The Ingredients of You and Me

by Nina Bocci

  The biggest question that was pressing on me for an answer lately was whether or not I was going to stay here or eventually head back to Brooklyn. I wasn’t as attached to New York as Charlotte once was. Maybe because I had spent my entire life there and could afford to travel back and forth whenever I wanted.

  And if I stayed, was Hope Lake big enough for me and Nick (and Jillian)? I didn’t want to make it more awkward for everyone. It was clear that Jillian wasn’t going anywhere, but between them, Henry and Charlotte, and Cooper and Emma, they were a group of three couples. I was a single. I didn’t want me being here to add to the awkwardness. It wasn’t fair to Nick or Jillian. Or me, for that matter.

  A clatter in the back broke me out of my thoughts. Walking over, I found Viola and Clara hiding something behind one of the shelves.

  “Ladies, what’s up?” I asked, startling them. It was funny to watch them scurry about trying to hide whatever they were working on.

  “Parker, nice to see you,” Clara blurted.

  “How’s it going up front?” Viola said, looking anywhere but at me.

  “What’s on the shelf, ladies?” I asked, cutting right to the chase.

  They looked defeated, but also excited to show me what it was. “Nick’s not the only one who’s quick with a camera,” Viola explained, reaching behind a speaker to pull out a wrapped present.

  “What’s this?” I asked, taking it from her.

  “Open it.” She smiled. “We could wait for Gigi and Mancini if you want. They know we were going to give this to you.”

  “As long as they’re not going to be upset that I’m looking at it now,” I said, and then I immediately started tearing into it.

  I let the paper fall to the floor at my feet. “Well,” I breathed. It wasn’t what I expected. “This is nice.”

  It was a framed photo of Nick and me to match the one Nick had done of the ladies. Looking at it, I knew the moment it captured. My head was tipped toward his, almost leaning on his shoulder. If I didn’t know better, you’d have thought we were a couple, because we looked serene, happy, and dare I say a little bit in love.

  “It’s from the same day he took our photo,” Viola exclaimed. “We thought it was a nice moment between you both.”

  The ladies seemed so happy with themselves that I didn’t have the heart to tell them that while lovely, this gift would cause a ton of problems for both me and Nick.

  “We thought we could hang it by our photo,” Clara said, pointing to a spot in the hall where it would fit perfectly among the other photos that we had hung up.

  I smiled. “I think it’s lovely. But maybe we should ask Nick first,” I said, placing it on one of the tables.

  If they realized that it bothered me, they didn’t let on.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I just want to check out a couple things back here to make sure we’re all ready to go.”

  The ladies left me in the back of the shop, the photo on the table mocking me.

  I ignored it and toured the space.

  The studio was ready to go with a large television and a pretty sweet audio/visual setup that was a not-so-anonymous donation from Mayor Endicott, with the understanding that if anyone asked where it came from, I was to answer “Santa.”

  I wandered into the kitchen. The refrigerators were piled high with treats that we’d spent exhaustive hours making and freezing for the first few days, just until we saw what we liked and what we had to cut back on.

  “You should be proud of yourself,” Charlotte said from the doorway. “This looks amazing. I’m so happy you’re my neighbor.”

  I winked. “I’m pretty damn proud of this. I won’t lie, this was a lot of fun, C,” I said, stretching my arms overhead.

  She took a moment to scan my face. “You looked like you were enjoying yourself, but you don’t have that sparkle that you did yesterday.”

  I flattened my lips. I wanted to say, Nick, Nick is the problem! But I wouldn’t say that, because while Charlotte was my city BFF, she had her town BFFs, and Nick was one of them. When I left to go home, she’d still be here, with him, doing best-friend things.

  I wasn’t jealous at all.

  “Is it the mojo?” she asked.

  A perfect excuse, even though it was almost back. “You’re right. It’s not one hundred percent, but it’s close. I’ve got recipes, ideas.”

