Perfect Pairing

by Rachel Spangler

  “There are some aprons hanging on the wall by the fridge,” Hal said. “You’re going to want to put one on.”

  “Why aren’t you wearing one?”

  “Because I didn’t dress like I thought we were going sailing today.”

  Quinn rolled her eyes but put on the apron anyway. There was nothing overly formal about khaki-colored linen pants and a lightweight cream-colored sweater, but she didn’t see any sense in splattering them with tomato sauce if she didn’t have to. “What are we working on today?”

  “The batch of tomatoes I picked up earlier in the week have been skinned, cored, chopped, and cooked down,” Hal explained. “Now we’re going to separate some out to keep reducing for paste and season the rest as pizza sauce.”

  “Okay, what should I do?”

  “Here, keep stirring this while I get the spices.”

  She accepted the big wooden spoon and moved in front of the pot Hal had been hovering over. She noted that, even while wearing flats, she didn’t have to stand on her tiptoes to watch it. She imagined that made her look more in control, but she still missed the image of Hal balancing on her bare toes.

  “Be careful. It’s getting thick enough that when it bubbles, they burst with a bit of force,” Hal said, pulling several unmarked, industrial-size bottles of spices from an overstocked cabinet above them. She popped open the tops, letting a new mélange of scents mingle with the sweet smell of the cooking tomatoes. “You keep stirring nice and slow while I add a few things. It’s important to incorporate them evenly.”

  “Got it.” She suspected Hal had inflated the importance of her job to make her feel better about her contributions.

  Hal set about sprinkling various powders into the mix without ever using a measuring spoon. She added some from each bottle, then inhaled deeply and added more from just two of them.

  “What are you adding?”

  “A lot of garlic powder, some basil, a healthy dose of oregano.”

  “How can you tell? There’re no labels on any of them.”

  “Sight and smell. Also since I’m the one who made them, I remember which bottle is which.”

  “You made the oregano?” Quinn didn’t buy it.

  “I grew it in my garden, I dried it, I crushed it, and I bottled it.”

  “Okay, I’ll give you credit for that answer,” she admitted, once again impressed by the amount of work Hal invested in even the smallest ingredient.

  Hal grabbed the lone ingredient that had clearly come from a store and sprinkled a smaller amount into the sauce.

  “What’s that?”

  “Onion powder. I buy this.”

  “Why not use real onions in the sauce? Wouldn’t they make the flavor bolder?”

  “I use less onion than I do the other spices, and they take more space to grow than my city herb garden allows. Plus onion powder is better for keeping the texture of the sauce smooth. I don’t have chunks of anything else, so biting into an onion would be discordant,” Hal said, then stopped abruptly and threw up her hands before adding, “and onions are nasty.”

  Quinn stopped stirring. “Onions are nasty?”

  “Yes,” she replied, folding her arms across her chest like a child refusing to eat her broccoli. “I hate them.”

  “You hate onions?”

  “Don’t say it like that, condescending and motherly.” Hal pouted. “Everyone has foods they don’t like.”

  “Yes, like liver, or creamed spinach. Onions are so basic. They go in everything.”

  “Not in my kitchen. When they’re raw, they overpower everything they touch, and when cooked they get this awful membrane that squishes in your teeth and ruins everything. You might as well eat worms.”

  Amusement tugged at the corners of Quinn’s mouth, but she tried to hide it under her genuine disbelief. “Tell me how you really feel.”

  “I really feel it’s fine to use their flavor in moderation, hence the powder. Sometimes I cook with them in cheesecloth, then pull their slimy wasted membranes out before serving, but there’s no excuse for biting into one. Ever.”

  “Wow, who would’ve thought? A chef against onions. Don’t you think your customers deserve the best possible sauce regardless of your personal feelings about onions?” She pressed Hal’s buttons just for sport now, and maybe she should have backed off when she saw a little muscle in her jaw twitch, but risk of getting burned be damned, she loved to see the fire in Hal’s eyes dance.

  Hal’s vision tinged red. “The best possible sauce?”

