The Love Goddess’ Cooking School

by Melissa Senate

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, kicking at rocks along the path up to Blue Crab Boulevard. “Things have been a little tense in the house lately. Mia thinks her mother is going to come ‘home’ for her birthday. Literally and figuratively. God, I hate these huge setups of disappointment. Her mother likes making these grand gestures that make it seem like she went through heaven and earth for someone. But she’ll come and she’ll go after the birthday cake. If she comes at all.”

  “To be honest, Mia seems more wrapped up in the idea of you marrying Jodie than about her mother coming or not. It’s all she talks about.”

  “Well, she’ll calm down when I explain about the ring.” As they stepped onto Blue Crab Boulevard, he said, “She likes that huge tree with the low climbing branches behind the library. She might be there.”

  And so they went there next. The small library was on its own lot in the center of the mile-long main street. “Ever been married?” he asked, glancing at her as they walked up the brick walkway to the library and followed it around back.

  “Me? No.”

  “You’re lucky, then,” he said. “Still not cynical.”

  “Oh, I’m plenty cynical.”

  He smiled. “When I was standing there this morning, just staring at the ring, all I could think about was the night my wife left, saying that I talked her into a life she never wanted. Including motherhood. Do you believe in that? Do you think you can talk someone into a life? Doesn’t the other person have to want it to say yes to it?”

  Oddly enough, Luciana Maguire came to mind. When Holly asked her mother why she never wanted to visit Camilla, why she never wanted to stay for a few days when she’d drop off Holly, her mother would sometimes say, “I don’t want to live in your grandmother’s life. I had to growing up, but I don’t now.” When pressed for whys, her mother would say she didn’t want to talk about it. Luciana would sometimes mutter that kids didn’t have much choice, then add that was why she didn’t keep Holly from visiting as much as she wanted to—so as not to force or project her own negative feelings about Camilla or the island onto Holly. Her mother was complicated. Holly didn’t think she’d ever understand her.

  But as much as Mia would want Holly to shift the focus to forcing a kid into a certain life, with a certain stepmother, say, Liam wasn’t talking kids right then. This was about adults. Relationships. Love. And lack thereof.

  “On some level, yes,” she said. “I would think. But if the other person is persuasive and you don’t know what you really want and the life being offered sounds appealing, maybe on paper, I guess you could say yes and not be sure.”

  It had been her idea to move to California after three months of a long-distance relationship that Holly had been so sure of. And John had finally said, “Sure, why not, but of course we can’t live together because I have Lizzie every other weekend,” and so she’d moved into the attic apartment with a roommate who was rarely there until she was suddenly always there with the boyfriend who ended up squeezing Holly out. Maybe she’d talked John into a life and he’d halfheartedly said yes. She had no idea how any of that worked.

  “What about right now?” Liam asked, as though he’d read her mind. “Do you feel like you got talked into the life you’re living right now?”

  “Literally right now, yes,” she said, smiling. “Your daughter engineered this whole thing, hoping I could back her up somehow. I’m sorry I got involved. I mean, in your personal business.”

  “Don’t be. She clearly trusts you and she doesn’t have a lot of female role models. She hates all but one of her teachers, and the one friend she’s made seems a little snotty. I thought Jodie might be a good influence on her, but as you heard Mia say, she hates Jodie.”

  Holly offered a small smile, unsure what to say.

  “You took over your grandmother’s business,” he said suddenly as they walked along the cobblestone path behind the library. “Did you want to?”

  “I think deep down, yes. I was kind of between lives at the moment and suddenly one presented itself. A meaningful one. I spent summers here with my grandmother when I was growing up. She meant the world to me.”

  He glanced at her. “Then it sounds like you’re where you belong.”

  They checked the big tree and the few ornate benches in the backyard, but Mia was nowhere to be seen.

  “Where next?” Holly asked.

  “Down toward the far end of the island there’s a little gazebo at the start of the nature conservancy. She likes to take her iPod and books there to read sometimes. It’s a bit of a walk but she might have run there.”

