“God, I love these old wood floors,” Margo commented. “I wonder if they were here or if she installed them. What a job!”
“You thinking about putting them in at your farm?”
Margo smiled and her face went a little pink. “I’m getting it done. Or my . . . my handyman is.” She made herself laugh, describing one of the world’s favorite celebrities as not only a handyman, but as hers.
“Handyman, huh?” Aja raised an eyebrow. “Is that as interesting as it sounds?”
Margo made a face. “Suffice it to say, it’s been a weird couple of months.”
“Agreed.” Aja was about to ask Margo to elaborate when Trista swooped up, followed by a tall guy with a bad haircut and a baby face. His bright blue eyes added to the childlike effect of his visage.
“Hey there.” Trista gave them each a hug. “Glad to see you both! Was this cookbook fattening or what? I couldn’t decide what to make, so I did almost everything. The fact that I landed on the arugula salad is a direct statement about my waistline.”
They laughed and agreed.
“Um.” The guy behind Margo gave a small wave of his hand. “I helped with the salad.”
Irritation flashed across Trista’s face and she said, “Right.”
“And I set up on the pool table.”
There it was again, that annoyed look. Trista gave a smile that looked forced. “Louis—Margo, Aja, this is Louis; he’s just started here, though we went to school together a long time ago. Anyway, Louis, the thing about a pool table is that you really can’t spill anything on it or it will be ruined because the felt will be off.”
“I’m not putting stuff on the table.”
Aja watched with interest to see how this would play out.
Trista looked confused. “But you just said you set up on the pool table.”
“When you told me you were doing this tonight, I used some old wood pallets I found out back to retrofit a table cover. I thought you could use the space. Don’t worry, it was after I cleaned the grill.”
“Let’s just set everything on the bar,” Trista said, but her expression softened at the disappointment on Louis’s face. “I really appreciate your doing that, Louis, but in this particular case I think the bar is a good way to set up. Your table topper sounds great for”—she frowned slightly—“trivia night? It will give them a place to set up the equipment.”
That did it. “Good point.” Louis nodded. “Ladies, would you like me to carry your dishes to the bar?”
“Sure, thanks.” Aja handed it over. The poor guy just wanted to be needed. He was an odd bird, for sure, but as birds went, that was her favorite kind. “I really appreciate it.”
He beamed and took Margo’s dish and took a few steps toward the pool room before stopping and turning back to the bar.
“Wow, that guy does everything,” Margo commented, apparently not noticing the undertone of aggravation coming from Trista. “Lucky find. I only got one response when I was looking for a caretaker for the farm and that included a place to live.”
“Ah, yes,” Aja said. “Good help is so hard to find. And I know it because I’m good help. The last guy”—she shook her head—“it would seem he stole a ring from the homeowner and buried it in the garden.”
Trista looked interested. “And you found it?”
Aja nodded. “Dug it up.”
“Whoa. And it was valuable?”
Aja had looked up the value of comparable diamonds as soon as she’d had the chance. “Very. And I was nearly fired and/or arrested for letting Lucinda, the owner, know. No good deed goes unpunished, huh?”
“That is outrageous,” Margo began. “You should tell that woman—”
“Oh my God, Margo Everson, I saw your video!” A woman with a pale blond pixie cut and the slight figure to match came running up. “Can you introduce me to Max Roginski?”
Max Roginski? Aja looked from the woman’s eager face to Margo’s, expecting her to look as puzzled as Aja felt. Instead Margo’s face was so red, it was visible even in this dim light.
“I— How did you see that, Tula?”
“Well, you posted it, didn’t you? Isn’t June’s Cleaver your channel? Everyone’s talking about it. There were a bunch of videos of you there.”
“Well, yes, but—”
“Doing what? What in the world is this about?” It had never even occurred to Aja to look Margo up online.
“They were cooking in her kitchen,” Tula said knowledgeably. “I’m completely serious. At least I think it was her kitchen.”
“And you think it was Max Roginski,” Aja added, hoping to be helpful but it fell on deaf ears.
“But how did you even find my channel?” Margo asked in a thin voice. She didn’t exactly look thrilled. “It’s not very popular.”
“It is now. Girl, you’ve gone viral.”
“What’s the channel called?” Aja asked Margo, taking her phone out of her pocket.
“June’s Cleaver,” Tula supplied. “But it’s all over Facebook too.”
“What?” Margo looked stunned.
Aja was lost. “You’re not saying there was anything . . . indecent or anything, right?”
“No, but it looked pretty hot to me.”
“How long has this been going on?” Aja asked, half fascinated and half pissed that she hadn’t already known about it.
Margo’s face was nothing short of scarlet. “He’s an old friend. We went to school together. Just like Trista and that guy. There’s no more to it than that.”
Aja waited for YouTube to load on her phone, then went to the search bar and typed in: June’s Cleaver.
There it was.
A little over twenty thousand subscribers and twenty-two videos. She scrolled down to “Latest from June’s Cleaver” and saw a still picture of Margo and, yup, Max Roginski. The title was simply Braised Garlic Pasta. It made no sense.
