French Toast (The French Twist Series Book 2) Read online

  I slapped my hand against my forehead in exasperation. Thank God I had remembered to close my office door before my conversation with Nick. “Hey, Maya.”

  She scoffed. “Well, it’s nice to chat with you too, Syd.”

  I exhaled loudly. “I’m sorry! Nick’s driving me nuts.”

  “Hey, you gotta hand it to him. He’s really dealing with a lot now and he hasn’t run screaming. Your sister has lost it. She’s like….Pregnantzilla. Seriously, you should sell tickets.”

  I laughed. While I’m sure my sister would slap Maya silly for such a statement, hearing her say it made me feel a little better. Between having the sole responsibility as breadwinner, planning my perfect wedding, hearing almost daily of new ways I would be embarrassed at our French wedding AND dealing with the downfall of my perfect sister, my nerves were fried.

  “Thanks, Maya. I needed to laugh.” I sighed.

  “No kidding, Syd! Where have you been lately? Have you had ANY fun?”

  “What about you? I haven’t seen you in over a week! How is Mr. Wonderful?” Maya had been dating one of her coworkers for two months now. I was thrilled since the majority of her “relationships” lasted less than a week. The only frustrating thing was her stinginess with the details of her new amour, Devon. Considering she had made it her goal to extract every last bit of information during my courtship with Louis, I felt her lack of information was ridiculously unfair. Especially since I could really use some free entertainment…

  “He’s fine.” Really Maya? That’s it?

  “Hell no, Maya. Not today!” I paused. “Need I remind you, my last conversation involved the discussion of my sister’s nipples? I need this!”

  She sighed. “Fine, Syd. He’s a gorgeous, brilliant and funny man. He has gotten to know me better than anyone has before and he accepts me just as I am. Oh…and his talents in the bedroom are unparalleled. Happy now?”

  Wow. Maya was the pickiest person I knew when it came to men. And I’m pretty picky! She had at long last met her match. I was beginning to think this day would never come.

  “Syd? Are you there?” Irritation permeated her words.

  I shook my head to snap myself out of my trance. “I’m sorry! I was at a loss for words. I…am thrilled for you.”

  She laughed. “Yeah, you really sound like it.”

  “I am! Maybe I would be able to show you this if you’d let me meet him.”

  Silence.

  “Maya? I’m your closest friend. I’ll have to meet him at some point.”

  “I’ll think about. Gotta go! Love you, hon!”

  Click.

  I stuck my tongue out at the phone and hung it up. Really mature, I know. Even twenty-eight year old women have moments of juvenile behavior which must be expressed. I did feel a little better afterwards.

  I glanced at my watch and jumped up from my desk. I was five minutes late for my meeting. I grabbed my laptop and ran, hoping everyone else was as behind as they normally were. The Human Resources team was meeting to go over a new benefit plan and I was leading the discussion. I felt sorry for my coworkers since my brain was not functioning as well as it normally did. I was simply not able to keep up my usual image of perfection. This was definitely one of those times when it would have to be good enough.

  Thankfully, I managed to look like I knew what I was doing and we settled on a new dental insurance plan. This meant a butt load of informational meetings to be given for the employees and countless phone calls and emails for further explanation. I sighed at the prospect of how much time I would lose and resigned myself to bringing work home again tonight. This wouldn’t go over well with my husband.

  Husband! I was still trying to get used to this term. I had only known Louis for seven months and he was already my husband! Though I was absolutely thrilled to have found and married the love of my life, such a quick turn of events had left me a little breathless. The first year of marriage is supposed to be really hard. We were still getting to know each other and were under severe financial strain to boot. Everything seemed to be fine; so why did I have such a feeling of dread? Was I waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop? What does that even mean?

