Authors: Linda Francis Lee
“Dinner,” the cook announced.
“We need to wait,” Helen Kane said, rummaging around in her Chanel bag until she found a cell phone.
“Mother, how many times has Anthony said he’s coming to town, then failed to show up?” Gabriel refocused on Portia. “Thank you for stopping by,” he said. “Ariel, show Ms. Cuthcart to the door?”
Portia blinked.
“Dad,” Ariel interjected, “I told you, we invited her to dinner.”
Gabriel stared at his younger daughter, irritation riding across his face. “No, you didn’t tell me.”
“I didn’t? Oops, bad me.”
“Ariel, doesn’t your father know that you invited me to dinner?”
Ariel wrinkled her nose. “Not exactly.”
Just great. “I’ll go.”
“You can’t! You brought a cake. Dad, you can’t kick her out after she brought us a cake.”
“Way to be polite, Dad,” Miranda said.
Was that a hint of desperation in his eyes?
Gabriel ran his hand through his hair. “Sorry for the confusion. Please. Join us.”
“Really, I—”
Ariel grabbed Portia’s arm and pulled her toward a chair. Without jerking away, there wasn’t much she could do.
The dining room had been transformed into a breezy space. Billowing lightweight curtains framed French doors leading to a Juliet balcony. It was beautiful, in a picture-perfect magazine sort of way. But there was nothing personal about it.
“Nice, huh?” Ariel said.
“Absolutely lovely!” She might have added too much enthusiasm in an attempt to cover up a real lack of it.
Gabriel raised a brow, but didn’t comment.
Helen Kane managed to delay the meal for another ten minutes waiting for her other son, but finally gave in when Gabriel pointed out that Anthony was already forty-five minutes late. The family sat in silence as they were served a meal of tough beef tenderloin, overdone asparagus, underdone potatoes, wilted salad, and slices of plain white bread.
Portia thought of her own grandmother, of the cookbooks, of the knowledge that charred beef would fill a person with heated anger. The last thing this family needed was more anger.
Miranda’s phone rang, and she started to answer.
“What did I tell you about phone calls at dinner?”
“But, Dad!”
“No buts.”
Miranda glared.
Gabriel pretended not to notice. Ariel sighed. The grandmother kept looking toward the door.
This family was unhappy. This family needed food—light, nutritious meals. Happy food. Menus rushed unbidden through Portia’s head. A fluffy quiche. Arugula salad with a light balsamic dressing.
The thought surprised Portia, and she pushed this one away, too.
Miranda glared. “You’re a terrible dad, you know? Nobody I know has to put up with this stupid stuff at home.”
Portia opened her mouth, and closed it again. Gabriel’s face closed, his eyes expressionless. Helen raised a brow much like her son did so often.
“Hey, Dad?” Ariel said, breaking the silence. “I think you’re doing a great job.”
Apparently the task of peacemaking had fallen to Ariel.
The tense silence was interrupted when the doorbell rang.
“That’s him!” Helen lit up like a Christmas tree.
Miranda bolted from the table and dashed to the door.
“Uncle Anthony!” rang through the town house.
Portia heard a deep voice laugh and footsteps headed their way. Helen stood. For his part, Gabriel remained seated at the head of the table, his jaw visibly tight. But as his brother entered the room, he rose to greet him as if ingrained manners took over.
The man who entered couldn’t have been more different from his brother. It wasn’t that they didn’t look alike; they did. They had the same dark hair and dark eyes, the same set to their jaw. But something about the way Anthony Kane’s features came together made him seem like light to Gabriel’s dark—Beauty to the Beast.
Gabriel extended his hand. Anthony smiled and pulled his brother in for a bear hug.
When they stepped apart, Portia saw that Gabriel’s face hadn’t eased.
Anthony just laughed, and turned to his mother. Helen Kane looked as if she was on the verge of tears.
“It’s about time you noticed your mother,” she said, opening her arms.
Portia watched as Anthony pulled his mother into another fierce hug, then set her at arm’s length. “God, you are the best-looking woman I’ve seen in a long time.” He actually twirled her around, like two dancers on a stage.
Then, suddenly, the force of Anthony’s attention turned to her.
“Hello there, beautiful. Who are you?”
Portia felt Ariel’s surprised glance, Helen’s narrowed-eye glare, even something decidedly tense coming from Gabriel. But no one introduced her.
