Crêpe Expectations

by Sarah Fox

  Over at the microphone, Coach Hannigan introduced the competitors and announced the start of the first round. The whistle blew, and Ellie, Logan, and their fellow teen chefs jumped into action. I glanced over the score sheet one more time and then settled in to watch the teenagers while sipping the vanilla steamed milk I’d picked up at the coffee shop.

  Amy made her way around the tent, taking photos of the teens in action, never getting in their way. The time seemed to pass quickly—even more so for the contestants, I guessed—and the whistle blew again. The teenagers stepped back from their stations. Some looked pleased, others worried. Ellie Shaw fell into the latter category.

  When instructed to do so by Patricia, the six teenagers picked up their dishes and stood in a row before the judges’ table. Everyone had managed to finish and plate their desserts, some more artistically than others. My mouth watered at the sight of all their creations, and I figured that was a good start.

  Ellie was up first with her coconut macadamia squares. She’d drizzled chocolate on the plate to help with the visual appeal, and the taste exceeded the nice presentation. The bar had a delicious shortbread base and was topped with macadamia nuts and coconut in chewy caramel. The whole thing was topped with dark chocolate, and my first taste left me wanting more. I snuck in a second bite but then I had to fill out my score sheet and move on to the next contestant’s creation. It crossed my mind that the teen was lucky Quaid wasn’t on the judging panel that day, considering how he felt about coconut, but in my mind she fully deserved a spot in the final round of competition that would take place in a week’s time.

  Logan impressed me with a chocolate soufflé that tasted heavenly, and a fourteen-year-old girl named Cherise had whipped together the most amazing double chocolate mocha brownies. After my fellow judges and I had finished tasting all of the dishes, Ellie, Logan, Cherise, and a boy named Vincent were the ones to nab spots in the next round. The other desserts tasted good but didn’t stand out as extraordinary, and one boy’s mousse hadn’t set properly.

  After a short break, the adult division’s competition got under way. Again, when it came time to test the dishes, my mouth watered with anticipation. The first woman who brought her dessert to the judge’s table looked embarrassed, probably because the filling had oozed out of the Swiss roll she’d made and had pooled on the plate. I knew next to nothing about baking, but I guessed that the cake had been too warm for the filling, causing it all to melt out. The flavors were still great, but the unfortunate presentation took the dish out of contention for the top four spots.

  Dorothy Kerwin had a better result. Her pistachio cake made it hard for me not to dive in and finish off the entire sample. The same was true of the red velvet crêpes made by a woman named Cynthia. Hope’s chocolate toffee bars landed her a spot in the top four, and a man in his twenties also made the cut with his scrumptious frosted pumpkin cupcakes.

  “Thanks so much for helping me out,” Patricia said to me after the competition had wrapped up for the day.

  “Believe me, it was my pleasure,” I assured her. “I got to taste some great food.”

  “I’m so glad you enjoyed it.” Patricia’s phone rang in her hand. “Sorry. I should get this.”

  “No worries,” I said. “I’ll see you around.”

  Patricia wandered away with her phone to her ear. I remained in place, searching the bleachers for Chloe. Most of the spectators had dispersed, and I couldn’t see Brett’s sister in the stands.

  Dorothy and Willard Kerwin, Ellie Shaw and her parents, and a couple of other competitors had gathered around Amy as she showed them some of the pictures she’d taken. I noticed Lonny Barron heading for the tent to meet up with Hope. I said a quick hello to him as he passed by and then pulled out my phone, deciding to text Chloe to see if she was still around.

  Before I could send a message, a man standing nearby turned around and almost crashed into me.

  “Sorry,” he said quickly, dodging around me and heading for the street.

  I did a double take and stared hard at him, but all I could see now was the back of his head.

  “It can’t be,” I said as the man disappeared around the front of the grocery store.

  A strange hum of confusion and excitement rushed through my bloodstream. I broke into a run, slipping past a small group of people to reach the sidewalk. It only took me seconds to get there, but I was too late. The man was already gone.

  Your eyes were playing tricks on you, I told myself.

  There was no other explanation.

  And yet I couldn’t shake the feeling I’d seen my father walking down the street.

  My father who’d died before I was born.

  Chapter 9

  “Marley!”

  The sound of Chloe calling my name startled me out of the confused fog that had settled over me.

  She held up a cloth shopping bag. “I popped into the grocery store for a moment to pick up a few things. Mac and cheese is my favorite meal, so I figure that should be what I learn to make next.”

  I tried to keep up with what she was saying, but the words seemed to blur together.

  “Marley? Are you okay?” Chloe asked, regarding me more closely.

  “Yes,” I said quickly. “Sorry. Making mac and cheese is pretty straightforward, so I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

  “I hope so. Want to hang out with me while I cook? You can be my official taste tester.”

  I couldn’t get the image of my father’s look-alike out of my mind. All I wanted to do right then was track him down.

  “Can I take a rain check?” I asked. “I’ve got something I need to do this evening.”

  “Did I scare you off by offering to cook for you?”

  “Not at all,” I said honestly. “I’ll definitely take you up on the offer another time.”

  “All right. It’s probably best that I have a trial run first anyhow.”

