The Glass Kitchen

by Linda Francis Lee

  His features hardened before suddenly he shook his head and the side of his mouth quirked up. “You’re impossible.” He reached for her again. “Come on, let’s get you out of this.”

  “I can do it.”

  He stepped back and raised a brow.

  She struggled with the rubber before he pushed her hands aside, gently this time. She looked at him for a second, the air around them charged; then she gave in. As he started tugging the suit away, his gaze held hers, until finally he focused. In seconds he had sprung her free.

  Thankfully, she was wearing some of Evie’s old leggings. She wilted back against the counter, his eyes traveling down her body and then back up to her face.

  “You need water,” he said finally.

  “I’m fine.”

  He went to the cabinet anyway, found a glass, and filled it from the tap. “Drink.”

  She felt too exhausted to do anything. “I’m fine, really.”

  “Portia.” Just that, his tone warning.

  She didn’t know if it was the way he said her name or the way his voice settled deep in his chest, but suddenly she felt emotional. Suddenly everything was too much. She took the water and sipped.

  “All of it,” he stated, but softly.

  The words ran along her senses, and he didn’t take his eyes off her until she did as she was told. As soon as she was done, he took the glass from her hands, his fingers brushing against hers, and put it on the counter. Then he looked at her as if searching for something, just as he had that first day she saw him when she was sitting on the front steps. After a second, not seeming to find the answer, or maybe just not liking the one he found, he reached out and tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear. “You should eat something, then take a cool shower.”

  He stood close, and with her back against the counter, there was nowhere for her to go. She realized she wanted to sink into this man, and probably would have. There were moments in life, she had heard about, when a person finds where they are meant to be. She had thought that was the case with the knowing. Then again with Robert. And both times the feeling had been proven wrong. But there was something about this man, in this place, that made her feel like a parched traveler stumbling out of the desert and finding a cool sea.

  “Who are you really?” she asked without thinking.

  But just then his cell phone buzzed and he glanced at the screen.

  “I’ve got to take this.” He ran his gaze over her, yet again assessing. “Then we need to talk.”

  He retucked that same errant curl behind her ear that had sprung free again, and smiled, seeming amused, then headed for the door.

  “You with the talking,” she managed, a bit of her old self returning. “Next you’ll be asking to do facials and braid my hair.”

  He gave a surprised laugh before he shook his head and kept going.

  “Just so you know, there’s nothing to talk about!” she called after him. “Especially not the apartment. The only thing I’m prepared to sell is this burger suit, but it’s seen better days.”

  His rumbling laughter was shut off by the closing door.

  Seven

  ARIEL’S SOCIAL STUDIES teacher droned on.

  Mr. Wickman was old—ancient, really. Probably forty. He was tall, thin as a rail, and had one eye that drooped. The kids called him Wink. Ariel hated that, hated how mean the kids could be. But she hated Mr. Wickman’s assignment even more.

  A report on ancestry.

  Ariel got it. No sense belaboring a topic that had been massively boring the first time around. The last thing she wanted to do, on top of writing in a journal, was poke around in her family history. Yeah, right, she could see that.

  Hey, Dad, tell me about Mom and her family.

  When pigs flew, maybe.

  A better topic was Portia downstairs. Ariel still laughed every time she thought of her barreling into the building dressed as a hamburger and practically squeezing the life out of them. Even more amazing, it was the first time Ariel had seen her dad smile in, like, forever. Granted, he swallowed it back before it took hold. But she’d seen it.

  Whatever. It was a good sign. The only way to tell for sure if Portia could distract Dad was to have her over for dinner. Ariel had read on the Internet that you could tell a lot about a person by the way they ate. Did they throw salt over their shoulder if they spilled something? Did they chew with their mouth open? Did they tuck their napkin under their chin instead of putting them in their lap?

  She was pretty sure Portia would pass the test, because she was smart and funny. Plus there was the whole she can cook thing. If she invited Portia to dinner and asked her to bring a cake, even if the dinner turned out to be a train wreck, they’d at least get a dessert out of the deal.

