Chapter 49 #2
“Stevie,” Tom said. “Time to go to your house. Come on.”
The dog followed him out of the kitchen.
Tom came back and added chocolate to some of Cherry’s batter. He cleaned out the sink and started the dishwasher. Then he
stood behind Cherry, watching her pipe. “You said the Jell-O is half done?”
“More like a third done. I made the colors this morning.”
“I’ll work on that.”
Cherry piped cookies on the island, and Tom stood behind her at the counter. Every eight minutes, they rolled tuiles. Tom
didn’t break a single one.
When Cherry ran out of batter, she grabbed a few cookie fragments and leaned against the counter to watch Tom. He was stirring
a can of condensed milk into a saucepan on the stove, making the white base for the broken-glass Jell-O ring.
“Did you have this growing up?” Cherry had never thought to ask before.
“Yeah,” he said. “My mom always made it for holidays. I thought it was magic. My dad called it Midwestern slop.” Tom’s dad
was from the East Coast.
“They don’t eat Jell-O in Baltimore?”
“As far as I can tell, they drink every meal with a splash of tonic.”
“Hmm.” Cherry bit off the end of a cracked tuile cookie. It tasted fairy-light and buttery. “Oh, these are good. I’m glad
I broke a few. Try one.” She held out a cookie, and Tom looked over, but he had lifted the saucepan off the stove and was
stirring.
Cherry paused for a second, then held the cookie up to his mouth. Tom paused for a second, too, then took it. His lip brushed
her thumb. They were looking in each other’s eyes. Tom smiled while he chewed. “Really nice.”
Cherry wished she had an excuse to feed him another one.
“What’s next?” he asked. He put the pan of Jell-O aside. It had to cool down, but not set.
“The last batch of tuiles is in the oven.”
Tom rubbed his chin with his wrist. “Want to take another crack at the meat pies? With the regular crust?”
Cherry groaned. “I don’t have enough filling to make a full batch, and I ran out of parsley.”
“I can go get parsley.”
She almost told him that he didn’t have to—but he already knew he didn’t have to. “Okay,” she said.
He smiled.
While Tom was gone, Cherry started again on the pastry dough, with regular flour, the way she usually made it. She started
cooking more ground beef. She checked on Stevie and gave her a chewy bone, but left the dog in her kennel.
On the way back to the kitchen, Cherry hooked her phone up to the house speakers—Tom had installed house speakers—and started
her Christmas playlist. She couldn’t believe she’d been making Christmas cookies in silence all day.
Tom came back triumphant. He’d found premade gluten-free pie crust at the grocery store.
“But pastieri crust isn’t supposed to taste like pie crust,” Cherry said.
“Gluten-free beggars can’t be choosers.” He’d also bought a packaged charcuterie plate. He cracked it open.
“You went to the fancy grocery store,” she said.
“It was the only one open.”
Tom took over the parsley filling. He’d helped Cherry make pastieri a thousand times before.
Cherry ate cheese and crackers while she rolled out the dough. Then Tom helped her cut out circles. She used a teacup as a
pattern. He did it freehand.
They filled the circles with meat and pinched them into boats. Tom arranged the boats in neat rows on the baking sheets.
It went twice as fast as it had that morning. And it was more than twice as nice. They were standing next to each other at the island.
“Have you made the gingerbread dough?” he asked.
“Last night.”
“Look at you.”
“I still have to make the icing.”
“What’s the theme this year?”
Cherry’s nieces and nephews always voted on a gingerbread theme at Thanksgiving. Over the years, Cherry and Tom had done The Hobbit, Harry Potter . . . One year, they did the Hall of Presidents.
“Disney cats,” Cherry said.
Tom smiled a little. “Great theme. Once we get the pastieri going, I’ll roll out the gingerbread.”
“Okay,” she yawned.
He elbowed her. “No sleep till Brooklyn, baby—do you want me to make you some tea?”
She yawned again and laughed. “Yeah.”
Tom made tea. Tom rolled out the gingerbread dough. Tom sang along to “The Holly and the Ivy.” He looked big and cherubic.
With his curly blond hair and rosy cheeks. Happier than she’d seen him in so long. He asked her if she wanted him to cut out
the cat shapes, and she said yes.
“This’ll be a good game,” he said. “You’ll have to guess the character from the shape—even though they’re all gonna be shaped
like cats.”
“Don’t forget Marie,” she said. “That’s Lily’s favorite.”
“Pfft. Like I was gonna forget Marie.” He picked up a knife and squinted down at the gingerbread dough.
“Or Berlioz,” she said.
“I’m not gonna forget Berlioz.”
“Or . . .”
Tom looked up at her. His eyes were sparkling. “Who forgot Toulouse?”
