Free Hungry Woman in Paris by Josefina López

Henry translated
     effortlessly while checking me out. I looked away, trying to take legible notes. You would think that since I was a journalist
     my handwriting and note-taking abilities would be developed, but I was having trouble keeping up and understanding my own
     writing.
    Chef Sauber toasted slices of baguette and put them on a small platter next to the soup in a large soup bowl.
    “Et voilà!”
the chef announced as he finished his demonstration. Everyone applauded. A few of the students got up and took pictures of
     the soup. The soup was then taken away by the assistant and distributed into tiny paper cups for everyone to have a
dégustation
—a taste. I drank from the cup and tasted the magnificent soup.
    It was now lunchtime, and we were allowed one hour to eat. I wandered around the neighborhood. I didn’t know the Fifteenth
     Arrondissement very well, so I walked for a while, until I came across a tiny boutique shop that looked like a café. I was
     about to go in but I saw no customers. I was also not confident that my signs and gestures would get me a nice lunch. There
     were shelves all along the walls, but instead of books there were wine bottles. On a few of the walls were paintings of green
     and red grapes and maps of all the wine regions in France. At the very far end sat a man reading
Le Monde
and drinking a glass of wine. Later I would come to know the owner as Jérôme, a former businessman who got burnt out and
     started this wine bar, called C’est Ma Vie, to bring knowledge of wine and joy to his customers. I decided that on another
     day, when I was brave or had a friend who could speak French, I would return.
    After lunch I went to my locker to put away my purse. I put on my little red cap, which had a tip higher on one side and made
     us look like roosters. Perhaps a bit more sophisticated than that, but you get the idea.
    I looked at my schedule and tried to make sense of where our practical class was supposed to take place. I went to the large
     practical room and recognized no one from my class. An American woman with auburn hair told me our class was across the hall.
     The big practical room was only for the fourteen pastry students in the Intensive course.
    “What group are you in?” she asked, being friendly. I looked at my schedule and I still could not figure it out. It was either
     Group A or B, so I lied and said, “A” until I could confirm which group I was really in.
    I walked across the hall and saw two students in what I believed was my group. I was the third student to arrive. Punctuality
     was so important that you had to arrive at least twenty minutes before the chef got there to look like you knew what the hell
     you were doing. The other two students had already settled themselves in, picking the ideal spaces of the tiny kitchen: next
     to the two tiny sinks at each end of the room. I settled myself next to the guy closest to the door. We opened our tool kits
     and took out our knives and stirring spoon. A Korean woman with a name too complicated for me to pronounce set up across from
     me. I could tell this wasn’t her first time cooking because she took out her knives and everything she needed quickly and
     without hesitation. I smiled at her and knew if I got lost she would be the woman to trail behind. Six more students arrived
     soon after, and Bassie stationed herself next to the Korean woman and looked at her tools as though she were about to have
     a philosophical discussion with Sartre.
    Sartre could have written
No Exit
about the tiny kitchen in Le Coq Rouge with fourteen students all about to make one another’s life hell for the next five
     weeks. But why jump ahead of the story?
    A Brazilian woman named Janeira with large Chanel eyeglasses set up camp next to me. She wasn’t late, but she complained about
     how the waiter at the restaurant had taken forever to bring her the bill and caused her to almost be late. We all pretended
     to listen, but no