“Can you cast it to the TVs?” Aja asked Trista, absolutely awash with excitement.
Trista looked at Margo uncertainly. “Do you want me to?”
If possible, Margo began to look even more mortified. “Ugh, no! That was just a thing I did for my parents! I’ve been sending my mom videos on how to cook healthful stuff for my dad, and Max came in while I was filming one.” She looked lost and looked back at Tula. “And now it’s all over Facebook?”
Now another woman joined them. She wasn’t even remotely familiar, just a customer who knew Margo even though Margo didn’t know her. “The Roginski cooking video? Someone posted it on my page because it looked delicious and your tag was local.”
“Would your parents have shared the video?” Trista asked.
“They barely know how to click on it!” Margo shook her head. “But maybe one of their friends did. Or something. Obviously someone did. It’s not like the channel is set to private or anything, I just can’t sit here while everyone watches me bumble my way through something I thought no one else would ever see.”
Aja felt bad for how embarrassed Margo obviously was, but Trista patted her back and said, “You can’t really post something publicly with a huge star in it and expect it to stay private.”
“I could change the settings,” Margo said.
Though the sound was off, Aja could see the video was of Margo talking to the camera in her kitchen and then getting interrupted by Max Roginski.
What was it about star quality that made certain people’s light shine so differently, even in a candid context?
“Margo,” Aja said. “This looks really cute. And you’ve got tens of thousands of followers!”
“But that channel was just for my parents, really. I didn’t mean for it to become . . . something.”
Aja shrugged. “Well, it looks like it has and you can monetize that, so why not?”
“I don’t want to take advantage of a friend.”
“You could do a video right now and get this restaurant in front of all those viewers,” the second woman added, apparently ready
for her close-up.
Margo looked at Trista. “It is a lot of people,” she said. “Maybe some of them are local.”
Trista’s eyes lit. “I would love it.”
“I’ll film it,” Louis said, appearing out of the blue. “I majored in film.”
Aja was not surprised.
“You have your meeting and I’ll edit it into the best advertisement ever,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for just this kind of chance!”
* * *
Aja was exhausted when she went to Lucinda’s the next day. The night at Trista’s had turned out to be really fun but really taxing, with Louis catching spontaneous moments and then asking for repeat performances when he didn’t have the lighting quite right. It was annoying at times, but when she saw some of the clips he got, it appeared it might be worth it. They’d know soon enough, since he’d left happily talking about how he was going to be up all night, editing.
For her part, Aja was fine with being part of it, since she was well aware that soon she would look very different. Last night was kind of a time capsule, capturing the last period of her alone-ness and prebirth figure.
She picked up a trowel and started digging, ignoring her fatigue as best she could. It was an illusion, she reminded herself. She’d gotten enough sleep, her body was just doing a lot inside to create a self-sufficient home for the baby. As long as she took breaks and didn’t overdo it now, she could work through it.
She had to.
Then a sparkle in the dirt, very similar to what she’d seen a few weeks ago. She dug gently with her fingers and pulled out a thick gold rope necklace. It was heavy, and if it was real—there was little reason to doubt it was now—it was worth thousands. She knew that because not long ago she’d sold a gold bracelet she had, to help cover her bills after going to the emergency room with a sprained ankle. The bracelet had gotten her over a thousand dollars from one of those emergency stores that took a huge commission. This easily weighed four times what that had.
Was this a joke? A test? Did Lucinda come out and put it here to see if she was honest, or brave, enough to return it again?
She set the piece aside and dug around some more, working gently so as not to damage anything that might be there.
Twenty minutes later, she had the hole she’d needed to dig anyway, as well as three more rings, a tennis bracelet, an elaborate diamond (or stone anyway) earring, and what appeared to be an emerald choker.
The earring threw her, and she dug for another ten minutes, certain a second one must be there, but the search produced nothing. She sat back on her heels and wiped her brow with her forearm. It was hellishly hot in the sun, today was the first day of a heat wave that promised to get worse throughout the week. She’d thought 10:00 A.M. would still be early enough to avoid the worst of it, and maybe it was, but tomorrow she was going to aim for seven. Either A.M. or P.M., just anything but midday.
She took a swig of ice water from one of the double-insulated steel bottles she’d brought and felt it snake down the center of her body, cooling her from the inside.
When she saw movement out of the corner of her eye, at first she thought it might be a mirage, but a moment later she realized it was the child again, watching her from that same place behind the wide oak tree. Today she was dressed in black pants with a neon pink top. She stood out against the bleak landscape like a flower in the sand.
“You!” she called. “Little girl!” It was classic grown-up speak, awkward and bossy, but she didn’t know what else to call her. She softened her voice so as not to spook her. “Hello? Come on out!”
It worked. The girl peeked at her.
“Yes, you,” Aja said. “Please come over here. Just for a moment or two?”
The girl obediently started toward her, and Aja put a towel over the pile of jewelry so it wouldn’t catch the light. “That’s my stuff,” the girl said defiantly, as soon as she got close enough. “I saw you pull it up.” She frowned, and her small nose crinkled in a way that looked more angry than charming. “It’s mine. You can’t have it.”
