by Marina Adair
“For the Showdown,” Pricilla added.
“I’m not sure who I am hiring.” Marc snapped his laptop, and the e-mail to Natasha, shut. “And just because Natasha and I are friends—”
Mr. Puffins let loose a low and gravelly growl that vibrated his hat.
And Pricilla waved the fudge in his face.
Right, lying.
ChiChi released a breath, her shoulders sagging just a bit, and for the first time Marc saw just how old his nonna had become. She looked small and fragile and so unlike the bold force that had molded his life.
“It is important to this town that this year’s Showdown remains true to the founding fathers’ ideas. That we abide by the traditions that were set before us. A lot of people’s dreams have come true at this event.”
“A hundred years of dreams that those ladies are willing to overlook to make room for newer, shinier things,” Pricilla added, her hand clutching her chest.
“The Summer Wine Showdown was always about family and friends and community,” Lucinda said. “We understand that you need a little flash to get the celebrities and media. That they bring in more money for the hospital and school. But some things, the ones that seem silly to your generation, matter because they are the heart of the event.”
“And you think if they have a say in the catering that it will change the event?” Marc asked, because he heard what the grannies were saying, but he didn’t understand how something as simple as a caterer would affect the bigger picture.
“This town is a family, Marco.” ChiChi leaned across the desk to take Marc’s hand. “Family is about sharing wine, breaking bread, remembering the past. Your grandfather and I met at the Showdown. Your parents, God rest their souls”—and there she went with the sign of the cross again—“had their wedding there. Along with a few dozen other people over the years, who are all looking forward to reliving those moments, remembering those who have passed.”
ChiChi broke off with a sad shake of the head.
“If the junior league gets their way,” Pricilla stepped in when it appeared that ChiChi couldn’t finish, “there will be deconstructed this and imported that. The Showdown will turn into one of those celebrity events you see on TV. It won’t be about the people of this town and celebrating their appreciation for food and wine and agriculture; it will be about how far up the exclusive places to live list we can move.”
“Are you asking me not to hire Natasha?”
“No, we are asking you to let us pick. Let the Daughters of the Prohibition hold a tasting where we invite local culinary artists to showcase their appreciation of local cuisine and culture. You get to focus on the rest of the event, and we can make sure that the people of this town are represented in the food chosen.”
Meaning his brothers couldn’t blame him for thinking with the wrong head, no matter who got chosen. It also meant one in a long list of problems disappeared. Normally he wouldn’t even consider entertaining any brainchild of the granny brigade, especially if it meant bringing them into the middle of something that could potentially sink his entire career, but he was rapidly running out of solutions.
“Deal,” Marc said, wondering if he’d just made a huge mistake. He figured that everyone had to have at least one brilliant idea in their lifetime, right? Maybe this was theirs.
Lexi stared up at Jeffery with his bedroom eyes, easygoing smile, and adorable dimple marking his right cheek, and then she sucked in a deep breath and blew. A wad of tissue paper splatted with force across his left nostril, particles breaking off and speckling his upper lip.
Lexi smiled, tore off another piece of tissue, and rolled it around in her mouth, letting it soak up the spit.
“You shouldn’t have chosen a head shot. Then you can’t do this,” said Abigail DeLuca, resident spit-wad champion and fellow woman scorned, putting the straw to her lips and aligning it with lethal accuracy before hitting her estranged husband, Richard, in the goodie bag.
Abby, with her olive skin, big brown eyes, and perfect white teeth, was a miniature version of her brother—only with a bunch of curves and a cute, pert nose. Although compact, she had the body of Ginger, the face of Mary Ann, and, when riled, the same capacity for total destruction as Scarface. She was also Lexi’s oldest and dearest friend.
Abby tucked a stray auburn curl behind her ear and smiled. Picking up another perfectly rounded ball of tissue from her arsenal, she dropped it in her mouth for a second before aiming and—
“Nailed him! God, that feels good.” She pointed her chin toward the two blown-up pictures of their cheating spouses, each hanging from the bakery rack like shooting targets. “If you want I can print off another picture for you. Full body.”
