Brunch at Bittersweet Café

by Carla Laureano

  She pulled out her cell phone and brought up her Instagram account, her heart giving a little leap when she saw that she’d gained a few dozen more followers while she slept. She’d started the profile out of boredom after she left Paisley and began the first of several bad bakery jobs, needing an outlet for her creativity. In eight months, Books in the Bakery had reached over ten thousand followers—pretty impressive considering she’d done nothing but post a photo every day or two.

  She glanced around for inspiration, settling on the pickled wood surface of her dining table, then pulled several colors of vintage linen napkins from a basket on top of her cabinets. The mint added a nice counterpoint to the red of the strawberry jam, two pops of color in an otherwise-monochromatic layout. She toyed with the arrangement of the napkin, then transferred the napoleon to a plate with a paper doily. No, no doily . . . just the scalloped-edge platter. A coffee cup, a tiny silver creamer, and one of her antique dessert forks later, the composition was ready for its most important element: the book.

  She wandered over to the milk-painted bookshelf that acted as a TV stand and knelt before its overfilled shelves. The napoleon was an old-fashioned pastry, named after the Italian city rather than the French emperor as so many assumed, so it definitely had to be classic European literature. Melody ran her fingers across the spines of the cloth-bound volumes as if she could absorb their essences by touch. Tolstoy, Hugo, Eliot . . . Dumas.

  She smiled and tipped a scarlet-bound volume of The Count of Monte Cristo off the shelf. Perfect. A French book about a pretend Italian count paired with an Italian dessert with pretend French roots? Her more literate followers would get a kick out of the parallels. Not to mention the fact that Napoleon himself figured prominently in the plot.

  Grinning to herself, Melody crossed back to the table, placed the book carefully in the composition, and dragged over a chair to stand on. She needed height rather than depth of field for the flatlay, so her cell phone camera was more than sufficient. Half a dozen photos later, she had selected the best one, enhanced it in her photo editing app, and uploaded it to both Instagram and her Tumblr.

  Almost immediately the likes started coming in.

  She left her phone on the table while she went to change her clothes and twist her hair up into a messy bun, but she couldn’t resist checking when she came back to pack up the dessert for transport to Rachel’s house. Up to thirty. Not bad, but certainly not the record for fastest-growing post. She analyzed the photo for some clue about what wasn’t resonating with her audience, but it didn’t seem any different from her most popular posts. Maybe next time she’d add some greenery. Things with roses and fresh leaves always were a big hit.

  She was still recomposing the photo in her head when she pulled up in front of Rachel’s house and picked her way up the icy walkway to her friend’s front door, balancing the dessert box carefully in front of her.

  The door opened to reveal a beautiful dark-haired woman, casually dressed in a flannel button-down shirt and jeans. “Mel. You’re early!”

  “There’s a first time for everything.” Melody gave Rachel a one-armed hug and handed over the container so she could shrug off her down parka. She followed her friend into the kitchen, where Ana sat at the long, rustic kitchen table. As usual, the Filipina was impeccably put together in a stylish sweater and jeans, her makeup flawless.

  Ana held up a bottle. “Wine?”

  “Please.” Melody lifted her face and breathed deeply. “Something smells amazing. What are we having?”

  “Moules marinières,” Rachel said. “It seemed a shame to let mussel season close without making it at least once.”

  “Oh la la,” Melody said. “Paris must have been in the air today, because I made a napoleon.”

  Ana handed over a half-filled wineglass and gave Melody a quick hug. “You’re killing me, Mel. I’m still recovering from last week’s Death by Chocolate Mousse.”

  “Don’t tell me you only have dessert once a week.” Melody looked over Ana’s trim figure, toned and sculpted in the gym, and shook her head. “Never mind. I already know the answer to that.”

  “Please. You and Rachel got the good genes. I have to work at it.”

