Chapter 5
S o we’re done?” Gil wanted to know.
Monica glanced around the restaurant where they had met for a late lunch. The dinner crowd was starting to trickle in, and their waitress would probably love for her and Gil to leave so she could seat someone else at their table.
“I believe we are. And, hey, look at it this way, this was probably the longest lunch meeting on record. We started at two, and it’s almost five o’clock,” Monica answered.
Gil stretched his arms over his head and yawned. “It has been a long meeting, but the time seemed to fly by. Now what’s the next step?”
“Tomorrow evening, I’ll run this by Adella, and if she likes it, we’re all set.”
“And…you’ll keep me updated?”
Before Monica could answer, her cell phone rang. Checking the caller ID, she saw it was Penny Phelps, the host of a local TV show that was widely watched. In two weeks, they would come by to profile The Pie Rack for the “Hidden Treasures” segment they showed each day.
“I need to take this,” she told Gil. “Do you mind?”
“Not at all.” He pushed the papers they’d been working on aside and took a bite of his salad.
“Thanks,” Monica said, flipping the phone open. “Hello?” She angled slightly away from Gil so as not to be rude.
“Monica? Penny Phelps here, calling about your appearance on St. Louis Morning.”
“Yes, yes, I got a confirmation from the camera-crew assistant a few days ago, and we’re all set for the Thursday after next.”
“Yes, I know,” Penny said. “But I have another opportunity for you, if you’d be interested.”
“Really? I guess I’m definitely interested,” Monica said. “What does it involve?”
“Funny you should ask,” Penny said. “We just learned our guest for tomorrow’s taping of the ‘Daily Recipe’ segment has a nasty flu and won’t be able to make it. Apparently, baked potato soup is not something she can even think about without tossing her…well, you get the picture.”
“So…you want me to make the soup for her?” Monica asked, puzzled.
“Not exactly. I was looking through the upcoming features segments and saw that you guys are famous for your signature sweet potato pie. I’m wondering if you’d be willing to come on and demonstrate it for the viewers. If anything, it’ll drive more customers to your place in advance of your ‘Hidden Treasures’ segment.”
“I’d love to. Just name the time and place.”
“And you don’t mind giving up your recipe?” Penny probed.
“Honestly, I can’t give them the exact recipe we use, but we do have a good recipe we give to our patrons all the time. I could definitely use that one.”
“Perfect,” said Penny. “Now, you should be at the studio at 7:00 a.m. tomorrow, and bring all the ingredients for your recipe, as well as a couple of already prepared pies—one to display and one for us to taste after we finish the demo. Anything else you need to know?”
Monica racked her brain to search for additional questions but couldn’t think of any. “Nothing off the top of my head, but if I think of something, is it okay to call you at this number?”
“Sure, it’s my cell, so I always have it on me. I believe we’re set. Thanks for the favor, and I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Great. See you then.” Monica hung up the phone and turned to face Gil, who was looking at her expectantly.
“You sound like some kind of big shot,” he teased. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, wow, this is the most exciting thing!”
“Really? Was it Adella calling to say she wants us to cater the wedding, too?”
“No,” Monica answered, shaking her head. She instantly remembered that Gil’s business wasn’t doing so well, so she reigned in her exuberance in order to not seem like she was rubbing her company’s success in his face.
“Penny Phelps just asked me to demonstrate a pie recipe on her show tomorrow.”
Gil grinned widely. “That’s fantastic. When will it be on?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s live. Oh, wow. I’m going to be on live TV. I wonder if I need to come with hair and makeup done or will they do it for me?” Monica sighed in frustration. “Of course I would come up with questions like this after she hangs up.”
“If it’s live, I guess I’ll be getting up early to watch you. It’s not every day you see a good friend on TV.”
Good friend. His words jarred her a bit, but she determined not to show it. What right did she have to be disappointed? Their short-lived romance had been finished for a decade. At least he still wanted to be friends. That said a lot, considering how he could actually be content to never talk to her again.
Besides, her parents were counting on her to not let her judgment be clouded by emotions while she and Gil worked on this project. So he was making it very clear he was just her friend.
Fine, I can deal with that, she decided. But why does he have to be so blunt about it? At least have a little compassion for a girl’s feelings, huh?
“Earth to Monica,” Gil said, laughing. “Is it just me, or have you gone into full-speed brain fog since Penny called?”
“Sorry about that. I guess I’m trying to mentally pull together everything I need to get done for tomorrow.”
“Let me help you,” Gil said, opening to a blank page in his notebook. “Here’s your ‘to-do’ list. Just say whatever you need to get done, and I’ll write it down. That way, you won’t lose track of any thoughts while you’re trying to get your list together.”
“You’re volunteering to be my scribe?” she teased. “I have to warn you, I can be a little long-winded sometimes.”
“Oh really?” he asked, arching his eyebrows. “That’s funny. Must be my luck, because my favorite girlfriend was also very talkative.”
Monica was taken aback. Was this his way of telling her he was in a relationship?
