Page 13 of Finding Yesterday
Cooking is the perfect thing to help me see the positive in all that’s happening. I just need to take any job right now to save up and get experience. Maybe all this was serendipitous, Hudson kicking me out. It’ll force me to figure out exactly what I want to do.
After all, I was always working at Hudson’s parents’s house underhisrules, which in the end, wasn’t my dream. Not really.
I look around, and I miss Mama. I know it doesn’t make sense—she’s been gone for eighteen years. But how can I not? She’s the reason I cook. I can’t help but wish she’d had her recipes written down, especially for times like these. I’d do anything to be able to experiment with them, the meals I remember from my childhood. The ones that I associate with love and happiness from those early, impressionable days. They became the fiber of my being.
But no one else in my family cooks, and since Mama apparently only kept her recipes in her head, they died along with her.
Refusing to let any more tears fall, I get busy again, realizing I need to run the food to the soup kitchen before I clean up. I don’t want to miss delivering these in time for supper.
I’ve just finished wrapping up the patties and am putting the fried green tomato sauce in a to-go container when Emma walks in. Nate is with her, and he’s dressed in business casual. My brother isneverwearing anything but T-shirts and jeans.
“Claire!” Emma yells. “What happened?”
I hold up the wrapped burgers. “I made food for the soup kitchen. Don’t worry, I’ll clean up right when I get home.” I look around. “Where’s Dylan?”
“You’re in so much trouble, Chicken Little.” Nate runs a hand through his wavy blond hair, wide-eyed.
“Shut up, Nate.” I scowl. He knows that nickname drives me nuts. It’s supposed to be ironic because I don’t eat meat, but it’s just stupid. Nate’s always teasing me, and I’m not in the mood right now. “Just tell me what’s going on.”
Emma glances at Winston on the bench seat and gasps. “You brought apighere?” She blinks for a beat, frozen, before she puts a hand over her face. “I’m having the Rue des Vignes vendors over tonight for drinks before we head out to dinner. I’ve been trying to get their wines in my store for a year, and Nate’s going to help me negotiate. Dylan is with Charley right now. She’s babysitting him.”
Charley has been Emma’s best friend since junior high school and recently has become my close friend too. She now works at Emma’s store, and apparently,she’sgood enough to babysit Dylan.
“That’s tonight?” I squeak out. I totally forgot.
“Yes, it’s Friday.” She points to Nate. “That’s why he’s here now. Dressed up.”
“Hi-De-Ho, Chicken Little.” He gives me a salute.
“Shutup, Nate.” My head darts around, assessing the damage. “I’ll clean up fast, don’t worry,” I say to her as she frantically throws dishes in the sink and rinses them.
I take out the mop and run it over the floor, realizing that maybe I’d gone overboard on the flipping and spicing.
It takes all three of us to get the kitchen in decent shape, and now Emma has no time to shower before her guests are supposed to arrive.
But as we’re working, she finally says, “You know what, I can’t meet them like this. I’m a mess—the house is a wreck.”
I look around, thinking the place looks fine. But what I think is fine and what Emma thinks is fine are two different things.
She picks up her phone and calls them, stating some emergency with Dylan, and sets a time to meet next week.
Before Emma’s even off the phone, Nate’s already flopped on the couch, tugging at Winston’s tail and letting it go, chuckling as it keeps curling back up.
I sit next to Nate and Winston. When Emma makes her way into the living room, I say, “I’m sorry, Em.” I give Winston a head scratch.
Emma runs a hand through her still perfectly layered hair. “I really needed their wines in my store. They’re hot sellers. And I had Nate here.” She buries her hands in her face.
I wave to the piles of wrapped patties. “Want a burger, Em? As a peace offering?”
“I do.” Nate’s hand darts up.
“Sure,” Emma says, blowing away a wisp of hair. “Let me just get out of these clothes.” She walks through the living room to go upstairs, and I hear her scream, “Claire!”
I rush over, terrified. “What? What did I do now?”
She points to the floor. “Your pig.”
I look down to see a pile of Winston’s poops.
