Pam Rosenthal by The Bookseller's Daughter

sweetbreads, truffles and mushrooms, and topped with a heart-shaped slice of puff pastry.
    “And how many such complicated dishes will we be preparing today?” Marie-Laure whispered.
    Her fifteen-year-old workmate Robert beamed. “Twelve. Twelve, Marie-Laure.” Robert had often been hungry as a child. Working in this kitchen, he often said, was like being paid to go to heaven.
    Of course, the twelve dishes didn’t include the soup, the vegetables—even Monsieur Colet was satisfied with the beautiful young peas and artichokes and asparagus they had to work with—and the salads. Not to speak of the delicate little hors d’oeuvres. And as for the desserts…
    But there wasn’t time to begin contemplating the desserts. Robert and Marie-Laure had to race to keep up: to clean the pots and pans the rest of the staff kept dirtying, to split and de-fuzz more than a hundred baby artichokes. To chop and scald and peel and stir, wherever they were needed. But even as Marie-Laure’s hands flew and her head began to ache, Joseph’s image drifted toward her through the steamy air. Here was his smile and the taste of his mouth; there, the arcs of his hands and the outline of his hips.
    And here was…a huge cleaver sailing through the air and landing in a wooden dresser. It marked the opening salvo of Monsieur Colet’s next tantrum. This one was directed at Arsène, who was getting in everybody’s way, on his way to the meat locker to hang up a ridiculous number of freshly killed rabbits.
    The crash caused a huge dessert soufflé to fall. And so, as Monsieur Colet proclaimed to everyone’s delight, the ruined soufflé would have to be eaten by the servants. The idiot guests would simply have to make do with the strawberry, raspberry, and apricot tarts, the heaps of meringues and macaroons studded with almonds and pistachios, the molded marzipan cakes in amusing and sometimes indecent shapes and colors, the chocolate-covered éclairs and profiteroles filled with crème anglaise, the towers of fruit topped with hothouse pineapples, and the fantasia of molded milk and water ices flavored with fruit, coffee, chocolate, coconut, and candied violets.
     
     
    They could hear the guests’ carriages clattering over the drawbridge. Nicolas inspected the footmen’s livery, clucking about a grease spot here, a bit of tarnished braid there. The troop of them finally marched up the stairs, each carrying a more impressive platter than the last.
    And marched back down, for more food, more wine. A lot more wine, Nicolas called out. The banquet was a success.
    The guests had only come, he explained later, out of respect for the Duchesse’s ancient pedigree and curiosity about the Vicomte’s reputation. But they’d stayed and enjoyed themselves. The food had been a triumph and the family had risen to the occasion. Even the Duc had behaved quite respectably, contributing a witty anecdote of life and manners at Louis XV’s court.
    “So the Gorgon’s finally been accepted into the local gentry,” Nicolas concluded. “Let’s hope at least for a bit of relief from her everlasting demands.”
    “And now, Mesdames and Messieurs,” he added, opening another bottle of wine and passing around the flat but still delicious soufflé, “it’s our turn to celebrate.”
    But Marie-Laure slipped away early, carrying a jar of lemon water that Monsieur Colet had given her for washing away kitchen smells—it seemed that even he was interested in her supposed adventure with the Vicomte.
    She scrubbed herself. Not bad.
    She pulled off her cap. Her room’s cracked mirror couldn’t tell her much, but she thought that her hair had regained the thickness and luster it had lost to the typhus. She brushed it vigorously. She didn’t have any ribbons, so all she could do was force a few strands at the sides into spiral tendrils, continuing to brush it while she waited for Baptiste’s knock at the door.
    And when the knock finally came Marie-Laure could