Amidst The Stars

Pastéis and Pavlovas

  By the end of the week, the addition of desserts had almost doubled their earnings. When Sunday arrived, they'd almost saved up enough to buy a dining table so they wouldn't have to hunch over the countertops at Huang's when they had meals. Practically glowing with pride, Yao had sent Vicente and Leon off to the city centre again to get more puff pastry with orders to thank the bakers for putting up with them.

  Leon seemed to disappear the moment he got off the bus, so Vicente went off to Boulangerie Bellecourt alone. Like last week, there was nobody at the counter. The clear plastic cases were stocked with the same baked goods — pristine, perfect croissants, airy millefeuilles and fluffy brioche buns topped with pearl sugar were on the middle row. The shelf next to it held dainty boxes of macarons, palmiers, calissons and other treats he couldn't name. He resisted the urge to pick up one of the boxes and went to stand at the counter.

  The kitchen door was slightly ajar, and out wafted the smell of raspberries and caramel, as well as a pair of voices. Lucien and Madeline were talking inside in French. For the first time, Vicente thanked his French lessons from school as he understood Lucien saying, "it's really not safe for you to be in here. There's too much happening at the same time, for one, and the work's too quick to be done by someone like you. You're endangering both yourself and this bakery by insisting you work in the kitchen."

  Slightly muffled by the sound of what sounded like an electric mixer, Madeline retorted back, "would you rather have me at the counter? Then your customers will complain that I talk too much or too little or too strangely, or that I say the wrong things. Tell Matthieu to do it, everybody loves him."

  Feeling bad about eavesdropping on a private conversation, Vicente began inching back to the shelves of pastries. As he did so, he heard Lucien say, "Matthieu is better suited to working in the kitchen. And to be honest, I trust him more than you when it comes to baking since I don't have to worry about him burning anything. Just admit you're better off managing the counter. Now go."

  Vicente gasped as he heard the sound of something slamming — it sounded painfully similar to the sound of his parents shutting doors or placing things down harshly after a fight. He tried to calm his racing heart and turned towards the counter, hiding his shaking hands behind his back.

  Madeline stormed out, face contorted in anger so intense that Vicente instinctively backed away. Then she looked up, all while tearing off her hair net and tossing it onto the floor. The anger in her expression melted away. "Oh, it's you. Hello, er..." she looked down. "Oh, dear... is it Victor?"

  "My name's Vicente," he corrected. "Hi again. Are — Are you all right?"

  She fiddled absently with the ribbons sewn to her apron, eyes still glued to the counter. "I'm fine. I apologise if you heard the yelling just now. I was having a disagreement with Lucien. Don't worry about it, it's nothing serious or anything." Madeline paused. "It doesn't really involve you, actually."

  "Ah." Vicente desperately tried to change the subject, standing in front of the counter like an idiot for at least thirty seconds before saying, "what were you making? I smelled raspberries." His voice cracked.

  Madeline raised her head, eyes a little brighter with excitement. "I was making a pavlova," she said. "One of Lucien's customers had ordered one for her birthday, and he let me make it. It's a really nice tart made out of egg whites that's soft on the inside, unlike other meringues. We top it with whipped cream and some raspberries. It's named after the ballerina Anna Pavlova, who created the 'Dying Swan' role. She graduated from the Imperial Ballet School, see, and even trained under Erico Cecchetti himself. And she was the first ballerina to travel the world, too. It's rumoured that this dessert was created in honour of her visits to Australia and New Zealand."