“I would, but it’s pitch-black in here.”
“Hallelujah! She noticed.”
Daisy groped her way forward. Trying to negotiate the table, she bumped into a chair and let out a groan before finally reaching the worktop at the far end of the room. Still feeling her way around, she found the stove, picked up a box of matches from the shelf, and lit one of the gas rings.
A bluish halo illuminated the spot where she stood.
Mia plopped right down at the table.
Daisy rummaged through the drawers one by one. Scented candles were strictly prohibited in her apartment. Her passion for gastronomy was high maintenance, to say the least, and she was adamant that nothing should disturb the smell of a dish. Where some restaurant owners might put a sign on the door declaring “No Credit Cards Accepted,” she would have gladly posted: “Customers Wearing Too Much Perfume Will Be Promptly Escorted from the Premises.”
At last, she found the unscented candles and lit them. The bright flames chased the darkness from the room.
Daisy loved her kitchen, especially that it took up her whole apartment. It served as the living room, since it was bigger than the two small bedrooms and connecting bathroom put together. Her countertop held terra-cotta pots filled with thyme, bay leaves, rosemary, dill, oregano, bergamot, and Espelette peppers. This kitchen was Daisy’s laboratory, where she found exhilaration and release. It was here that she developed recipes for the clientele of her small restaurant perched on the slopes of Montmartre, just around the corner from her apartment.
Daisy hadn’t gone to any fancy culinary school; her profession was inspired by her family and her native Provence. As a child, she would spend hours watching her mother, learning to mimic her techniques, while Daisy’s friends played in the shade of the pine and olive trees.
“Are you hungry?” she asked Mia.
“Yes. Maybe. I’m not sure.”
Daisy opened the refrigerator and took out a plate of chanterelle mushrooms and a bunch of flat-leaf parsley, then tore a bulb of garlic from the string that hung to her right.
“Do you have to add garlic?” Mia asked.
“Why, are you planning on kissing somebody tonight?” Daisy retorted as she chopped the parsley. “How about you tell me what’s going on while I get dinner ready.”
Mia took a deep breath.
“Nothing. Nothing’s going on.”
“Just as I’m closing up my bistro, you pop up out of nowhere with an overnight bag and a look on your face like the world just broke into a million pieces. And since then, you haven’t stopped bellyaching once. I take it you didn’t show up just because you missed me.”
“My world reallyisbroken in a million pieces . . .”
Daisy abruptly stopped what she was doing.
“Enough’s enough, Mia! I want to hear everything, but tone down the whining and moaning. Save it for the camera.”
“You’d make quite the director, you know,” Mia said.
“Quit stalling and talk to me.”
And as Daisy sliced the mushrooms, Mia spilled the beans.
They both jumped when the electricity came back on. Daisy dimmed the lights, then opened the electric shutters, revealing the view over Paris from her apartment.
Mia walked toward the window.
“Do you have any cigarettes?”
“On the coffee table. I don’t even know where they came from.”
“You must be seeing a lot of men if you can’t even keep track of who leaves what!”
“If you want to smoke, go out on the terrace.”
“Are you coming?”
