Love À La Mode Read online

  “What a friggin’ crab,” Yumi muttered as they waited in front of the moving conveyor belt. Rosie followed Yumi’s narrowed eyes to where Clara was tapping on her iPhone. “She’s been here for an hour and she’s barely said two words to us.”

  “Maybe she’s tired. One of those people that can’t sleep on a plane,” Marquis offered.

  “Please. Like that’s a long flight? I was on a plane for—”

  “Twenty hours and thirty-one minutes, yes, we know,” he finished for her.

  Henry came back from the bathroom and waited with them for their bags. As everyone chatted and laughed and compared the various meals they’d been served on their flights, Rosie’s embarrassment faded away, and she realized for the first time that this wasn’t just going to be an incredible opportunity to learn from one of her heroes. This was going to be fun. Even if, you know, she hadn’t been on Chopped.

  “There’s mine!” Rosie felt a weird thrill spotting her bag coming down the ramp, like she’d won a prize. Even though it wasn’t a prize, just her lackluster wardrobe. “The green one.”

  “Who’s in the military?” Marquis asked.

  “My dad.” Rosie stiffened, feeling, somehow, that there was a little less air in the terminal.

  “Cool. My uncle’s a marine.” Marquis grabbed Rosie’s bag off the belt and, thankfully, said nothing else about her bag or her dad or the military. A couple minutes later, after three false alarms, Henry grabbed the correct black rolling suitcase off the belt, and they went back to join Clara and Madame Besson.

  “Roland is outside with the van,” Madame Besson said as she led them outside. Clara didn’t introduce herself to Henry, which, in a group of only five people, was so rude Rosie’s mom would have spit if she had seen it. Mom. Rosie pulled up her e-mail—she was still connected to the Wi-Fi from the airport—and sure enough, there was an e-mail from Mom waiting for her. All she saw was the subject line—Proud of you <3—before hurriedly closing the window. Rosie was worried she’d get swamped by a wave of homesickness that would leave her in a flood of tears, and then Clara would really have reason to sneer at her. But she should still let Mom know she’d landed. So she dashed off a reply—Landed. Love you—and sent it before she could think too much about home.

  Clara rolled over Marquis’s foot with her suitcase and appeared not to notice at all, even as Marquis winced with pain. Maybe everything people said about New Yorkers was true. Although Marquis was perfectly friendly, so maybe it was just a Clara thing. Or maybe Clara was like Cole’s high school girlfriend, Mikayla, who had been so beautiful she’d gone on to pose as Miss December in the Cincinnati Ben-Gals calendar, but had been mean as a snake.

  They exited through the revolving door, and Rosie waited to feel like she’d really arrived in Paris. But the road outside looked just like the road to O’Hare. And when Rosie climbed into the back row of the van next to Yumi, the van was just a van. And as they drove away from the airport, Rosie waited to see Paris, to feel Paris, but all she saw was ugly suburban sprawl and big superstores. It looked way too much like the drive from East Liberty to Cleveland. And it was grayer than she had thought it would be, too.

  “Don’t worry,” Yumi whispered. “Every city is ugly next to the airport. Even the most beautiful city in the world.”

  Rosie was relieved to hear it.

  “Hey, Madame B,” Yumi yelled toward the front seat of the van.

  “Can you not?” Clara asked.

  “Madame B.” Yumi ignored Clara. “Do you have our roommate assignments?”

  “I do not,” Madame Besson said, and she turned the radio up—rather pointedly, Rosie thought.

  Roommates. Rosie prayed she’d be sharing a room with Yumi—best-case scenario, obviously—but prayed even more fervently that she wouldn’t be sharing a room with Clara. Rosie knew she shouldn’t judge—she could hear Mom admonishing her for making snap decisions about people—but there was something hard and cold about Clara that scared her. She seemed too glossy and perfect. And like someone who definitely wouldn’t tolerate the level of clutter that Rosie was accustomed to.

  Accustomed to. Like anything about the École would be anything Rosie was accustomed to.

  Now that’s more like it,” Marquis said as the van bumped its way along narrow cobblestone roads.

  “We have entered Le Marais,” Madame Besson announced. “Le Marais is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Paris, home to more buildings from before the revolution than anywhere else. We are nearly at the École.”

