Sour Grapes (The Blue Plate Series) (27 page)
Read Sour Grapes (The Blue Plate Series) Online
Authors: Rachel Goodman
“Yes. You know we’re still together,” I say. What my father isn’t aware of is “that boy” recently proposed and I accepted. It’s not as bad as it sounds. I haven’t been in the mood to listen to my father’s grumblings. I will tell him, just not right now when I want to strangle him.
My father crosses his arms. “Well, I get what you’re saying about . . . all that, but since you’re already here, you should reacquaint yourself with how we do things at the Spoons. Three weeks will be here sooner than you realize.”
“Dad,” I say, softening my tone. I move closer to him so that maybe he’ll see me—really see me—and finally grasp that I can’t do what he wants. “Please don’t ask me to do this. This place isn’t me anymore. You have Ernie, and I’m sure there are plenty of people around town who would love to help out while you recover. All you—”
He quiets me with a look—the one I received countless times as a child—that indicates if I don’t shut my mouth, I’ll be on permanent potato-peeling duty. I remember one time in high school when he put me on potato-peeling duty for a week because I came home six minutes after curfew. At thirty, I’m still scared of that look.
“The Spoons has been in our family since before you were born. I’m not trusting it to anyone else but flesh and blood. You’re still a Turner, even if you live in a different zip code.”
The firmness in his voice, his insistence, sets off an alarm in my head, and an uneasy feeling settles in my stomach. “There’s more happening here than what you’re telling me,” I say, now certain that whatever is really going on is the real reason he called me this morning and why he wants me to manage the diner. “What is it?”
“I’m not sure what you’re referrin’ to, baby girl. I’m having surgery in three weeks and need you here to run things. Simple as that,” he says, but I don’t believe him. Over the years, I’ve come to realize that my father is a vault of secrets. Whatever his true motivations, he won’t share them until he’s good and ready.
“I’ll work from Dallas until your surgery”—
or at least until I find out what you’re hiding
—“but that’s it.”
“We’ll see,” he says, then picks up another James Beard special from the window. I notice the slight limp in his stride as he delivers the dish to a little girl in pigtails spinning around and around on a stool taller than her. Maybe it is just his knee, and this whole thing is some convoluted way of bringing me home permanently.
Around me, the life of the diner goes on as usual. People crowd the doorway. Servers hurry by, carrying pitchers of sweet tea and delivering orders. Several patrons lounge in booths, rubbing their stomachs as clean plates sit discarded in front of them.
My gaze drifts to the dent in the counter where I banged a rolling pin after messing up a piecrust. I spot the doodles I scribbled on the wall in the prep area. The tile grout under my feet is stained from when I spilled beet juice.
When I refocus my attention, my father’s prattling on about how folks have been begging for my recipes. “Just the other day Gertrude Firestone commented how she misses your four-napkin Sloppy Joes,” he says, straightening a pair of salt and pepper shakers. “And none of the regulars like my version of your mother’s peach cobbler as much as yours.”
My heart drops to my stomach as anger rises up. It happens anytime my mother is mentioned. Someday I’ll stop being surprised by it.
I have few memories of my mother, each one fragmented and fuzzy, as if I’m seeing them through a glass Coke bottle. I recall skin that smelled like honeysuckle, the soft swish of her apron, and long, graceful legs gliding about the kitchen.
I used to miss her in a bone-deep aching kind of way. When I was younger, I’d imagine what her voice sounded like. Soft and gentle as a whisper? Or maybe bright and lyrical with hints of mischief. Either way, I’d pretend I could hear it in my head, keeping me company, guiding me. “That one looks delicious,” her voice would say, as I flipped through the pages of a cookbook. “Or maybe try the recipe with the clementines instead.” No matter the task, her voice followed.
At night, in the silence, I’d curl up in my twin bed and wish she were there next to me, combing her fingers through my hair and humming pretty sounds until I drifted off into dreams. It was easier than wondering what I’d done wrong to make her disappear all those years ago and never return.
But as I got older I realized I couldn’t miss someone I didn’t remember.
“Time to prep for the dinner rush,” my father says, ripping me from my thoughts. “Go get washed up. There’s an apron for you in the back room. The carrots need chopping.”
My chest tightens. Only my father can make me feel like everything I’ve worked so hard for is slipping away. I squeeze my eyes shut and force deep, steadying breaths into my lungs.
“You coming, baby girl?” my father calls over his shoulder on his way to the kitchen.
He expects me to follow. I don’t. I can’t. I may have been raised in this place, but that doesn’t mean I belong here now. Instead I make a beeline for the exit, careful not to knock into anyone or anything on my way outside. I don’t want to add another mark. I’ve already left too many.
Want even more laugh-out-loud contemporary romance from Rachel Goodman?
From Scratch
explores one woman’s journey back home to Dallas, Texas, where her family and friends are cooking up a plan that doesn’t quite suit her tastes . . . But don't worry, there’s always peach cobbler.
From Scratch
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About the Author
R
ACHEL
G
OODMAN
is the critically acclaimed author of
From Scratch.
She was raised in Colorado on Roald Dahl books and her mother’s award-worthy cooking. Now an engineering professor at her alma mater, Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, she has not lost her passion for culinary discovery or a well-told story. A member of RWA, she continues to hone her craft through the Writer’s Path at SMU while seeking to create the perfect macaroni and cheese recipe.
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Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Rachel-Goodman
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From Scratch
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Rachel Goodman
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First Pocket Star Books ebook edition May 2016
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Interior design by Davina Mock-Maniscalco
Cover design by Emma Van Deun
Cover photograph by Paolo Cipriani/iStock Getty Images
ISBN 978-1-4767-9290-3