The Ingredients of Love (19 page)

“That was Robert Miller,” he said. “He's been held up and won't be here for another half hour.” He looked at me with puppy-dog eyes. “It's just too bad that you've got to wait.”

I shrugged. “The main thing is that he comes at all,” I said, and wondered what was holding Robert Miller up. What did he actually do when he wasn't writing books? I was just about to ask when André Chabanais said:

“
À propos
—you haven't told me anything about Miller's letter. What did it say?”

I smiled at him and wound a strand of hair around my finger.

“Do you know what, Monsieur Chabanais, chief editor at Éditions Opale?” I said, and paused significantly. “That's absolutely none of your business.”

“Oh,” he said. “Oh, come on, be a little indiscreet, Mademoiselle Bredin. After all, I did bring the letter to you.”

“Never,” I said. “You're just pulling my leg again.”

He put on an innocent expression.

“No, no, no,” I said. “How did you get hold of my address anyway?”

For a brief moment he seemed to be irritated, then he laughed. “A professional secret. If you won't reveal anything to me, I won't reveal anything to you. Although I might have expected a little bit of gratitude.”

“No chance!” I insisted, and took another sip of my champagne. Until I knew what it was that was linking me and Robert Miller I wouldn't say a single word. After all, Miller had mentioned a “little secret.”

The champagne was beginning to go to my head. “At any rate, I don't think that
our author,
” another significant pause, “would be too annoyed to find me sitting here. His answer was very nice.”

“Astonishing,” replied Monsieur Chabanais. “Your letter must have been irresistible.”

“How well do you actually know Miller?” I asked, passing over the “irresistible.”

“Oh,
quite
well.” Could I see a hint of irony in Monsieur Chabanais's smile, or was I just imagining it? “We're not exactly the closest of friends, and in many respects I find him a bit eccentric, but I would claim to be able to see right into the most convoluted twists of his brain.”

“Interesting,” I said. “And for his part he seems to think a lot of his ‘trustful' editor.”

“I should hope so.” André Chabanais looked at his watch. “Do you know what? This is getting a bit ridiculous. I'm so hungry I could eat a horse. What do you think, should we order something to eat?”

“I don't know,” I said, “I wasn't actually expected…” By now it was half past eight, and I noticed that I was also beginning to get hungry.

“Then I'll decide,” declared André Chabanais, and to the waiter once more: “I'd like to order now,” he said. “We'll have two—no, three—
curry d'agneau des Indes,
and with it we'll drink”—he pointed to the wine list—“this Château Lafite-Rothschild.”

“Very good, sir.” The waiter took the menus back and put a basket of bread on the table.

“And since you're here, you ought to try the famous lamb curry,” said Monsieur Chabanais, whose mood seemed to be getting better all the time, and pointed to the Indian waiters, dressed like maharajas, who kept going up and down between the tables with their little trolleys, serving the lamb curry. “I'd be interested in your professional opinion.”

When André Chabanais's cell phone rang for the second time shortly after nine and Robert Miller finally canceled their date at La Coupole, it was too late to leave, although I did briefly think about doing so.

We'd already drunk a glass of the superb, silky red wine, and the fabulous lamb curry—which in my opinion wasn't all that fabulous and could have done with a bit more banana, apple, and grated coconut—was steaming on our plates.

Monsieur Chabanais probably noticed my slight hesitation as he told me the news with a sympathetic expression and I, in my profound disappointment, grabbed my big, rounded red-wine glass.

“What a shame!” he said finally. “I'm afraid we're going to have to eat the curry up all by ourselves.” He looked at me in comic desperation. “You wouldn't leave me sitting here alone with two pounds of lamb and a whole bottle of red wine, would you? Tell me you're not serious.”

I shook my head. “No, of course not. You're not in the least to blame. Oh well, I suppose there's nothing else we can do…” I took a sip of the wine and forced myself to smile.

