“Speaking of mothers,” Theo casually re-routed the conversation. “I have some news. Jill’s expecting.”
“Goodness!” Sabrina forced herself to look surprised. “Congratulations to you both.”
“It came as a shock. I’m thrilled, of course,” he added quickly, lest she wonder. “Jill’s chin-deep in blueprints. We’ll need more floor space once the baby comes along.”
“I can only imagine,” Sabrina demurred. She had been invited to dinners at the Ward residence, a sprawling, split-level in Peyton Heights where three thousand square feet of house was strewn with diaper bags, strollers, empty bottles, and small, sharp toys. There were always a couple of Wardlings in a state of hysterics at any given time. Like an over-wound karakuri, Jill seemed to be everywhere at once, breast-feeding, burping, pacifying, and inquiring if homework was done and teeth were brushed. When legislature wasn’t in session, Theo schlepped into the office looking like he wanted a drink.
Sabrina had always been career-focused, and unlike Molly, she had never felt an intense drive to have children. Nurturing romantic relationships had disrupted her work-life balance enough as it was. But just in case she ever had lingering doubts about motherhood, the Wards’ shaky marriage was an ongoing reminder of all the reasons she had opted out.
“Jill’s pressing me to get out of the house,” Theo went on, a note of wistfulness in his voice. He drummed his fingers across his desk idly.
“She wants you to move out? Whatever for?” Sabrina played dumb. Theo had given his long-suffering wife every reason to send him packing, but not before she gave him a walloping slap on the face first.
The Hon. Rep. shot Sabrina a sharp, incredulous look.
“God, no. I’m talking about the House. Politics. She wants me to think about dropping my bid for re-election come next November.”
“How do you feel about that?” Sabrina pulled her most sympathetic face and channeled her inner psychologist. She didn’t have time to listen to Theo’s problems when there was work to do. The heel of her pump began to tap reflexively.
“I’d consider it, under other circumstances,” Theo conceded with a grimace. “But nobody knows this district like I do. There’s no better man for the job. You made sure of that.”
No better man? Sabrina’s heel tapped faster. “Well, then,” she said briskly. “Sounds like it’s settled.”
The Hon. Rep. sighed. “You’re a smart woman, Chief. Your gut told you Sprinkle wasn’t the man. Now, your gut might be a day late and a dollar short, but it was still right on the money. But you might want to get married again one day. Before that day comes, get everything out of your system. Otherwise, you might find yourself sitting behind a desk like this—” He patted the glossy cherrywood with a look of grim appreciation. “—only to be tempted to give it up in exchange for more peace at home.”
“Absolutely, Theo. Can do.” Sabrina rose to her feet to leave. It always made her feel slightly flattered when Theo “shared.” Uncomfortable, but flattered.
“Once more word of advice.” He jabbed his pen in her direction as she reached the door, a sly smirk spreading across his face. “Don’t get those cuffs too dirty before then.”
And just like that, Sabrina knew.
Damn you, Gage Fitzgerald.
She found Carlton reorganizing the contents of the shelves in Violetta’s desk. Violetta, who obviously couldn’t be wooed to come back to work part-time, given how the Hon. Rep. had quickly distracted her from the issue.
“Notice something different about Theo?” he asked.
“Funny you mention it. Yeah, I did. I’m just not sure what.”
“Grecian Formula.” Carlton stroked nonexistent sideburns. “You know what that means. Scandal.”
He gave her a sultry look before turning his attention back to the contents of the filing cabinet under the desk. Moira would have been oblivious to a paratrooper over the Mojave, but Sabrina always knew — as did Carlton and Violetta — when Theo had embarked on a new affair.
When she first landed the position as Theo’s Chief of Staff, Sabrina had been too captivated by his charisma to notice that he wasn’t just one of the state’s most influential legislators.
He was also a man.
A man with feet of clay.
One morning, Theo had summoned her for their customary morning coffee chat, only his smile was a little too relaxed, and his office smelled like a wrestling room right after a match. Then while she was going over his schedule, she had spotted the empty condom wrapper underneath his desk close to her feet.