  “Well, whatever happens, I’m glad that you did this and if for no other reason, that it gave you a bit of an anchor to Hope Lake. You have no choice but to come back and visit often.”

  Just then a customer walked into Charlotte’s shop, so she gave me a hug before running back down the hall.

  Visit, definitely.

  Stay for good? I was moving up the list of possibilities, but I wouldn’t be telling anyone that just yet. Not until I figured out if it was what I really wanted.

  When I was about to leave for the evening, after trying to reach Nick one more time, I put up the bat signal for the Uber driver and decided to wait out front to enjoy the balmy thirty-degree heat wave we were experiencing. I hoped that the weather stayed this way until we opened. At least it wasn’t snowing.

  I had just stepped onto the sidewalk and was locking the front door when a rough hand on my arm yanked me back. “What the fu—” I began to say, but stopped short when I saw the troop of children clamoring to enter the building next door, where they held music classes.

  “Hi, everybody!” I said sweetly before turning to face a harried-looking Jillian. Her normally sleek bob was wayward and curly. Her eyes were smudged with mascara and her face was red and blotchy.

  “Jillian, are you okay?” I asked, concerned that something really bad had happened to her. “I can call—”

  “Oh, cut the shit, Parker,” she sneered, and a couple jogging by sucked in a shocked breath. “We both know you can stuff that faux concern right up your rear end. I’m tired of pretending.”

  Someone is ready to finally show her true colors. Where were the Golden Girls and their spy network when I needed them?

  “Well, that makes two of us,” I deadpanned, crossing my arms. “To what do I owe the pleasure, Jillian?”

  “You know, you think you’re so slick with the cool, bitchy New Yorker vibe, but I had you pegged from day one. I know about you and Nick and I can’t believe he fell for someone like you!”

  I took a step forward, hoping to intimidate her by the fact that I had at least four inches on her. “Listen here, you want to talk about someone like me?”

  She was pacing now, looking like a caged tiger. A disheveled caged tiger, and I was lunch. There wasn’t a crowd gathering, but there were definitely people starting to pop out of the shops to watch. She couldn’t have picked a worse time to do this. I was tempted to ask her to come into the bakery just so we weren’t right out front of the shop, but I didn’t want her to taint it.

  “I’ve put in a lot of work with Nick…” she started, mumbling.

  I sighed. I could handle this conversation one of two ways—stand toe to toe with her and put her in her place, or just concede. She was his girlfriend, after all, and I was… someone he chose to be friends with when it suited him. I didn’t need this drama, so I chose the latter.

  “Can I ask you why you’re here? What could you possibly want from me?”

  She stopped pacing and looked at me, as if truly pondering her answer. Maybe I was going to get something real from her.

  “Come on, Parker, cut the crap. To land and keep a guy like Nick, it’s what has to be done. Don’t judge me. I put in all this time and energy and then you just stroll into town—”

  “What is it that you want? For me to avoid him? Stop talking to him altogether? If that’s the case, you could have saved yourself a trip on Nick’s Uber account. We have a business relationship, nothing more. If you don’t believe me, ask him.”

  She sneered. “That’s it. I did, and you know what I got? Pushback from him about you. What the hell is it about you that is so
special that everyone fawns over you? I see you for who you really are—you’re the kind of woman who goes after another woman’s man.”

  My hands balled into fists. It would be so easy to just catfight in the middle of town, but what would that accomplish?

  Relieve a lot of pent-up frustration?

  I took a deep breath and when I opened my eyes, Jillian was no longer looking enraged but sad. “I would never, ever try to pull Nick away from you,” I said. “That’s not how I operate. I don’t care if you believe me or not. I have nothing more to say to you, Jillian.”

  When I moved past her to walk toward the bookshop where Henry worked, she caught my arm again, not letting go this time. “I don’t believe you. I think you’re trying to lure him away and I’m going to prove it. I can’t wait to get him away from you. I’ve nearly got him convinced to move to Barreton with me.”

