by Joanne Fluke
Chapter Three
Hannah gave a relieved sigh as she glanced down at her shorthand notebook. “All right. I’ve got seven desserts to try. Which one do you think I should bake for the hometown challenge?”
“None of them.”
Hannah, Lisa, and Michelle turned to stare at Aunt Nancy in confusion. “None of them?” Hannah repeated.
“That’s right. The first night is really important. You’ll need something that’ll knock their socks off.”
“You’re absolutely right,” Delores said, smiling at Aunt Nancy. “Hannah simply has to win the hometown challenge.” She turned to Hannah. “Just think about the business it’ll bring to Lake Eden if you win, dear. They’ll be shopping in the stores. Claire’s Beau Monde is every bit as classy as a New York boutique. And Claire is a real person, not at all snooty the way most of those pseudo-French salesladies are.”
“That’s true,” Hannah conceded the point, “but they’ll probably be staying at the Lake Eden Inn for the entire time they’re here. They may not even come into town.”
“They’ll come into town,” Andrea said, taking up the argument. “There’s not much to do out at the Lake Eden Inn. It’s way out on the other side of Eden Lake. You can’t swim this time of year and winter hasn’t really hit yet. There’s not enough ice to go ice fishing or skating, and it’s not the season for regular fishing. The lake’s beautiful, but you can only take so many walks around the lake. And that means they’ll be bored silly, especially since you said most of them are from big cities.”
“That’s right.” Hannah looked down at her notes again. “They’re from Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and Atlanta. I’m the only one from a small town.”
“Big cities have entertainment. The Lake Eden Inn is nice, don’t get me wrong. You can sleep in a beautiful room, eat great food, and drink fine wine, but that’s about it. You can’t cross-country ski, or go on the snowmobile trails if there’s no snow yet. And there’s no snow right now.”
“Andrea’s right,” Michelle said. “They’re going to get bored out there by the lake. If we can figure out some way to provide transportation, they’ll come into town at least a couple of times. I’m sure of it.”
Delores put her cell phone down. There was a smug expression on her face as she turned to Hannah. “Ross agrees,” she said. “I just texted him, and he said it was bound to bring business to Lake Eden. He said the film crew from the Food Channel works hard and they play hard, too. They’ll come into town to go bowling, hang out at the Red Velvet Lounge at the Albion Hotel, and do some background shots of your hometown. They’ll probably even interview some locals.”
Hannah stared at her mother in shock. “You sent a text message to Ross before I even had time to tell him about it?”
“Well . . .” Delores equivocated for a moment and then she nodded. “Yes, I did. I had no idea you hadn’t told Ross. He’s your fiancé. Why didn’t you tell him before you told us?”
There was no way that Hannah wanted to say that she hadn’t even thought of it, so she simply sighed. “I didn’t want to bother him at work. I was going to tell him tonight when I saw him for dinner. Really, Mother! It’s not like we’re joined at the hip.”
“I see,” Delores said, and everyone around the table, including Hannah, realized that the mother of the bride thought that her daughter was in the wrong.
Hannah turned to Andrea. “When you were engaged to Bill, would you have sent him a message telling him that the competition had been moved up before you told anyone else?”
Andrea looked down at the table. It was clear she didn’t want to meet Hannah’s eyes. “I don’t know,” she said.
“It’s a moot point,” Michelle pointed out. “They didn’t have text messaging then.”
“But they had phones,” Hannah argued, zeroing in on Andrea again. “Would you have called Bill, even at work, if something like this had happened to you?”
“Uh . . . well . . .” Andrea paused and the expression on her face resembled that of a rabbit trapped by a much larger predator. “I’m really not sure, but . . . maybe?”
“Was that a question?” Hannah asked.
Andrea sighed again. And then she took a deep breath. “Yes, I would have called Bill right away. But . . . it’s different for you, Hannah.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean . . . you’re older. You’re established. You’re more . . . secure with yourself. You don’t need the constant approval from Ross that I needed from Bill.”