Gil must have sensed her confusion, because he hurriedly continued speaking. “Yeah, actually you remind me of her a lot. I dated her my senior year of high school, and we haven’t really talked since then. Well, actually, I ran into her yesterday, but I didn’t get to ask her anything important, like whether or not she was dating anyone…or if she would let me take her out to dinner tonight?”
“Dinner?” Monica echoed, feeling pleased that he actually seemed to be showing some interest in her. He was certainly taking an indirect route to asking her out, but she couldn’t help but find it kind of cute.
“Yeah. Apparently, she got some really exciting news about her job today, and I wanted to take her out to celebrate.” Gil leaned a little closer to her. “Give me some advice. Should I ask or do you think she would laugh in my face?” In a stage whisper, he added, “We didn’t break up in a very ideal way.”
“Since when have you ever seen an ideal break up?” Monica countered.
“So I should go for it? Do you think she would say yes?”
Monica tilted her head to the side and pretended to be thinking. “I think she would definitely say yes, except she might not have time—at least not tonight.”
Gil frowned in an exaggerated fashion. “So that’s a no?”
“I wish I could, but I have so much to do. I have to be at the studio at 7:00 a.m. But I’ve got stuff to finish at the office this afternoon, and I’ve got to bake a couple of pies and then get ingredients together for the demo, find something to wear, and make sure I have everything together for the meeting with Adella tomorrow night.”
“I can think of one item you can strike from the list,” Gil said triumphantly.
“Really? Which one?”
“Baking pies. The last I heard, the bakers at The Pie Rack make several dozen pies every day. Just pick up a couple from the restaurant.”
Monica shook her head. “I can’t. I know I’m probably being too hands-on, but I feel like if I’m going to demonstrate it, I need to bring pies I actually did myself.”
“Then let me bring takeout over, and I can eat it while I watch you cook.”
“Gil, are you inviting yourself over to my house?” she asked, pleased that he wanted to spend more time with her.
“Guilty as charged.”
“I heard that girl you wanted to take to dinner really, really likes sesame chicken.”
“Then I will be at her house at seven on the dot with sesame chicken.”
Monica quickly jotted down the directions to her condo then gathered up her notes and headed back to work. If her dad had been less than thrilled about this morning’s announcement, the call she was about to make would more than make up for the shock of having to work with the Butlers for the engagement party.
Chapter 6
W ow, do you have like an army of kids in the neighborhood, or is cooking for hundreds of people just a hobby of yours?” Gil asked, taking in the sight of Monica’s kitchen.
“Excuse me?”
Gil pointed to the kitchen table and countertops, which held industrial-sized packages of baking ingredients. “Do you bake cookies for your neighbors in your spare time? I can’t think of any other reason why a single woman would need this much flour.”
Monica laughed and walked to her refrigerator. Swinging the door open to reveal a nearly empty interior, she said, “Ha, ha, my comedian. No, I don’t have all this stuff just sitting around every day. I brought these ingredients home from the bakery so I could work on the pies tonight.”
“Well, that makes much more sense,” he said.
“I can’t believe you thought I have all that stuff just sitting around. You should see my cabinets—they’re even more empty than my fridge.”
“What do you eat? Air?”
Monica put a finger to chin and feigned deep thought. “Let’s see…my weekday dinner preparation usually consists of stopping at the grocery store on my way home from work to pick up a frozen dinner.”
He pointed to a pot resting on the stovetop. “What’s cooking now?”
“I just peeled a bunch of potatoes for the pies I have to bake tonight. Hopefully they’ll be boiling soon.”
“Smells good.” Gil held up the bags he’d carried in. “Well, rest assured, this sesame chicken is not from a box in the freezer section. Should I plate it up?”
“No, no, you’re the company. Why don’t you sit down in the living room, and I’ll get dinner on the table.”
“Are you sure there isn’t anything I can help you do?” he wanted to know. “Can I help you get your ingredients together?”
Monica shook her head. “I was going to do that really quick before dinner. Just make yourself at home, turn on the TV, whatever.”
Monica put the takeout into the microwave to heat and began transferring the ingredients into smaller canisters.
“Hey, I have the same laptop!” Gil called from the living room. “Mind if I check my e-mail?”
“Go right ahead. Dinner in about five minutes.”
Monica transferred flour into a smaller canister, then pulled dinner out of the microwave and fixed plates for her and Gil.
Walking into the living room to let him know dinner was served, she watched as he clicked on her laptop. To her surprise, she watched in amazement as her bookkeeping program popped up on the screen.
Why in the world was he looking in that program? Wasn’t he supposed to be checking his e-mail?
Monica cleared her throat. Gil turned abruptly and closed the cover of the laptop.
“How’s the e-mail?” she asked, trying to keep her voice level.
“Well…honestly, I didn’t quite make it there yet. I…I accidentally pulled up some other program.”
Monica put the plates down on the dinette table and headed over to where Gil sat with her computer.
“Really? What other program?”
“It looks like your bookkeeping program. I must have accidentally clicked on a different icon, and it just opened.” He stood up and walked to the table where their dinner sat. “But don’t worry,” he added. “I wasn’t snooping.”
Monica followed him to the table and noticed she’d forgotten silverware. “Let me run back into the kitchen for a minute.”
