I feel like I hardly slept last night, the last night before our big day. Even with Kitty beside me, her warmth and breathing a comfort, I still couldn’t sleep. I kept picturing all the things that could go wrong. Not enough rice. Scorching the fish. Burning the tofu. Tofu crumbling into bits. Spilling the rice. Serving raw chicken. Breaking the bottle of truffle oil. Running out of dishes. Heck, breaking dishes.
I rub my eyes and stretch, trying not to wake Kitty as I carefully move to the edge of the bed and sit up. The bed rocks a bit anyway, and Kitty’s eyes flutter open.
“Morning already?” She looks a bit tired too, but nowhere near what I’m feeling. I didn’t know I could feel so anxious. Even when Alice and I were first starting out with the farmers’ markets, I still slept fine.
“It is. How’d you sleep?”
Kitty shrugs. “I’ve had better. But I’ve had worse.” She smiles and wraps a hand around my forearm. “Don’t get up, Lucy.” She glances at the alarm clock on the bedside table. “We have a bit of time yet.”
I glance over. It’s not quite seven.
“All right.” I pull the blankets back and slide in next to Kitty, who lays a leg over mine possessively. We face each other, and she rests her hand against my cheek.
“You look tired,” she says.
“I am.” I try to stifle my yawn.
“Worried?” Kitty asks. “We can do this, Luce. We’ve got it. It’ll be a little rough as we smooth out the edges, but we’ve got this. You are an ace cook. I’m an ace cook. Alice and your mom are the sweetest ever, and all the customers will love them. I know we’ll be fine.”
I take a deep breath. We’ll be fine. I repeat this to myself mentally, once and then again. Breathe in. Breathe out. Now, if only I could get more sleep.
Kitty snuggles closer, her hand sliding up under my tank top, cupping my breast, her thumb brushing over the nipple. A frisson of desire goes through me, right down to my toes. My tiredness is still there, but it’s muted slightly. Kitty nudges me to my back and then rises over me, pushing the blankets down, and my tank top up over my breasts to rest just below my chin. I reach for her, but she moves away from my hand.
“Just for you,” she says, then dips her head, her tongue teasing my nipples, one, then the other. She sucks them into her mouth, letting her teeth gently scrape the tips, and I shudder. This isn’t enough—my need for her grows. I lift my hands, and she lets me put them through her hair, stroking as she works her way down my chest, over my belly, pausing at the waistband of my flowery bikini briefs. She kisses the skin just there above the band and looks up at me, her gaze hot with desire. She inches the briefs down, bit by bit, pressing kisses all the way. I lift my hips and she tugs harder, moving them down to my knees, then farther, and off. I’m not sure where they end up, but I don’t care. I part my legs and her mouth comes down on me, nibbling at me, her tongue flicking my clit, tasting me, teasing me. Her touches are light, then firm, then light again, never consistent.
“Spread your legs,” she murmurs, and I follow her direction, letting my legs fall open. She bends, lifting my buttocks in her hands, her mouth covering my sex, and there’s no more teasing. She’s on me and in me, licking and sucking, and I struggle to stay still, but I can’t. I’ve never been able to. My hips arch against her, and she murmurs against me, the vibration another delicious sensation. I’m getting closer already.
Kitty shifts her grip and a finger slides into me, curling up, stroking my G-spot, and I can feel the orgasm fluttering, hesitating, waiting for that one touch to take me over. And she does, her mouth on my clit, her finger pressing into me. The shiver, the shuddering, the full-body sensation, takes over, and I lose every thought but her, her touch, her feel, and the orgasm.
She takes her mouth off me as I come down gasping, dropping kisses on my belly as she makes her way back up to my mouth.
“Better?” she asks, her satisfied grin looking impish.
I pause. The tiredness is still there, but it’s like it’s been quieted, almost fully muted. I’ll probably notice it later in a bad way, but right now…I feel like I could climb mountains.
“How’d you know?”
“Serotonin,” she says, surprisingly serious. “And I’ll keep it up later if you need another shot.” She laughs. “You look gorgeous in your chef’s whites, you know. And there’s a staff bathroom that needs christening.”
I can feel my cheeks heating, but I can totally imagine us in there, blowing off steam. “Maybe once the evening’s over,” I say.
“Maybe,” Kitty says. “Or maybe before it starts.” She kicks the blankets the rest of the way off the bed and goes to get up.
“Not yet.” I catch her, pull her down to me, my hands sliding into the back of the cute boy shorts she likes to wear to bed. “I’m not awake enough yet.”
“No?” Kitty chuckles. “If you say so.” Her hand slides between my legs.
* * *
Everything feels like a rush, a blur, but I have my list on my phone, and we’re on our way. All our food is in Lucy’s van, and though my stomach’s roiling with nerves, I know we’ve got this.
