“It wasn’t always like that. For a long time after you left, the boy wouldn’t show his face anywhere, but then he did some growing on his own. Now I can’t seem to get rid of him.”
His words make my heart feel as though it’s been ripped open. While I was out there trying to discover the real me, Nick was actually doing it. Now it’s too late for us. As much as I want Nick to belong to me, people aren’t items on a grocery shelf—they can’t be owned.
My father must be able to tell I don’t know how to respond because he says, “If my brain’s working right, I think you threw a terror of a tantrum after I snapped this picture.”
“That’s because you wouldn’t let me do the barrel ride when you gave Nick and Wes permission.”
“Baby girl, all the barrels were occupied at the time. I told you to wait in line for the next available one, but you weren’t hearing any of it.”
“I was seven. What did you expect?”
My father laughs, his eyes crinkling in the corners. “You’ve always been too stubborn for your own good.”
I nudge his side. “Who do you think I inherited that trait from?”
“Don’t be pointing fingers at me. I’m the very definition of open-minded.”
“Whatever you say, Dad.” I rest my head against his shoulder.
My father picks up the spiral notebook and flips through it, his fingers dancing over the pages. “I remember this. You carried it around everywhere, always scribbling little notes or some such in it. Do you ever plan on finishing some of these?” He’s paused on a French onion soup recipe that’s only half complete. I got frustrated figuring out the correct sherry-to-cognac ratio to balance out the broth and gave up on it.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
He smiles, wistful but also sad. “You’re so much like her—your mother. When inspiration struck, there was no standing in her way. She’d jot down recipes on napkins, cracker boxes, old egg cartons, anything she could get her hands on.”
I tense. “Dad, I don’t want to talk about her.”
“Even when you run your mouth off. She used to do that when she got flustered or annoyed at something. And the way you blush when you’re embarrassed . . .”
My stomach twists. “I think we should get you back in bed.” Straightening up, I reach for his arm, but he waves me off.
“Now, listen close, baby girl. You listening?” My father brushes the hair off my forehead. “You’ve got the best parts of your mother inside you, but you’ve also got some of me in there, too. It’s what separates you from her. Don’t ever forget that. Promise me you won’t forget.”
“I promise,” I say, automatic, as I’m reminded of the day I discovered my mother’s peach cobbler recipe, when I vowed something similar.
A vow I broke.
I wonder if I’ll break this one, too.
For several moments, we’re silent, lost in thought. I hear the rooster clock crowing downstairs, familiar, comforting. Until now I never realized how much I missed that annoying sound.
“I’m sorry I abandoned you,” I say after a while, my eyes welling with tears.
“Don’t go apologizing for that. You needed to get out there, do some searching on your own for a bit,” my father says, setting the notebook aside. “Besides, you dropped a trail of crumbs when you left. I always knew you’d follow them home someday, even if it did take a little prodding from me to get you moving.”
“I didn’t. Still, I wish you would’ve told me the truth when you suffered the first episode. You shouldn’t have kept something like that from me.”
“I thought I could handle it on my own, and I didn’t want to worry you.”
I shake my head. “And your scheduled bypass operation and cough? Why were you so evasive about all that?”
My father sighs and says, “Parents make mistakes, baby girl. I’ve been thinking about what you said the other morning in the hospital, and I promise I’m going to try harder, do better. That situation with the ice cream was a minor slipup.”
“Sure it was,” I say, concealing the break in my voice with an attempt at a laugh.
“Hey, now.” He cups my face, wiping away the wetness with his thumb. “Someone’s got to keep you on your toes. Otherwise, you’ll get rusty as an old tuna fish can.”
This time I do laugh, and it fills me with a weightless sensation.
My father chuckles softly to himself like he does when he’s musing. “It seems like yesterday you were no taller than the counter. I remember how you used to dress up as the Chef Boyardee man, but my old white coat was too big on you and the chef’s hat didn’t fit your head, so it was always dropping into your eyes.”
