“Let me do that,” he said as soon as he’d donned his apron.
Jamie relinquished the dough bowl with a muttered, “Another batch fell on me.”
“It’s this atrocious weather,” Marco muttered back. “Why don’t you give it a go? I’ve got the chicken breasts to grill or we won’t be ready for lunch.”
“No lunch pie today?” Marco had leaned out to scan the menu board. Jamie’s sour look silenced him and he went about measuring the dough ingredients.
No, Jamie wanted to snap, there was no lunch pie today, just like there had been no breakfast pie this morning and no apple pie last night. No pie at all yesterday and not the day before. One could not make pie without pie dough. The flat, tasteless, cardboard-textured shingle she’d been rolling out lately did not resemble pie dough. So no pies.
She hadn’t been able to make a decent pie or bread since she’d gotten back from New York. Not that that had anything to do with it.
Jamie tried to hide how peeved she was when she congratulated Marco later on the beautifully fluffy, succulent rolls he produced. He had used the same ingredients she had. Her pride would not let him make the pie dough as well—at least not yet. She wondered how she had offended the baking gods and went back to work.
At the end of the long, frustrating day, Jamie clumped up the stairs to the third floor where she and Val shared a bedroom and each had separate offices. The rooms had the slight echo they always did when Val was away. The charm of the master bedroom that Val had so carefully renovated failed to lift Jamie’s spirits. Even a long soak in the large clawfoot tub didn’t revive her much.
Her own days were usually so busy she rarely had time to miss Val, but everything about the inn made her think of Val tonight.Val was often gone for one to two-month stints, taping her cable show in Los Angeles studios and making personal appearances around the country as Valkyrie Valentine, “VV,” home improvement expert and chef. The months would usually fly by and then Val would be back for a couple of months to work on the inn or a book or whatever project she had taken into her head.
Val was definitely making a name for herself, which was why three weeks’ taping for a special series had been arranged in New York. Jamie had had a good time visiting Now York and watching Val do her thing live. The brief vacation coincided with the slowest tourist time of year in Mendocino—early February. Back at home she’d been greeted by rain and the worst case of the doldrums she’d ever experienced.
She punched a pillow viciously and closed her eyes. Just as she fell asleep she remembered Val sparkling in front of the live audience, doing a guest cooking spot on a very popular talk show. The host, widely reputed to be a lesbian, seemed enchanted with Val, praising her high protein-low-fat burritos to the skies. Who didn’t love Val? The leather tool belt, the chef’s apron, the luscious lips, the silky hair...
A creaking floorboard startled Jamie awake. She fumbled for the bedside light but couldn’t find the switch. “It’s only me.”
“Val!” Jamie bolted out of bed and bodily tackled the dark figure approaching the bed. They thudded to the floor and Jamie straddled Val’s waist. “A day early! God I’ve missed you!”
“Same here—take that off. Let me—”
“I got it—the zipper’s stuck, there it goes…oh…” Val’s hands on her body had never felt so good. Jamie
surrendered her T-shirt in spite of the cold and savored Val’s warm fingers as they raised goosebumps on her back. Her own fingers seemed stiff and frozen as she fumbled with Val’s shirt buttons. The shock of her bare breasts against Val’s was satisfyingly arousing and Jamie buried her lips in the hollow below Val’s ear.
Val’s throaty laugh was a symphony to Jamie. “You did miss me, didn’t you?”
“You know I did,” Jamie answered. She cupped Val’s face in the dark. “It feels wonderful just to touch you.”
Val drew Jamie’s hands down to her breasts. “You’ll get no arguments here.”
After a thorough exploration of Val’s shoulders and breasts with her fingers and mouth, Jamie let Val persuade her that the bed would be more comfortable.
“Let me,” she whispered, when Val would have rolled on top of her. Val trembled as Jamie’s teasing fingers found their way between her legs.
“I don’t think so—not tonight.” Val leveraged one leg under Jamie’s thighs and tumbled Jamie onto her back. “I’ve missed you—you don’t know how much.”
“Yes I do.” Jamie all at once felt free as the wind. “I’ve been cursed by bad weather and bad yeast, but now you’re home.”