We’ve got this.
I keep repeating it to myself, but it’s not stopping that roiling.
“Kitty,” Lucy says, reaching over to take my hand. I’ve been fiddling with a loose thread on my jeans, and just having her hand on mine starts to calm me down. “We’ve got this.” She winks at me, and I smile back.
“I said it aloud?”
“Yeah, you did.”
“Oh.”
“We’ll be fine,” Lucy assures me. “We have enough food for thirty plus a bit, which is all the space can hold, and we know what we’re doing. We’re awesome chefs. And if for some reason something bad happens, we’ll handle it. It’s not like we’re going to burn the place down.”
Just the thought of that happening makes my stomach roil even more, and I’m sure my face has gone pale.
Lucy squeezes my hand, hard. “Forget I said that. Everyone is going to be happy, we’re going to make a bit of money, and we’re going to ace this.”
“We are going to ace this,” I repeat. I mentally shove all my worrying thoughts away. We are both fully capable, fully sensible adults who can cook, and do it well.
Fortunately, I don’t have too long to ruminate, as we hit the first set of lights in town, and from there it’s not long until we’re behind the shop, our restaurant for the day. Everything is quiet. There were a few people walking along the main street, but not many. We’ll have a bit of peace in which to prepare.
I get out on my side and Lucy on hers, and she opens the back of the van. She hands me several boxes of produce, then accompanies me to the door, unlocking it with her key. She props it open with a rock that was left nearby, likely for that very purpose.
“I’ll be right behind you,” she says as I head inside.
The restaurant is silent, dark but for the light streaming in through the open door. I walk through into the kitchen, my sneakers barely making a sound on the standard red tile. I place the boxes on one side of the kitchen on the counter and head back to the door. Lucy has the boxes of chicken she ordered from the local Hutterite colony, and I take them from her.
“Thanks,” she says. “I’ll get the fish too.”
I put the chicken in the fridge under the counter, though I know we’ll be sorting it out soon. I run into Lucy on my way back out, and she slips past me with the fish, purposely bumping my hip with hers as she goes.
“Sauces and oils are in the box labeled moving,” Lucy says. “And the tofu and rice are in another box.”
“Got it.” I pick up my pace, jogging back out to the van. I grab both boxes, carefully stacking them. They’re heavy, but doable. I head back in and pass Lucy one more time. Once I put down these boxes, I find the light switch and turn on the overhead fluorescents. I blink into the sudden glare, the gleam of the light on the stainless steel.
“Beatrice told me there are some Cambros upstairs,” Lucy says as she joins me in the kitchen. “We can run those through the dishwasher and use them for storage.” She pushes her hair back from her forehead. “We have a lot to do.”
I check the time on my phone. It’s eleven in the morning, and the restaurant opens at five thirty.
“We’ve got this,” I say, yet again. “Six and a half hours for prep.”
“And food for us,” Lucy adds.
“Want to make a doughnut run while I set up?” I ask.
Lucy’s stomach growls. “I guess that answers that question.”
“I’ll find the Cambros if you get the doughnuts. Chocolate with chocolate icing for me.”
“You’ll have a sugar crash,” Lucy teases, “but all right. Coffee too?”
“Black,” I reply.
“No double-double?”
“Then I’d really crash.”
“I’ll be back.” Lucy blows me a kiss as she leaves. I look at all the food, mentally plotting our day. I have a list, but seeing it all in front of me, I know what to do.
* * *
I’m back from the doughnut run, coffees in a tray in one hand, a box of doughnuts in the other, and when I walk into the kitchen, I’m blown away by how much Kitty’s done already. I glance at my watch, double-checking the time. I wasn’t gone that long at all. But from the looks of things, I might as well have been away for an hour or more.
“I thought we were doing this together,” I tease as I come in and set down the coffee in a clear spot.
“Oh, we are,” Kitty says, laughing. “This one mine?” I nod and she grabs the coffee cup and takes a long drink. “That totally hits the spot,” she says when she puts it back down. She looks utterly professional in her chef’s whites, even more at home than seeing her in her lawyer’s office and her skirt suits. She’s more vibrant somehow, cheerier, and even though we have a lot of work to do, her energy level is off the charts.
“Go get changed,” she says, “and stop ogling me.” She comes over from where she has been chopping green onions and leans in to me. I loop an arm around her waist, and my lips meet hers. She tastes of coffee, lots of coffee, and when we part, I take a long drink from my own cup. I’m going to need the caffeine and sugar to keep going today. I’m nervous—in a good way—but I know that once I get started, I won’t have time to worry about anything.
I change in the bathroom. Before I leave, I glance in the mirror. There I am, midforties, my rounded face under the toque, my hair looking even blacker than usual, my cheeks tinged with pink against the tan yellowish undertone. My eyes are animated, and I grin. I’m here, I’m cooking, and Country Mouse will move into a new era. It’s not just about produce anymore. I can share my family’s recipes, and in some ways, I’m carrying on the family business.