I smile, remembering how I would stand on a step stool gesturing with a wooden spoon as though I was the conductor of our kitchen, bossing my father around and dictating recipe instructions to him.
“Now look at you,” he says. “All grown up with a master’s degree and a career of your own. You’re strong and beautiful and independent. You don’t need me protecting you anymore, but sometimes it’s easy for me to forget that. You’ll have to forgive your old man for his stupidity.”
“I’ll always need you, Dad,” I say, squeezing his knee. “Always.”
He covers my hand. The calluses on his palm scratch against my knuckles. “I know that, but I also know you’ve got a life to return to. It was unfair of me to pull the rug out from under you like that. If Chicago is where you want to be, then I’ll get Ernie to run things until I arrange for something more permanent. Just promise to visit every now and again. But don’t even think about bailing on the Upper Crust. Sullivan Grace will have my hide if you do.”
“I’m not going anywhere, and I’m not bailing. The only place I want to be is right here with you.” Which is where I should have been all along.
My father frowns, the lines around his mouth and eyes deepening. “What about that boyfriend of yours and the big promotion?”
I bite my lip. “I sort of quit my job and broke up with Drew . . .” Now I don’t know what I’m going to do. All I know is the life I had planned in Chicago isn’t what I want.
My father is quiet a second. Then pats my leg and says, “You know sometimes you have to lose who you are before you can find who you are. Even if that means starting from scratch, making a whole new life for yourself here in Dallas—with or without the diner—I know you’ll figure out how to get yourself found again.”
I gulp in some air, fighting back a sob. Somehow my father always knows the exact words I need to hear. I don’t know what my future looks like, but that’s okay. I’m okay. “I love you, Dad. So much.”
“Love you, too, baby girl.” My father wraps an arm around me and kisses the top of my head. I hug him as if I’m five again, so tight he may burst. The soft fabric of his shirt smells like hash browns, even though it’s been washed since he wore it last.
“Easy there,” he says, loosening my hold. “I ain’t no Tonka truck anymore. Now get going. You need to practice for the Upper Crust. Second place isn’t in this family’s vocabulary.”
I smile as a tear slips down my cheek. Right then, I’ve never been more thankful for my father’s antics and stubborn ways, for bringing me back here. Despite how jumbled everything is in my mind, I’m also overcome with certainty that I’m finally on the right path.
WHEN ALL ELSE fails, cook. That’s the motto I followed anytime life turned upside down. None of this making lemonade outta lemons nonsense. The acid will rot your teeth, as my father likes to say.
Yet I turned my back on all that, fought against it, and I don’t even know why anymore. Right now there’s nowhere else I’d rather be than here in my father’s outdated kitchen with only my thoughts and the promise of fresh ravioli on the horizon. Maybe that’s what happens when you run so far from the place you belong you end up lost. Maybe that’s what happens when you lose everything, period. I thought I had it all decided—my relationship with Drew, my career, my life in Chicago—b
ut that’s all disappeared. My father’s right. Maybe I had to lose who I am before I can find who I am. Now it’s up to me to do that.
I measure a trio of paprikas—hot, smoked, and sweet—into my palm and dump it onto the ground pork and other spices. As I combine the ingredients, an image of Nick playing with the Randy Hollis Band, my father’s old acoustic guitar under his arm, crystallizes in my mind again. How when he sang, his voice sounded almost haunting, unguarded. The image fades, replaced with another, the day Nick received his acceptance letter to medical school. I remember how after he shared the news, he looked me in the eye and said that dreams died every day, especially silly, childish ones like writing songs for a living. That was part of growing up—accepting the future for what it was and not what you wanted it to be. Besides, becoming a surgeon was what he’d been working toward since he was a kid.
Except sometimes a dream rises like a phoenix from the ashes and rebirths itself as reality, changing course and altering a person’s history forever. A sense of pride rushes through me for all Nick has accomplished. I only wish he would have achieved those dreams with me, not because of me, because I was a coward.
