The Perfect Recipe for Love and Friendship Read online

  “I would love that. Seriously.” Nora’s eyes shimmered, and her smile wobbled.

  “Even if all I can bake are dead footballs?”

  Nora pivoted away, grabbed the cake pan, and then tossed the ruined cake and the metal dish into the trash. She stepped back, wiped her hands together, and gave Bridget a grin. “What dead footballs?”

  TEN

  Jessie sat in the chair by the window, the sun bouncing off her blond hair. “I don’t think I can do this anymore, Abs.”

  Abby’s heart stilled. She paused in the middle of adding cream to her coffee. It was a Saturday morning, a lazy day they usually spent walking around the city, grabbing a sandwich to share, and finding a shady spot in the gardens to sit and watch the world go by. Sometimes Jessie would read to her from one of the books she had assigned to her Lit students at Brown; sometimes Abby would tell her about how you knew when dough was ready to be worked into bread. But this morning, Jessie had woken up and gone to the window, reading to herself while the world rushed by on the busy street three floors below.

  “What, you can’t sit by the window anymore?” The joke fell flat in the quiet morning air.

  Jessie shook her head, put the book she’d been reading on the ledge, and crossed to the kitchen. She was a few inches taller than Abby, lean and long in all the places Abby was short and stocky. Jessie leaned her elbows on the counter, the rest of her body stretching like a cat behind her. “I can’t keep pretending we aren’t a couple to the outside world. I mean, you don’t even see your family. What does it matter?”

  They’d had this argument a dozen times over the months since Abby had asked Jessie to marry her. The glow of engagement had given way to a simmering tension that had ratcheted up with each step they took toward the wedding. In the early days of her life with Jessie, there had been peace and laughter. But those days had become less and less frequent, and the tension hung over every moment, a threatening storm. “We live together. I don’t think that’s pretending anything.”

  “Have you told your family yet?”

  Abby glanced at the diamond on Jessie’s left hand, a twin to the one on Abby’s hand. The diamond was flanked by rubies, Abby’s birthstone, a ring that merged two of them into one. The wedding bands they’d ordered were alternating diamonds and rubies, set in platinum. Right now, the bands were sitting in the safe at the jewelry store, waiting for a decision. Even though they had a date and a deposit made on a honeymoon in Key West, Jessie had refused to make any further plans.

  Abby turned to put the creamer back in the fridge. “I will.”

  “Abby, we’ve been together for four years. We’re getting married in two months. You have to tell them sometime.”

  “They won’t understand,” Abby said.

  “You mean they won’t approve. Because we’re both women.”

  Abby couldn’t begin to explain to Jessie how her family, staunchly Catholic, lived in a black-and-white world. Her mother, especially, had said more than once that being gay was a choice, and people with any sense would choose to settle down as God had intended for them to do. Ma held tight to that church view, which used the Bible and the Pope to cast a veil over the world, blurring all the things they didn’t want to acknowledge. Like abortions and pedophiles. And the fact that love came in many different forms, not just one prescribed by a guy wearing a black shirt and a white collar.

  “Your family didn’t exactly jump up and down,” Abby said.

  “My father was an asshole, and he admitted it later. He even apologized straight to your face.” Jessie ran a hand through her hair. It settled around her shoulders like a golden river. “My family took a while to come around when I came out to them and, yeah, it was painful as hell. But we got through it.” Jessie laced her fingers through Abby’s. “Together.”

  Abby wanted to believe that it was just a matter of giving her family time to absorb the news. But she knew better. She had heard the judgmental comments, as harsh as sandpaper on silk, seen the way her mother shunned Georgi, the vibrant but brash gay man who owned the flower shop next to the bakery, as if he were a leper.

  “We don’t need my family,” Abby said.

  That’s what she had been telling herself for more than three years. Until that fight with Bridget at her wedding, and Abby had left, hurt that Bridget, of all her sisters, had cut her off. Okay, so Bridget’s wedding day wasn’t the best timing for telling her that she was making a mistake, but Abby had waited, hoping that she was wrong about Jim, that he would come clean to Bridget before they said “I do.” He’d promised Abby he would, but when she’d seen Bridget’s oblivious joy that morning, Abby realized Jim hadn’t kept his word. And in trying to stop Bridget from making a mistake, Abby had lost her best friend.

