On Lavender Lane

by JoAnn Ross

  “I know she wouldn’t. But I suspect it’s because of their earlier problems that Kara’s sticking to her guns.” Adèle put down her needles long enough to select a lemon shortbread cookie from the plate of tea treats Sofia had baked this morning for their knitting group meeting.

  “That’s probably the case,” Zelda agreed. “Since I was very young when I was taken from my family to be trained for the Bolshoi, I barely remember my own mother. Then my career kept me from having any children of my own.”

  “But you do have children in some way,” Adèle pointed out. “Your students adore you.”

  “I enjoy teaching.” Zelda, who was as reed thin as when she was a principal dancer for the famed Bolshoi Ballet, opted for a chocolate-dipped brownie. “But it’s not the same.”

  “No,” Sofia agreed. While motherhood wasn’t for everyone, her heart ached a little at Zelda’s loss. The former ballerina would have been a very good and loving parent. “But you’ve made up for that a bit with Haven House.”

  Although the reason for the shelter’s existence was a serious one, Zelda smiled at that idea. “I care for them as if they’re my own daughters. And I’m always so proud when one of my little birds flies the nest.

  “And speaking of romances,” she said, returning to their earlier topic, “I have reason to believe Ethan Concannon has feelings for one my girls.”

  “Really?” Sofia perked up at that idea. Although he never talked about it, he’d been widowed under horrible circumstances, and she’d always thought that although he was warm and sweet and friendly whenever they talked, an air of tragedy hung over him. “Which one?”

  “Our newest resident. Which, of course, is a problem,” Zelda admitted. “Because it’s too soon for her to be interested in any man.”

  “Does she seem interested?”

  “She put on cheek color after I told her he’d be delivering vegetables today. Which, by the way, is not a normal delivery day. But Ethan seemed taken with Phoebe when they first met. And here he is, back so soon.”

  “That’s probably a good sign.” Sofia refilled their cups with a bright, robust orange-cinnamon spiced tea she’d purposefully chosen for this gloomy day. “Wanting to pretty herself up a bit.”

  The young woman had looked pale and a little lost when she and Maddy had taken over the packaged dinners. And, of course, there’d been that shadow of a bruise that her makeup hadn’t entirely been able to cover.

  “True. I just hope she doesn’t get hurt. But she’s a grown woman. And she managed to get herself out of an abusive situation, so I have to accept that she’s undoubtedly stronger than she looks.”

  “I suspect you’re right,” Sofia said. “As Eleanor Roosevelt said so famously, we women are like tea bags. We don’t know our true strength until we’re in hot water.”

  “And isn’t that the truth,” Adèle agreed.

  All three women in the room, who’d each faced their own individual challenges over the years, were proof of that. As she saw the red pickup turn up the lane, Sofia decided that her own granddaughter was yet another example of the former first lady’s axiom.

  38

  Although the Grateful Bread’s name was a not-very-subtle riff on the ’60s band, the restaurant itself was not as flamboyantly psychedelic as its name suggested. Granted, there was the required peace sign painted on the wall, a poster of multicolored dancing bears, two green and white street signs—one reading DEAD HEAD WAY and the other saying SHAKEDOWN STREET, the title of one of the Grateful Dead’s albums—on the wall opposite the peace sign. The most popular place to sit had always been the booth at the back of the restaurant created from a cut-in-half VW bus. But the rest of the interior had been warmed up with wood counters, tables, and booths, their cushions covered not in floral patterns or tie-dye, but a subtle moss green.

  And the aroma that greeted Madeline when she walked in the door with Lucas was not incense but the incredible bread that gave the restaurant its name.

  “There’s no lack of restaurants in New York, but I really missed this place,” she said, sliding into one of the booths by the front window.

  The bus was already taken by a group of teenagers whose Goth makeup and piercings seemed as out of place in bucolic Shelter Bay as the daisy-painted bus. That was one of the things she’d always enjoyed about the town. While it might look as if it had washed off a Grandma Moses or Charles Wysocki painting, like so many beach communities, its residents not only welcomed and embraced individuality, but they also encouraged it.