Sabrina had instinctively known what she had to do even as blood rushed to her face and sweat drenched her armpits. She had leaned over, plucked the wrapper off the floor and pointedly stuck it in the pocket of her messenger bag.
It had sent Theo a clear message loud and clear. I’ve got your back. Now you get mine.
After the condom wrapper incident, the Hon. Rep. went on the down low, covering his tracks with the expertise of a seasoned survivalist and taking his early-morning rendezvous to posh downtown hotels instead. But Sabrina could sniff out his nefarious deeds. Today they smelled like gingerbread pancakes from the Four Seasons and Un Jardins Sur le Nil.
Once everyone left for lunch, she sprayed Theo’s perfume-drenched leather bomber with odor neutralizer and ran a lint roller over the lining to pick up long, curly red hairs, grunt work she’d seen Violetta do hundreds of times before. Sabrina wondered what Jillian Ward thought when her husband came home smelling like Febreze.
Sabrina kept her eyes averted from a professional studio photo of Jill and the girls that hung on the wall. Sabrina hated the cover-up. It made her feel sleazy. Her job description shouldn’t include making sure Theo didn’t join the fifty percent club, as Carlton called it.
Theo’s conscience was his cross to bear, she reasoned. As long as the Hon. Rep.’s biennial infidelities didn’t threaten his chance for re-election — and therefore, her own career — his private life was none of her business.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Cadence Corners was still lively by the time Sabrina got home from work at dusk.
She loved the smell of freshly made food and espresso that filtered out of the cozy restaurants and wafted down Plum Street, the neighborhood’s main avenue. Couples strolled down the street pushing prams and walking dogs. The resident semi-pro cyclists were out as well. They nipped around the Audi on their light aluminum bikes, reflectors gleaming under her headlights.
She pulled her car into the driveway without bothering to reach for the automatic garage door opener. She still felt a rush of giddiness at the sight of her beloved 1930s Tudor Revival-style bungalow. The small gingerbread-colored brick house, with its white-frosted front door, windows and gables, seemed to have been custom-built for two — and possibly the occasional overnight houseguest. The small yard had just enough no-maintenance greenery to suit her tastes. Skyrocket junipers flanked the entry gate, and the low brick fence was smothered in fig ivy. There were slender beds of earth on either side of the walkway, just in case she had a yen to plant herbaceous borders.
Sabrina hesitated in front of the solid oak door and looked at the mailbox with dread. Woman up, she coached herself. A week’s worth of envelopes, postcards and fliers were stuffed inside. She thumbed through them, hastily shoving her mortgage note and the communiqué that contained a copy of her civil servant’s check stub to the end of the pile. She tossed the mail on top of the mantle, where it joined another week’s worth of its friends. The note wasn’t due for another three weeks.
Time to focus on what she could control: tidying up all of the frayed ends of her broken marriage.
A nonthreatening pile of boxes sat in the guest room, wedding presents from Jackson’s side of the family. Sabrina had adamantly refused to sign up for a gift registry, against Molly’s advice. “Suck it up, sister,” her best friend had told her. “And don’t come crying to me about a bunch of terrible gifts when you don’t.”
&nbs
p; Terrible was an understatement. There was the garden gnome dressed in a T-shirt bearing the mascot of Jackson’s alma mater. And a musical figurine of two owls cozied up together that played the maudlin theme from a movie about star-crossed lovers. The one that topped them all, however, was a frilly pink apron with “Kiss the Cook” printed across the front.
Sabrina taped each box shut and placed a return label on the front. After her task was done, she eyed the canvas luggage that was lined up in the corner of the room. She opened a smaller bag and sorted through a colorful mélange of sexy, silky panties and bras, wedding gifts from Molly. Like most men, Jackson appreciated lingerie. What was it with men and their penchant for women in undergarments? Why not swimwear? Or form-fitting gym clothes?
