11. Home Cooked
Home Cooked
Jade Mitchell talked with her hands, and that morning they were doing double duty, pitching me and resting every few seconds on a belly that wasn't near ready to slow her down yet.
"I think it'll be a great way to get the whole town out, and I know folks from around the county will drive in for it too.
Homemade pie contest. Wagon rides. Bonfire.
Live music. Authors' tent for the local writers, 'cause we got more of those than you'd think.
Chili cook-off. Dancing, obviously, that part was decided back when this was still just talk over Sunday dinner.
" She paused, and her hand went flat on her stomach again.
"But I thought of something else recently, and I'm gonna need your help with it, because by the time it happens I'm gonna be — "
"Due right around then," Fire Chief Mitchell said, filling the gap the way a man does for his wife. He had his arm along the back of her chair. "Plans for this festival been laid a good year now, long before we knew about the new baby, and my Sug's not about to let a baby stop her show."
"A community dinner." Jade found her thread again, chin coming back up. "Long tables, whole stretch of the green. Three hundred seats."
I looked between the two of them. Him, built like a man who'd hauled people out of burning houses, because that's exactly what he'd done for a living.
Easy in his chair the way big men get easy once they've decided there's nothing left in the room worth being tense about.
Her, face round and radiant, running a festival, a supper club, and apparently a household about to be two kids deep, all at the same time.
And looking at me now like a woman who already knew what my answer was going to be, just extending me the courtesy of letting me arrive at it myself.
That cat out of Shrek. Puss in Boots, eyes big as saucers, bottom lip doing that little wobble right before he gets whatever he came for. That's exactly how Mrs. Jade Mitchell was looking at me across my desk.
I'd known her a little while now, since the Chief brought her into Capa Dillion for their wedding anniversary and she sat there picking my braised oxtail apart, naming ingredients half my own line cooks couldn't have named.
Good palate with better instincts that she used to run her supper club that everyone wanted seats to.
The kind of woman who noticed things, which is a rare enough quality in this world that I'd made a habit of trusting her when she asked for something, even when what she was asking for was catering, which I have never once in my career enjoyed.
Feels like cooking with your hands cuffed.
I sighed and picked up the proposal she'd slid across my desk and let my eyes run it, mostly for the theater of it, because we both already knew where this was headed.
"And the Hargroves are funding this?" I turned a page. "Three hundred seats of the food I actually want to cook? Not the food that's fast to make three hundred of?"
"Yes, sir." Jade's whole face opened up. "Cole Hargrove's especially excited. Says the first Honeysuckle Harvest Festival ought to open with something this whole county remembers for years."
"As you know," the Chief began, leaning forward now, the pitch handed off from wife to husband, "my wife's supper club's popular.
Tickets go in under five minutes every time she opens the books, and that's by design.
She keeps it small on purpose, keeps it intimate.
But she's done less of it this year, carrying the new one and running behind a toddler at the same time.
So, this festival dinner gives the town what they can't usually get.
Access. And if Jade's not the one standing at that stove, there's exactly one other kitchen on this earth she trusts to stand there in her place. "
She looked at me again with those eyes, causing me to chuckle. Looked at her husband instead, because looking back at her felt like a losing proposition. "Has your wife ever heard the word no in her life?"
He laughed, big, from the chest. "My Sug ain't heard that word in a long while, Chef."
"No?" Jade blinked at me, all innocence, like she'd genuinely never encountered the concept. "What language is that? I don't believe I know it."
We all laughed at that.
I sat back and let the silence stretch a second longer than it needed to, mostly because a man's allowed one small indulgence before he gives away three hundred plates of his own reputation.
"I'm in."
Jade squealed and did a little wiggle in her chair that had nothing to do with professionalism and everything to do with a woman who'd walked in already knowing the answer and was still thrilled to hear it said out loud.
"Only off the strength of you and the Chief," I said, holding up a finger before she got too far ahead of herself.
"Anybody else brings me this pitch, it's a hard no.