My coming here had been totally in vain. I'd taken the evening off in vain. I'd bathed and done my hair and put on the green dress totally in vain. I'd stood in front of the mirror thinking of the things I wanted to say to Robert Miller totally in vain. I'd come so close. Why couldn't something work out for once?

“Oh dear, oh dear, now you're terribly disappointed,” said Chabanais. Then he wrinkled his forehead. “Sometimes I could send Miller off to the moon. This is not the first time he's canceled an appointment at the last moment, you know.”

He looked at me with his brown eyes and smiled. “And now you're sitting here with that stupid editor and thinking that you've wasted your time coming here and the curry isn't as good as it's cracked up to be…” He sighed. “That's a real blow. But the wine is excellent, you must admit!”

I nodded. “Yes, I do.” André Chabanais was making every effort to console me, which was kind of nice in spite of everything.

“Oh, come on, Mademoiselle Bredin, don't be so sad,” he now said. “You'll get to meet our author somehow—it's only a matter of time. He did at least write to you, and that's got to mean something, hasn't it?” He spread his arms quizzically.

“Yes,” I said, and ran my index finger thoughtfully over my lips. Chabanais was right. Nothing had been lost. And in the end it would probably even be better to meet Robert Miller alone. In my own restaurant.

Chabanais leaned forward. “I know I'm a poor substitute for the great Mr. Miller, but I will do everything in my power to make sure that you don't have bad memories of this evening—and perhaps even give me just a teeny-weeny smile.”

He patted my hand and held it a moment longer than was necessary. “You have such a strong belief in fate, Mademoiselle Bredin. What do you think—might there perhaps be a deeper meaning to our sitting here now holding hands?”

He grinned at me, and I had to smile, before I pulled my hand away and rapped him on the fingers.

“When you give some people your little finger they immediately try to take the whole hand. There
can't
be that much fate, Monsieur Chabanais—just give me a bit more wine.”

 

Ten

The evening went better than I had expected. Aurélie Bredin was visibly nervous but euphoric as she arrived in La Coupole—five minutes too early and in the green dress, I noted with a smile.

She looked stunning, and it took all my self-control not to keep staring at her. I cracked a few jokes to pass the time, and Aurélie proved, in her state of joyful expectation, to be rather more approachable than I'd thought she would be.

Then, as arranged, Silvestro rang me on my cell phone. He'd taken on the assignment without asking too many questions.

“So, how's it going?” he asked, and I said, “Oh dear, how silly, I'm so sorry.”

“That sounds good,” he said, and I answered, “No, no. No problem at all. I'm sitting here quite comfortably. Don't let it stress you.”

“Then have fun—I'll call again later,” he said, and I ended the call.

Aurélie Bredin swallowed the delay and I ordered us some champagne. We drank and chatted, and once I almost broke out in a sweat when she suddenly asked me how I'd got her home address. But I managed to get out of it quite cleverly. Anyway, she refused to tell me any of her little secrets. Not a word about the letter I'd written. And she didn't tell me that she'd invited Robert Miller to her lovely restaurant either.

At a quarter past nine we were eating our lamb curry and Mademoiselle Bredin was just explaining to me why she didn't believe in coincidence when Silvestro called again, saying, “So, have you got off with her yet?”

I groaned into the phone and ran my fingers theatrically through my hair. “No, I don't
believe
it … oh, that's so annoying!”

He laughed and said, “Then keep at it, my lad!”

And I responded, “I'm extremely sorry about that, Mr. Miller. But couldn't you just look in anyway—for a moment at least?”

From the corner of my eye I could see that she had put down her knife and fork nervously, and was looking across at me. “Well, we … eh, I mean …
I've
ordered something to eat, and perhaps you could still make it?” I wasn't letting go.

“Perhaps you could still make it!” repeated Silvestro with an audible smirk. “You should just hear yourself. That's what I call making an effort. But no, I'm not coming. I wish you a successful evening with your little one.”

“At least two more hours … aha … totally exhausted … hm … hm … well, I suppose nothing can be done about it then … yes … a
great
pity … okay … you'll call when you get home.” In a sinking tone I echoed the words that Miller never uttered.

