Finding Colin Firth: A Novel (20 page)

She’d have to learn to deal with her memories, somehow, someway. She was back home now, and memories were everywhere. She was grateful when Patrick called out to the extras, “Great job, people,” and to let them know they were dismissed for the day and expected back at eight o’clock the next morning to reshoot that scene two different ways.

Two different ways. Countless takes, perhaps. She’d have to get over that finger jab fast if she wanted to be part of this movie.

As she left the tent and slipped on her cardigan against the breeze, she heard footsteps behind her.

“Va-va-voomica,” a man’s voice said, then chuckled as though his nickname for her was adorable. “I came down here to check out the film set and saw you in that big tent. How about we go for a drink? You can fill me in on the life of an extra.”

Ugh. The pest, Hugh Fledge. Just pretend you didn’t hear him and dash away, she told herself. And judging from the slight slurring of his words, he’d clearly already had that drink. She quickened her pace.

“You won’t be able to resist my charm and good looks for long,” he called out on a laugh just as she rounded the corner.

Forever wouldn’t be long enough. Would he ever stop bugging her?

Hugh Fledge wasn’t much of a distraction from her thoughts, though. She had avoided walking past the pier where she and Timothy Macintosh had kissed many times. However, her memories trailed her all the way home.

Veronica tended not to think about anything but pie and its mission when she was baking, so when she got home, she set to work on an Amore Pie for her neighbor’s friend, thinking only of Colin Firth telling Elizabeth Bennet that he loved her and couldn’t pinpoint when she’d captured his heart: “I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.” Oh, Mr. Darcy, she thought as she finished forming the dough into a ball, not surprised that she could recall so many lines from the movie. Tonight she’d watch
Love Actually
for perhaps the tenth time, even if it was a Christmas movie. It was exactly the kind of movie she needed.

The phone rang and Veronica grabbed it, a dusting of flour on the receiver.

It was Beth. The client who’d ordered the Cast-Out Pie.

“It didn’t work,” Beth said. “I should have known it was just bullshit.”

Whoa. The woman’s voice was so angry, but Veronica heard something else in it: pain.

Give her a little slack, Veronica told herself. “Did you think about casting this person from your heart while you were eating the pie?”

“I’m not the one who’s casting someone out. It’s someone else who has to get someone out of his goddamned head.”

There it was. Perhaps her husband
was
having an affair. Veronica had never been married, but she could certainly understand the pain that would cause. “Ah.”

“I just wanted you to know it’s bullshit,” Beth said, her anger rising. “I’m not paying.”

“That was the deal, so that’s fine. I’m sorry it didn’t work for you.”

“Yeah, you’re sorry.” Beth slammed the phone down.

What the hell was that about?

She was in no mood to make Amore Pie with that woman’s anger and frustration still so heavy in her mind. She’d give herself the thirty minutes for the dough to chill, let the tension ease out of her, then conjure up Colin Firth walking out of that pond, his white shirt dripping wet. Hear him tell Elizabeth Bennet how he felt about her.
My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you
.

She’d put the dough in the refrigerator and was just adding the chocolate to a mixing bowl when her doorbell rang. She glanced at the clock on the wall. Seven o’clock. Had she forgotten a client was picking up a pie? She doubted it. She had nothing but time to think the past two days in the extras tent. Her Amore Pie client—the shy gal who worked part-time behind the circulation desk at the library—wasn’t due to pick up the pie from her neighbor until tomorrow morning.

Veronica wiped her hands on her apron, checked off chocolate on her recipe so that she’d remember what she was up to, then went to her front door.

Nick DeMarco.

She froze for a split second, the way she always did when she saw him. Whether he was up close and personal, standing a foot in front of her, like now, like two nights ago in her kitchen, or around town, as he patrolled the streets on foot or in his police car, she froze for the slightest moment. She’d grown up with him but didn’t remember him clearly at all, other than he’d been a fringe friend of Timothy’s. When she’d been hired at the diner a year ago, Nick would come in, as he sometimes did, for breakfast or lunch, say his hellos, that it was nice to see her again, and then he’d keep a distance. Or maybe she was imagining it. She hadn’t been sure if he knew who she was because he made it his business to know who was in town, or because he remembered her as the junior who’d gotten knocked up by his friend—or said she had—and then mysteriously disappeared. Unlike some other patrons at the diner, he wasn’t a flirt, didn’t stare at her, and she couldn’t read him at all. Which made her even more aware of him.

“I’m sorry to just barge in on you like this,” he said. “I wanted to let you know that Leigh and I won’t be taking your class anymore.”

She looked at him, hoping to read something in his expression, but he had his usual poker face. Cop face. If this was a time or schedule conflict, he would have called. But he’d come to the door, which meant there was something else going on here.

“Was the shoofly pie just too upsetting for Leigh?” Veronica asked. “I know she’s only ten and perhaps I overstep—”

“It’s not—” he began, then leaned his head back and sucked in a breath. He shook his head slightly.

There went the poker face. She opened the door wide. “Come in. I’m working on a pie—Amore—right now. We can talk in the kitchen.”

He was in uniform and took off his police hat, which she set on the counter next to her bowl of apples. He brushed back his dark brown wavy hair with his hand. Despite how big her kitchen was, how tall she herself was, Nick was six feet two, maybe six three, and muscular, and he overwhelmed the space. Overwhelmed her; no easy feat.

