Page 13 of Apple of My Eye

Chapter Eleven

Eloise

Recipes to Learn from Mom

– Chicken Cacciatore

– Apple Pie

– London Fog Concentrate

– Blackberry Cobbler

– Banana Pumpkin Muffins

– Carrot Cake

– Gnocchi Tomato Soup

– Spritz Cookies

– Sticky Toffee Pudding Cake

– Cheese Crackers

Mom outdid herself with the cacciatore, and still, dinner is slow torture as I try to piece together exactly what Nick is doing here.

Mom is the perfect hostess, peppering Nick with questions about San Francisco even though I’m sure she knows the answers seeing as Linden has lived there longer than Nick has, which leaves me to stew in my own conflicting thoughts.

I try not to look at Nick, instead I steal glances at him from under my lashes, watching him appreciate the food. He eats slowly, closing his eyes briefly between bites.

‘You used fennel,’ he says after his fifth bite.

Everyone else’s plates are almost clean.

Betsy’s already gotten up for seconds. Nick, meanwhile, is taking his time.

It takes a Herculean effort for me to keep my focus on dinner and not start to think about where else Nick may take his time or whether his mouth can appreciate other things like it clearly appreciates food.

Mom nods. Dad glances at her from under his eyebrows. ‘You did?’ He winces.

‘I hate fennel,’ Betsy announces. ‘There’s no fennel in here.’

Mom and Nick share a glance and they both smile like they’re in on a secret. I squint at her. There is no need to be this nice to the person sent here to ruin everything I’ve planned. Even if it does seem like he knows his way around a kitchen.

Mom and Nick talk for so long the streaks across my plate from the chicken cacciatore are completely congealed.

He is curious, asking her non-stop questions about Carnation.

She’s explained the dirt road get-through that shaves a half-hour off of getting to the nearest big box store, she’s commiserated with him and Betsy about the butcher’s husband taking over the shop while his wife takes maternity leave (the husband cannot cut a decent pork belly), and she’s forced Nick to recount all his favorite recipes.

The fact that he knows his mom’s recipes by heart makes mine do a little flutter. I ignore it. It must be the fennel coming back up.

Mom, on the other hand, is positively gleeful. She grabs a notepad and starts writing things down.

‘I can’t believe I’ve been subjecting you to my cooking!’ Betsy wrings her hands in her lap. ‘We need to get you in the kitchen.’

Nick laughs. ‘Your cooking is wonderful,’ he says, laying a gentle hand on her forearm in reassurance.

I feign boredom, not wanting Nick to realize I’m focused on his every word.

Instead, I trace my fingers slowly over the curves of grain in the wood, remembering snippets of dinners growing up, of Linden complaining about his many responsibilities, of trying to be noticed by my parents while sitting next to him, the golden-haired golden boy.

I play with my split ends, wondering how Linden got a vibrant blond color that looks like spun gold, while my hair looks like dishwater.

Mom’s chair pushes back from the table with a creak against the floor, and I shoot up, hurriedly grabbing plates to clear.

‘Oh, thank you, Lou,’ she says sweetly, sitting back down and watching me clear the plates.

Nick tries to help me. ‘I got it,’ I say, but I clearly don’t have it. I reach for another plate and wobble. Wordlessly, Nick jumps up and starts to clear. I hear him behind me as I make my way to the sink.

Slowly, I dip the plates into the suds and stack them in the dishwasher.

Nick clears his throat behind me. ‘Do you prefer Lou?’

He’s managed to pile the salad bowl, chicken cacciatore remnants, and bread basket all on top of one other, and I have to take them off his hands one by one, leaving us an inordinate amount of time to stand extremely close to each other.

‘Eloise is fine,’ I say curtly, trying to focus despite being able to smell him again, cinnamon and mint mixing with the Italian scents lingering in the kitchen.

His biceps bulge with tension as he stays stock-still, arms at ninety degrees, holding the stack of dishes.

I breathe a sigh of relief when I’ve successfully offloaded the platters without dropping anything.

The last thing I need to do is draw any more attention to myself.

‘Did you like dinner?’ I murmur, offering a conversational olive branch as a thank you for his help. I keep my voice down so my parents can’t hear.

‘Delicious.’ He smiles shyly at me and I glance at his teeth, perfectly square and white, gleaming against his skin. His lips are the color of pink terracotta or a late-blooming rusty dahlia.

He picks up a clean bowl as I set it on the counter next to me, grabs a faded green dishtowel from where it’s hanging on the oven handle, and starts to dry.

We repeat the process in silence until there’s a stack of dry dishes next to the sink.

As chatty as he was earlier, he seems just as comfortable with neither of us speaking.

‘Guests aren’t supposed to clean,’ I say, more to myself than to him.

