“If you go down this alley, you can park at the back entrance. No one will be here today.” Lena pointed to a narrow road.
Jess maneuvered her BMW right, hoping her mirrors survived the walls on both sides. A few seconds later, they arrived at the parking space for the café that seemed big enough for a couple of vans. She reversed the car into it to give them better access to the trunk.
“I’ll unlock the door. If you want, you can wait inside with Ella while I unload everything.” Lena jumped out of the car and went to the large metal door. The blue paint was sun-bleached and flaky, but the area was clean, and the little patch of green next to the concrete was free of weeds.
Since Ella was still sleeping, Jess decided to help with the boxes before moving her. They had bought small preserving jars and an obscenely large bag of sugar. The buckets of fruit and berries rested in the back of the trunk, and the scent enveloped Jess as she opened the lid. It conjured up a picture of Lena, with adorably stained blue lips, fingers, and even a colored strand of hair. Her own lips prickled at the memory of the taste of the berries, and her mind involuntarily leapt to the tart taste of the wine and the kiss.
The creak of the door pulled her out of her thoughts. She stacked three of the boxes on top of each other and carried them inside, which may have been a bit ambitious.
“Where do you want me to put them?” Jess fought to keep the strain from her voice. No need to embarrass herself even more in front of Lena, who had seen enough of her weakness in recent weeks.
“Next to the dishwasher, over there.”
Good thing she pointed it out. It didn’t look like any dishwasher she’d seen before. Jess set the boxes on the counter and took a shaky breath. Under the pretense of looking more closely at the stainless steel contraption, she stretched her back. “Why do you want to clean them? They’re brand new.”
“I always run them through a special cleaning and sterilizing cycle. You never know how they’ve been stored.”
“Good idea.” Jess hadn’t expected that kind of effort for homemade preserves, but Lena seemed to take her business seriously.
They emptied the trunk in no time, and soon the kitchen was stacked with everything Lena needed. On the last trip, Jess carted the still-sleeping Ella inside, and Lena brought a coarse linen bag.
When Jess placed the carrier on a small wooden table at one end of the room, Ella opened her eyes with an unfocused gaze. Jess leaned closer into Ella’s field of vision and whispered, “Sleep on. I’m here.”
Ella yawned, blinked twice, then fell back asleep.
“Will it be okay if I use the dishwasher?” Lena tied her hair into a bun and put on an apron.
“Probably.” Jess walked over to join her. “I haven’t found out what wakes her. Most of the time she sleeps through the most terrible noise, like last week when Mom’s neighbor used a chainsaw in the garden. Sometimes a whisper on the wind seems to wake her. We’ll give it a try. What can I do to help?”
Lena lifted the biggest bowl Jess had ever seen from a rack and put it in the sink, poured the blackberries into it, and covered them with water. “You don’t need to help. This is how I earn my living, after all. You don’t even need to stay. This will take a while.” She gestured to the buckets of apples and pears on the counter.
“Haven’t we had this discussion before?” Jess rolled her eyes but grinned. She held up her hand to tick off the points she wanted to make with her fingers. “I offered to help; you didn’t ask me to. I have nothing else to do but watch my daughter sleep. I’m going crazy inside the house. And I need to practice working more than an hour at a time. You can view it as helping me rehabilitate.”
Laughing, Lena handed her another apron. “Okay, okay. Thank you. Do you want to wash the blackberries or peel the apples and pears? Or stack the jars into the dishwasher?”
Jess groaned as she put the apron on. “We need to peel them all ourselves? Isn’t there a fancy machine we can use?”
“No, that’s why it’ll take all day. Still willing to help?” Lena’s eyes twinkled with mischief.
Jess had never enjoyed cooking or the preparations that came with it, but she actually looked forward to spending an afternoon in this kitchen in Lena’s company. “Let me start the dishwasher. Maybe you’ll have finished most of the apples by the time I’m done.”
“You wish.” Lena walked over to her. “Let me show you how this works.”
By the time Jess had stacked everything in the large plastic racks and started the wash cycle, Lena had peeled a surprisingly large number, but more than enough apples were left for her. She checked on Ella to see if she minded the noise, but she was still out.
Smiling, Lena looked up and beckoned Jess over without stopping her peeling. Her hands flew over the apple, removing the complete skin in one go. Circular strips fell to the counter, releasing a fresh, tart aroma. After she finished peeling, Lena threw the apple into a pot of water where it bobbed on the surface.
“Lemon water. To avoid brown stains.”
“Clever. Citric acid is an antioxidant.”
“If you say so. I only know that my grandma taught me what she learned from her mother.”
“Seems like sound advice.” Jess smiled and held her hand out. “Can I give it a try?”
“Sure. Peel what you can easily reach, and don’t worry about the area around the stem. We’ll cut that out later.”
Jess took the peeler and tried to remember how Lena had held it. She didn’t want to admit she’d never done this