  As they crossed Blue Crab Boulevard, Holly could just make out the Blue Crab Cove Inn way off in the distance, along the rocky edge of the island. They headed toward the woods, about a quarter mile away. “So why did you think Jodie would be a good influence on Mia?” Holly asked, hoping she wasn’t overstepping despite how much he’d told her already.

  “Jodie is very positive, always smiling, always optimistic, and she’s so feminine, so . . . opposite of me. She makes me forget everything because she’s so different from me. We talk about things I’ve never talked about before, like why I bought this shirt, why these colors appealed to me.”

  “And that appeals to you from an architectural perspective?” she asked.

  “No, it appeals to me from an ‘I need to be distracted’ perspective. Mia is kind of intense, as you may have noticed. Add that to my work, which is very demanding, and just trying to be everything Mia needs in one person, and I need a big distraction sometimes. Jodie’s a great distraction.” He stopped walking again. “Oh, damn. I forgot to call her to tell her I’d be late or had to cancel.”

  Mia was not at the gazebo. He excused himself to make his call, and Holly stood inside the pretty structure while he walked ahead a bit and pulled out his cell phone. In a minute he was back, and they headed toward town. The only other place Liam thought she might be was her new friend Madeline’s house, but he didn’t have high hopes, as Mia had mentioned she was a little nervous about doing something wrong to mess up the friendship, and showing up unannounced after a fight with your divorced dad over his new girlfriend had a sordid sound he didn’t think the highfalutin Windemeres would appreciate.

  Holly stopped in her tracks. “I wonder if she went to my house. Not inside, of course, since it’s locked, but the side garden has this beautiful swing that my grandmother had built between two apple trees.”

  He pressed a hand to his forehead. “I should have thought of your place first, and we practically walked right past it an hour ago. “The cooking class is all she’s talked about since you agreed to let her be your apprentice. It’s special to her, and I’ll bet she is there. If she’s not, I’ll call the Windemeres and see if she did go over to their house.”

  But Mia was at Holly’s, so close to where they’d first started out looking for her, sitting on the swing, facing away toward the evergreens, slowly swinging back and forth.

  “Mia,” Liam said and she got off the swing and stood there, heels dug in as though she refused to budge, tears streaming down her face. He walked over to her, and Holly stayed where she was to give them some privacy. But she heard him say, “I’m not proposing to Jodie. When you saw me with a diamond ring this morning, it was the ring your mother left behind. I found it in my desk drawer and I was just looking at it, thinking about some stuff.”

  Mia glanced up. “So you’re not going to marry Jodie? Ever?”

  He sighed. “I have no plans to ask Jodie to marry me.”

  “Ever?” she prompted.

  “Mia, I can’t talk about ever or never. I can only tell you that I have no plans to ask anyone to marry me.”

  The relief on Mia’s face was something to see. She rushed over and hugged her father so tight he had to step backward.

  “Let’s go home,” he said, and with his arm slung around his daughter, the pair walked over to Holly.

  “Can Holly still come over and give me
that cooking lesson?” Mia asked. “You have to try the amazing chicken Milanese. That’s where Holly’s grandmother came here from—Milan, I mean. And she’s making linguini primasomething. I’m totally starving.”

  He glanced at Holly, then turned to his daughter. “That all sounds delicious, Mia, but I think we’ve all had enough of a lesson tonight. Rain check?” he said to Holly.

  Holly smiled. “Absolutely. See you soon, Mia,” she added, then headed up the steps to her house.

  “Holly,” Liam called out as she turned her key in the door, and Holly turned around. “Thank you.”

  She smiled and stood there like an idiot for a second, unable to take her eyes off his face. She wanted to go with them, she realized. Back to that stone cottage by the bay with the beagles and fireplace and makings for her success story as a teacher.

  But he had a girlfriend. And an ex-wife who Mia was sure was swooping into town for her birthday. And a daughter, who Holly already was starting to care too much about.

  She turned to go inside and the moment she closed the door, she felt their absence, as though she hadn’t spent only an hour in their company.

