The Chocolate Kiss

CHAPTER 38



Philippe was sitting cross-legged on the grass, with Océane using him as gymnastics equipment—climbing on his shoulders, clasping them with her legs, and tumbling backward off them into the grass, to climb back up and start again—while people milled everywhere. The wedding was huge; there had been no other way to do it, between their families, their friends, the professional contacts that were like friends, and pretty much the entire island, ever since that party.

He had been surprised, given his impression of Magalie as a solitary person, to realize exactly how many friends she did have, in her all-barriers-up way. Madame Fernand was there, and Claire-Lucy with Grégory. Aimée and Olivier had each come separately, but they seemed to be hitting it off pretty well. Sylvain had done some chocolate sculptures for Philippe’s wedding in his turn, and Cade had come with him. Several people were talking to the busker who had played her violin for Magalie’s entrance, urging her to consider auditioning for something professional. Philippe noticed that Cade, who had probably seen the busker perform in concert at some point just as he had, for two-hundred-euro tickets, was discreetly silent. The violinist, at least, had not come with a partner, something about which Geneviève had expressed strong relief. “Magalie was sublimating so much of her battle with you into that chocolate of hers, I was afraid we were going to get a reputation as matchmakers. And it’s hard to get rid of something like that.”

Christophe had managed to wiggle his way in, which Philippe had only realized when he was waiting at the altar, heart beating so hard he could barely stand, scanning the audience to try to give himself something steadying. And you couldn’t really pause your own wedding to go strangle an old imagined rival, especially when he had some pretty blonde hanging on his arm, so he had had to let it go.

He was still bemused by how tall Magalie’s mother was. Geneviève’s size maybe should have given him a hint, but—he looked at Magalie again. No wonder she was obsessed with heels. Her mother was as tall as his own, albeit black-haired and brown-eyed like Magalie. Her aunt was nearly as tall as he was himself. Her father was tall, too, in a rangy way. “Was she adopted?” he asked Geneviève discreetly, puzzled. “You’re the aunt with the biological connection, right? Not Aja?”

“Maman.” Geneviève nodded to the little black-haired woman with the wrinkled face and the fiery brown eyes who was coming out of the house with a platter of something held high above her head, apparently in the belief that this put it above everyone’s reach rather than right at their level. “Both her parents were Italian and moved here to get away from Fascism. She married an American soldier after she hid him from the Germans in a huge bed of dried lavender, where, the story is, I was conceived. My sister was always jealous of that story; she wanted to be the one conceived in lavender, she loved it so much. Our father was a big man, and my sister and I took after him. He died ten years ago. So, you see, it wasn’t entirely unprecedented, romantically speaking, when my sister fell in love with Peter amid lavender fields. She never would have imagined he wouldn’t stay.”

“I like the story about your mother,” Philippe said, wondering if Magalie would enjoy making love at midnight amid lavender fields or whether it would waken a score of childhood issues. He kind of liked the idea, himself. He was always up for exploring new scents and textures. Maybe not on a night when they were quite so likely to be discovered by the plethora of wedding guests, though.

“So Magalie is a throwback to her grandmother,” Geneviève explained. “Although personally I always thought that her body as a child spent all its energy putting down roots, only to have them yanked out and broken over and over again. And then as she got a little older and realized the roots weren’t going to work, her body poured all its energy into building her soul so strong and self-contained. Deep down, she never had enough energy to spare to make her body bigger.”

Philippe looked at his wife, who had gone to help her grandmother and was now doing the exact same thing, imagining that she held the serving platter out of people’s reach, except she was doing it in a low-cut, lace, Givenchy wedding dress with long, slinky, cream-colored, feathery things spilling out like lingerie all around her calves. Which were shown off not by Givenchy boots but by strappy, glittering Givenchy sandals, since it was June in Provence.

“Physically bigger,” he added to be precise.

“Of course.” Geneviève nodded. “We wouldn’t have apprenticed a marshmallow. Although I think her soul’s grown about twenty sizes since having to fight you.” The big woman made a little circle with her two thumbs and index fingers, apparently indicative of Magalie’s former soul, and then spread her arms out until she accidentally thumped Philippe in the chest. “You’re good exercise.”

His mouth curled.“Don’t take this the wrong way, Tante Geneviève, but I really think I might like you.”

Geneviève shrugged, indifferently. “You can like whomever you want. But this will reassure you, jeune homme. I am beginning to like you.”

He grinned.

“Take your effect on her chocolate. Don’t shake your head in despair over her or anything—remember she’s even younger than you—but I honestly think she didn’t really believe in her chocolate before. That she thought it was just a fun ‘let’s pretend’ when she was standing over her pots with that smile on her face, wishing herself a place in people’s lives.”

“Is that what she was doing, wishing herself a place?”

“Of course, it was. Isn’t that what you do, when you make your pastries? Not that she thought of it that way, of course. You could tell, with that straight back of hers and that refusal to need anybody. She just pretended she was wishing people happiness, freedom, their heads on straight, and that she didn’t care at all if they valued her or needed her. But when you showed up, she had to skip that whole pretending step and pour herself into it.”

He gave his new aunt a searching look, genuinely curious. “Tante Geneviève, do you actually believe you three can work magic on people? Like . . . turn men into beasts?”

Geneviève shrugged. “It depends on how much of a transformation it is. In your case . . .”

“I know, I know.” His smile kicked all the way through him, as Magalie came across the grass toward him. “There wasn’t that far to go.”

“I wasn’t going to say that at all,” Geneviève said reprovingly, in that tone she used for his presumptions. “Weren’t you listening to what I said about exercise? In your case, she had to stretch the full extent of her power.”

He smiled, liking that, Magalie stretching to her full extent to get him where she wanted him.

Océane tumbled off him and ran toward the bride, stroking the feathery skirt.

“I notice that humility didn’t take, though, did it?” Geneviève told him dryly.

He got to his knees at Magalie’s feet as she stopped to look down at him. She looked absolutely beautiful in that dress. She looked so happy. That she had just married him. And she looked down at him as if—as if she trusted him with herself. As if not only his but her own most wonderful dreams had come true. “You would be surprised,” he murmured.



Author’s Note


All the characters in this book are fictional, but the Île Saint-Louis in Paris used to contain a tiny salon de thé called La Charlotte de l’Isle that was the most incredible, magical place and was the inspiration for La Maison des Sorcières. A place of the same name as the original Charlotte de l’Isle still exists, but over time its ownership has changed hands, and all the witch and other conical hats that lined its walls are now gone. But I think I, and maybe everyone who ever walked down the Île Saint-Louis while that little shop was there, owe a huge debt of gratitude to its original owner, Sylvie Langlet, for creating that magical place. Ever since I first stopped in front of its windows and looked at its chocolate witches and bowls of crystallized mint leaves, stories have brewed in my mind and, I imagine, in many, many visitors’ minds. It is not everybody who can give so much magic to so many people.

As for other types of magic, pastry-lovers will recognize the inspiration behind Philippe’s rose-heart macaron. The legendary Pierre Hermé’s famous Ispahan has been marking pastry-making around the world since he created it, and I would like to thank him and all the other amazing French pâtissiers and chocolatiers for helping make Paris a world of wonder.

And I would like particularly to thank Laurent Jeannin, head chef pâtissier at the Michelin-three-star restaurant of Le Bristol and Le Chef ’s 2011 Pastry Chef of the Year, for his infinite enthusiasm, generosity, and patience with me, as he let me research the inner workings of one of the world’s top pastry kitchens. And fed me an extravagance of amazing desserts.

It is truly a privilege to meet such exceptional people, as I write these stories.