The Love Goddess' Cooking School (7 page)

Some mornings, depending on when Holly woke up, her heart so rended that she’d sleep until ten or eleven, her grandmother would be out, walking the path of the bay with Antonio, who waddled beside her like a dog and had not run off in sixteen years. But it was too early for her grandmother’s walks, and so she knocked gently on her grandmother’s door and went in. “Nonna, are you feeling all right?”

Silence.

And when Holly went in, there Camilla lay, the three Po River stones loose beside her on the bed. She had passed away in her sleep. The loss had both shaken Holly and slapped her across the face with the need to get up and take care of her grandmother’s business, to keep her lore and legacy alive. The past weeks, studying the recipes her grandmother had planned for the fall class, trying to remember her grandmother’s words as she’d cooked beside her, had saved Holly from staying in bed with the blankets pulled over her head.

The night before she’d died, her grandmother had sat with her on the rocking chairs on the porch, holding Holly’s hand as they sipped Nonna’s special wine. At her usual sad, wistful expression, her grandmother said, “He’s a fool, Holly, so you’re lucky he’s not your great love. Trust me.”

Holly had nodded. “Is
anyone
going to like
sa cordula
?”

“
Si,
your great love,” she’d said, unwinding the pins in her braided bun and letting the silver braid fall to her narrow shoulder.

Holly wasn’t so sure she believed in great loves anymore. How could you think you’d found it, only to be mistaken a year or two or three, or in some cases twenty-five years later?

Forget about great love and focus on great cooking,
she ordered herself now, the final ingredient hovering over the ravioli. When she was little, she used to think the sad memories in the food would make those who ate the food feel sad, but her grandmother had assured her time and again that only the heart’s call went into the food and not the memory or wish itself. It had taken Holly a while to understand what that meant.

The sad memory was taken care of. So now, with the sauce recipe calling for a wish, she couldn’t help it. Her heart spoke first into the pan of seasoned chopped tomatoes, sautéing in garlic-infused olive oil.

Come back to me.

The image of John, Lizzie on his shoulders, his hands raised up to keep her steady, came to mind. “Come back to me. Tell me you were wrong. That it wasn’t love with your administrative assistant. That you know that now. Beg my forgiveness.”

But he’s not your great love,
she reminded herself.

According to a dish no one would like. And her grandmother wasn’t always right with her fortunes. Seventy percent of the time. But Holly believed in her grandmother’s abilities. One hundred percent of the time.

He wasn’t her great love. She knew that; she’d known that for months. And her life was
this
now, she thought, glancing down into the crackling sauce and realizing she’d forgotten to remove the garlic before she’d put in the tomatoes.

The bells jangled over the front door. Holly jumped; for the briefest moment she thought it would be John and Lizzie magically transported via her wish. But it was very likely a customer stopping in to check on the pastas for lunchtime. Or another student wanting her money back for the cooking class. While Holly had been at the farmer’s market, one of her four students had left a message on the Cucinotta’s answering machine. Sorry, can’t take class, after all. Please mail refund to . . . Which thankfully still left four enrollees, since Mia was as much a student as her assistant.

Holly turned down the burner on the sauce, wiped her hands on a kitchen towel, and headed to the front door. It was Liam Geller standing there. His dark wavy hair was still damp in places and he was dressed nicely, in dark gray pants and white button-down shirt, no tie. A gray messenger bag was slung over his torso, a long tube extending out of the top edge. Blueprints, Holly figured.

At the sight of her, he smiled through the glass, and she slid open the bolt.

“I’m sorry to bother you so early,” he said, “but I saw you cooking through the window so I figured it would be all right.”

Holly smiled. “No problem.”

“I’m on my way to work and I wanted to double-check with you—my daughter Mia was here last night, and she said you
invited her to be your apprentice?”

His eyes were beautiful. Such a vivid dark blue, like Maine’s blueberries or the darkest stripes of the Carribbean Sea. And so like his daughter’s.

“Yes. I told her I’d love to have her as my apprentice if it’s all right with you. The class is every Monday night for eight weeks, six o’clock to seven thirty.”