Ah, this added a new twist. “What is?” she asked, almost sure she already knew the answer. “I can’t have what?”
“You know what.” The girl shifted her weight and stamped her foot in the process. There was a reason these clichés existed.
“Your . . .” She picked up the trowel. “Garden tool?”
The girl glared at her.
“Your rock?” She held up a gray pebble.
“No! My gems!”
“Ohhhh. I see.” Aja sighed. “I think you know that’s a problem then, because Mrs. Carter said they’re hers.”
The girl paled.
“I’m Miss Carter.”
“You’re . . .”
“Michelle. Michelle Carter. You’re Aja. A-J-A. So not like the country.”
How was she a Carter? Michael had no siblings. He definitely—had said—he didn’t have any children. Perhaps she was a tertiary relative?
Although, this was Michael in question. Anything was possible.
“Where do you live, Michelle?”
“Nowhere. My parents live in different places, so I come here after school. It’s my grandmother’s house.”
Aja nodded and asked the million-dollar question. “Is your dad Michael?”
The girl looked amazed. “Do you know him?”
“Not very well.” She said it more to herself than to the girl, her gut plunging. “Okay, listen, we need to find all the jewelry you took and give it back to your grandmother.”
“I can’t do that!” She looked stricken, and Aja could understand why. “She’ll be so mad.”
“I know it’s hard to admit when you’ve done something you know is wrong.” Aja looked at her with compassion. This was her child’s half sibling. “But it’s a lot harder when you get caught and confronted and you have to tell the truth. I’m sure she’ll be glad you did the right thing.”
The girl shook her head rapidly. “I can’t! I’ll tell her you did it.”
Aja’s first reaction was to laugh, but this was no joke. “I don’t think you want to add lying to stealing, do you?”
Michelle’s brown eyes brimmed with tears and her lower lip started to tremble. “They’ll all be mad.”
Aja patted the ground next to her. “Have a seat, let’s talk this through.” When she sat, Aja handed her the water bottle. “Cold water. It will make you feel better.”
The child drank, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “You can’t make me tell them anything.”
“I don’t intend to. I can just take the jewelry inside and tell her I found it in the garden where I found the ring before, but how long do you think it will take her to figure out who did it?”
“She doesn’t know.”
“She’ll know.” Aja had some water. “Why did you do it? What did you want to bury her jewelry for?”
The girl shrugged her narrow shoulders and looked down, pulling up grass blade by blade.
“You know it’s very expensive, right?”
Another shrug. “She hasn’t even noticed. Besides, maybe if she didn’t have so many fancy things she’d have a smaller house.”
“Oh. You don’t like this big house?”
“It’s always empty.”
Aja recalled the coldness of the house, even in summer, and how cavernous the place had seemed. A child could feel frightfully alone there. As a matter of fact, without supervision, she could even get hurt and no one would know it.
There was no combatting the logic, so Aja just said, “Maybe it’s so big that when things go missing, no one notices at first, but that won’t make her move to another place. This is her home. She loves it, and you will too someday.”
“I hate it. And I hate all the stuff in it.”
“Michelle, at least one of the rings belonged to her mother. Maybe all of it did. Think about it, that’s your great-grandmother. You don’t want all her pretty things ruined, do you?”
“She’s dead.”
“Well, yes, but that makes things like this even more special. Because she was your great-grandmother and someday you might want to, I don’t know, wear her earrings when you graduate or wear her necklace when you get married or . . . there could be all kinds of reasons you’ll want them safe and sound and not buried in the mud for years.”
Michelle appeared to consider that.
“Trust me on this. I just have one question—I found this earring and not the other one.” She showed her. “Do you know where it is?”
Michelle pressed her lips together, hesitated, then reached into her front pocket and pulled it out. “It was my good luck charm.”
“See, they do mean something to you.” She looked at this child, the vulnerability in her eyes. This was going to be her child’s sister.
This was real.
And it was bigger than her, more important than her own insecurities, or fears, or selfishness. This girl was going to have a sibling. Her child was going to have a sister. Lucinda was going to have another grandchild.
And, okay, yes, Michael was going to have another child.
Of course she was going to tell him. It had always been the case. She’d known it all along. She just wanted to stretch out her solitude in this a little more.
Keep it her own just a little bit longer.
“We’ll look for a four-leaf clover instead. That’s luckier anyway. Come on,” Aja said gently, picking up the priceless pieces. “Let’s take them inside and explain to Mrs. Carter what’s going on. I’m sure she’ll be understanding.” She wasn’t sure of that at all, but she was sure that someday the kid would be glad she’d learned this lesson.
And, although the thought was almost beyond comprehension, she would likely remember it was Aja who had helped her with it.
* * *
In fact, Lucinda was understanding. Shockingly so. When Michelle had dredged up the nerve to speak, standing before her like a little whippet who might be blown over by one angry word, she told her everything she’d said to Aja, and even added that she was scared of the house and didn’t like to be inside it.
The Cookbook Club Page 19