Chapter Eight
S aturday at noon, Chloe continued her prep work for the Movable Feast happening that night. Grandma Millie’s house looked beautiful. The outside Christmas lighting designers had finished yesterday, and she, Jessica, Sarah and Meghan had decorated the public rooms Thursday night while enjoying cocktails that Clara, The Wild Side’s bartender, had taught them how to mix. It had been one of the few times Chloe didn’t feel overwhelmed by her need to fit in with her cousins, and this morning, she wondered if her childhood insecurities had not only driven her intense need to please and fit in but also colored her connection to her cousins.
Chloe sang Keith Urban’s “Somebody Like You” at full volume while she worked. She was thinking of Rustin and had already overdosed on Christmas carols from rehearsing with her student choir. She moved around Grandma Millie’s kitchen like she knew what she was doing.
Fake it until you make it, right?
Only she sort of did know what she was doing now, and that should make her nervous. But she had a new confidence, and for several evenings after she and her cousins had finished decorating, she’d gone to The Wild Side to sample cocktails, practice her recipes, and pitch in decorating the restaurant for tonight’s festivities.
She and Rebekah had painted the huge wall at the back of the restaurant red—Rustin had rented rolling scaffolding—and Chloe, who’d loved participating in musicals in high school and community theater, was reminded of how much she enjoyed being part of a team. With teaching, she had colleagues, but she was also fairly isolated in her classroom with only her students, lesson plans, and grading.
The best part of this week had been spending time with Rustin. He’d given her cooking skill challenges and had her practice her recipes. She’d started thinking of the kitchen as a stage and herself as a performer, with Rustin, an attentive audience member who had no compunction about jumping in with advice.
The week had felt imbued with luminous magic where she and Rustin were enveloped in a silver-gold bubble. It was like her childhood fantasies had come true but with an adult edge. She found herself trying to find excuses to touch him, to make him smile. And she’d started to dream that even after the feast they would spend time together.
She particularly loved the Santa tree that she’d put together with Lucas after Rustin had flat-out refused. Chloe had collected broken branches from Cramer Mountain’s woods after a late fall storm. She’d thought to paint them white and add small LED lights, but Rustin, after looking at the project and his brother’s enthusiasm, had found a touch of Christmas spirit.
“Spray-paint them black. More The Wild Side vibe.”
Of course it was. She hadn’t seen Rustin wear anything else, but then she only had really seen him cooking.
Maybe black is a kind of uniform?
“We can get red pots with black river rocks and ‘plant’ them in the entrance for a statement. Sophisticated but edgy holiday,” she’d conceded.
“Make it so.”
“Aye, aye, Captain Picard,” Chloe saluted, thrilled that Rustin liked Star Trek Next Generation . She’d loved streaming the reruns of the show during slow weekends at college.
“Huh?” Rustin deadpanned, but as he walked away, she’d seen the hint of a smile.
“He and I used to stream the shows late at night to fall asleep after a busy night in the kitchen,” Lucas had outted his brother. “Rustin would work out on the home gym he’d set up and watch. We’d have push-up contests while Jean Luc was saving the universe.”
Cosmic. Rustin Wildish is perfect.
Chloe found herself feeling protective of Lucas, like he was a little brother. She’d been a student teacher when Lucas was in her class a few years ago. He’d been an indifferent student in English, but an outstanding athlete, so she’d held tutoring sessions after school for many of the athletes struggling to keep their GPAs up. Lucas had been unfailingly polite but insecure about his writing.
He still seemed insecure, always looking to big brother Rustin for approval and instruction.
Kind of like me.
That realization had slapped her upside the head, and she made a promise to herself that she would start taking herself and her ideas more seriously.
“Starting today.” Chloe dragged her mind away from her memories and spoke aloud so she’d hear the words. Own them.
“Time to grow up, Chloe. Claim your power,” she added.
She needed to stay in the present because soon her volunteers, many of them college and high school students, would arrive ready for her to dole out directions. She needed them for everything from placing the rented holiday-themed linens on the rented bistro tables scattered in several of Grandma Millie’s mansion’s living spaces and garden to learning how to plate and serve the main course, and also how to keep circulating and checking on guests, clearing away service items, and monitoring the outdoor heat lamps’ need for new propane tanks.
Panic momentarily coated her throat.
“How’s it going? Is Lucas holding up his end?”
“Rustin.” And just like that, the afternoon felt sunnier, warmer, as if defying the impending winter. “What are you doing here? I thought you’d be crazy busy at The Wild Side. Your aperitif and amuse-bouche .”
She loved saying those words together. They sounded so sophisticated, like she traveled Europe regularly instead of taking whirlwind tours with Grandma Millie through France and Italy when she’d graduated high school and college, respectively.
