The Perfect Recipe for Love and Friendship Read online

  Her hands eased the sphere into a flattened circle, and then she flipped it, flouring the other side. She pressed the heels of her hands into the bread, harder this time—they were no longer strangers—until it yielded and flattened. Then a flip, another heel press, and again and again, until the bread no longer stuck to her hands and the dough began to glisten, happy, pliable, ready to be whatever she made it.

  Abby’s hands moved, too, unbidden, twisting and kneading the air. She could almost feel the silky dough in her hands, feel it surrender and soften. She closed her eyes for a moment, and she was there, back in the bakery, with the melodic undertow of her sisters’ conversations in the background as the dough morphed into something airy and light. Abby had always been on the periphery, lost in her own world of flour and shortening.

  An ache burned in her gut, and she clenched her fists at her sides, but still her fingers itched to move, to be in that bakery. Across from her, Mrs. Maistrano looked up, saw Abby in her usual spot, and gave her a little wave. As she always did, Mrs. Maistrano gestured to Abby to come in and watch. As she always did, Abby shook her head no.

  Mrs. Maistrano gave a slow, sad nod and went back to work. She shaped the dough into a long, oblong loaf and then dropped it onto a waiting sheet pan. She set that aside and grabbed the next ball of dough, repeating the process of meeting, kneading, settling.

  Abby watched, entranced, as the night began to drop away and the sun inched its way into the sky. The air warmed, and the world began to stir, with people leaving their houses, cars darting down the street, birds calling to each other.

  She should leave. Get back before Jessie woke up. But still Abby watched, as the loaves were formed and the biscuits were dropped and the bakery began to fill its windows with golden, crisp treats. Then, when she could stand it no longer, Abby turned away and headed home, walking hard and fast, until she could no longer smell the scent of the bread and the reminder of the family that had abandoned her.

  SIX

  Magpie waltzed into Bridget’s house on Sunday afternoon like she owned the place. Which was pretty much how Magpie did everything—with confidence, flair, and determination. She stood in Bridget’s living room, with her hands on her hips and her car keys dangling from one finger, ticktocking a mini Tweety Bird back and forth. “Ma says you have to come to family dinner and I’ve been sent to make sure you show up.”

  Bridget thumbed the remote, segueing into the next episode of House of Cards. She had at least two days of viewing ahead of her—and if that wasn’t enough, there were eight seasons of Dexter to fill the void, to add voices to the quiet of the house.

  The TV filled up all the spaces that still needed decisions. A stack of bills sat on the coffee table, beside a checkbook she hadn’t opened yet. There were twelve messages on the answering machine she had saved, asking her about her lawn service, the quarterly air-conditioner maintenance, the subscription to the Wall Street Journal.

  “I already texted and told Ma I wasn’t going.” Bridget hit fast-forward, leapfrogging past the show intro. Images of Washington, DC, whizzed by on the screen. “I have enough lasagna in my freezer to feed the entire state of Wyoming.”

  “Yeah, well, she figured you’d say that, so she told me, and I quote, that ‘a casserole is no excuse to avoid the world.’ She told me to tell you that you’re lucky she didn’t drag you back to church today but she is prepared to do that if you keep on wallowing alone.” Magpie put up her hands. “Don’t shoot me. I’m just the messenger who happens to be home for a couple days between assignments, so I get delivery duty.”

  Bridget sighed. She knew her mother—if Bridget didn’t show up, Colleen O’Bannon would pack the entire kit and caboodle into her Chrysler sedan and show up on Bridget’s doorstep. Far better to go to dinner and leave when she wanted than end up with her family camped out in her bedroom again. “On a scale of one to ten, how bad is it going to be?”

  Magpie grimaced. “She made her short ribs stew.”

  “The one with Guinness?”

  Magpie nodded. “She pulled out the big guns.”

  As in Bridget’s favorite dinner, the expensive, time-consuming one that had usually been reserved for birthdays and Christmas when they were young and Colleen was a struggling single mother. And the Olympic gold for guilt goes to…Colleen O’Bannon. Again.

  Bridget sighed.

