“One day, I told him his marinara sauce needed more garlic. He started screaming, said I was fired and that he didn’t need some stupid, scrawny, mouthy girl telling him how to run his kitchen and that if I thought I knew so much about cooking, then maybe I ought to open my own damned restaurant. Then he threw a colander at my head. And as I ducked, I thought, You know something? Maybe he’s right.
“Six weeks later, I was enrolled as a student at Oregon Culinary Institute and the rest is history. I’ve loved my work ever since.”
“Ever since? Two months ago you said that you didn’t like cooking anymore, that it was just a job.”
Monica waved her hand dismissively. “That was just because I was frustrated with the kids. Once Alex quit spending every waking moment figuring out how to make my life miserable, I started loving my job all over again—especially when he was at the restaurant with me. That was really fun. I mean, Zoe still keeps me awake at night, but I was actually starting to feel like I had the stepmother gig down.
“But,” she sighed, “since Alex recently decided he hates my guts again and has gone back to being a card-carrying jerk, I’m sure that’s about to change. We’ve reverted back to our old roles. Once again, he is my Rotten Stepson and I am the Evil Stepmother, Cruella De Vil in chef’s whites.”
“Why? What happened?”
She swiped a finger across her plate, capturing some leftover cannoli filling.
“Oh, it’s that girl—Gwen. She dumped him. He’s heartbroken and miserable. And since misery loves company . . .” She shrugged. “He’ll be fine. But I kind of miss having him around the kitchen.”
She licked the filling off her finger. “Speaking of the kitchen, I’ve got to get back to work.”
I walked her to the door. She put on her jacket and gave me a hug.
“Are you going to be all right?”
I nodded. “Thanks for the cannoli. It was just what I needed today.”
“And the advice?” she asked, smiling wryly. “Listen, I know I’m being pushy, but I really think a push is what you need right now. That being said—” She paused abruptly and took a big, somewhat dramatic breath. “I owe you an apology. That stunt I pulled, trying to throw you and Luke together, wasn’t just pushy, it was stupid, and misguided, and really, really thoughtless.”
I tried to interrupt, to say that I knew her heart—if not her head—had been in the right place, but Monica shook me off.
“No, Grace. I was wrong. And I’m sorry. Watching the way you cared for Jamie in the last days of his life, never leaving his side for a moment, helped me finally realize just how wrong. You tried to make me understand how sacred your love—and your marriage vows—were to you, but I just didn’t get it.
“Or,” she said, her voice lower, her tone sincerely remorseful, “maybe I didn’t want to get it. The love you shared with Jamie—pure and totally unselfish—I’ve never known that kind of love. I probably never will.”
“Oh, Monica. Don’t say that. You’ll fall in love someday. You will,” I insisted, responding to the doubtful look on her face. “Probably when you least expect it.”
“Yeah, sure. Maybe,” she said, then grabbed her umbrella, which she’d left leaning against the wall to dry. “But we’ll worry about me another day. Right now, my concern is you.
“I know this is the very last thing you want to hear, but Ava could be right, you know. Getting fired might turn out to be the best thing that could happen to you right now. Okay, sure. It would have been nice if they waited a week or two to can you, but it is what it is.
“The good news is, you’re still getting paid. The clock is ticking, Grace, but you’ve got two months to figure this out.
“So, for the rest of this week, you get to take it easy. Sleep till noon, play with your dog, eat stuff you shouldn’t, and watch a really, really sad DVD. Something that will make you want to cry, yell, shake your fist at the universe, and get it all out of your system. Then get back to work and decide what you want to do with your life.”
“Easy to say, but how? Where do you expect me to start?”
Monica pointed the tip of her umbrella toward a corner near the front window.
“How about that box?”
Chapter 22
Grace
When Monica left, I sat down on the floor and opened the box. It was filled with books.
Maisie trotted over and lay down next to me, resting her tiny head on her even tinier paws, her big brown eyes shifting from the box, to my face, and back again as I pulled out book after book, used my sleeve to dust off the covers, and read the titles, one by one:
Little Women
The Devil Wore Prada
Jemima J
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
The Hardy Boys: The Haunted Fort
The Hardy Boys: The Vanishing Thieves
Little House in the Big Woods
Little House on the Prairie
Dune
“Oh, Jamie,” I murmured, smiling to myself as I leafed through the pages, spotting passages underlined, sometimes twice, some with stars and exclamation points.
A tear came to my eye. I wiped it away, thinking about the day we’d packed that box.
I could see why my mother thought we were going off half-cocked, moving halfway across the country to a city we’d never even visited, putting a bid on a condo we’d never actually seen, but she didn’t understand how much you could do on the Internet, and we really did have a plan.
We’d arranged for three months temporary housing and storage of our stuff until we could