Hannah wasn’t sure she liked what Andrea was implying, but she did understand. “You think I’m more capable of making my own decisions and I don’t need a husband the way you needed Bill.”
This time, it was definitely a statement and no one said a word. Except Andrea, who gave a nod and said, “Yes. That’s it, Hannah. You’re much more self-reliant than I was at nineteen.”
“Okay,” Hannah said, and reached out to pat her sister’s hand. “I ought to be more self-sufficient. I’m more than ten years older than you were when you got married.”
“And she wasn’t even preg—” Michelle stopped short and shot a guilty glance at Delores. “Sorry.”
“And I’m not either,” Hannah said, glaring at her, and then the humor of the situation got to her and she smiled. “Sorry. Grandma Knudson hit me with the same thing this morning. I really didn’t realize that people would think I was . . . you know.” There was an uncomfortable silence, and then Hannah went on, “Grandma Knudson is going to make sure that all the money people bet on the birthdate of the nonexistent baby is given to charity.”
“Good! It serves those people right!” Delores looked outraged. “I, for one, never thought for a minute that . . .”
“Of course we didn’t!” Andrea jumped in. “It was just that it was so sudden and nobody expected it, and . . .”
“And you shocked the pants off everybody in Lake Eden,” Michelle finished.
“Michelle!” Delores turned to give her the glance that all three of her daughters called Mother’s icy glare of death.
“Well, she did,” Michelle defended herself. “Nobody in Lake Eden ever thought she’d make up her mind. You know that, Mother.”
Delores didn’t bother to reply, but the flush on her cheeks, coming through under her makeup, was answer enough for Hannah.
“Back to the recipes,” Lisa said, rescuing all of them from a difficult discussion. “What do you think Hannah should bake first, Aunt Nancy?”
“Patience, Lisa. I need more information from Hannah before I can answer that. Who are the judges, Hannah?”
“There are five of them.” Hannah looked down at her notebook. “Jeremy Zales is the first one. He won some kind of prestigious award.”
“The Golden Knife,” Aunt Nancy said. “It’s almost as important as the James Beard Award.”
“Another judge is La Vonna Brach.”
“She writes cookbooks,” Aunt Nancy informed her. “They’re the kind of little paperbacks you can find at grocery store checkout counters, and they’re extremely popular. She’s written over a hundred. It says so on the front cover.”
“Are they any good?” Andrea asked her.
“Surprisingly, yes. Sometimes those little books are worthless, but I’ve followed some of her recipes and they work perfectly. I’ve been collecting her cookbooks for at least five years and I have two shelves of them in the bedroom. Heiti says I’d better stop collecting before I run out of wall space.”
Lisa frowned slightly. “Haiti? Like the country?”
“That’s how it’s pronounced, but it’s spelled differently. Heiti is an Estonian name. That’s where his ancestors come from.”
“But who is this Heiti?”
“He’s a friend I met at church and he’s building my bookshelves. Heiti’s a fine carpenter. You’ll have to come over to see them. He also restores classic cars and he’s promised to fix the old Thunderbird in my garage.”
“He lives a
round here?” Lisa looked a bit nervous about her aunt’s friend.
“He does now. He moved here from Connecticut.” Aunt Nancy addressed Hannah, and it was obvious that she wanted to change the subject. “Who’s the third judge, Hannah?”
“The third judge is Helene Stone.”
“I’ve never heard of her,” Aunt Nancy said, turning to Michelle. “Can you find out more about her on that phone of yours?”
“I’m already Googling her.” There was a brief pause, and then Michelle read the information on her screen. “Helene Stone is a well-known purveyor of gourmet ingredients. She has a small store in New York that carries exotic spices and imported vegetables and fruits.”
“Who’s the fourth judge?” Delores asked.
Hannah referred to her notebook again. “Christian Parker.”
“I know who he is!” Andrea said with a smile. “He has his own show on the Food Channel. He seems very nice, Hannah.”
