“You’re still going on about that?” Aunt Cathy asked.
“Yes. Well, no. I never got the chance to go on about it in the first place, not with Uncle Wyatt and the strippers in the kitchen with us.”
“There was never an Uncle Wyatt,” Aunt Cathy responded.
“Oh, Brenda, we’re sorry. Of course we will be there. What time?”
“Class starts at seven, so you might want to get there a little before. But not a ton before. Don’t get there, like, an hour before. I’ll be setting up, and having you two there will make me nervous. Just come at around six fifty, okay?”
“Okay,” her mother said.
“And I mean the real six fifty. Not the six fifty where you show up at four forty-five, okay?”
“Okay,” her mother said again.
“And sit in the front. No, actually, the back. I don’t want you distracting me with your talks about nonexistent uncles and weathermen and firebombing things. Wait. But if you’re not up front, what if nobody takes the stations up front? That will be really awkward, me cooking up front and having to scream everything to the back. I don’t want awkward. I can’t deal with awkward. Ah, God, what kind of teacher can’t deal with awkward? This is going to be a disaster. I’m quitting. I’ve got to quit. There’s no other way. You know what? You should sit in the middle.”
“What’s wrong with her?” Aunt Cathy asked Bren’s mom, thumbing toward Bren, who was half bent over the kitchen counter, trying hard not to hyperventilate.
“I don’t know,” Joan said, “but I think we should leave for the class around five, don’t you?”
“Yes, definitely. You can’t trust those traffic reports. God knows how long it will take us to actually get there.”
“And Brenda won’t mind if we get there a few minutes early,” Joan added.
“We can help her get set up.”
“Yes, yes. Maybe we should leave at four forty-five. What do you think, Brenda?”
Bren took several deep breaths, trying to collect herself. This was going to be a disaster, she had no doubt. But it was apparently going to be her disaster, because there was no way she would get her mother and Aunt Cathy to understand that they shouldn’t come after all at this point.
“Sure,” she said to her boots, which had come back into focus. “Four forty-five sounds perfect,” she said. “I’ll see you then.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
The piecrust was sticky. Too sticky. So far she’d made crust that was heavier than lead plates, crust that was bland as drywall, and crust that crumbled into oblivion. And now it was too sticky.
Why the hell was crust such a pain in the ass?
“Was the butter too warm?” Rosa asked, fiddling with the stem of her wineglass. Bren resisted the urge to snap, Do you honestly think I haven’t thought of that yet, you twit? But, even though Bren had seemed to be losing more and more of her etiquette the closer she careened toward menopause, she knew that in general circles, it would be considered impolite to call your friend names as she taste-tested your cooking disasters. Also bad etiquette to spit in her wine, as tempting as it might be every time she opened her mouth and a stupid question like was the butter too warm? vomited out.
To be fair, Rosa wasn’t so much Bren’s friend as her charge while Gary crisis du joured with Rosa’s husband, Gilbert. Bren had met Rosa a few times before—always at awkward and uncomfortable office parties and employee-spouse gatherings, where any smiling face was a friendly face. But one-on-one, Rosa was a little too rhinestones-and-yoga-pants for Bren. Not that rhinestones and yoga pants were bad things, only that being friends with someone who looked good in rhinestones and yoga pants was. Rosa was a svelte and pretty mid-thirties with the style of a college coed and the personality of a best friend.
A loud twang vibrated the floor, followed by three loud thumps and the crash of cymbals. Bren jumped, as she always did. Rosa laughed, throwing her adorable head full of thick black curls over her shoulders like she was in a shampoo commercial. Bren gritted her teeth.
“They are getting better, no?” Rosa asked, sipping her wine.
“No,” Bren said under her breath. She dumped the dough into the trash and ran water into the bowl to clean it and start over. She had to jostle dishes to make enough room in the sink to fit the bowl under the faucet. Effort number five. “I don’t know what possessed Gary to think he could play the guitar,” she said over her shoulder. “He flunked out of marching band. Teacher told him his ear was so dead she wouldn’t be surprised if it fell off.” It was one of the many stories Gary had told Bren about his childhood—injustices and triumphs, all the vibrant lives led before they met. He’d supposedly gone on to try out for the football team and become one of Summit Glen’s star players. He owed his glory days to that marching band teacher.