Catering ain't my favorite and we’re busy enough here.
But I know you're not gonna let this turn into something that waters down what Capa Dillion is.
You care about the craft too much for that. That's the only reason I'm saying yes."
"I know," Jade said, grinning. "That's exactly why I came to you.
We're looking to price the tickets around three hundred, so customers know this isn't a fast-food situation.
It's what they expect from my supper club, and what they expect from you.
We don't want anybody walking in confused about which experience they're getting. "
I slowly nodded, understanding exactly what she meant without her having to spell it further. Smart woman.
"I trust you, Jade."
"Thank you so much!" She stood, belly and all, arms already open before she was fully upright.
I came around the desk to meet her, kept the hug light and careful.
"Thanks, Chef." Akil stood too, hand out, and I shook it. "And congratulations. Welcome to the husband club."
I felt heat climb up my neck like a schoolboy. "Thank you."
"Feels good, huh?" he asked.
"Real good," I said, and meant it more than the two words could carry.
Because it did. Yea, after seven years of being everything to each other except the one thing, there hadn't been a single reason left to wait on anything.
Told my parents and Miss Lorna first, and both our mothers were crying before either of us finished the sentence.
My mama half from joy, half from the sheer relief of finally watching two people who'd been circling each other for seven years land.
Miss Lorna cried too, right there under the Fourth of July fireworks, Aurelia's hand in mine, sparks going up over the water, celebrating with us.
Both our mothers said the same thing in almost the same breath: no reason to wait on something that was overdue.
That Monday we took the ferry back to Westonberry and filed.
Three days later we were married on the Duckworth's private stretch of beach at Everhart Hollow, nobody standing in that sand but the people who actually mattered — my whole family, already in the house for summer vacation anyway, and a handful of Aurelia's who made the crossing from the mainland. A couple friends.
Fifty people was perfect. Would've been perfect at five. All I ever needed standing in that sand was her, barefoot, walking toward me in an off the rack beaded mermaid gown she found on the island, our whole future sitting right there in her eyes.
The estate staff had it set up for the short turn around.
On any other timeline it would've seemed like a miracle but, on ours it just felt like everybody finally getting to exhale.
I brought Raymond and two others from my kitchen out to cook, because there was no version of my own wedding where I wasn't going to know exactly what was on that table.
Dale called in favors and got me everything my staff needed.
My mother made one phone call and the florist, the photographer, the videographer — all three cleared their whole week like they'd been waiting on the invitation their whole careers.
Wasn't much decor needed anyway. An estate my grandfather built to look like it belonged to the land doesn't need dressing up.
Just candles, gardenias off my grandmother's own bush, and a beach that's been doing its job since before any of us got here.
"You have to see this."
I went to my photo gallery. Aurelia in the dress, barefoot in the sand, hand pressed flat against her own sternum like she was holding her heart in place, laughing and crying at the same time the way she does when something's too big to pick just one.
Behind her, magnolia branches wound through white string lights, my grandfather's old cast iron trellis dragged out of storage and dressed up for one afternoon into something that looked like it belonged in a magazine instead of a tool shed.
Miss Lorna in the front row already gone, mascara running, fanning herself with the program like Roena County in June had ever once been fooled by a paper fan.
I swiped. Me at the arch, watching her walk, and somebody, my mama, probably, had caught the exact half-second my composure gave out, jaw tight, eyes wet, hands loose at my sides the only way I know how to hold them when something's coming at me I can't brace against and don't want to.
"You cried," Akil said, grinning.
"Cried before she even got to me." No shame in it. "Cried saying the vows, damn near cried cutting the cake 'cause my mama made a comment about how long she'd been waiting on this."
I swiped again. Us at the reception, dancing barefoot in wet sand because Aurelia had insisted the ocean needed to be part of the first dance whether the DJ liked that set up or not.
One more, my grandmother's gardenia pinned into her hair, cut fresh off the bush behind the house, because some things you don't buy from a florist when you've got the real thing growing twenty feet from where you're standing.