“And then the surprise mignardise to finish with coffee or your homemade punch. I figured you’d be all decked out in your chef clothes, bossing everyone around.”
He looked so handsome in his black T-shirt, leather jacket, jeans, and motorcycle boots that even had a chain detail that added a sexy and dangerous vibe. She had a million things to do today and her own crew arriving soon, but nothing and no one felt more important than stopping everything to just savor Rustin.
“Perhaps I’ve come to boss you.” His hint of a smile nearly melted her.
“Don’t tempt me to lose my focus, Chef.” She put down her knife and wagged a finger at him. “It was a crash course, but you’ve trained me well, Chef. I got this.”
“I know,” he said, and for a split second, he looked almost bashful. “I just feel like Miss Millie thrust you into the deep end, and the hand I offered kept you swimming but didn’t help you out of the pool so you’re warm and dry.”
“Good analogy.” She poked a finger at him and was shocked when he grabbed it. Held it. The touch was like every middle school and high school fantasy she’d ever harbored.
“But by making me do everything on my own over and over, I did gain some confidence, and Lucas has been handling the smoker, and he’ll bake the bacon. I have the tilapia already cooked and seasoned, and I mixed the pimento cheese last night for the jalapeno poppers, and my biscuit dough is chilling. I’ll take it out in an hour,” she said breathlessly. “And this morning I made my hush puppy batter. ‘Prep is queen,’” she quoted.
“King.”
“Queen,” she lobbed back, enjoying herself. “I should be terrified, but I feel excited and energized. That’s you, Rustin. That’s all you,” she admitted, meaning it.
“Chloe, it’s you,” he said softly. “I showed you a path, but you walked it. You chose your theme and recipes and put in the work.”
“It was us together,” she breathed as his praise washed over her. “I’m nervous about the sage leaves,” she admitted. “I’m doing them last like you said, less chance of distraction, but…” She worried her bottom lip and confessed, “I should probably have a shock collar to keep me at the stove. I always wander off thinking I have time and suddenly the fire alarm’s blaring and everything smells charred.”
“You’ve made the sage leaves successfully before. But there is a trick to it.”
“Timing, and don’t leave the stove,” she repeated.
“Again.”
“Stay at my post. Use the stopwatch.”
“By the time you’re flash-frying your sage leaves, everything else will be ready. You’ll have Lucas in here, your plating crew, your serving crew. You’ve given them their job assignments, so all you need to do is put the final…” He kissed his fingertips and spread them, and she stared at his mouth like it was magnetized, “flourish.”
Impulsively, Chloe laid her hand over Rustin’s that was still, unbelievably, holding hers.
“I’ll remember,” she said softly.
“And believe in yourself.”
She’d been working on her skills and confidence. The other ladies of Belmont might not be cowed by her like they were Grandma Millie, but Chloe didn’t want to intimidate. She wanted to collaborate. Win-win. Respect and friendship. Comradery. Teamwork. Everyone pulling together for the good of Belmont and its citizens. She wanted to do good, not necessarily put her own mark on something or dominate anyone.
“Hey, Chloe.” Jessica breezed in the side door to Grandma Millie’s kitchen. “The smoker’s really making me and everyone in the neighborhood drooly with hunger. Sorry, I’m a bit late. Mom was pitching a fit that I wasn’t going to stay and help at the house, even though I told her weeks ago I was helping you and Grandma Millie. Meghan and Sarah wanted to come here to help, but I foisted them off on Mom. Still,” she smiled slyly, her green cat eyes lit up with humor, “expect a hurricane Elizabeth Katherine tonight.”
As she spoke, Jessica slipped out of her coat, hung it up on a hook, and took a folded apron from a drawer. “Reporting for duty. Put me to work.” Jessica tied on her apron and twisted her thick, flowing strawberry-blonde hair into a low bun. “Ready and willing.”
She turned around, smiling, and Chloe felt an odd sense of guilt flash through her when Jessica’s sharp gaze drilled onto her and Rustin’s joined hands.
“I wasn’t sure you’d be able to help,” Chloe confessed, happiness swamping with Jessica’s support.
Jessica raised a brow. “Clearly.”
Jessica continued to look at them like a cat waiting for the mouse to feel safe enough to come out of its hidey hole.
Rustin’s still holding my hand.
Usually, Chloe was the one noticing a smitten man in Jessica’s orbit.
Rustin’s not smitten.
But could he be? Chloe felt defiant, unable to let the idea go. She notched her chin at her sister, daring her to say something.
“Hard to cook with no hands, Chloe,” Jessica teased.
“You good Clo-Beau?” Rustin asked, and the tenor of his voice felt like a caress.
“Never better,” she whispered wanting to convey so much with a few words.
