And that is what made the slap sting all the more. In three bounds Jane was in front of me and her hand flew so fast and connected so hard that I fell onto the stair behind me. I grabbed my cheek, on fire and swelling before she drew back her hand.
I looked up, expecting to see her livid and towering over me. Instead I found her cradling her hand, tears spilling over her lower eyelids. Her bottom lip trembled. “Get out.”
I held my cheek. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Pack your bags and get out. Anything you forget, I’ll mail. You’ve got thirty minutes.”
“Please, Jane—”
“No. I choose to spend my energy surviving this for my husband and my children . . . I don’t need you. Not like this.” She walked out of the room gripping her hand.
I pulled on the banister to stand, then trudged up the stairs. I threw everything within reach into the suitcase, berating myself with each item I tossed. Within minutes, I noticed a cab pull up outside the house. I shut the suitcase and headed down the stairs, noting the silence. I suspected Jane had left or was hiding somewhere to avoid me.
Before my thirty minutes were up, I was pulling away in the cab and making a phone call.
“Paul, I’m heading back with you after all.”
Chapter 39
MY KEY SLID IN THE LOCK AND I PUSHED FEAST’S FRONT door open. Something that a month ago had felt warm and vibrant now seemed cold and foreign. My eyes lingered on the picture of Jane and me above the hostess stand, and I remembered that afternoon as if it were only yesterday. Jane was seventeen and I was nine. A friend had come over and was bullying me, and Jane came striding into the room.
“Don’t talk to my sister like that. She’s your friend, and if you don’t know how to be a friend, you can leave.”
I recalled how Lisa’s mouth had dropped, and I had noticed a silver filling in her bottom molar.
Without missing a beat or drawing a breath, Jane had continued, “Are you going to be nice?” Lisa nodded. “Good. Grab your coats and I’ll take you to town for ice cream.”
And that’s what we did. We went for ice cream and then drove Lisa home, all vanilla smiles and cookie-dough laughs. When we pulled in to our driveway, Jane and I were still laughing and singing at the top of our lungs. Mom was outside taking pictures in her garden and caught this shot of Jane wrapping me in a hug, both of us smiling bright. It was one of the best moments of my life.
Tears filled my eyes and one plopped down my cheek before I could catch it. I swiped it away and glanced around the room, making a note to purchase a few large color photographs or maybe a couple modern paintings in bold colors. I huffed away the notion that it would look more like Nick’s home.
Something caught my attention. The alarm hadn’t gone off. The room was silent. Someone was probably in the kitchen prepping. I stepped away from the photograph and ran my fingers along a linen tablecloth. It felt rough. Jane wouldn’t like that. Her fingers were sensitive right now. Textures mattered. I reached out and touched the cloth with my left hand, imagining her tender nerves might feel like my recovering ones. The cloth scratched and I shivered. Jane was right.
I looked toward the steel door to the kitchen, wishing I could find it silent and dark. I had anticipated that moment when I turned the lights on and saw my kitchen again for the first time. I needed the confirmation that Feast still flowed through my veins and remained my sanctuary. I held my breath and leaned in to the door.
“What are you doing here?” Paul pushed himself up from the counter and tapped his phone several times before pocketing it. He narrowed his eyes, as if trying to solve a puzzle. “I thought you’d call this morning.”
“I wanted to come in on my own, like I always do.”
“And?”
“It feels the same, but different.”
Paul stepped toward me. “Before you settle here, let’s go see Spread.”
“Spread?”
“The new place. I’ve been calling it that in my head. One of my marketing guys came up with it, but I’m not sure it works.”
He wrapped his arm around me and propelled me back through the dining room, out the front door, and into his waiting town car.
Spread was a tiny place—a gem of one, actually—and I was enchanted the second I opened the door. The location, right on Greenwich Avenue, the charming front, the tiny dining space—I loved it. It felt more intimate and personal than Feast could ever be. It embodied everything that I now valued.