“You watch the Food Channel?” Hannah tried not to look as shocked as she felt. To put it nicely, Andrea was culinarily challenged. The closest she came to preparing a gourmet meal was when she made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
“Yes, I do watch the Food Channel. It’s Tracey’s favorite channel, and she loves Christian Parker’s show. We watch every weekday when she gets home from school. It’s our private mother-daughter alone time.”
Hannah knew she shouldn’t ask, but she had to know. “Have you learned anything about cooking?”
“Yes!” Andrea pointed to the foil-covered platter in the center of the counter. “That’s where I got the idea for my newest whippersnapper cookies.”
“Christian Parker made whippersnappers?” Delores asked.
“No, but what he said about chips made me want to try some whippersnappers that way.”
“He’s an excellent chef,” Aunt Nancy said. “What did he say about chips?”
“He said to mix and match them in cookies. His example was peanut butter cookies with peanut butter chips, milk chocolate chips, and dark chocolate chips. Would you like to taste my Chips Galore Whippersnapper Cookies? I brought some with me.”
“We would!” Delores answered for all of them, and Hannah was glad. So far, Andrea had only made one type of cookie, but everyone, including her husband, hoped that her experimentation with baking would spread out to include additional successful culinary efforts.
Lisa jumped up to fill their cups and fetch fresh napkins. Even though they’d already had two of Hannah’s Molasses Crackles, there was always room to taste one more cookie.
“These are just great, Andrea,” Hannah said after her first bite. “You chopped the chips up in little pieces.”
“That was Christian Parker’s idea. He said that if the chips are in smaller pieces, you get different flavors of chips in each bite.”
“I really like these,” Hannah said, reaching out to take another cookie from the platter to prove it. “They’re good, Andrea. You’ll give me the recipe, won’t you?”
“Of course. And you’ll use it here in The Cookie Jar?”
“We will. I think our customers will love these, especially the peanut butter and chocolate fanatics.”
Andrea looked very happy. “So everybody likes them?”
Delores laughed. “I’ve eaten two already, and I’m about to go for my third. They’re wonderful, dear.”
“Yes, they are.” Aunt Nancy took another cookie, and then she turned to Hannah. “Didn’t you say there were five judges?”
“Yes. The fifth judge is Alain Duquesne. I don’t know anything about him.”
“I do,” Andrea said. “He was a guest chef on Chef Christian’s show and he was really picky. He didn’t like the way Chef Christian sautéed all the vegetables together. He said that each vegetable should be sautéed separately to get the full flavors.”
“He said that on someone else’s show?” Aunt Nancy began to frown when Andrea nodded. “He’s known for being very critical, but it wasn’t even his show!”
“That’s what Tracey said. She said the only reason he was there was because Chef Christian had invited him and it was wrong to criticize your host.”
“That’s very adult of her,” Delores commented.
“It certainly is,” Aunt Nancy agreed, and then she turned to Hannah again. “You’ve named all five judges. Which one is the head judge?”
“Alain Duquesne.”
“That’s a stroke of bad luck,” Aunt Nancy said, wearing the same expression she would have worn if she’d tasted something unpleasant. “He’s a nasty know-it-all. And his recipes aren’t worth the powder to blow them up!”
Hannah burst into laughter. She couldn’t help it. Aunt Nancy looked terribly irate. “Sorry. I’ve just never heard you be so disapproving of anyone before. And what you said about his recipes was really funny.”
“Well, it’s true. They’re unnecessarily complicated, incredibly time-consuming, and the results don’t warrant that amount of work. The man doesn’t know what shortcut means! Of course he’s got as many assistants as he wants to do all the prep work and clean up his mess.”
“Do you know him personally?” Lisa asked, gazing at her aunt in something very close to awe.
“You could say that. He was born less than five miles from my parents’ farm, and I went to school with him. Of course his name wasn’t Alain Duquesne then. He changed it when he became an important celebrity chef.”
“What was his name back then?” Michelle asked.
“Allen Duke. He was the youngest of three children and his mother babied him. He grew up thinking that he was better than anyone else.”
Hannah was silent for a moment, and then she asked, “Did he have any favorite foods?”