“It’s more than all right. It’s great. She could really use a little hobby right now, something besides school and friends and she doesn’t seem to have found her extracurricular interests yet.”

Actually she has,
Holly thought.
Getting rid of your girlfriend. Poor guy.

“She’ll be a great help,” he said, glancing at his watch. “Well, I’d better get going.” He glanced at the hand-painted wooden sign,
CAMILLA’S CUCINOTTA
, hanging on the wall above the cash register. “Camilla, is it?”

Holly stared at him. He’d been served by Camilla at least five or so times during the two weeks that Holly had been here with her grandmother. How could he not know who Camilla Constantina was? “Camilla was my grandmother. Beautiful, elderly Italian woman with pitch black eyes and silver bun?”

Recognition dawned in those gorgeous eyes. “Oh, yes, she waited on me a few times. Tell her I said the sauce she’d suggested for the macaroni was great; I was going to get the usual, but she talked me into it.”

Are you that self-absorbed?
Holly wanted to scream at him. “She passed away two weeks ago.” How could he not know? This was a small island, and he’d moved here months ago,
Mia had said. He was in his own world, distracted, unnoticing. Holly could envision him going through the motions, marrying a bobblehead who was superficially kind to his daughter, his daughter who was in emotional pain.

It was interesting how crushes could end just like that.

The bell jangled again. Two attractive women in their late twenties or early thirties, whose expressions reminded Holly of her mother, came in. They were dressed similarly, in slim-fitting jackets and low-slung, dark-washed jeans tucked into riding boots. They both ogled Liam.

“Liam, isn’t it?” the redhead said. “We met at our daughters’ school the other day. You’re new to Blue Crab Island, right?”

“Few months,” he said.

They stared at him, watching his face, his muscles. They both moved a bit closer to him.

“Divorced?” the blonde asked, tapping his ring finger. God, they were intrusive. And obnoxious.

He nodded with a Hugh Grant smile.

“May I help someone?” Holly asked.

“Please, go ahead,” he told them, and they smiled seductively and came closer to the counter Holly stood behind.

The one with the auburn hair said, “I bought this pound of penne yesterday and it was overcooked. And the Bolognese sauce was . . . I don’t even know, missing something. Like not enough meat or garlic, maybe. I’d like my money back.”

“Al dente is one thing, but rubber is something else,” her friend added.

Holly felt her cheeks burn. This was the third time in the
past two weeks that someone had complained about the pastas or the sauce and asked for her money back.

“Really?” Liam said to the woman. “I bought the penne yesterday and thought it was great.” Those blueberry-colored eyes were sincere. “And the Bolognese? I finished the entire quart. I’d better stop coming in here so often or I’m going to have to add a mile to my running routine.”

Damn. He was absentminded and attracted to pink bobbleheads and so distracted he didn’t notice the penne was overcooked and the sauce too bland, but he was
nice.
Holly felt her crush creeping back inside her heart.

Five

For the past few days, Holly had spent all day and night in the kitchen, channeling her grandmother by listening to Italian opera and talking to Antonio as though he cared. “Okay, Antonio, now we stuff the ravioli with the spinach and three cheeses.” She had sold half of the pastas and sauces she’d made and had only three requests for money back or another try. Her marinara sauce was still missing something (it was ironic that the simplest thing to make was among the most difficult) and her pasta always seemed either overdone or underdone, but she was getting better. Her gnocchi with crabmeat had been much, much better, so much so that she might include it for week three, after all. And now that today, tonight—the first class—had finally arrived, she wasn’t as nervous as she thought she’d be.

Oh, who was she kidding? She was seriously nervous.

She’d spent the afternoon scrubbing the kitchen clean and rechecking that she had all the necessary ingredients for the class. She’d opened and reopened the refrigerator ten times to check
that the veal scallops were there. That the white binder was leaning against a heavy ceramic bowl full of cinnamon scented pinecones. And then at five forty-five, she went outside and moved the blackboard easel a bit closer to the road. This end of Blue Crab Boulevard didn’t attract many shoppers, since it was mostly woods and paths leading to the water, but occasionally someone would be headed out for a jog along the bay and would walk the length of the boulevard and start down at this end. So far today no one had asked about the class, not even the three people who’d stopped in to buy pasta and sauce.

