“What?”
“Nothing.” I reached for her hand, catching her fingers with mine for a moment before she turned her attention back to Antoine. She didn’t pull her hand away, which was a win by any definition.
“You’re gonna need some olive salad. Unless you’re planning to make it from scratch. But it’s better if it sits overnight.” He gave me a look that almost dared me to tell him that’s exactly what I intended. Even I wasn’t foolish enough to press my luck that far.
“No one’s olive salad is as good as yours. I wouldn’t presume to even try to come close. Could we have a pint, please?”
He seemed unmoved by the flattery, but he’d been willing to play along so far.Grabbing a spoon and a clear plastic container, he started dishing up the chopped briny olive and jardinière mixture.
“You’re taking her to Jacques for bread.” He said it as a statement, not a question, as he gathered the bundles together and slipped them along with the olive salad into a string grocery bag.
“Of course. Where else would I take her?” I reluctantly let go of Charlotte’s hand to reach for my wallet, but he waved me off.
“I’ll put it on your tab. Get it, tab?” he said, handing me the bag and chuckling at his own joke. “You promise to come see me again, Charlotte, and tell me how he does with the muffuletta. I can make you a proper one if he doesn’t. If he does, I taught him everything he knows.”
“Not everything,” I said the same time Charlotte said, “I will.”
“It was nice to meet you.” Charlotte hit the old man with another smile, and he beamed back at her before giving me an appraising look.
“You too, belle.”
I had no doubt he’d be on the phone with one of my grandpapa’s old buddies before we’d made it to the street. People talked about old women gossiping, but in my experience, it was the men you needed to watch out for. They were the ones who got up in everyone’s business. They just hid it better.
––––––––
“BREAD NEXT?” I hadn’t expected Ford’s cooking lesson to include a shopping trip to procure ingredients.
In hindsight, I probably should have. He hadn’t done anything the way I’d expected him to. I wasn’t complaining. Meeting Antoine and listening to him go back and forth with Ford had been fun, and the mortadella was amazing. Luscious was one of those overusedwords, but it applied to the savory bologna with its jewels of shaved, melt-in-your-mouth fat.
I wanted to know more—wanted the tale of how Ford and the old man met and what Ford was like as a boy. I’d ask Ford himself when I had a chance and maybe pay Antoine a visit myself another time for some soppressata and stories.
“Jacques makes the best bread for both muffuletta and po’ boys. Light as air and perfectly crisp crust.” Ford took my hand, twining our fingers together as if it were the most natural thing in the world and everything was easy for him.
When he’d taken my hand in the deli, I’d had to ignore the spike in my pulse. Handholding with a man I’d been naked with wasn’t supposed to make my pulse jump, but it did with Ford. Which could be the man or it could simply be that I didn’t have a lot of experience mixing physical intimacy with the casual affection that in this case somehow managed to feel more intimate than the sweaty naked bits. Something I had absolutely no intention of looking too closely at.
Ford led us a couple of blocks down Decatur before turning onto a side street that quickly morphed into an alley. We stopped in front of a nondescript metal door that looked like the perfect place to orchestrate a literal back alley drug deal. Ford knocked and a middle-aged man with arms as thick as my thighs opened the door. He wiped the sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his T-shirt before reaching out to grab Ford’s hand.
“Hey, man. Whatcha been doin’?” He clapped a big hand on Ford’s shoulder and particles of flour spun in the air behind them as the two men beamed at each other.
“More of the same.” Ford stepped out of the other man’s grip to turn to me. “Jacques, this is Charlotte. Jacques makes some of the best bread in the city.”
“Some of the best bread in the city. Pfft.” The man made a noise in the back of his throat before shifting his attention to me. “It’s nice to meet you, Charlotte.”
I took his offered hand and watched as his fingers swallowed mine. If kneading bread gave you those kind of forearms, it was a miracle bread-baking workouts hadn’t become a thing, like goat yoga but with carbs. Seriously.
“Nice to meet you too.”
Even standing in the doorway, my eyes had begun to adjust to the dimly lit interior. I could make out rolling racks filled with dozens and dozens of torpedo-shaped rolls, the kind normally used for po’ boys. I breathed in the toasted yeasty smell and had a sudden urge to eat fried oyster po’ boys. With Ford.
“What can I get for you guys?”
As far as I could tell, we were nowhere near anything resembling a retail establishment, but that didn’t seem to matter to either man.
“We’re making muffuletta...” said Ford.
“And where else would you come for bread,” Jacques finished. “I’ve got some beautiful full-size seeded rounds fresh from the oven. How many would you like?”
“Can we get four? The leftovers are fantastic toasted with salted butter,” he said, turning his attention from Jacques to me.