As soon as she entered the kitchen, Monica realized she’d forgotten to finish transferring the salt and sugar to the canisters, so she took Gil the flatware and explained that she would join him in a few minutes.
“I started this job in the kitchen, and I know I won’t be able to relax and eat dinner if I leave things undone.”
Gil nodded and kept eating as Monica made her escape.
She was vaguely aware of the fact that it was probably rude to make Gil sit and eat by himself, but she needed to do something to keep herself busy and refrain from jumping to conclusions. If she were sitting across from him right now, she would have a hard time reining in her imagination.
While she transferred the ingredients, Monica prayed silently.
Lord, if my dad was right and Gil really is up to something wrong, please show me before something goes wrong for The Pie Rack.
Monica hoped against all hope that he had been telling the truth—that he’d opened the program accidentally and he wasn’t snooping.
She pressed the lid back on the sugar jar and took a deep breath before returning to the table.
Gil looked up and smiled. “It was starting to feel a little uncomfortable, sitting here eating by myself. Glad you came back. And I do hope you believed me when I said I wasn’t snooping. The last thing I want to do is give you a reason not to trust me.”
“Oh, you know me, I have a one-track mind when it comes to my ‘to-do’ list,” Monica said, sidestepping the question.
“Are you baking the pies after we finish?”
“Probably. The longer they sit after you bake them, the better they taste.”
“I remember. Our dads took six months to perfect that recipe.”
Monica laughed. “I remember that after they finally agreed on the recipe I was so tired of sweet potato pie I could hardly stand to look at one, let alone taste it, for at least a good year.”
Gil shook his head. “I never had that problem. And after we stopped selling it, I had to rely on going to friends’ houses to taste it.”
Monica stopped eating, her fork midair. “You stopped selling the pie?”
“Yeah. After the whole…fiasco, my dad got the idea that he didn’t want to have anything in common with your dad, so we stopped selling sweet potato pie, and he refused to even have it in the house.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I am not. I remember once, when I was home for Christmas break during my sophomore year of college, I was at my friend Eddie’s house. They had a couple of pies from The Pie Rack, and I think I ate an entire pie by myself.”
Monica couldn’t help but laugh out loud. “Did anyone notice or say anything?”
“I doubt it. A bunch of people were there hanging out, going in and out of the kitchen, and I just knocked that whole pie off, piece by piece.”
“That’s a great story. How would you feel about taking a pie home with you tonight?”
“I would be eternally grateful.”
“Then it’s settled.” Since they were finished eating, Monica stood and began clearing the table. “If you don’t mind hanging around while I make these pies for the show, I’ll make one for you, too.”
“Absolutely no problem for me. Can I help?”
Monica shook her head. “I work best if nobody is standing over my shoulder when I cook. You can either watch TV or check your e-mail while I get the pie into the oven, and we can talk while it’s baking.”
“I’ll go for the TV, since I already had a difficult time checking e-mail. But hurry up and finish so I don’t feel like I’m just sitting around doing nothing while you do all the work.”
“I’ll try.” Monica went to the kitchen, drained the now soft potatoes and began mashing them and adding the other ingredients.
She felt a sense of relief t
hat he had turned down the opportunity to get his hands on her computer again. Surely that meant he really had opened The Pie Rack’s financial files by accident.
At any rate, she was also glad that he wanted to stick around and talk to her. Of course, the promise of pie had something to do with that, but wasn’t the way to a man’s heart supposedly through his stomach?
In record time, Monica mashed, blended, and whipped the ingredients and got the pies ready to bake.
Gil came in the kitchen just as she slid the last pan in the oven.
He walked over to the bowl where she’d mixed everything. “Can I have a taste?”
“No—that’s another one of my kitchen rules. No eating anything with raw egg in it.”
Gil frowned. “I’m sure I’ll be fine. Everything smells good, and it’s going to be hard to wait until it’s done baking.”“You are worse than a little kid,” she teased. “Let me see if I can find you something to tide you over until these are done.”
Monica checked the drawers in her refrigerator and found she had a couple of single slices of pie she’d brought home from work yesterday.
“Can I interest you in a slice now?” she asked, waving the container under Gil’s nose.
“As long as I can warm it up in the microwave, yes.”
“It’s hot now, but you have to promise me you’ll let it sit overnight before you cut it.”
“Are you serious?” Gil wanted to know.
“Yes, I’m serious. And if you don’t promise me, I will be forced to keep it here tonight, and you can come pick it up tomorrow.”
“I don’t recall having this rule back when our dads made the pie.”
“That’s because my dad did a little retweaking of the recipe and the cooking procedure. We discovered that even though it tastes fine right out of the oven, if you let the flavors set up while it cools for several hours, it tastes even better.”
“I don’t like the idea because I want a piece right now, but I’ll do what you said.”
“Great.”
“So what time can I cut into this masterpiece?”
“Well…I’m getting to the studio around seven, and I think we’ll be going on the air shortly afterward, so I guess after seven, seven thirty, you can eat it.”
Sweet Surprise: Romance Collection Page 50