The Ingredients of You and Me

by Nina Bocci

  I shrugged. “I’ll have to figure it out, I guess. I have no idea how to make my creativity return. I’ve tried making my classics, but that’s the problem. They’re not mine anymore.”

  The one and perhaps biggest thing I regretted about the sale was this fact. “When I said they bought everything, I meant they bought everything, my recipes included. The things I’ve worked on and perfected for years don’t belong to me anymore. And I’m not allowed to use them. At least not commercially.”

  Emma’s hand was at her mouth, covering her shock. “I get wanting a change, but that’s so much to give up.”

  “I’ve always been a ‘close one door, open another’ kind of person. I figured if I was going to sell, I should sell it all. Start fresh. But somewhere along the way, I got stuck.” The nail, as it were, in my buttercream coffin. “If I have no recipes, what can I bake?”

  “I, uh, have a Betty Crocker book if you want it?” Nick offered kindly, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Is it still in the plastic?” I asked, laughing when his face fell. He’d tried making us breakfast one morning on one of the few occasions he ventured into the city to visit me. Needless to say, he wasn’t much better of a cook than Charlotte.

  “It is. We know I’m not a great chef. My mom bought it for me when I moved into the house. I’m more of a throw-shit-together cook. Forget baking. It’s all measuring and precision, and that’s out of my wheelhouse. You’re more than welcome to the book if you want it.”

  “Thanks, but I’m not sure even Betty, Martha, or Ina can kick my butt into gear.”

  “Is there anything we can do to help?” Cooper offered, placing his hand on top of Emma’s. He toyed absently with her engagement ring and she smiled up at him.

  “Nope. I’m just hoping Hope Lake has a plan in store for me.”

  During dinner, Nick’s phone buzzed incessantly. Each time it started up, his fork would hover midair, his eyes would close, his chest would rise with a deep breath, and he would exhale when it finally stopped. The calls had to be from Jillian.

  “Dude, just answer,” Henry snapped, his fork clattering to his plate in frustration when the phone rang for a fourth or fifth time.

  “Fine, fine,” Nick groaned, pushing away from the table. Snatching the phone up, he walked off toward the bathrooms.

  “Everything okay?” I whispered to Charlotte, but my whisper wasn’t exactly quiet, and the rest of the table shook their heads. I immediately wanted to pull the words back. Did I even want to know?

  “No,” the table mumbled in unison.

  I waited patiently for someone to explain what was going on. After a few moments of awkward silence, I blurted, “Is someone going to fill me in, or is this a secret? It’s totally cool if it is,” I said, holding up my hands.

  Cooper shook his head. “No, it’s not a secret.”

  I shoved a piece of cold chicken into my mouth. Of course there was someone else. Someone in town. Someone who wasn’t me, because I clearly wasn’t what he wanted. Why was I so shocked?

  “So what, no one likes her?” I asked, chewing aggressively.

  Charlotte bit her lip, shaking her head vigorously. “No, that’s not it at all. She’s nice and friendly, but she’s also a lot.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’s sort of clingy, but I guess that’s just her personality. It’s not like he’s complaining.”

  Clingy?

  Here I was expecting to hear some juicy dirt. But she’s nice? How could anyone be too nice?

  “And being nice is bad, why?” I asked, with genuine confusion.

  Henry scooted his chair closer to the table, leaning in. “She’s very… invested.”

  “ ‘Invested’?” I clarified.

  The group nodded. “She was all in with Nick on day one,” Charlotte said.

  “Like all in,” Emma contributed, earning a snort from Cooper. “Everything is about them. Him. She rearranges her schedule for him. She sends him little notes. No one is that nice. But she is. Ugh, she’s the worst. No, worse than the worst. Is that even a thing? The worstest?” she asked, looking to Henry.

  He shook his head. “Someone being the worst is pretty self-explanatory, Ems.”

  Cooper added, “And she’s not the worst. He needed someone that put him first.”

  Ouch. I knew he didn’t know my and Nick’s history, but man, did that sting.