  I shook my head and turned off my computer. As I packed up my work bag, I thought about how much easier it would be if Kate were actually Kate instead of Kate the Dragon Lady. My sister had always helped me to keep a hold of my sanity. (It had a nasty habit of running away.) She was the one reminding me, along with my ever patient mother, “good enough is not nearly as wonderful as perfect, but it is good enough.” When would I stop thinking everything in life had to be perfect?

  I shut off the lights to my office and walked to the parking lot, talking to myself the entire way. You need to get it together, woman! Men like Louis are hard to come by. Don’t blow it by succumbing to your freaky alter ego. I sighed as I got into the car and put my head on the steering wheel. Everyone expects this marriage to fail. In my heart, I believed Louis and I had what it took to make our marriage work. But the truth is, my brain was beginning to wonder if we had gotten married way too fast.

  Chapter Three

  My second month as Madame Durand was decidedly less blissful. The initial newlywed harmony was starting to wear with Louis’ increasing stress level at not being able to find a job. He was also just plain bored. (There are only so many hours a day he could devote to a productive job search.) When he had been laid off from his job, he was forced to return the company rental car and we couldn’t afford to buy a new one on my income alone.

  Since he had yet to find the desire to get up early enough to drive me to work, this left him with nothing but a bicycle to make his way around town. This meant I still had to run the majority of our errands, including grocery shopping, on my way home from work. Adding this responsibility to my increasing workload was causing my precariously balanced sanity to slip. To my great dismay, I began to realize Louis was perched right next to me on the edge.

  Bizarrely enough, I was alerted to the cracks in his calm façade by the state of his dreams. In our first few months together, Louis would wake me in the middle of the night by caressing my body and speaking to me in French. The overall effect was very romantic, though I imagine my lack of knowledge of French contributed to this assertion. He could’ve been telling me I needed to shave my legs and I would have had no idea. The funny thing was when I commented on his behavior the next morning, he had no memory of the interaction. As many of these nocturnal adventures ended with very satisfying sex which he also had no memory of, I felt a little guilty for the added spring in my step…

  I knew trouble was brewing when I was awakened one evening to a loud banging sound. I opened my eyes to find Louis standing next the window in our bedroom. Was I crazy or was he trying to rip the blinds off the wall? Completely bewildered, and not entirely awake, I asked Louis what he was doing. After receiving no response, I walked over to him and touched his arm. He flinched, turned back to me and told me to get back in the boat. I’m sorry, did he just say the boat??? He continued to try to remove the blinds from the wall, insisting this would help us to keep the boat afloat. After ten minutes, I was able to coax him back to bed. He had absolutely no knowledge of this incident the next morning and firmly believed I had made it all up to give him a good laugh.

  Over the next week, Louis woke three times with his heart racing, screaming in French that there was danger. (After the first night of his yelling, “Aidez-moi!” I had to find out what he was saying.) During one of these evenings, he even lifted me out of the bed and ran into the living room for protection.

  I was having a hard time staying awake at the office due to my nightly rousings. Louis never woke up so he didn’t suffer from fatigue during the day, but it was very difficult for me to go back to bed after all of the excitement. I had started drinking far more coffee than I could handle. Let us not forget I was also planning a wedding and dealing with an extremely pregnant sister. My fragile psyche was teetering on the edge of
destruction. Something had to be done!

  The next morning, I decided I had to bring the subject up with my husband soon or I was going to come apart at the seams. I had planned to discuss it with Louis at dinner, but he surprised me by getting up early. I had just finished drying my hair when Louis came into the bathroom to shower. I wondered if he had forgotten to tell me he had a job interview today. Some good news would be really welcome right about now.

  “You look beautiful, mon coeur. Do you have to go to work today? You could play hooky…” He began to kiss my neck.

  I smiled. “I would love to, Bluey, but I have a mountain of work waiting for me.” Simply the thought of it made me want to crawl back into bed.

  He wrapped his arms around my waist and chuckled. “I have not heard you call me Bluey in a long time. I missed it.”