The marching band teacher had been right, though.
For a week, Gary and Gil had been an official garage band—well, okay, basement band because the garage was too cold. Snow on the Roof, they called themselves—which they thought was hilarious because it was meant to be a hint about their virility, but Bren thought it made them sound like a Christmas cover band. Perfect for this time of year, if only they could play a single note.
So far all it had been was twanging and banging and a whole lot of hanging around the kitchen with their sweaty selves, wondering what there was to drink/snack on/watch on television, and, Hey, is that pie? Cluttering her counters with guitar picks and drumsticks and beer cans.
“I’m just glad Gilly found something to keep him busy,” Rosa said, stretching backward, her perky breasts straining against the front of her shirt. “He’s been an animal in bed ever since he picked up those drumsticks.” She laughed again and drained her wine.
Bren tried not to think about how Gary continually claimed that playing the guitar made him new shades of exhausted. He was asleep before his head hit the pillow.
The timer sounded and Bren pulled another pie out of the oven. Cranberry cherry pear walnut, which she planned to top with ice cream and a balsamic drizzle. If only she could get the crust right.
“Taste-test time,” she announced, placing the pie right in front of Rosa.
“Oh, I couldn’t have another one,” Rosa said, rubbing her belly. “That last one did me in.”
“This is my first lesson,” Bren said. “If I don’t get that crust right, I’m going to be done in. Now taste.”
She sliced the pie, knowing good and well it was way too hot to stay together when she pulled it out, but too anxious at this point to wait on it. This was no longer pie; it was a pie death march, and there would be no survivors. She slopped a steaming piece onto Rosa’s plate, and Rosa picked up a fork, reluctantly digging in as Bren filled her wineglass again.
“Well?” Bren asked, wine bottle in hand.
Rosa blew, chewed, swallowed, closed her eyes. “The filling is heaven.”
“The crust. What about the crust?” Bren asked.
To her frustration, Rosa took her time answering—scooping up another forkful and blowing on it, then sliding it into her mouth and chewing for what seemed like forever. Just as Bren was about to scream in agony, she swallowed and nodded. “It’s good,” she said.
“Yes!” Bren pumped her fist in the air. “Like it’ll-do good or blows-you-away good?”
“It’s pretty damn good,” Rosa said, going for a third forkful. “It’s Christmas in your mouth. Have some.”
Bren picked up her fork and dug a bite out of Rosa’s pie.
“What?” Rosa asked as Bren’s face fell. “You don’t like it?”
Bren nodded, near tears. “It’s so good,” she said. “It’s perfect.”
“Why do you look like it’s a bad thing?”
Bren closed her eyes and wiped the sweat from her forehead. “I just can’t remember what I did differently that time,” she said.<
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Rosa laughed, but Bren wasn’t feeling it. This was no laughing matter. Class was tomorrow night, and if she didn’t get a recipe down, she was going to humiliate herself in front of her mother, her crazy aunt Cathy, Paula, and God knew who else. She slumped down onto a stool across from Rosa and drank a swig of wine directly from the bottle. She belched and swigged again.
“Oh, come on, it can’t be that bad, can it?” Rosa said. “It’s good pie. You’re a great cook. What’s the big deal?”
“What’s the big deal?” Bren repeated. She’d asked herself that a million times. What was the big deal exactly? It wasn’t like she was a perfectionist in other parts of her life. Why this? “You see, the big deal is this. My kids are gone, Rosa. My husband is downstairs thinking he can play guitar. I have nobody to cook for this Christmas, and I think I should care more than I actually probably do. I haven’t had a job in over twenty years. Twenty years, Rosa! Can you imagine?”
“I haven’t worked since I married Gilly. That was seven years ago.”