  “I’ll drive.” Her little sister’s grin said she knew the battle was over. “I’ve got two bottles of Merlot in the car that I’m smuggling in with me.”

  “Two?”

  Magpie grinned. “Yup. I expect Ma to have a total shit fit when she sees them.”

  “You know you’re just asking for a lecture about how wine is only meant for communion and how too much alcohol—”

  “Makes for too many bad decisions.” Magpie leaned in and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Which is exactly why I’m bringing it. You need to make a few bad decisions.”

  “Me?”

  “Yup. You.” Magpie took Bridget’s hand and hauled her out of the chair. “Now, come on. Get dressed. I refuse to drive you anywhere looking like that.”

  Bridget looked down at her pajamas, then back at Magpie’s rainbow-hued maxi dress. Her little sister had her hair in twin braids, long plaits trailing along her arms. Her face was bare, but Magpie had the kind of natural coloring and deep green eyes that looked beautiful with or without makeup. “What’s wrong with what I have on?”

  “You’re wearing Minions. As a grown-up.”

  Okay, so she was sporting Despicable Me characters. But the flannel pajamas were comfortable and one of those crazy day-after-Christmas-sale purchases, and honestly, the thought of anything that involved zippers and a bra was too much. “Since when are you the fashion police, Miss I’ll Go Barefoot Everywhere?”

  Magpie didn’t answer. She just gave Bridget the look they’d all inherited from their mother—one arched brow and a half-smirk. “We’re leaving in ten minutes. Minions or not. Your choice.”

  In the end, Bridget changed into a pair of jeans and a pale blue V-neck sweater. She wasn’t in the mood for a lecture about her clothing choices. She settled into Magpie’s tiny red coupe and held on tight while her sister screamed around corners and down side streets until finally screeching to a stop in front of the triplex where they’d grown up.

  The house hadn’t changed a bit in more than thirty years. The lime-green paint was starting to fade, paling behind the trio of white porches. Their father had bought the house right after he married Ma and rented out the top two floors. That, coupled with the income from the bakery, hadn’t made them rich by any standard but had kept the bills paid. Ma still lived on the first floor with nearly all the same furniture from the day she moved in. Walking into the house on Park Street was like stepping into a time machine that only went in reverse. It even still smelled the same, a warm combination of their mother’s L’Air du Temps, fresh baked bread, and ancient history.

  The parlor held a pink and white floral love seat and two matching wingback chairs. The chairs sat in the bow of the bay window, centered by an old Singer sewing machine tucked away in the wooden and iron stand. The grandfather clock Ma had inherited from her great-aunt chimed the hour with a deep-throated song. There was a rolltop desk in one corner, where Bridget had spent hours, puzzling over algebra or writing an essay for English. If she closed her eyes, she could still see the four of them, back in the days when their biggest squabble had been over the single bathroom, Nora prim and erect in one of the chairs, reading some extra-credit book, Abby staring out the window and ignoring her vocabulary homework, Magpie on her stomach on the carpet, feet swinging back and forth while she doodled in her notebook. They’d spent hundreds of weekday nights in this very room while their mother whipped up something for dinner and the world rushed by outside the windows.

  On the other side of the hall were three doors, one for the master bedroom, two for the bedrooms the girls had shared. Bridget and A
bby, Nora and Magpie, because Nora had been the most patient with the youngest and wildest O’Bannon girl. The hall’s hardwood floors were still polished enough to reflect every step, the fringe on the edge of the Oriental runner lay as straight as pencils in a box, and every embarrassing dorky school picture was hung on the wall.

  Bridget caught the scent of stew, and for the first time in two weeks, she felt hungry. Her stomach propelled her into the kitchen and over to the yellow Kenmore stove that had sat in the galley-style room for as long as any of them could remember. Her mother was in the pantry, searching for something. Bridget grabbed the spoon on the stove and dipped it into the simmering pot. But not fast enough.

  “You’ll spoil your dinner.” Ma reached over and yanked the spoon out of Bridget’s hand, setting it back on the spoon rest. “Now go wash up.”

  “I’m not seven.” Though Bridget wasn’t sure why she bothered mentioning that fact. No amount of birthdays would stop their mother from telling them what to do, when to do it, and how to do it right.

