The Love Goddess' Cooking School (27 page)

Ha. All would be lost without that binder.

What had happened to it? She’d spent hours retracing her
steps, going over the last time she’d held it. And every time she thought she’d figured out one last place it could possibly be, like the attic, it wasn’t there.

She’d managed to lose a twenty-five-pound binder of her grandmother’s life and legacy. It had to be somewhere in the house, somewhere she’d overlooked.

At the library she made copies of the diary recipes for veal scallopini and a fried asparagus that sounded scrumptious, then picked up the necessary ingredients at the supermarket across the bridge.

At five forty-five, when Holly realized Mia would be bursting in the door at any moment, full of stories about her mother and father and how they were back together, Holly went outside to the swing and sat, facing the evergreens, trying to brace herself. “I really liked him,” she whispered into the air, into the trees, trying to let it go, let
him
go.

At the sound of footsteps coming from across the road, Holly stood up, and there was Mia, in her tight jeans and knee-high boots, layers of slim-fitting T-shirts and earrings.

“Holly! Oh, my God, I have so much to tell you!” She wore mascara, Holly could see. And her dangling beaded earrings, which had morphed from dress-up earrings to everyday. Mia looked nothing like the girl Holly had met one month ago. She looked like one of those sophisticated tween stars on the Disney channel. Which was fine, but just not Mia.

On the way inside, Mia barely took a breath as she described how happy she was in ten different ways. “And it’s all thanks to you, Holly! You helped me get rid of the fake bobblehead
and because of that, my dad was totally single when my mother came back. Thank you, thank you, thank you.” She squeezed Holly into a hug in the entryway, the very place she’d first met this heart stealer.

“I’m glad you’re happy,” Holly said, attempting a smile as she handed Mia an apron. Simon and Juliet walked in together, followed by Tamara a moment later, and Holly was relieved to turn her attention to them. “So, I have a bit of a problem, everyone. Actually a big problem. My grandmother’s binder, with hundreds of her recipes, is gone. I’ve turned the house upside down looking for it. I managed to cobble together a menu for tonight and next week from some handwritten recipes I found, but without that binder, I’m sunk.”

“Well, at least we have the copies of the recipes of the dishes we’ve already made,” Tamara said. “And I’ll bet some others you can re-create yourself, just by memory. Like the risotto alla Milanese you’ve made, what, a hundred times?”

That was true, Holly realized. She could probably close her eyes and re-create some of the recipes that way. The risotto. The gnocchi. Her spaghetti Bolognese and the penne in vodka sauce. Her Fusilli alla Holly and her new Heartbreak Rotini and Sausage Pasta Salad.

“And based on tasting, you can add what seems to be missing as you go along,” Juliet added.

“You know, I really think I could do that,” Holly said. “Amazing. Two months ago, I was afraid of a bowl of uncooked rice.”

“Yup, it’s amazing what time and experience can do,” Simon
added.

“That is so totally true,” Mia said. “Because of time passing and the experience of not having each other and being with the wrong people, now my parents are getting back together.”

“That’s great, Mia!” Simon said, offering up a high five.

“So what’s on the menu tonight?” Tamara rushed to ask before Mia could say one more word about wrong ex-loves.

Holly shot her a quick thank-you smile. “Tonight, we’ll make a classic veal scallopini and a side that sounds delicious—fried asparagus.”

“Yum, that even sounds good to me and I’m not crazy about vegetables,” Mia said.

Holly handed out the recipes and they set to work, Mia and Juliet on the asparagus, and Holly, Tamara, and Juliet on the veal.

Mia glanced at the recipe on the island, then went to the cabinet for a large bowl and began snapping the ends off the asparagus. A stalk in her hands, she paused and said, “My wish is that my mom and dad will get remarried.”

Tamara and Juliet glanced at Holly, then got busy opening the packages of veal and grabbing plates and bowls. They took turns lightly seasoning the veal with salt and pepper and rolling the pieces in flour. Holly crushed garlic cloves, each slam making her feel slightly better. And then worse.

