“Oh.” I wrinkled my nose. “Work. I forgot about that.”
Lucas laughed. “We can visit though. Any time you want, once school is out in May. Actually I have a week off in March too, which I was planning to use to come see you in Detroit, but Paris is nice in March, too. We can go then.”
Clapping my hands like an excited toddler, I squealed. “Can we really?”
“Sure. But that’s not helping us decide where to live.”
“Right.” I leaned back as the waitress served our plates full of eggs, toast, potatoes, and bacon. “Should we flip a coin?”
Lucas choked on his coffee and set it down so abruptly it sloshed over the side. “Flip a coin! To decide where to live? Who are you and what have you done with my Mia?” I laughed as he went on. “Don’t you want to make a list or something? Pros and cons of each city? Compare and contrast the cost of living? Check some kind of Happiness Index?”
I wadded up my napkin and threw it at him. “Ha, ha. No. Actually,” I continued, picking up a forkful of my Greek Omelette, “I’m being honest when I say I could be happy anywhere with you. I do have a business in Detroit, so I have to think about that. Coco and I started it together, and while I think she could run it on her own, maybe with help, it would be hard for me to up and leave.”
“Hmm.” Lucas used my napkin to mop up the coffee he’d spilled. “And I have a teaching position here, but my graduate work is done. I could look for another position somewhere else. Or…” Taking a bite of toast, he chewed for a moment before going on. “Or I could do something completely different.”
“Like what?”
“I’ve been thinking a lot lately about opening up my own place.”
“What kind of place?”
“A bar, but not the usual corner hangout or even the average cocktail or wine bar. Something a little different.”
I bit into a strip of bacon. “Talk to me.”
“Well, the Count recently invested in an old distillery not far from the villa, and they’re producing absinthe, which is now legal to import to the US again.”
“I’m liking this story already.” The Count was an actual French aristocrat who owned a beautiful villa and vineyard in Provence, which I’d visited with Lucas last year. He was formerly married to Lucas’s ex-movie star French mother, and he was father to both Lucas’s half-brothers, although it turned out he preferred men. His longtime partner Henry ran the vineyard, and in a strange circle of friendship that made my head spin, all parties got along fairly well. Lucas’s mother Mireille and her current husband (also not Lucas’s father) often vacationed at the villa, and I’d met them all when I was there. “Go on.”
“The product they’re making is the real deal. Authentic nineteenth century recipe, high-quality botanicals grown in the Loire Valley, and it’s entirely hand-crafted at their distillery using historically accurate methods. Nothing industrial or synthetic added.”
“Wow. But can they do that? I mean wasn’t the original absinthe the stuff that made you see green fairies or pink elephants or whatever?”
“That’s actually a myth. Absinthe will make you drunk if you over serve yourself, but it won’t make you crazy. And you’re not really supposed to get drunk on it—it’s not like beer or wine or even vodka, where you sit around drowning in it all night.” He grimaced. “This is why I don’t know that my idea will fly with Americans.”
I made a face too. “Give some of us a little credit. What’s your idea—import it?”
“It’s already being imported, but the audience for it is still growing. It’s expensive, because of the ingredients and methods used to make it, but it appeals to the upscale market, people with discriminating taste who don’t mind paying more to have the real thing.”
“So what would you do with it?”
“I was thinking of opening an absinthe bar in the French style, but it would also serve other craft cocktails. Something totally different than The Beaver,” he said, naming his brother’s sports bar in Paris where we’d met.
“Hey.” I held up a warning finger. “Don’t beat on The Beaver.”
Lucas’s mouth hooked up on one side, but I could tell he wanted me to take this seriously. Last summer in Paris he’d mentioned that one thing he thought he might do in the future was open a bar, maybe in Paris, maybe in New York, but he wasn’t anywhere near as committed to the plan as he sounded now. “Nothing wrong with The Beaver. I love that place. But this would be something else—smaller, more intimate, more expensive, but more exacting in terms of what I’d serve.”
“I like it. Actually it sounds kind of like The Sugar House in Detroit—remember we went there for a drink one night? They do craft cocktails too.”
“I do remember. And that place has been in the back of my mind ever since. My place would be sort of like that, but with more emphasis on absinthe. I’d serve it the traditional French way and use it in other cocktails too.”
“Are there absinthe bars in Manhattan already?”
He nodded. “A couple. We could check them out.”
“So would you open it here? Seems like it might not be the best place, I mean, how many absinthe bars can one city support?”
“New York’s a big city, and my place would be small. But I’m not convinced it has to be here.” He took a bite of his eggs. “What about Detroit? Could a place like I’m talking about work there?”