“I see where you’re headed, and it won’t do you a parcel of good.” Aunt Nancy shook her head. “Allen doesn’t really like food. When he was in third grade, he brought a peanut butter sandwich and a thermos of milk to school every day for lunch. And he never tried to trade with any of the other kids whose mothers packed different sandwiches and home-baked cookies.”
“He didn’t have dessert?” Lisa looked shocked.
“Yes, he did. Allen always had a little bowl of Jell-O or butterscotch pudding, the kind you can buy ready-made in the grocery store. He was crazy about Jell-O and butterscotch pudding.”
“He ate them every day?” Andrea asked, and Hannah could tell she was surprised.
“Almost every school day, or at least every day that I was in the lunchroom with him. And I’m willing to bet that he had Jell-O or butterscotch pudding for dessert on the weekends, too. My mother always said that Allen’s mother wasn’t much of a cook.”
Hannah jotted that down. She wasn’t sure if it would come in handy, but it was a piece of personal information about the head judge. “Is there anything else you remember about him?” she asked Aunt Nancy. “I really need an edge for the hometown challenge.”
“I have that covered,” Aunt Nancy declared, looking very proud of herself. “I think you should bake something that Chef Alain Duquesne loves, but something he never could bake successfully.”
“What’s that?”
“A white chocolate soufflé. He adores soufflés, and he’s crazy about white chocolate. I saw him interviewed on television and he mentioned that it was the one dessert he had trouble baking.”
“Aren’t soufflés difficult to bake?” Lisa asked.
“Normally, yes. I tried to perfect a chocolate soufflé for years,” Aunt Nancy admitted. “But then my friend Anne Elizabeth gave me a never-fail recipe.” She turned to Hannah. “That’s what you can bake for the hometown challenge.”
“A chocolate soufflé?”
“Yes, but not just any chocolate. You should make yours white chocolate. Allen loves soufflés, and he’s crazy about white chocolate. I’m convinced that’ll bring you right back here to Lake Eden for the next Food Channel challenge.”
“Perfect!” Delores told her. And then sh
e turned to Hannah. “What’s the next challenge, dear?”
Hannah glanced down at her notebook. “The cake challenge.”
“Wonderful!” Aunt Nancy clapped her hands. “I’ve got that one covered, too. The Allen I knew in high school was a dyed-in-the-wool romantic. As a matter of fact, when we were older, he took me to the senior prom.”
“So he was your high school boyfriend?” Delores asked.
“Oh, no. Not at all. Allen wasn’t anyone’s boyfriend. He had someone he spent time with, but that wasn’t exactly a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship. Allen was too in love with himself to love anyone else.”
“If you felt that way about him, why did you go to the prom with him?” Hannah asked.
“I wanted to go and I didn’t have a date. And Allen wanted to go so that he could show off in a white tuxedo. No one had ever worn a white tuxedo to a prom before. And he wanted his date to wear the black dress and long black gloves that Audrey Hepburn wore in Break fast at Tiffany’s because it would complement his white tuxedo so well. Allen fancied himself as a trendsetter.”
“Do you think he’s still that way?” Lisa asked.
“Oh, yes. You can tell that by the food he creates. I wouldn’t want to eat some of his meals, but they’re very successful and trendy. That man can put together the most unusual ingredients and make people eat them and rave about it.”
Delores began to frown. “I’d like to know more about that prom. Did Allen go shopping with you to help you choose your prom dress?”
“Yes, and no. He handed me a photo of Audrey Hepburn wearing the dress and he asked me if I could sew a dress just like it if he paid for the material. And since I’d always loved to sew and I was good at it, I said, ‘Yes, of course I can. What size do you need?’ And I still remember how he leaned back and looked at me critically. I got the feeling he could see right through my clothes, and it made me terribly uncomfortable. I was about to tell him to forget it, that I couldn’t make a dress like that after all, when he said, ‘You’ll do if you wear your hair up like it is in the picture. And I’ll buy the gloves. Make the dress in your size.’ And then he asked me to be his date for the prom.”
