woman who’d taken her place was perfectly happy with cotton.
Vinnie hadn’t been mean about it, really. Or even angry. In fact, something like amusement had flashed in his dark eyes when she’d come to him, shyly untying the deep green satin robe she’d bought to go with the matching satin bikini panties, the push-up bra. No, he’d just looked at her—briefly—as he might have a child who’d put her shoes on the wrong feet. Then he’d pulled the robe closed, kissed her on top of her head, and calmly told her to go change.
And take back the underwear. Which of course she couldn’t do because she’d worn it. If only for five minutes.
When she’d finally thrown it out, she didn’t fully understand, not then, why she felt like something’d been stolen from her.
“Okay.” Galen turned around, arms folded across her waist, mentally whapping at the heebie-jeebies. Wondering who she might have been, if she hadn’t made some of the choices she had. If she hadn’t let desperation cloud reason, all those years ago. How long, she wondered, could a seed remain dormant before it would no longer spring to life? Guess she was about to find out, huh? “You’re doing green beans. What can I do?”
“Do?” Cora leaned back, her features twisted. “Baby, unless I’m very mistaken, this is the closest thing you’ve had to a vacation in years. Nobody expects you to so much as lift a finger while you’re here.”
Galen squinted at her. “You’re forgetting. This is the woman who loves to cook, who hasn’t had a chance to strut her stuff for nearly five years. Invalids and old ladies aren’t very appreciative when it comes to anything fancier than custard and boiled chicken.” She grinned, several possibilities swirling around in her brain. “You wouldn’t have a pasta maker by any chance?”
Cora’s eyes went wide. “You make pasta?”
“It’s the only way.”
“Uh, no. The only way is to buy stuff in boxes, throw it in boiling water, ten minutes later you eat.”
“You’d make a lousy Italian, Cora.”
“Not something that keeps me awake at nights, believe me.” Cora stood again and tramped to the door, still hanging on to the moony-faced dog. “Besides, Miss Irish-Slovak Mutt, you weren’t exactly born singing ‘O Sole Mio’ yourself.”
“Minor point.”
Cora chuckled, then said on her way out the door, “But, as it happens, I do have a pasta maker.”
Galen followed, confused. “But you said—”
“Didn’t say I used it.” Cora started down the narrow stairs, one wide hand braced on what seemed to Galen to be a very flimsy banister. “Rod and Nancy—you’ll meet them tomorrow, friends of Elizabeth’s and Guy’s, she’s crazier than a loon but they’re both just the sweetest people you’d ever want to meet—anyway, they gave me one when I moved in here. He’s some sort of gourmet cook himself, you should see his kitchen, honey. Mm-mm. But back to what I was saying before…” Now at the bottom of the stairs, she turned back to Galen, brows drawn together. “You’re supposed to be taking it easy.”
Galen stopped, two steps from the bottom, hands tucked in her pockets. “For heaven’s sake, Cora. I’m on vacation, not convalescent. So where’s this pasta maker?”
“You don’t have to do this—”
“Hey—you want me to go to this thing? You let me bring something.”
“Oh, Lord.” Shaking her head, Cora pivoted on the bare wooden floor, her leather-soled flats tapping against the boards as she made her way to the kitchen. “Now I’m beginning to remember what you were like as a child. Like to give your mama fits, what with you always getting a bee in your bonnet about one thing or another.” She finally jettisoned the dog, then opened and closed several heavily enameled white kitchen cupboard doors before she found what she was looking for. She lugged the machine off the shelf, thunking it down onto a badly worn Formica counter in a hideous shade of aqua.
Galen oohed at the pasta maker for several seconds before Cora’s words sank in. She looked up, brow puckered. “What are you talking about?”
“Baby, you were a real piece of work when you were little. Stubborn? Hardheaded? Willful?” Cora laughed. “Take your pick.” She nodded toward the appliance. “That okay?”
“What? Oh, yeah.” Her brain spinning, Galen caressed the glistening surface of the appliance. “This is like the Rolls-Royce of pasta makers.”
“Yeah?” Cora looked at it the way those people did on the “Antiques Road-show” when the appraiser told them the piece of junk that had been sitting in their great-aunt’s attic for a thousand years was worth more than their house, then shrugged. “Still.” Then she took off for the living room, leaving Galen, once again, to follow. Which she only did because she wanted Cora to tell her what the heck she was talking about.
Cora grabbed the clicker from the coffee table, settled herself on one end of the nubby, striped sofa. “Now, I’m not saying you were a bad child. Nothing like that. You never sassed your mama, least not that I ever heard. And you were always so good with my girls, even though they were so much younger than you. But you sure were a determined little thing. When you wanted something, you’d either drive your mama nuts until she gave in, or figured out some way to get whatever it was you wanted on your own.” She angled her head, frowning. “You don’t remember that?”
With a sigh, Galen sank into the overstuffed cushions beside Cora, her arms knotted at her waist. “Vaguely. But somewhere along the line…” She stopped, trying to figure out how to put what she felt into words. The dog hopped up onto her lap, bestowing two tiny kisses on her knuckles. Galen smiled in spite of herself. “I guess my parents’ deaths shook me more than I even realized.”
“Knocked all the fight out of you, in other words.”
“Maybe. Yeah, I guess.”
“Well, honey—” Cora aimed the clicker at the TV, surfing through several channels until she lit on some sitcom Galen had watched once and vowed to never watch again “—ain’t nobody around to tell you what to do anymore, is there? You wanna make something for dinner, you go right ahead.” Without waiting for a reply, she waved at the TV. “You like this show?”
Galen reached around to finger a stray hair tickling the back of her neck. “Actually…” Cora pinned her with a look she’d seen a thousand times on her grandmother’s face. “Sure. It’s…one of my favorites.”
“Good. I was hoping you’d say that.”
Galen just sighed.
Even though the brilliant flush of high autumn was long past, Thanksgiving decided to be clear and bright and crisp, a day to do Norman Rockwell proud. Around two, Cora’s little Ford Probe slid in behind a conga line of minivans snaking around from the front of Elizabeth’s and Guy’s corner-lotted Victorian. They got out, carefully withdrawing the terry-blanketed casseroles from the floor behind the front seat: Cora’s green-bean casserole and a dish Galen had learned to make on the sly by watching Vinnie’s grandmother. Galen had dragged Cora all over creation for two hours yesterday before she found a store with the right kind of prosciutto ham, the Parmesan cheese—fresh, not the Kraft stuff—the ricotta. Then, this morning, she’d
