“Maybe they got started late?” Bruno suggested. “The road signs are so clear in France, it would be hard for them to get lost.”

“Not like Atlanta,” Jean-Charles said. “What a city. All right, have you got my shopping list ready?”

Jean-Charles and Claudine planned to get up at 4:00 A.M., in order to go to a major Parisian wholesale market open only to smaller street-market stall operators and restaurant owners. Fortunately, everyone in France knew at least one person who knew one of those, and Claudine had obtained the necessary member’s card from one of her friends.

“So, I’ve been giving this kebab idea some thought,” I said. Titi nodded in the background as if he had thought somebody eventually would. “And I’m just wondering: how many kebabs do you think one hundred and fifty guests staying for several meals will eat?”

“We’ll have other food, but six or seven each, at least,” Jean-Charles said.

I did some math. “Meaning that we have essentially one day to prepare one thousand kebabs.”

“And finish the decorations,” Claudine said. “You and I have to do that at the church Friday.”

“And make all the other food,” Titi said.

“And put up the tents and the lights around the dance floor,” Bruno said. “If it ever stops raining.”

Traitor. As the weather reports remained ominous, more and more family members were wavering over to Mamie’s pessimism. We had the village’s party hall reserved just in case, but Sébastien and I adamantly refused to use it. We wanted this party in the garden where we had imagined it that day at the village festival.

“That’s about a hundred kebabs to make per person,” I said. Éric and two friends of Claudine and Jean-Charles would be adding their helping hands starting the next morning. “Two hundred, assuming that half the people will be working on other things.”

Titi nodded strongly. He seemed to have done these calculations before we had. But then, Titi had made most of the food at the famous two-day PACS event, two years before.

“Doesn’t six seem a little high?” I said. “I myself wouldn’t eat more than three.” 3× 150 = 450 kebabs. “Maybe two.”

Jean-Charles was appalled. “You can’t possibly offer them fewer than five.”

“We could make cold cuts,” Titi bargained, so promptly you could tell he’d been waiting for us to show sense for some time now. “Pork and beef roasts, sliced on platters, chicken pieces we cook tomorrow and serve cold, merguez.” He named the classic North African sausage French people use when Americans would use hot dogs. “And don’t forget all the salads we planned to make.”