“Nah.” Maybe it was the fact that for the past few years she and Jeffery hadn’t been on the same page, sexually speaking, but nothing about Jeffery’s full body screamed feel-good to her.
“I talked to Tanner yesterday.”
“Hard-Hammer Tanner,” as he had been aptly named, was successful and sexy and very single, which made his company the number-one choice for the women of wine country when it came to additions and remodels. Something Lexi had discovered after Pricilla hired him. When he’d walked in, all muscles and impressive tool belt, Lexi hadn’t known if he was a stripper or the real deal.
“I called him to see if he got the new blueprints. I had them sent over a week ago and never heard back.”
After winning an award for designing Ryo Wines, a boutique winery that Abby and her grandmother had opened last year, Abby started talking about branching out, working on other kinds of projects. When she heard Lexi was moving home, she offered to design Lexi her dream eatery—and Lexi jumped at the chance.
Abby was also a classically trained pianist and one of the most sought-out piano teachers in the town. Okay, in a town this small, she was the only piano teacher. So when she began angrily tapping out “Flight of the Bumblebee” on the bakery table, Lexi knew her friend was mad.
“Imagine my surprise”—taptaptaptaptap, taptaptaptaptap—“when he told me he’d been fired.”
Lexi’s heart did some tapping of its own. “I didn’t fire him. I merely changed the timeline.” To sometime in the unforeseeable future.
“Yeah, well, you should have told me! I’m not only the designer, Lex, I’m your friend. We used to share everything.”
Talk about laying on the guilt, Lexi thought. She and Abby had met the first day of freshman year when Abby stuck a wad of grape gum in her hair because Lance Burton had offered to walk Lexi to second period. Lexi cut out the gum, stuck it to Abby’s chair and consequently the butt of her designer skirt, exposing a side of the DeLuca Darling that wasn’t so darling or demure and landing them both in the principal’s office. Two weeks of detention later, they were as close as sisters—and they sometimes still fought like ones.
“As for Hard-Hammer Tanner, I think he was afraid you fired him because he was a man,” Abby added.
“A man?”
“As in single, potential date material. Or in your case, potential blind date, fixed up by grandmother, unwanted-bachelor material.”
“Oh God,” Lexi groaned, sticking her finger into a fruit tart and licking off the filling. She was so pathetic that she couldn’t even fire a man without people thinking it was about dating.
“So, you want to explain how you went from kicking Jeffery’s ass to putting the bistro on hold?”
Lexi shook her head.
“God, he can’t even get his cake to rise. There’s no way he can claim those recipes are his,” Abby fumed.
“Jeffery never claimed that he created anything. He argued that a menu is a crucial asset to any restaurant. And since the restaurant was only ever in his name and I never executed an agreement stating exactly what I was bringing into the business and therefore could take with me when I left, the judge agreed.”
“Bullshit! Contract or not, you were the reason that restaurant was a success.”
“No
, my menu was the reason it was a success.” It was the main reason she had decided to not fight him for the recipes.
The past few months had been filled with several difficult realizations. For one, Lexi was embarrassed at just how trusting and stupid she’d been in assuming that “to honor and cherish” extended to all aspects of her and Jeffery’s marriage. When they’d opened Pairing, he’d only put his and his mother’s names on the papers, claiming that it was his mother’s equity that afforded them to open the doors, and promising that when they could stand on their own he’d replace his mother’s name with Lexi’s. God, if that hadn’t been a sign to run, she didn’t know what was.
Time and again he’d discounted the amount of sweat equity Lexi had put into making their restaurant a success—or that she was supposed to be the Mrs. Balldinger in his life. Yes, his last name should have been another red flag. Instead of pressing the issue for her name to be added to a silly piece of paper, she’d naively assumed the marriage certificate was enough, and, not wanting to risk a confrontation in an already stressful time, she had nodded politely, thrown herself into creating the best menu on the West Side, and sat back while Jeffery made one bad decision after another. The worst being a year ago, when the restaurant began to struggle and she’d agreed to borrow a significant amount of money from Pricilla.
