“No, no, not prickly a bit,” I said. “In sixths. You don’t think that’s unnecessarily complicating the production of six hundred kebabs, by any chance? We can’t stick with simple cutting techniques?”

“But it’s not hard! Look.” She positioned another of her tomatoes on the cutting board and neatly sliced it in sixths. It certainly didn’t look hard when she did it. Darn French teenagers. I was considered a good cook where I came from.

“We have six hundred kebabs to make! Size doesn’t matter enough to cut things in sixths!”

“They’ve got to be a bit prickly,” the peasant said, surprised. “They’re bales of hay.”

Damn, but I wished I had some cake to offer him. What an opportunity to miss.

“Okay, okay,” Justine said. “It’s your wedding.” She gave my tomatoes a grave look, as if they might besmirch her family’s reputation, and went back to cutting.

Sébastien came in from setting up the tents outside and ran a finger between my eyebrows. He gazed at the droplet of tomato seeds he’d collected on his fingertip a second but did not comment. “You haven’t heard from your sister yet?”

“Those bales of hay working out for you?” the peasant asked, recognizing him. “Comfortable enough?”

“No, but she probably won’t get here until late.”

“Perfect,” Sébastien told the peasant. “Nice and square.” He looked from my tomatoes to Justine’s. “Maybe I should cut the tomatoes for you.”

“You know what?” I said. “I’m going to go make the coleslaw.”

I took a position out on the dining-room table with Claudine and Colette, who were attacking some of the other salads. The dining-room table could sit fourteen without crowding. Behind it, the fireplace could easily be renovated to form an extra guest bedroom. Collectibles from Jean-Pierre and Bruno’s flea market scavenging surrounded us: a Grecian head, silver candelabra, a fifteenth-century-style tapestry, bits of embroidered hieroglyphics framed like rescued fabric in a museum, even a piano with a sound that had deeply suffered from the damp of the old stone house, but which Justine insisted on playing anyway every time she got a break. The coleslaw was another recipe demanded by my new in-laws after their visit to the U.S. By the time I finished stuffing twelve heads of cabbage through the food processor, I had shreds of purple and green dangling from my hair and everywhere else. Trailing cabbage like confetti, I carried an enormous purple bowl to the refrigerator and encountered a problem. It wouldn’t fit.

“Put it in the parlor,” Titi suggested. “That’s where we’re starting to store the big items.”

“But . . . it’s got mayonnaise in it.”

He nodded and took it from me. “Good, that should keep.”

The wedding feast wouldn’t start for another twenty-eight hours.

“There are two bowls of it,” I mentioned weakly as if that might make some difference.