home. When I approached his office door, I heard him talking on the phone. The problem was, I wasn’t sure whether it was a private conversation or not. I knew that if it was private, it would have been rude for me to go in, so I stood there politely to wait until Bill was through.”
Hannah bit back a grin. If she ever needed a good spin doctor, Andrea would be her first choice.
“Anyway, I could tell Bill was talking to the man at Tachyon in Fort Lauderdale because he said it was really nice of them to offer to fly both of us there, but he really didn’t think it was fair to leave me alone in a hotel room all day with nothing to do in a strange city while he toured their headquarters and met with their top executives.”
“That was considerate,” Delores commented.
“Yes, it was. And I only had to point it out to him once last night.” Andrea stopped and shook her head. “They must want him really bad.”
“Anyway, he just listened for a few minutes and then he told them he’d think it over. And it turned out that it was really smart of him to say that about not wanting to leave me alone at the hotel.”
“They offered him something else?” Hannah guessed.
“And how! They said they’d introduce me to one of the executives’ wives my age and she’d show me around Fort Lauderdale. They said she’d take me to lunch at a wonderful restaurant where I could meet the other wives, and then the next morning a car would pick us up and we’d all spend the day at the most exclusive spa in town. They even mentioned a shopping spree to show me Fort Lauderdale’s upscale boutiques. Can you believe it? It seems like the more Bill says no, the more they want him.”
“I’m going to keep that in mind when I’m out there looking for jobs,” Michelle said.
Andrea was silent for a moment, and then she gave a wry laugh. “I think that only works if they come to you. If I’d tried that with Al at the realty office, he would have told me to get lost. And then he would have turned right around and hired someone else.”
Preheat oven to 350 degrees, rack in the middle position.
First set of ingredients:
1 and ? cups all-purpose flour
1 cup white
sugar
? teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 heaping Tablespoons cocoa powder
Choose a pan. Suzy’s cousin used a round cake pan about 2 inches high, her mother used a rectangular cake pan 8 inches by 12 inches, and her aunt used a square 9-inch by 9-inch cake pan that was two inches high.
Hannah’s Note: Suzy didn’t say to spray the pan with Pam or another nonstick cooking spray, but I figured it couldn’t hurt, so I did.
Put the flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, and cocoa powder into a bowl. Suzy says to sift all the ingredients together, but Michelle and I just stirred them with a fork until everything was well blended.
Make three “pukas”
Gather the second set of ingredients.
Second set of ingredients:
6 Tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 Tablespoon vinegar
1 cup cold water
Put the vegetable oil in the first puka, the vanilla extract in the second puka, and the vinegar in the third puka.
Pour the cup of cold water all over the top of the cake.
Mix everything up with a fork or a wooden spoon. Continue to beat
Bake at 350 degrees F. for 30 minutes.
Serve warm.
Suzy’s cousin says you shouldn’t remove the cake from the pan—just put the pan on the table and serve it that way. Suzy’s aunt says you should serve it with sweetened whipped cream or ice cream. Suzy’s mother frosts it in the pan. She sifts 2 cups of powdered sugar with a dash of salt in a bowl, and stirs in a teaspoon of vanilla extract and enough cream to bring it the right consistency.
Hannah’s Note: This is a great dessert for a novice baker to make!
Chapter Fourteen
They were all sitting in the living room, relaxing with another cup of coffee. A platter of cookies, bars, and frosted cake sat on the coffee table inviting everyone except the cats to indulge. Moishe had come out from under Hannah’s bed and he was sitting on Michelle’s lap. Cuddles, the sweet little cat that she was, had just left Andrea’s lap and was crossing the middle of the couch toward Delores.
“Why, just look at this!” Delores remarked, clearly pleased as punch when Cuddles climbed onto her lap. “She
Hannah watched as Cuddles started to purr and gazed adoringly up at her mother. Then she turned to look at Moishe, and was forced to cover her burst of laughter with a cough. Moishe’s eyes had narrowed to slits, his hair was beginning to bristle, and his ears were flat against his head. Moishe was not at all pleased. He was staring at Cuddles as if her name were Benidicta Arnold, the biggest feline traitor ever to enter the Lake Eden city limits.
Delores had just said something about Joe Dietz and how he wanted her to come to his house to look at the silver he’d inherited from his sister, when there was a knock at the door. Hannah got up to answer it. This time it was bound to be Mike.
But she was wrong again and her eyes widened in surprise. “Norman?” she gasped.
Before Norman could answer, there was a gleeful yowl from the direction of her mother’s lap and a thud as Cuddles hit the rug running. Not to be outdone, Moishe jumped down with a heavier thud to run after her.
The spectacle of two cats racing toward him didn’t seem to faze Norman in the slightest. He opened his arms to catch the two flying felines as they jumped up almost simultaneously, sending him back a foot or two on the landing.
“Good heavens!” Delores gasped. “That was quite a sight!”
“You should have seen it from here,” Hannah told her. “I thought they were going to knock poor Norman over the rail.”
Norman laughed and nuzzled the two purring cats. “Not a chance,” he said, carrying them inside and placing them in their favorite spots on the back of the couch.
“Coffee?” Hannah asked him.
“Thanks, I could use some.” Norman gave her a quick smile and then he turned to Delores. “Mother said to tell you she’s going to bring you back some Venetian glass.”
