Empty Plates, Empty Days

The champagne flutes were the first to vanish. They disappeared from the pale blue glass shrine of the bar one Thursday afternoon, boxes loaded in silence by an apologetic supplier’s boy. Soon followed the butcher, then the fishmonger—no daily visits, less chatter, invoice reminders replacing blessed conversation. Even the prying critic from Le Monde grew tired and melted away, satisfied with the slow rot in the air.

Word moved through the city as swiftly as the Seine. Rumors trailed from market stalls to dining rooms: The chef who can’t taste... the great Moreau, undone. Reservations—once booked three months ahead—dwindled to desperate, discounted prix fixes for indifferent tourists. Each cancellation landed in Luc’s inbox like a cold hand on his neck.

He stopped checking messages. He stopped going to the restaurant. Luc spent afternoons tracing the cracks in his kitchen tiles, drinking stale coffee that never grew cold enough or hot enough for comfort. Occasionally—only when compelled by some faint fear of starvation—he would shuffle into the dining room during lull hours, look upon the staff like an anxious ghost, and vanish again before anyone could speak his name.

By the end of September, Luc confronted the numbers: profit margins as thin as a knife’s edge, creditors circling, whispers about a possible fire sale. The place felt spectral—no energy in the espresso machine’s hiss, no laughter or love in the freshly laundered napkins. Only the metallic scent of anxiety, and Luc watched helplessly as his own name—once currency—became a cautionary tale.

—

Elise arrived on a gust of October wind one afternoon, her sharp knock blooming through the flat with the force of inevitability.

Luc’s first instinct was to ignore her.

He held his breath, hoping she’d surrender, but she knocked again—louder, more certain. Low, measured: the sound of a younger sister who spent her entire life knowing she’d eventually be let inside.

He opened the door without a word.

Elise stood there, a tote bag digging into her shoulder, dark hair windblown. She wasn’t dressed in chef whites, but an old cable-knit sweater he vaguely remembered from childhood—a remnant of the life neither of them had time for. For a moment, Luc was annoyed by how at home she made herself in his doorway.

“Tu me laisses entrer, ou tu comptes t’effondrer tout seul?” she asked. Are you going to let me in, or do you mean to collapse alone?

He stepped aside, mumbling assent.

She looked around the living room: the heap of unread mail, empty coffee cups taking root on the end table. She wrinkled her nose. “Lovely. Is this what genius looks like now?”

Luc bristled. “You didn’t come here to insult me, Elise.”

She dropped her bag and settled on the edge of his battered couch, surveying him. “No. I came because you can’t do this, Luc. Hiding here. Ignoring your life.”

He turned away, staring at the kitchen knife rack—every blade so familiar, so useless.

“You don’t understand—”

“I understand more than you think,” Elise interrupted gently. “You think you’re the only one who’s ever lost something?”

Luc felt a hot prickle of shame; he’d never bothered to ask about her job, her apartment, her own ambitions. She was always just—his sister.

Elise sighed, softer now. “Do you even know what’s happening at the restaurant?”

He didn’t answer. No answer was needed.

“They need you—at least to be honest with them. And if you can’t—if you’re going to keep shutting yourself away—then you need something else. Someone else.” She dug into her bag and produced a folded leaflet, pushing it across the sticky glass table toward him. “I signed you up for this. Starts tomorrow night.”

Luc squinted at it. The flyer was printed on cheap colored paper, the words ‘Cuisine et Communauté – Les Jeudis avec Madame Blanche’ underlined three times in marker. A handful of cartoonish onions smiled up at him from the corner. He nearly laughed. “A cooking class, Elise? For amateurs?”

Her jaw set. “For people. For you. You need something to do besides mourn yourself.”

He bristled. “You think I need occupational therapy?”

She stared him down. “I think you need to remember who you are when you’re not ‘Chef Moreau.’ That man isn’t gone. He just… doesn’t know how to be here right now.”

Luc wanted to argue, but his chest ached with the effort. Instead, he nodded, tracing the onion sketches with his thumb. “If I go, will you leave me alone?”

She leaned over, hands suddenly gentle on his. “No, Luc. But I’ll be proud of you for trying.”

—

The following evening, Luc arrived at the Centre Communautaire, a squat stone building a few blocks from the bustling, indifferent city. The sky was blue steel, already dissolving into twilight.

Inside, a chorus of scents greeted him—garlic, roasted tomatoes, something floral and sweet. The space was an old parish hall remade with long wooden tables, bowls of mismatched vegetables, and an unruly flock of utensils. Fluorescent lights buzzed in harmony with a single battered radio tuned to chanson classics.

A woman in a riot of turquoise—dress, glasses, headscarf—was arranging potted herbs along the window ledge. Her age could have been anything from sixty to seventy; her eyes sparkled with energetic mischief. “Bonsoir! You must be Luc,” she called, as if she had anticipated his presence for years.

He nodded stiffly. "Madame Blanche, I presume?"

"In the flesh!" she declared, sweeping into a theatrical bow. "Our newest recruit—Elise told me you might come skulking, but I assured her I'd recognize you anyway." She leaned in, examining him over peacock-blue glasses. "You look famished, mon cher. Perhaps not for food—something else?"

Luc bristled but said nothing. People around the room—students of various ages and persuasions—glanced over. Someone was peeling carrots inexpertly; another poked a bulb of fennel as if it might explode.

Madame Blanche clapped her hands, and the room snapped to attention. “Tonight, we make soupe au pistou! Everyone, this is Luc. He will work with—hmm—let’s see..." She scanned the crowd like a casting director. "With Pierre and young Hugo."

Luc followed her gaze: an elderly man with a patchy beard (Pierre) and a boy of perhaps ten, who stood apart, rolling a wooden spoon along the table rhythmically (Hugo). The others murmured hellos. Luc nodded, feeling freshly unmoored.

Madame Blanche sailed off to help some teens manage a misbehaving blender. Pierre shuffled up, holding out a clean apron. "First time?" Pierre asked, voice warm with the burr of Normandy.

Luc tried a smile he didn't feel. "Something like that."

Pierre grinned. "She’s a whirlwind, you’ll see. Nothing like the kitchens I knew."

Hugo didn’t speak but tapped the spoon twice, then set to ripping basil with careful, ordered concentration. Luc reached for a knife—clumsy, unfamiliar—and began to chop tomatoes. Around him, laughter cracked like kindling. He caught, just for a moment, the memory of kitchens filled with life, not loneliness; music in the clangor, purpose in the small, shared tasks.

Madame Blanche’s voice soared over the radio, corralling chaos with affectionate authority. "Remember! Flavor is not only what you taste, but what you notice—all around you..."

Luc, elbow to elbow with strangers, felt the ache of loss for what had vanished. Yet as Pierre offered him a scrap of torn bread, and Hugo pushed a bowl closer to his side, he found himself—against all intention—wanting to stay, if only for one more Thursday.