“Murray’s been directing the interior design.” Paul glanced at me. “I hope you don’t mind, but we needed to move forward.”
“Not at all.” I stepped over a stray board and surveyed the space. I envied Trent Murray—I knew he got it. The changes I saw, the new work being fashioned, clearly enhanced warmth and relationship—he was actively creating more than food in this space.
He was refinishing the woodwork to bring out honey and blond tones, not Feast’s deep, semi-intimidating mahogany hues. A piece of protective floor paper had torn away, revealing large vintage tile ready to be buffed to a high polish. There was wrought iron detailing around the bar that had already been restored. Circa 1920? The small space could seat no more than thirty to forty, but what an evening those patrons would enjoy. It brought to mind the excited glamour of The Great Gatsby tempered with the tranquility and warmth of a private dining room.
We heard a crash from the kitchen. Paul beat me to the door.
“Murray?”
“Hey . . . Chef Hughes? You’re back. I just dropped the oven grate. Sorry.” Trent slid the heavy grate into the oven as we walked into the room. The kitchen was half the size of Feast’s, but well designed. A new range took up almost an entire wall.
“Wow.” I froze.
Trent looked over. “Isn’t it gorgeous? I thought Paul was going to kill me when I insisted on it, but we’ll love it.”
I absorbed his we and saw the future span before me. Paul had worked it perfectly. I glanced over at him. He surveyed the room with a proprietary air. Two chefs, two restaurants. Trent and I now needed each other and had no cause to complain. I ran my hand across the warm stainless steel. Marketing, Trent’s. Culinary vision, mine.
There were questions, but I knew the future. As Tabitha had said, I was “on Paul’s list,” and he had made his intentions clear—as clear as he ever did, always putting business ahead of personal concerns. But he had expectations, and I wasn’t naïve enough to believe that two restaurants didn’t come with a price.
My hand ran off the edge of the warm stove and turned to ice. The cold of the stainless steel counter was a sharp reminder of what life felt like, would feel like. I glanced to Paul and Trent quietly chatting in the corner.
Paul caught my eye. He stared, reading something. Without breaking contact I heard him articulate slowly and carefully, “Chef Murray. Please give us a moment.”
Trent darted a glance between us and left the kitchen with no words. As soon as the door swung behind him, Paul stepped forward. “You’re not staying, are you?”
“I’m not, but I didn’t realize it until just now.”
“I did.” At my expression, he raised his brows. “I could always read you. Determined, hungry. I loved your fire. I knew you’d get it back and I thought I’d get you back.” He looked at me hard. “We’ve been heading to this point for years.”
“We have,” I assured him, knowing it was true whether I’d planned it or not.
“While you were gone, listening to you, I sensed the ‘fire’ had nothing to do with Feast or with me. Then Thursday night at dinner, and yesterday on the plane, it was clear.”
“I’m sorry, Paul.” I stepped forward and rested my hand on his crossed arm.
“Don’t do that.” He laid his hand over it. “Don’t feel sorry for me, Elizabeth. I simply made a miscalculation.” He closed his eyes for a beat—then opened them and zeroed in on me. “You’ll return to him, won’t you?”
�
�Who? Nick?” I stepped back. “That’s over, and this isn’t about him. It’s about Jane and my dad, Peter and the kids . . . I need to go home. My family’s in Seattle.”
“And Feast? This place? Me?” Paul’s voice cracked and his eyes softened, but no moisture, no tears. “Are we so easily forgotten?”
“Never. But I can’t be who I want to be here. I don’t want to work to justify my existence, Paul, in every aspect of my life. I can’t anymore.” I looked around. “Trent and Tabitha will make these restaurants shine and you know it. Tabitha is a gifted chef. They’ll thrive, and you’ll make money.”
Paul chuckled lightly. “I should be offended by that, my dear.” He added the last words pointedly.
I reached up and hugged him. “But you aren’t, not really.”
Paul gently pushed me from him. “Best not to presume too much.” He gestured toward the door. “Go.”