  If she’d had a single ally, Abby would have tried harder to make her way back to her family. But she had no one. No one but Jessie.

  And now the same family that she had disowned was the very roadblock keeping her from the one person who loved her. She thought of the bakery, the memories still so vivid, she could smell the yeast, the vanilla, the chocolate.

  An ache started deep in her gut, moving up to fist around her heart. She closed her eyes for a second and willed the ache away. She didn’t need them.

  Jessie didn’t say anything for a long moment. When she spoke again, her eyes shone with unshed tears, and the spark had drained from her usual smile. She tugged her hand out of Abby’s. “Is it because you are ashamed of me?”

  Abby put her mug on the counter and swung around to take Jessie in her arms. From their first date, it had felt right to hold her. Okay, so she hadn’t introduced Jessie to her family, but Jessie didn’t understand, couldn’t see, how the rest of the O’Bannons would reject this smart, bright, beautiful woman Abby loved so much.

  It was protection, not shame, that kept Abby from bringing her fiancée home to meet the family. “I could never be ashamed of you. I love you.”

  Jessie sighed and stepped out of Abby’s arms. “Then tell them.” As Jessie left the room, a cloud moved in front of the sun and cast the kitchen in shadow.

  ELEVEN

  She sat in the car outside the bakery for a long time, debating.

  Almost as soon as Nora left, the mac and cheese devoured, Bridget had started having second thoughts. She’d cleaned up her baking mess and decided to tackle the entire kitchen, mostly to avoid getting sucked into the Netflix vortex again. She’d started at the top, dusting the molding, the cabinets, then opening them up to clean inside, removing and replacing every single dish. While she wiped and dusted and organized, she ran the pros and cons through her head over and over again.

  In the end, the mailman made the final decision. He slid another stack of bills through the slot in her front door. They hit the wood floor with a soft thud, and Bridget knew she could only live in this cotton candy world of avoidance for so long. This morning she’d gotten up, pulled on jeans and comfortable shoes, and headed to work at the bakery she’d left what seemed like a century ago.

  Except, she reminded herself from her spot in the parking lot, she could only work there again if she actually went inside.

  The bright pink and white sign hung above her street-side parking space, swinging gently in the breeze. Two women emerged from Charmed by Dessert, carrying white paper bags and laughing together.

  Bridget’s mind reached back to a bright, warm day in late June, the kind of day when the air was heavy with the scent of the ocean and lazy mornings. School had let out the day before, and Abby and Bridget had hurried out of the house to run to the corner store. Back then, O’Donnell’s Sundries was housed on the first floor of a converted house a block away. Painted bright orange with a Kelly-green door, the store could be seen from space, Mr. O’Donnell liked to say. Against one wall, he had dozens of baskets hung from hooks, all at child height. The two girls had come in with two weeks’ allowance clutched in their fists, grabbed one paper bag, and stuffed it full of penny candies: Jolly Ranchers
, Mary Janes, Atomic Fireballs, Sixlets, a rainbow of sugar wrapped in bright packages.

  “You girls be sure to brush your teeth extra good tonight.” Mr. O’Donnell peered over the counter at them. Bridget was just tall enough to see over the counter, but Abby was still three inches and one year away from that height. “And be sure to leave a candy or two for the Children of Lir.”

  “Children of Lir?” Abby mumbled, her mouth already working around a fireball.

  “Aye. Don’t you two know that story?” Mr. O’Donnell shook his head and waved a gnarled hand. “Ah, they waste your time in school with all that adding and subtracting. You need to know your heritage too.”

  Bridget had thought she knew enough of that, between Gramma’s whisperings about fairies and their mother dragging them to Mass three times a week, but she knew better than to correct an adult. She tore off the top of the Sixlets and popped them one at a time into her mouth.

  “Are they big as me?” Abby said, but with the fireball, the words sounded more like are day bees-ee?

