Prologue
santa barbara coast, california
Serendipity.
The word sags under the weight of the expectation it evokes.
One can hardly read it without the mind racing into a dozen flights of fancy.
If a person is fortunate enough to encounter the serendipitous, will it be something as momentous as discovering the cure for cancer in a lab mix-up?
Or will it perhaps be something more mundane .
. . like finding a ten-dollar bill in last year’s winter coat?
Is it presumptuous to say that serendipity is ever mundane?
After all, that ten-dollar bill might give a young woman an excuse to treat herself to a coffee before going into the office.
While waiting in line for her coffee, she might fall into conversation with a tall and handsome stranger.
The conversation with the tall, handsome stranger might bolster her confidence, and she’d finally be bold enough to ask for a promotion at work.
She might, in time, become a leader of that company. A company that will ensure that very same cure for cancer is readily available across the globe, free of charge, and save countless lives. Including that of the tall, handsome stranger.
A ten-dollar bill just might be all the serendipity it takes . . .
But in this case, Serendipity is a charming seafood restaurant on the coast of California, forty-five minutes from Solvang, where the lovely Sabrina Sorensen has spent her entire young life. The darling girl has no idea how apt the restaurant’s name is, nor will she for quite some time.
It’s Sabrina’s thirteenth birthday, and she’s dressed in her finest: a new A-line periwinkle-blue dress that plays up her Nordic-blue eyes.
The dress is nice enough, but it pinches at Sabrina’s chest. But it was the dress her mother, Robin, insisted on because it was “the most appropriate.” Rather than choosing a dress that fit properly or altering the garment to accommodate her daughter’s developing body, Robin preferred to purchase a too-small brassiere to flatten Sabrina’s bosom.
The result isn’t entirely effective, but it is wholly uncomfortable.
In a similar vein, Sabrina’s hair is styled in two long, blonde braids.
Not stylish, but pretty and neat. Robin believes that allowing preteen girls to dress and style themselves like adults leads to smart mouths and small acts of rebellion in the beginning.
But if the unruly behavior is left unchecked, it results in a late-night summons to the county jail with bail money in hand.
Sabrina hates the childish clothes and hairstyle, but if she’d put up a fuss, it might have risked her birthday dinner. So she wisely decided that dressing like a child to please her mother is a small sacrifice to pay for being treated like a young lady by her father.
Tonight, there is no older brother competing for their father’s attention.
No younger sister to spill milk all over the table or cry at the slightest provocation.
No mother to constantly scold and correct.
Just an evening for Sabrina to be with the one person she feels truly understands her.
Her father is dressed in a suit, which makes Sabrina feel as if he’s taking the evening just as seriously as she is.
“What looks good, Sabrina?” Her father, Jannick, an immigrant from Copenhagen, prods his daughter. His eyes dance with merriment rather than reproach. She’s studying the menu with all the seriousness of Scripture and looks terrified as she peruses the list of unfamiliar dishes.
She casts her eyes downward. “I don’t know.”
Her mother, while well-meaning, is always so quick to make decisions for her daughter that Sabrina often finds herself cowed when faced with them. Sabrina also knows her mother doesn’t exactly approve of this outing, which makes Sabrina even more hesitant.
In the past few weeks since Jannick formed his plan, Robin had mentioned several times—loudly—that when she herself had turned thirteen, she’d been more than happy with pizza and ice cream with three of her friends at the local pizzeria.
It was, in Robin’s view, fancy enough for a child.
After all, the red-and-white checkered tablecloths had been made from actual cloth rather than plastic. Anything more is an extravagance.
Serendipity, with its blanched linens and polished crystal, is akin to a fairy castle in Sabrina’s eyes. More than an extravagance, it is the stuff of dreams.
But Jannick, thankfully, had been able to win Robin over to his point of view.
Sabrina is sure her father is the only person who could persuade Robin to agree to anything she wasn’t already in favor of.
But Jannick has always been a special case for Robin.
He’d gone from being a poor carpenter’s apprentice when he first arrived in Solvang to becoming one of the most respected architects in the region.
