“Okay!” Alison shouted, clapping her hands together like the headmistress of a rigid prep school. “Let’s pair up and man our workstations. Betty Sue and Dave will come around with further instructions.”
Lucy braced herself in front of a pot of sweet potatoes and looked at Matt with an expression as steely as the stainless counter between them. His smirk told her that he understood her frustration, and when she picked up a knife with a six-inch blade, the fact that he immediately relieved her of it confirmed his comprehension.
“I can’t believe—”
“I know,” he empathized. “Just try to relax and have fun with your exceptional, albeit second choice, co-chef.”
Lucy sighed. “I can’t believe you said that.”
“I just call ’em like I see ’em.”
“You are not my second choice.”
“No?” he asked her.
“Of course not. Wendy’s my second choice.”
“Oh-hohoho,” he cackled and then picked up the knife for himself.
“And Rob was my third choice,” she said, taking the knife from his hand and laying it to rest on the counter between them. “But you’re a solid fourth, Mattie. And don’t you forget it.”
As the chefs started taking their places at the counter, Wendy stepped up next to Matt and smiled.
“We’re spiced apples,” she told him. “What are you?”
“We’re sweet potato bisque.”
Justin manned the station beside her, and Lucy’s lips quivered as she worked to hold back the smile from her face.
“Recipes are clearly written out,” Betty Sue announced from in front of the sink at the end of the long counter. “They are laminated and placed at your stations, along with all of the ingredients. If you have any questions at all, just pull Dave or me aside.”
“Ready, set, cook,” Justin joked.
“Okay,” Matt said, picking up their recipe card. “Step one says: ‘In a large pot, soften the onion in the oil.’”
“I’ll do that. What’s next?”
“After the onions are soft, we add the sweet potatoes, beef broth, milk, and rosemary, and we bring that to a boil for a few minutes. Then we stir in the orange peel and juice and puree it in the food processor.”
“Yippee,” Lucy told Justin. “A kitchen appliance I’ve never worked with before.”
“Is there a kitchen appliance you have worked with?” Matt asked her with a grin that faded the moment her eyes met his. “Sorry. Kidding.”
“Let’s start peeling the apples,” Wendy suggested to Justin.
He picked up the peeler and started in on the dark red apple skins like a regular professional. Wendy looked at Lucy, and they exchanged wide-eyed surprise before both of them stared at Justin.
“What?” he asked.
“Where did you learn to do that?” Lucy asked with a laugh. “Are you a chef or something?”
“Oh, my mom was.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. The pastry chef at a four-star in Charlotte.”
“No kidding!” Lucy exclaimed, and she shot Matt an eager smile. “That’s so great.”
“My mom wasn’t a pastry chef,” Wendy remarked. “But she should have been. She loved to bake.”
One more smile passed between Matt and Lucy before he picked up the pot and moved it to the stove top.
Sweet Potato Bisque (Betty Sue)
1 minced onion
1 tbsp. vegetable oil
4 cups cooked sweet potatoes
2 cups milk
2 cups beef broth
1 tsp. rosemary
¼ cup orange juice
1 tsp. grated orange peel
Black pepper and salt, to taste
In a large pot, soften the onion in the oil. Add the sweet potatoes, milk, broth, and rosemary and bring to a boil. Simmer for 5–7 minutes then add the orange juice and peel. Puree soup in a food processor and add black pepper and salt to taste.
Chapter Eight
BEYOND THE GLASS WINDOWS THAT WALLED ONE WHOLE SIDE OF THE lodge, the orange sun was setting beneath the cover of a lavender sky. As if to complement the sunset, Betty Sue had placed a deep purple chenille throw over the table on a diagonal. Ten places were set with unmatched china dishes, and lavender and sage votives glowed from a line of crystal holders down the center of the table, from one end all the way to the other.
Each of the teams was expected to serve its offering to the group, so Lucy and Matt were first up with their bisque. Matt spooned the soup into bowls, and Lucy carried them out to the table, two at a time, hoping all the way that she wouldn’t trip or spill. Once the bowls were set in front of each member of the group, they all joined hands around the table and bowed their heads as Jeff led them in prayer.
After amens resounded all around, Lucy couldn’t help looking from face to face, awaiting their reactions to the bisque.
“Oh!” Alison exclaimed. “This is so good.”
“Fantastic.”
“Mmm. Amazing.”
“And it was pretty easy,” Lucy announced. “I mean, I could probably make this by myself in my kitchen at home.”
“That’s the point we try to make with these classes,” Betty Sue explained. “You don’t have to go out to a fancy restaurant to eat healthy and delicious meals.”
“I need to take you home with me for a week or two,” Lucy teased, “just to get me over the rough spots of instant oatmeal and one-trick pasta.”
“Hey, you could do a sort of revolving visiting chef thing,” Wendy suggested. “A week with Lucy, a week with me, then on to Brenda’s.”
“But Brenda’s a pretty great cook in her own right,” Jeff told them. “Remember that lasagna she made last Christmas?”