  Her mother waved toward the bathroom. “Go, go. Your sister will be here soon, and dinner is nearly done. I don’t want to make Nora wait to eat.”

  Sister, singular. “Abby isn’t coming?”

  Ma dipped her head and stirred the stew in a lazy figure-eight pattern. She seemed to shrink into herself, her voice softening, her shoulders slumping. “She…she’s busy.”

  “Did you ask her?”

  Ma kept on stirring, in, out, in, out. “Abby will come around when she’s ready.”

  “Yeah, but did you invite her?” Bridget pressed, but the invisible wall had already formed in her mother’s features.

  “Wash your hands. Nora will be here soon.”

  Meaning the subject was closed. As usual. Colleen O’Bannon was the master at avoiding topics she didn’t want to discuss.

  Bridget didn’t know why she had even asked. The last time she had seen Abby, they’d been in this very house. Bridget’s wedding day. A day that should have been happy and bright and perfect. But what had started in the church had followed them back here, like a winter storm moving inland fast.

  They’d had a small wedding, she and Jim, and an informal reception back at Ma’s house. At the time, Bridget had thought Jim just wanted things to be intimate, easy. But years later, she’d realized Jim had almost no family and very few friends. Eighty percent of the handful of guests at their wedding were Bridget’s relatives.

  There’d been wine and canapés and bad decisions all around. Uncle Carl got into a fight on the lawn with Ma’s friend Ronnie Perez, Aunt Esther was caught stuffing rolls and mortadella into her handbag, and Jim’s mother had a nervous breakdown just before the ceremony started.

  But then they’d said the words and thrown the rice and Bridget thought everything would be okay. She’d passed off Abby’s rant in the church as an anomaly and slipped back into her happy, newly married bubble. Ma had even made a toast, saying that now that Nora and Bridget had found husbands, she hoped Abby would meet a nice doctor and Magpie would settle down with a lawyer and give her many more grandchildren. Then she called over Jim’s perpetually sweaty cousin Ned and grabbed Abby’s hand.

  “You must meet Ned,” Ma said, dragging them so close to each other they nearly collided. Ma nudged Abby. “Now don’t be shy, Abigail, like you normally are. You’re so lovely. If only you’d speak more with men. Show them you’re interested and sweeten the pot with some honey. Smile a little.”

  Abby’s face turned crimson. “Ma—”

  “Ned here is the perfect man for you to settle down with, Abigail. He’s an orthopedist.”

  Ned had given Abby a toothy grin and reached for her hand. Abby spun out of the room so fast that she knocked over the table lamp. Conversation was suspended, and Ma’s face reddened. She stood there for a long second, rigid with fury.

  Then Ma had brightened and patted Ned’s hand, as if the whole incident wasn’t anything more than a fly buzzing around the deviled eggs. “My Abby has always been shy around boys. Just give her a minute. Bridget, please go get your sister and tell her she’s being rude.”

  Ma had always seen the truth she wanted to see, on that day and hundreds of others. But now, looking back, Bridget wondered if maybe she herself had done the same thing in that church.

  “Wash your hands, Bridget,” Ma said now, in that same tone she’d used three years ago. The one that said arguing was pointless.

  Bridget turned on her heel, dipped into the small bathroom, washed her hands, and then took a long time studying her reflection. The shadows under her eyes were less pronounced, and there was color in her cheeks again. Her body was moving on, even if her heart hadn’t.

  She heard Nora’s voice, then Magpie’s, then their mother’s, the three of them chattering like baby birds in a nest. For a moment, Bridget lingered in the bathroom, her hip against the pink porcelain sink. They were talking about the bakery, about the new scones that Nora had whipped up, and then about two women who made a special trip to Charmed by Dessert every Monday, buying enough scones for the whole office. Bridget realized she had no idea who those customers were, didn’t even know the bakery now sold scones—and that she had been out of the loop for so long, it felt a lot like being back in high school again with the girls in the hall speaking in some common code that left her on the periphery.

