Celeste and Maria met a small trendy cafe in Williamsburg that supposedly served excellent vegan brownies. They'd exchanged a few pleasantries as they met, ordered from the counter and found a table overlooking the slow street. The weather was still freezing, Celeste pulling her hands into her sweater sleeves to get comfortable.

"I suppose you're wondering why I wanted to see you," Maria said, brushing her curly hair behind her ears, exposing the pair of climber earrings, after she'd sallowed a sip of her cappuccino.

"To be honest, yes," Celeste replied, adding, "not that I have anything against it," not wanting to seem impolite either. She added an hesitant smile.

"Two reasons - I honestly thought you were interesting, nice to me, easy to to talk to - it's not like a I have a ton of friends, but as were have a little bit of a business relationship, I wasn't really sure if it would be appropriate to just want to befriend you," she added with a chuckle. "Yeah, this is a forty-two-year-old single mom with no social life to speak of talking here," she added, raising her hands up apologetically. She blabbered a little, seeming a little nervous.

Celeste smiled softly, quite liking the idea that she was not the only person who perhaps lacked some social contacts, sensing the awkwardness of finding new friends at her age. And with somewhat of a similar taste in books or in Maria's case, writing, and the older-mom (or mom-to-be) similarity, she could theoretically see herself actually enjoy spending time with her.

"And for the second thing," she began, causing Celeste to concentrate intensely, curious to hear what more she had to say. "My daughter's dad is French, we're not together anymore and he doesn't want any contact, but his mother does. And while I won't plan on shipping her back and forth, I do think it's up to me to try to find opportunities to immerse her in the culture as much as possible, outside the visits we might be able to make," she began, almost causing Celeste to want to interrupt her with a row of questions - to begin with - how did she know she was French? She took a deep breath, letting her finish, wanting to hear her point.

"I was just wondering whether you plan on teaching your child French, and if you are, I was hoping that maybe in the future they could playdate or something. I know two years is quite an age difference, but I just thought I'd ask. I've been thinking of taking classes myself, but I doubt that without sufficient practice, I'd be ever fluent enough for her to pick up anything from me," Maira explained.

"How did you...?" Celeste asked with some hesitation. As far as she knew she didn't have much of an accent, but sure, on occasion she might slip, or pronounce some French word more like a French-speaker than an American, or maybe there was something about her mannerism that stood out. But that too she had been trying to hold back recently.

"Oh!?" Maria reacted, not having anticipated that question, "I just thought I recognized some pronunciation peculiarities like some of your vowels or the soft "h"," she began, realizing she needed to explain herself even more. "I used to work with phonetic algorithms, so I'm quite used to spotting things like that," she explained. "But I'm sorry, maybe it was wrong of me to assume?" she added, apologetically.

"Oh," Celeste sighed, unsure what to make of it. It seemed plausible, but her past made her a little hesitant. She wasn't sure what to say. She gathered her thoughts, while taking a sip of tea, recalling that she had a cover story after all, which didn't jeopardize anything even if she admitted to being French. "Well I am French, but I'm not really sure I'm the best person to be a cultural compass to somebody," she said. She hadn't even fully decided how she was going to introduce Evie to her history let alone someone else's kid. There were these little things, the nursery rhymes that she liked and had sung to Finny even, and mostly likely would do the same for Evie. There were some aspects of cooking and the hope to teach Evie appreciate unprocessed foods and good wine, the latter when she was old enough of course, which was still probably a lot younger than legal in the States. But was she going to speak French to her? How would she tell her about her grandparents if she asked? If she lied, would she hate her if she ever found out the truth?

"I'm sorry, as I said I shouldn't have assumed," Maria apologized, seeing her go thoughtful. The topic subsided, Maira switching it to semi-work-related things. Celeste could see Maria was a little embarrassed, and in a way she felt bad for not being able to respond in a way Maria had perhaps expected - she seemed genuinely nice, a person who she could see herself being friends with, but she herself was new to the situation, unsure where her own convictions lied in this matter. And until she figured that out, it felt wrong to give promises she wasn't sure she was going to be able to keep.