  Who the hell did Quinn think she was? Not a chef, not even a connoisseur—no one with any right to question her culinary decisions. “This is the best possible sauce. Smooth and rich, every bite perfectly matched without hot pockets of uneven flavor or chunks of squeaking, mushy, globs to stick to your teeth, wreck your breath, and make you utterly unkissable.”

  Quinn raised an eyebrow, looking wholly unconvinced.

  “Here.” Hal took the spoon and scooped up a bit of the sauce. Holding it close to her mouth, she blew gently a few times, causing wisps of steam to curl around her mouth and nose before evaporating. Then she held the spoon out to Quinn. “Taste.”

  Hal cupped her hand under the spoon and lifted it to Quinn’s slightly parted lips. Quinn sipped tentatively first, then a little more, running the tip of her tongue slowly along the edge of the spoon. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back as she savored the last of the sauce. All the tension slipped from her shoulders, and her arms fell relaxed at her side. She took a deep breath, and Hal watched her chest rise slowly, then fall quickly. God, was anything more beautiful than a gorgeous woman with her eyes closed in rapture? Hal grew lightheaded knowing something she’d done had inspired such a serene gesture of pleasure in a woman who always seemed on guard.

  Quinn’s light eyes fluttered open, glazed, almost disoriented. “Oh my Lord, that may be the best thing I’ve ever tasted.”

  Hal turned back to the sauce to hide the extent of her happiness. Quinn got it. She could taste the difference, and she appreciated it. The reaction had been unguarded, genuine, and for the first time since they’d met, Hal felt certain she’d seen the real Quinn.

  What was this warmth spreading through her chest? Pride? Vindication? No—something more personal. Something curling around her heart in wispy tendrils, like the steam rising off the sauce. Affection? Attraction? No . . . something deeper, more robust.

  Relief.

  A deep, muscle-aching relief settled deep in her core. She’d been tested, pushed, challenged by Quinn from the moment they’d met and hadn’t realized how much—behind all the bravado, the anger, the frustration—she’d feared being found lacking.

  Stupid, silly fear. They weren’t really talking about her at all, but rather her food. The product was the only thing in the question, but that was such a blurry line, one Quinn had nearly erased with her dizzying blend of formal business proposals and casual touching. Hal had spent the last few weeks off balance, and every time she’d thought she’d righted herself, there was Quinn to pull the rug out from under her again. Beautiful, poised, unflappable Quinn, always one step ahead and one rung up on her. Then, for just one minute, she’d been caught off guard and admitted she found Hal unexpectedly adequate.

  Sully had encouraged her to tip the scales back in her favor, and while she’d suggested using some methods very different from tomato sauce, Hal enjoyed being the one to surprise for once. If pressed, she’d also cop to feeling a little bit of want as well. She wanted to be respected, she wanted to be appreciated, she wanted Quinn to—

  “How did you do that?”

  “Do what?” she asked, snapping her attention back to the woman in front of her.

  “Make the sauce taste like that?”

  “You watched me.”

  “I know, but you added something before I got here, some secret ingredient?”

  Her shoulders fell. Maybe Quinn didn’t understand after all. “All I’d put in that pot before you a
rrived were slow-cooked tomatoes.”

  “Why does your sauce taste so much richer and sweeter? You didn’t use any sugar.”

  “The taste doesn’t come from something extra. It’s what you get from leaving things out.” She spun to face her, and so many emotions she hadn’t even realized she’d pent up came pouring out. “That’s what real food tastes like. Pure, without anything fake. There’s nothing trying to contain the flavors or make them something they’re not meant to be. No games, no tricks, just raw ingredients stripped of all the restraints.”

  Quinn’s hand fell lightly on her shoulder, and Hal fought the urge to jerk away. Again with the touching, and damn it all to hell, she didn’t like it.

  “Are we talking about the sauce or you now?”

  “There’s no difference.” She pointed back to the pot on the stove. “That’s me, at my best. It’s not flashy. It’s not fast or easy. But it’s real.”