  “That’s trouble, Antonio,” she said to the cat.

  He stared at her and then trotted off. Some welcome home committee he was.

  Liam had waited until she was safely inside and a light turned on, Holly saw as she peeked out the window. He and Mia stood on the sidewalk in front of the house, and when Holly glanced out, he held up a hand and then put his arm back around his daughter and they started across the street.

  She liked that, liked that someone cared again that she was home safe. Until she saw him standing there, saw his hand go up, the briefest of smiles, she didn’t realize how much she missed someone caring. Before John had stopped, she loved the way he’d call a few times a day to check in, to check up. And when she’d come to Maine and woken up those first two weeks to the smell of her grandmother’s strong Milanese coffee, the smell of onions and garlic of her soffrito just beginning for her sauces, she felt so safe.

  Holly let out a deep breath and closed her eyes. She wouldn’t have minded going back to their house, making that meal, talking about cooking or school or anything. Maybe it was the intensity, the unexpected intensity, that accounted for the fact that she missed Liam and Mia all of a sudden.

  She stood in the quiet kitchen for a moment, unsure what to do with herself. She called a girlfriend she’d made in California and updated her about the class and her broken heart, which was healing day by day. Talking to someone from her former life helped ease something in her chest. Afterward, she called Laurel, one of her oldest friends from Boston, but her toddler daughter was throwing a major tantrum in the background, and Laurel had to hang up after thirty seconds. For a moment Holly thought about calling John, just to hear his voice, just to say hi, but she knew he’d either not pick up or leave her feeling even worse. She started to press her mother’s number into her phone, but the few times they’d spoken during the past three weeks had left Holly feeling unsettled. Luciana wouldn’t be happy to hear that the first class had gone well, that Holly was serious about keeping the course going. About making a life for herself here. She put down the phone and stared out at the night sky.

  She thought of Juliet, alone somewhere, a hotel, maybe, in her gray clothes, staring out at the night the same way. She was a long way from home, a long way from somewhere she couldn’t breathe. Holly headed to her laptop and googled Portland hotels and called five of the most popular, but there was no Juliet Frears or Juliet Andersen registered as a guest. She could be anywhere.

  Like right here, Holly realized. On Blue Crab Island. The place that held so many good memories for her, when her father was alive, when her family was last together. Holly shook her head at herself for not having thought of it last night. She looked up the number for the Blue Crab Cove and asked if there was a Juliet Frears registered.

  “Yes, ma’am,” said the clerk. “Would you like to be connected to her room?”

  Now it was Holly’s turn to be relieved. “Yes, please.”

  The phone rang and rang and rang, but voice mail picked up. “Juliet? It’s Holly Maguire. I hope you don’t mind that I tracked you down to the Blue Crab Cove. I had a feeling you might be staying here on the island. I’d love to see you, before the next class, I mean. Lunch or dinner or even just coffee. Whatever you’re up for. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know I’m thinking about you and I hope you’re all right. Talk to you soon.”

  She clicked her cell phone shut and headed upstairs to take a long, hot bath, and by the time she got out, fingers wrinkled and smelling like her grandmother’s lavender body salts, she was too tired to even think about menus for lavish weddings, let alone working on a recipe. She was even too tired to open her grandmother’s diary, though she was dying to know if Camilla had written of the bad blood between her and Avery Windemere’s grandmother.

  For the second week in a row, Holly lay down in her grandmother’s bed, the Po River stones over her head, and fell fast asleep.

  Eight

  Liam starred in her dream, of course. A brief dream, no nakedness, but he was there, with her in the gazebo, standing very close to her. She lay in bed and thought of his face, a very handsome face, just slightly craggy with that cleft in his chin. Her crush had turned to like, unfortunately. Which meant it was time to get up and focus on what was important: the job interview of her life. She took a shower in which she only briefly thought of Liam, and this time there was a little nakedness, but by the time she was dressed in her comfiest jeans and the red cashmere sweater had grandmother had brought her back from a trip to Italy a few years ago, Liam was shoved out of her mind.

