Two on the Aisle

by Robbi McCoy

  Ellie turned her round face to Sophie with an appreciative smile. “That is truly inspired.”

  “So you like it?”

  “I love it! I think I could do some sort of bruschetta with that. With those yellow heirloom tomatoes we’ve been getting and a fruity balsamic vinegar. What do you think?”

  “Yes. I like that. I thought it might go well with corn too, you know? Maybe some sort of corn cake.”

  Ellie’s eyes widened as she nodded. “Fantastic idea. Johanna! I want you to taste this purple sage.”

  Johanna’s large hands worked a mandolin at a rapid tempo, slicing perfect rounds of zucchini. A ruddy-faced, solidly built woman with massive arms and legs, she turned toward them with a frown.

  Ellie waved her over. “Come here. Sophie’s brought us something new.”

  Johanna begrudgingly wiped her hands on a towel and trundled over to stare at the cheese. Ellie sliced off another piece and handed the knife to her. Sophie and Ellie stood perfectly still as they watched Johanna’s tongue take command of the sample, giving it short shrift before swallowing.

  “Good,” she said and that seemed to be the end of her commentary.

  “Sophie suggested corn cakes,” Ellie said. “What do you think? Could you do a corn cake that would complement that?”

  “I could,” Johanna grunted, “but I don’t think that would impress Eno Threlkeld.”

  “Eno Threlkeld?” Ellie looked taken aback. “Why do you bring him up?”

  “He wrote a review of Ginnie’s Café. It was in the paper today.”

  “Our local paper?”

  Johanna nodded.

  “We don’t usually get Eno Threlkeld’s column in our local paper.”

  “They picked it up because it was a local restaurant.”

  “Was it a good review?” Ellie asked.

  Johanna nodded again.

  “That was lucky for Ginnie, then,” noted Ellie. “But she does a really nice breakfast, nobody can deny.”

  “Who’s Eno Threlkeld?” Sophie asked.

  “He’s a top restaurant critic based in San Francisco,” Ellie explained. “Very influential.”

  “And he’s in town,” Johanna pointed out.

  “At least he was in town at some point,” Ellie corrected. “Maybe he was just passing through.”

  “Maybe he was and maybe he wasn’t. We should be prepared, just in case.”

  “Prepared how?” asked Sophie.

  Johanna glanced dismissively at her. “By not featuring things like corn cakes.”

  “I like corn cakes,” Sophie muttered defensively.

  “A good review from Eno Threlkeld,” Ellie noted, “would be a feather in our cap. His column goes out to hundreds of newspapers every week. So much of our business here is from tourists, something like that can make a real difference.”

  “Be on the lookout for him,” Johanna warned.

  “How do we do that? Nobody knows what he looks like. He’s not going to walk in and introduce himself.”

  Johanna went wordlessly back to her mandolin while Sophie handed over several logs of goat cheese to Ellie.

  “That should get us through most of the week,” Ellie said, closing the refrigerator.

  “Do you have any of Katrina Olafssen’s aebleskiver? My mother’ll kill me if I don’t bring any home.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Ellie said. “We’re out. Bad timing. She’ll bring me a new batch tomorrow.”

  “Maybe even better timing, then. I’m spending the night, so I can stop by in the morning and get some fresh.”

  “Perfect.”

  Cassandra gave a disconcerting grunt, causing them both to look at her. She seemed to have finished her meal and sat unoccupied with a vacant look on her face.

  “How’s Cassandra doing?” Sophie asked.

  “Same as usual. Therapy doesn’t seem to be doing a damn bit of good. She just terrorized some woman out front. I wish she wasn’t so…weird.”

  “Don’t you think she’d be okay again if she could get back on the stage? Don’t you think the problem is that her dream was shattered?”

  “Maybe, but she isn’t going to get back on stage, not as long as Cleo Keggermeister is in charge. Bitter old hag.” Ellie’s tone was angry. “And none of this would have happened if my father hadn’t encouraged her to act in the first place. It wasn’t enough he had to destroy his own life. I’m just grateful I was immune to his romantic ideas.”