  The only problem was that Ariel knew if she mentioned dinner to her dad, he’d never say yes. So really, why ask? On top of that, she had to do something, and fast. That morning she’d found a new guy’s name written all over Miranda’s journal.

  Dustin

  Dustin Ferris

  Mrs. Dustin Ferris

  Miranda was kind of young to be thinking Mrs. Anything. Hadn’t she heard about being a feminist, breaking glass ceilings, and keeping her own name? But it didn’t take a genius to figure out that Miranda liked some new guy named Dustin. Which explained why her mood was getting better. Though if their dad found out about it, things would get a whole lot worse.

  That was an even better reason to haul Portia upstairs and make her join them for dinner. Miss Potentially Bonkers Burger couldn’t be worse than another Family Night of Miranda ignoring Dad, and Dad pointedly not ignoring Miranda.

  Ariel bolted out of class feeling better despite the fact that she had to find a way to dig around in her family tree without anyone in her family knowing. She had a plan to distract her dad.

  As soon as Ariel got home, she wrote out the invitation.

  Dear Portia,

  You are totally invited to dinner.

  Tomorrow night with the Kane Family.

  7 P.M.

  Don’t be late.

  Your upstairs neighbor,

  Ariel Kane

  P.S. Feel free to bring a cake.

  Eight

  PORTIA STOPPED DEAD with the urge to bake a cake.

  The need hit her hard and strong, surprising her. She hadn’t woken to, or felt a single stab of knowing since she’d made the meal that first day in the apartment. But the image of that same chocolate cake she had woken to that day circled through her, making it difficult to breathe.

  “Control, Portia,” she whispered. “You’re in control of your life now. Not Robert. And certainly not the knowing.”

  Despite the hamburger debacle, not to mention her dwindling bank account, she felt freer than she had in years. For the first time ever, she was living her own life. For the first time, she wasn’t at the mercy of things she couldn’t control. The money situation had to be solved, sure, but that didn’t negate the fact that she felt alive.

  Her walks through the streets of New York amazed her that she lived here. She didn’t care that she made solemn-faced neighbors scurry away from her wide Texas smiles. “I am here!” she wanted to shout. She was making a new and fabulous life! Or would! Hope made her buoyant.

  She had managed to avoid Gabriel for another two days, but obviously it wasn’t going to last. Based on his repeated comments about the conversation they needed to have, she figured the man’s lawyer hadn’t given a good enough explanation as to why she had backed out of the sale.

  But she should have known that no explanation left on an answering machine would be good enough. Gabriel Kane wasn’t the sort of man who ever gave up. If he wanted something, he would take it. She had figured that out the day she saw him from the front steps.

  Just as with the other aspects of her life, she had to take control of this, too, and make it clear why she couldn’t sell. So when the dinner invitation slid under her door, she decided it was time to addre
ss the situation head-on.

  She reread the invitation, then felt a surge of surprised worry when she noticed the mention of cake. But she pushed that aside, too.

  Instead, she focused on what she had been meaning to do since she had slipped through the front door. Clean.

  Before fleeing to New York, she hadn’t seen the apartment in years. During the first month she had been in Manhattan, she had stayed with Cordelia in her fancy Central Park West duplex apartment and had been too consumed with loss to give any thought to what she would do next or where she would live long-term. But after that month of staying with her sister, she had been hit with the certainty that she couldn’t stay with Cordelia and her husband any longer. With that thought she knew exactly where she would go. Great-aunt Evie’s garden apartment.

  Standing in the apartment now, Portia took in the dark draperies and grime. The apartment flowed back to French doors that opened onto the garden, which sat a few steps up in the rear. The kitchen was rustic, with a cast-iron stove, a sink, an ancient refrigerator, and an old stone fireplace that Portia couldn’t imagine had been used in years, if not decades. The slate floor in the entry and the hardwood throughout the rest of the apartment were murky and scuffed, uneven in places. The bathroom was dingy, but had a beautiful antique ball-and-claw tub. Portia felt sure there was potential.