  She shook some kibble in Antonio’s bowl and he came waddling over, then headed to the front door and batted at something lying there. It was an envelope that someone must have slipped under the door. Decorated with strawberries—scented, she realized as she picked it up—the envelope was addressed to Holly. She ripped it open and pulled out more scented stationery in looping red ink.

  Dear Holly,

  I’m really, really, really sorry about last night.

  —Mia Mae Geller

  Holly smiled and sniffed the strawberries again before tucking the letter in her back pocket. She well remembered being a confused almost twelve-year-old, and dealing with a dating father and an absent mother hadn’t been among her problems. That had to be tough stuff.

  She brewed a pot of coffee, using her grandmother’s almost-gone stash of imported Italian beans, which she had to make weak since the taste was so strong, but at least the beans lasted longer that way. She liked how the kitchen smelled the way it always had when Holly had visited—like strong Milanese coffee, like Maine, like onions and garlic and the sweetness of simmering tomatoes.

  A wedding. A lavish wedding at a fancy inn on the coast of Maine on the first day of spring. That was what she had to keep in mind as she thought about the tasting menu, what would suit the basics and what would suit the little she knew of Francesca Bean and a romantic named Jack. The menu would need to be romantic. And elegant, like Francesca.

  Mulling it all over, Holly made herself a quick breakfast of toasted Italian bread and the strawberry jam from her grandmother’s collection, then took the recipe book out in the backyard with a mug of coffee and stretched out on a chaise. Antonio had darted out the moment she opened the door and was chasing a white butterfly, a last holdout from summer. Holly had grabbed her heavy cardigan from the peg by the side door but had no need to even tie it tight around her; the mid-October Maine morning was still warm enough for her to be outside with a jacket, the sun shining bright. She took a guilty glance at her grandmother’s garden off to the side; a few lone tomatoes were turning green, and herbs that Holly couldn’t name were withering. She could learn to cook, but she couldn’t take up gardening too. At least not yet. For now, the herbs and vegetables would come from the supermarket or the farmer’s market, and one day
she’d take out a book on creating your own edible garden.

  Three courses. Each with a vegetarian option, unless it was vegetarian, of course. A starter. A light dish. An entrée. If I were going to a wedding, she thought, a wedding with Italian food, what would I hope was on the menu?

  An incredible pasta. Perhaps some kind of interesting lasagna. A scallopini in a to-die-for sauce. It was a start, and for the next hour, which included two more trips inside for a refill on the coffee, Holly went through the recipe book and brochures, creating lists of possibilities. Her grandmother had often talked about how Americans were drawn to food that would make them seem more sophisticated for liking it yet reminded them of their own best memories. Give them an Italian dish that evoked a special trip or Thanksgiving dinners at home, and they’d be hooked. Holly had never understood how that could be accomplished with an unpronounceable Italian dish with ingredients no one had ever heard of, but her grandmother would serve said something, and it was the equivalent of comfort food, Holly’s favorite, yet it would be infused with the dark spices that reminded Holly of her first trip to Italy with her grandmother, when she fell madly in love with a sixteen-year-old boy named Marcello.

  I want to try a recipe, she thought, popping up and heading inside. This was new, she realized. Three weeks ago, when her grandmother had passed away, Holly had been motivated to try the recipes, of course, the tie to her grandmother more soothing than anything could possibly be. Yet fear had been the extra ingredient she’d unknowingly, unconsciously added to every recipe along with the wishes and memories. And right then, she didn’t feel scared. She felt … kind of excited.

  She lay her notes, covered in scribbles and Post-its, on the counter. White bean pâté on crostini; ravioli stuffed with grilled eggplant, spinach, and cheese; antipasto platter, Tuscan roast beef tenderloin roasted with pancetta, herbs, and red wine; risotta alla Milanese; gnocchi filled with herbs and mushrooms and served with asparagus; cotoletta Milanese, her grandmother’s favorite dish, with roasted pine-nut and fontina cheese sauce.