The woman indicated the black leather couch. “Asseyez-vous, s’il vous plaît. Nous attendons les autres étudiants. Dix minutes de plus, je pense.”
Genna was pleased she understood most of what the receptionist said. Something about sitting, ten minutes, and students. She took a seat and glanced at her watch: 9:50. In ten minutes the other students would arrive. Right.
The magazines piled on the end table next to the couch were French travel magazines—easy to enjoy in any language. She picked up one with a picture of lavender fields on the cover and turned to a story about Provence, illustrated with sumptuous photographs of sunflowers and slumbering medieval villages, bowls of ripe tomatoes and slick, black olives.
She leafed through the pages, gratified to recognize many of the places she’d visited on a family holiday to France. Drew had inherited a windfall from his grandmother and had agreed to spend it on a trip to Europe. They’d driven around France and wound up their trip with a five-day stay in Paris—a city Drew loathed and Genna loved. But at least he’d enjoyed their time in the country.
She remembered him browsing the antique shops in L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue in Provence, his ridiculous khaki shorts displaying too much white leg, his face beet red from the strong southern sun. The kids had been bored and were starting to whine, but he’d insisted everyone wait while he picked through a pile of old corkscrews.
Genna had used the antique corkscrew he’d bought that day to open the last bottle of wine they’d shared before her world fell apart. She’d made chicken fricassee soaked in a mushroom cream sauce laced with sherry. Drew told her it was one of her best, and she thanked him. They smiled at each other across the shiny dining room table set into an alcove overlooking the view in their new home. They were contented with their lives and with each other. The future looked bright.
Chicken fricassee soaked in a mushroom cream sauce laced with sherry was one dish that would not make it into Eat Like a Parisian.
The door crashed open.
“Hi!” called a young woman as she strode into the small office. “I’m here for the ten o’clock class. Marsha Renfrew?”
The receptionist went through the whole “Non, non, non, français seulement” routine with the newcomer who rolled her eyes in Genna’s direction and then repeated her greeting in what sounded to Genna like flawlessly accented French.
What the hell was she doing here?
“Cinq minutes,” the receptionist said, gesturing to the couch. “Attendez, s’il vous plâit.”
The woman plunked herself down next to Genna. “Are you here for the ten o’clock class too?”
Genna nodded. “Your French is very good.”
The young woman tossed a head of crinkly black hair. “It’s not bad, but I need a brush-up. I’ve just moved back to Paris with my boyfriend and I can’t believe how rusty my French has gotten.”
“Back to Paris?”
“Oh, sure. I was here, gosh, about ten years ago when I was a student. I took classes at L’École des Beaux-Arts.” She held out her hand. “Marsha Renfrew.”
“Genna McGraw.”
“Nice to meet you.”
Genna liked the look of her new classmate—compact and wiry with an open, friendly face. Like many Americans Genna had met, Marsha had a knack for making whomever she was speaking with feel comfortable and interesting. Genna was about to ask more questions, like what Marsha was doing now in Paris, when the door opened again to admit the third member of the ten o’clock class, a man in his forties. He approached the receptionist and introduced himself in halting French. His reward was a brilliant smile and an offer of café. Marsha and Genna looked at each other and grinned. The receptionist hadn’t offered them a coffee.
“Crème?”
“Ah, oui, merci,” the man said. He nodded at Marsha and Genna before taking the coffee and seating himself on a hard chair near the door. She wondered what he did for a living that gave him time to take French lessons two times a week during the day. Since he hadn’t spoken English yet, she couldn’t even be sure of his nationality. He might be American or possibly German. He looked well fed and confident.
“Where are you from?” Marsha asked.
“Vancouver.”
“Oooh! I’ve been there! You have great skiing!”
“Yes,” Genna said, pleased to hear her hometown praised. “Whistler has some of the best skiing in the world.”
“No kidding! It’s fantastic, and I’m from Colorado so I ought to know. Do you ski?”
“I used to, when I was a teenager.” That wasn’t quite true. She’d wanted to keep skiing after she married, but all her skiing friends had moved away, and Drew hated nature. Man-made stuff attracted him—old furniture, things made of wood by craftsmen long dead, that sort of thing. Genna’s attempts to get him into the mountains rising from the doorstep of their first home in North Vancouver had been fruitless. He’d consent only to the occasional walk around the neighborhood to see which houses were for sale.
“That’s a shame,” Marsha was saying. “So how come you’re in Paris?”
“I’m working on a cookbook slash travel guide.”
“You’re a writer? That’s amazing! What’s a cookbook slash travel guide?”
“I’m combining recipes for French bistro dishes with descriptions of Paris sights.”
“Sounds fascinating! I’ll bet my boyfriend would be interested. He’s British.”
The arrival of two more students—a mother with a young woman who looked to be her daughter—saved Genna from asking what being British had to do with anything. The daughter, who looked to be around twenty, stared at the floor while the mother spoke English to the receptionist, who, of course, replied with rapid French that Genna guessed were directions to follow her.
Genna stood and moved with the rest of the students around the front counter and into a room with ceiling-high windows overlooking the street. Several upholstered chairs on castors clustered around a large table. The receptionist seated herself at the head of the table and gestured for the students to join her.
Genna soon discovered that the receptionist’s curvy little frame encased a will of iron. She transformed into Mademoiselle Deville, a formidable instructrice who, within minutes, succeeded in turning Genna’s insides to mush. By the time the class was over, Genna hoped to never hear another French word for as long as she lived.
How could she have thought herself qualified for the intermediate class? Marsha conversed like a native and the man—a German named Helmut—was at least able to put together a sentence without dissolving into a flame-faced, stammering boob. Denise and Tessa from England were also able to hold their own.
More than once, Genna heard Denise sigh, and saw Helmut drum his fingers on the table when it was her turn to speak. Marsha threw her sympathetic glances every so often, but Genna was too upset to feel grateful.
Trying to spit out one sentence was agony. She had to confine herself to the present tense and managed only the most mundane of pleasantries. When called upon to state what she did for a living, she managed to say she was an “écrivaine,” a writer, but she had no clue how to say that she wrote cookbooks.