Val kissed her quickly and said, “Stay right there.” She scrambled off the bed and began rustling through her traveling knapsack.
“What are you doing? Come back to bed.” Jamie sat up. “You got me on my back. Promises were made.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Val muttered. “Where…here it is. Okay, back on your back, missy.”
“Make me,” Jamie challenged.
She did not mind Val’s demonstration that she was taller and stronger, but was quite surprised when Val picked something up off the floor. She heard the sound of a jar being opened. “What are you doing?”
“Special recipe.” Val knelt astride Jamie’s hips and raised the jar.
Something cold plopped onto Jamie’s stomach and she let out a startled shriek. “Val!”
“Breathe in,” Val whispered.
Summertime and peaches filled Jamie’s nostrils and lungs. She inhaled the scent of honeysuckle, and the dreary February rain was gone.
Val’s hands were spreading the aromatic concoction over Jamie’s stomach and breasts. Jamie put her hands on top of Val’s and encountered something not quite sticky, not quite oily.
She could see Val dipping her index finger into the jar. She extended a dollop of the contents toward Jamie. Without hesitation Jamie took Val’s finger in her mouth, letting her tongue take its time as it tasted Val’s creation. Definitely pieces of peach suspended in a slippery substance that melted from the heat of Jamie’s body. It was delicious and sensuous. “What is it?”
“Something I worked on while thinking about you.” She smeared more across Jamie’s cheeks, then down her throat.
“Peaches, obviously. Freestone?”
“Mm-hmm.” Val began massaging Jamie’s hips and ribs.
“Gelatin, flavored with a noble wine?”
“Mm-hmm.” Val’s tongue began a lazy journey from Jamie’s belly button to her throat.
“Honeysuckle-infused oil?”
“You’re good,” Val murmured.
“And so good for you,” Jamie giggled. “It’s making an awful mess.”
“Sure is,” and Val covered Jamie’s body with her own. Val’s hands were everywhere and her mouth followed. Everywhere Jamie kissed she found the taste of Val’s skin mingling with peaches and wine. They were slick against each other and Jamie felt drunk on the promise of summer.
Jamie opened her eyes to bright sunshine. Her first thought was that the rain had stopped, at least. No fog, no clouds. The sun had welcomed Val home. A glance at the bedside clock confirmed that her alarm had not gone off two hours ago as it ought to have done. She found she had to peel the sheets off her now decidedly sticky body. It had been more than effective last night, but was distinctly gross in the morning.
There was no sign of Val, but her bathrobe was damp. Jamie quickly showered as well and stripped the bed. She found the forgotten jar of the peach stuff on the floor. Val had written, “For Jamie” on the jar lid.
She blinked back happy tears and went downstairs to find Val.
She discovered her kitchen bustling with activity. Marco was whisking something in the large copper bowl and flirting outrageously with an oblivious Jeff O’Rhuan. Jeff, general handyman when he wasn’t fishing, was devouring what looked like Belgian waffles. Val was rolling out a thick dough that glistened with butter. Using cookie cutters, she pressed out stars and carefully transferred them to baking sheets.
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“Is that your very own Starbread?” Jamie went on tiptoe to kiss the back of Val’s neck.
“You betcha. I felt like making it.”
The dough was perfect: pliant, puffed and fragrant with rosemary and salt. “And what are you making for lunch, oh lovely chef? It might be February, but we still get customers.” She glanced through the kitchen pass-through. Dar was filling salt shakers and chatting with a couple of regulars who stopped in for coffee and breakfast pie every now and again.
Breakfast pie—they were eating breakfast pie. “Did you make pie?”
“Yeah,” Val said. “You were zonked out. I went with the bacon-cheddar combo and used half eggs and egg substitute.”
Jamie examined the half-eaten slice sitting in front of Jeff. The crust looked…perfect.
“It’s awesome,” Jeff offered.
“Of course it is,” Val said tartly. “It came from the kitchen of the Waterview Inn.” She slid the baking sheets into the oven and set the timer. From there Val went to the walk-in refrigerator and returned with two different ground meats and several large sirloins. “We’re having Mendo chili on the lunch menu, with Starbread, of course.
