Page 16 - 3FrenchHens

16 three french hens, two macarons, and lovers in a bakery

Baking classes at the Bellouet Conseil in Paris were challenging for Tali not because
she didn’t understand the concepts, she knew the techniques forwards and backwards,
but because she couldn’t stop her mind from seeing the world like an artist, full of color,
intricate, and definitely not something that can be understood through stringent rules and
narrow thinking. The star of her class, everyone, including her instructor who was particular
interested in tasting the plump red lips she brought to class everyday, was shocked when
Tali stopped showing up to class. A baking school dropout, Tali lied to her aunt in Wales,
saying that she loved all that she was learning and how she would be eternally grateful for
the opportunity. Tali didn’t feel too bad because only half of that, she thought, was really a
lie. She was thrilled to be in Paris, to go to the places that her mom and dad haunt, and to
paint the sights of the city she grew up idolizing.
Tali painted all day and all night, selling her work for nothing so that she could afford the
tiny, barely existent studio she rented above the art gallery her work was displayed in.
One Friday night the gallery hosted a large party in which much of Paris’s young socialite
crowd was invited. The owner of the gallery, who knew all about Tali’s hidden baking talent
– her son was a student in the same class at the Bellouet Conseil - asked her if she could
make up a few trays of desserts to be served by waiters in black pants and ties for the night
of the party. Not being able to say no to the person who sold her art and gave her a place to
live, Tali graciously obliged, whipping up some of her simple classics, including one of her
personal favorites, a decadent chocolate tart.
That night, after Zenna and Margot tasted the chocolate tart in front of a nude painting
done by the mysterious Jacques, who Tali had yet to meet but had heard so much about
(he was a bit of an urban legend in Paris – everyone aware of who he was, no one sure
what he did except for the fact that he did everything), they hunted Tali down, confident
that she would join them in their endeavors at their bakery next door. Zenna and Margot
were shocked when they were introduced to Tali, who reluctantly answered the door of
her studio upstairs. Someone who made such a devilishly dark tart couldn’t be so fair and
angelic. But there she was, beautiful and talented – The Two Macarons had to have her.
And have her they did because there stood Tali in the back of the bakery, daydreaming away
while whipping up dozens upon dozens of the desserts that would, in a matter of hours, fly
off the shelves only to be replaced by more and those replaced by more and so on and so
forth forever until the day she met a man who could take her away to her flat on the Seine.
“You can leave,” Margot announced as she marched into the kitchen. In all of the time
Tali had worked at the bakery, never once was she asked, let alone told, to leave early. Tali
wanted to ask why, but the look on Margot’s face made Tali realize that it was best to say
nothing at all. Tali took off her apron, placed it on the counter, and quietly made her way
to the kitchen door. Zenna was nowhere to be found in the front so without any goodbyes
to be made, Tali walked out the front door into the glowing dusk of Paris. She paused
thinking that she heard several loud crashes coming from back in the kitchen. She briefly