Read Chapter 14: A Day in the Market

The sky over Saint-Rémy was the color of a ripening fig, bruised purple at the edges where the morning mist hadn’t yet burned off. Camille pressed her forehead against the passenger window of Julien’s battered blue truck, watching lavender fields scroll past in endless violet stripes. The truck smelled of gasoline, dried thyme, and something faintly like the cedar soap Julien had always used.

“You’re humming,” he said.

She stopped. “I wasn’t.”

“You were. That song. The one about the shepherdess.”

Camille felt heat creep up her neck. “I haven’t thought about that song in fifteen years.”

“Liar.” He glanced at her, a half-smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “You used to sing it when you were nervous. What are you nervous about?”

She considered lying, then decided against it. “Meeting your father.”

Julien’s hands tightened on the wheel. “You’re not meeting him today. You’re buying onions.”

“I know. But the onions are a prelude. And I’m nervous about the prelude to the thing I’m nervous about.”

He laughed—a real laugh, low and warm, the kind she hadn’t heard from him since they were seventeen. “That’s very French of you.”

“I am French.”

“You’ve been gone a long time. You could be anyone now.”

The words landed softer than he probably intended, but Camille felt them settle in her chest anyway. She’d been gone a long time. She’d been Antoine’s wife, a Paris chef, a woman who wore heels to the market and didn’t know her neighbors’ names. Now she was back in dusty sneakers and a linen shirt she’d bought at the Saint-Rémy flea market for six euros, and she wasn’t sure which version of herself was real.

The market sprawled across the town square like a spilled basket of produce—stalls of peaches bleeding juice into paper bags, pyramids of heirloom tomatoes, a woman frying chickpea fritters in a cast-iron pan. Camille’s shoulders dropped as she stepped out of the truck. The air was thick with rosemary and bread smoke and the particular sound of Provençal bargaining.

“First rule of the market,” Julien said, falling into step beside her. “Never buy from the first stall you see.”

“And the second rule?”

“Never let them see you’re not local.”

“I am local.”

“You’re Paris now.” He said it without malice, but the words stung anyway. “You walk like someone who expects to be kept waiting.”

Camille slowed her pace deliberately, letting her hips sway into the lazy rhythm of the vendors who had nowhere to be. “Better?”

Julien watched her for a moment too long. “Better.”

They moved through the stalls in comfortable tandem. He carried the canvas bags; she did the choosing. She tested melons for give, sniffed basil like it was perfume, argued with an old woman about the price of saffron until they both gave in and laughed. Julien stood back and watched her work, and for a while, it felt almost like a memory—two kids playing house in a world that hadn’t yet shown them its teeth.

“You’re good at this,” he said as she negotiated a crate of early figs.

“Chef training. I can haggle a farmer out of his grandmother’s recipe.”

“And did you?”

“No.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “But she gave me her number in case I ever need a starter for sourdough.”

They stopped at a stall selling honey—rows of glass jars catching the late-morning sun, amber and chestnut and a pale lavender variety that looked almost luminous. The beekeeper, a man with forearms like ropes and a nose like a hawthorn, was explaining the difference between the spring and autumn harvest to a couple from Lyon. Camille drifted toward the lavender honey, uncapped a jar, and inhaled.

“That’s the one,” Julien said. “You used to put it in tea. Even in summer.”

“It’s good for the throat.”

“No, you just liked the way it smelled.” He took the jar from her, turned it over in his hands. “You always had to smell things before you tasted them. Wine, bread, even cheese. Drove your mother crazy.”

Camille’s stomach tightened at the mention of her mother, but she forced a smile. “She said it was unsophisticated.”

“She was wrong.”

It was the first time anyone had said that so plainly. Camille blinked, and something shifted in her chest—a door opening a crack, letting in light she hadn’t known she was missing.

The beekeeper finished with the Lyon couple and turned to them. “Julien Morel. You’re late this year.”

“The harvest came early,” Julien said. “And I have a chef with me now. She’s pickier than I am.”

The beekeeper looked Camille over with professional interest. “Chef, is it? What do you cook?”

“Terrines, mostly,” she said. “But I’m working on a daube that might outlive me.”

They left with three jars of honey and a promise to return for the chestnut variety in autumn. Camille didn’t miss the way Julien’s hand brushed her lower back as he guided her around a group of schoolchildren, or the way he pulled back quickly, as if he’d touched a hot stove.

They found a bench under a plane tree, splitting a paper bag of warm madeleines and watching the market churn around them. Julien leaned back, stretching his legs out. “Can I ask you something?”

“You just did.”

“About Antoine.” He said the name carefully, testing it. “Was it always bad?”

Camille considered the question. The madeleine crumbs stuck to her fingers; she brushed them off her jeans. “No. The first years were good. He was funny. He made me laugh. And he believed in me—really believed, in a way that made me feel like I could do anything. He funded the restaurant before we were married. Told me I was the most talented chef he’d ever met.”

“But?”

“But he didn’t want me to be the most talented chef he’d ever met. He wanted me to be his wife who also cooked.” She laughed, and it came out bitter. “He wanted to show me off, not watch me shine. When the restaurant started doing well, he started keeping score. Every success was a threat. Every late night was an accusation. And when it all fell apart, he made sure I was the one holding the debt.”

Julien was quiet for a long moment. “I know what that’s like. With Claire.”

“You don’t have to—“

“I know what it’s like to be married to someone who wants you to be one thing when you’re actually another.” He looked down at his hands. “Claire wanted a partner who would stay in the background. Run the books, shake hands, keep the B&B growing. She didn’t want a husband who got up at dawn to fix a leaky pipe because he couldn’t stand to see a guest unhappy. She said I was too soft for business.”

“You’re not soft.” Camille said it without thinking. “You’re decent. That’s different.”

Julien turned to look at her. The sun had reached them, spilling gold across his face, and for a moment he looked exactly like the boy she’d known—the one who’d climbed her father’s fig tree to leave notes in her window, who’d kissed her under the rain gutter and promised her the world he was too young to own.

“What do you want?” he asked. “Not from me. From your life. In a year, where do you want to be?”

Camille thought about it. “There’s this place I saw once, in the Luberon. A village with a square and a fountain and a bakery that closes at noon. I want to open something small. Twenty seats maybe. A menu I write by hand every morning, based on whatever I find at the market that day.” She paused. “I want to cook food that makes people feel like they’re home. Even if they’re not.”

“That’s a good dream.”

“It’s a pipe dream. I have no money, a lawsuit, and a B&B kitchen I’m not allowed to leave.”

Julien’s jaw tightened. “About Claire—“

“Don’t.” Camille held up a hand. “We’re having a nice day. Please don’t ruin it with Claire.”

He closed his mouth. Nodded. They sat in silence for a moment, watching a man on a bicycle pedal past with a dozen baguettes strapped to his back like a sail.

Then Camille’s phone buzzed. She checked it, expecting Antoine’s lawyer or a guest complaint forwarded by Claire. Instead, it was a message from an unknown number.

*Mademoiselle Roux? This is Odette’s nephew Armand. My aunt’s lawyer has been trying to reach you. Odette left you something. Please call me when you can.*

Camille stared at the screen. Odette was the woman who had taught her how to make daube, the woman whose kitchen she’d been hiding in, the woman who had died three months ago. Camille had assumed the kindness of a dying stranger ended with the recipe book in the drawer.

But apparently Odette had left her more.

“Bad news?” Julien asked.

Camille locked the phone and slipped it in her pocket. “I don’t know yet.”