“I’m Portia Cuthcart,” she offered. “I live downstairs.”
Anthony took Portia’s hand and lifted it dramatically in the air. “Oh, to have a neighbor like you,” he said, his eyes laughing. He leaned down to kiss the backs of her fingers.
“Good Lord, Anthony,” Helen said. “I can see you haven’t lost any charm while you were away.” She sounded both jealous and proud.
“I wouldn’t call it charm.”
Gabriel hadn’t moved, but Portia felt his tension settle into something deeper, more nuanced as he said the words.
Anthony dropped into a chair next to his mother. He snatched up the woman’s hand and peppered kisses up to her wrist, making her scoff and bat him about the head.
What would it be like, Portia wondered, to be the less-favored child? She felt an instant desire to defend Gabriel. Then she shook the thought away. If anyone in this room needed protecting, it definitely wasn’t Gabriel Kane.
“You can’t believe how good it is to be back in the States, sitting at a real table, eating civilized food,” Anthony said, his lightning-quick attention span shifting to the serving dishes in front of him. After a closer look, he made a face. “Two out of three isn’t bad.”
“Where’ve you been, Uncle Anthony?” Miranda asked.
“Here and there,” he said, serving himself a plate. “Mostly there.”
Miranda giggled, though Ariel’s face stayed as expressionless as her father’s.
Anthony glanced at his brother. “You’d hate the places I’ve been. We never know when we’re going to get shot at. No showers for days. We spend weeks hiking to where we need to be. No cushy Easy Street for us.”
If Portia hadn’t met either man and she’d had to guess which one lived a less civilized life, it would have been Gabriel.
“What do you do?” Portia asked.
Gabriel glanced at his brother. “Yes, Anthony, what do you do?”
Anthony ignored his brother. “I’m a writer. I’ve done a bunch of work for newspapers.”
“Yes, like
The Alliance Sun
and
The Waco Citizen,
” Gabriel interjected.
Anthony glared, but then shrugged. “Right now I’m working on a book proposal.”
Gabriel began sawing at the leathery meat on his plate. “Translation: He’s out of a job.”
Anthony’s jaw set.
Ariel jumped in. “Speaking of jobs, Dad! Did you know that Portia is a cook?”
Anthony stabbed one of the rock-hard potatoes and waved it in the air. “Maybe you should hire her to cook for you, given the bang-up job you’re doing as ‘Mr. Mom.’”
Gabriel looked him in the eye. “Maybe you should worry about finding your own job.”
“Me? I’ll get a job. But, frankly, I’m in no hurry.”
“Interesting. I assumed the only reason you showed up this time was because you were broke.”
Anthony glared right back at his brother. “Turns out, I’m about to come into some money,” he said coolly.
“Really?” Gabriel asked. “Then you signed the documents?”
“What documents?” Helen demanded.
Anthony’s easy smile returned. “I haven’t signed a thing yet, big brother. I’ve got to make sure I’m getting the best deal.”
The tension that had wound around Gabriel like a rope pulled tight.
Anthony turned to his mother. “But let me tell you, I’ve lucked into the most amazing opportunity. It’s a deal that helps the environment
and
promises to pay back investors tenfold. All I need is five grand.”
The light in Helen’s eyes visibly dimmed, and Portia knew with a sinking sense of certainty that Anthony had sprung many “deals” on his mother before.
Gabriel opened his mouth, but luckily his cell phone rang. He glanced at the screen. “If you’ll excuse me. I have to take this.” He directed a humorless smile at his brother. “It’s about a real job.” Then he stood up and left the room, saying, “Dan, is the Global deal done?”
Portia wanted nothing more than to hightail it out of Dodge. Apparently the rules regarding no cell phones at the dinner table applied only to adolescents. Which gave her the perfect way out.
“Oh dear, I forgot all about a call I have to take, too.” She hopped to her feet. “This really was lovely, but I have to go. If you’ll excuse me…”
Helen gave her a measured smile, and Anthony a lavish one. Miranda barely looked up from her own cell phone, which she had grabbed the minute Gabriel left the room.
Ariel looked miserable. “Sorry.”
“There’s nothing to apologize for,” she said, keeping her tone bright. “You were sweet to invite me. Bye!”
Nine
T
HE NEXT MORNING
, Ariel stared at her open journal, her neat block writing, the consistent Bic pen–blue ink. She always used her blue pen for the journal. All those lines of static blue ink should have made her feel better, but didn’t.