"Do I sound French to you?" Celeste asked across the first floor, hearing Jess cooking in the kitchen, as she struggled to unzip her riding boots in the foyer, feeling like she was beginning to need hand extensions. She'd gone to a parenting class on breastfeeding that afternoon and stayed on for a discussion group, actually getting home later than Jess for once.

Celeste could see Jess had made a little bit of an effort that day, actually using the nicer plates they had, having lit a few candles in small glass candle holders on the dinner table. It was not the first time he'd done that, and she didn't find it that peculiar, but she appreciated the gesture nevertheless. She slid her hand around his back, checking over his shoulder what he was making. It was skillet cod with lemon and capers along with some salad, the lemon smelling divine.

"Well, do I?" she repeated her question.

"Just a bit, why?" Jess replied, giving her a kiss. It wasn't obvious to just anyone, but he could tell, having spent enough time with her.

"I do? I honestly thought I didn't have an accent," Celeste added thoughtfully. All those years of classes, living abroad and still - an accent?

"Why do you ask?" he inquired. It wasn't like she spoke some comedical French character in a bad movie, it was more like that she spoke authentically - if there was a word that could sound wrong or right, mostly of the French origin or the name of some products - those would lean towards the correct (French) version or when she was a little tired, she might mix up the order of the sentences, or when she cursed, which happened rarely, sometimes some French profanities might slip in.

"I told you that Maria asked me to lunch, right?" she began. "Well I met with her today and she said something that got me thinking about that - apparent she'd guessed it by my pronunciation and I never quite thought it was that obvious," she explained.

"What did she want?" Jess asked, plating their food, while he poured himself a glass of white wine, he'd used for cooking before.

"I guess in a way she was just being friendly, but well her kid, her dad is apparently French. But he's out of the picture, and I guess she wanted our kids to maybe do playdates together in the future or something, thinking that I might carry out this cultural immersion somehow," she described, pouring herself a glass of milk.

"Huh," he reacted, not really sure what to say.

"I mean I get her point, she didn't sound like a complete whack-job as she said it but I'm still searching for my bearings myself, so I really didn't promise her anything," she added.

"I should start putting it in our contracts - 'do not harass the event coordinator outside work hours'," Jess joked, emphasizing the quote with his hand word by word.

"It's fine, it was just not what I expected," she replied. Maybe she was desperate enough for friends that she could even ignore the oddness of this whole thing?

They ate their meals, making occasional comments about this and that, Jess mind pondering immensely whether this night might be the right time. She definitely looked gorgeous as ever, he'd himself cleaned up a bit and the room was set creating at least a little bit of a romantic mood. Jess had the ring in his pocket, its thin form burning a hole on his thigh, aching to be pulled out.

He'd just cleared the table, getting the chocolate-chia pudding out of the fridge, as he took the ring out of his pocket and slipped it into his palm, but before he had a chance to turn and return to the table with the dessert glasses and spoons, her tone changed the mood.

"Hearing Maria bring all these things up really got me thinking today - like how are we going to raise Evie? Are we telling her that she's part French? Should I speak French to her? Wouldn't it be weird if I just sang the Clair de lune but never spoke it? What if she's just going to hate me for not keeping contact with my mom when she finds out she's still alive?" she blurted, clearly the talk with Maria having opened a can of worms.

He slipped the ring back in his pocket, realizing that her head just wasn't in that place right now. Besides there was another thing that caught his attention.

"You called her Evie," he noted, jolting her out of her rant momentarily. While she often referred to Evie by name with Rory, she hadn't really admitted how much she'd begun liking it to Jess, as if not wanting to get his hopes up and still saying to herself that she would need to look at her first before she would decide. But who was she kidding - the name had stuck like glue.

"Yeah," she replied. "It seems to have stuck. When I think of her, I think of Evie," she added smilingly.

The corner of Jess' mouth curved upwards, his hand finding hers. "And the rest of those questions - we take them one by one, okay? She's not going to be asking questions for a while, you know," he added rationally, his touch calming her notably.