  “There were more than a few times when I fantasized about the cinnamon buns from this place,” Lucas said.

  The waitress, wearing a floaty calf-length skirt, a tunic printed with butterflies, and a necklace of tiny seashells strung on silver wire, approached with a carafe of coffee.

  “Well, look at you two,” she said. “If this isn’t just like old times.”

  “Look at you,” Madeline told the woman, at whose birthday party she’d met Lucas fifteen years ago. “You’re pregnant!”

  Vanessa had already been dating Jimmy Roy Lovell, a newly arrived boy with blond hair like Brad Pitt’s in Legends of the Fall and a Southern accent that had more than a few girls jealous of Van for nabbing him first.

  “Number three.” Vanessa Lovell, née Martindale, rubbed her baby bump with obvious pride.

  “Oh, wow.” Madeline felt a little ping that was too close to jealousy for comfort. “That’s so cool.” She hadn’t made it home for either of the shower invitations she’d received. But she had sent a selection of organic onesies for both of Van’s sons, including one with the saying Party at My Crib, which had made her laugh. “Boy or girl?”

  Her friend grinned. “Girl. So you’re finally going to be able to buy that pink stuff you complained about not being able to get last time.”

  “I didn’t complain,” she said, not quite honestly; all the ruffled dresses had been so tempting. “When are you due?”

  “Not for another six weeks. But it seems like forever. I swear, I now know how a pregnant elephant feels. Coffee?” She held up the carafe, reminding Madeline that this wasn’t a social visit.

  “Thanks. I’d love some.” The caffeine buzz was beginning to wear off. “I didn’t realize you were working here.” She wondered if Van and her husband needed the money. The last time they’d talked—which was too long ago—he’d been working as a crab fisherman in the icy waters off the coast of Alaska. Maddy had watched Deadliest Catch once, mostly because she was curious what her best friend’s husband did for a living, then found it too stressful to tune in a second time. She wondered at the time how Van could have handled the separation and the worry.

  “I don’t just work here.” She poured the coffee first into Madeline’s and then into Lucas’ mug. “Jimmy and I own it.”

  “You’re kidding!” When that sounded condescending, Madeline quickly backed up. “I mean, of course you’re not, but I didn’t realize you even wanted to own a restaurant.”

  “Well, I never had the lofty big-city dreams you did,” she said. “Although Jimmy was making good enough money that I could stay home with our boys, I was going crazy with him being gone so many months of the year. So I started working here part-time. Then when Roberta and Roxie— You remember them?”

  “Of course.”

  The women had arrived from San Francisco sometime in the seventies and opened the restaurant, which quickly became a popular breakfast location for tourists and locals alike. The Sea Mist, Bon Temps, and the Crab Shack might be the places to go for lunch or dinner, but the Grateful Bread had always claimed the breakfast crowd.

  “Well, they took a trip up to Vancouver a few months ago. And came back married.”

  “Oh, that’s sweet.”

  “Isn’t it? They’ve been together forty years.” Van sighed a bit at that, and when her eyes moistened, Madeline hoped it was hormones and not any hint of a problem with her marriage. “We had a big party here for them to celebrate. Then they
shocked me by asking if I wanted to buy the place.

  “Of course, with two kids and one on the way—I’d just found out I was pregnant—that seemed like a crazy thing to do, but Jimmy and I talked it over, and since he’d decided that his Southern blood wasn’t meant for Alaska, and they were willing to stay for a while to help teach us the ropes before retiring to Hawaii, we decided to go for it.”

  “I’m so impressed.” Which was true. Especially since Madeline couldn’t remember Van ever making anything more complicated than a grilled cheese sandwich.

  Then again, Madeline considered, she’d always done the cooking whenever her friends slept over at the farm.

