Chapter 16 #2
She sat up straighter. “You’re right, though. I think I could love him. He’s passionate and good to his family. He believes in me.”
“Sounds like you two might have something.” Her grandma leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. “Maybe you should give him a chance to stay.”
“I should at least make time to hear him out.” His last words—Let me explain. Please.—rang through her. She owed him that much. She owed herself too.
Because one thing this conversation was making clear: She was falling in love with Zach, and she wanted to give him another chance. She wanted to show up for him in the way that she’d always wanted others to show up for her.
She would never betray him. She just needed to think of a way to let him know.
One more day on Jonathon Island here in the hotel kitchen, and then Zach would have to return to his autopilot life in Chicago. Although what he would do there was anyone’s guess. His whole life had changed in the almost two weeks he’d spent here.
Chef Paul’s words still burned a hole in his gut. Worse, he knew they were true.
He’d been shot down by Anne as well. Seemed no one wanted a hotheaded chef who couldn’t cook three courses without burning something. He couldn’t blame them. Maybe he deserved his time at Escargot.
“Thanks again for helping with this added class.” Dani handed him a clipboard. “Here’s the list of your students.” He’d asked her to bring the paperwork a few hours before another class began.
“No problem. I’m glad people were able to wait until after the festival. I can’t believe this class got to be so popular.”
“Since most of them were local, they were happy to stay on the waiting list. I think they just like the idea of learning from one of the island’s own.”
Ava’s gentle tease of Golden Boy drifted through his mind and stabbed at his gut. He’d been terrible to her. Once he figured out the words to an apology, he would call her.
“I brought the leftover ingredients from the Flavor Fest competitions for you to use.” Dani pointed to the dry goods stacked on the counter.
“I haven’t had anyone put them in the pantry.
Of course, the perishables are in the cooler and walk-in freezer.
Let me know if you need anything else. I’ll have someone pick it up before your class.
” Dani walked out of the kitchen, already pulling out her cell phone.
Zach ran his hand over the boxes Dani had stacked. Might as well make himself useful. He began unpacking the boxes and placing the supplies on the shelves. Not knowing what else to do, he put them in the order he would want them in if it were his space.
Several half-filled paper bags of flour were in the next box.
He hunted around for the square plastic containers the contestants had used, which had been filled with sugar, flour, and other dry goods.
There. A few boxes down held the two-gallon clear food storage bins.
He started to combine the flour to reduce the number of containers.
Wait a minute.
The flour dumped in the bin marked Zach & Ava was not the same shade of white as the flour in the bin marked Enrique & Lottie. His hands stilled. No—He turned back to the half-empty bags and began unrolling them.
“Dani!” Three of the bags were standard unbleached, all-purpose flour, but the remaining two were clearly marked as self-rising.
He barked a laugh. This answered so many questions.
He poked his head out of the kitchen but didn’t see Dani anywhere.
He gave her a call. Hopefully her other call had already ended.
“Zach! You just caught me.”
“Dani, there are two different kinds of flour here.”
“Oh. Is that a problem?”
He laughed. “A problem? Yes. It’s definitely a problem. If it was self-rising flour in my container last week and the same in Ava’s and my bin, that would explain a lot of our problems.”
“Janine Dirks—she’s one of the locals on the Flavor Fest committee—said they ran out of flour when they were dividing everything up for everyone, so I told her to just grab some from the store. She must not have checked the flour type or known how much it mattered. I’m so sorry, Zach.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m not sure it matters anymore.” He hung up, a terrible feeling scratching the back of his mind.
The question remained. Was the flour they’d used the self-rising kind?
Right. Time to Scooby-Doo this thing. He scooped out a small amount of flour from the container marked with his name and placed it directly onto the stainless-steel workbench.
Then he repeated the action with some from the all-purpose flour and the self-rising.
Three small mounds lined up like the pyramids at Giza. Only slightly less important. Slightly.
The door to the kitchen opened, and his dad walked in. “What’s going on here?” His dad’s mouth turned up. “Isn’t the flour supposed to be in a pan or something?”
