girls bought matching Minnie Mouse ears with their pocket
money and would not take them off. At one particularly
inviting boulangerie, their mum let Emma and Meg choose
two pastries each. Emma’s favourites were pains au
chocolat, so she ordered two. Meg did the same and they
both devoured them. Emma remembers their mother
laughing and pointing at their ref lection in the shop
window. Two girls in Minnie Mouse ears grinned back,
chocolate smeared across their faces.
“Deux pains au chocolat,” Emma says to the server. A few
moments later she is outside, clutching the paper bag and
hurrying back down the street to her apartment. She
glances up at the shuttered windows and the pale silver
rooves that still delight her, even though she has lived in
Paris for two years now. Her f lat is at the top of an old
building and consists of one small room, a kitchenette in the
corner and a cupboard-sized bathroom. But it’s home. The
walls are decorated with framed prints and photos. Her
eyes are drawn to one of her and Meg at Meg’s graduation.
Emma’s arm is draped proudly around her younger sister’s
shoulder. Checking the clock, Emma quickly prepares the
table. She places the pastries on her nicest plate and
arranges a vase of f lowers beside them. She makes a mug
of peppermint tea and sits down, positioning her laptop in
front of her. 9:00am. Right on time, the Skype ringtone
chimes, just like it does every Sunday.
“Hi Meg,” Emma says as her sister appears on her laptop
screen. Meg is sat at her kitchen table, a glass of wine to her
right and a glowing candle on her left. In front of her is a
steaming plate of pasta. It is 7pm in Sydney.
“Hi sis,” Meg replies. Seeing her sister’s face, Emma feels
a tightness in her chest. It has been over a year since they
last saw each other in person, at Meg’s wedding. Sometimes
the distance feels unbearable. She feels the connection to
her sister like a string holding them together, stretched taut
by their distance but never broken. Because every Sunday
they have this: breakfast in Paris and dinner in Sydney.
“Are those pains au chocolat?” Meg asks. And thousands
of miles apart the two sisters laugh, remembering two
young girls in Minnie Mouse ears, their faces full of
chocolate and smiles.T
he choice is overwhelming. Emma stands at the
boulangerie counter, eyeing up the neat rows of
perfectly formed pastries. Next to her, a small
boy presses his face against the glass, eyes
wide, the tip of his tongue poking out from the
corner of his mouth. His mother pulls him
away sharply by the hand. Emma catches his eye and smiles.
She knows how he feels. She comes here every Sunday and
yet every week it proves nearly impossible to decide.
Golden croissants lie curled against one another like
spooning lovers. There are plump, round brioches dusted
in sugar crystals and huge pains aux raisins studded with
sticky black currants. Beside them begin the daintier treats.
Éclairs lined up like toy boats, each iced in a different shade
from pistachio to raspberry. Chocolate tarts topped in
ganache so shiny Emma can see her own ref lection and
mille-feuille towers of fragile pastry and piped cream.
Emma has loved pastries since she first visited Paris as a
child. Her mum took Emma and her younger sister Meg to
Disneyland, with a trip into central Paris afterwards. BothILLUSTRATION: HANNAH WARRENLibby Page has a degree in fashion journalism, and counts
writing as her first passion, with outdoor swimming a very close
second. Her debut novel The Lido (Orion), which is being made
into a film, is out in paperback this month. Her simple pleasure is
“a freshly baked croissant from my favourite local café.”BREAKFAST IN PARIS
AshortstorybyLIBBY PAGE130
BEDTIME STORY