then.’ She checked her watch and sighed. Five minutes—there was no way they’d make it. Then she caught her reflection in the visor mirror and almost shocked herself with her dark puffy circles and glowing white face. She pulled her bobble hat lower.

Philippe wove through the slow-moving traffic as she tapped her fingers on her knees, watching the minute hand tick by.

‘I know a short cut, don’t worry,’ he said, and then, yanking the wheel round, proceeded to drive the wrong way down two one-way streets, up a bus lane and down a cobbled path that she wasn’t convinced was made for cars.

When they pulled up to the pâtisserie she was sitting rigid, clinging to her seat.

‘ Et voilà , we are here.’

She looked over at him in his clean-cut smart suit. ‘I’m not sure that could legally be called a short cut.’

He laughed. ‘You’d better go. You’re ten minutes late.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, and reached over to give him a peck on the cheek. But just as she did he moved his head to look at her and she ended up awkwardly kissing him on the nose.

‘Oh.’ He pulled back.

‘Thanks,’ she said again, putting her head down to hide her blushing cheeks and, grabbing her bag, fled from the car.

‘Ah, Ms Rachel, so you decided to join us.’ Chef was breaking an egg into a bowl, the yolk caught between his fingers.

‘I’m so sorry. It was the snow.’ She ran to her work station, uncurling her scarf and shaking the flakes off her hat.

‘Look around, everyone else managed to find their way here.’ He transferred the yolk to a separate dish while glaring at her. ‘I don’t like to be interrupted.’

‘I know, I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.’

‘So why let it happen in the first place?’ Chef spread his hands wide but was interrupted by a knock on the door.

‘Henri, a word.’ Philippe pushed it open and was standing in the hallway, beckoning for his brother to step out and join him.

‘Un moment.’ Chef paused mid-tirade, wiping his hands on a tea towel and marching off to join Philippe.

Rachel shut her eyes and took a second to catch her breath.

‘Where have you been?’ Abby whispered.

She waved her question away. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Marcel sitting smugly, legs crossed, rolling an egg back and forth on his work surface, a wilted lily lying on the shelf with his pots and pans like a trophy.

She was about to say something when Chef stormed back in. ‘OK, let’s get on with it.’

‘That’s it?’ Lacey hissed. ‘How do you get away with it?’

Rachel didn’t look at her.

‘Today it is soufflé.’

‘Shit,’ she said under her breath. Rachel had never really made soufflé. She actively avoided making soufflé. She tried to concentrate extra hard on what Chef was doing but her mind wouldn’t focus—it was dancing back and forth between the thrill she had felt sitting next to Philippe on his reckless drive through the backstreets of Paris and Marcel and his traitorous, backstabbing ways. What a fool she had been.

She couldn’t stop casting sideways glances in Marcel’s direction, determined to make him feel uncomfortable but he wasn’t having any of it. Face impeccable, poised, concentrating on every word Chef said. Dressed all scruffy and artfully dishevelled, he was the exact opposite of Philippe with his cashmere suit and confident stride, but she wondered now, remembering the satisfied look on Philippe’s face as they’d zoomed up outside the pâtisserie, if maybe both of them had the same glint in their eye—a glint that no good had come from with Marcel as far as Rachel was concerned.

She reminded herself to be more careful; she was here to bake, not to get carried away by good-looking men. If Marcel had had his way she’d have been out of the competition and she was already on thin ice with Chef. Yet when she thought about Philippe she couldn’t help but wonder what he had said to stop Chef’s anger, and about the fact that whatever he had said, he had said it for her. But as she thought about how that made her feel, an image of the bauble he’d bought on their shopping trip sprang to mind, along with the question of who it was for …

By the time she got round to listening, Chef was pulling a perfect, puffy blue cheese soufflé out of the oven. As everyone gasped at the beauty of it, he said, ‘You, this afternoon, will prepare me and my brother a soufflé. Oui ?’ Then he swept out of the room for a cigarette.

Rachel didn’t go out for lunch; instead she walked down to the pâtisserie and picked out the largest chocolate éclair there was and rammed it into her mouth right there at the counter. Françoise was laughing because her mouth was so full.

‘J’ai faim,’ she said over the cream.

‘Very hungry.’ Françoise nodded. ‘ Un café, aussi? Very tired too?’ she said, pointing to Rachel’s face.

Rachel slumped down onto one of the stools. ‘Very tired.’

Françoise made her an espresso and popped it down on the marble counter. The dim white milk-glass of the lights took any brightness out of the room, making it perfect for her hung-over eyes. She stared at the wall behind the pastries where there were postcards pinned along of places she assumed customers or friends had been. Perhaps she could run away somewhere hot, leave smug Marcel and the daunting soufflé behind. The high stool she was sitting on was squishy and comfy, the espresso bitter and sharp. She remembered how that morning she had wanted to win the competition to make her mum proud, but just the idea of it now seemed overwhelming, the prize way out of reach. Perhaps she could have a little nap—the cup clinked into the saucer as she sat back and shut her eyes but she could still hear the clock ticking down the end of her lunch break, so she ended up just ordering another eclair.

Soufflé-making was hard. Rachel had never understood them. Her mum had never understood them. Once baked, twice baked, what was the difference? And were they really baking, anyway?

She was sticking to a really simple three cheese and spinach one with roasted cherry tomatoes and garlic on the side and perhaps a sprinkling of crushed rosemary. Lacey was doing a crab, lobster and clam soufflé with a prawn and fennel bisque on the side and a crispy garlic-infused baguette. George was doing cheese as well but was aiming to make it the highest in the group by fashioning a baking parchment sleeve that would force the mixture to keep growing to practically the height of the oven. Marcel—she didn’t even look at what he was doing. Ali had chosen raspberry rice-pudding soufflé with vanilla custard sauce, which he was planning very secretively, and Abby was doing a white chocolate and amaretto one with a sweet lemon and almond curd, which sounded delicious. Rachel gave her a thumbs up before they got started.

As she separated her eggs she could feel the tiredness creeping into her body, and she was coming down fast off the eclair sugar rush. All her determination was seeping out of her in favour of crawling back into bed. But there was the fact that Philippe was tasting and she found herself wanting to impress him with her food.

Ten minutes in, George burnt his butter, which made the whole room smell sweet like cinema popcorn. Ali tipped his whisked egg whites above his head pretending that they might slip out all over him, and when she heard Marcel laugh she gave him a sneer. Then she went back to cutting through her beaten whites with a palette knife but all she seemed to be doing was making her mixture go from light and fluffy to flat and drab. It just seemed too heavy, but it was too late to start again. The smell of her cheese made her feel sick, as did Lacey’s bubbling prawn stock.