Tea with a friend

I had the loveliest experience today. A friend of mine invited me for tea on the rooftop of her apartment building. She had just finished deep cleaning the suite where she and her boyfriend had been living. Their sublease was up; her suitcases -- one big and one small -- were packed and ready to go, and our tea was the last act before the curtain would fall and she would vanish into a taxi en route to a holiday in France.

So there were we at five in the afternoon, in a beautiful, old apartment, warm with the light of the late-afternoon sun. The walls were hung with canvases from artists new to me, and there was a bookcase devoted to music and another which was home to the kind of tomes that warm my heart: books about food by some of the most passionate and prolific writerly palates of today and yesteryear.

Mlle. Montmartre had scrubbed and tidied the place until it was as neat as it must ever have been, and she had only the fridge to empty and the bedclothes to bring up from the laundry before she could leave. Yet she was apologizing for being disorganized and inconveniencing me. I couldn't help but laugh and shake my head and assure her that she was doing no such thing.

Would I like the leftovers from the fridge, she wanted to know. Of course I would! There were blueberries and strawberries, olives and five different kinds of cheeses, an untouched pat of butter, garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, artichoke hearts, an enormous jar of Dijon mustard, nearly a full bar of the best dark chocolate, a few pieces of ginger root, and other goodies besides. Heaven!

We managed to fill four bags with leftovers. These delicious spoils were topped off with a small collection French and English paperback novels. Then Mlle. Montmartre and I headed upstairs to the rooftop to enjoy a mug of tea in the sun. We chattered away, happy as two birds, with the West End below us and boxes of lavender and summer flowers for company.

Some people are so full of life and joy that they can't help but transmit it to those around them. Mlle. Montmartre is like that. She's as bright and sparkling as champagne. She fizzes and pops and lends charm and excitement to her surroundings. She carries a little bit of her native France with her, and spending time with her makes you feel like you've wandered into a corner of Paris.

A scant hour later, Mlle. Montmartre ran downstairs to pick up the bedclothes, still nice and warm from the dryer, and we made up the bed in record time before locking up the apartment for good and delivering the keys to the next-door neighbour. A taxi was called, and we found ourselves outside, me with my four big bags of groceries, and Mlle. Montmartre with her luggage. She insisted that I hop into the taxi with her so that I wouldn't need to carry my spoils home, and dropped me off safely in front of my building, laden down with good food and buoyed by the fun we'd have together and the plans we'd come up with for the summer.

Good friends are delightful.