Chapter Twelve

RACHEL PULLED A SHEET PAN from the oven and inhaled deeply. Her Parmesan crisps had come out lacy and golden brown, like cheesy little snowflakes. She set them aside and picked up her knife, turning to the handful of basil that waited on her cutting board. “He’s in.”

“I know he’s in,” Ana said. “He’s been in since the day he showed up at the restaurant looking for you. But the question is, are you?”

Rachel paused, surprised by the question. “Do I have any choice?”

“Of course you have a choice,” Melody said from her place beside Ana at the table. “Didn’t you say that Caleb offered you a job?”

“Floater. It’s a step down. Several, in fact.”

“But it’s a paycheck,” Melody replied. “You don’t think I’m baking at a tiny little café because it’s good for my ego, do you?”

A pang of guilt nagged at Rachel. Melody needed the job, and regardless of what she said, she’d only left Paisley as a show of solidarity. Rachel threw a look over her shoulder at her friend. “That’s exactly why I’m doing this. It’s a means to an end. A way to get my own restaurant again, where you will once more be my brilliant pastry chef. You’ll be back to terrifying interns in no time at all.”

“I do not terrify interns,” Melody said. “I very nicely tell them that if they touch my dough, I will break their fingers.”

Rachel grinned, knowing that neither scenario was the full truth. Melody was sweet but tough; never said a harsh word to anyone, but she always got the job done. She was practically the perfect kitchen staffer, and her way with pastry bordered on wizardry in Rachel’s eyes.

“In any case, he seems like he has the connections, and you should see his place. It’s like something out of Architectural Digest.”

“Sure he’s not the typical rich guy looking for a pretty wife who can cook?” Ana asked darkly.

“I very much doubt it. Besides, I don’t get the impression that he’s so much rich as he made a good investment. Besides, you guys were the ones who set me up in the first place. Now you’re going to be all suspicious?”

“I was just giving him the opportunity to apologize,” Melody said. “I figured it would help you move on. I didn’t expect you two to become partners.”

“I don’t know exactly what we are. But we’re meeting tomorrow to go over some ideas.” Rachel peeled the crisps from the baking sheet onto a plate, piped an artful swirl of mousse atop each, and then garnished them with the basil chiffonade. She placed the plate in front of her friends. “Now. Try this and let me know what you think.”

Melody lifted a crisp and took a bite. Her eyebrows flew up. “That’s amazing.”

Rachel waited for Ana, who took a bite and nodded vigorously. “I can taste the asparagus and the leeks in the mousse, but it’s not too strong. I love it.”

“Good. This can be the amuse-bouche.” Rachel looked at Melody with a sly smile. “I don’t suppose you’d like to invent something for the dessert course, would you?”

“I don’t know, let me think.” Melody rolled her eyes. “Of course.”

“Once you get this going, I bet I could convince a couple of my clients that this is the place to be,” Ana said. “Have Alex Instagram a picture with some cryptic caption and my hipster foodie clients will be frothing at the mouth.”

Rachel was back at the counter, putting finishing touches on her second trial dish, a wild boar ragù which would be served over some sort of shaped pasta. She hadn’t decided on what yet. “If you dislike your job so much, why do you keep doing it?”

Ana sighed. “It’s not that I dislike it. I’ve been doing this for ten years and it’s begun feeling a little . . .”

“Fake?” Melody suggested.

“Contrived,” Ana said. “You know Laura James?”

Rachel thought for a moment. “The health and fitness guru? The one who’s all about clean eating and vegetarianism?”

“Yep. She has her staff pick her up barbecue and then smuggle it into her house in a Whole Foods bag.”

“Are you kidding? What’s so bad about barbecue?”

“Exactly.” Ana shook her head. “Do you know how many women would buy her videos and read her books if she came clean? ‘You can eat the things you love and still look like me, as long as you’re not insane about it.’ I’ve been telling her to drop the act and be authentic for years now, but she can’t let go of the image.”

“And you wonder why I hide in the kitchen,” Rachel said. “You can’t fake food. Either it’s good or it isn’t.”

“Except everyone fakes something, and you know as well as I do that you didn’t lose your job because of your cooking.”

“You still think I should have done the interviews?” Rachel asked.

“Honestly, I don’t think it would’ve made a difference. It would have been damage control, yes, but it would have only delayed the inevitable. The big problem was that you were Paisley and no one knew it. So it wasn’t a big deal to get rid of you.”

“I thought the same thing,” Rachel admitted, shifting the pan to the back burner as she began to plate their dinner.

“Then let’s not make the same mistake twice. Sure, Alex is hosting this thing, but it’s your supper club. You need to make sure everyone knows that. Otherwise, it’s no different from any other gathering: Alex gets a pat on the back for finding a great chef and no one has any obligation to you.”