  She unearthed cleaning supplies from the kitchen cabinet and got to work. She pulled every stick of furniture out into the back garden. She rolled up all the rugs and dragged them out, too. Once the apartment was empty, she tied a scarf over her nose and took down the dusty curtains she planned to wash. She swept down the exposed-brick walls and hardwood floors, and even found a hand broom to tackle the fireplace.

  When she finished and looked around, sweat rolling down her back and streaking her face, nothing looked any cleaner than when she had started.

  So she started over, this time with hot water, Clorox, rags, and a mop. She scrubbed everything in sight until her hands were raw and red. By the end of the day, she was covered in grime and soot, her hair a tangle. But when she drifted off to sleep, the apartment was clean, and she had a deep sense that for whatever reason, she had come home.

  The next morning, she woke with a groan. Every bone in her body ached. But when she glanced around and saw what she had accomplished, excitement drummed through her. She also thought of the dinner invitation. Though she shouldn’t have been, she was excited about that, too.

  She gave a thought to giving in and making the cake herself, then pushed it away. She hurried out to purchase the least-expensive dessert she could find. Once she had that taken care of, she resorted to her great-aunt’s closet again. She found a fabulous pair of long, flowing, gray flannel, pinstriped pants with wide cuffs by Yves Saint Laurent, and a simple cotton blouse made in Paris as well. Then at five minutes before seven that evening, Portia headed upstairs with the cake.

  Inside the vestibule, next to the front door, a series of work permits had been posted. Portia hadn’t been in New York City long, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out that her neighbor was in the process of renovating the rest of the town house.

  Out of habit, she knocked. In all the years she and her sisters had spent summers with Aunt Evie, the doorbell had never worked. When no one answered, she knocked again, this time more loudly. Eventually Ariel peeked out the curtain over the side window. “What are you doing just standing there?” Ariel asked, pulling open the door.

  “I knocked.”

  “Haven’t you heard of a doorbell?”

  The girl looked at Portia like she was crazy, popping out and pressing the button like a game show hostess demonstrating how to spin the wheel. Bells sounded, a sign that the new owner wasn’t content with broken stuff.

  Portia felt an odd feeling of displacement at the thought, as if the work permits and new doorbell meant her old life was really gone. Which was ridiculous. Her husband divorcing her had put that particular pony to bed, not a stranger remodeling her great-aunt’s former home.

  “My great-aunt used to live here,” Portia said, distracted. “Back then, the doorbell was broken.”

  “Seriously? Someone you know used to live here?”

  “Yes, my great-aunt,” Portia repeated, walking farther into the town house.

  The structure was the same, but nothing else. The entire inside had been gutted and refurbished. The old Victorian wallpaper was gone, stripped, the walls redone with a bright white textured plaster. Portia shouldn’t have missed the water stains shaped like butterflies and dragons, but she did.

  The carpet had been pulled up, the wood underneath refinished and covered with Oriental rugs. Expensive art hung above expensive furniture. Everything was perfectly done, and in the back of Portia’s head she knew it was beautiful. But that was way back in her head, pushed aside by the fact that the work she had done in her own apartment suddenly felt inadequate compared to this. Glumly, she noted that one of the man’s rugs could no doubt have paid for an entire year’s worth of property taxes that Portia now had to figure out how to pay.

  “Where’s your aunt now?” Ariel asked.

  “She died. A few years back.” The words came out more abruptly than Portia intended. She thought for a second that Ariel flinched, but then the girl rolled her eyes.

  “Was she old?”

  “Yes, but very lively and dear. She left the building to my sisters and me. My sisters sold the upper floors to your dad.”

  “So that’s why you’re in the basement. I take it she didn’t like you as much as the others.”

  Portia laughed. “She left me the garden apartment, not a basement. She knew I love gardens.”

  “My mom’s dead,” Ariel said. “Like your aunt. But my mom wasn’t old.” She turned away as if she hadn’t said anything all that important.