  I thought about it. I guess I hadn’t used this endearment in quite a while. You may be wondering where on earth it came from. You will be astonished to hear it was the result of one of my legendary slips of the tongue. Early on in our relationship (a whole six months ago), I had tried to pull off calling him “Boo”, but chickened out and tacked his name onto the end. The end result was “Bluey” which stuck due to his incredibly beautiful blue eyes. I still found them to be completely mesmerizing.

  I turned to face him and put my arms around his neck. “I love you, Bluey.” I kissed him tenderly and attempted to finish getting ready for work. Louis, it would seem, had other plans for me.

  He began unbuttoning my blouse and whispering to me in French. For a couple of minutes I was completely distracted, but a sudden jolt of reality crept in as I thought of the stack of paper on my desk. I tried to pull back so I could tell him I really had to go, but he was persistent. Ultimately, I had to swat him forcefully on the behind to get his attention.

  “Mon coeur! I did not know you had such spunk in you!” He quickly returned to undressing me.

  “Bluey! I have to go to work!” I removed his hands and began to redress myself in a hurry.

  “You could stay home with me today, you don’t want to.” His eyes flashed angrily. Uh oh. Louis pretty much always maintains a calm demeanor. This job search must be hitting him a lot harder than I thought.

  I sighed. “I’d much rather be here with you.” I walked over to him and held his face in my hands. “I’m really sorry, but I have to go. Someone has to pay our bills.” Oh shit!

  He removed my hands from his face and stormed out of the room. Crap. I had insulted his masculinity to the umpteenth degree. I would have to take the time to fix this and be late to work. Otherwise, I may not have a husband to come home to.

  I took a moment to collect myself before going after him. He must be absolutely seething after my thoughtless comment. I was incredibly lucky that Louis had been sensible enough to walk out instead of exploding at me. He had been bottling up his emotions for the past two months and he could no longer contain them. In my haste to make it to work on time, I had pushed him too far.

  After I had mentally prepared myself for facing Louis’ wrath, I walked out to the living room to find him. I frowned at the empty room. Where did he go? My eyes frantically darted around the apartment, looking for traces of an angry Frenchman. Then I noticed the door to the balcony was open. I ran over and found him leaning on the railing, looking extremely pissed off.

  I slowly walked onto the balcony and stood next to him. “Bluey….I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to say what I said. It just came out all wrong.” I had been so tired lately, it was a miracle I was forming coherent sentences.

  He glared at me. “It is exactly what you meant. I am not fulfilling my responsibility as your husband. I am supposed to support YOU. My unemployment is …shameful.”

  I closed my eyes. This is going to take longer than I thought. I realize the average American man feels such a responsibility towards his wife, but Louis was not only French, but also from an extremely traditional family. Many of his aunts were housewives and even those female relatives who worked made considerably less money than their husbands. Louis’ current difficulty in finding a job was challenging his French sense of self-worth. Being supported by his new American wife was nearly the most emasculating thing he could imagine.

  I tentatively put my hand on his back. “Louis, you have no reason to be ashamed.”

  He scoffed. “I decide to differ.” I tried not to smile. We still had some work to do on his American expressions.

  “Bluey, look at me.” He reluctantly turned my way. “This is just a rough patch for you. The economy has tanked and finding a job has gotten harder.”

  He frowned at me. “It shouldn’t be this hard for me.” I really had to stifle a laugh this time. While I was always reminding myself that I wasn’t perfect (and this was OK), Louis really believed he was perfect. In some ways we were a completely bizarre match.

  “You have to keep in mind, while you’re great at your job, there are very few opportunities out there right now. Many people get jobs because they know someone, not because they are necessarily the best for the job. You need to get out there and network.”

  He regarded me quizzically. “How will setting up a network help me find a job?” Ah, the miscommunication which occurs when you live with a computer programmer who speaks English as a second language.

  I grinned. “Not a computer network, a people network.” He appeared even more confused. “You join organizations for computer professionals, attend continuing education seminars relevant to your field and conduct information interviews with computer professionals in the area. The more people you meet, the larger your network becomes, opening you up to many more job opportunities.”

