Chapters (45)
- Cover
- Blame Iton Paris
- Copyright Notice
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- Book One
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Book Two
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
“Laura and Sébastien, your top priority is to go see the baker, preferably yesterday, and pick out your pièce montée.” The pièce montée held the role in French weddings that a wedding cake did in American ones, but instead of sugar and chemicals it was concocted of petits choux, custard-cream-stuffed little puffs. These could be fitted together in classic conical towers or in any other shape we wanted. “While you’re at it, make sure you order enough bread delivered here that weekend. Then you need to go see the church organist,” Claudine told me as Sébastien fled to grill the chicken.
“I thought we didn’t have any choice about the music.”
“She said she wanted to talk to you about what you want.” Claudine shrugged. “So maybe she changed her mind. She lives only a couple of villages over; the priest said her place was easy to find. That reminds me, you need to meet the priest.”
My lips twitched as I wrote Meet the priest third on my list after bread. Nothing like the French to keep things in perspective. Or at least these French. At some point, the French had started acting like individuals, but I still figured if I made enough sweeping statements, I could get them to stop.
“And pick out the church,” Jean-Charles said. “I like St. Remiel. It’s beautiful.”
“Wait a minute. What happened to the church we put on the invitations? The wedding is in two weeks, and we don’t have a church?”
Claudine laughed. “Oh, the priest gave us a few others to choose from. It’s true St. Remiel was nice, but I liked the entrance of that other one he showed us. Which one was it, Jean-Charles?”
“What about the pews in the one at Sandrillon?” Titi argued. “Those were nice.”
“Are there any redeeming characteristics to the one we actually told a hundred and fifty people to go to at 11:00 A.M., August tenth?”
“It’s horrible,” Claudine said frankly. “And about seven centuries younger than the other three choices.”
I wrote down Pick out church and put a star beside it. With only two weeks to go before the wedding, it seemed like a priority up there with the baker, even in France. Plus, I liked the idea of wandering among village churches almost a millennium old, picking out which one would host our wedding. It was a pity we hadn’t done this before sending out the invitations, of course, but if we did things like normal people, where would be the fun?