  Henry jumped in. “Jillian doesn’t drive, so he always has to pick her up. Before I left the house, I heard Nick arguing with her on the phone. He was busy with Mancini this afternoon and couldn’t get to Barreton—that’s the next town over—to pick her up and still get back here in time because of the weather. So, she was hurt she couldn’t come, which I get, but the guilt trip she lays on is frustrating. Then of course he feels badly and tries to find a way to do everything. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened.”

  “That sucks,” I said, wondering if the clingy and needy type was really what Nick wanted, and if not, why was he putting up with it.

  “It’s just a lot of me, me, me from her and he isn’t saying no.”

  “Nick obviously likes her, or he wouldn’t be with her.”

  “Maybe. I think he’s lonely. Nick has never dated someone like her. He’s completely changed. He cancels our standing dinners. Forget man dates with the guys. It’s like the invasion of the body snatchers,” Emma said. “She calls him Nicky.”

  “Or Schmoopy,” Charlotte added.

  “It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen. They’re a bit sickening together,” Cooper said.

  I looked around at everyone’s faces. They were serious.

  “So, let me get this straight. You’re hating on her because she’s… nice and is super into Nick?”

  Emma’s lips flattened. “We know we sound petty. We don’t actually hate her. She’s just a lot to take in…”

  “They haven’t even been together that long,” Charlotte said. “But I guess when you know, you know.”

  “A couple months, right? Has it been that long already?” Henry added.

  “I guess the clinginess makes sense. New love and all that,” Cooper said sourly, waving the waitress over for the check.

  “You’re such a romantic, darling,” Emma quipped, kissing Cooper soundly. “To be fair, it’s probably the mushy-gushy honeymoon stage, blah blah.”

  “When did they get together?” I asked, my masochistic side winning out over self-preservation. My stomach flipped over. I turned to see Nick striding determinedly toward us.

  Hearing Nick getting closer, Emma leaned in. “Right after Thanksgiving. He showed up with her one night after dinner at my folks’ house.”

  The pieces started falling into place as I began to put two and two together. He must’ve met her and then immediately stopped calling me. Meaning, he ditched me for her. Glad I didn’t rearrange my Thanksgiving plans when he asked me to come the last time we spoke.

  When there was the possibility that the girlfriend was a nightmare, I thought it would make things with Nick easier to choke down, but if she was sweet? Nice? Overly affectionate and a lover of PDA? No, thanks. Actively avoiding the two of them would be paramount on this trip. I didn’t need the headache or the heartache, knowing that all the lines he fed me over the few months we were together were basically bullshit. I wouldn’t be rude, but I wasn’t interested in the sideshow with the sidepiece.

  Tonight, I resolved, would be the start of the avoidance. Even though she wasn’t here, Nick and I were still walking on thin ice, and his friends, and my bestie, didn’t need to witness the animosity.

  I faked a yawn just as he wove his way to the table and sat back down.

  “Listen, this has been fun, but I’ve got to bail,” I said. “I have a bit of a mess to clean up in the house. Especially if I plan on trying to be productive tomorrow during all this snow that’s supposedly coming.”

  “Oh, you’re leaving?” Nick asked. “For good or j
ust tonight?”

  I laughed. “Just tonight, Romeo. Can’t get rid of me that easy. Charlotte, walk me out?”

  I said a quick goodbye to everyone, with a halfhearted one to Nick, as I readied to leave.

  We made our way to the door, but Charlotte pulled me off to the side before I could break for it. “What’s really going on?” she asked as I put on my coat. “Is it Nick? You seem odd around each other. I know you didn’t exactly get along the last time you were here, but—”

  “It’s not him,” I interrupted, not wanting to continue bringing up when I was here last. Guilt surged. I’d hated lying to Charlotte, but if I’d told her what was going on between me and Nick she would have had her hopes up that we would end up together. After everything that had happened since, I was glad, in a way, that I kept it from her. Still, keeping a secret that huge from my best friend left me feeling sour.

  “Are you sure? There seems to be tension.”

  Damn observant woman.