  “It’s impressive,” Quinn said softly. “It’s perfect.”

  Hal smiled, a little bashful all of a sudden, both about the compliment and the emotional babble that had sparked it. God, where had that outburst come from? One minute she was all so freaking satisfied, then the next she blew up and begged for understanding once again. Quinn had a brain-scrambling effect on her. “Okay.”

  “Okay what?”

  “I just needed you to understand.”

  She nodded seriously. “I think I do.”

  “Good,” Hal said, turning her attention back to the stove. “I’m glad one of us does.”

  “Time to start canning,” Hal said, and Quinn hopped off the barstool she’d been perched on while watching her work. She’d looked forward to this step. Canning seemed like a field trip into American history. “Canning homemade tomato sauce sounds so idyllic. Italian grandma meets Little House on the Prairie.”

  Hal turned, her eyebrows raised. “Little House on the Prairie?”

  “Please tell me you watched that show.”

  She returned her full attention to the sauce, but Quinn caught the corner of her smile in profile. “You did. You watched it.”

  “I watched a lot of TV growing up.”

  “Who did you have a crush on, Laura or Mary?”

  Hal’s smile widened. “Ma.”

  A quick shot of laughter bubbled up unexpectedly. She’d been so studiously casual since Hal got heavy earlier, both of them a little shyer and more tentative than before, but the flash of Hal’s true personality sent another spark of affection through her core. “That is the best answer ever. It also explains your canning fetish.”

  “I don’t have a canning fetish,” Hal said seriously. “I just like to do my job right.”

  “All right, all right.” She didn’t want to fall back into seriousness. Hal’s plea for understanding had pulled her in a personal direction, and the weight of that responsibility unsettled her. Open, vulnerable Hal was too compelling, too alluring for a business partner. She didn’t want to think about what that meant for them or the plans she’d already set in motion, so she simply didn’t. She felt more comfortable in their quick, surface-level banter. “Just canning. Not a fetish.”

  “Besides,” Hal added with more playfulness in her voice, “if that show had given me any fetishes, it would’ve been for laundry. Every time Ma pulled out that washing board, it was a one-woman wet bodice competition.”

  This time Quinn didn’t even try to contain her laughter as it verged on a giggle fit. There was something so unexpectedly delicious about the idea of a teenage Hal getting hot and bothered by a fictional pioneer woman’s laundry skills.

  “Here, stir this while I line up the jars.” Hal handed Quinn a big wooden spoon. “And don’t get all high and mighty about my TV crushes. You’re the one who brought it up, which means you’ve got them too.”

  Quinn thought for a moment before confessing. “Aunt Becky from Full House was probably my first, but Kelly Kapowski from Saved by the Bell was the longest.”

  “America’s high school sweetheart for all of the nineties,” Hal said, setting a row of quart-sized glass jars on the counter and topping the first off with a wide-mouth funnel. “I bet you were just like her in high school, all preppy and school spirity.”

  “Not hardly,” Quinn said. “I was very studious.”

  “Chess club?”

  “Not quite that studious.”

  “No? What club were you the president of?” Hal asked.

  “I wasn’t. I had a job after school.”

  “Babysitter’s club?”

  “No, I worked at a small consignment shop in the evenings until I turned seventeen, then I got a summer job as a bank teller at the drive-up window. When senior year started, they let me stay on in the evenings and Saturday mornings.”

  “Wow, that’s like, a legit after-school job.”

  “Too legit to quit, literally,” Quinn explained. “I’ve been working at the same bank ever since.”

  “Really? You didn’t go away for college?”

  “No, I went to Erie Community College for a few classes at a time to get my associate’s degree. Then when I got promoted to managing the other tellers, the bank paid for me to get a bachelor’s in business at Damien College. All local, and all while working full-time.”

  Hal dropped a few silver lids into a small saucepan of simmering water. She watched them quietly, and Quinn waited. Was this a very important step that required their full attention, or did Hal not know what to say next? Maybe she had shown too many of her cards. The thought disconcerted her. She rarely gave away personal information without carefully planning to do so, but with Hal, the details of her life had sort of spilled out easily.

