A Table by the Window: A Novel of Family Secrets and Heirloom Recipes (Two Blue Doors) (38 page)

Weeks passed. Preparations for the restaurant took over my life, but by now, though, I was hooked. As every piece of the restaurant fell into place, I felt my excitement grow.

The night of the trial dinner, I made time over lunch to tap out an e-mail to Neil—there would be no time at all for the rest of the night, but I couldn’t
not
write.

Frank Burrows, Linn, my parents, and I waited at the long table in the dining room. While I couldn’t speak for my compatriots, I was hungry—and I hoped the rest of them were too because a lot of food was about to emerge from the kitchen. Knowing that Nico and Adrian would be busy plating in the kitchen, I’d hired Chloé for the evening to carry a tray back and forth. Earlier, we’d practiced the art of carrying a tray with three plates until she wielded it like a pro. Nico would write down what each item contained, and Chloé would read off the list.

For the occasion, she’d decided to wear all black with an apron tied around her waist.

I had a hunch that, at some point, she would ask for a tip.

A mix of Over the Rhine, Norah Jones, and Iron and Wine played in the background. The five of us settled into our seats.

Over the next two hours, we sampled from cheese plates, charcuterie platters, salads, roasted vegetables, tarts, and two risottos.

I knew we were nowhere near done, but I was glad I’d worn a stretchy, forgiving dress.

Next came the pastas, spring vegetables tossed with prawns and cavatappi, a beautiful macaroni and cheese, and a lasagna with duck ragù.

It didn’t end there—Chloé began to bring out the meats—a beautiful pork loin in a hazelnut cream sauce, a charming piece of bone-in chicken breast coated in cornflakes, a peppery filet mignon, and a generous slice of meat loaf with a tangy glaze. My favorite was the duck in marionberry sauce—the skin had been rubbed with an intoxicating blend of spices, the meat finished with a sweet, tangy sauce. It tasted like summer and Oregon all at once. We planned to open in mid-August, so the duck with fresh berries would be a perfect item for the opening menu.

While I took measured bites from most of the plates, I kept the duck near and continued to enjoy the complex flavors offered by the spices and berry.

Next came the desserts, which Clementine brought out herself.

She presented miniatures of her pastry offerings—a two-bite strawberry shortcake with rose liqueur-spiked whipped cream, a peach-and-brown-sugar bread pudding served on the end of a spoon, a dark chocolate torte with a hint of cinnamon, and a trio of melon ball–sized scoops of gelato. The results were perfect—we were able to taste each one without being overwhelmed after so much food.

When Nico, Adrian, and Clementine emerged from the kitchen, flushed from work and looking proud, we gave our hearty applause.

“Well done,” said Frank, giving his stomach a pat. “That was some exceptional food.”

“My favorite was the lasagna with the duck ragù.” My father kissed his fingers. “If you have more, I will take it home with me to study.”

Nico preened.

My mother nodded. Her color seemed better today, and her eyes glowed. “I loved the desserts in miniature. It might be a lovely option, to offer both a full-size and a miniature of each one.”

“Or simply order a platter of bites,” I suggested. “Obviously, timing is everything. The bread pudding is delicious when it’s still hot and moist. If it cooled and became chewy—no one wants that.”

“And that would be harder for a busy service. Maybe other desserts would lend themselves better to being miniature, be more forgiving,” said Maman. “I loved the strawberry shortcake.”

Clementine blushed with pleasure, a fact that didn’t escape Nico’s notice.

“I have to say,” I said, trailing my fork around the marionberry sauce on the duck plate, “that I will be dreaming about that duck for some time to come. The spices—I got coriander, ginger, cinnamon. Some cumin, I’m sure. And smoked paprika? I’m sure there were more, but it was very, very good.”

“That one was mine,” Adrian said. “But I thought it would be perfect for the opening, and your brother agreed.”

I tried not to let my shock show. “It was very good.”

In my head, Adrian was like a character in a book, and a flat one at that. But the duck—the duck was special.

The duck made him more complicated than I’d anticipated.

Once the tasting dinner ended, Chloé headed upstairs to play with Gigi, and the rest of us huddled around the table to finalize the opening menu.

