Chapter 5
SEBASTIAN
“Where is she?” My sister, Maddie, craned her neck, trying to get a glimpse inside the kitchen, when the doors swung open as servers passed through in both directions.
“Young lady, you are going to give yourself neck strain if you don’t give it a rest.” Mom shook her head in mock disapproval, exchanging a grin with my Aunt Laura. “Would you believe me if I told you she hasn’t stopped talking about this for days?”
I loved my baby sister. I usually indulged her youthful exuberance, but she was testing me tonight.
Not that it was her fault. I was sick to death of hearing about the woman who was supposed to be my salvation, but up to this point, she had offered nothing but chronic heartburn.
“She’s doing her job,” I told Maddie, giving her long, brown braid a quick tug because I knew it irritated her.
Here I was, thirty-three years old, still determined to irritate my little sister.
Then again, our age gap had made it difficult to spend a lot of time together when we were at the age when brothers and sisters normally antagonized each other for sport. Fifteen years was a big difference.
She flipped her braid to the other shoulder, where I couldn’t reach it, giving me the sort of withering look only an eighteen-year-old could manage. “Duh, obviously. I just want to get a look at her. Can you get her to come out and say hi?”
“Madison Marie, that is enough,” Mom declared, looking to Dad for guidance. Everyone knew when the full name came out, all bets were off.
“You heard your mother,” Dad offered, enough to make Maddie snarl at me and return to the lasagna on her plate.
Aunt Laura passed a plate of garlicky greens around the table. “But really, how is it going? Are the two of you getting along?”
Uncle Matteo, my mom’s brother, wiggled his eyebrows almost suggestively. “Does she have one of those TV diva personalities?” he asked in a loud, conspiratorial whisper.
“You promised you wouldn’t ask a question like that,” Aunt Laura grumbled, elbowing him, but he didn’t seem penitent.
“It’s not a prying question. Don’t tell me you haven’t wondered,” he retorted.
“Things are going fine,” I told them, knowing the alternative would only destroy their illusions and might very well lead to even more discomfort in the form of additional questions, suggestions, and well-meaning advice I had not asked for. That was the way of life in a family.
“What do you think of the calamari, Nonna?” I asked my grandmother, sitting in the place of honor at the head of the table, as always.
She’d once told me she looked forward to these family dinners more than just about anything, which meant they’d become a tradition.
She had spent enough years of her life feeding all of us, after all. “Is it crispy enough for you?”
“You tell that girl at the fryer she has the touch of an angel,” Nonna declared before snagging another crispy, breaded ring.
It was her favorite dish, meaning we always placed the platter in front of her to give her first dibs.
The sight of her gnarled hands, thin-skinned and delicate, warmed and chilled my heart at the same time.
How many Sundays had I spent in her kitchen, sitting at the table, watching her knead dough and roll out homemade pasta?
I had studied her gentle, practiced touch, and marveled at the magic those hands created.
They didn’t used to look so old. Now, they were still strong but delicate. Her once lustrous chocolate-brown hair was now a silver mass pinned in a knot at the nape of her neck. Time could be cruel.
“Maddie, how is everything going these last few months of school?” My Aunt Kristen was Mom’s baby sister, their age gap a mere decade. It ran in our family, throwing the tree entirely out of whack.
“I can’t wait to be finished,” Maddie declared with a sigh. “Like, I already know where I’m going to school next year… everything’s in place. The rest of senior year is just for show.”
Had I ever felt that way? It was so long ago. “Do yourself a favor and appreciate the time you have left,” I advised while the rest of the table nodded sagely. “You’re going to look back and wish you hadn’t been so determined for it to pass so quickly.”
“Oh, because your life has been so miserable and unlucky since you left high school?” she challenged.
She might have been the only girl in the world who could get away with smirking at me the way she did, lifting an eyebrow in a way that told me I was in for trouble.
“I mean, you’re only sitting here in your restaurant where thousands and thousands of people eat every year. You make, like, zillions of dollars.”
“That’s tacky,” Mom admonished, shaking her head. “Besides, it’s not zillions.”
“How do you know?” I countered with a grin.