“Now bring this to an end—that's quite enough,” said Silvestro.
“Ciao ciao!”
He ended the call.

“Okay … No, I do understand … okay … No problem … Good-bye, Mr. Miller.” I put my phone down beside my plate and looked Mademoiselle Bredin straight in the eye.

“Miller's just canceled,” I said, taking a deep breath. “There are problems. It'll take at least two more hours before his meeting is over, perhaps even longer, he says, and he's totally exhausted and there would be no point arranging another meeting because he has to leave for home early tomorrow morning.”

I saw her swallow, and reach for her wineglass like a safety anchor, and for a moment I was afraid that she'd just get up and leave.

“I'm really sorry,” I said. “Perhaps the whole thing wasn't such a good idea after all.”

And when she then shook her head and didn't get up and told me that I wasn't in the least to blame, I somehow had a bad conscience. But what could I do? I couldn't actually conjure up Robert Miller. After all, I was already there.

And so I devoted myself to consoling Mademoiselle Bredin and teasing her with a couple of jokes about her belief in fate. For one sweet moment I even held her hand, but she pulled it away and rapped me on the fingers as if I were a naughty schoolboy.

Then she asked me what Robert Miller actually did when he wasn't writing books, and what kind of a meeting it had been, and I said I didn't know exactly, but he was an engineer and was probably working as a consultant for the motor company.

After that I patiently listened to what she found so great about Robert Miller's book, how incredible it was that she'd found the book at exactly the right moment, and what passages had made her laugh or moved her. I felt flattered as I listened to her kind words and watched her dark green eyes getting quite soft.

More than once I was overcome with the temptation to tell her that it was me and only me who had saved her soul. But the fear of losing her before I'd even had the chance to win her for myself was too great.

And so I pretended to be surprised as she told me—hesitantly but with growing trust—about what I knew all too well already: the close correspondence of the restaurant and the heroine of the book.

“Don't you understand now why I
have
to meet that man?” she said, and I nodded. After all, I was the only one who held the key to the “fateful mystery.” The secret that was probably even easier to explain than Aurélie Bredin thought, even if it was no less fateful.

If I'd published the book under
my own
name with
my own
photo, the girl with the green eyes and the enchanting smile whom I'd seen through a restaurant window and chosen as the heroine of my fantasy would have seen in
me
the man that fate had sent her. And all would have been well.

But as things were I was condemned to lie and to compete with a fictitious writer. Well, not
so
fictitious, as I painfully realized with Aurélie Bredin's next question.

“I wonder why that woman left Miller,” she said, picking at the remains of the lamb curry on her plate with her fork. “He's a successful engineer, he must be a warmhearted man with a sense of humor, otherwise he couldn't write a book like that. And apart from that, I think he looks fantastic. I mean, he could be an actor, don't you think? How could anyone leave such an attractive man?”

She emptied her wineglass, and I shrugged and refilled it. If she thought that the dentist looked
fantastic,
it would be hard for me. It was good that she'd never meet Sam Goldberg in person. Not if I could prevent it!

“What is it? You're looking so grim all of a sudden.” She looked at me in amusement. “Have I said something wrong?”

“Good God, no!” I decided that it was time to bring the superhero down a peg or two.

“Well, you can never see what's going on behind the façade, can you?” I said. “And good looks aren't everything. For my part I believe that his wife didn't have a very easy time with him, no matter how much I respect Miller as an author.”

Mademoiselle Bredin looked rattled. “What do you mean by that—didn't have a very easy time with him?”

“Oh, nothing at all, I'm talking nonsense—just forget what I said.” I laughed a bit too loudly as if I wanted to cover up the fact that I'd said more than I wanted to. And then I decided to change the subject. “Do we really want to spend the whole evening talking about Robert Miller? I know he's the reason we're both here, but he did stand us up.” I took the bottle and refilled my glass. “I'm more interested in why such an enchanting woman as you isn't married yet. Do you have that many faults?”