  Sophie smiled. “Romantic ideas, not your weakness.”

  “It’s a good thing one of us is living in the real world,” Ellie stated flatly.

  “Do you ever hear from your father?” Sophie asked.

  “Not for a long time.” Ellie looked exasperated, as if the very idea of her father pained her. “Last I heard, he was in trouble with some loan shark in Venice. He said if he didn’t make a payment, the guy was gonna cut his heart out or something like that. I couldn’t help him. I had just bought this place. I had nothing. I was in debt up to my ears myself. I haven’t heard from him since. I don’t know if he’s dead or alive. I guess he gave up on us when I didn’t come through with the cash.” Ellie sighed forlornly. “I know Cassandra misses him. They were so close. But I couldn’t care less. Good riddance, I say. The man was a bum and a philanderer.”

  Sophie patted Ellie’s shoulder, hearing the emotional ambivalence in her voice.

  “Whatever.” Ellie swatted the air dismissively. “You staying for lunch?”

  “Yes! I understand you serve some incredible goat cheese.”

  Ellie laughed. “You know, I still can’t believe you’re a goat farmer. All through high school, all you could talk about was getting off the farm, going to the big city, living a life where there was absolutely zero chance you’d ever step in a pile of animal shit again.”

  “I remember. But that’s what rubber boots are for. Besides, there are a lot worse things to step in. At least shit is honest.”

  Ellie gave her a sympathetic look. “When your mother had that stroke, we all expected you to sell the farm and take her to L.A. to live with you. Instead, you gave it all up to come here.”

  “Giving it all up wasn’t as hard as you make it sound,” Sophie said. “Life in the city, at least for me, was stressful and depressing, even if I was making a boatload of money. Since I’ve been here, I’ve felt so much saner. I feel healed. In fact, I think I’ve come to prefer the company of goats to people.”

  “What a thing to say! Not all people, I hope.”

  “Not all people, no. But there are a whole lot of people in Southern California I do not miss.”

  Sophie thought briefly of her ex, Jan, and stiffened against the wave of pain that thought brought with it. The pain was much less intense and came less often than it once had. Jan and all she represented, good and bad, was fading into a dull blurry background buzz.

  “I, for one, am glad to have you back,” Ellie announced firmly.

  Before returning two years ago, Sophie hadn’t seen Ellie or any of her childhood friends since high school. She’d been in such a hurry to get out of here, to go off and explore the larger world. And she had. She’d gone to college in Southern California, gotten an MBA, pursued a career in finance, a lucrative and competitive field that had used her up.

  That had been where she’d met Jan, and the two of them had built a comfortable life together, full of friends and social events, a hectic, expensive life. What Sophie had not known was that Jan had been routinely sleeping with those friends, that a humiliating number of their social circle were her secret lovers. She’d slept with clients too, and not just women. Her explanation, when Sophie finally caught on, was that it was “just business” or “just fun” and that none of it was serious. None of it meant anything. The only person who mattered, she had said, the only person she loved was Sophie. As Jan’s second chance turned into a third chance, Sophie became more and more broken. She gradually realized she had no true friends and that feeling eventually spread
to include Jan.

  Ellie wasn’t the only one who was surprised that Sophie was now a goat farmer. When she’d come back to Oregon, there had been no plan other than helping her mother recuperate. As Olivia got better, Sophie got comfortable. The farm felt more like home than she’d ever expected. She couldn’t remember an actual day when she decided to stay. She just never decided to leave.

  Her mother needed her. That was what she told everyone—Jan, her employer, her “friends” in L.A. The truth was, she needed her mother and everything her mother represented, a sense of belonging and unconditional love. The fact that Jan had let her go and had not asked very convincingly for her to come back was proof that it had been the right decision to stay. But the most telling thing of all was the day she woke up alone in her room in the old farmhouse and realized it had been three months since she had cried. Her life in L.A. had been a string of tearful episodes knit together with makeup sex and periods of stony indifference. There had been so many tears, silent ones as she sat alone in the apartment wondering how to stop caring, and angry ones during the many arguments that shook their walls and their affection. Then she had come here and had quit crying. A kind of numbness had descended on her for several weeks. Gradually, she had started feeling again, feeling good, hearing herself laugh, eventually realizing she hadn’t been happy for years. She and her mother recovered together, one of them physically and one of them psychically. There was no longer any question she had done the right thing by staying here.