  He chuckled. “They’re wee ones. Lir was the god of the sea. When his wife died, he married again, but the new wife didn’t like his children and wanted to be alone with Lir, so she turned them into swans. For nine hundred years, the children waited for the curse to be lifted. Our great Saint Patrick came and released them. It’s said that the children still wander the earth, disguised as birds. So I leave a bit of a treat for them.”

  Abby’s eyes were wide, her mouth chipmunked by the fireball. “I’ll leave two. In case they have a sister.” I wee two, n-kay av sidder.

  “Me too,” Bridget said, though Bridget was two years older and didn’t really believe in children who became swans. As the two of them walked out of the store, their heads together, they divvied up four pieces for the mythical child spirits. For years after that, they’d tucked candies and little toys around the yard, and when they disappeared—most likely taken by a bird or squirrel—Abby was always sure it was the Children of Lir. Bridget never corrected her.

  In the modern day of reality and widowed women, Bridget shook off the memory and got out of the car. She wasn’t going to pay the bills by staying in the parking lot or by waiting for some crazy person to leave a million dollars in the backyard. To be honest, if there had been life insurance, Bridget would have used it to buy herself time. Time to think. Time to grieve. Time to make decisions.

  She walked into the shop, greeted by the familiar bell, and found a young girl behind the counter, probably the not-super-responsible Dani. “Can I help you?” the girl asked.

  “Is Nora here?”

  The girl nodded toward the back, her ponytail swinging in a wide arc. “Making a cake.”

  “Thanks. I’m going to head on back, okay? I’m her sister.”

  The girl shrugged, nonplussed, and went back to scanning a magazine. Bridget skirted the counter and pushed on the swinging door that led to the kitchen. A three-tier wedding cake dominated the stainless steel work surface, so tall and wide it almost hid Nora from view.

  Delicate pink flowers ringed each of the white frosted tiers, interspersed with swooping green stems and leaves that curled around the cake. Faux tree trunks disguised the columns holding each of the tiers afloat, the work so delicate and precise that Bridget had to look twice to know the trees and flowers were made completely out of frosting.

  “You are such a genius at decorating,” Bridget said.

  Nora stepped back and wiped a bead of sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand. “I don’t know about that.”

  “I’ve always admired what you could do with a little bit of frosting.” Bridget grabbed one of the aprons from the hook by the door and slid it over her head. The cotton fabric settled over her with a familiar touch. Bridget tied the strings into a bow at her back and then swept her hair into a ponytail. She washed her hands at the sink and then took the stack of orders and flipped through the thick pile of sheets pinned under the clipboard. “Wow. You weren’t kidding. You are crazy busy here.”

  “Tell me about it. Wedding season, graduation season, and it seems like everyone in the city of Boston is having a baby shower.” Nora let out a breath. “I’m so glad you decided to come back.”

  Bridget nodded, not yet sure she was going to be glad she came back. “What do you want me to do first?”

  Nora gestured toward the mixer. “I need three vanilla sponge sheet cakes. And two chocolate sponge. Once we get those in the oven, we need to start on replenishing the cupcakes and cookies out front.”

  “You saw the cake at my house. Are you sure you want to trust me with this?”

  Nora grinned. “Check the pantry. I made sure you wouldn’t forget anything.”

  Bridget ducked inside the walk-in pantry at the back of the shop. Before there was a bakery here, the room had been a parlor. The windows had been turned into walls and the chandelier removed to make room for fluorescent lights, but the thick white cove molding still rimmed the ceiling and added an odd touch of elegance to the rows of metal shelving.

  On the right, above the five-gallon tubs of flour and sugar, sat oversized containers of other dry goods. And taped to the front of the baking powder, a giant handwritten sign that said, BRIDGET: USE ME.

  Bridget laughed. Maybe working here again was going to be great after all.

  She changed her mind when her mother came in an hour later, huffing past Bridget and beelining straight for Nora. “The O’Haras are coming in at three for Ronald’s baptism cake,” Ma said. “If you haven’t finished decorating it, I’ll do it.”

  “Bridget was going to—”

  “I’ll do it.” Ma spun on her heel, brushed past her oldest daughter, and disappeared into the walk-in refrigerator.