  The van executed a particularly harrowing turn, and Henry saw a blue-and-white street sign framed in green right outside his window, slapped onto the side of the building: RUE DES MINIMES. The van started to slow and paused at the entrance of what looked like a castle. Henry goggled at the enormous wrought iron gate set into an even larger stone arch, big enough that the van could drive through. He got a pretty good look at some seriously fancy stonework as the van pulled into a cobblestone courtyard.

  “What is this place?” Marquis asked.

  “This is the École Denis Laurent, of course,” Madame Besson said.

  Henry didn’t know anything about the history of architecture, and he’d barely passed the unit on the French Revolution, but even he could tell this was some Marie Antoinette–level stuff. The building was shaped sort of like a U, with the cobblestone courtyard in the middle. There were two floors with enormous windows, each with its own balcony. Smaller windows, round with white trim around the window panes, poked out of what looked like a third floor under the roof. This was a mansion. An estate.

  “Yeah, but . . . what is this building? Or, uh, what was it?” Marquis pressed.

  “It is the Hôtel des Minimes,” Madame Besson said.

  “It’s a hotel?” Rosie asked. Henry could hear the confusion in her voice.

  “No. It’s a hôtel,” Clara corrected, emphasizing even more the fact that Madame Besson hadn’t pronounced the h. “It’s not like a hotel in English. It just means a big townhouse, like a place the nobility used to live in before the revolution.”

  “Correct,” Madame Besson said, pleased.

  A townhouse. Henry had seen some nice townhouses in Bucktown—some of his classmates lived in places that had to be worth at least a million dollars—but this wasn’t a townhouse. It was a palace. And it was certainly unlike anything Henry had seen before. This was where he was going to live?

  “The Comte de Crossé built the Hôtel des Minimes between 1651 and 1655 as his in-town residence,” Madame Besson explained. “It is the smallest of the hôtels particuliers still standing today.”

  This was the smallest?! It looked almost as big as Henry’s school back home. Maybe bigger. Quite possibly as big as a whole block in Chicago.

  “It had fallen into quite the state of disrepair before Chef Laurent purchased it and converted it into the École. You may leave the van now.”

  Henry was too shocked to move, and it seemed like everyone else was, too. Except Clara, who was the first to follow Madame Besson out of the van. The rest of them straggled out after her, Rosie bringing up the rear, and Henry watched her staring up at the building, mouth hanging open slightly as her eyes darted from window to window.

  “It’s crazy, right?” Henry asked, dawdling at her side.

  “It’s insane.” She shook her head. “It’s bigger than town hall. And the police station and the firehouse put together. The only thing in East Liberty that’s this big is the Walmart.”

  “East Liberty?”

  “Ohio,” she clarified. “Home.”

  “You’re not from Chicago?” Henry shouldn’t have assumed she was from Chicago. Millions of flights from all over the world went through O’Hare every day. She could have been from anywhere. But Henry found himself disproportionately disappointed by the fact that Rosie wouldn’t be back in Chicago when this was all over. Even though he knew it was way too early to be thinking about when this was all over.

  “Nope. Clevelan
d and Columbus have closer airports, but O’Hare’s got more flights.”

  “Collect your things. This way, please.” Madame Besson started walking toward the front door. Henry grabbed his suitcase out of the back of the van, and stopped short of grabbing Rosie’s, too. Should he carry it for her? Was that cool or condescending? Henry wished he had any idea what he was doing. But Rosie made the decision for him by taking her bag and following Madame Besson. “You have not much time to eat and change before your first lesson.”

  They were starting already? Today? Boy, these guys did not waste any time. Rosie looked at him and raised her eyebrows, a subtle signal of disbelief.

  The front door was ridiculously enormous, but Henry was surprised to see that inside, the École wasn’t quite so overwhelming. The five of them stood clustered in a foyer, and yes, the staircase was big, but it was carpeted with a sensible maroon runner. There was no chandelier hanging from the ceiling and no naked angel babies painted on the walls. It was a lot less intimidating than he’d expected it to be. The cream-colored walls were decorated with black-and-white pictures of food hung in mismatched frames, and there was a ceramic vase with a flower arrangement standing on the antique-looking hall table. Henry dumped his bag on the floor along with everybody else’s.