  “No, why would there be tension?” I said a little too loudly.

  “Just wondering. You seemed funny when he went off to answer Jillian’s call.”

  “Nah, just tired and trying to get my head on straight. I’ve got a long couple of days ahead, so I need to get some stuff done. Oh, and I promised the senior ladies I’d get to their next meeting. They said they had a couple things they wanted to discuss with me. Not sure what about.”

  “Wow, you don’t let moss grow, do you?”

  I winked. “Not if I can help it. Besides, the Golden Girls seem to think they have a way to kick the baker’s block out of me. I’m going to take them up on it.”

  Charlotte laughed. “Well, if anyone can do it, it’s them. You okay to walk home? It’s a bit far to your rental. It’s supposed to start snowing again soon.”

  “Yeah, it won’t be that bad. I need to start walking again. Besides, I’m trying out my new boots,” I assured her, glancing down at the new bright red winter boots I wore. “Mancini hooked me up with the 411 on the shops in town.”

  “You’ve got a friend in that one. Okay, you head out and text me when you get home!”

  “Okay, Mom!” I laughed as I opened the front door. It had started flurrying as expected. This would make the stroll back to the lake house a bit longer.

  As I walked, my irritation from dinner began to die down.

  There was something calming about walking in the blissful silence, with snow blowing off of the bare trees and swirling around me.

  I felt the tired ache in my bones just as I reached my circular gravel drive. Maybe if I stayed outside a bit longer, I’d sleep better, I rationalized. Perhaps I would shake off the discomfort.

  The edge of the property had a stretch of wooden planks that led to the water. It wasn’t a boat dock, but perhaps it was something to jump off of into the lake in the summer. There was a glider on it, but no cushions since it was the dead of winter. I stood at the edge, watching the water. It was eerily still, a perfect reflection of the night sky, including the crescent moon that lit up one small patch of the lake.

  All this time, I was trying to figure out what went wrong with Nick and me. Why he stopped calling out of nowhere. It wasn’t just that I wasn’t able to spend Thanksgiving here.

  He had met someone else.

  About a week after Henry’s birthday party I was on what had become my daily excursion with Mancini as we futzed about town. She called me out of the blue the morning after the party and asked if I wanted to join her for errands and Mancini’ing. It’d been our thing ever since.

  No one, and I mean no one, could kill a day like Mancini. She would pick me up for breakfast, and then we’d play bingo or a couple games of cards with the girls at the senior center. Then we’d watch a little of The Price Is Right with Gigi before the three of us took a nap in the obnoxiously comfortable recliners Gigi had in the living room of her sprawling house.

  So, when she called me again to hang out, I jumped at the chance. I had nothing else to do since Charlotte worked all day, so why not hang out with amazing people?

  “Come now, we’re going to my house for some cookies and a proposition. If we’re lucky, we’ll get there in time to see Nick shoveling the snow,” Mancini insisted, pulling me toward the register to check out. We’d stopped at the grocery store for “the essentials,” as she liked to call them. None of it healthy, but if I made it to eightysomething, I would eat like she did too. Little Debbie cupcakes, pretzels of every variety, and don’t forget the homemade Hope Lake fudge that came in every imaginable flavor.

  “Mancini, hearing you say cookies, Nick, and a proposition in the same sentence makes me want to walk the few miles back to the lake house,” I said, laughing when she looked offended.

  “Nick has nothing to do with the proposition, unless you want him to, of course,” she said with a wink.

  “Mancini,” I warned playfully.

  While Nick and I had yet to have a conversation about what had happened back in November, I also needed to have a discussion with Mancini about what exactly she suspected.

  “Pity that he’s not single anymore,” Mancini said simply, as I handed over my credit card to the woman at the counter.

  “Oh my God,” I whispered, biting the inside of my cheek as I thanked the woman at the counter and grabbed the bagged groceries. “You’re relentless.”

  “Are you seeing anyone, dear?”

