The Mysterious Bakery On Rue De Paris - Excerpt

Prologue

The only thing worse than having a mid-life crisis is finding out about it from your father.

"Apparently the tell-tale signs are looking up ex-boyfriends on Facebook; dyeing your hair to cover the greys and the sudden desire to play a musical instrument," he rhymed off one morning, reading one of the dailies.

I would have scoffed and brushed it off, except I had been dyeing my hair Cherry Chestnut for some time now and just the other week my cousin and I had stalked my first boyfriend from school on Facebook. Granted, we were drunk, but it was on that same night that I vowed to take up the cello. I just had this ominous feeling that everything was passing me by and I was trying desperately to catch up. Yet it was only as I sat at the bus stop on the end of our road, quietly fidgeting with my handbag in that nervous habit of mine, that the realisation truly hit me. A man around my own age (i.e. the age when wearing comfortable shoes just makes more sense) came walking slowly by with a toddler, determined to make her own clumsy way down the street. I smiled, as if I knew what it must feel like to walk protectively behind your off-spring, and he smiled back, revealing the kind of dimples a girl could swoon over. Yes, swoon. Just then the little girl let her concentration lapse and tumbled helplessly over her own uncooperative feet, resulting in a wail that would wake the dead. I moved to get up, but of course her father had instantly scooped her up into his capable arms, whispering soft reassurances into her red hot ears. They plopped down beside me, their sudden proximity causing me to flush with awkwardness. I had no idea what to do or say - it seemed an intimate moment between father and child - until inspiration struck.

"Would you like a sweetie?" I asked, with all the vintage charm of a fifties housewife.

The crying halted instantly and a shy profile of a protruding lower lip and a curious, moistened eye turned to see what was on offer. I dug into my handbag with a force, and produced the roll of mints I always keep stocked. I could see the thought forming in her young mind... 'mints? Are you serious lady?' But she took one all the same; beggars can't be choosers after all.

"Now what do we say to the nice lady?" Her father prompted.

A muffled 'ank-u' ended our meeting and with another dazzling smile, her father swooped her up onto his shoulders and they continued on their merry way. I felt about 100 years old. I was the nice old lady who handed out mints... MINTS... to little children. A spinster who didn't even have the excuse of putting off having a family for a glittering career. A withering antique, dusty from lack of use and no longer relevant. That was the day I knew something had to change. That was the day I decided to go to Paris.