  She came out of the bathroom, and the conversation stilled. Magpie darted away to lay the silverware on the table; Nora turned to the fridge for a water bottle. The cool girls, skittering away when someone outside the clique came upon them. She had left the bakery, and that almost equated with leaving the O’Bannon family.

  Bridget debated going home and then remembered she hadn’t driven herself. So she reached into her sister’s giant good-for-hiding-contraband purse, yanked out one of the bottles of Merlot—a screw-top, thanks to pragmatic thinking from Magpie—and poured a hearty glassful, while ignoring her mother’s pursed lips of disapproval at the alcohol.

  “What are you doing?” Ma said. She turned to Nora. “Nora, what is she doing?”

  Nora put up her hands. “Don’t put me in the middle. I’m just here for dinner.”

  “If you really want to know, Ma, I’m having a much-needed drink. It’s been a hell of a day. A hell of a last couple weeks, actually.” Bridget took a long sip. The smooth notes of grapes and oak slid through her. From the dining room, Magpie gave her a quick thumbs-up, and Nora used the buzzing of the dryer as an excuse to leave the kitchen. The others sensed the impending lecture and had the good sense to get out of the room. Bridget, though, was trapped between the bathroom door and the archway to the dining room, with her mother in the space like a concrete barrier.

  “When your father died, God rest his soul, I didn’t turn to the bottle. I only took one afternoon off from work.” Ma stirred the stew, tasted it, added a pinch of salt. “I had you girls to provide for and I couldn’t afford to sit around all day and brood. Or drink all night like some hobo on the street.”

  Bridget bristled. As usual, Colleen had skipped the small talk and gotten straight to the point. The family dinner was merely a ruse to criticize Bridget’s decisions. “I’m not brooding. And I’m not a hobo.”

  That had been one of their mother’s go-to doomsday predictions. If you don’t try hard in school, you’ll end up a hobo on the streets. If you drink or do drugs, you’ll end up a hobo on the streets. If you have sex before marriage, you’ll end up a pregnant hobo on the streets. For years, Bridget thought every homeless person she saw was a high school dropout who drank too much and never used birth control.

  “I called the rectory the next day and sent them your father’s clothes. Far better to have them warming someone else’s back than taking up room in my drawers.” Ma bent, opened the stove, checked the biscuits, and slid a giant red pot holder on her hand before pulling them out. “You have had more than enough time to grieve, Bridget. It is time you moved on.”

  “Time to move on? Ma,
it’s been two weeks.”

  Her mother dropped the biscuits into a waiting Pyrex bowl and handed it off to Magpie to put on the table. “And that is long enough. You need to go forward with your life. God has left you alone now, and you need to make the best of it.”

  “Make the best of it? How the hell am I supposed to do that?”

  “For one, you will watch your language. For another, you should find something to pour your energies into. Some kind of altruism. Your father was the one and only man for me, as God wished it to be. As was Jim for you.”

  One and only man? For God’s sake, she was only thirty.

  “Aren’t you glad I brought the wine now?” Magpie whispered in Bridget’s ear as she waltzed by.

  Hell, yes. Bridget took another sip of Merlot. “I’m fine, Ma. Just fine. I don’t need altruism or a lifelong convent plan or anything else.”

  “Ma, leave her alone,” Nora said as she stuffed the clean dishtowels in the drawer. “Don’t you think Bridge has enough to deal with?”

  “I’m not giving her anything else to deal with. I’m merely worried about her and giving her some motherly advice.”

  “Smotherly is more like it,” Nora whispered under her breath.

  Bridget bit back a laugh. God, she had missed her sisters. Missed the team they used to be, the four of them against the world. Nora had been the one most worried about breaking the rules, and the one who got them caught when they tried to sneak beer into the house one night. But there’d been plenty of lazy walks home from school and hushed late-night conversations about boys. How did she let all of them get away?

  Bridget took another sip and then topped off the wine. She was feeling warm already, smooth like the deep-bodied Merlot. “I’m taking some time to make decisions,” she said. Except she hadn’t made a single decision at all.

  Her mother reached over and brushed a tendril of hair off Bridget’s forehead. “Why don’t we go to the hairdresser tomorrow? Touch up your roots. You’ll feel better if you start taking care of yourself.”