“I’ll see you at the after-party, Rustin.” And if that wasn’t a planted flag, what was?
*
“Hiding, Rustin?”
“No.”
Yes.
Figures Miss Millie would find him in the kitchen avoiding everyone who milled around drinking the aperitif—at first, curiosity tugged at their expressions, and then pleasure.
Score for me, he’d thought, but the pressure on his chest and the ringing in his ears had increased as more people eagerly entered the restaurant, excited for the elegant evening to begin.
When he recognized the brother of the long-term mayor, then the mayor himself and his wife, a state senator, and then the former principal of the high school, he’d retreated rather than engaged.
Stupid. This was his restaurant. His new life. His stand. He was the chef. The owner. A man.
Not that despised punk they remembered.
“You always retreated here,” Miss Millie said fondly, walking around the kitchen that was so changed. “To work. To learn. To feel safe. It was your home.”
No lie. “Does it bother you, all the changes I’ve made?”
Miss Millie didn’t answer right away. She continued to take in the scope of the kitchen. He’d doubled its size from the previous narrow strip of two large fry grills, a double oven, two massive dishwashers, and a sink tucked in a corner.
“I knew you’d make it yours,” Miss Millie said finally. “It was time you came home, Rustin.”
The words sounded prophetic. He never thought he’d return to Belmont. He’d made a silent swear to himself, and yet the past year had tugged even as he’d worked in one of the trendiest rooftop restaurants in Charlotte.
But it hadn’t been his.
And the cities over the past ten years had become a monotonous cacophony of noise, demands, and posturing. More about reputation than the food.
“You belong here.”
“Here I am.” He held out his arms facetiously.
Hiding.
“I love the style,” Miss Millie nodded. “It’s unexpected yet assertive, unabashedly you. I’m not sure what to call it—industrial meets folk meets…” Her thin lips, glossed in the signature pink lipstick he’d never seen her without, twitched in a smile.
“I love how you incorporated pieces of the past in the restaurant. Pieces of a loom in the wall, tapestry spilling down.”
“Gift from Chloe. She and Rebekah came up with the idea. I wanted history and art from discarded junk that once had a purpose, function.”
Miss Millie nodded, then she pursed her lips and stared him down. “Rustin, you’ve come into your own. No more hiding.”
“Not hiding. Just catching my breath. Shouldn’t you be in your home welcoming your guests?”
“It’s Chloe’s night. I want her to have her moment. It’s past time,” she said under her breath.
Rustin agreed it was long past time for Chloe to shine. He could still hear her beautifully haunting soprano winging through an open window as he’d helped at the Madrigal Dinner.
Millie heel-toed across his floor in her elegant purple pumps that matched her streamlined purple dress topped with a tailored lavender, ivory, and purple knit jacket with gold buttons. She swished open the door, and he breathed in a sigh of relief waiting to hear her pumps click out the door. Instead, the silence took a breath.
“You’re the chef, Rustin.” Miss Millie held the door open and pointed a thin, elegant finger at him. “Act like it.”
*
“Wow,” Jessica said, looking at Grandma Millie’s pristine kitchen. “You did it Chloe; really pulled off the night.”
Chloe was still buzzed with the success: no epic fails, no rescues launched. She and Jessica had worked as a team, and Jessica had played the part of hype-woman. She’d taken pictures, posted them, and had shared many with her sisters.
“It was a team effort,” Chloe reminded Jessica, who wore her flared silk trousers and matching wrap tunic that was still pristine despite her hard work behind the scenes. “I really had a good time,” she said, almost surprised to admit it. “Everything worked out.”
“You were a good leader.”
The flush of pleasure made her hop. “We all pulled together for the Movable Feast, just like always. You and me at Grandma Millie’s and Sarah and Meghan helped out Elizabeth Katherine.”
She’d never called their mom aunt , and Jessica opened her mouth as if to question Chloe’s take, but then she sighed.
“More like we did all the work, and then Mom swept in, coifed and gorgeous and sweet as pecan pie,” Jessica quipped. “But the event was successful. I wonder if Grandma Millie is really passing the torch,” Jessica speculated as she touched up her makeup in a mirror near the door. “And do we want to pick it up?”
She fake shivered and laughed. Then she looked at her phone. “Meghan and Sarah are demanding that I bring the chef to the after-party.” Jessica swung the door open wide. “And they want to know the origin of your recipes so be prepared to dish. Apparently guests were raving about your entrees when they hit mom and dad’s house.”
“I used a book I found in Grandma Maye’s outdoor mini library. It’s historical. The recipes are handwritten.”
“Dear sweet baby Jesus, I can just imagine the casseroles in that,” Jessica laughed. “But it must be more than that if you found and followed those recipes. I’d love to see the book. I collect vintage cookbooks. Are there botanical recipes in there? That would be interesting if…” she trailed off.
