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“It suits me fine … for now.”

“And after that?”

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He brought his lopsided boot heel clopping to the floor, and leaned so close she could feel his warm breath, smelling of bitter grounds. Holding her gaze, spreading callused hands as broad as spades, he spoke with an intensity that startled her, punching the air with words. “Land. Property. Buildings. My old man, he owned zip, and was proud of it. The army suited him that way. Soon as he and Rydell’d get settled in somewhere it’d be time to move on. With my stepdad, it was a different story, same ending. Newt owned the house in El Paso, or at least we thought he did … until he died, and the tax collector took it away.” His eyes took on a feverish light. “When I do settle down, and one day I will, I mean to sink my roots so deep they’ll be pulling them up in China.”

“But owning things, that’s not a living, not something you do every day,” Annie persisted. At the same time, she thought of Bel Jardin, and felt a longing for her childhood home that brought a hot ache to her belly, as if she’d gulped her coffee too quickly.

“Owning,” Emmett echoed, turning the word over like a jeweler scrutinizing a diamond for flaws. “Way I look at it, more you own, the more it’ll keep your livelihood from owning you.”

Annie understood. Security. That was something she’d never known, not even as a child. She’d always felt as if she had to be in charge. As if even Dearie’s love couldn’t be counted on. Maybe that’s what made it so hard for her to believe that Joe could love her. That love was something anyone could have, something you could just reach out for, like picking an apple off a tree.

Then she remembered Joe kissing her, how wonderful it had felt, and the heat in her belly spread up through her chest.

Well, yes, she thought, maybe in some ways loving is that easy, it’s trusting that’s so hard. Maybe people weren’t quite telling the truth when they said they trusted each other. Maybe deep down everyone felt as scared as she did of needing someone else too much.

Annie abruptly felt her rosy warmth turn sweaty cold. What if Joe met someone else while she was away?

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Or what if she’d read more into his kiss than he’d intended? What if it turned out he didn’t want her at all?

Annie realized Emmett had fallen silent, and was staring at her.

“So what about you? What are you doing here?”

Before she could answer, they were interrupted by Pompeau’s shrill voice crying, “Nougat! Nougat!”

Annie rushed in, with Emmett close behind, just as Pompeau was pouring the kettle of hot caramel and nuts onto the table, a long marble slab on stout metal legs, in the center of the kitchen.

“Allons!” shouted Pompeau, flourishing his spoon like a baton, signalling for the men to hurry. His gaze nicked over Annie, as if not seeing her; this was man’s work.

You old phony, she thought. I could do twice what you do with one hand tied behind my back.

Still, Annie had to step aside as Emmett rushed to the table along with the two full-time helpers, skinny, ponytailed Thierry, and Maurice, who always looked half asleep (and no wonder: Each morning Maurice had to get up before dawn and shop for the produce they would need that day-today, fresh-picked cherries and raspberries, wild strawberries sweet as gumdrops). The men descended on the pond of hot nougat with metal paddles, beating at it determinedly to flatten it before it cooled and then became too brittle to work with, a sound like oars slapping water. The air, smelling of nuts and caramel, brought back to Annie nice memories of carnivals and Cracker Jacks.

She watched Emmett now begin cutting the warm, flattened nougat into even squares with the “guitar”-a tool with metal strings that looked like an oversized egg slicer.

Suddenly, she became aware that Pompeau was staring at her, his small blue eyes hard as bullets beneath a hedge of shaggy gray eyebrows, The despair she’d felt earlier came rushing back, making her stomach tighten.

Why couldn’t she be more like Laurel, to whom things like cooking and baking seemed to come as naturally as water from a spigot? Annie wanted to tear off her apron

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and run from the kitchen, run away from those disapproving eyes that mirrored her own self-disgust. But then something inside her stiffened. She straightened her shoulders and moved toward the old man, telling herself, It’s not all his fault. I have to get him to change his mind somehow, I have to convince him … and myself… that I can do this, that 1 could be good at it.

“Show me,” she said in a firm voice, keeping her eyes fixed on him. “Please. One more time. I want to learn.”