I stepped forward and kissed him on the cheek, lingering to smell his cologne. Expensive, floral, a touch of moss and sunshine. I turned and walked away.
Chapter 40
HALFWAY DOWN THE BLOCK I REALIZED I HAD NO ONE to call and nowhere to go. My roommate was out of town with her boyfriend, visiting his family in DC, and I had no desire to tell Tabitha she now had her own kitchen. That was Paul’s job. And she deserved it.
I turned into a coffee shop. It was small and dark. No armchairs, no fireplace, no antipasto platter. I felt my shoulders slump. With all I’d lost in Seattle and now all I had given up in New York, it was the coffee shop that made my lip quiver. I ordered a latte and sat at a table in the window, staring at my cup and missing the fireplace and the little brown Starbucks sleeve.
I had never once in my wildest dreams imagined giving up Feast, not really. Sure, I’d flirted with vapors—other dreams, musings, and what-ifs—but I knew perfectly well what ingredients bound my life. Yet as I stood in that kitchen, my hand running from the warm to the cold, I knew. I knew I could no longer justify my existence. No work could accomplish that. And if it couldn’t, then it meant that I was more. I could be more, live more, give more—live large and thankful and with no regrets.
I wondered how such revelations could dance within me without a lightning bolt accompanying them. Hadn’t I just turned all I knew upside down?
I needed a list . . . There was nothing to write with. I glanced around, trying to force a next step. The lack of a fireplace in the coffee shop bothered me . . . and the uncomfortable chairs . . . and the . . . the shop across the street . . .
I finished my drink, disposed of the cup on my way out the door, and waited impatiently for the light to change so I could rush across to the door beneath the sign: Wigs for Cancer Patients.
The salon was small and well lit, and wigs covered the shelves floor to ceiling. A saleswoman, Saskia, introduced herself and politely gave me space to roam. I needed it. I was overwhelmed by the styles, the colors, the quantity—and the need such variety implied. I had scoffed at Jane’s request, equating it with putting a Band-Aid over an amputation, but these wigs looked real, soft to the touch. They were as complex and varied as the spice mixtures I created with my mortar and pestle and could be as unique and comforting to her as my spices are to me. I closed my eyes, sorry that in this small way, too, I had belittled my sister.
“Are you shopping for yourself?”
“For my sister . . . I had no idea.” I grasped a long swath of hair, thicker than my own ponytail.
“That one is made of real hair, but the synthetic wigs over here are easier to style.”
“She lives in Seattle.”
Saskia nodded, perhaps agreeing but not understanding the relevance.
“Let’s just say she won’t spend time styling it. She won’t find that enjoyable.”
“Was her hair that color?” Saskia motioned to the ponytail I still held.
“Blonder.”
“Come look at these tones. Many patients want to match their former color because it feels familiar.”
“Former?”
“Hair often doesn’t come back the same. Some blondes become brunettes, some straight hair comes back in ringlets, some perfectly white or a shade of red. There isn’t a rule, but it’s never precisely the same.”
“Nothing is,” I muttered and looked at her color samples. I picked one. “Can I have it wavy, though? She had straight hair, and I think she’d prefer some waves.”
Saskia pulled out an order form and began recording my choices. “I just need the circumference of her head.”
“I don’t have that.”
“Can you call her?”
I shook my head and sighed. It was over—my starting point, my opener in a plea for forgiveness. “I can’t. I don’t think she’d even answer the phone.”
I shoved my wallet back into my handbag and brushed across a swath of fabric. I pulled it out. It was the scarf Jane had pulled off at Snoqualmie Falls. I balled it into a fist. “I’ll just get her more of these; then she can tie them where she chooses . . .”
I stepped from the counter, fingering the scarf. “Wait . . .” I turned back, spread it on the counter, and folded it into a diagonal, noting the firm wrinkles where the knot had been tied. “Look. Look where she tied it. That’s the circumference of her head. Can you use that?”
