that her destiny was not even close to what she had planned for herself.
Now, she was a chef’s assistant working for her aunt. It was a job Jordan had fallen into, rather than planned for. Given that, it was surprisingly satisfactory.
She no longer had any desire to be mayor. She just wanted to be a good mom to her small firebrand of a daughter. She wanted to help other girls, who like herself, found themselves thrown up on love’s rocks, battered and bruised. Priorities changed that quickly.
Reminding herself sternly she had to work tomorrow, she climbed back into bed, and tossed restlessly until the phone jangled shrilly. Startled, Jordan looked at her bedside clock—6:00 a.m. No one in their right mind called that early in the morning. It must be Marcella. She was due the third week of September.
“Hello?” she answered, already pulling on her jeans. She could drop off Whitney at her parents, call Meg, be in the labor room in fifteen minutes.
“Jordan, you are not going to believe this!”
She sat down on the edge of her bed, and eased the jeans back off. “I’m already having trouble with belief. Aunt Meg, when have you ever been up at this time of the morning?”
“Never,” her aunt admitted. “But it was worth it! Did I wake you? Never mind. You’ll think it’s worth it, too.”
“We’ve been hired to cater the presidential ball?” Jordan asked, tongue-in-cheek.
“Better. It’s because of the time zone difference that they called so early.”
Better than the presidential ball? Jordan was intrigued despite herself. “Aunt Meg, who called so early?”
“Lady Gwendolyn Corbin, lady-in-waiting to Queen Marissa Penwyck of the island kingdom of Penwyck.”
Jordan, confused, checked her calendar. As she thought, it was still September, not anywhere near April Fool’s day. She sighed. Her lovely aunt, a chef extraordinaire, always walked the fine line between genius and eccentricity. Sadly, she had obviously finally crossed the line.
“Jordan, listen! She wants me—us—to cater the party. At the palace! Right there on the island of Penwyck! We get to go there, all expenses paid. Oh my, Jordan, it is the break I’ve been waiting for. I told you that little piece in Up and Coming People was going to do it. I told you!”
The article in the national magazine Up and Coming had been dreadful. It had made her aunt seem considerably more eccentric than she was, which must have been a stretch for the writer. It had featured Meg’s experiments combining edible flowers with pastry. “Flaky Flowers” had been the title of the piece and it had gone downhill from there.
“Aunt Meg, slow down,” she suggested gently, suspecting the article had generated a prank. “Where have you been asked to go? And what have you been asked to do?”
Her aunt took a deep breath. “You read about it in the papers, didn’t you? Or saw it on television?”
“Flaky Flowers was on television?” Jordan asked, appalled that her aunt might have been held up for ridicule at a new and dizzying level.
“Not Flaky Flowers. Jordan, the whole world has been talking about nothing else. You missed it, didn’t you?” This was said with undisguised accusation.
“I suppose I might have,” Jordan admitted uncertainly.
Her aunt sighed. “You are taking this heartbroken recluse thing to radical limits.”
“I prefer to think of myself as a strong, independent woman,” Jordan said, miffed. She could feel a headache coming on. She did not feel prepared to defend her lifestyle choices at six in the morning.
“Same thing,” her aunt said.
“What world event did I miss?” she asked, trying to get her aunt back to the point and away from her personal life.
“The kidnapping of that prince! And now he’s been safely returned to his home and his mother, the queen, is having a party to celebrate, and I’m catering and you’re coming with me!”
I hope this isn’t real, Jordan thought. “Is this real?”
“Of course. A celebration for those closest to the family. Which is a mere one hundred and seventy-five. Dinner, of course before the ball. Did you hear me, Jordan? A ball, like in Cinderella.”
The fairy tale Jordan most alluded to when she told frightened young expectant mothers not to believe in fairy tales. The prince was not coming to rescue them. Sometimes, Jordan even found herself wishing the story could have a different ending, but it rarely did.
“A midnight snack will be necessary,” her aunt went on, not intercepting the chilly response to Cinderella. “What do you think? My Moose Ta-Ta for the main course?”
Despite the name, Meg’s Moose Ta-Ta was to die for: roast beef done in a secret sauce that Meg claimed included the unshed velvet of a moose antler.
When she debated saying it might be hard to procure that much velvet, Jordan realized she was being sucked into the incredible vortex of her aunt’s enthusiasm. “I can’t help you, Aunt Meg.”
“What?!” This said in the same tone Cruella used when she was refused the puppies.
“No,” Jordan said firmly, “I can’t possibly. I told you from the beginning I wouldn’t travel. Couldn’t. I am giving my daughter stability.”
“What you are giving your daughter is a boring life. Boring. Boring. Boring.”
“Plus, Marcella’s baby is due any day. I can’t just leave her in the lurch.”
“Jordan, which member of your group had her baby last? Stacey? You had nine people in the delivery room with her. That’s a baseball team. You don’t need to be there.”
“The girls like knowing I’m there for them.” Like no one else ever has been.
“I think you should find a volunteer activity that doesn’t underscore your anger at men.”
Menu discussion to free psychology advice from the woman who had proudly named Moose Ta-Ta. Jordan noted her headache seemed to be intensifying, moving around from the center of her forehead toward her ears.
“I like my boring life, and my volunteer work,” Jordan said, a touch testily. She had experienced the other. She had experienced exhilaration. Magic. Wonder. It was exhausting. The pain of losing those kinds of things never dulled, ever.
Boring on the other hand was nice and dull to begin with. It was hard to go downhill from there.
“Of course you adore boring, dear,” her aunt said soothingly, “but you must come. You must. As a teensy-weensy favor to your favorite aunt who can no longer survive without you. Who else could I trust with the icing for the Dancing Chocolate Ecstasy?”
“I won’t leave my daughter and Marcella in order to baby-sit your active bacterial cultures.”
“Darling, you never even let me get to the best part! Whitney can come. They’ve given me a blank
