Already Home. Susan Mallery
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wide aisles, the cooking area in back. She liked the view out of the window, being next to the yarn store, leasing in Old Town. She liked it, but she didn’t love it.
She hadn’t wanted to make plain cinnamon cookies. She’d wanted to blend in ginger and try something fun like rose-water. She’d thought about going to the market and buying fresh spring vegetables, then making a red wine risotto with the crunchy, delicious vegetables served with a perfect roasted chicken stuffed with garlic and spices.
She’d heard two women complaining about all the ingredients they had in their pantries, items bought for a single recipe but never used again. When they’d listed a few, a dozen possibilities had occurred to her, and she’d almost spoken. But she’d been afraid.
She remembered experimenting with a salmon dish at the restaurant where she and Aaron worked. He was the high profile chef, the man who charmed customers, spending more time in the front of the store rather than in the back. He’d dazzled, while she’d worked the magic behind the scenes.
That night, it had been raining. Something that didn’t happen often in Los Angeles. The sound of the rain on the roof had made her think about murky seawater and all things green. She’d created a green sauce, then, borrowing from one of her favorite mole recipes, had added rich dark chocolate. While she hadn’t been completely thrilled with the resulting color, the flavor had been perfect.
She’d offered a sample to a few regular customers, just to get their feedback. Aaron had swept in and taken the dishes from them. Worse, he’d apologized for what she’d made, as if she were some first year student who had burned toast. She’d been humiliated.
Later, when she’d yelled at him, he’d acted as if she was the one at fault. He’d had several of the staff taste her dish. One of the women had actually gagged. Jenna had been crushed, wondering if there was something wrong with her taste buds. Were they different from everyone else’s?
During the divorce, she’d found out Aaron had been sleeping with the server, so her reaction was probably scripted, but the damage had been done. Jenna had started to question herself, to wonder if her instincts were off. As soon as doubt appeared, she found herself sticking to what was safe. She told herself it was the smart thing to do, but in truth, she was slowly dying inside.
Her cell phone rang. She pulled it out of her pocket, glanced at the screen and nearly jumped. Aaron? What would he want?
Almost afraid thinking about him conjured the call, she pushed the talk button.
“Hello?”
“Jenna. I only have a second. Some woman called, looking for you. She sounded strange. You’re not in trouble, are you? She wasn’t a bill collector, was she?”
I’m fine, she thought grimly. Nice to hear from you. How are things?
But Aaron had never been interested in polite conversation, not unless it got him something.
“Did the woman leave her name?” she asked, knowing it wasn’t a bill collector. She might be failing at her business, but she hadn’t stopped paying her bills.
“No name. When I said you’d moved back to Texas, she thanked me and hung up.” He shouted something to a server.
The background noise told her he was in the kitchen of his new restaurant. If she were vindictive, she would have been hoping he gave everyone food poisoning on opening night.
“You’re calling to tell me someone you don’t know was asking about me and you don’t have any more information than that?”
“I thought you’d want to know.”
With that, he hung up.
She stared at the phone for a few seconds, then shoved it into her pocket. After collecting her purse, she let herself out the back, then checked the lock. Although her car was only a few feet away, she decided to walk around the area and see if she could figure out her next move.
The conversation with Aaron was confusing, but she decided to ignore it. Anyone looking for her could find her as easily here as in L.A. As for her ex, well, he had the emotional attention span of a gnat. Later, when he wanted something, he would point out he’d done her a favor tonight and would expect to be repaid.
It was fairly light, although dusk was approaching. The evening was warm—still in the mid-seventies. As she passed a restaurant, she noticed the bar crowd spilling out onto the patio. Maybe it was just her, but there sure seemed to be a lot of couples.
Looking at the heads bent so close together, listening to the intimate laughter, made her think more about Aaron. Not that they’d ever been like that. It seemed to her she and her ex hadn’t exactly wallowed in the “in love” stage. They’d met when he’d been hired at the restaurant where she’d worked in Phoenix. He was already successful, flown in from L.A. to save an ailing establishment. The owner had promised him free rein and had vowed to fire anyone who didn’t cooperate, so the staff had been nervous about his arrival.
Jenna remembered her first impression had been of a charming showman who captured everyone’s attention. His style was so different from her deliberate way, his volume in contrast with her quiet voice. She’d been aware of him, intrigued by him and flattered when he’d asked her out.
They’d mostly talked business—cooking and how she created her recipes. She hadn’t thought he was especially attracted to her and wasn’t sure how she felt about him, so it was a surprise to end up in his bed. From that day on, they’d sort of been together. A couple. For a long time, she, too, had been intrigued by the public persona. Eventually she’d started to realize Aaron was more flash than substance, but for her, a flaw in a partner wasn’t a reason to end a marriage.
Jenna paused on the sidewalk for a second, looking at the various couples. She’d always wanted what her parents had. One true love. Sure, that sounded like something out of a fairy tale, but she knew it was real. She’d grown up watching true love at work.
Her parents had met on Beth’s first day of college, taken one look at each other and fallen madly in love. Already aware she couldn’t have children, Beth had resisted Marshall’s advances. Jenna smiled and started walking again. Those had been her mother’s exact words when she told the story. “Marshall’s advances.”
She could imagine her handsome father pursuing the girl of his dreams. He wasn’t a man who ever lost, and he’d wanted Beth. They’d been engaged within a year, married the following summer, after Marshall had graduated, and started looking for a baby to adopt by early fall. Jenna had shown up in their lives in the spring.
It was perfect, she thought, happy to have been a part of their storybook lives. And what she’d always wanted. But somehow that kind of relationship had eluded her. While Aaron had obviously cared at first, she’d never felt she was the love of his life. Not that she was so sure he’d been hers, either. But she’d never thought she would end up divorced and without children. She wasn’t sorry she’d come home, she just didn’t understand how she’d gotten so offtrack.
The store was a disaster. There was no other way to describe it. She knew she didn’t have the experience necessary to be successful, and while retail wasn’t her dream, it was all she currently had. Being smart and hardworking were great, but obviously not enough.
She lingered outside the window of a clothing boutique, wondering how their sales were.
The cooking class had been a disaster as well, she thought, remembering the bored looks of her squirming audience. Violet had been right. People didn’t want to attend a lecture. They wanted to get their hands dirty. Have fun, like in the yarn store. There they were always doing. No instructor sat up front, showing them how to knit. They learned by practicing the techniques themselves.
Violet’s other point about having something to sell that related to the classes made sense, too. Assuming anyone made it through one of her lectures, he or she simply left when Jenna was finished. The customer wasn’t compelled to buy anything. Which made for a crappy bottom line. Even if she gave