(63 page)

For the first time in years, she felt relaxed with him,

470 EILEEN GOUDGE

and oddly content. But at the same time something dark stirred inside her. An expression of Dearie’s nibbled at her mind: Let sleeping dogs lie. But how were you supposed to do that once they woke up?

I

An Zabar’s mezzanine, under a ceiling hung with colanders and bright enamel kettles and triple-tiered wire baskets filled with tea towels and potholders, and surrounded by walls crammed with everything from food processors to flatware, Annie sipped champagne and worked the room. Kissing a cheek here, shaking a hand there, stopping to chat with those she knew-Avery Suffolk, who had once interviewed her for an article in Cuisine; Tansy Boone, in a floral chiffon dress that made her look like a float in the Rose Bowl parade, holding court beside a pyramid of her books; and Lydia Scher, Tansy’s editor at Speedwell Press, to whom Annie introduced her idea of a cookbook devoted entirely to truffles.

By nine, most of the bagels, whitefish, Nova Scotia salmon, lobster salad, pesto gnocchi, and pasta primavera from downstairs had been devoured. Now waiters dressed in crisp chef’s whites were setting out coffee urns and cups and trays laden with Annie’s desserts. And lots of people, she saw, despite the hefty amount of food they’d just eaten, seemed to be snatching them up.

But something wasn’t right. Suddenly, she didn’t feel on. Worse, as the raves for her truffle cake and her tiny white-chocolate dessert cups filled with brandied mousse came at her with enthusiastic handshakes, gushing declarations, and blown kisses, she wasn’t getting her usual surge of triumph. All she was getting was a headache.

She was making her way over to the dessert table, hoping that a dose of caffeine would help, when Emmett came over and slipped his arm through hers.

Drawing her aside, he asked, “Having a good time?”

“Sure,” she tossed back lightly, “why wouldn’t I be?” She gestured about the room where they stood, at the shelves crammed with pots and pans and skillets in every size. She did feel at home, too, in a way-though

SUCH DEVOTED SISTERS

471

she doubted whether her celadon silk dress and opal earrings were what she’d wear to whip up a batch of Kahl๛ahazelnut brownies.

“You’ve got that look,” he said affectionately, smoothing back her short, dark hair from her temple.

“What look is that?”

His blue eyes sparkled. “Like General MacArthur storming Corregidor. Relax, Cobb, it’s just a party. You don’t have to conquer everyone here with your charm.”

Annie stared at him, and felt a mixture of affection and exasperation rising in her. He could be such a pain sometimes … mostly when she knew he was right. Forever teasing her, needling her, challenging her, making her see things from every angle even when she didn’t want tolike when she’d been considering that proposal from General Foods to back her own line of fancy frozen desserts. When she told him she was thinking of going ahead with it, Emmett-they’d been lying in bed, she rememberedhad locked his hands behind his head and stared up at the ceiling, his good foot propped on the lowest rung of her brass bed. In his thoughtful, measured way that sometimes irked her, but never failed to draw her attention, he’d said, “The way I look at it, those who want fancy desserts made by Tout de Suite know where to find you. Kind of makes it a little more special if they have to go a bit out of their way, though, doesn’t it? I mean, throwing it into your shopping cart… it just wouldn’t be the same somehow.”

Annie had argued that with the money she would make off this deal she’d be able to pay off her bank loans, and maybe even have some left over. But deep down, she’d known he was right. Something would have to give … and that something would be Tout de Suite’s quality and cachet. Besides, did she really want to be Sara Lee? Two days later, she’d called General Foods and told them no thanks.

No, Emmett-despite his rolling gait and easy smile-was not the easiest person. Whenever she pushed to get her way with him, he pushed right back. They could never agree on which movie to see, or which restaurant to eat at. And he could be incredibly tactless. Like when

472

EILEEN GOUDGE

he’d told her last week, just as she was shipping out a special order for a big wedding, that the elaborate mousse she’d labored over for hours tasted like chocolate pudding, she could’ve killed him.

But one thing about Emmett-in six years he’d never bored her. There were plenty of times when he got her so mad she felt like smacking him … but she never grew tired of him.