Didn’t they essentially have the same effect?
Sabrina supposed she’d understand men’s sexual proclivities only in theory.
Jackson Sprinkle, with his daytime soap actor good looks, had made sense in theory too. Sabrina had confidently assumed that her husband-to-be, having spent the better part of five years around or with her, knew what she considered important in life by the time the Polar Star embarked. Thanks to contaminated shellfish for a bit of illumination. After a leisurely brunch of chilled shrimp cocktail and lobster omelets, the ship’s captain had officiated their brief marriage ceremony on the ship’s prow. Three hours later, Sabrina and Jackson and a good number of other passengers had come down with a punishing case of food poisoning. The sojourn turned particularly horrific when she and Jackson started to race each other to the tiny latrine. There was little else to do while they recovered but loll in their bunks, drink flat Coke and talk.
The heart-to-heart had been years overdue.
Tanked up on Dramamine, Jackson had informed her that even though she had decided against changing her name, he’d listed her on his life insurance policy under his surname. Sabrina Sprinkle. Then he’d outlined his two-year plan to get them out of Texas and back to the sodden gloom of his native Washington state. He then told her that he expected her to hand in her resignation once she became pregnant.
She did intend to get pregnant as soon as possible, didn’t she?
Jackson’s revelations made Sabrina want to dive into the turbulent waters of the Norwegian Sea and swim all the way back to the sunny shores of Miami. She couldn’t remember how she eased into telling him that everything he wanted from their marriage was precisely what she did not. But vivid in her memory was the inflexible look on Jackson’s face as he stared her down, refusing to budge a single inch.
Make your choice now, Sabrina. I’m not changing my mind about any of it.
To his credit, he’d pleaded with her to change hers for only three hours. Then after a bout of heated bickering over who should sign over whose interest in the house, he had dispatched a Petition for Annulment to the Travis County District Court and placed a request for separate cabins. The next day, they had flown back to Texas on the same plane, sitting together in tense silence. Sabrina had spotted him stalking the Dome a few times with one of the Tide Brothers in tow, but their only communication with each other had been through the attorney at the title company.
She hung the last of the never-worn cocktail dresses in the closet and felt a serious case of the mopes descending. She wished Molly were back from France. She’d want the low-down on her un-wedding. What would her best friend say when she found out Sabrina had made out with Sebastian’s college roommate? Or that Gage Fitzgerald had taken the liberty of using the encounter as talk show material?
Sabrina pulled on her running shorts and a faded T-shirt with the University of Texas insignia on the front instead. Outside her front door, the sun had set, but Cadence Corners was still in full swing. Pedestrians meandered from one dining spot to another, pausing to check out the windows of local boutiques.
Sabrina loped past the string of cafés and stores that lined either side of Plum Street. She zigzagged her way through the neighborhood, taking a short cut through Peachtree Plaza to the last street on her run. A familiar three-story structure popped into view. Ella Fontaine, a beloved pillar of the community, had bought the large, rambling house during World War II and converted it into a bakery and boarding house. The business had remained under the same ownership for five decades. Sabrina had fond memories of walking to the bakery with Molly after school and watching “Grandma Ella,” as she was known to neighborhood regulars, slide batches of freshly baked oatmeal-raisin cookies the size of Frisbees into the display case with brown, capable hands.
The property had changed hands several times after Grandma Ella passed away. Now the slightly dingy white exterior had been repainted a pale creamy pink, the scalloped trim light green. The front gardens were maintained just as Sabrina remembered them as a child. The rose bushes and other annuals had gone into hibernation for the coming cold season, but a thick tide of English ivy crept along the screened-in front porch, and hanging baskets filled with pansies and violas flanked the front entrance.
Although the café was open for lunch only, the windows were still ablaze with light. A slender, dark-haired woman bustled around inside. The smell of something sweet and heavenly teased Sabrina’s nose and whetted her appetite. There was one thing that was predictable about Austin’s urban singles, and that was their propensity to flock to restaurants in great masses on any given night. She didn’t need the hassle when she was hungry after a vigorous run.