“You know what I mean,” Maddie insisted, raising her voice to be heard over our soft laughter.
“I’m just saying. Maybe don’t lecture me when you’ve got a lot of good stuff going on in your life right now.
Maybe I can’t wait to get older so I can have nice things for myself too.
” She popped an olive in her mouth, shrugging.
“Oh, see?” Dad teased, winking at me. “She just wants to be like her big brother. Isn’t that flattering?”
“Next thing I know, you’ll be asking me for a job,” I murmured, trying my best to look disapprovingly.
The truth was, I would have loved it if Maddie decided to join me and make this a real family business.
She had the guts and the moxie to make her way in the world, no matter what she decided to do.
I leaned back in my chair, taking my time, eating almost painfully slowly in an attempt to drag out the entrée portion of our meal.
Platters lined the center of the table. Tonight’s offerings included lasagna, Nonna’s meatballs that had simmered on a low flame for ten hours before serving, grilled eggplant, and garlic sautéed greens.
That, plus calamari and lemon shrimp had rounded out the meal.
As always, I was stuffed to bursting, though I couldn’t pretend the usual feeling of satisfaction came into play this evening.
Normally, I looked forward to an opportunity to connect with my family, though the guests sometimes rotated depending on who was available.
For instance, my cousins would stop in whenever they were in town, but they were off living their own lives.
Regardless, they knew the door was always open.
That was one policy that would never change—family was always welcome.
Tonight, it was the staff I was more concerned with, but then that was no surprise, at least to me.
After last night’s minor blowup in front of the rest of the kitchen, I made myself a promise not to antagonize her tonight.
It was one thing to force my way through dinner with my friends, who were wise enough to leave me the hell alone when it was clear I wasn’t in a good mood, but my family?
They would make it their business to glean every last bit of information they could.
There was no delaying the inevitable, and it was clear my sister’s excitement grew as staff came out to clear the platters from the table, signaling the approach of dessert.
“If it’s anywhere near as good as that bread…” Dad said, “… I think we’re in for a real treat.”
“Some things don’t change around here,” I reminded him, raising my voice slightly to make sure everyone heard. “I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel. I have a good thing going, and nothing matters more to me than maintaining that. So I wouldn’t expect anything new tonight.”
From the way Maddie’s mouth opened, it was obvious she was ready to argue until she sat upright in her chair, nudging Mom with her elbow. “There she is! Oh my God, she’s coming this way.”
Fuck. It was difficult enough to affect a professional attitude toward Claudia when she wasn’t nearby. I was supposed to do it now, with her standing over my shoulder? I made a point of angling my body in my chair, pretending I felt much kinder toward her than I did.
“Claudia Granger, meet my family.” My jaw ached from forcing a smile while introducing the people around the table, especially when Maddie giggled and insisted on taking a video. Children. They didn’t have the first clue.
What was worse? Watching her charm my family or how the light caught her hair and turned it to spun gold? My parents’ obvious admiration or her warm, brilliant smile? There was no peeling my gaze from her as she made her way around the table.
She saved Nonna for last, and the table went quiet. “I am so happy to meet you,” Claudia murmured, taking one of my grandmother’s hands in both of hers. “I understand it’s your recipes that have been adapted for the restaurant. This is a real pleasure.”
What pissed me off more than anything was how sincere she sounded.
Mom’s happy little sigh didn’t help matters.
Neither did the way Maddie practically swooned with one hand on her chest while she filmed with the other.
It was all a big show, nothing more than that.
Couldn’t they see it? No, they hadn’t witnessed my pastry chef playing the part of the humble, gracious pseudo-celebrity night after night.
Meaning I had no choice but to grit my teeth and smile through everything, knowing she couldn’t be sincere.
Nonna certainly didn’t, which struck me as strange. My grandmother was usually the sharpest person I knew, the best judge of character. “The pleasure is mine,” she insisted with a gentle laugh, her faded blue eyes shining. “I want you to know I rooted for you all season long.”
Claudia laughed warmly. “Thank you, but I’ll tell you, I thought the show was stressful, but that was before I got here,” she confided in a stage whisper, glancing my way with a comical grimace. “Out of the frying pan and into the fire.”