The Perfect Recipe for Love and Friendship

by Shirley Jump

  But then there were the financial secrets Jim had kept and the distance that had grown between them over the years. Maybe she’d still been looking for that perfect shell, instead of accepting the imperfect ones.

  Or maybe there’d never been anything perfect about her marriage, and Jim’s death was opening that reality wider. No. She refused to believe that. Jim had done his best—and like those other shells, he had been far from perfect.

  As she put the whelk back into the dish, she noticed a business card. Garrett Andrews. The lawyer. The one who had told her it was okay to let something living depend on her again.

  Before she could think about it, Bridget dialed the number. When Garrett answered, the words caught in her throat for a second. She wasn’t sure what she was doing or why she was calling, only that she felt this gnawing need to talk to someone who understood the war in her heart. “This is Bridget, from the bird store? I mean, I know it’s been a couple months since we met, but hopefully you remember me.” She took a deep breath and exhaled it with the next sentences. “I wondered if you had time for a cup of coffee. Turns out I have a hummingbird problem.”

  TWELVE

  Abby decided she had to be a masochist. Why else would she have parked in the back lot at Charmed by Dessert and now stood before the rear entrance? The scuffed door led directly into the kitchen—the same kitchen she had vowed never to visit again.

  Are you ashamed of me?

  Jessie’s voice echoed in Abby’s heart. The vulnerable hitch at the end of the question, the tears threatening in her eyes. Jessie had asked the question again in bed last night. When Abby had reassured her that, hell yes, she was proud to be with her, Jessie had just nodded and rolled away.

  In the invisible wall between them in that queen-sized bed, Abby knew she was losing Jessie. The longer she let this go, the farther Jessie drifted away. Soon she’d drift too far to bring her back.

  This morning, when Abby had said goodbye before she left for work (at the mall cooking store job she hated but was glad paid the bills), she had leaned over to kiss Jessie. There’d been a moment of hesitation, a shimmer in Jessie’s brown eyes, and Abby knew, without her fiancée saying a word, that every single day the hurt between them was multiplying.

  Abby’s hand hesitated on the cold metal handle. The familiar small sign was mounted in the center of the door, a little worse for wear after several harsh New England winters. REAR ENTRANCE FOR CHARMED BY DESSERT. PLEASE COME TO THE FRONT FOR SWEET TREATS. Was she really ready to do this? Ready to face her family and the consequences of finally telling them the truth?

  Are you ashamed of me?

  Before Abby could pull on the handle, the door opened, and her mother emerged, a bag of trash over her shoulder like Santa. Her steps stuttered and her eyes widened. “Abigail. What are you doing, sneaking in the back like a criminal?”

  Like a criminal? Three years apart and that was how her mother greeted her? Accusatory and pissed? What had she expected? Some movie-worthy reunion filled with tears and tight hugs? If there was one thing Colleen O’Bannon wasn’t, it was emotional. She believed in decorum above everything else, whether it was a blister on your foot as you trudged to church, a pet hamster that died on the first day of school, or a daughter who had been distant for three long years.

  “I’m not sneaking in like a criminal. I thought it was easier to come in the back instead of the front because…because I wanted to talk to you,” Abby said.

  Ma nodded and lowered the trash bag to the ground. She parked her hands on her hips. “So talk.”

  Abby shook her head and let out a long breath. All her life, she’d felt like an adversary of her mother. She often wondered how her life would be different if Ma had died instead of Dad.

  With her father, they’d communicated in games of catch in the backyard while the sun began to set, in long walks around the neighborhood, and lazy Sunday afternoons watching the Pats or the Red Sox. Her father had been a man of few words, but he’d been kind and patient, even though he lived in a house teeming with females. Her mother, though, had been the stoic, colder one, the parent Abby had never felt close to. The years apart had only expanded that divide, and Abby’s heart squeezed. “I guess I shouldn’t have expected a ticker tape parade. Never mind. This was a mistake.”

  She had started to turn away when her mother called out. “Wait.”