  When I turned, I prayed that my cool and collected face masked any emotion that I might have felt. “Mancini, you’re about as subtle as a heart attack, anyone ever tell you that?”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing, dear.” She preened and headed for the door with an extra pep in her step all the way to her Hummer.

  By the time we got to the house, Nick was loading Mancini’s snowblower back into her garage, which held a few other cars besides his massive truck.

  “Oh, damn. I suppose I can invite him in for cookies to get him to stay longer,” she suggested, tapping the steering wheel.

  “He’s probably busy. There are a lot of needy ladies in town who rely on him to shovel their pathways.”

  “I feel like that should be a euphemism, but it’s not, and you’re right.”

  “You take the most innocent statements and drag them right through the gutter, Mancini.”

  Her hand flew to her chest. At first, I thought I had offended her. “That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. Besides, all the needy ladies are here, waiting for you.”

  I just shook my head, and slid out of the SUV.

  As Mancini opened her door, Nick rushed over to help her slide down off of the raised running boards. “You were quick today,” she said sourly. “I’ll fix you up some cocoa. I made your favorite chocolate cookies fresh this morning. Come in for a nosh.”

  He leaned down to kiss her cheek. When he pulled away, he frowned. “No can do, my favorite lady. I’ve got some things to do.”

  Things equal girlfriend, I thought.

  “Now, now, you never say no to an old lady, Nicholas.”

  “Oh, she full-named you, Nick. You’re toast.” I laughed when his cheeks pinked up.

  “You know I hate saying no to you, but I have to pick someone up,” he explained, turning away from me and lowering his voice.

  “Nick, you don’t have to say someone,” I blurted, annoyed that he was being juvenile and awkward about this. I was a grown-up. He was mostly a grown-up. We could have a conversation without all the secrets.

  Nick looked momentarily uncomfortable. “Jillian,” he said quietly. “I have to pick up Jillian.”

  I thought back to how his friends said he dropped everything at her beck and call. “Message received. I’ll see you around, Nick. Mancini, I’ll wait for you inside.”

  I didn’t wait for a response from him, choosing to bolt up the slick stairs instead, but just as I hit the first step, I slid backward.

  Nick, much like he had the other evening, reached me just in time. Grabbi
ng me by my waist, he steadied me on the icy step.

  “I got you.” He was close, and I was momentarily taken aback by the feeling of his hands, strong and firm, on my hips.

  “Thanks,” I choked out, refusing to turn around and look him in the eye. I wasn’t afraid of what I would see in his but what he would see in mine. The longing that I still felt needed to be smothered, locked in a box and buried. My emotions were driving me nuts. Like him or hate him, I needed to pick one and stick with it. But when was anything crystal clear or black and white? I was allowed to be wishy-washy while I worked through what I was still feeling about him. Things would have been so much simpler if he was just a clear-cut asshead.

  But he didn’t make it easy, and I oh-so-wished he did.

  I straightened, brushing his hands away casually. I didn’t miss the look Mancini gave us. One of curiosity mixed with hope. I would need to nip that in the bud. She might have been the only other person in town who knew about the short-lived dalliance—not like we intentionally told her—but it seemed that she would need a reminder that, yes, Nick had a girlfriend and no, I wasn’t looking for round two.

  Nick eyed me warily. “Are you sure you’re good?”

  “I think we both know the answer to that.” The words were out before I thought about them.

  Mancini’s eyes were wide as saucers.

  What was I just saying about being a grown-up?

  * * *

  “Well, I can’t say I expected this,” I said, walking into Mancini’s living room, where I was greeted by many familiar faces from the other night. Clara, Viola, and Pauline were sitting and chatting. When they saw me walk in, they turned and smiled.

  “What’s going on? An ambush? An intervention? Is this where you all tell me about your eligible grandsons and hope that we get hitched?”

  There were snickers.

  “My son and his husband are happily married,” Viola said, taking a photo of two wildly handsome men in tuxes out of her wallet. Seriously, old people were adorable. They still had printed photos!

  “So, no setup.” I laughed. “What’s up? This can’t be another meeting of the Golden Girls Society of Hope Lake, right?”