Chapter 4
At twenty past six, Summer took off the earrings she had put on ten minutes earlier and left them beside the bathroom sink.
They were the ones she wore when she met wedding clients, small pearls that made her feel qualified to discuss somebody else’s idea of elegance.
She didn’t need to look qualified in her own kitchen.
She needed to stop going upstairs to change things while Jonah tried to decide whether the potatoes were finished.
He was standing over the open oven when she came down. The heat had reddened his face. “That one’s done,” he said, pointing with the fork. “I can’t get through the one at the back.”
“Give them another ten minutes.” She reached past him to close the door and felt his hand settle briefly at her waist. He had come home early to help, bringing bread she hadn’t needed and a bunch of dahlias she had put in a mason jar because the proper vase was still wrapped somewhere.
Their crowded heads leaned toward the kitchen window.
Summer had moved them off the table twice before accepting that three people needed the space more than the flowers did.
Kylie’s mother had collected her from the airport that afternoon. Jonah had offered, but Kylie said her mother had already rearranged her day; Summer had been relieved, then irritated with herself when she asked what time the plane landed.
The knock came at exactly half past six.
Jonah looked toward the hallway, his expression changing before he put down the fork, and Summer followed him with a dish towel she didn’t realize she was carrying until she reached the door.
He opened it to a woman holding two bottles of wine against a dark coat, her hair coming loose from a knot at the back of her head.
“Don’t hug me until somebody takes these,” Kylie said. She lifted the bottles, and Jonah relieved her of them just in time for her to put both arms around him. “There you are,” she said against his shoulder, quietly enough that Summer felt she had overheard it.
Jonah held the wine away from Kylie’s back while she squeezed him.
Summer could see his cheek above her hair, the unguarded pleasure she had first seen at the bakery.
Then Kylie drew back and looked past him.
She smiled at Summer and held out her hand before Jonah had found anywhere to put the wine.
“I brought both,” she said, indicating the bottles. “I couldn’t decide either.” She stepped inside when Jonah moved, but stopped short of embracing Summer, looking down at the towel between her hands. “Have I caught you in the middle of something?”
“Only dinner.” Summer tucked the towel over her arm and took the hand Kylie offered. Her fingers were cold; she wore a large silver ring that shifted when their hands met. “Come in. You must be exhausted.”
“I had a shower and made the mistake of sitting on my mother’s bed.
” Kylie began unbuttoning her coat. “She woke me by asking if I remembered where she kept the good towels. Apparently I’d used one.
” She handed the coat to Jonah, then glanced back at Summer.
“I’m very glad we’re finally doing this. ”
Summer led her into the kitchen, where the air smelled of chicken and cider. Behind them Jonah was finding room for her coat, and Summer discovered she had stopped holding the towel so tightly.
“Oh, I brought something of yours,” Kylie told him. She pulled a gray sweatshirt from her bag and held it against herself for a moment before handing it over. “I found it when I was packing. I nearly kept it another year.”
“I wondered where that went.” Jonah took it, glancing at the familiar cuffs. “Thanks.”
“It was useful when the heating stopped working,” Kylie said. “The place was supposed to have been renovated. They’d painted the radiators.” She smiled at Jonah over the bundle of gray cloth.
Summer took the sweatshirt when Jonah needed his hands for the wine. The cuffs were stretched, and a white thread showed where someone had repaired a hole near the pocket. She folded it and put it on the stairs with his clean shirts, pushing the whole pile back so nobody would trip over it.
“Tell me where to wash my hands,” Kylie said. “Then give me something to carry. If I sit down again, you may have to feed me in my sleep.” She waited for Summer to indicate the sink, and Summer liked her for waiting.
Kylie carried the salad to the table. She stopped when the dressing slipped across the leaves and gathered against one side of the bowl. “Oh, this still does that,” she said, steadying it. “I forgot.”
“Only until Saturday.” Jonah put the wine beside Summer. “We bought another table.” He looked pleased when he said it, and she touched his wrist as she reached for the corkscrew.
Kylie glanced down at the old wood. “Good for you. I’ve caught more drinks on this thing than I’ve finished.” She shifted the bowl to the center, then pulled out a chair and waited until Summer told her to sit.
The first few minutes were easy because everyone had something to do.
Jonah opened the wine, Summer brought the food over, and Kylie moved the empty bread basket to make room for the roasting dish.