  Olivia Ward had never been a serious farmer, but she did have a horse, a few chickens and two goats, Tallulah and Rose. To fill in the time while her mother recovered, Sophie had started making goat cheese. After experimenting with a few recipes, she had given some to Ellie to sample. Ellie had raved and said, half jokingly, that if Sophie were selling, she’d be buying. That’s how it had happened, and that’s when Sophie really settled in, buying four more goats to supplement the original pair.

  She and her mother had lived in harmony for the last two years, much greater harmony than she would have expected given her rebellious teenage years. She had fought her mother over every tiny decision and couldn’t wait to be far, far away from her. Par for the course with mothers and daughters, she was sure. After all those years apart, Olivia hadn’t seemed so much like the enemy anymore. Yes, it had all worked out remarkably well. Sophie was happy here.

  “Take any table you want, Sophie,” Ellie instructed, so she chose a seat next to the front window.

  As she opened her menu, she caught the eye of a woman she immediately recognized as one of the twins from the theater. For a second, her heart seemed to stop as those deep brown eyes gazed into hers, inviting her in. When their stare broke off, Sophie noticed the young man at her table. In the next heartbeat, her spirits sank until she recognized him as the woman’s brother, looking completely different in ordinary clothes and without his makeup. He was a slim, handsome man with delicate features and gay mannerisms. If the brother was gay, maybe the sister was too, Sophie reasoned, realizing almost immediately that wasn’t logical. More of a hope than a hypothesis. Then she had to ask herself why she was hoping this stranger was gay. She was probably just another theater tourist in town for the weekend, not, as Sophie had immediately fantasized, an angel from Providence sent to rock her world.

  The woman smiled warmly at her, acknowledging with a nod that she too recognized her.

  Ellie came by to take Sophie’s order just as the door opened and a small, fresh-faced person with shaggy red hair bounded in and darted to the twins’ table. Ellie gawked, open-mouthed, at the little freckled urchin. She seemed completely transfixed, her hand poised in midair as if she’d been turned to stone. Sophie waited a few seconds, watching Ellie with perplexed curiosity, before tugging lightly on her sleeve. Ellie roused herself and her eyes gradually focused on Sophie.

  “I’m ready to order,” Sophie said.

  “Okay,” Ellie said distractedly, but before Sophie could utter a word, she was off like an iron filing to a magnet, darting to the twins’ table. “Hi,” she said, taking hold of the boy’s hand and shaking it, “I’m Ellie. Are you staying for lunch?”

  “No!” interjected the male twin. “He’s just leaving.”

  The boy smiled sheepishly, then was gone, out the door in the blink of an eye. Ellie wandered slowly back to Sophie’s table, her eyes on the door.

  “Did you see that beautiful boy?” she asked.

  Stunned, Sophie studied Ellie’s face, seeing a look there that was completely unfamiliar, a look of enchantment. Was it possible that at the age of thirty, Ellie had suddenly seen the face of love? And was it possible that the face of love was a skinny, redheaded pixie?

  After Ellie took her order and disappeared into the kitchen, Sophie glanced again at the young woman and her brother. Odd that she and Ellie were having the same experience today. Sophie hadn’t felt this sort of elemental attraction to anyone for a long time, certainly not since moving back home. Despite a momentary fantasy, she didn’t want to encourage it. She didn’t want to invite all of those severe and tormenting feelings back into her life. She’d been feeling such a sense of peace here, as if she’d recovered herself after being lost for years.

  She didn’t miss her old life or any of the people in it. Except now and then, on a warm night when she couldn’t sleep, she missed the closeness of a woman. Just loneliness, that’s all it was, the type of undirected loneliness that came along on a summer breeze and lingered for a few hours before it blew away again.