“I bet they will,” Mia said, reaching for a pot and filling it with water. Simon added salt it to and Mia turned on the burner. “I heard my mom say something about marriage last night when I woke up in the middle of the night and came
down for a glass of water. They were on the couch, all lovey-dovey and totally making out. And I know I heard the word ‘marriage’ come out of my mom’s mouth.”

Just like that, Holly thought, her heart freshly breaking. One minute he was eating grapes out of her hand and carrying her upstairs, and the next he was making out with his ex-wife. And talking about marriage.

Simon checked the water, which wasn’t yet boiling. “That’s great that your folks are together again. I used to hold out hope that my wife and I could get back together, but I know it’s not possible. And I know it’s my daughter’s fondest wish too.”

Tears stung the backs of her eyes as Holly lay the veal in the frying pan with the crushed garlic and butter and olive oil. She blinked them away and kept her back to the class, watching the veal brown.

“Can’t you try?” Mia asked him.

Holly removed the veal and placed it a baking dish, and Juliet added the wine and mushrooms and onions to the pan. Holly’s mouth began to water. She’d been so crazed trying to find the binder today and figuring out a menu for tonight’s class and collecting the ingredients that she’d forgotten lunch. At least she had an appetite. That was a good sign. When she’d first arrived in Maine back in September, she couldn’t eat for a week. Not even her grandmother’s amazing breakfasts.

Simon dropped the asparagus in the salted boiling water. “A month ago, I would have tried if she were willing, but even if she were, I’m not sure my heart would ever be in it. Sometimes
someone just takes a sledgehammer to your heart and even if you still have feelings for them, you can’t ever quite feel the way you used to. The innocent part is all gone.”

Huh. Holly had thought that was how Liam would feel.

Mia swept the asparagus ends into a paper towel and threw them in the compost bin. “I can see that. Like if Daniel broke up with me for someone else, I can’t see taking him back as my boyfriend. Not after humiliating me. Like Jack Lourents did to Annabelle Martinour. He dumped her in the middle of Spanish class and then left the class holding hands with Angelina Casper. And then Angelina dumped him three periods later for someone else, and he tried to get back with Annabelle, and she totally took him back.”

Tamara carefully poured the sauce from the pan onto the veal, scraping the bits, then slid the baking dish into the oven. “Sometimes people have to do that, try to forgive, give a second chance because they can’t go on either way. And maybe it’ll work and maybe it won’t, but at least they know they tried.”

Holly nodded at that. Not that it made her feel better.

“What if you don’t want to try?” Juliet said. “What if you can’t forgive or forget? What if you don’t want to offer a second chance?”

Everyone stopped and stared at her for a moment.

“Then I guess you end up bitter and alone like Madeline Windemere,” Mia said, “who won’t take back her boyfriend, even though he’s begged. And now that she wants him back, he’s with someone else now.”

Juliet stared at her. “No one wants to end up bitter and alone.”

“Yeah, but people do,” Mia said. “Because they don’t know how to forgive.”

“How did you get to be so smart at only twelve years old?” Simon asked, draining the asparagus. He and Mia took turns dipping the stalks in a mixture of beaten egg and milk, then coated each in bread crumbs and laid them in the pan of sizzling olive oil.

“Probably because I haven’t had my heart smashed to smithereens yet,” Mia said, sniffing appreciatively at the frying asparagus. “Oh my God, that looks so good. Anyway, I know my parents are going to get married and live happily ever after. How cool is it that I’ll get to be in their wedding? I can’t wait to do all that wedding stuff. Oh my God, Holly—you can cater the wedding!” Mia beamed at Holly and gave the asparagus a poke before flipping each stalk.

Maybe it was a good thing Holly had managed to lose the binder of recipes. Because that way she couldn’t cater the wedding of the man she was in love with.

Over the next few days, Holly created a new binder of recipes. She’d typed up all her grandmother’s handwritten recipes and added them, plus the ones she’d already handed out at the four classes so far. The binder was pathetically thin. She realized she could make a list of locals who’d taken the course in the past year or two and ask if they had held onto the copies of
recipes, then copy them and add them. Her grandmother kept a ledger of her students dating back to the first class in 1962.