Her family was a mess. But unlike perfect block letters or math problems, there didn’t seem to be any orderly solutions in sight.
She missed her mom in a way that was so big that it constantly wanted to burst out of her. Mom had been so smart, but in a different sort of way. Not math smart, like her, or even money smart, like her dad, but something way more useful really. She knew how to deal with problems. She wouldn’t have come up with some lame plan of getting another woman to distract anyone.
Tears burned in the back of her throat. Not that crying would do any good. During the last year since Mom had died, Ariel had learned that over and over again.
She considered giving up on playing matchmaker between her dad and Portia. No question it was a ridiculous idea, and felt traitorous to her mom. Plus, Portia was weird. The only thing was that there was the whole
Portia had made her dad laugh
thing when she’d had on that burger suit. Which led Ariel right back to the fact that she didn’t have a better plan.
A few minutes later, Ariel found her dad in the kitchen dressed for work, peering into one of the big pots Gerta normally used to make her awful soup. Bread was toasting in the toaster oven.
“Hey,” Ariel said, coming up beside him. “You’re cooking?” She looked over at the toaster oven, then into the pot, and wrinkled her nose. “What is it?”
“Oatmeal.” He stirred it a few more times, like that would make it edible.
“Where’s Gerta?”
“She quit.”
“Quit?” She stepped back. “Ugh. Dad. That’s totally burned. Can’t you smell it?”
He jerked the pan off the stove, dumped it in the sink, and turned on the water. A sizzle and fog rose when the water hit the pan. Then he yanked the burned bread out of the toaster. By then, Ariel would have bet the whole house smelled liked a campfire cookout gone awry.
Grumbling, her dad opened the refrigerator and pulled out some milk. Then he stuck it on the table with three bowls and a box of cereal.
“Oh, joy, Wheaties.”
Her father scowled at her.
“Miranda!” he bellowed in the general direction of the doorway.
Ariel sat down at the table. “You know, I was serious the other day,” she said, deciding that if there was no other option than the Portia Plan, then there was no time like the present for a Portia Pitch, “about Portia cooking for us. But if you don’t want to hire her outright, have you ever thought of, I don’t know”—she made a show of considering—“dating her?”
He sliced her a look that she could only classify as irritated. “I’m not interested in dating Portia,” he said, pouring milk on her cereal. “As for hiring her, didn’t she say something about
not
cooking?”
Ariel tried to look serious and pensive. “I happen to know differently. But that’s neither here nor there.”
“Neither here nor there?”
“Dad, seriously? You sound like Miranda. Whatever, we’re talking about Portia. It’s probably good you don’t want to date her.” She nodded, just like the Shrink did whenever she bothered to say something, as if that would encourage her to start yakking away. “Now that she’s had a chance to get to know you, she’d never go out with you, anyway.” Didn’t every man like a challenge?
Unfortunately, other than snort, her dad didn’t take the bait. “I am not dating the woman downstairs.”
“She’s not just any woman. She’s Portia, who can cook regardless of what she says.” She shot him a broad, encouraging smile. “Portia, who could provide your growing daughters with much-needed food, even if she just bought it and brought it home to us.” She dragged the last word out just a hair. “I mean, really, she
is
looking for a job.”
“Are you suggesting I date a woman for convenience?”
“I’ve heard of worse reasons to ask someone out. In fact, I was watching
Jersey Shore
—”
“What were you doing watching
Jersey Shore
?”
“Stay with me, Dad; that isn’t the point.”
“The point is that you shouldn’t be watching cr—” He cut himself off. “Trash. You shouldn’t be watching trash.”
“Does this fall into the category of kid blocks on computers and ‘No, Ariel, you’re too young for a cell phone’? Because, seriously, just think what would happen if I got lost and I didn’t have a cell phone? If I had a cell phone, all I’d have to do is call you and say, ‘Hey, Dad, guess where I am?’” She wrinkled her nose. “Hmm, I guess that wouldn’t work since, given the whole lost thing, I wouldn’t know where I was. Whatever—”
“Not ‘whatever.’” Her dad glared even more. “No twelve-year-old needs a cell phone.”
“You’ve forgotten that I’m almost thirteen, but I won’t mention that since you’re probably sensitive about forgetting things. And, really, Dad, you could do a lot worse than Portia. Her hair is great, for one thing.”