Chapter 23
Afew weeks before Christmas, Rachelle saw the For Sale sign. Bundled up downtown, Christmas shopping with Darcy as snow fluttered down around them, she pointed at the old colonial house, tucked between the bookstore and the boutique, and asked Darcy, “What used to be there?”
Darcy sipped her coffee and frowned, as though she were trying to visualize it. “Was it that fish restaurant? Or was it the Indian place? Gosh, places come and go. It’s hard to keep track.”
Rachelle couldn’t remember either, although she supposed she hadn’t been around much the past few years.
She said a brief prayer for whoever had closed up shop, a prayer of hope that they’d landed on their feet elsewhere, then took a picture of the phone number attached to the For Sale sign.
She wondered if this was her chance to make something of her own. Again.
That afternoon, Darcy, Remy, Rachelle, Gavin, and Sam joined Estelle at the Coleman House to bake Christmas cookies and watch Christmas movies—How the Grinch Stole Christmas was up first. Remy and Gavin were messy with dough and wild with sugar, but they conked out by eight and allowed themselves to be carried upstairs to one of the guest bedrooms. This left Darcy, Rachelle, Sam, and Estelle to their own devices, nibbling on still more Christmas cookies and sipping Italian red wine.
Rachelle showed Grandma Estelle the colonial that was for sale, watching her face to get a sense for how she felt about it.
Grandma’s eyes widened. “That used to be the tapas place,” she said, remembering it immediately.
“The owner closed up and moved back West to be with her mother.” Estelle was quiet for a moment.
“It’s the perfect space for your restaurant. ” She understood immediately.
Rachelle’s stomach bubbled with expectation. “Do you really think so?”
“I know so,” Estelle said. She wrote down the phone number and promised she’d call it tomorrow. “We’ll go check out the place this week. Who knows? Maybe you can move in by January.”
Rachelle hadn’t dared imagine herself in a new restaurant space so quickly.
When she’d returned to Nantucket, when she’d left her engagement and all her plans behind, she’d told herself to focus on her mental health and her relationship with her family.
She’d told herself to heal. But now, four months after her return, she felt ready to open a door to a new reality.
Back in Italy, Riccardo was already engaged to someone else.
It was as though Rachelle had never been.
Rachelle guessed that Valeria was very pleased about that. Sometimes Rachelle wondered what had happened to that iconic wedding gown, if they’d sold it or kept it or what. Maybe the next bride would fit into it, Rachelle thought darkly, although it felt sort of like a curse.
She reminded herself to wish them well, no matter what. It was the right thing to do.
Two days after she’d seen the For Sale sign, Estelle picked Rachelle up at The Jessabelle House, and they drove to the Historic District to meet with the real estate agent and see the colonial that was ready and waiting for a new restaurant.
The agent said she was surprised the place hadn’t sold yet.
Inside, the wooden floorboards gleamed in the soft winter light.
The kitchen was less than stellar and would need a refurbishment to suit Rachelle’s high-cuisine taste.
But as she and Grandma Estelle stood in the front of the restaurant, gazing out at the street, where a horse and buggy clopped past, Rachelle couldn’t help but feel it was about as perfect as they were going to get.
She wanted to make an offer today. “You don’t want to see more places?
” Estelle asked her when they got back in the car. “You don’t want to wait a little bit?”
“No!” Rachelle said. “I’m ready. I want to start as soon as I can.”
Estelle made an offer on the restaurant, and the sale went through by New Year’s Eve.
To celebrate, Rachelle popped bottles of champagne at The Jessabelle House.
She sang and danced with her niece and nephew and thanked her grandmother endlessly.
“Honey, it’s my pleasure!” Estelle told her.
“It’s not every day I feel like I’m on the ground floor of something spectacular.
Something that will change the next decades of Nantucket as we know it. ”
Rachelle wasn’t sure if her grandmother was exaggerating. But it was true that an iconic restaurant could shift the dynamics of a place as small as Nantucket. Rachelle was determined to try to make that happen.
But Rachelle knew that the next few months would be intense, that they’d require a great deal of work and thought on her part. But if she wanted to turn a profit by summer and become someone great, she had to lock in.
It was hard to believe she was doing it again: writing a new menu, imagining a new space, and creating a new brand.
Over the days that followed, she spent hours alone in her head, writing and rewriting, trying out new recipes, ripping potential menus apart.
When Darcy hadn’t heard from her for a few days, Darcy came over to The Jessabelle House and demanded to know why Rachelle was being so quiet.
Darcy found her lost in thought, muttering about saffron and peaches.
“Let’s go down there together,” Darcy insisted, because she hadn’t seen the space yet.
Rachelle and Darcy entered the colonial and lay on the bare floors, staring at the ceiling.
Outside, it was blizzarding hard enough that it meant they’d have to head home soon.
But Rachelle felt a sense of coziness being in her new restaurant with her sister.