  It took Portia a second to absorb the words. Was that why she felt a connection to Ariel when she barely knew her? Did girls who had lost mothers have a hidden bond?

  “That looks like a store-bought cake,” Ariel said, shifting gears before Portia could respond.

  “It is.”

  “You were supposed to bring one of those amazing cakes you make yourself.”

  Ariel gaped. “You did both the other night.”

  “Sorry. That was then. This is now.”

  Ariel’s shoulders slumped. But then she drew an exaggerated breath. She shrugged. “I can only do so much.”

  Portia followed the girl toward the back of the house. Unless there had been major structural changes, Portia knew they were coming to the sunroom, her favorite part of the house.

  But it wasn’t the room that she saw. It was Gabriel.

  “Damn it, Dan, that isn’t acceptable,” he said into a cell phone. “I’ve told you, I’m not going to relent. Make them pay.”

  He stood with his back to them, looking out the tall windows, phone pressed to his ear. Everything about him felt barely controlled, hardly contained. Without warning, he turned and saw her.

  The dark of his eyes grew intense as his gaze met hers before it slowly drifted over her.

  “You remember our neighbor, Daddy,” Ariel said, sweet as pie, emphasis on the word Daddy.

  Portia hadn’t seen him since the burger incident three days ago, and he seemed to take her in, assessing to determine if she was fine.

  She scowled at the memory of the incident, which made him raise a brow, his lips quirking.

  A voice squawked anxiously from the phone he was holding. “I’m here,” he said smoothly, seeming reluctant to turn away. But eventually he did, concentrating on the call.

  Ariel leaned close. “I use the whole Daddy thing to soften him up. For some reason, he likes it. Go figure.” She cocked her head. “Come on. Let’s put that store-bought cake in the kitchen.”

  Portia followed Ariel through a swinging door and into the kitchen. The heat of the oven hit her along with the bright yellow and white walls, white trim and crown molding. The kitchen had been
redone as well, but instead of making it into something different, it had become a newer version of its old self. She had to concede she loved it.

  An older woman stood at the wide granite counter, making a salad. She didn’t say hello or glance up.

  “Come on,” Ariel said, taking the cake and setting it on the counter, then herding Portia through another swinging door into the dining room. “That’s Gerta, and she hates being interrupted. Dad hasn’t had very good luck finding housekeepers. We should wait in here.”

  But before Portia could do anything like question, sit, or bolt for the front door, Gabriel walked into the room. Heat filled her like milk and honey coming to a slow boil. Truth to tell, she felt nervous, what with her promising herself to deal head-on with this man regarding the apartment, and nervous was bad.

  He leaned his shoulder against the doorjamb, arms crossed on his chest. “So,” he said.

  “So?” she countered.

  “What’s with the outfit?”

  She looked him up and down. “People don’t really call clothes outfits anymore, at least not guys.” She considered him for a moment. “Take that, combined with the whole obsession-with-talking thing, and I have to ask: Is your favorite color pink? Have you ever worn tight jeans and cuffed them at the hem with loafers and no socks? No, wait; have you ever worn man clogs?”

  His lips twitched. “Hardly. Never. And no. But you, on the other hand, look like you just stepped out of Saturday Night Fever.”

  “I was going more for Annie Hall. Same year. Smarter movie.”

  Ariel looked traumatized, as if she couldn’t imagine how or where this type of conversation was coming from. Portia shook the sarcasm free. She drummed up a good, if strained, Texas smile. And Ariel grew visibly relieved. Gabriel just looked like he was trying not to laugh.

  “What’s going on?” An older, more put-together version of Ariel walked in. She had to be the older daughter Ariel had mentioned.

  Unlike her younger sister, this one’s light brown hair was long and straight, and she had grown into her eyes and mouth. She wore a lime green T-shirt tucked into a short, fitted denim skirt that flared around her thighs, and multicolored tennis shoes with a wedged heel. “Nana’s here,” she said. She looked Portia up and down. “Who are you?”