Home.
“You seem like a proficient cook,” I say, though what I really mean isyou seem like everything I didn’t know I was missing.
“Papi insisted that we learn how to cook because my mother isn’t allowed. She’ll poison us.” Once again, her love for family came through. She was close to them. No doubt about it. “My mother designs jewelry.” She wiggles her fingers, the rings catching the lamplight. “She made these.”
They were not the expensive and ostentatious jewels, the kind that Simone paraded, but finer, intimate pieces.
One was a thin band of hammered silver, uneven in texture, as if shaped by hand rather than machine. Another was warmer—gold flecked with tiny stones, turquoise maybe. They weren’t heirlooms meant for vaults or society galas. They were personal and charming. Like Tara.
“Can you open that bottle?” She gestures toward a bottle of Pommard on the kitchen island.
I suppress a grin. It’s from adomainein Burgundy, not far from my own place there. It feels almost like a sign. If I didn’t already know her, I might have suspected the coincidence was a little too perfect.
I pour the wine as she flips tortillas, each one puffing and browning in the pan. The scent lifts—sweet, smoky corn woven with the slow burn of chili simmering on the stove—and it strikes me, sharp and visceral. Hunger, yes, but not just for food.
She takes a sip of wine, her hips swaying lightly as she works.
She talks about this and that, easy topics as she sets the small wooden table pushed against the window.
The table is worn but cheerful, dressed with striped cloth placemats that don’t quite match. She sets out a handful of plates—one chipped, another too ornate to belong here—and somehow, in her hands, they look intentional, like the kind of artful mix you’d find in a tucked-away bistro in Le Marais.
“I found these at a vintage shop in Le Marais,” she says proudly. “The apartment came with China, but it was all white. Soulless. These have…personality.”
She ladles chili into colorful ceramic bowls, probably picked up from some nameless Paris shop. No Sèvres porcelain or Louis XVI dinner service here.
Steam rises in fragrant ribbons as she scatters cilantro over the top, the bright green cutting throughthe deep red. A wedge of lime lands on each rim, a flash of sunlight waiting to be squeezed. The tortillas—warm, pliant, and faintly charred—go into a woven basket lined with a clean dish towel.
There’s no performance to it, no curated elegance. She moves with quiet assurance, serving not a meal for show, but one for comfort—for connection. For love.
When she places everything on the table, the room changes. The little apartment, once sparse and quiet, feels lived in now—anchored, human, warm. It feels like her.
Once we’re seated, I wait for her to take the first bite, uncertain how to approach what she’s served without a fork or knife. She tears a piece of tortilla and uses it to scoop up the chili, movements easy and instinctive. I imitate her, trying not to look as inept as I feel.
The flavor hits instantly. It’s smoky, fiery, and deeply comforting.Cuisine du cœur?*. Food that feeds something deeper than hunger.
I groan aloud. “Mon dieu. This is incredible.”
We eat, and we talk. It’s easy. She tells me more about her family. I tell her about Aubert and a little about myself.
“So, you grew up rich and all that?” She lifts her wine glass. There’s no accusation in her voice, no hint of envy or awe—only an open curiosity,an honest desire to understand who I am beneath the name and the legacy.
“Plus ou moins?*…ah…more or less.”
“Are you close to your family?”
“I’m close to my son…or at least, I think I am.” I chew on a piece of succulent beef, and then continue, “He’s remarkable.” And suddenly I wish I could introduce them. Aubert would like her.
“I’m sure he is. He’s yours after all.”
The way she says it with a smile tells me she’s not holding my behavior against me.
If this were Simone, we’d talk about it nonstop for a year, which is why I became careful about what I said to her, shutting myself down to avoid the unpleasantness. But it couldn’t save our marriage and couldn’t protect Aubert from its implosion, either.
“So, what does a count actually do?” she asks cheerfully while she cleans up after dinner, refusing to let me help.
I don’t mind. I watch her, and as I do, I forget the walls I’ve built around myself and let her in.
“Mostly?” I swirl what’s left of the Pommard in my glass. “Sign papers. Attend meetings. Smile politely while people pretend that aristocratic titles still matter. In reality, it’s managing the family holdings—vineyards, properties, investments, and foundations. And making sure the press has nothing scandalousto feast on.” I pause, seeing my life for what it is, and it seems so interminably bleak. “The truth is, Tara, a count doesn’t do much of anything. He spends his life proving he deserves what he was born with.”
