Now Jenny got it. She glanced at Philip and knew he got it, too.
“You want me to write about my mother,” she said.
Martin steepled his fingers together. “What was it like to have her walk away? And to have your father come into your life last summer? And here’s a question—who’s Joey?”
Oh, God. “You read the archives.” It was not a question.
“Sure,” Martin said. “I’m taking this project very seriously.”
She didn’t know what to say. The raw nerves of the past were suddenly exposed. Neither of these men wished her ill, but their scrutiny was painful. Years ago, when she had first started her column, Joey had been a part of her life. Naturally, allusions to him and his Italian heritage had made their way into the column. His father, Bruno, a lovable bear of a man, had even convinced Gram to add fiadone to the menu at the bakery.
“He, um… Joey and I were engaged,” she finally said, studying the crisp white tablecloth. Even now, it hurt to say the words. And even now, she could picture Joey, laughing and innocent, so in love with her that his fellow rangers used to rib him for spontaneously bursting into song every time he thought of her. There was so much more Jenny could say about Joey, but she wasn’t used to talking about him, especially not to a man she was just coming to know. And in front of—good lord—a literary agent.
“Honey, I’m sorry,” Philip said, touching her hand in a gesture both awkward and comforting. “I hate that certain things happened to you, and I wasn’t there to… I don’t know. Help or just listen. Just be there.”
His painful honesty touched her, yet she felt a faint shadow of bitterness, too. She wished he’d found her sooner, wished he’d been there when she desperately needed someone. Of course, that was impossible, and it wasn’t his fault. “I’m all right now. It was a long time ago,” she told him. Then she turned to Mr. Greer. “I never put anything too personal in my writing. I’m not sure I’d know how to do it.”
“Little anecdotes work fine for a newspaper column.” He paused. “But you’ve got some thinking to do—about the personal stuff. Because here’s the thing about a food memoir. It’s never about the food.”
* * *
“In other words,” Jenny said to Nina on the phone that night, “he wants me to bleed on the page.”
“Can you do it?”
“Of course I can. The question is whether or not I’m willing to,” Jenny said. “And does anybody really care? I’m just a girl who grew up in a small town, helping out with the family business. Nobody special. I thought that was what people liked about my writing. They could relate to my story, make it their own. Why do I have to write about my mom and admit I never knew my dad? Why in God’s name do I have to bring up Joey?”
“People like that stuff. An ordinary person facing the out-of-the-ordinary.”
Jenny tried to imagine herself putting certain things on the page. “All I’ve ever wanted since I was a girl was to be heard. I wanted people to know my story, even though there was nothing particularly unique about it. People tell about their lives and they want them to be happy stories. When you have to go somewhere not so happy…” She looked out the window at the apartment buildings across the way, standing shoulder to shoulder in an impenetrable blockade. “It’s going to change what this book is.”
“And that’s a bad thing?” Nina asked.
“I’m not sure. I had a pleasant collection of recipes and anecdotes about the bakery—that’s what I thought it was. Now I’m about to change it into a story of abandonment and anger, and a failed love affair, and I’m supposed to pull out some sort of epiphany in the end.” She shook her head. “I have no idea how to end it.”
“Could be when you met Philip Bellamy or made the fiftieth-anniversary wedding cake for people you didn’t even know were your grandparents, take your pick,” Nina said. “How bad do you want this?”
Bad enough to hurt and bleed for it. Jenny took a breath, got up and paced restlessly. “I want it.”
“Then I guess you’d better get busy finding that epiphany.”
She smiled and poured a glass of water on a houseplant. “It doesn’t work that way.”
“You know what I think? I think it’s Rourke McKnight.”
Jenny held the receiver away from her and scowled at it. “Come again?”
“You and Rourke. Maybe that’s the ending.”
“There is no me and Rourke. God, Nina.”
“And you know what else?” Nina said, unrepentant. “You sound miserable. I don’t think heading to the city was the best idea for you.”
“I’ve always wanted to do this, always. You of all people know that.”
“I think you liked the idea of it more than the reality,” Nina pointed out. “You know, the cute little apartment, the bustling crowds, the excitement. But the reality is, your life is in Avalon. It’s where the people who care most about you are.”
“I’m supposed to be meeting my new family,” Jenny pointed out. “My father’s sisters, my paternal grandparents, cousins I never knew existed until half a year ago.”
“Fine, get to know them, but I still think you belong back here.”
Jenny winced. Was she that girl? The shop owner destined to spend her life in a small town while dreaming of a different life like a latter-day female George Bailey? She paced back and forth in front of the window. Outside, people hurried along on their errands, lines of traffic crushed and expanded like a giant accordion. In a doorway across the street, a woman in a gray cloth coat leaned against the jamb, brooding as though the scene was a personal affront to her.
“I like it here,” Jenny insisted, though the impersonal snapshot out the window made her wonder if she