Pompeau, she was half surprised to see, did not turn away. He merely shrugged, eyebrows lifting, the corners of his mouth stretching downward-an expression she had come to recognize as very French.

“C’est facile,” he said mildly. “Come, again I will demonstrate for you. Sometimes one needs the failure before one can arrive at the understanding.”

She winced at that, but followed him over to the cooktop-a single long row of gas burners under a gleaming stainless-steel hood. While Pompeau worked, dropping brick-sized chunks of chocolate into the top of the big double boiler, he explained how it was required that it be heated gently, as gently as you would bathe an infant. And if even a drop of steam from below touched it, the cocoa butter would separate from the solids, causing it to seize into curdled lumps.

Now came the cream-always from Alsace, he insisted, chosen to provide a smoother texture because it had slightly less fat. He poured the cream into a separate pan, and heated it. When it was almost hot enough to boil, he strained it through a wire colander into the melted chocolate. And now, he said, slicing a chunk of butter from a squared slab he had removed from the refrigerator, the sweet beuxre des Charentes, just a little, more for the flavor than for the richness.

Gently stirring the ganache until it was smooth and mocha-colored, the old man hefted the weighty copper pan from the slightly larger pot of simmering water it was nestled atop, as easily as he would a loaf of bread. He carried it over to the wooden doors that were laid out

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horizontally, resting on metal shelving with several inches of space between each one, at one end of the kitchen.

“Monsieur Henri, this is his discovery.” Pompeau beamed. “Clever, no? We could not find the trays large enough, so we find the old doors rescued from the demolished buildings.”

Annie, listening, pretended that she’d had no past failures. She was starting from scratch. She pictured a deserted beach, and saw herself walking there, her footprints stamping into smooth, blank wet sand. She already knew everything Pompeau was showing her, but that didn’t count. Today was today, and she was making believe she was learning it for the first time.

Pompeau now was pouring the ganache in a dark, silky river onto the uppermost door, which was covered in silicone-treated paper. With a broad spatula, he smoothed it, coaxing it outward to meet the edges of the paper.

Then he stepped back. “Voilเ. You see? No grains, no lumps. Parfait. It will cool, and then we shall do the enrobing.”

On the other doors, different flavors of ganache stood cooling; they would form the centers of Girod’s worldfamous truffles-bittersweet chocolate with soft mocha-champagne centers; Grand Marnier and dark chocolate, flecked with candied orange peel; a pur้e of fresh raspberries and a dash of Framboise in a smooth milkchocolate ganache; bourbon and bittersweet, laced with sweet almonds from Provence; white chocolate and freshgrated coconut dusted with ground pistachios from Sicily. Her own favorite was bittersweet and cr่me fra๎che flavored with an infusion of smoky Lapsang Souchong tea.

But by herself, on her own, could she do this? Would she ever be able to create such wonders?

An idea came to her, at least the beginnings of one, a way she might be able to redeem herself. But before she could think it through, the old man was clutching her arm, propelling her over to a corner where the tempering machine stood like a huge Rube Goldberg Mixmaster.

“Now we temper the couverture,” Pompeau lee-

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tared. “The part of the greatest importance. Without the coat who is perfect, the truffle, she is but a poor, ugly girl with a heart of gold. And who will marry her?”

Annie smiled at his little joke, pretending she thought it was funny, though she’d heard it a dozen times. And she felt herself relaxing a little. This would be easier, because the temp้rer did all the work for you. In stainless tubs, pure caraque chocolate would be melted-without cream, butter, or liqueur-and subjected to a series of machine-controlled temperature changes.

“You see, it is required that the couverture, she be cooled first, to twenty-nine degrees-centigrade, that isthen very slow warm up again to thirty-three, so the proper crystals, they will form. That is crucial. If the crystals do not form, the truffles will develop white streaks … catastrophique.” His voice trembled slightly, and he looked stricken at the thought of any truffle of his being blighted with what was known as bloom.

The tempering process, he explained further, would ensure each truffle its glistening dark color, and also keep it from melting at room temperature. The tempered couverture would then be taken to the enrober to be mechanically drizzled over nuggets of ganache borne along a conveyor belt.