It was then that she understood she would need more help than she’d initially realized. Maybe Darcy was the answer.
“You’re a business-minded person,” she said to her sister, propping up her head with her elbow.
“Don’t insult me like that,” Darcy teased.
Rachelle laughed. “Seriously. I need someone to do all the hard work so that I can get really weird and creative with the menu. You learned so much from Uncle Reese about, like, businesses and putting yourself out there. Can I hire you?”
“You can’t afford me,” Darcy continued to tease.
Rachelle shoved her lightly, laughing.
“No, but seriously,” Darcy corrected herself. “It would be my pleasure to help out. I’m doing okay with money. The insurance covered everything for Remy, thank goodness, and the apps I sold a couple of years ago have tided us over. But I need something new to dig myself into.”
Rachelle fluttered her fingers to show off that bright, new space—a space they could fill with brilliant food, a space that demanded gorgeous evenings with iconic Nantucketers, a space that demanded artistry and love. “Let’s make it happen,” she said.
Darcy took Rachelle’s offer seriously. Within the week, she’d set up a website and social media profiles for the restaurant, which they’d decided to call “Jessabelle” in honor of their Great-Aunt Jessabelle, the librarian who’d passed on the house to their mother and launched their branch of the Coleman family back into the fold.
Rachelle had initially wanted to call it Coleman, in honor of the restaurant she’d had back in Italy.
But she’d decided it was better to start fresh.
In February, Darcy and Rachelle hired a small team of contractors to fine-tune the kitchen and make it precisely what Rachelle needed as a haute cuisine chef.
The team came highly recommended by Derek, Sam’s husband, and was led by Jack, a handsome carpenter with massive hands and a calm, stoic face.
When Rachelle first met him, she felt as though time stood still. Her breath caught in her throat.
Jack didn’t get up the nerve to ask Rachelle out on a date till mid-March.
By then, the kitchen was nearly finished, and Rachelle had fine-tuned her menu for the soft opening—slated for mid-April, right before the start of the tourist season.
Rachelle had almost given up on Jack asking her out, so when he did, she thought she’d misheard him.
“I beg your pardon?” She smiled at him.
He looked deflated. “I mean, would you? Like to grab a drink? After work?”
Rachelle’s eyes widened. “Oh! Of course.” She grinned madly.
That evening over beers near the boardwalk, Rachelle and Jack gazed into one another’s eyes and told each other all of their secrets. Jack had been engaged before, like Rachelle, although he’d broken things off when he’d realized that his fiancée’s morals didn’t align with his.
Rachelle said she’d broken things off for similar reasons.
“I’ve heard it was a little more complicated than that,” Jack said, smiling.
“Are people gossiping about me?” Rachelle asked.
“People on this island talk. You know that,” Jack said.
Rachelle blushed. “What are they saying?”
“They’re saying you turned down an Italian prince to come home,” Jack said.
Rachelle cackled. “A prince?”
“He was wealthy, though,” Jack said, his eyes downcast, as though wealth was something he could never offer her.
Rachelle slid her fingers through Jack’s. It boggled her mind to think of Riccardo, who seemed like a stranger in another, forgotten time. “I never belonged in Italy. I never belonged to that family,” she assured him. “I want to build something here, in Nantucket. My heart has always been here.”
She didn’t ask him if he wanted her to give him her heart, too. She hoped he already knew the answer.
They opened Jessabelle on a brilliant mid-April evening.
Rachelle was in her chef’s whites, happy as ever in a kitchen that buzzed with expectation and life.
Her sous chef, a woman named Hannah, worked diligently beside her, eager to please.
Hannah was a few years younger than Rachelle, looking for her big break.
It was strange to feel Hannah’s eyes on Rachelle, looking at her as a mentor.
Rachelle remembered looking at Diana like that.
It felt surreal to step into those shoes.
In the restaurant itself, all of the Colemans came to dine and laugh and tell stories and drink wine.
Rachelle could hear Darcy’s laugh, rising over the rest of theirs.
It was because of Darcy that the restaurant was full tonight.
They’d sold out of spots for the soft opening more than a month ago, and they’d already fully booked their first month of the restaurant.
It seemed Darcy was made for all kinds of work.
She knew her way around a marketing strategy.
When they’d plated their last dessert that night, Rachelle and the other chefs came out into the restaurant to celebrate with the diners.
Jack was there with two of his friends, drinking wine and waiting for her.
Jack kissed her on the lips in front of everyone, and when the kiss broke, Rachelle happened to lock eyes with Grandma Estelle, who winked.
As Rachelle settled in next to Jack and her mother for a night of celebration and laughter, she couldn’t help but reflect on that day nearly a year ago, when she’d first opened Coleman in Rome.
She’d been so hopeful, so alive, so ready for the next stage of her life.
She’d fallen hard after that. But she’d worked her way back to the top. She felt better and stronger than ever.
She couldn’t believe it.