A table? As a little girl, she’d wanted a table for Christmas?
My Christmas wish list had been a mile long: trucks and action figures, baseball equipment, video games and skis. Never once had I thought of asking for a table big enough for my family. I hadn’t needed to. It had always been there.
I ran my hand over this dining room table, fingertip catching on a small groove. If Grace was so close with her family, why did she spend her holidays with mine?
Before I could ask, she stood and ran her hands over her thighs. “We should get to work."
I ate another marshmallow before following her. She set up an apple peeling station, slid over a bowl of washed apples, and I got to work. She asked the smart speaker for Christmas music and we moved in tandem: I cored and sliced apples, dropping them into her bowls; she mixed ingredients, pounded and rolled out dough. Her face took on a tranquil expression and I fell into her rhythm, watching as she glided through my aunt’s kitchen like she belonged. “Where’d you learn to bake?”
“My Nanna taught me and my three brothers. Isaac had been the manager, coordinating our assembly line. He was my oldest brother, a little older than you, I think,” her eyes darted over before she sprinkled flour over her dough. “Next came Levi, five years older than me. He hated baking, so he got apple coring duty to finish first and leave.” She looked at my hands, her gaze soft and affectionate. “Elijah had been in charge of spices. And once Nanna realized I liked the dough, I got promoted to this station.” She fondly reached for the rolling pin and started to press it out.
All her family stories were in the past tense, I realized. Isaac was her oldest brother, not is. What changed? Had her brothers all moved away, like Nick and I had? When Mallory told childhood stories, did she say ‘Alex was my brother,’ like I didn’t exist anymore?
Or had something worse happened? Maybe she'd brought Shannon home and her family hadn't approved of her being a lesbian or something?
Which is stupid. And I’d been shocked Shannon’s parents hadn’t approved of Grace. What parent wouldn’t instantly adore Grace?
I bet my parents hoped for somebody like Grace when they met Victoria, who they’d never warmed up to but accepted as my choice. Then again, nobody really liked Victoria when they first met her. Or the first twenty times.
“This was Nanna's signature dessert for church bake sales, so we made dozens. She didn’t believe in ‘secret family recipes.' We all knew each step by heart to pass on to our kids someday.” Her hands stayed on the rolling pin, eyes downcast and her voice tightening.
“You want to teach me?” Her skeptical gaze flicked over, and I shrugged. “Might come in handy if one of my clients acquires a bakery.”
The excuse was bullshit, but her mouth lifted like she appreciated my bullshit. She waved me closer and showed me how to roll the dough, explaining that some people like a flat crust or a crumble, but her family did lattice tops. She sliced the dough into strips, and I used a ruler to ensure they were evenly cut as she rolled her eyes at my precision. But anything worth doing is worth doing right.
I replicated her expert movements, weirdly soothed while stacking strips over and under. When I finished the lattice on the first pie, I looked to her for approval. “That’s it?”
“That’s it,” she said … but her voice cracked. I waited.
“Sometimes my mom would add this caramel glaze …” Her fingers tightened on the rolling pin, flattening the next crust. “I’ve tested dozens of caramel apple pie recipes, but they don’t taste right.”
“You can’t ask her?”
“No.” She met my eyes, her reaction so definitive I knew no amount of marshmallow-induced silence would coax out this story. The tightness of her mouth and tilt of her shoulders told me I shouldn’t push her, not this time.
I dipped my chin, and she released a breath.
I wiped my hands on a kitchen towel and gestured her to my aunt’s cookbook shelf. I paged through the top one, no caramel. I checked the index of the second one, flipped to the page and held it up, but she’d tried that one.
The third cookbook I checked, ‘Dulce,' was full of Latin-American desserts. I forgot about my caramel mission and salivated over photos of chocolate churros and flan, thinking about the amazing Mexican restaurant in the Mission where Victoria and I had celebrated my 30th birthday and shared the sweetest dessert …
“After you finish the pies, you should make this.” I displayed the tres leches cake. Grace snatched it, skimmed the contents, and flipped to another recipe.
Her eyes sparkled as she tapped on an image like runny peanut butter. “Maybe Mama called it ‘caramel’ because my father refused to learn Spanish, but it could have been dulce de leche.”
She fled to the pantry and scanned the shelves, murmuring about sweetened evaporated milk and holding her fingers about three inches tall. When I found the can on a shelf above her head, she hugged the cheap milk to her chest and flounced back to the kitchen. I bit back a grin at how cute she looked hugging the tiny can.
By the time I emerged, she’d pulled pans out of the drawers. Her face beamed as she scraped out every last drop with a rubber spatula. Sliding the pans into the bottom oven reverently, she closed the door with a dreamy look before moving back to her dough.
Nearly an hour passed while we baked and talked about my work. Most people’s eyes glaze over when I talk about corporate mergers, but she asked thoughtful questions about the current deal, a Silicon Valley software company acquiring a Brooklyn startup. A project I should be working on now … but my hands were covered in sticky apple juice.
“Do you like your job?” she asked.
Hmmm. Nobody had ever asked me that.
I’d wanted to be a lawyer since my first visit to Dad’s firm. He let me sit at the conference table while his clients signed their closing documents, their expressions elated when he handed over the keys to their new house. I started applying to law schools right after Nick moved to LA to pursue acting and I missed him so much it hurt, so I googled 'Best Law School in California.
It wasn’t my fault Stanford was 300 miles north of Hollywood.
Then I met Victoria, the only other student who aced the Contracts final. We studied together so much that dating felt inevitable. When she started at Hamilton & Houghton, she pulled strings to get me a job at the prestigious firm.
I liked the challenge and the competition. I liked how much they paid, and people's impressed expressions at my title.
But did I like it?
“I’m good at it. Do you like being a social worker?”
“I love it,” she said on a soft exhale, like she didn’t want anybody to find out in case they would take it away from her.
One of her many buzzers dinged. Pulling on an oven mitt, a flour handprint on her hip brought my attention to her perfect ass. Suddenly I wasn’t thinking about my job, and my mouth watering wasn’t from the sweet caramel smell.
The pan’s contents looked golden and gooey. She dipped in a teaspoon and the caramel cascaded in a golden waterfall. Her tongue peeked out to wet her bottom lip as her eyes flicked to my mouth. “You want the first taste?”
Jesus Christ, more than anything.
My hands gripped the edge of the counter to disguise the tightening in my pants. When I opened my mouth, her lips parted to mirror mine. The caramelized sugar touched my tongue and an involuntary moan escaped. Fuck, it was incredible. I closed my lips over the spoon as her eyelids dropped halfway. My fingertips wrapped below hers and she reluctantly released the spoon.