  “To your right is the dining hall. Please take a sandwich and return promptly. There will be time to explore later,” Madame Besson promised. The dining hall had sturdy wooden tables with plain chairs, and the hardwood floors were scattered with dings and nicks. Portraits decorated the walls, and Henry stepped closer to inspect one. Underneath the photo of a woman in chef’s whites, a little golden plaque proclaimed: MALLORY ORBACH, JAMES BEARD RISING STAR CHEF OF THE YEAR. The next one was DARNELL SIMS, THREE-TIME CHOPPED CHAMPION. Then EMILIO PUCCHETTI, CHEFS OF AMERICA PASTRY CHEF OF THE YEAR. And then one he recognized—EVAN PARK, TOP CHEF. Henry had watched the whole season. He reached out to touch the golden plaque, for luck, as if all the things these chefs had accomplished since leaving the École might magically rub off and transfer over to him. Because this, right here, was everything he wanted. And with the École Denis Laurent on his resume, he’d be able to do all of this and more.

  Henry turned away from the portraits to see everyone clustered around a table with a wicker basket full of sandwiches and a bunch of bottled waters. He hurried over and took a baguette filled with what looked like ham and cheese, wrapped in wax paper. He bit off the end that wasn’t in paper. Delicious. The ham was salty, the cheese was creamy, and the baguette had the most spectacular chew he’d ever encountered in bread.

  Rosie, next to him, hesitated in front of the basket of sandwiches, looking them over.

  “Pretty sure they’re all the same,” he said.

  “No, it’s not that . . . I was just wondering if I should take two,” she said sheepishly. “At home, with my brothers, you kind of have to take any opportunity you can to grab food and hold on to it. They’re like walking garbage disposals.”

  “Brothers? How many do you have?”

  “Four.”

  “Four?!” Henry exclaimed. He couldn’t imagine having so many siblings. He could barely handle one Alice.

  “Now, please,” Madame Besson said.

  Henry grabbed a second sandwich and stuffed it into the crook of Rosie’s elbow. For a minute, she looked like she might put it back, but then kept it, grinning, which left Henry wondering how it was possible that making Rosie smile had become so important to him so quickly.

  Henry and Rosie hurried behind the others and grabbed their stuff. They struggled up the stairs, balancing bags and baguettes. The dorms, Madame Besson explained, were on the third floor. Girls’ dorms in the east wing and boys’ in the west. Boys were never allowed in the east wing and girls were never allowed in the west wing. Curfew and quiet hours were strictly enforced. And she, Madame Besson, lived in the central wing along with some of the other staff, and would be personally enforcing the rules. Henry, of course, was already familiar with these policies. They were pretty much the only reason Mom had gotten on board with him coming to the École.

  “I will escort the ladies to their dorms. Gentlemen, please head to the west wing. Henry, you are in room 304W, and Marquis, you are in 305W.”

  “That kind of sounds to me like you did have our roommate assignments the whole time,” Yumi accused.

  “Come along.” Madame Besson ignored Yumi and swept down the hall. Rosie waved at Henry with her half-eaten sandwich as she walked away from him.

  Henry and Marquis followed the center wing to the end, then turned and headed into the west wing. Up here, the ceiling was much lower, and the windows were round, like big portholes. Between the windows there were more black-and-white photographs, mostly street scenes of Paris, but a few of a young Chef Laurent in the kitchen.

  “Gotta admire a guy who chooses to decorate with his own face,” Marquis noted when Henry paused to look more closely at one of the pictures of Chef Laurent. “Maybe I’ll put up some glamour shots of me in my room.”

  Henry laughed, and they resumed their journey into the west wing. Rooms 304W and 305W were right across the hall from each other. When Henry went to open the door, however, it opened from the inside before he could even touch the doorknob.

  “My friend! Yes! At last, you are here!” There was a giant filling up the entire doorframe. This guy had the approximate build of a refrigerator. He leaned down to hug Henry, and Henry felt his heels start to lift off the ground. “Please, please do come in.” He stepped out of the doorway, and Henry followed, exchanging one last glance with Marquis before he did so. Marquis looked like he was stifling a laugh.