Rachel hated interpersonal politics. The need to work an angle. Shouldn’t good food be good food and the credit automatically flow to the one responsible?

Ana laughed when she said as much. “This is why I love you, Rachel. That idealism. I wish I didn’t know how truly egocentric people are.”

There it was again, that hint of longing and regret in Ana’s voice, buried beneath her self-deprecating humor. But Ana would deny it if pressed, so instead Rachel finished up their food and brought the plates carefully to the table.

After they oohed and aahed over the boar, Rachel mentally noting what she would change in the seasoning for next time, Melody set her fork down. “Admit it, though, Rachel. This whole experience is more fun considering the eye candy involved.”

Rachel ignored the words. But the thought had already crossed her mind. And that was exactly what worried her.

*   *   *

Alex was surprised at how easy Rachel had been to convince. True, his condo with its roof-deck views was pretty impressive. But more likely her quick agreement was due to her own desperation rather than any inherent trust of him.

He knew how she felt. Every day, there was a call or an e-mail from Christine “checking in” on his progress, each message growing more concerned and urgent. The publishing world was fickle. All it would take was a single catastrophe to take the attention off social issues like the ones he’d been writing about and completely divert the direction of nonfiction acquisitions. He needed to get a placeholder into next year’s fall catalog before they decided to give his spot to a newer and trendier author.

“Okay. Time to do this.” His conscience was light. He was doing what he felt God was telling him to do: make it up to Rachel even though this whole debacle had been a complete accident. He was going to give her access to people who might be interested in investing in her future restaurant, give her an opportunity to show that she wasn’t the heartless cook the media was portraying her to be. In fact, in the short time he’d been in her company, that was the last thing he would call her. Guarded, tough-minded, determined, yes. Heartless, no.

Or maybe that was just him thinking like a man rather than a writer.

Enough of that. Alex put on a fresh pot of coffee and booted up his laptop in his bedroom, gazing out on the panoramic views of the sun-drenched city. Seven hundred thousand people, a small population by most standards, all going about their business. All with their unique perspectives, prejudices, habits. Surely there was something out there that could serve as his inspiration. He went back into the kitchen, poured himself a mug of coffee, then meandered back to his desk, where he set it on an electric warmer. Squared the notepads and his pens to one another and to the edge of his desk. Opened up his proposal, sank into his chair, and placed his fingers on the keyboard.

The cursor blinked at him, a challenge. A dare. An accusation.

He clicked over to another document and typed across the top: The Saturday Night Supper Club. Below it, he typed: Guest List.

Bryan’s father was the ideal investor for Rachel’s restaurant, but Alex would wait to invite him until the kinks were worked out. He’d start with a couple of journalists he knew, one who worked the city desk at the Denver Post, another who wrote features for Westword, a well-regarded if highly alternative weekly. His neighbor Robert, across the hall, who was a political strategist and had connections both across the state and in Washington, DC. His parents’ academic acquaintances, one of whom he knew had an extensive wine collection. A couple of fellow CU alumni with whom he’d kept in touch through the professional mixers that the university occasionally hosted. Different ages, different professions, different religions, but they shared the most important demographic criteria for this experiment: they had moderate amounts of money and very good taste. Most importantly, they held some influence within their wider circles.

He opened a new message in his e-mail client and began to compose a letter, making it as casual and no-pressure as he could manage. Putting together a supper club at my place with a talented local chef friend. What’s your availability for July? He cut and pasted into individual e-mails so it wouldn’t look like he was mass e-mailing everyone he knew, then flipped back over to his proposal, where, shockingly, no words had magically appeared at the blinking cursor.

He drummed his fingers on top of the desk. Get started. Just write. It didn’t have to be good. Maybe begin with marketing copy, which everyone knew would never resemble the finished product anyway. It didn’t have to be precise, just appealing.

A ding alerted him to a response in his e-mail in-box. Already?

It was Margot Lee, an artist friend he’d met through Bryan. Sounds fantastic. I’m in if I can bring my fiancé. But the only Saturday night I have free is two weeks from now.

He flagged the message to reply once he’d had a few other responses.

Slowly, for the rest of the afternoon, replies trickled in. Alex started a scrawled, four-column list showing the different Saturday dates and the various invitees’ availability. Only two begged off with requests to be kept in mind once the summer was over.

It was looking like the Saturday after next, the one following the Fourth of July, was the clear winner.

The only problem was, most of the invitees written under that Saturday were very serious. If he wasn’t careful, they would lack the levity and good humor necessary to not only make the party come off without a hitch, but to put people in a good enough mood to tweet and Instagram and Facebook their experience.