“If what?” Chloe pulled on her red wool coat. Jessica looked a little flustered.
“Nothing,” she said quickly. “But I would love to see it and you can entertain Sarah and Meghan with your skills. Bring the book tonight.”
“Uhhhh…” Why was she pausing? This was Jessica. “Of course you can borrow it—use it, but not tonight. I… Rustin has it now. I promised him he could look it over for inspiration for his menus.”
Jessica stopped styling her hair in the mirror.
“You gave Rustin Wildish a family heirloom?”
“We don’t know that,” she quickly defended. “Anyone could have put the book in Grandma Millie’s library. I didn’t recognize any of the handwriting.”
“Huh. Why are you hiding it?”
“I’m not. I sort of mentioned finding it a couple of weeks ago.” Hadn’t she? “I’ll get it back from Rustin, but not tonight. I promised he could use it, and he helped me a lot.”
Jessica waved her hand dismissing her debt to Rustin. “But who would give away a family treasure? An heirloom. Definitely not Grandma Millie. She has Maye and Cramer treasures in trunks and boxes in the attic. Remember? We used to spend hours up there poking around.”
Chloe mostly remembered being shooed away, but she had been much longer and more persistent than a stray dog in the rain.
“Get it back from Rustin. Someone is probably missing it. Leaving it in the mini library must have been an accident.”
Chloe thought of the faded words, the recipes, the notes, the comments, the occasional random almost poetic line or a nature haiku, and even a couple of notes that sounded like relationship advice and ways to win back men through their stomachs.
So sexist sounding.
“Maybe,” Chloe mused as Jessica slid on her coat. She felt possessive of the book now and hoped no one would come looking for it.
“In addition to the recipes, there are some side notes written in different ink, different hands, and some read like a back-and-forth conversation.”
“I want to see it. Tell Rustin you want it back.”
“He deserves time with the book.”
“Why are you so generous to Rustin?”
“He helped me with the…inspiration and execution of my entrée.”
“You mean he cooked it.”
“No, he made me do everything. He just stood in the kitchen and watched like I was some medieval apothecary apprentice.”
Jessica rolled her eyes.
“You shouldn’t be so harsh.” Chloe buttoned her coat. It wasn’t a far walk along the almost-finished riverfront walk where they would be celebrating the success of the event, but the night temperatures had plunged this week. “Rustin was judged his whole life more by who his family was than by his own actions, and that’s not fair, Jessica, and you know it.”
Jessica paled a little, and then her cheeks pinkened.
“He’s come back to Belmont. He has employed his younger brother and is training him, and Lucas worked all day on the smoker to make the pulled pork and bacon for the poppers. Rustin’s an entrepreneur. He’s employing people—becoming part of the town and sharing his gifts.”
Jessica pressed her lips together, and her eyes glittered. “You shame me Chloe.”
“No shame Jessie.” Chloe hugged Jessica. “But please don’t hold his past against him,” Chloe pleaded. “Don’t hold his family’s reputation against him. We’re all carving out our hopes and dreams and building our futures one brick at a time. Don’t make Rustin carry baggage that is not his.”
“I’ll try, Clo. I will.” Jessica hugged her back hard. “There’s a reason you won teacher of the year, Chloe. You really are a shining light and are coming into your own. Ready? Or I’ll ruin my makeup.”
“Yes.” Chloe bounced to her toes.
“It’s beyond cold,” Jessica shivered in her long, emerald-green wool coat. “I know you like to walk everywhere downtown and considering what we’re likely going to be snacking on and drinking, I, too, should walk, but I’ve been on my feet all day, and I’m driving us to Millie’s.”
“The Wild Side,” Chloe corrected as Jessica opened the side door to walk out through Grandma Millie’s kitchen and herb garden. She stopped abruptly and Chloe crashed into her, inhaling her lovely jasmine scent.
“Just don’t take his restaurant’s name to heart, Chloe. You don’t want to walk, run, or stroll down any path with Rustin Wildish.”
“How about saunter ? Or skulk ? Skip? Sashay? ”
“Every woman needs a sister who’s a thesaurus. Seriously, Chloe, I know you want to kumbaya Rustin’s return to Belmont, but just steer clear of him. He’s…”—Chloe swore Jessica murmured potent under her breath—“dangerous,” Jessica ended.
Chloe followed Jessica to her car, pondering the advice. Why? Jessica had never advised her romantically, not that there’d been much opportunity. She’d been a choir, musical theater, and orchestra geek in high school. And doubling a classical voice major with an English major hadn’t upped her romantic opportunities.
But what if…?
The word pounce came to mind.