Letters to Audrine

8- We Never Got The Chance

She pauses what she's doing to take a moment to think about it. "I suppose so," she finally answers me. "But it's hard to say. I look back at that summer as one of the best times of my life. But we never had the chance to become anything more. Maybe we were soulmates, or maybe we both built it up into more than it was, because we never got the chance to fight, or to learn about each other's flaws."

"Yeah, I guess you're right."

"When you lose something too soon, you never really can know what it might have turned into," Audrine says as I'm folding the dough for the second time.

"I think you two would have lasted forever," I admit to her. "Maybe that's just me being a romantic, but I think he would have been so happy here, just painting his days away with you. Not just because of the connection you had back then, but even now, you two are so similar."

"It's a shame we never got the chance," she sighs.

As I'm rolling out the dough for the third time, I hear somebody walking through the kitchen door from the front of the restaurant. "Mamé," Silas joins us. Suddenly feeling very aware of the flour on my face from earlier mixing of the dough, I quickly start to wipe off my face in an attempt to not look like a total mess. "There's somebody out here asking for you."

The restaurant is closed today, so we both look confused as to why somebody is even here today.

"Okay, I'll be out in a second," Audrine tells him as she wipes her hands off on her apron and then unties it from her waist.

"Are you expecting somebody today?" he asks her.

"No, but I think I know who it is," she says, and she doesn't sound very excited about it. Quickly, she heads toward the front of the restaurant.

When it's just Silas and I in the back, he looks at me and says, "I didn't know that you were here today."

"I'm helping make croissants," I inform him, motioning toward the unfinished dough on the counter beside me.

"Your tattoo looks like it's healing well," he observes. "I'm going to go see what those guys want, I'm curious."

I follow him out of the kitchen to where Audrine is talking to two tall men in business suits. Of course, I don't understand a word they're saying because they're speaking so quickly in French. Nobody looks happy though, so I wonder if maybe I shouldn't be here at all.

One of the men is talking to Audrine, and then she says something, he says something back, and then Silas steps in to respond as well.

Once the second strange man says something to Silas with an irritated frown on his face, Audrine snaps at the two men, pointing to her left and sounding very irritated. I can only go off of facial expressions and tone, so all I can gather from the conversation is that these two men are irritated, but Silas and Audrine seem offended and upset.

The conversation doesn't last long, and the two men are gone rather quickly.

Before I can ask what was going on, Silas starts to fill me in. "They want to buy the building that's for sale next door and turn it into a restaurant, so they offered to buy this one so that they can basically demolish it."

"And it's never going to happen," Audrine insists. "I'd never sell to them. Especially not so they can just destroy everything that I've built."

"Do you think it would hurt business if they opened a competing restaurant next door?" I ask her.

"We'll be alright," she says, trying her best not to sound worried, but the waver in her voice tells a different story. "Let's get back to the croissants, we don't want the butter to melt."