The Secret French Recipes of Sophie Valroux - Samantha Verant Page 0,25

waiting for? Le Père Noël? Get in,” he said.

No, I wasn’t waiting for Santa Claus. I wanted to get to Grand-mère, so I did as I was told. “It’s so great to see you after all these years,” I said as I settled into my seat and buckled up.

Save for a grunt, he ignored me and peeled out of the parking spot. We exited the lot and sat for a good five minutes as we made our way onto the autoroute. Rémi focused on the road ahead, his mouth curled into a sneer. I stared at him, my mouth agape.

“Why are you looking at me like that? It’s rude,” he said, his voice clipped.

Who was this guy? This wasn’t the Rémi I remembered.

The Rémi from my childhood had been a skinny, cute boy with sparkling eyes and an infectious laugh—a practical joker. I recalled the time he tricked me into eating a live snail, explaining that snails were a delicacy in France, and if I were to develop a true palate, I had to eat one. It wasn’t until later that I learned they were, indeed, delicious, but one didn’t just pick up a snail from the garden and put a dash of salt on it. Snails were eaten after a long curing process and served after they were baked in loads of butter, garlic, and parsley—les escargots de Bourgogne. Rémi had laughed so hard he fell to the ground and called me la mangeuse de bave (the slime eater) the rest of the summer. He’d laughed even harder when he told me that he made that expression up when I’d used it. “It’s not even a French expression,” he’d said.

I shot him the occasional glance. Gone was his silly grin, his mouth carved into what appeared to be a permanent frown. He had no laugh lines bracketing his eyes, just an angry, deep furrow digging into the space between his eyebrows. His hands were rough and calloused. His shoulders were broad. He was big, mean, and surly. Surely, he couldn’t have changed that much.

“What have you been up to all these years?” I asked as one of the dogs drooled on my neck. I wiped the slobber off, cringing.

“D’Artagnan, Aramis, sit,” said Rémi, and the dogs did.

“Do you want to go back the château or head straight to the hospital in Toulouse?” he asked pointedly.

“The hospital. I need to see my grandmother.”

“But your jeans are ugly. There are holes in them,” he said, each syllable he uttered dripping with disgust. “Tu l’as acheté, comme ça?” (You bought them like that?) he asked with disbelief.

In fact, I hadn’t purchased these jeans. They’d been a gift from Eric when we’d dated. He’d told me to get with the program, to possess an ounce of cool. For a second, I debated changing. My grandmother would hate what I was wearing and now I hated what I was wearing. I sat dumbfounded at his rudeness, picking at my cuticles. “Regardless of what I’m wearing, I’d like to go directly to the hospital, if that’s okay with you.”

“D’accord,” he said, blowing out the air between his lips. “Clothilde will drive you home. I’m heading back to the château and I’ll bring your suitcases up to your room.”

“Merci,” I said.

Rémi turned on the radio, setting the volume to high, and hummed along to the ’80s French band Indochine’s “L’Aventurier,” which was played at every party I’d ever attended in France when I was a kid. Before I was able to reminisce over any good times I’d had in France, Rémi pulled up in front of the hospital and pointed. “You enter through those doors right there.”

“Thanks for the ride,” I said before jumping out. “I appreciate it.”

Aside from an impatient grunt, he didn’t say a word. Maybe he’d had things to do and was irritated he had to pick me up? Maybe he was having a bad day? He waved me away with an impatient flick of his wrist. “You should go,” he said.

“I will.”

The second I closed the door, the car peeled out of the parking lot. I stood there for a moment in the dust the tires of his truck had kicked up. The more I tried to excuse his behavior, the more I realized he’d changed into a person I didn’t particularly like.

This was not the welcome I’d expected.

9

lost in translation

I HURRIED INTO l’accueil, my lungs pumping so hard I thought I’d have a heart attack. Not only was I stunned by