“The fall cooking course begins tonight,” she’d said brightly to those who came in, shoving brochures at them. But all she got were nice smiles and “how nice,” and “have a nice day.”

She had four students. That made a class. It was how her grandmother had started and look where it had taken her.

Ha. Holly would be lucky if she got through the first night without everyone demanding their money back. She took a deep breath and moved the sign even closer to the road, angling it so that it could not be missed.

CAMILLA’S CUCINOTTA
ITALIAN COOKING CLASS

Starts tonight at 6:00 Spots still available!

Each class would be devoted to an entrée and an appetizer, and if there was time, a dessert. Holly had changed the class
a bit; she’d had to. She wasn’t ready to make osso buco, so shifted it to week six. Risotto alla Milanese—class seven, at least. This new course syllabus didn’t claim to be her grandmother’s, the famed Camilla Constantina’s. It only claimed to be Holly’s, who would learn as her students did.

She went back inside and glanced around the gleaming kitchen. She lowered the opera, took another deep breath, and straightened the four aprons hanging on the wall.

The bell jangled and a woman appeared at the archway. An unhappy woman, Holly thought, surprised at how she stopped in the archway and stared at the floor for a moment as if taking a necessary breath. She wore only shades of charcoal gray—casual cotton pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt and even gray canvas skimmers. Her fine brown hair, barely long enough for its ponytail, looked unbrushed, as if the woman had just woken up from a nap, realized she had to hurry, and slapped her hair into an elastic band. No makeup, no artifice whatsoever on her delicate, pretty features. The only thing that sparkled was her diamond ring, resting above a gold wedding band. She toyed with the gold chain around her neck, which disappeared into the V of her T-shirt.

Holly mentally ran through the students. Juliet Frears, Tamara Bean, Simon March, and her apprentice, Mia Geller, the only one she actually knew by sight. The woman seemed familiar, though her name wasn’t. As the woman stood there, she wrapped her fingers around the pendant, then rested it above her T-shirt. A gold locket encircled with tiny rubies. Holly gasped. She
knew
that locket.

“Juliet?” Holly said softly, fearing any loud or sudden movements would send the woman out the door. She was sure it was Juliet Andersen—the one friend she’d made on the island as a little summer girl. But Juliet had moved away when they were twelve and hadn’t kept in touch much past the first year.

For the briefest moment the woman’s face almost lit up. “Holly?”

“Yes, it’s me!” Holly walked over. Her instinct was to wrap her in a hug, but Juliet’s body language said to give her space.

“I had no idea you’d be visiting your grandmother. Lucky for me. God, it’s been what? Fifteen years?”

Juliet looked entirely different from what Holly remembered. She’d always had long hair, down to the bra strap (they’d both gotten their first bras together during that final summer they’d spent on Blue Crab Island). And her green-hazel eyes used to sparkle with ideas and enthusiasm. She was going to be a marine biologist and figure out why there were no blue crabs on Blue Crab Island. She was going to be a neurosurgeon and fix the synapses that made kids’ great-uncles have agoraphobia, like her great-uncle Nathaniel. And she was going to be a teacher and focus half the school day on anti-mean assemblies, showing girls like Avery Windemere what happened when they grew up being mean to others and what constituted mean.

This woman, with her gray-yellow pallor to match her clothes, the nothing in her eyes, the resignation in the expression and slump, was hurting. Bad.

Holly was unsure if she should initiate conversation or let her be. “Frears is your married name, then?” she asked.

Juliet nodded and glanced away. She touched her wedding ring for a moment, then glanced at the white binder Holly had set on the large island in the center of the kitchen. “The summer my father died, your grandmother taught me how to make spaghetti and meatballs. She told me that every time I missed him like mad, I could make his favorite meal and add a happy memory of him as a special ingredient and I’d feel him close to me, and for a few fleeting seconds that would bring comfort. And then I’d have a delicious home-cooked meal to eat while remembering all the wonderful things about him.”