  That one word made Abby’s heart leap with hope. Even after all these years, even though she knew better, she still hoped. She pivoted back. “Yeah?”

  “Open the lid to the Dumpster so I can toss the bag in there.”

  Abby stared at her mother for a solid thirty seconds. She had driven all the way over here, intent on finally telling her mother about Jessie, and instead of being glad to see her daughter again or having any kind of real conversation, she wanted Abby to do trash duty? “I haven’t seen you in three years, Ma, except for a drive-by at Jim’s funeral. And the first thing you say to me is open the Dumpster?”

  “For one, that is not the first thing I said to you. For another, I can’t think with this trash sitting beside me.” Her mother’s face pinched, deepening the wrinkles around her mouth, the shadows under her eyes. If Colleen O’Bannon felt exhaustion or remorse or, heck, the beginnings of a cold, she would never show it. Her features were as stony as the concrete under their feet. “In case you forgot, this is a very busy bakery. I can’t stand around all day, chattering like a couple of crows on a telephone line.”

  “No, you can’t.” Abby shook her head. “I’ll let you get back to the thing you love more than your own children.”

  Then she flipped the lid of the Dumpster and got in her car. When she glanced in her rearview mirror, her mother was already back inside.

  THIRTEEN

  Bridget sat on a hard wooden chair at the Java Hut, her right leg tapping a staccato against the underside of the table. She folded her hands, then unfolded them and put them on her lap, and then folded them again.

  What the hell was she doing here?

  She should be home, eating her ten thousandth serving of casserole. Or tending the primroses. Or dealing with the bills. Anything other than getting coffee with another man.

  Except Jim was gone and Garrett was…well, she wasn’t sure what he was. Yet another thing to add to the list of things she procrastinated about.

  She reached for her purse in the opposite chair and started to rise when the oak and glass door to the coffee shop opened and Garrett walked in. He had on a dark blue pinstripe suit with a pale yellow shirt and an ocean color swirled tie that reminded her of van Gogh’s Starry Night. The top button was undone, the tie wrenched a bit to the side. On another man, that might have made him look tired or harried, but on Garrett, the loosened shirt and tie seemed…roguish.

  Good Lord. Now she was thinking in romance novel terms.

  When his gaze caught hers, he smiled. A little frisson went through her, but Bridget pushed that aside. Item number seven hundred fifty-three she couldn’t deal with right now.

  “Hey, how are you?” he asked.

  “Fine.” Bridget shook her head and cursed. “God, I hate when people say that. My family does it so often, the words should be embroidered in a sampler on the wall. I’m fine. I’m good. When most of us are anything but.”

  He chuckled. “Okay, then if you’re not good or fine, then what are you?”

  “A platypus?” A quick bubble of marginally manic laughter slipped out before she sobered. She needed to get out more if the proverbial how are you? had her treading on the edge of hysteria. “Honestly, I don’t know if I’m up or down or sideways.”

  “It’s okay. You don’t have to.” He waved at the enormous chalked menu hanging on the wall. “Let’s start with a simpler question. Decaf or regular?”

  “You think that’s a simple question? Obviously you don’t know me.” She paused, then decided, what the hell, Garrett might as well know what he was in for, agreeing to a cup of coffee with her. With any luck,
she’d drive him off, and she could turn this boat around before it went down a river she wasn’t sure she wanted to traverse. “I’m complicated when it comes to coffee. Half-caf, three creams, one and a half sugars. Not too hot, but if it is too hot, get a side of ice. And on Fridays, I get a drizzle of caramel sauce.”

  She expected him to mutter something about her being high maintenance or make some snarky comment, but instead, he arched a brow and gave her a look that said Okay, I get that. “Why is caramel only on Fridays?”

  “It keeps it special that way. I like having something to look forward to at the end of the week.” Put that way, her life sounded pitiful. She looked forward to adding caramel syrup to her coffee? Maybe she did need to get out more. She waved in the direction of the barista behind the counter. “If you just say ‘Bridget’s regular,’ they’ll know what you mean. Or I can just order it myself. I mean, it is complicated and—”

  “It’s fine,” he said, “and I mean that. So relax, Bridget. It’s just coffee.”

