All That and Then Some

MAEVE

THE INSIDE OF PATISSERIE Margolie is my version of heaven. That's exactly what I thought when I stepped nervously through the glass doors this morning, ten minutes early for my first day as her apprentice.

Her storefront is small. The stacked shelves and display tables encroach on the pathway through the store, and you get immersed in a sort of delicious chaos as you make your way toward the bakery cases at the back. Even though the most spectacular delights live back there, lined up in neat, shining rows, emanating alluring smells of butter, chocolate and apricots, it's impossible to rush through the place without stopping to pick up the delicate glass Parisian jam jars and cellophane-wrapped packages of madeleines and sables you encounter along the way.

"Bonjour Maeve!" sang Margolie from behind the cash register. "I'm so excited to have you here today!"

I smiled at her shyly, putting down the bottle of dark cherries preserved in Armagnac that my fingers had nervously attached themselves to.

"Hi, Margolie!" I answered back, trying to match her sing-song tone but probably sounding silly. "Thank you again for agreeing to this. I'm super excited to learn... well, everything."

She laughed and waved her hand through the air.

"Everrrything may take some time. But if you're aff the bakeur your mother says you are... then we are off to a very good start!"

I love her French accent. Like, seriously, LOVE. I'm going to have to be careful I don't accidentally start mimicking her.

We started with a tour of the store and a lesson on cash, of course. It's a small shop, and since Margolie will be training me for free, I'll be helping out in the front as well. That suits me fine because I'm used to serving people in Mum's cafe.

It was immediately clear that it would actually be a whole lot easier here since the coffee is drip and the majority of Margolie's customers are only interested in taking away boxes of pastry.

After the basics, Margolie showed me to the gleaming kitchen area. A long white marble worktop runs straight through the middle. I was surprised because stainless steel is much easier to clean, and that's usually what you'd see in an industrial kitchen.

"Oh, you must have marble when working with butter," she explained when I asked about it. "Keeps it cold. Heat is the enemy of fat."

I pulled out the little black notebook I was carrying in my jeans pocket and scribbled that down. Heat is the enemy of...

She put her hand over my notepad and, laughing, said, "No, no note-taking. Patisserie is both a spiritual and physical art, but not a mental one. You experience it with your soul and you learn it through the doing. Your 'ands and 'eart will guide you with practice."

I blinked up at her, eye pricking stupidly. Not because I was sad or shamed by my innocent impulse to take notes, but because it was so immediately apparent to me that she was right.

And not just about Patisserie. But about life.

"I'VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT heading back home," Jeffry says, his arm bent behind his head so he can see me where I'm sitting at the foot of his camp bed. "You seem like you're more grounded, and I really only came to make sure you were cool."

I've just been telling him all about my first day with Margolie, and it's clear, even to me, that the crack in reality I'd experienced was now filling up with a renewed sense of purpose. He's exactly right. I've been re-grounded in my body. I feel more at ease and sure of who I am.

"You can't go!" I squeal, holding his left foot. "It's practically Christmas. Don't you want to be here when Gran's secret internet romance turns out to be a total frog?!"

He laughs. "A bit. But there's a party back home I kinda want to be there for. A gallery party."

"Sounds cold. Since when do you want to hang out and schmooze gallery snobs?"

A private smile plays across his face. "Since they're hanging some of my pieces this week."

I smack his leg too hard. "What? What?! This is huge! Why didn't you TELL ME?"

"I AM telling you!"

"Well, I want to come! Can I come?"

He shrugs and says, "I mean, you can. But you just started at Margolie's. Plus, it's Christmas. You need to be here. I'll send you a ton of pics. I'll FaceTime you in."

"You better!" I say, leaping onto him and burying him in my whole excited self.

"Pah!" he spits. "Your hair's in my mouth."

"Too bad," I laugh and start tickling his ribs. "You're such a big deal, Jeffry! Oh my god, you're going to be famous! And rich!"

He hollers and tries to get away from my tickling fingers. "I'll pay you to stop tickling me!"

And I do, but only because my phone trills with an incoming call. I pull it out of my pocket and see that it's Jules, so I land a quick kiss on Jeffry's cheek and leap off him toward the shed door, answering the phone.

Exams are over, and the campus has pretty much cleared out for the holidays, but Jules has decided to stay in residence rather than go home to see her parents out east. She says the flights are too expensive, but I think it's because her parents are constantly engaged in what she describes as a battle to the death. Shouting, throwing, slamming, screaming... all par for the course in Jules' house. She assumed they'd get a divorce the second she left for school, but they've stayed together, too embroiled in their all-out war to notice she'd left.

She says she prefers the quiet of an empty dorm, but I don't feel like that can possibly be true. Who wants to be alone at Christmas?

The screen fills with her face.

"Look! I've decorated! I went to the dollar store and cleared them out of twinkly lights and tinsel!"

She pans across the room, which is practically psychedelic with multi-coloured, blinking strings of lights everywhere and shiny tinsel garlands strung across every surface.

"Wow, that's... a fire hazard," I joke. "Are you sure you have enough lights?"

"I'm thinking about getting a tree."

"Where would you put a tree?" Dorm rooms are notoriously small.

The phone swings back to her face. "I'll throw your bed out into the hall. You're not exactly using it."

"Jules," I say carefully because I've made this offer before, and she's turned me down flat. "Why don't you come here for Christmas? I know for sure my Mum would be cool with it. You don't have to be alone out there, surviving on pizza and kraft dinner. We have space," I add, not exactly sure that's true because Vivian's still in Dad's tv room and Jeffry's using the shedroom. Well, if Jeffry really is going home, then...

"Maeve, I'm good. I mean it. I like the peace. I have a whole reading list to get through for next semester, unlike you. Plus, you're coming back soon, right? There's a big new year's eve bash at the—"

"I'm not coming back," I say with finality. "I've decided. School's not for me. I want to work with my hands and my heart. I'm dropping out."

I tell her all about my first day at the Patisserie and how much I loved being there, how I can already see myself learning this trade and, one day, owning a little shop of my own. I go on and on, but I notice Jules' face is less enthusiastic than I'd like.

"What?" I ask, maybe a little too aggressively.

She shrugs and blinks, refusing to make eye contact with the phone.

"No, what? You don't approve? You didn't approve of an economics degree, but now you don't approve of baking either?"

She presses her lips together. "Well, it's nothing to do with me, I guess. You're moving on. Done. Won't be back. I get it. They'll stick some other loser in here with me now, you know. Great."

I try to assess what her issue is exactly.

"Holy cow, Jules. I know you like having the room to yourself, but—"

"Holy cow yourself, Maeve."

I open my mouth to respond, but it's too late; she's hung up on me.