by Mindy Klasky
CHAPTER 13
MELISSA SET HER right fist against her left palm. “One, two, three,” she said.
Scissors.
I tried to fold the “paper” of my flattened hand into a rock, but she closed her fingers around mine, sawing hers in a time-honored motion. “Scissors cut paper.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, none too happy. “I know. I will see Clara again. I promise. It was just too much—the cult thing, and the crystal, and the way her eyes were exactly like mine.”
“That was a little creepy, wasn’t it?” And that’s when I knew that Melissa would let this thing rest. She’d let me figure out how to meet Clara again, on my own timetable.
For now, though, we had bigger fish to fry. So to speak. As it were.
Jason Templeton was arriving for dinner in four short hours.
I’d taken the afternoon off work, and Melissa had stepped up to the plate with the unprecedented act of closing the bakery to come to my aid. We’d spent the better part of the past week—when we weren’t dissecting every second of the disaster that had been my reunion with Clara—planning a menu.
Against Melissa’s advice, I’d decided to go with a colonial theme. Eighteenth-century delicacies. Things that would show that I was an intellectual woman, not just an infatuated librarian.
The problem was, tastes had changed a bit in the past two-hundred odd years.
I hadn’t had any trouble finding sample menus. The Peabridge had a huge collection that covered kitchens, gardens, and foodstuffs, along with countless diaries from housewives, butlers, and more than a few men of the house.
I’d spent the better part of Monday plowing through them, reaching up to run my fingers through my unruly hair, consistently forgetting that I wore a satin-ribboned mob cap. I’d spent Tuesday selecting the best candidates, winnowing the possibilities down to a meager half-dozen contenders. I’d spent Wednesday writing up lists of ingredients, organizing the recipes so that I could cook them most efficiently, writing up detailed flowcharts of what needed to be accomplished when.
And I’d spent Thursday freaking out and wondering if this wasn’t the biggest mistake of my entire romantic life.
We were talking about Jason Templeton, after all. The man who was supposed to sit at my table, eat my cooking, stare into my eyes, and realize that we were destined to be together forever.
The man I was meant to spend the rest of my life with. The man who was going to make me forget Scott Randall and his controlling, manipulative, debasing, two-timing ways forever.
I took a deep breath and looked down at my menu one more time. I wasn’t an idiot. I wasn’t about to serve the twelve courses that would have been standard in colonial times. I wasn’t going to offer a half dozen meats, as if this were the Hardy Lumberjack Buffet. I’d keep things simple.
Peanut soup (don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it—it’s really pretty good). Lamb chops (substituting for the mutton that most colonialists would have enjoyed. Have you tried to find mutton in a store these days?). Peas—Thomas Jefferson’s favorite vegetable (it was late in the season to find fresh ones, but Dean and DeLuca, the gourmet grocery in the heart of Georgetown, had finally obliged me—for a price). Sweet potato and pecan muffins—already baked by Melissa. And for dessert, a pear tart.
There. That wasn’t so complicated. Any girl could do it.
My kitchen already looked like a battleground. Every horizontal surface was colonized by herbs and spices. The ingredients for the soup huddled by the toaster. The spices for the lamb mustered by the sink. Fresh peas in the pod assailed the tin table—I could not believe how many I’d needed to buy to make sure I’d have enough once they were shelled and cooked down. The tart looked like it would command the most attention—flour already powdered the countertop, and sugar threatened to dive onto the floor.
Before I could implement my master plan of attack, the front door opened, and Neko waltzed in. My dry cleaning was draped over his arm; I had remembered just in time that I wanted to wear my pleated skirt.
Neko stopped in the doorway to the kitchen, his eyes widening in shock. “You girls better have a lot of alcohol planned.”
Alcohol! Wine! I hadn’t even thought of wine. What sort of hostess would I be, if I didn’t have wine for my guest?
What fit the meal? I ran through a list in my head. Thomas Jefferson had been a francophile; he would have drunk something French—a fine burgundy, most likely. What about George Chesterton? Did I know his wine preferences? Maybe a claret? What the hell was a claret, anyway? And would it go with lamb?
“Neko!” I said, reaching for my wallet. “Please, go buy some wine. Two bottles. You can go to the store down on M Street; they’ll help you choose something right. Make it French. And bold.” I gave him a twenty and watched disbelief twist his face. I extracted another bill from my wallet and folded his fingers around it. “Go on! The wine will need time to breathe!”
Neko pocketed the cash. “I’ll just put your skirt in your closet,” he said.
“No!” I shouted. Melissa jumped at the vehemence of my reply, but Neko wasn’t surprised. “You are not going into my room. You are not getting anywhere near Stupid Fish.” I had managed to change the tetra’s water the weekend before, but not without slapping Neko’s hands on three separate occasions. “Drape the skirt over the couch. I’ll hang it up when I’m done here.”
