By the end of the week, the addition of desserts had almost doubled their earnings. When Sunday arrived, they'd almost saved up enough to buy a dining table so they wouldn't have to hunch over the countertops at Wang's when they had meals. Yao sent Vicente and Leon off to the city center again to get more puff pastry with orders to thank the bakers for putting up with them.
Leon seemed to disappear the moment he got off the bus, so Vicente went off to Boulangerie Bonnefoy alone. Like last week, there was nobody at the counter. The clear plastic cases were stocked with the same baked goods — pristine, perfect croissants, airy millefeuilles and fluffy brioche buns topped with pearl sugar were on the middle row. The shelf next to it held dainty boxes of macarons, palmiers, calissons and other treats he couldn't name. He resisted the urge to pick up one of the boxes and went to stand at the counter.
The kitchen door was slightly ajar, and out wafted the smell of raspberries and caramel, as well as a pair of voices. Francis and Madeline were talking inside in French, and for the first time Vicente thanked his French lessons from school as he understood Francis saying, "I don't get why you want to stay in here. You mess up nine out of every ten pastries you make because you're up on another planet while the food gets destroyed."
Slightly muffled by the sound of what sounded like an electric mixer, Madeline retorted back, "would you rather have me at the counter? Then your customers will complain that I talk too much or too little or too strangely, or that I say the wrong things. Tell Matthieu to do it, everybody loves him."
Feeling bad about eavesdropping on a private conversation, Vicente began inching back to the shelves of pastries, but not before he heard Francis say, "Matthieu pays attention to what he's making, unlike you. Come on, grow a spine and man the counter. Out!"
Vicente gasped as he heard the sound of something slamming — it sounded painfully similar to the sound of his parents slamming doors or placing things down none too gently after a fight. He tried to calm his racing heart and turned towards the counter, hiding his shaking hands behind his back.
Madeline stormed out, face contorted in anger so intense that Vicente instinctively backed away. Then she looked up, all while tearing off her hair net and tossing it onto the floor, and her expression softened a little. "Oh, it's you. Hello, er..." she looked down. "Oh, dear... is it Victor?"
"My name's Vicente," he corrected. "Hi again. Are - Are you all right?"
She fiddled absently with the ribbons sewn to her apron, eyes still glued to the counter. "I'm fine. I apologise if you heard the yelling just now. I was having a disagreement with Francis. Don't worry about it, it's nothing serious or anything." Madeline paused. "It doesn't really involve you, actually."
"Ah." Vicente desperately tried to change the subject, standing in front of the counter like an idiot for at least thirty seconds before saying, "what were you making? I smelled raspberries." His voice cracked.
Madeline raised her head, eyes a little brighter with excitement. "I was making a pavlova," she said. "One of Francis' customers had ordered one for her birthday, and he let me make it. It's a really nice tart made out of egg whites that's soft on the inside, unlike other meringues. We top it with whipped cream and some raspberries. It's named after the ballerina Anna Pavlova, who created the 'Dying Swan' role. She graduated from the Imperial Ballet School, see, and even trained under Erico Cecchetti. And she was the first ballerina to travel the world, too. It's rumoured that this dessert was created in honour of her visits to Australia and New Zealand."
Vicente didn't really know what half the words Madeline said meant, but she looked so excited, sounded so passionate that he felt engaged anyways. He noticed that she twisted the pink velvet ribbons hemming her apron as she spoke, almost stumbling over her words as she told him more about Pavlova and her performances, then elaborated about the dessert named after her.
"The pavlova has to cool down fully in the oven because it's so delicate," Madeline continued. "If it's even exposed to the smallest amount of humidity, it'll collapse. Recipes with meringues in it are always so finicky." She tugged at the ribbons on her apron again. "Anyway, are you here to buy puff pastry again?"
He nodded. "The same amount as last week."
She disappeared into the kitchen, and thankfully this time Vicente didn't hear another explosive exchange. "What are you making with these, by the way?" She asked when she returned.
"Portuguese-styled egg tarts. My brother's customers really liked them when I started making them last week."
"Do you mean pastéis de nata? Francis tried making them once, but he just couldn't get the custard right. They sound lovely, though."
Why someone skilled enough to make macarons and pavlovas would find something as simple as egg tarts impressive, Vicente had no idea. He picked up the packets of puff pastry and threw them into his bag, then checked his watch. Yao wanted him and Leon back at the restaurant in five minutes. "I have to go now."
"Oh." Madeline slid his change back to him. "Good luck with making your tarts."
"I'll bring some over next week," he promised.
...
Leon wasn't at the bus stop. Vicente checked inside the city hall, but he wasn't there, either. After fifteen minutes of peering inside stores all the way down the street, he finally found his little brother at the very back of a bookstore, nose-deep in a thick book.
"We have to go," he said after another minute of just watching Leon read.
He snapped the book shut loudly, earning a dirty look from some other shoppers. "Oh, okay. Just let me pay for this." Leon handed the book to Vicente, who nearly dropped it, and stuck a hand in his pocket to look for his purse.
Turning the book around, Vicente noticed the label at the corner that displayed its price. "Ka Long, this book costs more than what we make in a day."
"Oh." Leon bent down and picked up a tall stack of books, which he looked through until he pulled one out. "This one's the cheapest. I'm getting it, then we can go." He scurried around the store, placing the other books he took back in their places, then to the counter to pay.
The two of them then left the bookstore, Leon already reading his new book. It hadn't been cheap, either, but at least they could afford it. Vicente tapped it. "I'm guessing you don't want Yao to know about this."
He shrugged. "He's been telling me since I was in grade school to read fewer comics and more novels, so whatever." Then he went back to reading.
The bus rolled up a few minutes afterwards, and they returned to Wang's almost an hour after Yao told them to. This time, Ling gave them her own lecture, while Yao sat down at the countertop where he normally worked and laid his head down.
"A few people were asking why we couldn't serve our tarts, and I wasn't about to reply, 'well, sorry, my half-braincelled brothers are busy goofing off who-knows-where and hopefully they'll be back soon!'."
"Is 'half-braincelled' even a word?" Yao mumbled.
Ling swatted him with a stack of napkins. "Who cares! We let down so many customers this morning."
"But, like, nobody comes here during the morning." Leon was still reading, somehow already a quarter of the way through the book. "Not on a Sunday, at least."
She didn't have a rebuttal to that. Ling placed down dishes of leftovers for lunch, sitting down huffily before passing out chopsticks. "Well, we have fifteen minutes left to eat, so finish quickly. Hopefully we don't disappoint other people this afternoon."
The afternoon passed quickly. Vicente had already gotten used to the burns that came with being in the kitchen, so he barely felt anything when picking up the burning-hot tray to free the tarts. Yao worked across him, sometimes humming as he fried vegetables, heated up soup and steamed rice. Orders for desserts were still uncommon enough that he could help his brother with making drinks and arranging a few dishes; they made a pretty good team. Vicente wondered if his younger self, who kept bumping into Yao and had to reach over him for utensils while cooking as a child, would say if he saw him now.
Feedback for the things he made always came back positive. Tips were generous, and, according to Ling, compliments were paid on receipts. Once, at around five o'clock, Leon showed up to tell him that one customer had loved the custard buns he made.
Wang's doors finally closed at half-past nine in the evening. Vicente carried a tray of leftover egg tarts up to the apartment, looking proudly at his creations. Next Sunday, he'd wake up early to make a batch to take to Boulangerie Bonnefoy. They couldn't possibly be on par with the fancy desserts at the Boulangerie, but maybe one day, if he tried hard enough, they might be good enough to compete with those pastries that were fit for kings.