  “Whatever.” Melody rolled her eyes and plopped herself across the table from Ana, watching Rachel lift the lid on the pot. A plume of shallot and white wine–perfumed steam wafted their direction. “I see she’s missing the restaurant tonight.”

  “You think?” Ana flashed a smile. “She was just waxing eloquent about white truffles.”

  “Not for this dish,” Rachel interjected. “Just white truffles in general.”

  Melody laughed. “Hon, you’ve got it bad.”

  “That obvious?” Rachel checked the temperature of the oil in her Dutch oven and began to transfer once-fried potato strips into the oil for their final crisp. “Don’t get me wrong. I’ve loved going to college, and I’m enjoying teaching at the culinary school far more than I ever thought I would. I have this one student who reminds me of why I cook. She’s forty years old and came to the conclusion that she’d rather die than spend one more day in an office. Normally, cooks who start any older than their twenties never make it. They realize that the life is harder than the one they left behind. But she’s like a sponge. She absorbs everything I can throw at her and demands more.”

  “So you want a restaurant so you can hire her?”

  “That’s not a bad idea, actually.” Rachel sent a smile over her shoulder. “You know me. This was always just a break. I just haven’t found the right situation yet.”

  “I know what you mean,” Melody said.

  Ana grimaced. “Bakery job not going so well?”

  “You know how it is. Low pay, long hours. Making the same boring things every day without any relief. If I’ve got to make one more ham and cheese quiche, I’m going to lose it.”

  Ana swirled her wine around in her glass, a sure sign she was thinking about how to broach a tricky subject. “You know, if you hadn’t moved around so much, you could be the executive pastry chef somewhere by now.”

  Melody had no response to that, because it was 100 percent true. Had she stuck with the pastry chef job she’d held before she went to work for Rachel, she probably would be in charge of the entire section now. Of course, the reason she’d quit had nothing to do with the details of the job or her performance and everything to do with her bad taste in men.

  “At least we can both agree that my current situation is dead-end. I’m just a cog on the wheel. You don’t need a baking pedigree to do this gig.”

  Rachel watched her fries carefully, then began to fish them from the Dutch oven with a spider skimmer. “So what are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking that I would love nothing better than to pack up all my earthly possessions and move back to Paris, but my bank account disagrees. So maybe I should just start looking for another job.”

  Ana regarded her with a half-exasperated, half-doting look. Neither of Melody’s friends quite knew what to do with her restlessness. She’d never been able to explain it, even to herself. It wasn’t boredom exactly. It was just that for every opportunity she chose, she was all too aware of the ones she rejected. It was only a matter of time before she wondered what else was around the corner. And yet she had realized today that none of those choices were moving her toward anything, just away from something else.

  “I saw your latest Books in the Bakery post. You’ve got a ton of followers, Mel! Why aren’t you doing something with that?”

  “Do what? Ten thousand followers does not a business make. It’s not even enough to get a publisher interested in a cookbook.”

  “What about a mail-order bakery?” Rachel started to transfer their dinner to serving dishes. “Surely some of those ten thousand people would love to get their hands on your work. With your design sensibility and Ana’s PR skills, I’m pretty sure you could get up and running almost immediately. You know I’m willing to help however I can.”
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  “You don’t have any time, between teaching and going to college and that gorgeous boyfriend of yours.” The words came out petulantly, but Melody winked so Rachel would know she was kidding. “I don’t want Alex hating me for taking up all your free time.”

  “Alex knows how important you guys are to me. Which is why he’s hanging out with Bryan tonight so we could have some girl time.” Still, there was a little glimmer in Rachel’s eye that made Melody think she’d rather be with her boyfriend. And who could blame her? Not only was he handsome, he was successful, kind, and he adored Rachel. You only had to see how he looked at her to know that he was head-over-heels in love. It was enough to send a single woman into twin spirals of hope and despair.

  And resurrect fairy-tale fantasies faster than you could say “glass slipper.”

