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And yet everywhere I turn, Olivier is there, making some snide little comment or running his finger along the table I just wiped down.
A full lunch service keeps me distracted, and now I'm back in my element. That's right. I am Natalie, the cheerful. Natalie, the patient. Natalie, the so-darn-smiley-that-you-can't-possibly-fault-her. That's me. Sweeter than honey is this Texan girl.
Alas, when the last of the customers leave, I find myself alone again. With Olivier.
“It seems you have a gift with the clients,” he says to me as I gather the tablecloths for laundry. “Especially if you don’t have to make them coffee.”
I’m pretty sure there was a backhanded compliment in there. “I try to give them a human experience as well as a gastronomic one. It's nothing,” I shrug.
Of course it's something. I should be convincing him that I am the best possible employee he could ever have. I’ve got to overcome the bad impression I made this morning. Never mind the wastewater coffee. Why am I downplaying myself?
“I can see that even the French customers warm to you in a way that they don't to the others.” He leans against the bar, sizing me up with a quick glance. “It’s not what I would have expected after yesterday’s performance. But I am always willing to be pleasantly surprised. This southern hospitality adds a new dimension to the Bouchon Noir.”
Here's my chance. I can make a comment about all of the cultural research I've done over these last years since I dreamed of coming to France. Show him the investment I’ve made in personal and professional development.
But I don’t. Instead, I say: “You think so?”
Where have all my words gone?
“I do think so. And that’s despite you coming in here wetter than a cow in the limousine.”
“Excuse me?”
“Wetter than a cow in the limousine,” he repeats.
“A cow,” I echo back, “in the limousine.” He seems confused by my confusion. “Either that expression really doesn't translate well or it's definitely time for me to go home.”
He looks baffled, and then his eyes open wide. But it doesn’t matter. I’m going for my handbag and the door because this day just has to be done.
“No, no! Limousin is a part of France, where it rains a lot. It's very agricultural.”
“Yeah, yeah, I'm sure it is.” I swipe my coat but it’s stuck on the hook. “I've got to go. I’ve got to test the plumbing at home.” I tug the coat, but the loop is wrapped around the hook and I’m not tall enough to reach it. It’s a WWF wrestling match with a wall hook and I’m losing. Why did they install them so high?
“No, but…” He unhooks my coat. Him and his stupid tall handsomeness. I march toward the door as he chuckles. “Yes, I suppose you do need to go home.”
I stop before going out the door. He is the boss, after all, and I can’t leave without a polite and respectful goodbye. When I look back, I expect to see the kind of glee that dances across the school bully’s face, because that's Olivier Dubois. Nothing more than a great big super good-looking bully.
Instead what I see is fire, smoldering eyes that don’t belong on a boss with his employee. Like he’s a man in a desert and I’m a drink of cold water.
I do not understand one little bit of what’s going on here.
“Goodbye, sir.”
I run out the front door as fast as my little legs in a fancy French pantsuit will take me.
CHAPTER 6
Olivier
An empty restaurant is not so different from a theme park after closing hours. A sense of life hangs in the air even after every plate has been cleared, every chair pushed back in place, and every setting prepared for the next day.
Il était une fois… Once upon a time this restaurant was a third the size, having belonged to a cobbler who had passed away decades earlier. The space had been unused, abandoned. Grandmother arrived in the big city at the age of twenty with big dreams and empty pockets, her parents telling her she either had to get married or become a nanny as their little winery couldn’t support them all. Grandmama bought the place with ten francs, the same price as a metro ticket at the time. The owner was eager to pass the place along, as City Hall was collecting taxes on the empty shop.
Grandmama transformed that sliver of a boutique into a warm and welcoming lunchtime restaurant, having painted the walls and installed the tile herself—something she vowed she would never do again after a can of glue tipped over and she had to cut her long hair into her now signature bob cut.
For an uneducated girl from the country, Grandmama knew what she wanted and she went for it. Grandfather didn’t stand a chance when she’d set her eyes on him.
Soon, lunchtimes were overflowing, so she added dinners and Father helped during his school vacations and weekends. And when the lineup went out the door and across the square, she bought the shop next door to expand (and hired someone else to knock down the separating walls and do the décor). Father met Mother, and the business became a true family affair. He took over daily management while Grandmama moved to the countryside and built what had been her parents’ small winery into what is today “Dubois Estates”.