“Show me how she wore it.”
I put it on my head, clasping it behind where the knot formed.
I laid it back on the counter as Saskia pulled out her measuring tape and carefully measured from the center of each wrinkled pock. “If you’re willing to take the risk, I estimate we’ll add a quarter of an inch to compensate for the angle. It should work, but I can’t guarantee it, and the sale is final.”
“I’ll take that risk.” I reached again for my wallet. “It’ll work, right?”
“It could.”
I took a deep breath and let it out in a huge puff. “I wasn’t really talking about the wig.”
“I didn’t think you were.”
Saskia finished recording all my details and assured me that my custom wig would arrive within three days.
Chapter 41
I STOOD IN THE DOORWAY OF MY APARTMENT AND shook my head. I had never really looked at it, had never stopped and fully absorbed the space I called home. There was little within that was mine. Even in the kitchen, I had contributed only some fantastic knives and a set of All-Clad pots. It felt as if I’d withheld myself, even from this place. Or perhaps I had simply been that little—that unattached and absent.
I walked into my bedroom, knowing if I wanted to find me, there was only one place to look. I lay down on the floor and reached my arm under the bed, making huge sweeps that pushed everything out: Jane Austen novels, a high school scrapbook, birthday cards, and a box of photographs. The box. I took a deep breath and opened it. There it was—the peach linen envelope with a small, precise Lizzy scripted across the top.
Jane had mentioned hers, the final letter Mom had written to her, but she’d thrown it away. Two daughters, two letters—and neither of us had reached across our divide. One threw it away. One buried it.
I opened the envelope and ran my hand over the fine, careful script. I could practically smell her perfume.
Dear Lizzy,
Your smile will return soon. I know you hurt and I wish I could hold you, dry your tears, and tell how much I love you, but your smile will come back, and your sense of humor, and your bright eyes. I want to remind you of that right now because I suspect you feel alone. Please be patient with both Jane and your dad. Those two are so alike—sometimes I wonder about their analytical brains. They forget the soft emotions occasionally, but that doesn’t mean they don’t feel them. Your father has loved me well and has taken such good care of me during our marriage and this illness, and I love him with my whole heart. We are a team and he will miss me.
You may need to be his glue for a while. I’m sorry to place such a burden on you, but it is who you are. You are a servant and a seeker of hearts, love, a
nd truth—a true chef. I’ve seen you mix together the very best that sustains us and offer it up with a piece of your soul on the side. God works through you, sweetheart, and I am only sorry it took me this long to understand the power in that. I hope you will learn from me, now while you are still young and not in the eleventh hour of life.
My eleventh hour is not without joy. Please know that. All is not sadness. And even more joy will come in the morning. Always choose the Feast, my love.
God bless you, my Lizzy. I will love you always . . . Mom
I held the letter in my hand and cried. Cried not because I missed her, but because I’d been less than what she saw and less than what I knew I could be. I hadn’t been glue. I hadn’t been a seeker, a servant, or even a good friend. I’d turned my back on my gifts and regarded everything as burdens. I’d built a strong defense and a hiding place.
Feast. I knew this was where I’d gotten the name, thinking that naming the restaurant after her would keep her close, make all she wanted for me real. But it hadn’t. It hadn’t because I only chose the name, never the journey. I hadn’t known how—until now.
I grabbed my cell phone and called our building’s doorman. “Dominic, are there any packing boxes in the basement?”
By the time he came up with a dozen flattened boxes, I had torn through my room and created five piles: throw, move, donate, Suzanne, and Tabitha. There was little I wanted to take. There was little that mattered.
“ARE YOU PACKING OR SPRING CLEANING?” SUZANNE stood smiling in the doorway.
“You’re home!” I raced across my room and hugged her.
She laughed at my unexpected enthusiasm. “You are, too, and that’s the more amazing thing.”
“I’m not, Suz. Not yet.”
A Katherine Reay Collection Page 52