How to Bake a New Beginning: A feel-good heart-warming romance about family, love and food!. Lucy Knott
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believed in it with all her heart. It was incredibly endearing, if not a little annoying at times like this. Sabrina knew she should tell her sisters about her and Levi, but there was that niggling fear in the back of her mind. She didn’t want to be a hypocrite where Amanda was concerned, and she didn’t want Louisa to slip up and expose her feelings to Levi. Her baby sister could be sneaky like that; love was simple in Louisa’s eyes.
‘I didn’t say that – I just said that I don’t think I’m his type anyway,’ Sabrina replied, reaching for the Nutella jar before flashbacks of Levi and Lydia appeared in her mind from the night before she left LA.
‘You two are unbelievable,’ Louisa shouted as she made a huge deal of standing up on the couch. ‘You know I’m not so sure either of you would remember to invite me to the meet and greet should you ever stumble upon Captain America himself.’ Louisa was staring off into the distance, waving her arms around, bouncing from one sofa cushion to the next. She was now practically performing some sort of lonely, depressing monologue as though she had just taken centre stage.
‘I think you may have even secretly already met him and failed to mention it to me, because you both love secrets and don’t like telling me anything. If I had boys like Dan and Levi in my midst I sure wouldn’t play all these games,’ she said, exasperated and now staring her sisters down. ‘Sabrina, you have an amazing job, where you get to go to all these fancy parties and rub elbows with celebrities galore. You’re kicking arse with the world’s hottest rock band and you are beautiful. If you like Levi, go for it and tell him. Then, not only will you have a glamorous, perfect job, but you will also get to go home to a rock god who’s good with his hands. What more could you possibly want?’
‘Louisa!!!!’ Sabrina shouted, gobsmacked and embarrassed by her little sister’s choice of words, but Louisa wasn’t done yet.
‘And, you.’ Louisa pointed at Amanda, whose eyes were slightly narrowed, with a hint of a smirk playing at her lips, her head tilted to one side, gently warning Louisa to tread carefully, but Louisa wasn’t fazed. ‘Dan isn’t like your ex – aliens in outer space can see that – and if you are speaking the honest to goodness truth when you tell us that you don’t see him as anything more than a friend, then you need to start dating again … properly – no one-night stands, no too busy with work, no excuses, because what, or more importantly, who are you waiting for?’
Louisa finished and sat back down on the couch. Sabrina looked at her not quite knowing what to say. Amanda brushed a hand through her long wavy brown mane. Her eyes were still squinted, like she was thinking. There was a tension in the room that hadn’t been there mere minutes ago. The girls were typical siblings and rows and arguments broke out occasionally.
Sabrina could feel the heat from Louisa. It seemed something had irked her, maybe something at work, maybe a boy, or maybe she really was on to something. It made Sabrina feel silly. She was supposed to be the older sister offering advice to Louisa, but she didn’t have a clue what she was doing with Levi; furthermore, she felt slightly irritated that Louisa always thought it so simple. And, had Louisa not piped up again about how glamorous Sabrina’s life was, maybe Sabrina would have chosen to do what she always did and keep the conversation light and playful, but she was getting a bit fed up.
The tension lingered over the room for a few moments before Sabrina spoke up. ‘My life is far from glamorous, Lou. I wish you would stop saying that.’ Sabrina played with a tassel on the corner of the cushion she was holding. ‘I worked bloody hard to get where I am now, and even that took luck and a whole lot of help from Amanda. I deal with criticism and a fire-breathing dragon of a boss every day. The parties are rare and even they come with a barrel of paperwork and stress. I know I’m lucky, but it’s not for lack of work.’ Sabrina didn’t want to sound harsh, but she needed her baby sister to lay off on the comments about her unbelievably flawless lifestyle.
Louisa tilted her head back against the couch cushion and took a deep breath. ‘It must be pretty close to perfection if it keeps you away from us eleven months out of the year,’ she muttered.
‘It’s work, Lou, and it’s my dream. I don’t like being away, but if I remember correctly at one point in time we were all pretty supportive of each other following our dreams. Just because you couldn’t handle London, where might I add, I think you would have done amazingly had you persisted, doesn’t mean I should give up on LA.’
The words sounded harsher than Sabrina had intended, but it was all coming out now. Though she knew all too well the pain of missing home, Sabrina was also aware of how talented her younger sister was, and she had hated hearing that she had left university after only a few months. However, she had kept her thoughts to herself.
Now that they were getting into the nitty-gritty of their arguing, the words burst out before she could stop them. ‘You could, and should, be doing so much with your designs, instead of working a nine to five reception job you hate. Yes, I live far away, but I don’t believe I’ve been a bad sister. I keep up with you all the time and I think you could have done that too. I think you gave up too easily.’ Sabrina was looking at Louisa now, feeling more determined, like she had wisdom to impart and her baby sister wasn’t the only one who could fire on all cylinders. Amanda remained silent.
‘I didn’t give up, I prioritized what was more important,’ Louisa said firmly, her head still tilted to the ceiling. Her words were now coming out calmly but remained unkind, like she still couldn’t accept Sabrina being away, yet Sabrina knew it was justified. She knew her sister was torn. No matter what Louisa said, Sabrina would still be going back to LA in a few days and there was nothing she could do about it. Sabrina felt a sharp stab of sadness in her gut. She understood that her sister simply missed her, but she didn’t think it fair of her to be so unsupportive and mean.
‘My family is important to me too,’ Sabrina said, faintly. It hurt her that Louisa could think otherwise.
At their final exchange Amanda cleared her throat. ‘As entertaining as you two are, I’m missing all the good bits in this movie that I’ve only seen twenty times, and if you don’t start watching it I might have to play it again from the beginning, so I can better understand how Chris Evans just got naked.’ Amanda looked at them both and threw them each a Baci, before pointing to the screen with a raise of her eyebrows.
Both Sabrina and Louisa caught the chocolate treats with twinning smiles and rolls of the eyes at their big sister, yet they didn’t care to look at each other.
***
‘This pizza is out of this world, Amanda,’ Sabrina said, breaking the silence and taking another slice, now craving savoury after the sweetness of the Baci. ‘Do you have the recipe written somewhere? I can’t think of where I put mine.’
‘It’s over there,’ Amanda replied pointing lazily in the direction of the bookshelf and to the book on the right of the top shelf. Sabrina followed her finger and nodded.
‘I need to learn how to make it,’ Louisa piped up. The tension from before had begun to ease, as the sisters brushed the conflict under the rug. It would pop up again and they would address it when the time was right.
‘I chatted to Grandpa today about making some stuff while he had us all together. He wanted to make you lasagna while you’re home, and I’m pretty sure he had more yeast prepping in the kitchen when we were there this morning.’
‘When does he not have yeast prepping?’ Louisa said, and all the girls let out a chuckle. There was always something being prepped in their grandpa’s kitchen.
‘We can go tomorrow morning and make it with him and you can practise,’ Amanda continued, sitting up a little straighter on the couch and grabbing her glass of water.
‘Found it,’ Sabrina shouted, flicking through Amanda’s recipe book on her way back to the couch. Louisa scooted up and Sabrina sat down next to her, as though no argument had ever occurred.
‘This is awesome, Amanda. I have recipes and notes here and there but never thought to do this.’ Louisa turned each page of the book in awe. Sabrina knew that over the years, Amanda had been