Page 37 of Make a Scene

“Knife?” he asked.

Retta turned and removed a knife from her butcher’s block and handed it to him. She thought since he asked no further questions that he knew at least what he was doing, but then he started chopping the chocolate like you might a carrot.

After fishing her last donut from the oil, she turned to where he stood and gently pushed him to the side to demonstrate what she wanted him to do. Regaining control of the knife, he imitated her rough movements and completed the task.

“Okay, what next?” he asked, after popping a shard of chocolate into his mouth.

“Now, you have to heat the cream on the stove,” she said, hauling out a pot from a low cupboard.

He opened her fridge and stepped back. “What the hell?”

“What?” she asked as she joined him to look inside her fridge. She expected to find her Jenga-like packed interior disrupted or something, but everything was perfectly in place.

“How can you find anything in here?” he asked.

Sure, there was a lot going on—stacked deli quart containers completely blocked the fridge’s light—but there was intention behind the chaos.

“Where’s the cream?” he asked.

“Okay, relax,” Retta said as she started to move several of the perfectly labeled and dated containers onto the tiny counter beside them.

“There could be a live possum in there and you wouldn’t know,” Duncan said.

“His name is Terrance.”

“What?” Duncan asked.

“The live possum in my refrigerator? His name is Terrance.”

Duncan threw his head back and laughed. He didn’t stop until Retta, after running out of counter space, started handing him jars and bottles to hold.

After finding the carton and returning the other items, they got the ganache going.

“You have to watch it. Don’t look away for anything,” Retta said of the cream in the pot. “You want to take it off just before it’s about to boil.”

Duncan folded his arms and, while staring at the cream, asked, “What’s the weirdest event you’ve catered for?”

Retta paused with the dishes she was cleaning, pondering the question. “I don’t think there’s been anything completely weird. I did do this wedding held at a pool with a couple that wore mermaid tails during the ceremony.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, it was unique, and everyone was fully invested in the theme,” Retta said.

They didn’t delve deeper into the topic of weird and wonderful events because she pointed to the scalded cream and said, “It’s done, remove it and pour it over the chocolate in the bowl.”

After a minute, she had him whisk the ingredients together as she got two cooled donuts from the rack.

“This doesn’t look right,” Duncan said of the clumpy mess of cream and chocolate.

“It’ll come together. Keep going.”

He whisked and whisked, and eventually a silky ganache appeared.

“See, told you,” she said, dipping their donuts in and holding them up for Duncan to inspect.

Taking one from her hand, he bit into more than half of it.

“This is incredible,” he said.