  She realized that she’d been perched on the edge of her seat, her chest tight with anxiety. Had she said too much, been too silly?

  Garrett’s calming words erased that anxious space, and she sank into the chair. “It is just coffee. Although, here the coffee is pretty exceptional.”

  He glanced around the room, taking in the dark wood paneling, the chess set on the back table, the sofas in the nook to their right. “So, do you come here often?”

  She cocked her head and studied him. “Are you trying to pick me up or ask me a legitimate question?”

  “Whichever works best.” Garrett’s green eyes twinkled, and that half-smile toyed with the edges of his lips.

  She barely knew him and already she could tell the difference between his smiles—the friendly one, the flirty one, the gentle one. She couldn’t decide if that was good or bad, only that she wasn’t ready to figure it out.

  “The, uh, legitimate question,” Bridget said, dragging her focus away from him and back onto why she was here. “I’m not…I’m not ready for the other.”

  “Then let’s start simply. With some complicated coffee. Then you can tell me how the hummingbirds like the new feeder.” He waved off her attempt to pay, crossed to the counter, and ordered the coffees. A minute later, Garrett returned and placed a large coral stoneware mug and saucer before her. “They said this is your favorite cup.”

  She had drunk coffee from this mug five times a week for almost three years. Always the same chipped edge on the mug, the slight bubble in the saucer. Holding the mug seemed like meeting an old friend. Especially since it had been many weeks since she’d been in the coffee shop. “I like that they’re scarred,” she said, and then shrugged. “Like…me.”

  “Like all of us.” He slid into the opposite seat. His coffee sat in a disposable cup, rich, strong and plain. Clearly, he was not a complicated coffee kind of guy. Bridget didn’t know why, but she liked that.

  He also hadn’t said a single disparaging word about her coffee order. In the five years total she had been with Jim, he had never remembered how she took her coffee. Whenever she tried to tell him, he’d waved it off, telling her it was like remembering directions for a space shuttle launch. So she’d ordered coffee regular whenever she was with him and tried to ignore the bitter taste of too-little cream and sugar.

  A wave of guilt hit her. Was she comparing her late husband—barely cold in the grave, as Ma would say—to another man?

  Garrett raised his cup in her direction. “To new friends.”

  Were they friends? Did she want to be friends? She tapped her mug against his cup and then took a sip. The notes of caramel, mixed with the sweet heaviness of the cream and the crisp bold coffee, washed over her with familiarity. “I know my coffee order is crazy, and it’s probably nuts to want to drink out of the same mug every single time, but this…this one thing I know, in a world that doesn’t make much sense right now.”

  “When my wife died,” Garrett said, his gaze dropping to his own cup, “I thought the easiest thing to do was to throw my regular routines out the window. I stopped going to the newsstand where we first met and picked up my paper at a vendor in the train station instead. I stopped shopping at the Shaw’s down the road from our house and drove five miles to a Stop and Shop. I stopped eating spaghetti on Friday nights because we always had pasta then, especially during Lent. I avoided our favorite restaurants, the streets we used to walk at night, even the dealership where we bought her car two years earlier. And you know what? It didn’t make it any better. I think, in fact, it made it harder. People need routine. Especially when we lose someone we love, we need to cling to things we can count on.”

  He had an easy voice that slid over her like warm rain. She liked listening to him talk, his words measured and calm and true. “What did you do? I mean, do you still not go to those places?”

  “When I realized I felt lost, I started going back. Took baby steps. The supermarket first, then I got an oil change at the dealership. Ordered takeout spaghetti one Friday because I can’t cook. The last place I added back in was the newsstand. I still go there every morning to get my paper, and you know, it’s kind of nice. Sort of like a visit with Maria—that was my wife—every day.” He blew on the surface of his coffee and took a tentative sip.

  “You must have loved her very much.”