She ate a potato before passing the bowl, apologized with her mouth full, and took another as soon as Summer laughed.
The chicken had come out well. Summer knew it without having to wait for anybody to say so, which allowed her to sit back instead of searching their faces after every bite.
“What will you be doing at the museum?” Summer asked when Kylie finished describing her mother’s attempts to clear a wardrobe for her. “Jonah said Boston. Is it easy to get to from the train?”
Kylie looked at him. “I’ve only got a meeting,” she said, drawing her knife slowly through a piece of chicken. “People keep promoting me before I’ve been interviewed.”
“You said they asked you to come in.” Jonah reached for the salad and held the bowl toward Summer. “That sounded promising.”
“It is promising. It isn’t a job.” Kylie turned back to Summer. “Thursday morning. There’s a collection they need help cataloging, and somebody I worked with in Florence gave them my name. I’m trying not to tell everyone until there’s something to tell.”
Summer understood that so well she almost put down her fork.
Before she had signed the bakery lease, her mother had told three women at her hairdresser’s that Summer was opening a business, and one of them had called to ask for a discount on a retirement cake.
Summer had still been waiting for the bank to decide whether to lend her the money.
“My mother offered somebody a job in my bakery,” she said. “I hadn’t even got the keys.” She glanced at Jonah, who was smiling because he knew this story, and found that she wanted to tell it anyway. “A neighbor’s daughter. She said the girl was very artistic.”
Kylie stopped eating. “Artistic how? Did she bake at all?”
“She was twelve. Her mother thought I could give her some experience during school vacation.” Summer took a drink of wine and enjoyed the brief disbelief on Kylie’s face. “She could paint the cakes, apparently. I said I needed somebody who could reach the counter.”
“You said that to me,” Jonah said, laughing. “You told her mother you’d let her know if anything came up.” He passed Kylie the bread. Summer left her hand beside the basket until he remembered to offer it to her too.
“Well, I couldn’t tell the woman her child was too short,” Summer said. She helped herself to bread, although she had potatoes left. “Her mother would have offered to buy her a stool.”
“I’d have said yes and spent the next week trying to get out of it,” Kylie said.
“I’ve agreed to look at a painting in somebody’s bathroom tomorrow.
I haven’t even unpacked.” She reached for her glass.
“My mother said I’d know whether it was valuable.
As far as I can tell, the qualification is having been to Italy. ”
“Please tell me you said no,” Summer said. “You’ve only been home a few hours.”
“I said I’d look. Then Mom said the realtor was doing a little brochure about the house and perhaps I could help with that too.” Kylie stopped with her glass halfway to her mouth. “Which is how I spent my first afternoon home writing about somebody’s staircase.”
“Before coming here?” Summer asked. “I’d still have been looking for my toothbrush.”
“I only did half,” Kylie said. “Then I found out she was paying someone to arrange the photographs. I told her I’d send a price for the rest. Mom says I’ve made it awkward.”
Summer told her about a woman who had wanted a three-tier cake in exchange for photographs of herself eating it. Kylie stopped with her fork halfway to her mouth.
“Was she famous?” she asked. Summer shook her head.
“Two hundred and twelve followers.” Summer reached for her wine. “I looked.”
Kylie laughed, setting her glass down until she’d finished. Then she took Jonah’s instead, drank, and returned it with a face. Summer noticed, her fork halfway to her mouth. She waited for Jonah to object, and when he didn’t she looked down at her plate, biting her lip.
“Still the dry one,” Kylie said to him. “I should remember.”
Jonah moved it beside his plate. Summer cut through a potato, pressing harder when the skin caught beneath her knife.
“Can I ask you something?” Kylie said when she had recovered. Her eyes moved between Summer and Jonah. “How did you actually meet? I got the shortened version on a phone call.”
“At his parents’ anniversary,” Summer said to Jonah. She realized Kylie would already know that evening, the guest list and the cake and who had been away. “I delivered the cake.”
“But how did you get from that to going out? Jonah left that part out.”
“I kept coming in,” Jonah said. He looked at Summer. “Eventually I asked her to lunch.”
“When we started dating he used to come to my house and talk to my father for twenty minutes before he’d ask if I was home,” Kylie said. She smiled at Jonah. “Did you make her ask you in the end?”