Talk about people who stick with you when the going gets rough. My cousins from New York were visiting during Thanksgiving week. The plan was we would have some time together and they would stay at my house while I went to Paris.
When the word dropped that the Paris trip was off, the cousins jumped into action. First, a box of Parisian coffee appeared on my breakfast room table, followed by fresh croissants from a French bakery the next morning. Then came the announcement that they wanted to take Sara and me out for French food to ease the pain of our canceled trip.
The next thing we knew we were seated at a very French café with le Garcon who looked exactly like my freshman college year French teacher, Monsieur Allard who I think I still have a crush on.
He had the same thick dark hair and a charmer of a smile. I was the only one who didn’t order escargot – I have a thing about snails – but le garcon put a small plate and cutlery setting at my place.
“In case you decide to taste,” he said with a wink.
I have to pause here and tell you about my apparel for the evening. It was the night we would have been dining in Paris and I decided to wear the same outfit I had selected for that occasion. I donned a black faux fur hat that I had bought after checking the freezing Parisian weather every day for the past month.
The hat not only covered my ears, but a good part of my face. The best cousins ever, Sandra and Gary, did not laugh when they saw me, but I could see them fighting back smiles.
So Mr. Freshman College Heartthrob, aka Le Garcon, was politely trying to find my face under the faux fur so he could take my order.
“She’ll have the coq au vin,” Sandra rescued me knowing that’s what I had planned to eat that night in the City of Lights.
The cousins who had been to France many times were excellent at recommending dishes and insisted we try the fancy tart for dessert. My sweet well-behaved daughter, never one to hold things back, blurted out, “Mom loves crème brûlée” so, of course, they ordered both. And, of course, I ate both.
As I squeezed my very full body through the front door of my house, Gary offered to show me the reel he had made of their trips to Paris. The Eiffel Tower, Louvre, art, galleries, and outdoor cafés traveled across the screen leaving me longing.
But when I watched the late news and saw the madness at LAX and heard about all the planes being canceled because of the weather, I relished what a bon nuit we had here in California. Someday, Paris.
Email patriciabunin@sbcglobal.net. Follow her on X @patriciabunin and Patriciabunin.com
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