Lottie concentrated on Madame Dumas’s braided hair as she walked in front of them, afraid that if she looked at Justine, she might share with her exactly how she felt. She remembered what Laurent had said about Justine’s expectations. Another lesson learned. “Thank you for your advice,” she said.
Justine smiled. “I just want to help.”
Chapter Thirty-One
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“Rosette wants these awnings to come out from the building on three sides, but I think we’re going to have to remeasure that space next to the banquette. It doesn’t seem wide enough to accommodate what she wants. What do you think?” Joseph showed Gabriel the plans for the café addition and the drawing of the original footprint.
“I marked off the property lines yesterday, and I think I have an idea that might work,” said Gabriel. He and Joseph met to discuss a few changes his mother wanted to make, though Joseph warned him to expect changes to the changes. “It’s one part of this business that can keep a man awake at night. Just when you think you’ve nailed it down, up it comes again.” The more time Gabriel spent with Joseph, the more he admired and respected him. Since the day he accompanied Joseph to the LeClercs’ real-estate office, Gabriel had been impressed with his honesty.
Joseph seemed to value Gabriel’s opinion, telling him he had a good eye for detail and design. He began to include Gabriel in more of his work, but Gabriel’s first responsibility was to Rosette and he didn’t want to leave her, even when she assured him she’d be fine on her own. Recently, one of those “fine on her own” days proved to be busier than she had anticipated. But that day resulted in an outcome none of them anticipated.
Nathalie and Serafina were there for breakfast, and when Nathalie saw that Rosette could not handle her many customers, she put an apron over her new ecru velvet-and-silk gown, waited on customers, and worked in the kitchen frying or making coffee or warming milk or washing dishes. Her disarming personality compensated for what she didn’t know. When a table of six asked what they owed, Rosette said she cringed when she heard Nathalie say, “I have no idea. Why don’t you just pay what you think you should?” When she brought the money to Rosette, they had paid almost three times what Rosette would have charged. Nathalie said, “That means your prices are too low.”
By the end of the day, Nathalie’s feet throbbed and so did the three fingers she’d burned because, she explained, the only time she’d been around fire was to warm her hands. She joked that her dress was like giraffe skin because of the dark, scattered coffee splotches. And where there wasn’t coffee, there were patches and trails of powdered sugar. She refused to allow Rosette to pay her, but wanted to know when she could work again.
The evening Gabriel saw Lottie attempting to get into the cathedral, he and Rosette and Nathalie had met and set up a schedule that would free him to work more with Joseph. Nathalie still refused to be paid. “I don’t need the money, and if you pay me, then it’s”—she wrinkled her nose—“a job. I don’t want a job. Could you take the money you would pay me and give it away? I’d feel so much better if you did.”
The next day, Joseph joined the Girods for dinner. Gabriel told him and Rosette that Nathalie was the person he would have least expected to solve his problem.
“When God means for something to happen, He finds a way,” Rosette said…except that she was staring at Joseph and not Gabriel.
Gabriel wanted to ask if it meant that, if there was no way for something to happen, was that a sign God didn’t mean it to?
* * * * *
“Until I started working with you, a hardware store would never have been a place in which I would choose to spend time. But each shelf is one surprise after another,” remarked Gabriel as he picked through an assortment of latches, strap hinges, and pulls with handles at Armstrong’s Hardware.
“You might need to consider investing in a set of work clothes even for the days we aren’t at the job sites. Most of the stores do not cater to gentlemen dressed in their morning frock coats,” Joseph said, pointing to the accumulation of dust on the sleeves and vest of Gabriel’s coat.
“Old habits do not break easily. Your advice is well-taken, and I am certain Rosette will appreciate not having to beat my coats as if they are rugs.”
Joseph purchased five dozen hooks to secure batten doors and the same number of wrought-iron double ram’s horn hinges for French and paneled doors. He wrote down the address of the job site for the delivery and handed it to Armstrong. “Could you make sure these are delivered by tomorrow?”