‘Am I still a guest if I live across the street?’

I raise an eyebrow at him. ‘Technically you’re across the hill, and being here for two months is a lot different than living here.’

‘Across the hill,’ Nick repeats. ‘That’s got a nice ring to it.’

‘Plus, even if you moved here, you would still be a guest.’

‘It’s nice here—’ Nick shrugs ‘—maybe I will.’

‘Something tells me you won’t.’ I shrug back, leaning against the counter. I glance out the window over the sink, the last dregs of sunlight dapple over the hills. The Parkers’ farm gleams on the nearby hilltop.

Before I can second-guess it, I decide the best way to figure out exactly what Nick has planned will be to ask him directly. ‘Want a beer?’ I offer. ‘We could take a quick walk out back?’

Nick’s eyes meet mine and linger there, like he’s trying to read the expression on my face. ‘Sure,’ he says. ‘That sounds really nice.’

‘Mom, I’m going to take Nick on a quick walk around the farm, OK?’

The conversation in the other room completely stills.

‘OK!’ she calls back. I can hear the smile in her voice.

The low buzz of conversation quickly returns, and Betsy laughs, sharp and loud.

Nick and I exchange a knowing glance as I hand him a beer.

We duck outside into the dim light, stopping to hammer the caps off on the flat edge of a wooden post. We clink our bottles.

‘To farming,’ Nick says, an eager smile on his face.

Something about his simplicity, his eagerness to please, is extremely endearing. I return his smile. ‘To farming,’ I say.

We walk in silence along the dirt path to the closest barn. I steal glances at Nick, admiring the way his profile looks in the soft light. He glances back at me and our eyes meet.

‘It’s gorgeous out here,’ Nick says.

‘Yeah, it is,’ I agree. ‘I used to walk this path every night when I was little. My dad would take us through the farm to say goodnight to the animals. Goodnight geese, goodnight bees, goodnight chickens, goodnight JJ, goodnight birds.’

‘Damn.’ Nick shakes his head. ‘Sounds like you were literally living in a storybook.’ He pauses. ‘Wait—’ Nick stills. ‘Who’s JJ?’

‘My horse.’

‘That’s so cool,’ he says wistfully. ‘Sounds like the life. Why JJ?’

‘Um.’ I squirm. ‘I don’t know, some singer I liked.’

‘What singer is named JJ? Isn’t her name JoJo?’

‘Oh yeah, JoJo.’

Nick squints at me. ‘Really? Then why not call her JoJo.’

I sigh. ‘Because he’s a he,’ I admit.

‘And you named him JoJo?’ Nick is thoroughly confused now.

‘Ugh,’ I groan. ‘Fine. You caught me. I named my horse Joe Jonas,’ I mumble.

Nick bursts out laughing. It’s easy, generous, like it wouldn’t take much to bring him joy. ‘No you didn’t.’

‘In my defense,’ I say, crossing my arms, ‘I was ten.’

He holds up his hands. ‘That’s fair. Can’t say anyone has great taste at ten.’

I swallow back a smile. Nick is being generous. Many people have better taste at ten than to name their horse after Joe Jonas. ‘Did you have good taste at ten?’ I ask.

‘I was voted most likely to smile in middle school, so .?.?. yes? I mean, I guess? I was smiling at everything, so .?.?.’

‘Somehow I don’t think much has changed since now and then.’

Nick smiles, catches himself, tries to frown and then smiles even bigger.

I start laughing, so distracted that I almost trip on the trail I’ve been walking since I could remember.

He reaches out and grabs my forearm to steady me.

‘Thanks,’ I murmur. His touch on my arm is enough to make my heart beat faster, and for a moment I have to keep my gaze trained on the ground as I try to relax.

He releases his hand from my elbow, but I can still feel the heat of his fingerprints.

A thought explodes in my mind with the nuance of a firecracker—I haven’t felt like this in a long time.

I decide it’s the beer, that’s what’s making me so light-headed.

Nick clears his throat.

‘So, what do you have planned while you’re here?’ I ask, breaking the silence. It’s as good a time as any to find out what he’s up to.

‘I’m really just here to help out the Parkers.’

‘Doing what exactly?’

‘Well, as you’ve already guessed, I don’t farm.’

I nod. We’re about halfway to the North Barn, cresting over the gentle slope of a hill.

I know Nick will hesitate before he does because I know this view by heart, and right in between our house and the barn there’s a lookout over a swell of land about half a mile away that looks like a dragon’s back.

I’ve always felt like the land looks alive from here, undulating into the distance.

Like clockwork, his footsteps slow. ‘Not too shabby,’ he breathes.

We stop, perching our arms over the wooden fence that borders the path, and stand, staring into the distance. There’s a choir of cicadas humming in the air around us.