  My stomach sank. Leave Hope Lake and all these people? That was so not Nick. “If that’s what makes him happy, then I’m glad. Now let go of my arm.”

  “ ‘Makes him happy,’ ” she mimicked me. “Let me tell you something. I know about you and him last year. He didn’t tell me everything, but I figured it out. I read your little email to him. You were stupid for letting him go because he’ll do anything to make me happy. Anything, even if that means leaving this place behind.”

  I looked at her ugliness and frowned. “You’d do that, Jillian? You’d manipulate him into leaving his home? All his friends and his business behind? Why would you be so cruel?”

  She shrugged. Shrugged. As if nothing I said made any impression on her. “What is your game here, Jillian? Why are you so damn miserable?”

  “Look, Parker, not that I have to explain myself to you, but I’ve been through a lot, and when I met Nick and saw how desperate he was for a connection, I knew that if I was going to be stuck in small-town Pennsylvania, I should at least be stuck here with someone like him. So I’ll be damned if Baker Barbie comes into town and undoes all the hard work I’ve put in. Do you know how excruciating it is to deal with Nick and his stupid childhood friends?” She rolled her eyes. “And don’t even get me started on the old people in this town.”

  Now she’d crossed a line. You could talk shit about me, you could talk shit about Nick, but you could not ever talk shit about my friends or the Golden Girls. But before I could say anything, someone approached.

  “Jillian?” came a voice from the side of my building. Nick was standing in almost the same spot we’d been in the day he’d given me a piggyback ride from the car. “Jillian,” he said, more forceful this time.

  For a split second, she had a deer-in-headlights look, but the mask was up in a second. “Nicky!” she called, and danced toward him, arms outstretched. She leaned in to give him a hug and a kiss, but he sidestepped her, almost causing her to fall in the snow piled along the sidewalk leading to the alley.

  “I heard everything,” he said, not looking at her. “I can’t believe you.”

  The rest happened very quickly. Jillian turned back to me and stormed forward. Nick tried grabbing her but slipped, and before Jillian could reach me, Mancini came out of thin air and stepped in between us.

  “Stand down, turn around, and get in the Uber and go back to Barreton,” Mancini said in a tone that I had never heard from her before and hoped I would never hear again. It was deep, raspy, and terrifying.

  “Listen here, I don’t have to listen to the likes of you,” Jillian said, and I was convinced in that moment that she did have a death wish.

  “Jillian, I think it’s time for you to go,” Nick said, turning to the waiting driver to give him directions. “Can you send her to 13 Andrew Lane?” My stomach sank. He wasn’t sending her to Barreton—instead, she was going to his house.

  Jillian slid into the backseat of the Uber looking smug when she heard where she was going, and I wanted to slap the smirk right off of her face. When they pulled away, Mancini turned to Nick.

  “What are you doing, dear?” she asked, taking his hands in hers. “You don’t owe that woman any more of your precious time.”

  He nodded, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground. “I have a lot to say. I’ve been up in the woods behind Emma’s parents’ house just thinking all day. I must have missed a hundred calls from her, Parker, you—everyone was trying to find me.”

  I stayed silent, not wanting to interject my two cents into the situation and make him feel worse than he clearly already did. He looked exhausted. I wondered if he had seen Jillian’s true colors before this, or if he was torn up about other things.

  “Parker, I’m sorry—” he offered, but I stopped him with a raised hand.

  “You take care of what you have to, Nick. Mancini will take me.”

  “Thanks. I’ll see you soon.”

  He shuffled away, and within a minute, we heard the rumble of his truck. I wondered how I didn’t hear him pull up when Jillian and I were yelling at each other. I guess we were that loud.

  “Okay, Mancini, you ready to roll?” I asked.

  For once, Mancini didn’t say much on the drive. I think we were both shell-shocked by what we’d witnessed. And if I was being honest, I was a little disappointed that Nick had her brought to his house. I would’ve sent her packing that minute.

  When we got to the lake house, Mancini reached over and squeezed my hand. “Get some rest, Parker. It’s going to be a long day.”