He shrugged and set down the garment, catching it twice when the plastic wrap threatened to slide to the floor. “Can’t blame a boy for trying.”
“I can very much blame the boy,” I said. My patience was wearing thin. I glanced at the clock. Four hours till Jason arrived. Four hours to make everything perfect. “Please, Neko. Go. And don’t stop off at Roger’s. There isn’t time.”
Neko pouted, but he left.
Four hours definitely wasn’t enough time for Neko to visit Roger. I’d gone to the salon with my enabling familiar on Sunday afternoon, still trying to recover from the fiasco with Clara. I’d decided to get my nails done. Roger had convinced me to splurge on a pedicure, to go along with the manicure I’d already chosen. He’d seduced me with scented lotions and heated towels, and I had luxuriated in every second of the treatment.
And I’d been astonished to realize that Neko and I had wiled away an entire afternoon in the marble and chrome temple to self-indulgence. It was too easy to lose track of time there. Too easy to slip away from responsibility, from the details of daily life.
“So, are you going to begin with the tart?” Melissa’s question tugged me back to reality.
“Yep,” I said, and I took a deep breath. “The crust first, right?”
“Right.” Melissa came to stand beside me. It really was brilliant for me to choose a baker as my best friend. She made all these little details fall into place.
We had decided to go with a gingersnap base—no chance for me to ruin a traditional pie crust by adding too much flour, or by kneading for too long. Besides, the smell of the ginger would brighten the entire house—and gingersnaps were a colonial favorite. Melissa walked me through the details—placing the store-bought cookies (hey, a girl has to take a few shortcuts) into a plastic bag, crushing them with a rolling pin.
It took a surprisingly long time to break them all into perfect crumbs. I was beginning to think that I should have bought one of those pre-made graham cracker crusts. After all, who was going to know the difference?
I would, I chided myself, quickly regaining my senses. And Jason would. He would know that our Founding Fathers (and Mothers) did not have graham crackers. He would know that my meal was not authentic. All the cachet that I hoped to gain with my scholarly feast would be lost.
Besides, once the gingersnaps were crushed, the rest of the crust was easy. I added sugar and shortening and pressed the resulting mixture into a pan.
“There,” Melissa said. “Now, you want to blind bake it for ten minutes.”
“Blind bake?” I asked, picturing a trio of mice in dark glasses.
> “Without the pears. So that the crust gets done.”
Right. I knew that.
I put the crust in the oven, set the timer, and turned back to my friend. She was collecting the last of the dusty peapods from the table. The vegetables themselves were glinting in a bowl, fresh and inviting as summer.
“How did you do that?”
“What?”
“Shell the peas? I was busy over here, and you were giving me advice the entire time. It’s like magic!”
“You took long enough to press the crust into the pan.” She smiled to take the sting from her words. “And speaking of magic, when do I get to see the books?”
“You saw them. Neko brought up the grimoire the other night.”
“I mean all of them. When do I get to see the collection?”
“It’s not like I’m keeping it a secret or anything.” We crossed through the living room, and I turned the key in the basement door’s lock. I’d replaced the lightbulb at the top of the stairs so that we didn’t need candles to light the way.
Melissa exclaimed when she reached the bottom. I still hadn’t found time to put the books in order. Truth be told, I was a little afraid of them. I’d thought of asking Neko to get the collection in shape, but I wasn’t sure what I’d end up with if I put him in charge. Besides, David’s story jangled at the back of my mind. The books were part of Hannah Osgood’s estate. They weren’t really mine. They’d have to be returned to their rightful owners at some point.
“They’re incredible!” Melissa said. “Just smell them!”
She was right about that. They did smell amazing. Leather, and parchment, and a hint of ancient dust. That was the scent that had roped me into libraries in the first place—the magic of the written word, separate and apart from any special powers.
“May I touch them?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Might as well. They’ve definitely been handled in the past.”
She ran her fingers along the spines on the nearest shelf before pulling out one of the larger volumes. Letters were picked out in gold on the cover, and I craned my neck to read along with her: “Elemental Magick.”
She supported the volume with her left hand as she opened the cover, taking care not to spread it too wide. “On Water,” she read. “On its summoning and its banishing.”
“Great. If the basement starts to flood, I’ll have somewhere to turn.”
“You just can’t find good plumbers these days.” We both started to laugh but were interrupted by the triple chirp of my electronic timer up in the kitchen. “Crust is done,” Melissa said, leading the way upstairs.
I reached for the timer as she opened up the oven. She took a half-step back, though, and said, “This oven runs hot.”
“I set it for 350.”
“I see that. It’s probably cooking at around 400, though. Maybe a little higher.”
“Does that mean I can’t make the tart?”
“No, it’ll be fine. Just turn down the temp. Cook it at 300 on your dial, and check it after about three quarters of the time.” The things I didn’t know about baking.