Jamie watched Val move about, setting out frying pans and the chili pot. She’d accurately gauged the amount of food they’d need for the off-season lunch demands. Three years ago Val hadn’t known the difference between salt and sugar, and now she could run the kitchen as well as Jamie had ever done.
Marco handed over the whipped egg whites in the copper bowl and took over dicing the sirloin. Val spooned some of the contents of the large mixing bowl into the egg Whites, stirred gently, then folded the rest back into the mixer. “Spice cream cake—Em’s recipe,” she announced.
Jamie had nothing to do and it was a very strange sensation. “I’ll watch the meats,” she said quickly, and she took over frying the bacon until it crumbled, then browning the ground pork and beef for the chili.
Jeff went off to mend nets with his father and Marco sighed. “That boy will never notice me.”
“Keep feeding him,” Jamie said. “I’ve never known Jeff to respond to anything else. Well, food and fishing.”
“I hate boats,” Marco bemoaned.
“You may be star-crossed, in that case,” Val pronounced. “What about the guy who always orders whatever it is you made?”
“He hasn’t been in for three weeks,” Jamie said. “How depressing.”
“Tell me about it.” Marco dumped the last of the sirloin into one of the frying pans Jamie was tending.
Their friend Liesel dropped in a few minutes later, greeting Val with enthusiasm and an invitation for evening snacks to catch up on her travels and adventures. She kissed Jamie almost as an afterthought, but then, she saw Jamie every day. “I really stopped in because Jeff O’Rhuan just asked me the most interesting question, Marco.”
“Oh yeah?” Marco paused in the midst of washing his hands. “About me?”
“It seems that Jeff isn’t quite sure that you’re interested in him.”
“What?”
Jamie chortled. “He only drapes himself on Jeff every morning, scurrying about with fresh coffee and fresh cream and reheating his breakfast if it gets cold.”
“I do not. It’s not that bad.”
“He’s just not sure you’re gay.”
“What!”
They were all laughing now. “Jeff is not a subtle person,” Jamie finally said. “Perhaps he’s just missed the signs.”
They all looked at Marco. Marco shrugged. Just standing still he screamed, gay, gay, gay!
It was a mystery.
Val lowered her voice so as not to be heard in the dining room. “Perhaps you need to wear an Assmaster T-shirt.”
Marco flicked his wet fingers at her.
Jamie smelled something burning and with horror turned back to the stove. “Good God almighty!” The bacon was beyond crisp: it was carbonized. “I don’t believe this.”
Val went to the freezer for more bacon while Jamie dumped the contents of the pan. “Want me to do the next batch?”
“I can do it,” Jamie muttered. She kept her eye on the bacon every minute, even when Liesel left and two women who ran a shop down the street came in because they’d heard there was breakfast pie again. Val’s breakfast pie. They raved.
With one hundred percent of her attention, the bacon was fine. Val stirred it into the chili, and the savory aroma seemed to drag people in from the street. The Starbread was melt-inyour-mouth perfect. The spice cream cake was gone in the first half-hour, so Val made more.
That afternoon, when Jamie’s roasted tomato and red pepper ragout scorched, Val quickly made Welsh meatloaf while Jamie rewrote the menu board. Jamie’s crackerbread had no crunch for some reason, though Val’s came out crisp and golden. By the end of the night Jamie wanted to cry while Val looked more and more like the goddess of cuisine. The chef’s apron, the sparkling eyes, the tall, slender physique. Val looked just as lovely and charming and talented as she had on that talk show, where the wildly popular, often-rumored lesbian host loved everything Val had made.
When the dinner crowd noticeably thinned Jamie gave up all pretense at cooking. She scrubbed pots—the ones she had personally burnt, scorched and bent were the hardest.
Liesel, Aunt Emily’s lover for most of Jamie’s growing up years, loved hearing about Val’s travels and tapings. They shared Liesel’s light-as-air savory cheese dumplings floating in a simple onion broth as Val described the celebrities she’d rubbed shoulders with, no matter how briefly, and the food she’d sampled and concocted in the course of taping her television show.