  Louis watched me for a moment. Then he broke out into a huge grin. “You Americans are crazy! You have a detailed plan for everything.”

  I laughed. “Don’t knock it until you try it, Frenchie!”

  He scooped me into his arms and laughed until tears came out of his eyes. Thank God! The tension had been broken and my Bluey was back.

  I stroked the back of his neck. “The combination of your amazing intellect and kick-ass charm will definitely land you a job. Networking is exactly what you need!” And it was exactly what I needed to get him out of the house and in a better mood. Being around the house all day had made Louis into a very cranky version of himself which I didn’t recognize.

  Louis sighed. “What would I do without you, mon coeur?”

  I gazed up at him and smiled. “You’ll never have to find out.”

  I kissed Louis good-bye and left for work in a much better mood than I had anticipated. I was still completely exhausted, but I felt like I had gotten through to Louis and he was on the upswing. I knew I had chickened out on broaching the subject of his unhappiness, but my pep talk had gotten him to where he needed to be, so I decided it was a win. With my brain functioning at such a low level, I had to keep everything as simple as possible.

  One thing which continued to be far from simple was handling my sister, Kate. She was now two weeks away from her due date and had reached her limit with bed rest. Since she was bored out of her mind, she put her speed dial to use and called every member of our family until one of us was brave enough to pick up the phone. She had no qualms whatsoever about calling repeatedly until she got an answer. In her mind, her needs were more important than the status of anyone’s employment.

  I had been successful in dodging her calls three times that day, but knew my luck was running out. I decided to call my mom to see if she had spoken to Kate yet, and more importantly to find out if I needed to be concerned. I was the only family member in the vicinity, while the rest of those ungrateful bastards were in the safe cocoon of New York.

  I rested my head on my hand as I dialed my mom’s store and hoped the news would be good. I hadn’t been to Kate and Nick’s house in two days and was afraid for my life at this point in time. Kate may have been too large to cause any real damage, but Nick was absolutely mobile and had tension he needed to
release. As I waited for my mom to answer I thought about the many ways in which he could try to come after me.

  “Paintables, may I help you?” How odd. My mom has caller ID, which means she usually greets me by name.

  “Hi, Mom!”

  Silence.

  “Mom, are you OK?” This was really, really strange. My mom ALWAYS gushed over me when I called.

  She breathed a sigh of relief. “Syd, it’s you. I thought it was Kate.”

  Crap. This can’t be good. “Did something happen? Is Kate alright?”

  My mom chuckled nervously. “She’s fine, honey. She was rather…animated…during our last conversation.”

  Interesting. “When did this happen?”

  “Oh…about ten minutes ago….” She trailed off quietly.

  Something was definitely wrong. “Mom, what’s going on? You sound weird.”

  “Weird? Why do you say that?” There was the freaky laugh again. My mom had a rich, guttural laugh which came out often. There was no hesitation to it whatsoever.

  I was too tired for this bullshit. “Enough, Mom. Out with it! What happened?”

  She exhaled loudly. “Your sister is simply tired, Syd. The hormones are taking over her body.”

  I enunciated my words very clearly. “What did she say, Mom?”

  “Well, she…she said…um…” My mom was clearly at a loss for words. What did my hormone-addled sister come up with this time?

  “Mom, I have aged about three years while I’ve been waiting for you to get this out. Please, for the love of God, just tell me.” When I’m tired, my manners have the tendency to take a back seat. I managed to say, “Please!”

  “She told me I was a ‘fucking lunatic’ because I wanted to be in the room with her when she gave birth.”

  I was momentarily stunned into silence, but my recovery was surprisingly quick for someone with my level of fatigue. “Well, being a ‘fucking lunatic’ runs in the family, Mom.” And then I burst out laughing. I took a page out of Louis’ book and laughed until tears were spilling down my face.