  “You’ll do fine,” I told her again as I took a step backward. “See you later.”

  I set off along the sidewalk at an easy pace, but I couldn’t hold back for long. Breaking into a jog, I circled around the block, keeping my eyes peeled for the man with wavy brown hair whom I’d seen minutes earlier. I peeked through the front windows of stores and eateries, but after nearly twenty minutes of searching, I’d still had no luck finding him.

  Unsettled and dispirited, I altered my path and headed home. I couldn’t help but cheer up when I got there. As soon as I stepped in the front door, my welcoming committee was there to give me an enthusiastic greeting. Bentley bounced around me until I told him to sit so I could give him a big hug. He planted a sloppy kiss on my face and shook out his curly golden fur, his tongue lolling out of his mouth while he smiled his best dog grin.

  As soon as Bentley calmed down, Flapjack moved in for his turn. He rubbed against my legs, purring, as I took off my sneakers and left them by the front door.

  “How was your day, guys?” I asked once I had my cat in my arms.

  With his motor still going full tilt, Flapjack bumped his head against my chin.

  We made our way to the family room, and Bentley trotted over to the French doors that led out to the porch. I set Flapjack down and opened the doors so Bentley could go outside and do what he needed to do. Flapjack padded his way into the kitchen and sat down in the middle of the floor, his amber eyes gleaming with expectation.

  “Right,” I said, getting the message loud and clear. “Dinner.”

  Bentley came bounding into the house at the sound of that word. I returned to the French doors, pausing to take a quick look at the ocean. The tide was out, slowly creeping its way up the beach. A man and woman walked hand in hand across a wet sandbar, a golden retriever trotting along ahead of them. The beach was otherwise deserted.

  Although I was tempted to leave the doors open to allow the fresh sea breeze to s
weep through the house, the air had cooled since the early afternoon and had a slight chill to it now, a reminder that spring was still in its early weeks. I decided on a compromise, shutting the doors and opening the kitchen window a few inches.

  Flapjack gave an impatient meow and sat at my feet, almost on my toes. Bentley joined us in the kitchen, his tail wagging. Taking the hint, I got busy preparing their dinners and soon had two happy animals digging into their food, Bentley in a corner of the kitchen and Flapjack in the laundry room where his canine housemate couldn’t sneak in and gobble up his food.

  With my four-legged friends taken care of, I opened the fridge and surveyed the contents, trying to decide what Brett and I could eat for dinner. Nothing seemed appetizing, probably because I’d filled up on food samples in the afternoon while judging the competition. It also didn’t help that I was too distracted to think much about meal preparation.

  I gave up for the time being and shut the fridge. Flapjack emerged from the laundry room, through his cat door, and sat on the kitchen floor, licking his paw before swiping it across his face. When I headed for the family room, he followed me, taking up a perch on one end of the couch before resuming his grooming routine. Bentley curled up on the rug, and I grabbed a photo album from a shelf along one wall before joining Flapjack on the couch.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about the man I’d seen in town. Of course he couldn’t be my father, but…

  But what? I asked myself.

  I had no answer to that question but still felt compelled to open the album.

  The pages held pictures from before I was born. My mom had put the album together and had given it to me when I was a teenager. On the very first page was a studio portrait of my dad, taken when he was in his midtwenties, along with another picture of him in jeans and a T-shirt, grinning and squinting into the sun as he leaned against a Mustang convertible. The third and final photograph on the page showed my dad together with my mom, their arms around each other. I knew from the stories my mom had told me over the years that these photos were from around the time of their engagement, but at the moment all my attention was focused on the pictures themselves, rather than the stories behind them.

  My hair was the same color as my dad’s had been, although mine was curly while his had been wavy. We also had the same gray-blue eyes. I hadn’t managed to see the eye color of the man I’d spotted in town earlier, but everything else seemed about right—the face shape, the hair, the nose. If my dad hadn’t died so young and had the chance to age by another thirty-five years after the photos were taken, wouldn’t he have looked just like the man I’d seen that afternoon?

  Yes.

  I flipped through the rest of the pages in the album, a few more of which showed my dad, sometimes on his own and sometimes with my mom, who by the end of the album was clearly pregnant. They’d planned to get married shortly after I was born, but my father died from an undiagnosed heart problem before I ever arrived.

  He’s dead, I reminded myself.

  But what if he’s not?

  I snapped the album shut as soon as the question popped into my mind.

  “Impossible,” I said out loud.

  Bentley raised his head, a question in his brown eyes.

  “It’s all right, buddy,” I assured him. “I’m just thinking crazy thoughts.”

  I heard the sound of a key in the front door at the same time as Bentley did. In a flash, he was charging down the hall to the front of the house. I shoved the photo album back onto the shelf and followed after him, arriving in the foyer in time to see Brett giving Bentley an enthusiastic greeting of pats and tummy rubs.

  I had to wait my turn, but the greeting Brett gave me was worth it.

  “You’d think you missed me or something,” I said once we broke apart.

  “Always.” He kissed me again, this time on my forehead. “I’ll grab a quick shower before dinner.”