She moved to the island counter and added the eggs and brown sugar and cornstarch, whisking them together. She glanced at Nick, standing on the opposite side of the counter. He looked uncomfortable, so she thought it best not to rush him.

“The pie is working too well for her, actually,” he said. “She had three slices of the pie since Monday’s class, and she says every time she even forks a piece, she feels her mother with her, can smell her perfume, feels the wool of her favorite red sweater.”

She stopped whisking. “Well, then that’s good, isn’t it?”

“Her grandparents—her mother’s parents—think it’s some kind of voodoo nonsense and don’t like it. They don’t like me, really.”

Veronica looked at him and he glanced away, out the window.

“I assume it’s not voodoo nonsense,” he said. “Just power of suggestion. Just pie, actually.”

She smiled. “Yes. It is just pie. With some prayers and wishes and hopes baked in. The elixir pies seem to work for people because of the spark of hope in their names—Feel Better Pie, Amore Pie, Spirit Pie.”

He leaned against the refrigerator, letting his head drop back. “Got a pie to make sure you don’t lose your kid?” he said, his voice breaking a bit. He turned around and faced the window, jamming his hands into his pockets.

“Nick? What’s going on?”

He turned back to her, looking between her and the floor. “Leigh’s grandparents think she might be better off with them. If she lived with them, they say, she wouldn’t have to go to an aftercare program at school. She’d come home off the school bus to a waiting, loving grandmother instead of a single father with unpredictable hours, an unpredictable job. They think she needs a maternal influence, specifically her grandmother’s. The thought of my marrying again makes them sick. Any time I have so much as a date they seem to know about it.” He turned toward her. “What the hell am I doing? I came here to tell you we wouldn’t be back to your class and now I’m blurting out my life story.”

“I’m glad you explained,” she said. “Leigh is such a sweet girl, and the shoofly pie really seemed to comfort her. That’s all it is. Comfort.”

“I know. What’s crazy is that when she asked if we could take the class, I thought, perfect, her grandparents will like this—good, clean fun for a father and daughter to do together. How wholesome.” He rolled his eyes. “Instead, my former mother-in-law called me at work today, screaming up a storm about this ‘voodoo pie nonsense’ Leigh’s been talking about, and again said she was thinking of filing for custody.”

“That’s serious,” Veronica said. “Is she just upset or do you think she really will?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know if she just needs reassurance or if she’s really going to file the papers. I’m going out of my mind. I don’t even know why I’m telling you all this. I’m just trying to explain why we won’t be back Monday. I can’t give the woman ammunition.”

“I understand,” she said. “I feel bad that this caused a problem. It’s really just about comfort. That’s all.”

He crossed the kitchen, leaning against the counter and looking out the window again. “I was in the process of filing for divorce when the accident happened. Our marriage was falling apart and things weren’t good between us. My wife—she was having an affair. I found out and it was the last straw. But then she died, and my former in-laws, who didn’t know about the affair, have hated me ever since. I’m sure they think I initiated the divorce because I was the one sleeping around.”

“Oh, Nick, I’m so sorry.”

“Leigh is staying at their house tonight. This has got me so worked up I don’t even want to go home. Just makes me think of what it’ll be like if they try to take her away from me.”

“You can help me make this pie,” Veronica said, gesturing at her mixing bowl. She’d give up on the Amore Pie for the moment; worry and stress and threat of custody battles didn’t make for a good love pie for a hopeful client. “Just a plain chocolate pudding Happiness Pie for you to take home. No voodoo nonsense.”

He nodded, offering something of a smile.

“You can grab the dough from the refrigerator,” she told him, wondering if he even remembered her. He never brought up high school. Maybe he recognized her as someone who’d gone to his school and that was it. Maybe he didn’t even know she was the girl who’d been Timothy’s girlfriend, the
girl who’d “accused” him of getting her pregnant. She’d bet anything he did know, though. “It’s been chilling long enough.”

He seemed grateful to have something to do. He got out the dough and spread some flour on the surface, then began rolling it.

“You were paying attention in class, I see,” she said.

“I always pay attention. Job requirement.”

Yes, indeed, he knew exactly who she was. “I’ll bet. How about some coffee.”

“I could use a strong cup,” he said, continuing to roll the dough.

Veronica stepped away to the coffeemaker, glad to turn her back to him for a moment. God. This was unexpected. She added an extra half scoop of Sumatra to the filter, noticing that her hands felt trembly, not like during the movie shoot, more shaky, as though she weren’t on solid ground.

“You clearly love your daughter,” she said. She hadn’t meant to say that out loud; she’d been thinking it, but it just came out.

He nodded. “I do. More than anything. But her grandparents are right about some stuff. I can’t be there when she gets home from school. I do have a job that puts my life in danger when I’m her only living parent. I do suck at cooking.”

“You know how to roll out a piecrust,” she said.

He smiled. “Thanks to you, I do.”

The piecrust was ready to be filled, but a few minutes later, after he’d drank half his coffee, he said he should be going.

“I need to go for a long walk and process all this, think,” he said. “Maybe I can take a rain check on a slice of the chocolate pie.”

“Sure,” she said.

Just like that, he was gone.

Veronica couldn’t stop thinking about him. She felt for him, obviously. But there was something else going on here, something unexpected, an attraction to Nick DeMarco that she wouldn’t let rise to the surface.