  “Wait until you taste your breakfast before saying that,” Van said, placing a hand-written menu down in front of them. “I have to admit that I’m a little nervous about cooking for a celebrity.”

  “We’re old friends. And I’m not a celebrity.” Madeline considered getting one of those little button recorders that fit into greeting cards, carrying it in her pocket and hitting PLAY whenever the subject came up so she wouldn’t have to keep saying that.

  “Well, you can deny it all you want, but you are to everyone here in Shelter Bay. And apparently the Cooking Network thinks so, too, because I just heard this morning that you’re being offered a million dollars a season with a three-year deal.”

  Madeline almost spit out her coffee. “Where did you hear that?”

  “From Mary at the market. She heard it on the radio.”

  “Well, I don’t know what she was listening to, but it’s totally false.”

  “Really?”

  “I’d know. I’m between contracts and we haven’t even discussed another season.”

  “Well.” She smiled at that idea. “I guess that means that you’re going to be sticking around a while. To help your gram with her restaurant.”

  “It’s going to be a school, too.” Madeline decided she might as well get the facts out there before the biggest gossip in town got the message wrong. Again.

  “Oh, that’s great. I’d love to take a class after the baby’s born. I took a few culinary courses at the community college, to get up to speed, but to be perfectly honest, I learned more from Roberta and Roxie.”

  “That makes sense since they were better chefs that most instructors I’ve met.” Which was true. Every so often one would apply to work at Maxime’s, proving that sometimes, the old adage “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach” was actually true.

  “We’re closed on Mondays,” Van said. “Maybe you can drop by the house. Meet the kids and we can catch up.”

  “I’d like that.”

  “Me, too. And maybe I can learn some of your trade secrets.” She laughed. “Just kidding. It’ll be just girl talk. Like the old days. I promise.

  “Well, I’d best let you two look over the menu while I get back to work,” she said, as she noticed a couple across the room finishing their meal. “Take your time, we’re not that big on turning over tables here. Oh, the eggs are organic. We get them from Blue Heron farm. I don’t know if your grandmother told you,” she said to Madeline, “but there’s a new owner who’s doing some fabulous things. I’d definitely suggest either his smoked salmon or the smoked bacon. Both are to die for.”

  She hustled off, and as Madeline watched her laughing and chatting with the couple, she said, “She seems happy.”

  “Yeah. She does. You two used to be really tight.”

  Although Lucas didn’t ask, she could hear the unspoken question in his tone. “I know. The funny thing was, we wrote back and forth all the time while I was in Europe. It was after I got back to the States that things got crazy.”

  “Sounds as if you’ve had a lot on your plate the past few years.”

  “Haven’t we all? That’s still no excuse to lose track of friends.”

  “Van seems willing to pick up where she left off.”

  “Yes.” Madeline studied the menu for a moment, and found even more enticing items than Rebecca and Roxie’s waffles she’d been craving. “Do you think that’s possible?”

  “Why not? If both people want it. Are you and I different people than we were ten or fifteen years ago? Sure. Do we still have that connection? I’d say yes. At least on my part.”

  She took a drink of coffee and eyed him over the thick white rim of her mug. “Mine, too,” she admitted. “But remember, that doesn’t mean I’m going to marry you.”

  He flashed her his most encouraging grin. “Sure you are. You’re just not ready to admit it yet. Meanwhile, we’ll take things one step at a time. Like deciding what to eat.”

  39

  Because he was enjoying her company, Lucas decided to table any discussion about the restaurant until after they’d eaten. So as they worked their way through tall glasses of fresh-squeezed orange juice, three fried eggs, perfectly fried strips of bacon, buttermilk biscuits, and sweet potato hash for him; along with organic, steel-cut oats topped with fresh berries, and an egg scramble with smoked salmon and goat cheese for her, he caught her up with what was happening with Sax and Kara, and Kara’s mother, whom Madeline admitted had always intimidated her.