Bren snorted. “Seven years? Come back to me when it’s been twenty. And I honestly have no idea if I am even capable of succeeding now. Do you know how that feels, to have no idea what kind of performance you can put in? Give me a diaper to change or a teacher to conference with and I’m golden. Ask me to do just about anything else and it’s a crapshoot. I’m like a twenty-year-old just out of college, only I’m missing the confidence of a twenty-year-old because I’ve lived life and I know how it can knock you down and you never saw it coming.”
“Well, that’s depressing,” Rosa said, her sunny disposition hiding behind a cloud bank for the first time.
“Yes, it is. Very depressing,” Bren said. “But at the same time it’s kind of exciting, because maybe I can do this. Maybe I can be a huge success and these . . .” She flung her arm around, indicating the house in general. “These people have been keeping me down all these years with their wash this and give me money for that and does this smell rotten to you?”
“Also depressing,” Rosa said. She’d pushed the wineglass away from herself, along with the pie, and seemed to be edging off her stool.
Bren swigged more wine. “Exactly! And maybe that’s my real problem. Maybe I’m depressed and I just blame it on other stuff. Menopause, empty nest, no sex, weight gain, whatever. Those things are depressing, too, right?”
“I wonder if they’re done playing,” Rosa said, glancing toward the stairs that led to the garage.
“Not likely. They’ve only been at it for an hour. I’m sorry. I’m making you uncomfortable. Have you ever heard of a Chinese redheaded centipede?”
Rosa shook her head, clearly wary of where this new track of conversation was going to lead.
“It’s a poisonous centipede that grows nearly a foot long. A foot!”
Rosa’s eyes got big. “You haven’t seen one around here, have you?”
Bren swigged, starting to feel that loose feeling in her arms that she often got from drinking, and shook her head. “But Chinese redheaded centipedes live in Thailand. You know what else is in Thailand? My daughter. She lives in Thailand. My future grandchildren could live in Thailand. They could get bitten by this giant thing and die before I even get to meet them. Now that, my friend, is depressing. So why am I so worried about a cooking class, right? I should be worrying about the funerals of my grandkids.”
“I’m going to go listen to the guys for a while,” Rosa said. “Thank you so much for the pie.”
She slid off the stool, landing on her tiny high-heeled feet, her back a perfect arch. Bren felt her stomach folds rest on the tops of her thighs. God, had she ever been anywhere near as perfect as Rosa? Probably not, but how depressing to think that if she had, it had all gone downhill in just a few short years.
“Oh, you don’t need to go. I’m just venting,” Bren said lightly. “Really. I just can’t, for the life of me, figure out why my daughter would choose to live among giant centipedes and raise potential children there, but who am I to ask why, right? The pie is cooler now. Another piece?”
Rosa’s hand went to her belly, even as she continued to edge out of the room. “I’m so stuffed,” she said. “I’m sure it will be fine. Surely they have some sort of pest control for those things. I mean, you’d definitely see a foot-long bug coming at you.” She gave an uneasy smile and sidestepped some more.
“Good point,” Bren said. She took another swallow of wine and smacked the bottle on the counter, rattling a pair of salt and pepper shakers. She pointed at Rosa and winked. “You see? Needless worry. That’s all. Come have some more wine. I can open another bottle.”
She didn’t know why she suddenly felt so desperate to keep Rosa from leaving the room. She’d only minutes ago been thinking of her as the child she had to babysit while Gary and Gilly destroyed the Beatles for two hours. But now she seemed like a friend on the brink of abandoning her. And the last thing Bren wanted was to be abandoned by someone else, surrounded by all this pie. Another reminder of how lost her life had become, at five hundred calories a slice.
“I think I might be driving,” Rosa said. She fished in her front pocket and came out with a set of keys dangling from one finger. “I’m sure Gilly’s been down there sucking up the beer.” She laughed, but it was hollow and uncomfortable. “But thanks for the wine, too.”
Fortunately for both Rosa and Bren, as this conversation had certainly reached a point of no return, Rosa had reached the stairs. She practically sprinted down them in her adorable periwinkle heels.