No matter the time of day, Ella’s was still the one place she could eat without battling a crowd.
**
“Selling the house would have been far easier.”
Sabrina watched Nola March retrieve a tray of key lime tortes from the industrial-sized oven and place it on a large butcher’s block.
“I’ve already had this conversation with Molly.” Sabrina licked a dab of buttercream frosting from her thumb. Her mother’s lemon-curd-filled cupcakes were so angelically light she could practically inhale them. “I don’t see why I should have to sell my home just because Jackson and I didn’t stay married.”
“I didn’t say you should have sold it, did I?” Nola qualified her statement promptly. “I said that putting it on the market would have been easier. But that’s what happens when a couple buys property together and then di—”
“—Please, Mom, I beg of you,” Sabrina interrupted. “Stop using the D-word. My marriage was annulled.”
“Whatever you say, dear,” Nola sighed wearily.
She watched her mother navigate around the large kitchen efficiently, dragging bowls and utensils from cabinets and drawers. Evenings were Nola’s designated prep time. Pies, cakes and other sweetstuffs were mixed, baked, cut, iced, and attractively arranged under bakery cases. There were also tasty savory dishes left over from that day’s blue-plate specials stashed in the large refrigerator. Before the cupcake, Sabrina had indulged in a bowl of burgundy beef stew with sour cream dumplings.
The Fontaines never had children of their own; however, the bakery had kept their extended family afloat during difficult economic times. Sabrina remembered Grandma Ella as a warm, motherly soul, her dusky cheeks dusted with flour. Her eyes had been creased with deep smile lines, and her laugh had seemed to trip over itself, like water rippling through a rocky brook.
The walls of the café were lined with old framed pictures. Sabrina turned a wistful gaze toward an old black and white photo of Ike and Ella Fontaine that had been taken on the day of the bakery’s grand opening. The couple stood in front of the house, beaming into the camera. Ike had his arm wrapped around his wife’s shoulders and wore an expression of unabashed pride.
“I suppose we could discuss Molly’s W-word, had Cybil Cole deigned invite me—” Nola gave Sabrina a shrewd look. “—and had it actually happened. Because it didn’t, I’m making small talk. Besides, I didn’t bring up the D-word, Sabrina. You did, in your roundabout way.”
One slim arm picked up a whisk the size of a Little League baseball bat, and Nola went to town on a la
rge bowl of egg whites. Sabrina still felt impressed whenever she watched her mother at work. The New Nola bore no resemblance to the Old Nola, the woman who’d taken her divorce with a hefty shot to her self-esteem. The Old Nola walled herself up in their small condo, watched daytime soaps, and eschewed hormone replacement therapy.
Shortly after Sabrina graduated from college, the New Nola emerged. She traded in TiVo for tennis shoes, joined a ladies’ gym, and shed twenty pounds. She updated her wardrobe and grew her hair into a contemporary shoulder-length ’do. The New Nola then pulled up her Totes, took a few online business courses, got a loan and bought the old bakery, which had been languishing on a weedy half-acre under threat of demolition.
Nola had the foundation leveled and the house rebuilt according to the architect’s original blueprints. Along with baked goods prepared with Grandma Ella’s stash of recipes, the lunching spot served homey fare like meatloaf sandwiches, chicken and dumplings, and paella with a modern twist (“Trust me, honey. Lemon zest makes everything wonderful,” Nola had said). Newcomers to the neighborhood called the café by its proper name, “Ella’s Edibles,” but Corners lifers referred to it as “Grandma Ella’s” or simply “Ella’s Place.”
Nola’s newness made Sabrina go through an adjustment period. Sabrina was used to making late-night market runs for Stouffer’s macaroni and cheese to quell her mother’s crying jags, not helping her research city regulations. If the experience had taught Sabrina one thing, it was that estrogen met the gold standard of all human hormones.
She swore on a stack of holy books that once her biological clock wound down, she would never go without it.
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