  She didn’t begrudge Rachel the fairy tale, though. It was her turn, her shot. Rachel had lived for work almost her entire life, eschewing men completely in favor of climbing the ranks of the culinary world. Ironically, Alex had been the one who caused it to come crashing down, after an article he wrote in the New Yorker set off a chain reaction that ended in her losing her share of the restaurant she’d built with her partners. If you asked Rachel, she’d say it was the best thing that had ever happened to her, and not just because of the guy.

  Maybe I need a guy to come around and ruin my career. Justin’s image immediately popped into her head, and she shoved it back down.

  Rachel began bringing soup plates to the table then, heaped with open mussels in a shallot-and-parsley-studded buttered broth. A basket of freshly cooked, thick-cut French fries went in the middle, along with a plate of baguette rounds for soaking up the last bits of the fragrant liquid.

  Melody closed her eyes to savor the first taste of perfectly steamed mussel. Her friend really was an amazing chef. Simple dishes like this one showed off both the quality of the ingredients and the skill of the cook—no heavy sauces or elaborate preparations behind which to hide.

  Ana gave a blissed-out sigh. “You need your own place again, Rachel. Not that I’m not grateful to be the recipient of your boredom, but it seems selfish to want to keep your cooking to myself.”

  Rachel repressed her smile, obviously pleased. Cooking was the way she loved her friends; praising the food was the way they loved her back.

  They ate in virtual silence, too consumed with pleasure to be bothered to speak, until Melody jerked her head up and looked to Ana. “Oh! I forgot! You had a date last night!”

  Rachel turned accusingly to Ana. “I can’t believe you didn’t lead with that.”

  “That’s because it was a disaster.” Ana dipped a round of bread into the broth and took a bite, chewing long and carefully. Clearly she wasn’t going to elaborate.

  “So we can check the setup off the list as a viable dating option,” Melody said.

  “Either that or I need to be set up by coworkers who have better taste.”

  Rachel cringed. “He was that bad?”

  “He was good-looking, but all he wanted to talk about was how much money he made and how much his car cost. Plus he kept saying that he wanted to take me to his house in Vail. All in the first thirty minutes.” Ana shuddered. “It creeped me out, like he thought I could be bought.”

  “I’m sorry,” Melody said, wrinkling her nose. “Surely Rachel didn’t get the last decent guy in the entire city.”

  “I’m beginning to think so. So you’re not having any luck either, I take it?”

  “When would I have time? Though, actually . . . you won’t believe what happened at work this morning.”

  Melody hadn’t planned on telling them, but the story was too good to keep to herself. She started with how Justin had shown up in the snow outside the bakery, and by the time she got to the part where she drove him home, her friends were grinning like fools.

  “So you got his number, right?” Ana said. “Or gave him yours.”

  Melody shook her head. “No. It wasn’t like that.”

  “‘It wasn’t like that,’” Ana muttered. “She meets a hot, intelligent, employed guy who doesn’t put the moves on her, and she has no interest.”

  “I didn’t say I had no interest. Of course I had interest. A lot of interest. And therein lies the problem.”

  “Not every guy is like Micah,” Rachel said. “And you’ve seen firsthand that sometimes the right guy comes along when you least expect it.”

  “For you, maybe. When I let my hormones decide, I make terrible choices.”

  “You’re not wrong,” Ana said. “But how do you plan to meet someone if you rule out anyone you’re attracted to?”

  “I figured he’d sit down next to me at church or something and I’d hear a voice from heaven.”

  “When’s the last time you went to church?” Rachel asked.

  “You know very well. About as far back as you, before you became a lady of leisure and got all this free weekend time.”

  Rachel snorted, and Melody cracked a smile in return. Only a cook would consider part-time college and part-time teaching as less than a full-time job. “Seriously, though . . .”

  Melody waved a hand. “No, trust me. This guy pushed all my buttons at first sight. And we all know that’s bad news. Besides, even if I were interested, I have no way of contacting him.”

  Ana shrugged. “You know where he lives.” “I’m not going to stalk him!”