Fake it ’til you make it. Uncle Bryan’s advice should work for his relationship with his dad too, right? “You’re just in time to help me test a theory.” Zach stepped back. “Which of these flours seems the most similar to you?”
His dad frowned. “Most similar? They’re a pile of white powder.”
“Get closer. Tell me if you can see the difference.”
“Okaaay.” His dad drew the word out but walked across the kitchen to the workstation. “Can I touch them?”
“Be my guest.”
His dad ran his fingertips through a little of each pile. “These two feel similar. They also look more similar, lighter in color. But I wouldn’t have noticed if you hadn’t said to look for something.”
“That’s what I thought too.” Zach walked to the pantry and located a bottle of white vinegar. “Now to confirm my suspicions.” He poured a small amount of the vinegar on top of each flour mountain. Two of them began to bubble and boil.
“This reminds me of those volcano projects you kids always had to do for school.”
“You remember those?” Zach’s chest swelled.
“Of course. Doing those projects was always a highlight for me.”
“You were gone a lot.” He tried to make it less accusatory but failed.
“I’m sorry for that. Like I told you before, I’m trying to do better. To stick around more, say what I mean. To just be more present in your lives overall.” His dad wiped his hands on a towel.
“Dani and Ollie say you’re doing that.”
“Anyway, what have we got here?” His dad jutted his chin toward the flour piles.
“Confirming a suspicion. These two are self-rising flour.” He pointed at the one from his container and the one from the bag, the known commodity.
“And why does that matter?”
“It means that Ava wasn’t the one who screwed up. I was. I should have realized it was self-rising flour. I should have known that from the first time I cooked with it.”
“C’mon. They’re not that different.”
“But they are. This one”—he gestured at the one from his container again—“will make a gummy, gross roux. It won’t coat a sauerkraut patty very well, and it will make a tart pastry puffy.
The only reason it didn’t matter in the pastry dough is that you basically want that dough to be a little puffy anyway.
But I think that’s why the dough cracked and leaked.
” The self-rising flour made so much sense.
It even made sense with his sauerkraut sliders.
The added baking powder in a self-rising flour blend would have interacted poorly with the other ingredients, leaving a bitter, metallic taste in the whole dish.
It probably was the reason the red cabbage turned blue too. “I should have known right away.”
“Don’t beat yourself up about it. There’s nothing you can do now.”
He was wrong. There was something he could do. He could apologize to Ava. He could also address another reason he had lashed out at her, a reason that wasn’t even her fault.
“I saw you and Mom holding hands. Is that you trying to be more present too?”
His dad chuckled. “I suppose. I’m learning to appreciate her all over again.”
“How can you be reigniting your relationship with her? Don’t you resent her? She cheated on you.” And then married the man she’d cheated with, who then left her.
“I choose to forgive. Sometimes I choose to forgive multiple times a day. Besides, it wasn’t just her that messed up. I was wrong too.” His dad leaned back against the counter and crossed his ankles. He stared at the ceiling. “I’m not innocent in any of that. I wasn’t there for her.”
“That’s an understatement.” Zach heard the sarcasm and dialed it back. “Sorry. I know you’re trying to change. But your being absent doesn’t excuse her cheating.”
“And her cheating doesn’t excuse the horrible way I reacted.
” His dad finally met his eyes. “Remembering that I’m not perfect helps me not to expect anyone else to be either.
I can forgive her because she can forgive me.
And she’s teaching me that we are all forgiven because of Jesus.
I don’t really understand it all yet, but I’m getting there. ”
Zach swallowed. “It all seems so impossible.”
“Look around you.” His dad stood up straight.
“Look at this place. Can you get a more perfect redemption picture?” His dad waved his hand in the general direction of the rest of the hotel.
“I nearly burned this whole place to the ground. But your sister and her husband brought it back. They are renewing it day by day. I’m no preacher, but I think you could do worse than learning to forgive.
Maybe it’s time to put the past behind you and focus on rebuilding. ”
Zach reached for an answer but came up empty.
His dad clapped him on the shoulder. “I’m glad you figured out your science project. Maybe you should send your cooking partner a text letting her know that you made a volcano out of her ingredients.”