  CHAPTER SIX

  O, she did so course o’er my exteriors with such a greedy intention,

  that the appetite of her eye did seem to scorch me up like a burning-glass!

  —The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act I, Scene 2

  “That boy idolizes me,” Raven said after the pixieish Max had gone. “If he ever does get a chance to be on stage, you’ll see, he’ll use all my tricks. I’ve taught him how to walk, how to talk, how to bat his eyes. He wouldn’t make a bad Beatrice, not at all. But for now he’ll have to be content with being billed as A Boy.”

  Wren turned to look at Sophie again. She thought her smile, which seemed a bit self-conscious, was adorable. They each held one another’s gaze for a moment. Wren was transfixed by those piercing blue-gray eyes.

  “What are you looking at?” Raven asked, irritated that he was no longer the center of attention.

  “Oh,” Wren said, setting her fork down. “Sorry.” She lowered her voice. “That woman by the window is the one who fell outside the theater earlier.”

  He glanced at Sophie. “Ah, so it is.” He gave her a tiny wave. Then he looked back at his sister. “What were we talking about? Oh, yes, set design. You’re going to be impressed. I know you’re used to great theater. San Francisco, well, what do you expect, right? But I don’t think you’ll find much to scoff at.”

  “I have no intention of scoffing,” Wren assured him. “I’m expecting brilliance.”

  “You don’t need to go that far. You’ll make me nervous. But thank you.” Raven smiled in that charmingly ingratiating way he had, creating dimples.

  She reached over and pinched his cheek. “I’m very proud of you.”

  Wren caught Sophie’s eye again. Sophie smiled, this time more fully, then she self-consciously tucked her hair behind her ear and turned her attention to the people passing by on the sidewalk. Wren wondered what it was about this stranger that intrigued her so much. She was attractive, but not beautiful, not the sort of beautiful that would turn heads on the street. Her beauty was centered in her eyes, in the depth of expression there. And in the way she moved her head and her long-fingered hands, with deliberation and grace.

  Wren realized Raven was talking to her. She looked at him, startled to find him making a grimacing face at her.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I just said I’m treating you to lunch.” He waved the bill at her. “And you don’t have the decency to say thank you.”
>
  “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you. Thank you! You’re a sweet, super awesome brother!”

  “That’s better.” He glanced at Sophie, then back at Wren, raising one eyebrow à la Mister Spock. “Is there something interesting going on here?”

  She waved her hand dismissively. “No. Nothing.”

  “Methinks it were something, lady.” He folded his hands over one another on the table, looking smug. “I know that distracted look.”

  She shook her head. “She’s just interesting looking, that’s all. She’s probably straight.”

  He pursed his lips together thoughtfully, looking surreptitiously at Sophie. “I don’t know. This might be a lesbian hangout. A vegetarian restaurant. Possibilities there. If they’ve got hummus on the menu, that cinches it. Do you remember seeing hummus?”

  “Hummus?” blurted Wren. “What you know about lesbians could fit in a fairy’s pocket.”

  “Oh!” He looked offended. “Nay, sister, not so. I say she’s family.”

  Wren glanced again at Sophie, who was still staring out the window. “You think so?”

  “I do.”

  Wren shook her head. “Look, it doesn’t matter.”

  “You don’t want to go over and talk to her? I’ll make myself scarce.”

  “No,” she said firmly. “Why are you so concerned about my love life?”

  “I just don’t want you to be lonely and sad,” he explained. “With only your vibrator for company.”

  She stared.

  He shrugged. “Kyle found it when he was cleaning your room.”

  Her mouth dropped open.

  “I hate to think of you alone in your room,” he said, looking forlorn, “just you and your limited supply of batteries...”

  “Then don’t think about it!”

  He laughed. “Believe me, I don’t want to!”

  “And tell Kyle to stay out of my room!” She wiped her mouth and put the napkin in her plate. “Are we ready to go?”

  “Yeah. Too bad you aren’t writing a review of this place. Then we’d get dessert.”

  “Maybe next time. My column’s done for this week.”