  * * *

  “This is going to be friggin’ amazing,” I said, fighting back a yawn. What was the old adage, I’ll sleep when I’m dead? I was feeling it today, especially after the showdown with Jillian the day before. No one had heard from Nick since it happened. Before I fell asleep last night, Charlotte and Emma conference-called me to get the scoop. Apparently, Nick had called Henry and Cooper on the way to his house, saying he had to cancel their guys’ night again, but this time because he had witnessed Jillian attack me. Needless to say, Charlotte and Emma’s mama-bear instincts rose. The call had started with Emma saying, “I’ll bring the shovel and the rope,” and Charlotte finishing with “When are we burying the body?” Man, I loved them. After giving them the play-by-play, I stayed up half the night thinking about it.

  Rolling into the bakery with only a couple hours of sleep was something I did back in my twenties. Not at my age.

  But now, looking at the bakery from the street with a sense of pride, I realized it was all worth it.

  No, the nice weather hadn’t held out for us. Yes, there was snow on the ground and, yes, it was colder than the Arctic, but people were still lined up and ready to go and so was I.

  The sign was an old-school number with THE BAKED NANAS printed on in all its black-and-white glory. People were snapping photos and remarking how it looked similar to the one that used to hang on the old bakery Hope Lake had back in the sixties. It was intentional, since the ladies said they all met in that decade.

  The ladies were ready inside, sporting their new black-and-white aprons with the logo embroidered on the front. Simple chalk signs hung inside displaying what the classic daily specials were.

  The handwritten-recipe wallpaper was front and center, and it made for a perfect picture with the ladies in front of it.

  They each had a role to play once the doors opened, and they were as eager as ever to get started.

  “Okay, Viola, you’re on the register because you’re the most familiar with it, but make sure you eventually show Mancini and the rest how to use it so they can learn it too.” Viola nodded with a smile.

  “Mancini, you’re meeting and greeting because—well, that’s what you wanted to do, and I can’t seem to say no to you.”

  “I’m hard to say no to, dear. I know this, I love this, and I will teach you how to be me someday.”

  “That’s a lesson I’m eager to take.” She pulled me into a hug.

  “Okay, girls. Let’s make some magic,” Mancini singsonged with excitement.

  We hurried everyone outside for the ribbon cuttin
g.

  “Emma, do you want a photo of all the ladies in front of the store?” I asked, ushering her and Cooper over to the storefront to get the ribbon-cutting picture for the paper. I waved to the other senior ladies to come out and line up. They were there strictly for moral support, and I was grateful they’d agreed to schmooze the crowd as well.

  Donned in their winter’s finest, they made sure you could see their aprons, and the logo, before smiling widely for the cameraman from the paper.

  “Excuse me, but you need to be in this too!” Emma shouted, and Charlotte pushed me toward the group. I stayed off to the side, making sure that the Golden Girls were front and center.

  “Here,” Emma said, handing me a giant pair of shiny brass scissors.

  I looked around, thinking maybe Nick would show up in time for this. In time to see his friends and the people who adored him accomplish something amazing, but he was still nowhere to be found. He was as much a part of The Baked Nanas as the rest of us were. But, when it was clear he wasn’t going to make it, I forced myself to shift my attention to where it should have been all along: the people there to support us. They were going to be my focus, not him disappointing me.

  I walked over to Mancini, handing her and Clara the scissors. “Ladies, it’s all you.”

  The others gathered around, each smiling brightly for the camera. As they cut the giant red ribbon together, encouraged by the cheering crowd before them, it swirled to the ground, the red ribbon a stark contrast to the snowy pavement.

  With that, the doors were open for business.

  * * *

  That night, when I didn’t think I could possibly stand up for a moment longer, I wondered how I’d worked the hours I did for so many years back in the city. I was on my feet for twelve hours a day. Today was half that but I was twice as exhausted. It was another check in the “Parker needs to get some exercise” column.