  The inside of the room looked a lot like what Henry imagined a college dorm would look like. There were two narrow beds pushed against opposite plain white walls, two desks with chairs, and two sets of dresser drawers, all made of the same blond wood. The window was small but let in more light than he had expected, especially considering how gray it was outside. One of the beds had a blue-and-white woolen throw neatly folded at the end of the maroon comforter the École had provided. Henry rolled his suitcase next to the other bed.

  “I’m Henry, man. It’s nice to meet you,” he said to his beaming roommate. A thick curtain of blond hair hung down to the boy’s eyes, and he shook it away every few seconds, reminding Henry, not unpleasantly, of an Old English sheepdog.

  “Ah, Henry, yes! So nice to meet you. I am Hampus.” Hampus. That was not a name Henry had ever heard before.

  “Where are you from, Hampus?”

  “Jukkasjärvi.”

  Henry stared at his roommate, not entirely sure whether that had been a place or a sneeze.

  “It is a small town in northern Sweden. Near Kiruna. You have heard of Kiruna, perhaps?”

  Henry had not, in fact, heard of Kiruna.

  “It is not surprising. Sweden is a big place with many small places within it. Where have you traveled from this day, Henry?”

  “Chicago.”

  “Chicago!” Hampus’s eyes lit up. “You have been to Alinea, yes?”

  “I wish.” Dinner at Alinea cost, like, three hundred bucks. Dad had promised he’d take Henry when he graduated. Of course, Mom only said We’ll see whenever Dad brought that up. Mom would probably end up taking him to the Cheesecake Factory.

  “Ah. Too bad. Someday, perhaps?”

  “Hope so.”

  “Perhaps when your new friend Hampus comes to see America, yes?” Hampus laughed.

  “Perhaps,” Henry agreed, laughing along with him. Henry suspected he’d have a hard time feeling bummed living with Hampus. The guy was a six-foot-seven bundle of pure enthusiasm.

  “My friend. Henry. You should put on your jacket, yes?” Hampus suggested. “It is almost time for our first lesson.”

  His jacket. It was lying on his bed, neatly folded, a chef’s coat of pure white, the École’s insignia embroidered above the left chest pocket. He couldn’t believe it. His very own set of chef’s wh
ites.

  Henry tore off his hoodie and shrugged on his jacket, pulling it on over his T-shirt, his fingers shaking as he did up the buttons.

  It fit perfectly.

  Rosie was the only student who didn’t have a knife kit.

  It seemed statistically impossible, that out of twenty students, Rosie was the only person who didn’t have one. If it had been so essential to bring a knife kit, then it should have been on the packing list, which it most emphatically was not. Rosie had cross-referenced and highlighted and checked that thing within an inch of its life. And zero kitchen supplies had been mentioned. It had been implied, Rosie thought, that everything they’d need for class would be provided. So she hadn’t thought to bring anything. Certainly no knife kit, which she didn’t even own.

  Standing at her table near the back of the room, Rosie’s eyes traveled from knife kit to knife kit. Her own station looked oddly empty, a gleaming expanse of chrome and not much else. The whole setup of the room reminded her of MasterChef, or, oddly enough, of her chem class last year, except there was an enormous kitchen with multiple oven ranges where Ms. Emond’s desk had been, and the whiteboard was on rollers off to the side, not mounted to the wall. There were two columns of five tables facing the front of the room, each table long enough for two students to share, and each equipped with two ovens, two gas ranges, and two wooden cutting boards. Her very own oven. Rosie ran her hand along the temperature knob, unable to resist touching it. The oven was so spotless there wasn’t so much as a fingerprint on it.

  The table was set up for two, but Rosie was alone. Her roommate hadn’t been in her room when she’d dropped her stuff off, and by the time Rosie had made it down to the classroom, the only people she knew were already at full tables. Henry stood next to a blond giant at the front of the room—presumably, his roommate—and Marquis was at the table across from them, next to a dark-haired guy Rosie hadn’t met yet.

  Yumi was a couple rows behind Marquis, but unfortunately the station next to Yumi was occupied by Clara and her gleaming white-blond hair. Rosie couldn’t fathom why, exactly, Yumi would have chosen to stand next to Clara.