“Okay, well, it was good seeing you,” Bren called, trying to sound cheery, but wondering if she only sounded drunk. Good golly, was it possible to be drunk from half a bottle of wine? She mentally checked for the last time she drank. Had to have been months now. Maybe not since Kelsey’s wedding. Hell, maybe not since last Christmas. “Whatever,” she mumbled, waving off Rosa. She was a woman child and the two of them were not meant to be close, anyway.
Of course, that felt a lot more comfortable when it was her not wanting anything to do with Rosa rather than Rosa running for her life from scary half-drunk Bren and her centipede rants.
Her shoulder itched as if a centipede were crawling across it. She shrugged, hoping the movement would calm it, but it didn’t.
Sighing, she got up, grabbed plates for Gary and Gilbert, and put slices of pie on them. Surely they would be coming up soon to see what had chased Rosa down. The centipede feeling raced across her shoulder again. She shrugged. It got stronger. She shrugged again. It dug in, stung. She couldn’t help raking her fingers across it. But scratching did nothing to help.
“Dammit.” She dumped the rest of the pie into the trash can, slammed the glass pie plate into the dishwasher, and trudged off to the bathroom. She locked the door, then stood with her back pressed against it for a few moments. She didn’t want to take the two or so steps that would have her facing the mirror—that dreaded bit of wall space she’d been avoiding for months now. Facing the mirror meant she might have to look at her shoulder. Which meant she might have to do something about it.
But the itch only intensified as she stood there trying to think of reasons to turn around and leave the bathroom altogether. It was almost burning now, it was so flamingly itchy.
That’s just your imagination, Nan had told her. It’s only itching because you know it’s there.
Could be the truth. Could be that her subconscious made the spot on her shoulder itch to remind her it was there and needed attending to. Or it could be—as she’d read on all those self-diagnosing medical websites—that skin cancer itches.
Letting out a breath, she stepped up to the mirror and pulled the neck of her tunic to one side.
There it was. Ugly. Patchy. Now red, from all of the not-scratching she was doing. Kind of raised.
And had it gotten bigger? She thought it might have, since she last looked. To be fair
, that was a while ago and she’d gained a lot of weight, so everything on her had gotten bigger. But cancer grew. It was the one thing that cancer did really well. Okay, one of two things, if you counted “killing people” as a skill of cancer’s, which Bren supposed you could. Maybe its best skill.
She poked at it. Ran her fingers over it to see if the color changed or if she felt any pain. Made faces at it. And then quickly covered it again.
Soon. She would make that appointment soon.
Fortunately, the phone rang, jolting her away from the mirror and out of the bathroom, where she could breathe again. Cancer didn’t exist in ringing phones. She got to the phone on the fourth ring, and picked it up breathlessly.
“Hello?”
“Mommy, hi!”
Bren checked the clock. It was barely five a.m. in Thailand. Her already-worried system jolted.
“Kelsey, honey, is everything okay? It’s so early.”
Kelsey laughed, that amazing tinkle that tore at Bren’s heartstrings and reminded her of all the reasons why she needed to be baking pies, even if the crust was never, ever right.
“I’m fine, Mommy. Gosh, you sound so paranoid.”
“I just wasn’t expecting to hear from you today.”
“I know! It’s a happy surprise, right?” Again with the giggles. Kelsey was such a giggler. Years, decades of giggles throughout the house. And now no giggles. Ever. Who giggled? Bren? No. Gary? Certainly not. Maybe Rosa, but she hardly counted. A giggle-less house, Bren lived in.
“Well, it’s always a happy thing to hear from you, of course,” Bren said. “Very happy. How has the beach been? Seen any foot-long centipedes?”
“It was beautiful and fun and lovely, of course. We love the beach. What did you say about centipedes?”
“Have you seen any? Been bitten by any?”
“No.” A doubtful tone. “Why?”
“No reason,” Bren said, feeling an immense (and ridiculous, she was quite aware) sense of relief.
“Mommy, Thailand is perfectly safe. I’ve told you. I wish you could come down and see for yourself.”
The Hundred Gifts Page 6