  “I did.” His face softened, his eyes deepening. “I met her when I was in college, at that newsstand. We were both in this required current affairs class, and we were trying to buy the last Globe the guy had. Like most college kids, I had procrastinated, and so had she. It was around ten o’clock at night, and the moon was high, and when I saw her, I thought an angel had just walked by.” He shook his head, and a flush showed in his cheeks. “I know that’s dorky and mushy, but it was true.”

  He hadn’t asked her about her husband, hadn’t moseyed into her personal life. She wondered if Jim had ever talked about her like that, with that light in his eyes and that little smile in his voice. Had he ever called her an angel? Ever gotten dorky and mushy about her?

  There’d been a time when she’d felt that way about him. When everything Jim did and said seemed like the most important thing in the world. How he could sweep her off her feet with a compliment or some crazy grand gesture. Somewhere along the way, those feelings had begun to fade, like fabric that had been in the sun too long. If she looked closely, she could still see the pattern that had drawn her to him, but the vibrancy and shine had dulled in the years they’d been married. She’d thought a baby would fix that and then realized, before the primroses even took root, that their problems went far deeper.

  “So who got to buy the paper?” Bridget asked.

  “She did. But she offered to share, so we went to a diner down the street for a coffee while we looked over the news section. Eight hours later, the sun was coming up again, and we realized we had talked the whole night away. We never stopped talking, either, not until…” His voice trailed off and his gaze dropped to his coffee. “Anyway, I’m not here to talk about that. You said you had a hummingbird problem?”

  “I’m not sure it’s a problem exactly. And I probably shouldn’t have asked you to come all the way to Dorchester. I could have texted the question.”

  “You could have. But I’m glad you didn’t.” He laid his hand on the table, inching it close to hers but not touching her. “I’ve been wondering how you were.”

  The words flattered her, making heat rise in her cheeks. A cold wash of guilt brought her back to reality. This wasn’t a date; it was coffee and an excuse to talk to someone who understood her a little bit. All under the guise of feeding wildlife. “I’m…uh, worried about my hummingbird. I put out the feeder weeks ago, and he hasn’t been by yet.”

  “It takes them a while to warm up, to trust.” Garrett’s gaze met hers and held. “They see what they want, and it looks beautiful and amazing, but they’ve been hurt before and they’re leery of getting too close too quick.”


  Bridget became ten times more aware of his hand, just a breath away. “Are we still talking about hummingbirds?”

  “I think that’s true for anything with a heartbeat.” He took another sip of coffee, and the moment broke, retreating onto safer, neutral ground. “Do you want some food? Because I’m starving and I could eat just about anything. I grabbed a sandwich after work, but it wasn’t much. I saw they have some cookies in the case there. Want me to get us a couple?”

  “They do have cookies.” She lowered her voice and leaned across the table. “I’ve had them and they’re good, but not…great.”

  “Are there better cookies somewhere?”

  “There are.” She drew in a deep breath and decided to take a page from Magpie’s playbook—jump off a cliff and see where she landed. “Let’s get out of here and I’ll introduce you to Boston’s best chocolate chip cookie.”

  “That’s a tall order. You sure you can fill it?”

  “I’ve been doing it almost all my life.” She drained her coffee, waved goodbye to the café staff, and then led the way outside. Night had fallen while they’d been inside, dropping a dark blanket over the neighborhood. In the distance, the lights of Boston sparkled like a diamond choker, but here, on this cozy Dorchester street, the world seemed small and intimate.

  Garrett took her hand as they walked, and Bridget didn’t pull away. The touch of another human, warm and unassuming, formed a temporary patch for the chasm in her life. Like his conversation, Garrett’s hand in hers was easy, comfortable. Welcome.

  “I used to love this street when I was a kid,” he said.

  “Me too.” That was another thing that was nice—their shared knowledge of this neighborhood, of the crazy close world in Dorchester, a suburb much like a family reunion, filled with a few crazy aunts and uncles, decades of common memories, and familiar pockets you could ease yourself into when things got too overwhelming. “I love this street because of the way the trees reach across, as if they’re old friends meeting again.”