Right now, in his new suit-a soft charcoal-gray with faint burgundy stripes-he looked quite distinguished, as befitted a new partner in a major realestate firm. Except for his boots, new ones that after only a few weeks looked as lived-in as his old pair, no one would have guessed that the man standing in front of her had once racked drill pipe on an oil derrick, or hauled nets aboard a shrimp boat. His rusty hair, too, though beautifully cut, wasn’t altogether tamed-a few rogue wisps stood up in front, and in back, along the collar of his Brooks Brothers shirt, it had separated into wiry tufts.

“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t good for the business,” she told him. “Just now, when I was talking to Ed Sanderson about his reviewing the book for Chocolatier magazine, do you know what he told me? He said he’d like to do a whole spread on me.”

“I’ll bet he would.” Emmett winked lasciviously, coaxing a smile from Annie. “Stapled navel and all.”

“I’m serious, Em, and if you don’t stop making fun of me, I’ll … I’ll …”

He caught her upper arm, drawing her close, so close she could feel his sideburns tickling her cheek, his breath warm and smelling faintly of cloves. “You’ll what? Kick me out of bed?”

“Just the opposite. I’ll keep you there until you beg for mercy.”

“That might take a while.”

“I can wait.”

He rubbed his lips lightly against her temple, and whispered, “What do you say we make a quick getaway now, and head off to my place so we can get started?”

Annie felt herself grow warm. Damn him, why did

SUCH DEVOTED SISTERS 473

he do this to her … tempt her when she least wanted to be? Tonight, after the party, she’d wanted to be alone, to sort out her thoughts, replay her conversation with Joe.

She shook her head. “In a little while. There’re a few people I want to talk to that I haven’t gotten to yet.”

A dark expression flitted across Emmett’s square, seasoned face, but he merely released her and gave a light shrug. Annie felt a dart of worry. She was putting him off … and he knew it. What worried her was that he wasn’t saying anything. Emmett, she knew, was quietest when he was the most troubled.

How much longer will he stick around this time?

Her mind flew back to last October, a year ago this month; Emmett suggesting-not for the first time-that they move in together, find an apartment big enough for both of them … and her telling him in the nicest way possible, no, she couldn’t, she wasn’t ready. She would never forget the look on his face, not angry or bitter, more like a door quietly clicking shut. They’d been at her place, just finishing dinner. Politely excusing himself, Emmett had stood, hooked his jacket from the back of his chair, slung it over his shoulder … and walked out.

She’d thought he would come back … but he hadn’t. For eight whole months, he’d stayed away, no dropping in, no phone calls, no visits to the shop. She’d missed him more than she would’ve thought possible. Not like the bittersweet ache she felt for Joe. More like being kicked in the belly-stung, not quite believing it, and mad. Mad at herself, mostly, for caring as much as she did. And then, hearing that he’d become engaged to a woman he’d met through one of his realestate deals, Annie had been plunged into a depression that had left her, for weeks and weeks, even on the mildest of days, feeling chilled and headachy, as if she were on the verge of coming down with a nasty flu.

She remembered clearly the day in early June when Emmett appeared without warning at her door, dressed in jeans and a Henley shirt, holding a wrinkled paper sack. “I was visiting some friends upstate over the weekend, and I came across these in their backyard,” he’d said without

474

EILEEN GOUDGE

any preamble, handing her the sack. “I thought you might like some.”

Annie, peering into the sack, had felt her heart leap. Fiddleheads! He’d remembered how much she liked them, and how she’d complained she could never find them in grocery stores. All at once, she began to weep, tears dropping from her chin onto the sack of slightly wilted fiddleheads.

“Can you stay?” she quavered. “I could fry them up right now, if you have the time.”

“I can stay,” he said quietly, and in his blue eyes she had seen that he planned to stay not just for fifteen minutes or an hour, but for a good long while.

He’d never told her about the woman he had planned to marry, or why he’d broken off their engagement. And Annie never asked. She’d been content to have Emmett back in her life, and in her bed. Why rock the boat? And Emmett, since then, hadn’t brought up the subject of their moving in together. It was on his mind, she knew, and she often sensed it was on the tip of his tongue. But he’d wisely kept it to himself.

But would he keep silent indefinitely? Knowing Emmett, she doubted it.