  “I have no such qualms,” Ana said. “I want to see the button-pusher myself. Give me your cell phone.”

  Reluctantly, Melody passed her the phone. Ana immediately punched the Facebook icon. “What did you say his name was?”

  “Justin Keller. Wait, you’re really looking him up?”

  “Of course I am.” Ana’s fingers flew over the phone’s tiny keyboard and a page of results loaded. She swiped up, murmuring to himself, “Not him . . . not him either . . .”

  Then she stopped and shoved the phone in Melody’s direction. “Is that him?”

  Melody squinted at the photo and her breath hitched. It was her Justin all right, looking as appealing in a snapshot as he had in person. Well, he wasn’t her Justin . . . “That’s him.”

  Ana whistled and passed the phone to Rachel, whose eyebrows went up. “You weren’t kidding.”

  “I never kid about ultra-hot guys. Now give it back to me.”

  “You should send him a friend request,” Ana said.

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Too late. I already did.”

  Melody snatched back her phone. “What do I do now?”

  “You wait. He’ll accept your friend request and then you post something cute and flirty on his wall. Ask him if he ever got his car out of the snow.”

  “Add a winky face,” Rachel suggested.

  “Do not add a winky face,” Ana said.

  Rachel’s brow furrowed. “Why? Does that mean something bad?”

  “Honey, I know I’ve been telling you to brush up on your social media skills, but maybe you should stay off of it.”

  “Can we get back to my problem here?” Melody asked. “I’m going to cancel it.”

  “If you do that,” Rachel said reasonably, “he’ll know you were looking him up and you pressed it by accident. Which really is stalking. Better that he just thinks you’re proactive.”

  “I can’t believe you just did that to me!”

  Ana grinned. “You’re welcome.”

  Fine. The damage was already done, so she might as well take advantage of it. Melody pressed the photos section, and several that were set to public popped up on the screen. She tapped one of Justin with a little girl, maybe two or three years old. “He has a kid?”

  Rachel hopped out of her seat to look over Melody’s shoulder. “Wait, what?”

  “No, no. It’s his niece, I think. He was tagged by Jessica Keller Costa. Must be his sister.” She looked closer and read the caption. “‘Abby with her favorite uncle at church today.’”

  “Jackpot,” Ana sa
id. “Christian and a good uncle.”

  “We don’t know that,” Rachel said. “Maybe his sister dragged him to her daughter’s dedication or something. And she really shouldn’t be posting pictures of her kids set to public.”

  Ana made a face. “Party pooper.”

  Rachel stood and began clearing the table of their dishes, practically licked clean. She piled them in the sink for later, then turned to the pastry box holding Melody’s dessert. “Do you want to come cut this?”

  “Gladly.” Melody jumped out of her seat, taking her phone with her this time, and rushed to Rachel’s side. She portioned the napoleon into slices and transferred them to small plates that Rachel provided, then helped her friend bring them to the table while the coffee brewed. Before they could return to the topic of Justin, she asked, “So who do we have invited for supper club next weekend?”

  “The three of us, of course, if you can still make it. Alex invited his neighbor and the neighbor’s girlfriend. That makes six. I thought each of us could invite someone new, just to mix it up a little.”

  Melody caught Ana’s grin from the corner of her eye and held up a finger. “Don’t say it.”

  “What?” Ana asked innocently. “I wasn’t going to say anything.”

  “Good. Because short of Facebook, I don’t intend on having any contact with Justin Keller.”

  And yet, on her way home from dinner, his repeated intrusion on her thoughts called her a liar. It was all she could do not to check her phone at the stoplight and see if he’d accepted her friend request. That was why looking him up had been a bad idea. Back when she thought she had no way to reach him short of showing up at his apartment, it had been easy to dismiss him as the central character of an interesting story. Now that there was the possibility of contact—real contact—she found herself making excuses, thinking up reasons why he wasn’t as bad an idea as she’d initially convinced herself.