When she lost the restaurant, it was as though she had lost a part of herself, the part that made her fearless in the kitchen. That she couldn’t pay Pricilla back only made the situation worse.
“So you aren’t going to fight him?”
“And risk Pairing going under? No way. I mean, I lost the menu and it sucks, but if Jeffery lost the restaurant he would default on the loan and Grandma would lose everything.”
“I thought you paid off the loan.”
“The equity from the house wasn’t enough because Jeffery insisted on going with the bigger meat supplier and nearly sank us.”
“Imagine that,” Abby said, rolling her eyes. “Jeff suffering from meat envy.”
Yet another ongoing problem for her ex. But this time his need to measure up nearly put Pairing out of business. Insisting that to become a five-star eatery they had to act like a five-star eatery, Jeffery ignored that the fake-it-till-you-make-it theory had never really gone well for them and dumped their local meat supplier to go with a larger, more prestigious one.
Bo Brock’s meat man, to be exact.
In theory it had been a smart move, but since Jeffery was, well Jeffery—and not superstar chef Bo Brock, with his thirteen Michelin stars, cable network, and Emmy-winning primetime show—the supplier required a six-month advance purchase. What Jeffery didn’t know was that Brock was boycotting the supplier because they were under investigation for maintaining unsanitary and inhumane conditions of their stock.
When the story broke, Lexi was stuck with more than a hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ worth of grade-A meat, and a grade-A ass of a spouse who didn’t understand why serving factory flesh in a city where PETA reigned supreme was a bad business decision.
“It gets worse.” Lexi took a breath. “When Pricilla offered her help, I only agreed because I thought she was just going to cosign a loan for us. Turns out the bank just approved us for a partial.”
“Shut up!” Abby jerked to the end of her seat. “That rat bastard son of a bitch borrowed the rest from Pricilla?”
“Out of her retirement account.” Even saying it made Lexi’s stomach churn. “We managed to pay off a huge chunk of it when I sold the house, but we still owe Pricilla around twenty-five thousand dollars, and the bank at least sixty.”
“Oh, Lex,” Abby said, patting her hand.
“Yeah, so now you see that I just need to come up with a new menu. A better one,” she said, as though it was that easy. It had taken her years to compile enough five-star recipes for Pairing, and although she knew it was possible to do it again, she didn’t know if she had the fight left in her.
She’d attempted to alter them, put a different spin on her favorites, but nothing had tasted right. It didn’t matter how hard she tried, superior ingredients would go into her kitchen and chain-style entrées would come out. It had been that way since the separation. Jeffery hadn’t just stolen her menu; he’d turned her palate bitter.
“So, what’s your backup plan?”
“You don’t want to know,” Lexi said, dropping her head to the table with a grimace.
“Oh, I’m sure I already do. It probably includes you”—Abby jabbed a pointy finger into Lexi’s forehead—“slaving away in that kitchen and baking macaroons for the rest of your life.”
“Just until I get Pricilla paid back and Jeffery pays off the loan, which he assures me will happen over the next twenty-four months. I figure it’s smarter to take the cash I set aside for the bistro and put it toward what I still owe Pricilla, then start saving again once the bakery is turning out a higher profit.”
“I have a better plan. One that isn’t dumber than you marrying him in the first place.”
Abby had never liked Jeffery. In fact, she had declared war on him in the fourth grade when he used her Barbie collection to stage a lifelike reenactment of Hiroshima—Barbie being on the losing end of a blowtorch. But when Lexi fell in love with the rat, Abby set aside her severe dislike and tried to make nice for her friend’s sake.
“Want to hear it?”