“And wait until you get a load of the pumpkin jam Jeff and I put together for the tenderloin,” Brenda added. “It’s going to knock all of your socks off.” Alison gave Lucy a gentle kick under the table, and Lucy shot her an appreciative grin. They were seeing the beginning of something between Jeff and Brenda, and for the first time since they’d arrived, Justin had nothing to do with the fact that Lucy was really and truly thankful that she’d come along on this retreat. Despite the fish traumas and the bug bites and the horse-related body strains, Lucy was happy to spend time with this group of unique and extraordinary people.
“I’m so glad we came, Mattie,” she whispered, and he looked back at her as if she’d just said something surprising. “What? I’m having a great time. Aren’t you?”
“Yes. I am.”
It was at this precise moment that Matt identified the difference he’d noticed in Lucy lately. He’d been attributing it solely to her interest in Justin, but the truth of the matter ran much deeper than some guy who was half lumberjack and half underwear model. Lucy had been working so hard to become someone that she wasn’t, with the fishing and the horseback riding and the outdoor activities, that she’d lost sight of the person she actually was.
Matt supposed that, like many people, his friend thrived when she was learning and growing. In the kitchen with the sweet potato bisque, she’d been trying with all her might to master something new, something she was actually interested in. Poking worms with metal hooks, however, and balancing atop large animals—those were not the things Lucy Binoche was made of.
Her joy was lighting up the entire room just then, fueled simply by the reactions of the group to the success of the bisque. And that glow was a shining beacon of a reminder that Lucy was not going to be happy, or feel satisfied, or even get what she wanted, by pretending to be someone she was not. How he was going to get this point across to his friend, he hadn’t a clue.
Tony and Rob drew a roar of laughter by working together to carry a platter of pork tenderloin to the table that could easily have been maneuvered by one of them. As he looked on, Matt wished that his revelation would somehow make its way across the table, over Wendy and Justin’s dish of spiced apples, around the pumpkin jam that made Brenda and Jeff
so very proud, and directly into Lucy’s spirit.
Somehow, though, the way she was smiling at Justin Gerard made him think there was very little chance of that happening.
But Matt knew a God who was bigger than his feeble wishes, so his heart sent up a fervent prayer that Lucy would realize there wasn’t a man on earth worth changing for. She was really quite perfect just the way she was, even with an aversion to almost all things al fresco and a severe lack of personal balance. Her only real fault was a disturbing inability to see herself for the extraordinary woman she was. If she wasn’t his best childhood friend, as much a sister to him as Lanie, in fact, Matt might swoop in on her for himself. But at the very least, he could pray for her, in hopes that she might find someone who could appreciate how special and unique she actually was.
Matt watched Lucy consume two servings of dessert, and he laughed when Betty Sue offered a third. She shook her head emphatically, which Matt recognized as Lucy-speak for regretting the second helping.
“Matt, do you want to play a game of darts with us?” Wendy asked, interrupting his thoughts.
He looked up into her smiling face and grinned back. “Sounds like fun. Though I should warn you, I’m not very good.”
Matt followed Wendy to the other side of the open dining room, where Cyndi and Rob were waiting for them. Rob unlatched the wooden cabinet and unfolded it to reveal a large dartboard beneath.
“Matt and me against you and Rob,” Wendy said to Cyndi.
“Okay. How do you play?”
Rob picked up a large stick of purple chalk from the wooden ledge and wrote R/C on the chalkboard on the left side of the cabinet wall and M/W on the right.
“Each player has to stay behind the throw line,” Wendy explained, pointing out the strip of yellow tape on the floor. “We take turns, one player from each team. And the goal is to throw the dart into the board, getting it as close to the center bull’s-eye as possible.”
“You’ve done this before,” Matt said as he stepped up beside Wendy.
“A time or two,” she replied with a grin.
Wendy proved her love of the game over the next hour not only with her enviable skill but with her obvious knowledge. She was animated and fun, using words like “skunked,” “hat trick,” and “chucker.”
“What in the world is a chucker?” Cyndi asked her.
“That’s you,” Wendy teased. “You’re a chucker; a player who just chucks the darts at the board without taking the time to aim. Let me help you. Come stand here.”
Matt looked on as Wendy took great pains to show Cyndi the correct way to take aim before throwing the dart, and on her third try, Cyndi’s dart actually poked into the board.
“Inside the double rings of the board,” Wendy explained, “is the island. Up to now, you’ve been off the island. Now you’re on!”
Cyndi squealed at the news, and Wendy shot Matt a sweet smile in response. They beat Cyndi and Rob two straight games, and Matt knew he had very little to do with it.
By the time they made their way back to the dining tables, Lucy and Alison had teamed up against Brenda and Jeff in a ping-pong game at the far end of the lodge. Wendy grabbed a couple of bottles of water out of the ice bucket on the buffet table and handed one of them to Matt.
“That was fun,” she told him as they sat down.
“You’re a dart genius,” Matt remarked. “I just know how to throw them at the board.”
“My grandpop taught me. He had amazing skill. And he used to build his own boards.”
“Really?”
“Oh yeah. He was a woodworker, and he would carve these gorgeous, intricate cabinets to mount them in.”