I set aside the homemade chorizo to allow the flavors to meld. I wash the gunk from under my fingernails and watch as birds sweep between the trees in the front yard, their wings rustling the leaves. The sky is a vivid reddish pink. Across the street, a little girl in a baggy swimsuit plays in an inflatable pool, while an elderly couple supervises from Adirondack chairs.
There’s something special about seeing the world from inside this kitchen. How it seems to make things move slower, make worries lighter. Even when I tried to pretend otherwise, I still gravitated toward its familiarity. I think back to the morning with the cinnamon griddle cakes and the knowing look on Annabelle’s face. I wonder if she suspected it was only a matter of time before I was back here permanently.
The floorboards creak above my head. Who knows what kind of trouble my father is causing now. He refuses to stay in bed like Dr. Preston instructed. He claims remaining sedentary forces him to twitch. I think I should order that therapeutic massager chair as soon as possible. Maybe it’ll help him relax and adjust to his new normal.
I wipe down my work area and gather the ingredients for the pasta dough. After forming the flour into a mound, I create a large well in the center, then crack some eggs into the hole and add olive oil, salt, and water, beating it all together with a fork. It takes several minutes to incorporate the egg mixture into the flour, but the result is a tacky dough the color of clarified butter.
My shoulders throb as I knead. It’s a good ache, one I haven’t felt in years, but somehow it’s like my body remembers. I thought slipping into my old routine would feel strange, but the burning in my muscles and the delicious smells invading the kitchen fill me from my toes to the tips of my ears.
It’s more than that, too.
The raw physicality of rolling out paper-thin sheets of dough, the cadence of dropping small dollops of the chorizo filling along each, the precision of sealing and cutting out the ravioli, anchors me here.
I plate up a steaming portion and top it with a corn and basil sauce thickening on the stove. When I take a bite of ravioli, the sweet kernels burst on my tongue, melding with the spiciness of the meat and the rich egg pasta, cooked perfectly al dente. I take another bite and close my eyes because darn it’s delicious, sighing as my body collapses against the counter. It’s warm and creamy and tastes just like home. Like where I’m supposed to be.
It’s all so ridiculously obvious I laugh. I understand now what Nick meant about pretending and what my father said about finding myself. This is what I want. This is all I’ve ever wanted—to discover and create and experiment, with new recipes and new ingredients. How did I ever think I could fight against something that’s as unconscious to me as breathing?
A single, sharpening thought rises within me: I want to win.
I’m a bit rusty at the whole baking thing, but the process of crafting something from the palms of my own hands is second nature. The deconstructed strudel may have started out as a way to spite my father, but that doesn’t change that it’s a champion recipe. That it’s my recipe.
The thought flashes again: I want to win.
No, I will win the Upper Crust.
My way and on my own terms.
TWENTY-SIX
THE RITZ CARLTON ballroom is a circus.
I’ve participated in various amateur culinary competitions over the years, but none have compared to this. The Upper Crust committee has spared no expense for the event. Individual kitchens have been set up along the perimeter, each stocked with a freestanding gas range and convection oven, minirefrigerator, and ingredient storage bins. Wooden tables, configured in a U shape, act as prep and work areas for each kitchen. In the center of the room, the judges’ table is perched on a raised platform. Seven chairs line one side, a cast-bronze nameplate in front of each. Floral arrangements are scattered throughout the ballroom, and there’s even a news crew staked outside the entrance, interviewing people as they pass through the doors.
“How’s Old Man Jack handling being cooped up at home all day?” Annabelle asks me as she leans against one of the prep tables and pops a peach slice into her mouth. She’s eaten almost a whole peach already. If she keeps it up, there won’t be enough for the deconstructed strudel.
