Promises to Keep

Table of Contents

 

 

VIKING

Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published in 2010 by Viking Penguin,
a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Copyright © Jane Green, 2010 All rights reserved

Publisher’s Note This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA

Green, Jane
Promises to keep / Jane Green.
p. cm.

eISBN : 978-1-101-19022-7

1. Sisters-Fiction. 2. Parent and adult child-Fiction. 3. Divorced parents-Fiction.
4. Maine-Fiction. 5. Life change events-Fiction. 6. Domestic fiction. I. Title.
PR6057.R3443P76 2010
823’.914—dc22 2010008120

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S
teffi elbows her hair out of her eyes before grabbing a frying pan, splashing olive oil liberally into it and scraping the finely chopped onion into the oil. Ignoring the sweat running into her eyes, she spins around, hurrying over to the counter opposite, where Jorge is slicing spring onions.

“More of the green,” she says, peering over his shoulder, then leaning forward to show him. “Take it all the way up to there.” She runs back to the frying pan and shakes it hard, turning down the heat for the onion to soften, before pacing quickly to another chopping board and thinly slicing a giant portobello mushroom.

The rest of the world might be falling apart, but you’d never know it to look through the window at Joni’s on Twelfth Street, the tiny vegetarian restaurant downtown that is becoming almost impossible to get into.

The crowds come for the cozy atmosphere, the friendly staff and, mostly, the food, which garnered a rave review in
New York
magazine the other week, and is solely because of their scatty but brilliant chef, Steffi Tollemache.

In the past year, Steffi has been astonished to see how busy the restaurant has become. It is her first proper job as a chef, and she knew, within days, that she had finally found her calling.

It wasn’t just the excitement of being given free rein to reinvent the menu that made it so perfect, but the people. For the first time, Steffi felt part of a community, with most of the customers living in the hood and almost all becoming regulars.

 

The lunchtime rush is over when Steffi looks through the hatch to see Mason at a table by the window, immersed, as usual, in a manuscript, and sipping from a mug of coffee.

She owes him a thank-you—last week a box arrived containing advance copies of two new cookbooks that Mason had told her about, knowing she would be interested.

Wiping her hands on a towel and pushing the damp strands of hair off her face, she nudges the kitchen door open with her foot and walks over to the table with a smile.

The restaurant is almost empty. Just a table of four who are lingering over their mint teas and Middle Eastern orange cake.

“Are you the chef?” One of the table of four stops her as she passes, and Steffi nods.

“This. Cake. Is. Awesome.”

“It’s incredible,” the rest of the table chorus. “This is the most amazing cake I’ve ever had.”

One of the girls leans forward eagerly. “I’m a serious cook, and I would love to have the recipe.”

“Thank you for all your great compliments,” Steffi says and grins, catching Mason’s eye as he listens and looks up. “And yes, of course you can have the recipe. I’ll only have to charge you two hundred and fifty dollars for it.”

“What?” Their mouths fall open in shock.

“I’m kidding!” Steffi laughs. “Didn’t you ever hear the Neiman Marcus chocolate-chip-cookie story? I’m pretty sure it’s apocryphal, but I couldn’t resist.”

“Oh my God!” one of the group exclaims. “I’ve baked those cookies! I love them.”

“I know,” Steffi says. “Me too. I’ll have to write down the recipe for the cake. Do you want to give me your email address? That’s probably easiest.”

“That would be great,” the girl says. “Thanks!”

“I think I underordered,” Mason says. “I clearly need some of that orange cake.”

“
Everyone
needs some of the orange cake!” Steffi smiles, turning to call to Skye, the waitress who’s hovering by the bar at the end. “Skye? Can you bring Mason an orange cake?”

“Do you have time to sit?” Mason gestures to the chair and Steffi gratefully sinks down into it, relieved to be finally off her feet.

Skye comes to the table bringing the cake for Mason, two spoons and a cup of Lemon Zinger tea (her favorite) for Steffi, who smiles gratefully and squeezes her hand after she sets them down, then shakes her head as Mason tries to foist the second spoon on her.

“Oh come on, you have to. I can’t eat all this by myself.”

“So eat half and take the rest home for Olivia.”

He splutters with laughter. “Olivia won’t eat this! She’s allergic to carbs, wheat and sugar. Oh, and dairy.”

“She is? Seriously allergic?”

“Of course not, but that’s what she says now because it’s easier than having to explain how she looks that fantastic after two kids. Mmmm. I have to say, she’s seriously missing out on the fun stuff.”

Is she ever, thinks Steffi, who would never dare say anything.

Mason and Olivia live with their perfect children, Sienna and Gray, in a perfect apartment on Park Avenue in the East Sixties. And not just any building on Park Avenue in the East Sixties, but a building that is considered to be one of the top three buildings in Manhattan.

She only knows the apartment is perfect because a few weeks ago, waiting to see the doctor after a particularly nasty cold that had left her with a wicked sinus infection (dizzy spells and loss of balance were not great while working in a busy kitchen), she picked up a copy of
Elle Décor
.

There, on page sixty-five, was a giant glossy picture of Mason and Olivia, with Sienna and Gray looking adorably cute, in their stunning apartment. They were described as a glamorous power couple, he the highly respected publisher who formed his own imprint five years ago, and, thanks to three huge successes, is now regarded as a serious player in the publishing world.

His wife, Olivia, is a Bedale. Yes, from
those
Bedales. The super-wealthy Southern oil family. Steffi asked a friend who worked in publishing about them, and the money, it seems, the riches that funded their extraordinary apartment, is her
family
money. While he is now a player, that wouldn’t earn him anything like the sort of income that bought this apartment, and the art contained within it.

They are not the sort of people whom Steffi would usually know, but Mason works around the corner and comes in for lunch a couple of times a week.

Olivia met him there for lunch one day and Steffi was stunned. Though Olivia was charming to her, Steffi had never imagined Mason to be married to someone so . . . perfect.

Mason is always a bit of a mess. His hair is never brushed, he often has at least a day’s worth of stubble and his suits never seem to quite fit him, hanging off his lanky frame. There are times when Steffi wants to force-feed him, and although she knew, long before seeing the magazine article, that he was married, never did she expect him to be married to someone who looked like Olivia.

Olivia looks frighteningly high-maintenance. The day she walked in, on her own, waiting for Mason, Steffi happened to be at the hatch and she was tempted to run out and tell this woman she was clearly in the wrong place, then redirect her to somewhere like Café Boulud or the Four Seasons.

What was she
doing
at Joni’s?

A tiny symphony of blond and white cashmere, her diamonds cast pinpricks of light on the ceiling, a veritable disco ball, as she turned to see if Mason was there.

Who
was
she?

“Excuse me?” Her voice was light and lilting, clearly Southern, and she laid a hand on the waitress’s arm with a beaming smile. “I am so sorry to bother you when you are this busy, but I think we have a reservation?”

“We don’t take reservations.” Skye said. “But you’re welcome to wait in line for a table.”

Her face fell. “Oh. I’m certain my husband would . . .” She trailed off as the door opened and Mason walked in. “There he is!” she said in exasperation, as Skye raised an eyebrow at Steffi, still peering through the hatch, and winked at Mason to indicate she would seat him as quickly as possible.