“So you’ve had more than a little practice,” Matt realized. “I don’t feel quite as bad about my score then.”
“You have nothing to be ashamed of. Rob and Cyndi, on the other hand—”
They both laughed, and Matt chugged down some of the cold water.
“What’s so funny?” Justin asked as he joined them.
“Wendy’s a dart shark,” Matt replied. “She looks like a nice, sweet, churchgoing single, but the truth is she’s a shark.”
“Shhhh, don’t tell my secret. I was going to challenge Justin to a game later.”
“I’m thinking there are not too many things you’re not good at,” Justin told her. “From what I’ve seen this week, you’re a regular sportswoman.”
“A tomboy at heart, I’m afraid.”
“Ah, the perfect woman.”
Matt glanced across the room at Lucy, who was holding the paddle as if it were on fire and jumping out of the way of the ball rather than hitting it. She was different from Wendy in every possible way. The Anti-Wendy. Watching Lucy made him want to laugh out loud.
“Do you want to come, Matt?”
He’d lost track of their conversation in favor of his own thoughts. “I’m sorry. What?”
“We’re going to walk up to the cabins so I can get my Bible,” Wendy explained. “I think we’re having devotions indoors tonight before the hayride.”
“Oh, no. Go ahead. I’ll see you back here later.”
Matt saw Lucy’s head turn as she watched Wendy and Justin walk out the door into the night. She snapped her neck back and glared at Matt. Klunking the paddle down on the table, she stomped toward him, swinging her arms feverishly as she did.
“Mattie.”
“Lucy?”
“What was that?” she asked, nodding toward the door.
“A door closing?”
“A door closing,” she said on a whisper, “after Wendy and Justin walked through it together.”
“They’ll be right back. They’re just getting Wendy’s Bible so she can—”
“But they left together,” she pointed out.
“Yes. They did.”
“Oh, Mattie, I don’t want them going places together. Alone. I thought you were going to help me out with this.”
Matt leaned against the metal chair back and regarded Lucy in silence. So much for his revelation reaching her spirit and all that. He could almost hear the rubber bounce of his prayer hitting the wall and ricocheting to the ground.
“Matt, are you listening to me?”
“Yes, Lucy. I’m listening.”
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
She looked like Lanie used to look at eight years old when she didn’t get her way, with her hand on one hip, clomping her foot down on the floor.
“You know what I was just thinking about, Luce?”
She didn’t answer for a moment, but finally she softened and folded down into the chair beside him. “What?”
“Remember that summer when you got it in your head that you wanted to have a whole farm full of pet butterflies?”
“Yeah.”
“And you and Lanie went out every day and caught them with a net and a mayonnaise jar.”
“And then we’d take them home to my house and let them fly around the screened-in porch.”
“And you just couldn’t figure out why they kept dying.”
“I was so angry at you when you came over and opened the porch door and they all flew out,” she said with a nostalgic grin. “Why did you do that anyway, Mattie?”
“Because no matter how much you want to, you can’t make butterflies live on the porch, Lucy.”
“I know that. Now.”
“Do you?” he asked her.
“Well, of course I do. I’m not ten years old any more.”
“No, you’re not. So when are you going to stop catching butterflies and caging them on the porch? Why don’t you just go stand out on the ridge and watch them fly? You never know what else you’ll see while you’re up there.”
“Mattie, what in the world are you talking about?”
He thought about it for a moment and then replied, “I don’t have the first clue.”
Matt stood up and walked away from her without looking back. He wasn’t entirely sure why, but his hea
rt felt heavier than it had in a very long time. Oh, he knew his concerns for Lucy were providing a good chunk of the weight, but that wasn’t all there was to it. There was something else. He couldn’t put his finger right on it, but it was there.
A stone, circular fireplace stood from floor to ceiling in the corner of the dining room, with copper screens on both sides. Ten chairs had been placed in a semicircle in front of it. Once they had retrieved cups of coffee, tea, or hot chocolate, the group members took their seats in front of the blazing fire.
“Our newest member, Justin, is going to take the lead with our devotional time tonight,” Alison announced. “Justin, we’re all so happy that you’ve joined our group, and especially that you’ve come along on this trip so that we can get to know you a little better.”
“Thank you, Alison. I appreciate that,” he replied. “I thought I’d start out by reading to you from the book of Romans. If you want to follow along, I’m in chapter fifteen, starting with verse four.”
Several of them opened their Bibles, and Wendy slid hers toward Matt to share.
“ ‘For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus, that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ ”
Matt watched as Justin folded his Bible shut and ran his hand over the leather cover.
“I’ve been a believer since the twelfth grade,” he told them. “But when I moved to Little Rock, I just couldn’t seem to find a church home where I felt like I belonged. When I came to Grace Community, I was pretty much at the end of my rope. I’d made friends in the area, but none of them were believers. None of them were like-minded. And I’ve come to know that that’s such an important issue. Sharing who you are with people who know the same God and rely on His grace in the same manner—well, there’s really nothing so important. We can’t walk this walk alone, can we? We need one another.”
Love Finds You in Snowball, Arkansas Page 8