Cherry laughed. She yawned again. “I was going to say, ‘Or any of the other Aristocats.’ ”
Cherry moved meat pies in and out of the oven. She made six special gluten-free pies for Joy and Jeff. She made royal icing.
She watched Tom work, and picked all her favorite things off the charcuterie plate—the Marcona almonds and the honeycomb and
the Brie. She leaned against the sink and tried to take the weight off her back. She tried not to get sleepy while they waited
for the first pan of gingerbread cookies to bake and cool.
“What can I be doing?” Tom asked.
“You can take a breath.”
“I was breathing all day before I got here.”
She let him finish up the cheese balls and roll them in walnuts. There was no space in the kitchen, so he did it at the dining
room table.
“You should decorate the cookies out here, Cherry, so you can sit down. And there’s more space.”
That was a good idea. Cherry took the icing out to the dining room. She’d start with a big bowl of white icing and mix the
colors as she needed them.
The gingerbread was still cooling. Cherry stood at the dining room table and leaned forward on it, pillowing her head on her
arms. “I’m getting too old for this.”
“You’re not old,” Tom said. “You just bite off more than you can chew.”
“I like a challenge,” she said sleepily. “It keeps me sharp.”
He poked her side and sang, “The old gray mare, she ain’t what she used to be.” He poked her hip. “Ain’t what she used to be.”
Cherry laughed into her forearms.
“Ain’t what she used to be.”
Tom rested his hand for just a second on her lower back, right where it hurt. Right where he knew it hurt. Then he walked
back into the kitchen.
Cherry must have dozed off for a few minutes. On her feet.
When she opened her eyes, Tom had some cookies spread out on the table, and he was mixing some icing in primary colors. He made eye contact with her. “You okay?”
She nodded.
He pointed at a chair with his chin. “Take a load off.”
Cherry nodded again. She stood, resting one knee on the chair, and took a long drink of tea. Tom must have freshened her cup.
She squinted at the spread of cookies in front of her. There was no way she was going to be able to guess these cats. Tom
made her try anyway.
Cherry held up a cookie. “This is . . . the Golden Gate Bridge. Or maybe a bat?”
“That’s Rufus from The Rescuers.”
“Awww . . . Rufus.”
Cherry used her phone for reference. She iced the cookies with a plastic knife, her index finger, and a round-tipped tool
made for nail art.
Tom let Stevie out of her kennel. She lumbered under the dining room table and promptly fell asleep.
Cherry didn’t know what time it was. Probably late. “I’m not icing all of these myself,” she said.
Tom hummed. He was eating Manchego and fig jam. They were listening to “Silver Bells”—the Stevie Wonder version. “Maybe you
are.”
“Tommm,” Cherry whined.
He laughed and ate another piece of cheese. “They’ll be so much cuter if you do them, Cherry.” They had this argument every
year.
The kitchen timer went off, and Tom went to pull more cookies out of the oven. He took too long. “What are you doing?” Cherry
called.
“Finishing the Jell-O. There’s yellow squash in the fridge. Are you making casserole?”
“I was,” she said, “but forget it. We’re the only people who eat it anyway.”
“I’ll get it ready. It’s quick.”
“Come help me decorate cookies!”
Cherry had iced Rufus. And Figaro from Pinocchio. And she was working on Dinah from Alice in Wonderland, with a wreath of daisies.
She felt more awake. She felt more calm.
Christmas Eve was her favorite day of the year. She liked it even better than Christmas.
(Christmas Eve was her favorite day of the year because she always spent it with Tom. Listening to Christmas carols. Staining
her hands pink and green. Working too hard on work that was their own. Tom brought out the best in Cherry—more often than
he brought out the worst.)
When he came out to the dining room with the last batch of cookies, Cherry was staring at a gingerbread shape. “Who’s this?”
“Tigger.”
She frowned. “Tigger isn’t a cat.”
“He’s a tiger. There aren’t enough Disney house cats for all of the kids to get a cookie.”
“All right.” Cherry set the cookie down. “Tigger it is.”
“I made two Maries, so Lily and Samantha can both have one.”
“That was smart.”
Tom was looking at the platter of finished cookies, smiling softly. “You should have been the professional cartoonist.”
“Ha,” Cherry said. “I don’t have a burning story to tell.”
“Well, me neither. The Guardian called my last book ‘predictable torpor.’ ”
“They’re just being contrary,” she said. “The only interesting thing left to say about Thursday is ‘I don’t understand the appeal.’ You’re the Paddington 2 of comic artists.”
Tom hummed. He’d picked out a blank cookie and was scrutinizing it.
Cherry worked on Tigger’s eyebrows. She needed to make more black icing. “I don’t think I’d enjoy this as much if I was getting
paid for it,” she said.
“That is certainly and universally true,” Tom agreed.
She glanced up at him. “Did you stop enjoying Thursday once you were getting paid?”