  “You hold the funnel while I spoon the sauce into the jars, then move it to the next one, and wipe off anything that spills on the rim of the glass or the lids won’t seal properly.”

  So we’re back to business.

  Probably for the best. She was generally adept at jumping from personal to professional, but for some reason she felt off her game today, or maybe Hal had thrown her off. “Got it.”

  “We’re going to go down the whole line, then cap them quickly so we seal in as much heat as possible.” Without waiting for another acknowledgment, Hal began ladling the sauce through the funnel into the jars. When each one reached the level she wanted, she’d nod, and Quinn would quickly and carefully move on to the next one. Then while Hal went back to the stove, she’d wipe off the rims of the jars with a clean rag. They moved in a rapid rhythm, quickly and quietly draining half the vat of sauce into nine quarts. She found it soothing to have something to occupy her mind and her hands. They really did work well together as long as they never talked, or touched, or even really looked at each other.

  “Now the lids,” Hal said, handing her a set of silver rings, “I’ll put them on and you fasten them with the bands.”

  Hal used a set of rubber-tipped tongs to lift each silver disc out of the simmering water and drop it carefully onto each quart so their edges matched up perfectly. Quinn followed behind, twisting the bands over the top to fasten everything down. The process seemed so much more scientific than she imagined. All the stainless steel and glass felt more like a lab than a farmhouse.

  “What next?” she asked, both curious and nervous that perhaps the mere presence of an outsider like herself might upset the balance in what seemed like such a delicate process.

  “Now we lower the jars into the pressure canner,” Hal said, then added, “and by ‘we,’ I mean ‘me.’”

  She made no argument. “Those things are dangerous, right?”

  “They can be if you don’t use them right. But then again, so can almost anything in the kitchen.”

  Hal grabbed another set of tongs with longer, curved ends to fit around a jar, then carefully lowered each quart into another large pot. She sealed the whole thing with a heavy lid and motioned Quinn over.

  “Tomatoes are a relatively high-acid food, so I could just seal them by boiling them
in water, but because I want to be extra cautious, and because we get inspected by the food safety folks before every major event, I pressure-can my sauce at five pounds of pressure for fifteen minutes.”

  “Sounds official, but I didn’t understand any of that.” Numbers she knew, people she knew, science, not so much.

  “The steam inside this pot will cause the air to expand, which will raise the pressure of everything it touches. We’ll be able to measure the amount of pressure by watching this gauge.” She pointed to a little dial on top of the pot that looked like a speedometer. A thin red hand crept slowly up until it reached the five-pound marker.

  “That’s as high as we want it to go, so I’ll lower the heat.” Hal twisted the stove knob to lessen the flow of gas to the burner. “We could also vent some steam through the top if we needed to, but that’s riskier and less exact.”

  Quinn nodded. “What now?”

  The furrow of concentration in Hal’s brow finally relaxed. “We dance.”

  “Dance?”

  “Ten-minute cleaning dance party. It’s a thing.” Hal hit a switch on her iPod dock, and Enrique Iglesias’s bass beat reverberated against every surface in the kitchen. Hal snatched a dishrag from the sink and bopped to the rhythm. She bounced around the kitchen, scrubbing spilled tomato sauce and spices as she went. “Come on, banker. You buttoned-up types always have the best moves.”

  Quinn shook her head and leaned against the butcher-block island. “You’re crazy.”

  “Sí, soy loco,” Hal affirmed and tossed another rag to her. “Do your part.”

  “I’m only here to steal your business secrets.”

  “And I’m showing them to you. That’s part of what I do.” She pointed to the stove. “And so is this.”

  She rolled and rocked her hips to the music in a way that suggested Hal had salsa in her DNA. The move caused Quinn to wonder briefly about Hal’s nationality. Orion sounded Irish, but she certainly didn’t look it as she shook a shock of black hair off her deeply tan forehead, then turned around and dropped it like it was hot. Suddenly Hal’s ancestry was the last thing on her mind.