  “I think everyone in town felt that way,” he said. “The one time I went to her, after I hit my head on a rock surfing, she wasn’t all that warm and fuzzy. But she was a damn good doctor. Remember Danny Sullivan?”

  “It’s hard to forget someone who was a dead ringer for Donny Osmond.”

  “Funny. That’s what all the girls used to say. I never saw it, but maybe I was just jealous.”

  “That’s hard to believe, since you never seemed to have any problems getting girls.”

  “Since we’re getting along so well, I’m not going there,” he said. “Anyway, Danny got shot in the head and Kara’s mom operated on his brain and saved his life. According to Sax, it was touch and go for a while.”

  “That’s horrible. What’s he doing now?”

  “Oh, he’s back to teaching. And just married a nurse who has a kid from a previous marriage. They’ve got another on the way.”

  “Seems to be a lot of that going on,” Maddy murmured, glancing over at Van, who was seating what appeared to be a group of tourists at a four-top next to the window, which looked out at the seawall and the harbor beyond.

  “Cole married Kelli. They’ve been working on getting pregnant, which isn’t proving as easy as they were afraid it would be back when they were in high school and had that scare. But personally, from what Sax said and the way Cole described it, I think they might be trying too hard.”

  “I’ve heard that stress can make a difference. One of the producers on my show went through what sounded like hormone hell trying all sorts of expensive, painful, and unsuccessful medical methods before she and her husband finally gave up and adopted. Two months after they brought their daughter home from China, she got pregnant. The old-fashioned way.”

  “Lucky them. How about you?” he asked. “You ever think of having kids?”

  He could tell by the way her hand, which had been reaching for a piece of the whole-wheat toast, froze above the plate that she hadn’t been expecting the question. And the fact that she didn’t just answer with a yes or no had him suspecting the topic might not be the best one for a first date. Or even an outing she refused to consider a date.

  “Yes.” She picked up the quartered toast and took a bite. “I have,” she said. “Although there’s this feeling in the culinary world that women have to sacrifice their lives to the kitchen god, to give up any idea of a family if they want to be successful, that’s not my ultimate goal. I’ve put off starting a family because I wouldn’t want my children raised by a nanny or a housekeeper, and so far I haven’t figured out how to be in two places at the same time.”

  “Having a housekeeper as a mother model isn’t the worst thing in the world,” Lucas volunteered. “After my mom left, ours filled in the best she could while Dad was spending so much time working all over the world.”

 
; “But it’s not the same as having two parents who are there to do homework or talk about everyone’s day over dinner,” she said.

  “No,” he agreed. “It’s not.”

  “I’ve given it a lot of thought and talked with a lot of other women chefs. Some have chosen to concentrate on their careers. Some went the nanny route. Others have stay-at-home husbands.”

  “I work from home.”

  She frowned. Looked down into her coffee as if she was searching for some answer in the black depths. “You’re pushing again,” she said finally.

  “No. I was just pointing out a fact.”

  She shook her head, but he thought he saw a hint of a smile teasing at the corner of her luscious lips.

  “I spent my first thirteen years in my parent’s restaurant, but I know women who’ve tried taking their children to work and found it scary because kitchens can, on a good day, be a madhouse. I know others who’ve given up restaurant work for a while to teach. Which they say keeps their passion for cooking alive.”

  He wondered if she might consider teaching at Sofia’s school, but decided that was definitely a decision she was going to have to make by herself.

  “I think what I’d want to do, in a perfect world, if I had my own place, would be to separate family and work,” she said slowly. She was pushing her scrambled eggs around on the flowered plate. “Which would mean hiring a young sous chef I could trust to take over for me during the times I wasn’t there.”

  She took a bite of smoked salmon and seemed to be thinking it out in more depth. “I wouldn’t want to be gone all the time, like my husband is from his restaurants, but I suppose I could learn to give up some control. To the right person.”

  He thought it was odd that she specifically wanted a young chef.