‘I thought you said you had no friends?’
‘Well, I—’ Rachel started, but he wasn’t listening. He pushed the door open and pulled her inside, kicking it shut on the wilting lilies.
As he unbuttoned and pushed off her coat she put her hands on his chest to slow him down, her mind swirling with alcohol. ‘Do you want some tea?’ she asked, moving towards the kettle.
‘Tea?’ He looked puzzled. ‘Why would I want the tea?’
‘To sober up?’ She shrugged.
He hung his jacket up and kicked off his boots, then rummaged in his rucksack and pulled out a litre bottle of Armagnac. ‘The last thing I want to do, Rachel, is sober up.’ He smirked, grabbing a glass and a chipped teacup from the shelf and sloshing them full of booze.
When he handed her the glass he chinked the edge with his cup and said, ‘To baking.’
‘To baking.’ She smiled, taking a tentative sip while he downed his in one and poured them both another slosh.
‘To winning,’ he said, holding his cup up high like a trophy.
‘To winning.’ She clinked his in the air and screwed up her face as she drank it down.
He laughed as he poured some more, spilling it over the floor as he trailed between his cup and her glass.
‘To the making love,’ he said next, blue eyes twinkling in the dim yellow light of the napkin-covered sidelight.
Rachel snorted into her Armagnac and had to wipe it off her face. Marcel was watching her over the rim of his teacup, waiting for her answer before he drank.
She swallowed. Tried not to laugh again and raised the glass in the air. ‘To the making love.’ She giggled.
‘Bon,’ said Marcel, draining his cup and ambling over to watch as she gulped hers down before sweeping her off her feet and carrying her through the alcove to the hard metal bed.
Next morning she woke when the garbage truck hissed to a halt in the street below. Stretching languidly, she reached across to find an empty bed.
‘Marcel?’ she said, sitting up and glancing around the flat.
Sensing something wasn’t quite right, she looked around for her phone but it wasn’t by the bed. Finally she found it still in her bag, alarm unset.
‘Shit.’ It was eight-thirty. She had thirty minutes to get across Paris to her class. Marcel was nowhere to be seen.
Yanking on her clothes, she glanced outside to see a thick carpet of snow, the heaviest it had been since she’d arrived. People were pushing through it, heads down. Cars were stuck, kids were sliding up the pavements on invisible skateboards.
‘Shit.’ She pulled on her boots, hopping around on the floor, while trying to look in the mirror. Staring back at her was a white hung-over face, dishevelled hair she had no time to fix and eyes puffy from lack of sleep.
It was only as she was flying down the stairs that it dawned on her Marcel had left her on purpose. That this was game-playing.
What a fool! Hadn’t Lacey warned her on the first day?
Clearly Marcel was trying to eliminate the competition by any means possible.
‘The little bastard.’ She paused, hand on the banister. She wouldn’t be surprised if he’d swapped Abby’s sugar for salt as well.
Outside the freezing air hit her like cold water and her feet disappeared into the snow. Hauling her bike into the partially gritted road, swerving on the death-trap black ice, she cycled as fast as her frozen legs would pedal her. Wiping the snowy ice from her face as it fell, she pleaded with whoever was listening for her not to be late. She realised how much she not only wanted this, but now wanted to win.
‘Mum, if you’re listening,’ she said up to the foggy white sky, ‘help me. Please.’
Chantal’s lilies were flopping around in her basket as she pedalled faster. She hadn’t wanted to leave them on the step and had been in too much of a hurry to unlock the door and put them inside, but now they were losing petals all over the place. She skidded on the ice and swerved in the thicker snow but as the time ticked away she seemed to be moving slower than ever. The weather was getting worse, the snow falling in heavier flakes so she couldn’t see, her tyres sliding in the slush.
‘Damn him,’ she said out loud. ‘Damn him.’ Exhausted, angry with Marcel but more so with herself for believing he thought her irresistible, she finally stopped when her tyre caught in a snowdrift. Hanging her head over the handlebars, she exhaled with great gulps of despair. Flashing images hit her of her mum serving warm pain au chocolat that oozed on the plate when torn open before church on Christmas Day. Of the queues outside the bakery on Christmas Eve. Of what she thought her mum’s face might have looked like had she made it through another round, even to the final, maybe—just to beat Marcel! To know that she threw it all away for drunken sex that, from what she could remember, hadn’t even been that good.
‘Fuck it.’ Rachel yanked the bike free but like a stubborn donkey it wasn’t going anywhere. She was kicking it out of pure frustration when a car drew up next to her and the window slowly slid down.
‘The bicycle, it not your friend?’ Philippe leaned over to look out of the passenger window.
Rachel stood back, pushing her hat out of her eyes and patting the bike on the handlebars. ‘We’re having a slight disagreement.’
He laughed. ‘You want a lift?’
‘I would love a lift.’ She smiled. Locking the bike to the nearest railing, she ran to get in the nicely heated car. ‘You’ve saved my life. I could kiss you.’
As she said it he made a face, bemused, and the air suddenly seemed a little warmer.
‘Not actually kiss you, you know, it’s just—you know—an expression … of gratitude …’
He kept his face forward, a smile now teasing the corners of his lips.
‘Oh, God.’ She ran a hand over her face and looked out of the window. ‘I’ll just shut up.’
‘You’re late today, no?’
‘Yes, I’m really late. Stupidly late.’
‘I’m having dinner with him tonight. I’ll put in a good word.’
‘I fear it might be too late by then.’ She checked her watch and sighed. Five minutes—there was no way they’d make it. Then she caught her reflection in the visor mirror and almost shocked herself with her dark puffy circles and glowing white face. She pulled her bobble hat lower.
Philippe wove through the slow-moving traffic as she tapped her fingers on her knees, watching the minute hand tick by.
‘I know a short cut, don’t worry,’ he said, and then, yanking the wheel round, proceeded to drive the wrong way down two one-way streets, up a bus lane and down a cobbled path that she wasn’t convinced was made for cars.
When they pulled up to the pâtisserie she was sitting rigid, clinging to her seat.
‘Et voilà, we are here.’
She looked over at him in his clean-cut smart suit. ‘I’m not sure that could legally be called a short cut.’
He laughed. ‘You’d better go. You’re ten minutes late.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, and reached over to give him a peck on the cheek. But just as she did he moved his head to look at her and she ended up awkwardly kissing him on the nose.
‘Oh.’ He pulled back.
‘Thanks,’ she said again, putting her head down to hide her blushing cheeks and, grabbing her bag, fled from the car.