The VV brand, which was how Warnell Communications referred to Val, was catching on. Her combination home repair, decorating and cookery books had strong sales, and Warnell was running numbers around launching a VV magazine. VV’s unique demographics appealed strongly to younger single women with no children. Disposable income was what the advertisers were after.
“It does intrude,” Val said, in response to Liesel’s question. “I just want to do what I do—I don’t want to worry about who is watching the show or not, and if they have babies or not. That’s Sheila’s job. But she thinks I should care passionately about all that, and I don’t.”
“Are she and Kathy still together?”
“If you can call it together. They have a different kind of relationship, that’s for sure. Kathy loves being Sheila’s hostess, that’s obvious. But they hardly sleep together.”
“How do you know?” Jamie sipped the soup and watched Val’s face. Jamie had wasted years of her life wishing Kathy would stop being a spoiled brat and realize that Jamie was offering her real love. It had been the outrageous Sheila Thintowski who had finally broken through Kathy’s denial.
“Sheila told me. Sheila tells me everything about her private life. Who she sleeps with, who she just has quickies with, who she wants—”
“That includes you, of course,” Jamie said. She hadn’t meant to sound so bitter about it.
“Of course.” Val was smiling understandingly at her. “That’s never going to change, but believe me, every year Sheila gets less and less appealing.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Jamie said tartly.
Val’s response was an indulgent wink. “I’ll mention it more often, if you like.”
Liesel patted Jamie’s hand as if comforting a child. “The rules are different in Los Angeles and New York. Fortunately, Val only commutes there.”
Four or five months out of the year, Jamie wanted to add.
“Sheila’s in New York most of the time, anyway. We do conference calls for the most part.”
“Jamie, I almost forgot,” Liesel said. “I was cleaning out the old dresser and found this. I don’t think you ever saw it.”
Liesel laid a photograph on the table. The edges were yellow, but the central figures were bright and clear.
Jamie caught her breath. Aunt Em’s beloved face was one of the three picture
d. “I don’t think I ever saw it. When was it taken?”
“Near as I can tell, I took that the summer I met Em. It was just after you came to live with her, too.”
Jamie looked at her eight-year-old face and then Kathy’s. They’d been happy together as children.
“You look adorable,” Val said. “You all do. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Emily this young in a picture before.”
Liesel touched Aunt Em’s face gently. “She was so handsome.”
Jamie nodded. “I so wanted to be just like her.”
“You’re more like her than you realize,” Liesel said. “More than you give yourself credit for.”
“Even Kathy looks happy,” Val observed. “Was that before she turned into a bitch?”
Jamie laughed. “Yes, definitely before that. She was just a bitch because she was scared. Every time she turned around I was there, puppy-eyed and wanting to be loved. It must have been excruciating for her at times, especially in high school. She wasn’t strong enough to come out to herself.”
“Hardly an excuse to be a bitch in your thirties,” Val said dryly. “She wouldn’t let Liesel live with you guys, after all.”
“That’s all old water under the bridge,” Liesel said gently. “Em was just trying to be a good mother.”
“She was a great mother to me,” Jamie said. Her own mother had left her with Emily, a virtual stranger, and hadn’t returned for over twenty-five years. Jamie had found all the love and stability she craved in Aunt Em’s house.
Val coiled one hand around Jamie’s. “You turned out wonderfully.”
Jamie rolled her eyes. “Flattery? What exactly are you after?”
Val waggled her eyebrows promisingly. “I was away a long time.”
“Then get yourselves home.” Liesel shooed them away from the table. “I’ve kept you up late enough as it is.”
“Morning at the Waterview does come early,” Val said. “Though I love it. It felt so good to get busy in there this morning.”
“She let me sleep in,” Jamie volunteered, though she was still bothered by how useless she had felt. Burning the bacon— how clumsy was that?
“Now that’s good for you. You should just close for February, like some of the other places do. Go someplace warm.” Liesel was still offering similar advice when they waved good-bye and walked up the wooden sidewalk toward home.
Frosting on the Cake Page 14