  “Guess I’m still out of the will,” Bridget whispered to Nora.

  “And I was so looking forward to splitting Ma’s Hummel collection with you.” A twinkle lit Nora’s gaze.

  Bridget leaned in close, just as their mother emerged from the pantry. “I have one word for you: eBay.”

  That sent Nora into gales of laughter, the sound ringing in the small kitchen, as sweet as the wedding cake frosting. And just like that, it was as if the years apart and all the fights had been erased. Nora gave Bridget a shoulder nudge, Bridget volleyed back with an elbow. They grinned at each other, like a couple of teenagers holding a delicious secret.

  “We are here to work, not play,” Ma said. “We have a lot of orders to process. That means we should all be busy.”

  She arched a disapproving brow in Bridget’s direction. The unspoken question—Can I count on you? Or are you going to walk away again?

  In answer, Bridget started measuring eggs and sugar into a mixing bowl. She set it over the double boiler, then turned on the gas and began to whisk as the heat rose.

  * * *

  Six hours, eight cakes, and countless cookies later, Bridget hung up the apron and said goodbye to Nora. She grabbed her purse and turned to her mother. “Bye, Ma. See you tomorrow.”

  Her mother harrumphed and went on stirring peanut butter chips into brownie batter.

  Six hours and her mother hadn’t said a single word directly to Bridget. She shouldn’t be surprised. Her mother had once gone three weeks without talking to Bridget—and she’d still lived at home then. The thought of working here in a silent standoff day after day exhausted Bridget. Life, she had learned, was too damned short for any of that shit.

  Bridget leaned over and gave her mother a kiss on the cheek. “You can’t stay mad at me forever, Ma.”

  Her mother nodded, and a glimmer of a tear shone in her pale green eyes. It wasn’t a word, but it was progress. Good enough for her first day. She hadn’t burned anything or ruined anything. Progress.

  Bridget slid into her car, but before she put the key in the ignition, her gaze dropped to the change dish at the front of the center console. Among the quarters and dimes sat a knobbed whelk shell, a spiral of pale coral and white, tapering from the wide h
ome of the long-departed whelk to a narrow point.

  She curled her hand around the shell, her palm indenting with the knobbed end. She’d found it two years ago, walking a sandy stretch of Wollaston Beach on a crisp October afternoon. Fall had been moving in, shuttling summer to the side with hasty winds and cloudy mornings. The fried clam restaurant had shuttered its windows for the season, and only one lone hot dog vendor remained, his back hunched against the cold, body pressed against the small cart for warmth.

  Jim had taken the new job in Boston the month before, promising that it would mean more time home, more money in the bank, less travel. In those thirty days, she’d seen her husband for six. He’d been in DC, then Chicago, then San Francisco. And on the few nights he was in the same state as Bridget, he’d slept at the office, overwhelmed, he’d said, by corporate tax filings and overdue balance sheets.

  She’d woken up alone that morning and splayed her hand across the cool sheet beside her. No Jim. He’d called a few hours later, but no amount of apologizing could make up for the fact that he had spent the night of their anniversary at work. For Bridget, it had been a moment of choice, one of those bridges she needed to cross. South to walk away from the hurt and disappointment or north to trudge forward with the life she was leading

  She’d called in sick to work, bundled into a thick sweatshirt, and walked the beach. Just as she turned back to the car, she’d spied the whelk shell, one bit of perfection among dozens of broken shells. She’d tucked it into the change dish, maybe because it was pretty, maybe because it made her think of waking up the morning of her wedding, before the scene with Abby, before everything that followed, when she’d thought everything between them was perfect and unbreakable. In the end, it turned out they were just like all the other shells, damaged.

  When she finally got home that evening, Bridget walked in to find Jim, surrounded by flickering candles and hundreds of red roses. She thought of the perfection of that shell, nestled among so many fragmented ones, and had gone to Jim without a word. Nothing was ever that perfect, and it was only in accepting the chips and fractures that people found true happiness. They’d made love, right there on the carpet, while the candles burned down and the roses wilted.