At this moment, as she stood facing him, wedged between a wall lined with copper skillets in every size, and a display of enamel pots arranged atop a stack of boxes, Annie felt suddenly lost and alone, as if she were stranded on an iceberg in the middle of a vast ocean. / don’t want to lose him, she thought. Yet how could she tell him that she loved him, adored him … but not enough to marry him?

Sell her beloved mews house, and move in with him? She’d thought about it, and several times she’d even come close to taking that leap … but then something had held her back.

Joe? Maybe. Or maybe she just wasn’t cut out for marriage … to anyone. She thought of her sister, to whom being a wife and mother came as naturally as building a nest did to a bird. Laurel’s house was more than just a place where she slept and ate and entertained friends-it

SUCH DEVOTED SISTERS 47$ ‘

was a home, a haven, filled with old furniture Laurel had refinished herself, knickknacks she had collected over the years, books she had read and reread, quilts she’d stitched, baby toys of Adam’s she couldn’t bear to throw away. Annie loved her own place and what she was doing, and didn’t wish for Laurel’s life at all … but right now she felt strangely empty. “Em, I’m sorry …” j

“No big deal.” He glanced at her, a sharp, assessing gaze, then cut his eyes away. “But, look, if it’s all the same to you, I’m kind of beat. After spending the past five hours showing lofts, I don’t know if my feet can hold me up any longer. Mind if I cut out on my own?”

“Only if you promise to have dinner with me tomorrow night.” *

He winked. “You got yourself a deal.” Watching his broad back as he wound his way toward the stairs-catching admiring looks from several women as he passed them-Annie felt her gloom deepen. How long, she wondered, would it be this time? How long before he walked away … this time for good?

She felt suddenly tired. She wanted to run after Emmett, tell him she’d changed her mind, but her feet seemed bolted to the floor. She found herself thinking of all the movies she’d seen with people running alongside trains they had no hope of catching, music swelling, engine chuffing, steam billowing, the teary-eyed love object of all their frenzy peering anxiously, fruitlessly, from the window of his or her car.

Though she hadn’t moved an inch, or even called out to Emmett to wait for her, Annie felt short of breath, and there was a throbbing in her temples, as if she, too, had been running to catch a train she’d already missed.

476

EILEEN GOUDGE

Laurel caught the softball and tossed it back to Adam. She watched him jump for it, arms straining skyward, standing almost on tiptoe, his Big Bird T-shirt pulling away from his grass-stained Toughskins to show a belly just starting to lose its baby roundness. The ball grazed the top of his glove, but he couldn’t hold on to it, and it careened off, landing with a thump against the back of the house and scattering small flakes of paint like confetti over the grass below.

The place could use a new paint job, Laurel thought. God, it seemed just months ago that she and Joe had had the whole exterior thoroughly primed and painted. But that hadn’t been since they’d first moved in, and Adam was just starting to crawl then. Six years … could it really be six years? Her gaze scanned upward, taking in the twostory Cape Cod with its charming blue shutters and big, screened sun porch. For almost a year, she and Joe had knocked themselves out fixing it up-stripping off layers and layers of paint dating back to the Depression from fireplace mantels and door frames, sanding and refinishing the flooring, replacing the original windows with new double-glazed ones, painting and spackling until their necks were cricked and their arms about ready to drop off. But it was a good place; it had been worth all the sweat and hassle. Bayside was only a half an hour’s train ride to the city, and yet they had the advantages of suburban living too. Little Neck Bay was a five-minute walk from here; Adam’s school, too. And in the warm months, there were her flowers and vegetable garden, and this goodsized grassy backyard for Adam to play in. “Mo-o-o-ommm. “

Laurel saw him standing by the line of tall hydrangeas dividing their yard from the Hessels’. He was holding

SUCH DEVOTED SISTERS

477

the ball and jigging from one foot to the other as if he had to go to the bathroom. Now he threw the ball to her, and this time she tossed it back underhanded, low enough so that he was able to catch it without having to jump up. Still, he fumbled a bit, and she thought he might drop it. But after a second, he scooped it into his glove and looked up at her, beaming as if he’d just intercepted a potential home run in the World Series. She felt a rush of pride and love.