He supports his family admirably and revels in the opportunity to take his children on excursions such as these.
Jannick hopes to impart his love of fine cuisine to at least one of his children.
Their oldest, Brian, seems all too firmly entrenched in the meat-and-potatoes camp, much to his father’s dismay.
Their father-son outings generally consist of professional ball games in Los Angeles, where nothing on the menu is more complex than a hot dog.
The baby, Chloe, at five years old, still thinks chicken tenders are the pinnacle of haute cuisine, though Jannick holds hope her palate will mature in time.
But with Sabrina, the timing is just right.
Jannick had already prepped Sabrina in proper restaurant etiquette—beyond the basic table manners that had been instilled since she was old enough to hold a spoon.
The hurdle will be getting over her fear of trying new foods, a fear that developed as a result of her mother’s strict policies against food waste.
Jannick couldn’t fault his wife for her fastidiousness in this area; he’d known hunger himself a few times in his life. But it did discourage the children from any spirit of adventure when ordering off a new menu.
“Take a chance. It’s not the end of the world if you don’t like it, min skat.” He reaches across the starched white linen of the tablecloth. “Let’s pretend we’re Michelin food critics. We’ll order—and eat—like the professionals.”
Her keen eyes narrow. “Michelin? Like the tire company?”
Jannick smiles broadly. “The very one. They began reviewing restaurants and hotels in France to encourage road trips when automobiles were new.”
She considers this a moment. “So their tires would wear out faster?”
He chuckles, the corners of his eyes crinkling in the way Sabrina loves so.
“Already thinking like a businesswoman. Precisely right. But their little red guides evolved into something far bigger than they ever envisioned. They became the standard by which all fine-dining establishments are measured the world over.”
Sabrina sits mesmerized by her father’s words. “How is eating like a critic different from the way normal people eat?”
He meets his daughter’s serious expression with equal solemnity. “First and foremost, we don’t have to pretend if we don’t like it.”
“Like with Mom’s meatloaf.” As soon as she says the words, Sabrina looks as though she wants to leap out of her chair, snare the words with a butterfly net, and swallow them back inside.
Jannick doesn’t bother to suppress a laugh.
“Just so. Your mom’s feelings would be hurt.
But a professional chef doesn’t have that luxury.
He or she must take criticism as it comes, analyze it for whatever truth it contains, and learn from it.
As nice as they are to receive, a chef can’t grow from compliments alone.
They need honest criticism too. A plant may love the sun, but it needs rain just as much to take root and flourish. ”
Sabrina nods, absorbing her father’s words like gospel. Her eyes widen. “So how do we order?”
“We each get an entrée, a main dish, and a dessert, but we don’t get the same ones so we can sample each other’s, and we get to experience twice as many offerings.
As we eat, we’ll give each dish our honest appraisal.
” Jannick grins as his daughter’s face lights up at the prospect.
It was a grand meal indeed when the family shared an appetizer at a restaurant.
Dessert was almost always drugstore-brand ice cream or nothing at all.
A full three-course meal per person seems an unthinkable luxury.
She is about to be introduced to a world where an entrée is not a basket of mozzarella sticks served with lukewarm marinara sauce or a greasy platter of potato skins filled with cheese and bacon crumbles—a few chives thrown in to remind the clientele that the dish is, academically speaking, a vegetable.
The entrées here are bite-sized morsels meant to awaken the palate and tantalize the patrons for all the delights about to reveal themselves.
A true amuse-bouche in the purest sense of the term.
Jannick continues his lecture. “We order with an eye for the chef’s signature dishes.
Pay attention when the server mentions the specials.
You can often tell from their expression if a dish is truly a chef’s special creation made to take advantage of the best produce of the season, or if it’s just a hodgepodge of ingredients the kitchen wants to use up before they turn.
For that reason I generally avoid soups and salads when dining out. ”
Young Sabrina listens enraptured, brow furrowed like a young scholar hungry for the knowledge imparted by a sage elder.