Too bad his sister wasn’t living in Denver right now. She had always been great at these sorts of gatherings, winning over even their parents’ stuffiest friends. But she was all the way on the left coast, doing her best to make it as an actress.

It had been a while since she’d been home.

Alex picked up his cell phone and dialed Dina, trying not to feel guilty about the little notation that told him it had been over six weeks since he’d used the number. And he was the one in his family who spoke to her the most.

“D-Rex!” he said when she picked up. “What’s shakin’, little sis?”

“Ugh,” she groaned. “Do you have to call me that?”

“Yes. I’m your big brother and I do have to call you that.” It was a variation on what he’d called her when she was a little girl, “Dinasaur,” and had morphed into all sorts of variations on the theme. If you couldn’t hold a younger sister’s prehistoric creature phase against her, what good was having one?

“So what’s up, big bro? Did Mom and Dad put you up to calling me to make sure I’m not doing those movies?”

Alex stifled his laugh with a cough. She did such a perfect imitation of their mother, with her Russian accent and her hushed tone when she talked about something the least bit racy, he couldn’t understand how Dina hadn’t picked up a job based on her impression skills alone. “No. Last time I saw them, I told them you had gotten some good roles and were doing fine.”

“So you lied,” she said. “Not that I don’t appreciate it.”

“Say nothing of it. Seriously. I was wondering if you might like a trip home for a visit in a couple of weeks. Think you can swing it?”

“Let me guess. You’re introducing a girl to Mom and Dad and you need me to take the heat off you.”

He smothered another laugh. Despite the ten-year gap between them, he’d always loved his sister’s brutal sense of humor. He’d forgotten how much he missed her. “Actually, I have a dinner party coming up and all my guests have a bit of a serious nature. I thought maybe I’d throw you in the mix and have you lighten them up a bit.”

“That sounds like fun. But I can’t. I try to pull doubles on the weekend so I have weekdays free for auditions. If I miss a few days, I won’t be able to make rent.”

He paused. He’d been under the impression that she really was doing fine, and the few walk-on roles and commercials she’d booked were holding her over through the lean times. “Do you need money, Dina?”

“Not if I keep showing up for work.”

There was something in her voice that bothered him, but he couldn’t quite pinpoint what. Now he really did want her to come home, so he could make sure she was okay. “What if you were coming out here for a job?”

“What kind of job?”

“Well, my chef friend is going to have her hands full cooking, and we could use a food runner.”

“Her? You didn’t say anything about a her. Who is she? Is she pretty? Are you dating?”

Alex chuckled. No sense in lying, because she’d know for herself soon enough. “Her name is Rachel. She is very pretty. And no, we are not dating.”

“Wait. Not Rachel Bishop? That chef you completely wrecked?”

“How do you know about that?”

“Everyone knows about that. Besides, I follow you on Twitter. Only you would be able to pick up a girl whose life you’d ruined.”

Alex leaned back in his seat and propped his feet up on his desk. “I did not pick her up, and this supper club is my way of trying to make amends. Introduce her to some people who can speak well of her, rebuild her reputation, find her an investor.”

“Gotcha. You’re fixing things again.”

“I do not —”

“Yes, you do. You’ve been trying to fix things with me and Mom and Dad for over three years now. If I come out there to play waitress for a day, you’re going to talk me into going over to Sunday dinner at their house and hope that we’re going to miraculously get along. You do this every single time, Alex. You need to learn that some things you can’t fix.”

The words sent an unreasonable current of fear through him, even though she was talking about her damaged relationship with their parents. She was right. So far he had failed at mending the rift between them and Dina, something he would always regret, given his part in it. Surely he wouldn’t fail Rachel, too.

“So you’ll come, then?”

She seemed to be considering. “You’ll pay for the ticket?”

“I’ll pay for the ticket.”

“And you won’t make me go to Mom and Dad’s?”

“Cross my heart.”

Dina sighed. “Okay. I’m in. Book me a late flight from LAX on that Friday and I’ll be there.”

“If I can’t pick you up for some reason, I’ll send a car.”

“Yeah, yeah, big-time writer doesn’t have time to get his sister from the airport. I get it.” But her tone seemed a little brighter than it had earlier, and he knew now that he was doing the right thing. There was definitely something going on with his sister.

“I’m booking your flight now. Love you, Dinasaur.”

“Love you too, idiot.”

Alex laughed and clicked off the phone. He would no doubt be able to convince her to work the party before and after with her trademark charm, lighten up the mood. Now he just had to let Rachel know that he’d picked the date and taken care of the server situation.

Despite the fact that he was only thirty words further along on his proposal, it felt like a good day’s work.