Holly flipped to the first page. Lenora Windemere. Annette Peterman. Jacqueline Thibodeaux and Nancy Waggoner. The last page contained twenty-five names with telephone numbers and a red stamp marked
PAID
next to their names. Holly recognized seven of the names going back the past two years. Catherine Mattison and Julia Kentana were librarians at the tiny Blue Crab Library. Dale Smythe was the retired lady who now worked at the checkout counter in the general store. Margaret Peel managed the bookstore, and the Colemans were three generations of a family, grandmother, mother, and daughter who owned the bakery and café. Holly tried to imagine her grandmother, her mother, and herself working side by side in the kitchen on a daily basis.

Phone calls to everyone resulted in good news: everyone still had their recipes.

That afternoon Holly stopped at the bakery to collect the Colemans’ recipes. Maeve Coleman, the grandmother, had taken the class on her own three years ago, then she and her daughter had taken it together two years ago, and last year the three Coleman women had taken it, resulting in over fifty recipes from the six-week course.

“What was it like, taking the course together?” Holly asked as Maeve delivered a mug of mochachino with a heart swirled in chocolate.

“Very revealing,” Diana Coleman said as she set down a white chocolate and raspberry scone she insisted was on the house. “I learned a bit more than I wanted to about my mother
and grandmother. And I learned how to make a great lasagna. I can’t make risotto to save my life, though.”

It amazed Holly that her grandmother had touched so many lives in so many different ways. Maeve and Diana sat down beside Holly and shared a story about the first Camilla’s Cucinotta class they’d taken together, when they’d started arguing over something stupid and Diana had actually picked up the raw veal cutlet she’d been about to dredge and shoved it against her mother’s chest with an angry, “Fine, do everything
your
way!” Camilla had calmed them down and gotten their wishes into another pricey piece of veal and by the end of the class, the mother and daughter had each learned something about the other. Something that had set them on a path to opening the bakery together.

“I love hearing these stories,” Holly said, sipping the delicious mochachino.

The door opened and in walked Liam and Mia. Holly froze, glancing behind them for Mia’s mother, but she wasn’t there.

“Hey, it’s Holly!’ Mia said, coming over to the table. “Oh, awesome, you’re collecting recipes.”

Holly managed to smile. She glanced up at Liam, afraid to let herself look at him too long.

“Hey,” he said to Holly, holding her gaze. As if aware that Mia was watching them, he quickly added, “We’re here for the Colemans’ killer blondies.”

“I won’t keep you any longer,” she said to Diana and Maeve, collecting the sheets of paper and tucking them inside her purse. “Thanks so much for your help.” She turned to Mia, who was ogling the pastries in the display case. “Bye, Mia,”
she added. She shot a quick glance at Liam, and he was staring at her intently again with that expression that said he was thinking ten things at once. She swore she saw
I miss you
there, and
I’m sorry.
And an
I still think about you.

Holly rushed out and was halfway down the block when she heard his voice calling her. She stopped and turned around and he walked up to her. Right in front of Avery W’s. She glanced in and Avery and her awful friend Georgina were in there, staring at them.

Look all you want. Nothing to see anyway,
she thought, bracing herself for whatever he wanted to say. More
I’m sorry.
More
I didn’t mean to hurt you.

She took a deep breath and waited for Liam to say what he came out to say.

“I—” He just looked at her. “You look so pretty.”

“I’d better go.”

“Wait,” he said, touching her arm. “How are you?”

“How am I?” she repeated like an idiot.

God, this was awkward. Awkward and painful and she had to go. Right then.

“Did you just want to ask me how I am, Liam?”
No, idiot, he came out to propose to you.

His dark blue eyes were so intense on her. “I came out because I … it’s good to see you, Holly.” He started to say something, then apparently decided not to.

She stared at him for a moment, then turned and hurried away, aware that he was standing there and watching her walk away.

She started to cry when she reached the bungalow. She scooped up Antonio to have something warm to hug against her. Then she blinked away the useless tears and set herself to work, re-creating the risotto the best she could, writing down what she did and what she thought she was supposed to do. It didn’t taste half bad, even with canned broth. She checked her work against a few recipes online and realized she’d forgotten the white wine. But not the wish: that once again, she wouldn’t let her grandmother down.

Within a few days, Holly had added over a hundred recipes to the binder.