“No.” Lexi realized that her friend had been building toward this moment the entire evening. She’d come here with an agenda in mind and, if history served, Lexi was about to get pressured into doing something she’d regret, that would land her in jail, or that would leave her with Q-tip–length hair and orange skin. Or quite possibly all of the above.
“The Daughters of the Prohibition are in charge of the food for the Summer Wine Showdown’s wine-tasting event, and I may have told them that I have a friend who is an excellent cater—”
Lexi crammed an entire petit four in her friend’s mouth, silencing her. “Don’t say the C word. You know it gives me gas.”
Catering was something Lexi had promised herself she’d never do again. She had done it early on in her career to help pay the bills while Jeffery was still in grad school.
“Cater—” Abby slapped her hands over her lips, blocking Lexi from shoving another minicake in her already full mouth. “It would generate income, and you would have an audience to try out your new ideas on.”
It would also be a huge step in the wrong direction. Call it pride or ego, but going from having her own kitchen and staff and creating one-of-a-kind plates for customers back to carting around chafing dishes and serving poached salmon on a bed of asparagus was not going to happen.
“Think about it, the Daughters of the Prohibition, Garden Club, PTA—they are all the same women, and they dictate the social scene of St. Helena. If one hires you, they’ll all hire you, claiming that they single-handedly discovered your talent. Not to mention all of the press that comes with the Showdown. It’s a win-win, Lex, and you know it.” Abby clapped her hands as though the conversation was over.
“Let’s say, just for a second, that I am actually considering it…which I’m not…but let’s say, baking food in Costco-sized quantities for mass consumption was something I was interested in pursuing. I don’t have a kitchen big enough to handle it.”
“Prepare to be dazzled.” Abby shoved the plates aside and rolled out a set of blueprints, almost identical to the one on Lexi’s computer except this set was color coded and labeled. “We alter the redesign, building it in stages as money comes in. See right here.” She pointed to a green section labeled “Stage 1.” “We would build out the back storage space here and add the secondary kitchen like we had originally planned. It would give plenty of room to cook and prep, and you could be up and running in two weeks, tops.”
“That fast?” Lexi asked, surprised; the original timeline was six weeks. She looked at the blueprints, and her heart pinched. God, she wanted to see this come to life. She wan
ted to cook with her grandmother in this kitchen. More importantly, catering would buy her the ability to pay Pricilla and the bank back, even if Jeffery flaked.
But there was still one big problem. “I don’t have the time to oversee the remodel and come up with a menu for the Showdown.”
“I do.”
“What? No.” Lexi shook her head. “You are so busy with Ryo Wines.”
“ChiChi has it handled. Plus, I don’t want to run a winery. I’m a designer, and I want to design—your bistro. And I’m not letting you just give up!”
“I’m not giving up, Abs.” She wasn’t. In fact, she had already created a new schedule that placed her in the bakery kitchen to increase production and had reached out to a few farmers’ markets to boost sales.
“You are so. I can see it in your face,” Abby accused through bits of cake and fondant. “You’re going to let that rat bastard son of a bitch win. You’re going to let him steal your dream of opening the bistro just like you let him do after high school.”
“I repeat, am not. And did not.” Lexi snatched her straw and started rolling spit wads. “I went to culinary school after high school, just like I said I was going to.”
“Yeah, but you went to school in New York even though there is an internationally recognized one right here in St. Helena. Which offered you a full scholarship, by the way.”
“New York is the mecca for culinary arts.”
“You didn’t care about that school. From the day I met you, all you ever talked about was opening a bistro with Pricilla, what it would look like, what you would serve. Then Jeffery got into his dream school in New York and you were about to start your dream career here. A few well-placed comments about how long-distance relationships don’t last, a calculated breakup after graduation, and you started packing.”
Lexi opened her mouth to argue and immediately shut it. Was that true? Was that how it had looked to everyone else?
“God, Lex, you were so determined not to be your mom and have an entire fleet of exes that you clung to the first guy who showed interest and gave up everything you wanted to keep him.”