“He’s going stir-crazy. Laziness isn’t in his DNA, or so he likes to remind me every chance he gets. Dr. Preston has him on house arrest for another week,” I say, measuring the ingredients for the phyllo dough into a glass bowl. “Will you preheat the oven to three fifty for me?”
She nods, setting the temperature as instructed. “Think he’ll break out anyway to come to the awards ceremony?”
“That’s a given.”
Annabelle snickers.
“What are you laughing about?”
“Nothing,” she says. “I’m picturing Old Man Jack sneaking out of his bedroom window like we used to do.”
“Yeah, except with my luck, he’d take a tumble off the roof and shatter every bone in his body. Then I’d have to deal with that, too.”
“At least he’d be bedridden and wouldn’t be able to slip off somewhere,” she says, then switches gears with her usual abruptness. “When are you adopting a cat?”
“Excuse me?” I say as I incorporate the ingredients together until the dough is soft and sticky.
“You know. Because of ‘the unmentionable.’ ” Annabelle’s been referring to Nick dismissing me at the House of Blues as “the unmentionable.” “How long until you become one of those bitter old ladies with twenty cats instead of children?”
“Hey,” I say, flinging cider vinegar at her nose. “There’s still hope for me, and I like cats.”
“Not with the way you’ve been moping around.”
“I haven’t been moping.”
“Liar. Though you could have saved yourself the grief if you would’ve read the liner notes or listened to me all those times I tried to tell you.”
“I know, I know,” I say. “He really quit medicine? Just like that?”
Annabelle nods. “After the incident at the football tournament, Nick went to his parents’ house and told them he was done with all of it. That same day, Nick picked up his guitar and started writing songs again. I think he used it as a form of therapy, but mostly I think it made him feel closer to you.”
“I sincerely doubt that,” I say, remembering the way Nick referred to us, what we shared, as a mistake.
Annabelle shrugs. “Believe what you want.”
A Junior League volunteer races over and whispers something in her ear. Annabelle sighs and looks at me. “One of the other competitors told Paulette Bunny that whipped cream reduces wrinkles. Apparently she got some up her nose and is now experiencing shortness of breath.” She rolls her eyes. “I need to handle this. I’ll check in on you later.”
“Have fun—” She’s gone before I can f
inish. I dump the mixing bowl over on the floured prep table and form the phyllo dough into a mound.
There are forty of us participating in this year’s Upper Crust competition, each working furiously. Well, everyone except for the guy in the kitchen beside me. He’s wearing an actual chef’s jacket with his name embroidered above the breast pocket. Steve Ayers, it reads in blue thread. He’s garnered the attention of half of the Junior League volunteers, including Bernice Rimes, who is carrying on like a girl with a playground crush, batting her eyelashes and rambling on with those goldfish lips of hers. The guy, Steve, is offering the ladies bites of chocolate and regaling them with stories of his culinary successes. He’s acting as though he’s a celebrity chef rather than a competitor. Maybe he should be more concerned with baking his chocolate stout cake than with entertaining if he intends on finishing in the allotted time.
Bernice must catch me staring at her because she barrels over to me, a pinched expression on her face. Her overly processed yellow hair doesn’t budge with the movements. Even the curls, which should sway, stay put. It reminds me of the two-dollar cranberry sauce that plops out of the can still shaped like the can, with the ridges and everything.
“I heard Nick rejected you,” she says, her southern accent dragging out the words. “You know, everyone’s talking about it.”
“Is that so?” I say, kneading the dough.
“Sure is,” she says. Bernice is waiting to get a rise out of me. “Is it true you burst into tears?”
“That’s the rumor going around?” I say as I lift the dough and dust more flour underneath.
“Oh no. The rumor is much worse. I was being polite.”
Of course she was. “I’ve been too busy worrying about my sick father to cry over something like that.” Truth be told, I did cry to Wes and Annabelle about what happened with Nick, but I’m not about to admit that to Bernice or give her the satisfaction. “Now can you go back to your pathetic attempts at flirting with Steve over there so I can do something productive?”
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