I stayed downstairs to tidy the dining room before going back upstairs. Clementine left for a catering gig, and I settled in for a late quiet night.

After a while the clanging downstairs died down, and I figured that Nico and Adrian had finally finished cleaning the kitchen. I wasn’t surprised to hear footfalls on the steps outside or the knock on the apartment door.

What did surprise me was the person on the other side of the door.

“Oh,” I said, startled. “Hi, Adrian.”

“Hey, Juliette,” he said, far less confident and suave than usual. “Mind if I come in for a moment?”

I hesitated, as any sane single girl would. But after a moment, I realized that if Adrian had harmful intentions, Nico’s revenge would be swift.

And would also likely involve a
Godfather-
esque utilization of an ice pick.

Ice pick in mind, I swung the door open. “Sure.”

“Thanks.” He peered around. “Haven’t been up here since you moved in. It looks good.”

“I like it. Can I, um, offer you some water?”

“Yeah,” he said, clearing his throat. “Water would be great.”

I nodded and headed to the kitchen where I filled a glass with water. When I turned around, I found he’d followed me in.

“Nice kitchen,” he said, taking in the counter space and vintage fixtures. “Your gran knew what she was doing.”

“She did.” I handed him the glass. This clearly had to be about something, but I wasn’t going to ask.

Better to watch him suffer.

Adrian drank half of the glass before shifting it from his right hand to his left, and back again.

“I hope you’re happy with … Neil,” he said, his voice soft. “I, well, I like you. I did the first time I met you. But Neil seems like a good guy, and with the restaurant and everything, well, I just hoped we could be friends.”

“Of course,” I said, mainly because it seemed like the right thing to say.

“Good.” He took another long drink of water. “I just— I’m sorry I told Nico about Neil. I figured out later I totally let the cat out of the bag.”

“True. But no harm done in the end. Neil had to meet everyone at some point anyway.”

“Your family’s cool. I’m sorry about your mom.”

“She’s a tough lady.” I looked around the kitchen. “Normally I’d offer you something to eat, but …”

I watched as Adrian turned a gentle shade of mint. “No. I couldn’t eat anything. Probably won’t eat again for a week.”

“You’ll make the busboy do the tasting for you?”

“Something like that.” His mouth quirked to the side.

I decided not to notice how shapely his lips were.

“Thanks for stopping by,” I said, bringing the visit to an end. “And thanks for being a part of the restaurant.”

“You’re welcome,” he said.

I walked him to the door and waved good-bye, stopping myself from wondering what might otherwise have been.

To distract myself, I made a pot of tea and settled in the living room with my steaming mug and stacks of papers.

But instead of organizing, I found my thoughts drifting from Adrian to Neil to Grand-mère.

I planned on trying to figure out more about Grand-mère’s past while I was in France, but more and more the whole idea made my stomach churn.

I didn’t understand how she and I could have been so close and yet she kept such a huge secret from me, from the family. Sure, maybe the man in the photo was just a sweetheart. But my gut told me that this man was special, that he meant something more to her than just a fleeting sweet memory.

And if that was the case, why keep it such a closely guarded secret?

The way I saw it, people kept secrets to protect themselves or to protect others. So who had Grand-mère been protecting? Because she certainly hadn’t
meant for me to find what I’d found. The clues I’d found—if they were clues—were small and almost innocuous, and yet my intuition told me they meant something.

This was no
Da Vinci Code
or
National Treasure
. I wasn’t following a trail of carefully crafted artifacts toward an abstruse yet correct conclusion. All I had were bits and pieces, mismatched ones at that.

And not one of them was property of the Vatican or the Library of Congress, so their accuracy was clearly up for discussion.

If I admitted it to myself, I could recognize feeling hurt that Grand-mère had kept her secrets from me and from my family. Why wouldn’t she have trusted us? Why didn’t she trust us to love her, past included?

Once again, I weighed my options and considered telling Maman about what I’d found.

Except … what I’d found was still so thin, so circumstantial. I remembered the difficult months after she passed, the dark circles beneath my mother’s eyes. Some people were prepared to deal with the loss of a parent, but my mother wasn’t one of them.

Until I knew—truly knew—I decided to keep my findings to myself.