  “What do you want to eat?” I asked as he headed up the stairs to the second floor, Bentley on his heels.

  “Whatever you feel like,” he called over his shoulder.

  I leaned against the banister. “I don’t know what I feel like.”

  He paused at the top of the stairs. “In that case, spaghetti.”

  That sounded good to me, and for the first time since I’d arrived home, I felt the tiniest rumbles of hunger in my stomach.

  By the time Brett appeared in clean clothes, his blond hair damp, I already had the tomato sauce bubbling away on the stove.

  “Smells good,” he said with appreciation. He wrapped his arms around my waist as I stirred the pot. “Sorry I took so long. I missed a call from Lonny while I was in the shower so I called him back when I was done.”

  I leaned into him. “Everything all right?”

  “Everything’s fine. He and Hope just wanted to add a few more mature plants to the list of ones I’m going to pick up for them.”

  I reluctantly pulled away from him so I could put a pot of water on the stove for the pasta. “They really want the garden party to be perfect, don’t they?”

  “They do, but I get it. The party will kick off their business, and they’ve put a lot of money, time, and effort into the inn.”

  “But they’re not being… What would the equivalent of a bridezilla be in this situation?”

  “Whatever it would be, no, they’re not. They’re great clients to work with.”

  I turned on the burner under the pot of water before facing Brett. “That’s good, especially since you’re spending so much of your time working for them these days.”

  He pulled me into his arms. “I’m sorry. I know I’ve been busy lately.”

  “I’m not complaining, but I’m glad you’re home now.”

  “So am I.”

  By the time he finished showing me how happy he was, the water was boiling away madly on the stove. I added the pasta and managed to finish getting our dinner together without further distractions.

  While we ate, I told Brett about my day and my unexpected stint as a judge.

  “I guess I should feel sorry for Quaid,” Brett said, “but somehow that’s hard to do.”

  “He’s not the most charming guy, is he?” I said.

  Our conversation shifted away from Quaid. As we finished up our meal, I considered telling Brett about the man I’d seen near the competition site that afternoon. I was on the brink of saying something when I stopped myself. After all, the man couldn’t have been my father and I didn’t want to sound crazy.

  Before I had a chance to carry my dirty plate to the kitchen, Brett picked it up and piled it on top of his.

  “You did the cooking, so I’ll do the cleanup,” he said.

  I leaned back in my chair, my stomach pleasantly full. “I knew there was a reason why I love you.”

  “Only one?” Brett said as he set the plates in the sink.

  “More like a million and one.”

  The lopsided grin I loved so much made an appearance. “I wouldn’t mind hearing each one of them.”

  “Maybe later,” I said with a smile.

  “That’s good motivation to get these dishes done.”

  I stayed seated for another minute or so, but then I grew restless.

  “You’re supposed to be relaxing,” Brett said when I got up and grabbed a cloth so I could wipe down the kitchen counters.

  “I’d rather help get this done so we can relax together.”

  “I guess I can’t argue with that plan.”

  I finished wiping down the quartz countertops and rinsed the cloth out at the sink. I dried my hands with a tea towel while Brett loaded the last of the dishes in the dishwasher and added some soap. As I watched him start the appliance on its wash cycle, a big smile spread across my face. I knew I probably looked goofy, but I couldn’t help myself. My heart was about to explode w
ith happiness in that moment.

  “What?” Brett asked when he caught sight of my expression.

  “It’s so perfect.”

  He quirked an eyebrow. “The way I arranged the dishes in the dishwasher?”

  I stifled a laugh. “No. This.” I made a sweeping gesture with my arm. “You and me, here together, doing mundane domestic things like cooking and cleaning. It’s perfect. So much more perfect than I ever thought it could be.” My smile faded, a hint of uncertainty creeping in to replace some of my happiness. “Does that sound dumb?”

  Brett took hold of my hands. “Not at all. I know what you mean. And it is. Perfect.” He pulled me closer and folded me into his arms.

  I rested my cheek against his chest. “So it hasn’t been a disappointment in any way?”

  “Living here with you? Of course not. Like you said, it’s even better than I imagined it would be.”

  I tipped my head back so I could see his face. “Did you imagine it? Before I asked you to move in?”

  “I did.” He rested his chin on the top of my head. “Because you and me, we belong together.”

  “We do,” I agreed.

  “Like whipped cream and pumpkin pie.”

  “Like whipped cream and pumpkin pie crêpes,” I amended.

  “Mmmm.” The sound rumbled in his chest. “Now you’re making me hungry.”

  “You just ate,” I reminded him. “How can you possibly be hungry?”

  “There’s more than one type of hunger,” he said, kissing me below my left ear.

  “In that case,” I said with a smile, “I’m famished.”

  Chapter 10

  After I’d finished work on Sunday, Brett and I put together a quinoa salad. We were having dinner with his parents, and I’d promised to bring a dish to contribute. Not long after we got the salad made, we were in Brett’s truck and heading into town. Instead of going straight to Brett’s parents’ house, we made a detour to pick up Chloe. She lived in the house Brett owned and had done so for a few years now. Since Brett had moved out, she’d been searching for a roommate but hadn’t yet found the right candidate.