The rest of the afternoon flew by. Under Melissa’s instructive gaze, I sliced the pears and layered them onto my gingersnap crust. I coated them with a honey glaze so that they wouldn’t oxidize, and then I baked them in my too-hot oven. As Melissa had recommended, I checked the dessert early, and I removed it just as the first hint of caramel color appeared on top.
It was a damn good-looking tart, if I did say so myself.
Melissa returned the ingredients to their respective cupboards, and I moved on to the peanut soup. I sautéed celery and onion in a stockpot, marveling that my kitchen—my kitchen—could smell like a real home. In a bowl, I combined milk and flour to make a slurry that would thicken the final soup. I added chicken broth to my savories and let it come to a slow boil, and I scooped a cup of chunky peanut butter out of its jar. When I had finally scrubbed the excess peanut butter from my knuckles, I set the entire project aside; I’d finish it at the last minute.
That venture went so well that Melissa let me mix the spice rub for the lamb on my own. I read the recipe three times before I measured out the ingredients. Salt, of course, and fresh ground black pepper. Fennel. A pinch of cinnamon, which would have been a treasured rarity in colonial times.
I took the fat chops out of the refrigerator and rubbed in the spice mix. I kept getting distracted by the burgundy polish on my fingernails. Burgundy polish. My nails. Almost like I was a grown-up.
The whole time that I was working on the lamb, Melissa kept reading from the witchcraft book, which she had carried upstairs with her. “You can use this thing to clean earth from surfaces.”
“Pity we didn’t have it when we were cleaning this place the first time.” I returned the spices to the cupboard, trying first the top cabinet, then remembering that I’d chosen to keep them next to the stove. Easy access. It all made sense, if I could only remember my rules.
“And you can freshen the air to make it healthful.”
“Great. Just think if that book got out in public. Glade would be right out of business.”
“You’re not taking this very seriously.”
“I am,” I said, frowning. “I’ve seen exactly what I can do. Did I tell you that Harold has taken to laying out the newspaper for me in the mornings? He has it waiting at my desk, all neatly turned back to the engagement announcements.”
“No!”
“And he stops by at least three times every day. Sometimes, I worry that he’s going to wake up from his trance, and he’ll just stare at me with horror.”
“You’re not fair to yourself. Spending time with you wouldn’t be so horrible.”
“I worry that I’m getting used to having him there. Just the other day, he diagnosed a computer problem—one of those blue screens of death. He walked me through some weird menus that he got to through the function keys.”
“Good man to have around.”
“Yeah. Right.” I looked at the production I was putting on for Jason, and I felt a little guilty. I still hadn’t found a counterspell for Harold. But I hadn’t looked that hard, either. I’d been too busy playing Colonial Martha Stewart. Besides, Jason was smitten with my spell as well. Jason, and old Mr. Zimmer, and a dozen other men who frequented the library. If I liberated Harold, would I have to liberate all of them? Including my Imaginary Boyfriend?
Squelching an icky feeling in the pit of my belly, I glanced at my cooking notes.
Peanut soup—done, except for the last minute pulling together.
Lamb chops—ready to broil.
Peas—ready to cook in a small saucepot, while the lamb finished in the oven.
Pear tart—stunning, if I did say so myself.
“Hey,” Melissa said. “I think this is actually going to go okay.”
“You say that as if you had doubts.”
“Um, you? Cooking? Colonial fare?”
I started to splutter, defending myself, but even I couldn’t make the argument sound real. Melissa laughed and walked into the living room, collecting her jacket from the couch where she’d thrown it upon her arrival. “Going so soon?” I asked her.
“Soon? It’s almost 7:00.”
“Yikes!” I had completely lost track of time. As had Neko. I was certain that he’d stopped by Roger’s. I started to mutter under my breath, but Melissa read my mind. “Don’t worry. He’ll be home soon.”
“How do you know?”
“The salon closes at seven on Thursdays.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Neko told me, the other day. I guess he didn’t mention it to you? He decided to have Roger over tonight.”
“He what?”
“Don’t worry. He said they’d stay in the basement. He said you’d never even know that they were here.”
I was torn between tearing out my hair by the roots and screaming at the fates. Everything was going to go wrong. I just knew it. “Relax,
” Melissa said.
“Easy for you to say. You wouldn’t be quite so content if you were suddenly planning on entertaining your Imaginary Boyfriend while your familiar got it on with the salon guy downstairs.”
“It’s all going to be fine,” Melissa said, in the voice that a perfect nanny uses on her fractious charges. “Some day, you and Jason will laugh about this.”
“And if we don’t?” I asked darkly, opening the front door for Melissa to leave.
“Then you’ll know that he wasn’t actually the right man for you. Spell or no spell.” She smiled sweetly and ducked outside before I could swat at her. She was a fine one to talk, with her Mama’s Boy and McDonald’s Owner and who knew what other romantic treasures waiting in the dating wings.
I closed the door and hurried off to shower before the men converged on my cottage.