Watching as electrically driven oar-sized metal paddles stirred the tubs of couverture, Annie remembered the glimmer of an idea she’d had a minute ago. What if I created a whole new flavor, one Pompeau never even thought of? And did it so perfectly that even Henri would be impressed?

She turned it over and over in her mind, like a silver dollar picked up off the sidewalk you couldn’t quite believe was real. i

It might work. It might also backfire. And what then? She’d look like an even bigger fool. And Henri might be even more likely to send her packing.

But, hey, she’d taken a lot bigger chances than this, hadn’t she? And then in the back of her mind, she could hear Dearie’s voice, faint and scratchy like one of her old

78-rpm records, chuckle dryly, Best foot forward, hell. You

gotta jump in with both feet up to your fanny or it ain’t worth the bother.

Annie concentrated hard. Then she remembered the little bistro on the rue de Buci where she and Emmett had eaten the other night. Pears. After their cassoulet, the waiter had brought a basket of pears-the best she’d ever tasted. Full as she was, she had eaten two, not even bothering to stop the juice from running down her chin, as if she were a kid.

Chocolate and pears, would they go together? Maybe. But what if instead of fresh pears, she combined the chocolate with Poire William? She’d seen a bottle of the liqueur once, with a whole pear inside. They were grown that way, she’d learned, the bottle positioned over the branch while the fruit was still a tiny green nub. A miracle, in its own way. As this would be, too, if she could ever pull it off.

Of course, she’d have to ask Pompeau. But how? Doesn’t matter. Just do it. Do it now, or you never will. Her throat seemed to tighten, too small an opening for her voice to squeeze through, then somehow she was telling him. She was sure he’d turn her down, or worse, laugh at her. But after a long moment he began tapping his forefinger against his lower lip and peering at her as if she were a racehorse on which he was considering the odds. Then he nodded.

“Bien,” he said. “To create a new flavor, it is more difficult than you imagine. But this way, perhaps, you will understand.”

Yes, that I won’t ever be any good at this. He’s hoping I’ll fail. She saw it in his eyes, fleetingly, like a bird flushed from its cover: pity. He didn’t want to have to dismiss her. Better if on her own she came to the realization that she was no good.

And maybe that was the truth.

Annie loosened her apron’s ties, and pulled them even tighter, knotting them so that they cut into her waist, making her stand up straighter and somehow reminding her of who she was.

I’m Annie May Cobb. I may not be a genius, but

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God gave me a brain and a backbone. And if I don’t use them, what’s the point of even going on?

Feeling a little better, despite the panic in her cinched-in stomach, she went into the storeroom to get the chocolate she would need.

Emmett, hoisting a tub of warm couverture from its seat on the tempering machine, watched Annie sail across the kitchen like a galleon setting out to discover the New World. Good for you, Annie Cobb, he said to himself.

She’ll make it, he thought. Mule-headed woman doesn’t quite believe it, but she’s got what it takes. And she wants it so. The way Lindbergh wanted to be first to fly the Atlantic. The way I want to own something-a house with some land, maybe even a skyscraper. And why not? Why shouldn’t we both get what we want?

Then he was remembering Atlanta, all those black people marching for what they wanted, trying to storm the Georgia State Capitol, chanting, “Julian Bond! Julian Bond!” Some politicos had railroaded Bond out of the legislature, and they were demanding he be restored. People pushing, yelling, with rage-twisted faces. And air that clung like hot, wet rags, and smelled of gas fumes and gunpowder and hatred. Steaming off the pavement, off the hoods of the cars parked around the Capitol. Making him long for the bone-dry heat of El Paso.

There were lots of white people too. Old, young, men, women, teenagers, children for Chrissakes, all heaving against the blue police barricades. Screaming obscenities, hurling rocks, bottles, anything they could get their hands on. Niggers! Filthy coons! Go back where you belong! Cain’t write your own goddamn names and you want to take over the WORLD!

And those grim black faces, and a few white ones, too, holding up with pride despite their fear.

He remembered wanting to close his eyes, turn his back, ram his hands against his ears to shut out the ferocious chanting and obscenities. He wanted no part of it. He didn’t even live in Atlanta, for the love of Jesus. This