I hurry out to the kitchen, where Kitty is putting a huge pile of chopped green onions into a Cambro.
“The chicken’s out. Want to get started on the marinade?” she asks as she sweeps the onions into the plastic container.
“Absolutely.” I take up my knife and a nice big cutting board and get myself set up with a large Cambro, nearly a foot square, and open the box of chicken. The Hutterites have given us a box of chicken thighs, and while they did piece them out, they’re not skinned or deboned. It’s going to be a bit of work to get these ready, but I can do it. It brings me back to cooking with Mama when I was younger, when she taught me how to peel off chicken skin and to make the quick cuts to part the flesh from the bone. We used to save the remains for Alice’s dogs, but today I’ll just be putting them into the compost bin.
Kitty starts humming, and I can’t quite make out what song it is. Something familiar, yet not. “What are you humming?”
“‘Born This Way,’” Kitty says. “Apparently, a really crappy attempt at it.”
“Why hum when you can sing?” Kitty grins and I want to tackle her. Instead I turn back to my chicken and picture Lady Gaga when I saw her in concert. Kitty hums again and I recognize the first bars. In a few moments, we both break into song. There’s nothing quite like deboning chicken, tapping your foot, and singing along to Lady Gaga with your lover on a Saturday morning.
Until, that is, our memories falter.
“What other songs do you know?” Kitty asks when we both run out of lyrics.
“Madonna?” I grew up the geekiest Chinese Madonna fan ever.
“‘Into the Groove’?” Kitty suggests. She’s cleaning the frisée now, and I stop with the chicken, watching her dance in place as she hums the chorus. I chime in with the lyrics and then we’re off. When I’m done with the chicken, I mix the marinade and shake it up in the Cambro before putting it into one of the fridges below the counter.
Time flies when you’ve got a lifetime’s worth of Madonna songs in your memory and a companion who knows almost every one of them.
“Next time we do this, we need to bring in a radio.”
“But it wouldn’t be as much fun,” Kitty says with a laugh. “Next song, your turn.”
* * *
“We’re here,” Alice calls out from the front of the restaurant. Lucy comes around the corner from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. I have a bin of clean cutlery in front of me and I’m rolling it into paper napkins like I used to do during my previous job. Back then, it was a hostess’s job to roll cutlery, but I used to help out when things were slow. It was a good chance to sit down without taking a real break, and that’s a bit of what I’m doing right now. All our food is prepped and ready to go, and I feel like I’ve been on my feet for way too long. By the end of tonight, I’m going to be exhausted. Somehow this work is harder than being a lawyer, although it’s also a lot more fun. I’ve never been able to sing Madonna’s greatest hits during a deposition.
“This looks great,” Alice says, coming to hug me and then hug Lucy. Michelle is carrying a large bundle in her arms, wrapped in paper.
“We stopped at the florist,” she says, “because I wanted to give you both a little something to help brighten up the restaurant.” She sets down the bundle and unwraps it, revealing two beautiful summer bouquets in slim glass vases. They are brilliantly colored, bright with daisies, baby’s breath, carnations, and other flowers I’ve never learned the names for.
“Mama, that’s perfect.” Lucy hugs her mom, and I wish suddenly that I had that sort of relationship with my mother too. They’re coming tonight after all, if they can make it. They said they would, but they’ve often missed engagements due to emergencies or last minute work things. More often than not, Mom’s got an emergency at the hospital. I don’t begrudge her, but every now and again, I wonder if she could just find a night off. I take a deep breath, pushing those thoughts aside. Whether or not they come, tonight will be amazing.
Michelle comes to hug me too, and I stand, hugging her right back, enjoying the sensation of being loved. Michelle is petite and getting older, but her hugs are strong, her arms wiry. In the last few months, she’s become like a second mother to me. A more attentive, more present mother.
“I’m so proud of you both,” Michelle says. “And tonight, it will be amazing. I know it will. And Alice and I will run around like crazy ladies.”
Lucy laughs. “As long as no one drops any plates, we’re good.”
“It’ll be perfect,” Alice says. “We’re confident.” She pulls out a small notepad and pen from her back pocket. “And I’m set to go.”
Lucy checks her watch. “We open in one hour.” She glances at me and looks a bit panicked suddenly. “One hour,” she repeats. I rise from my chair with the finished wrapped cutlery. Alice takes it from me.
“Go get ready,” she says. “We’ll finish up with the decorating.”
I come up to Lucy and hold out my hand, and she takes it, gripping mine tighter than expected. As we walk back into the kitchen, I can hear her breaths in and out. Her hand is clammy.
I can remember crazy, chaotic nights in the restaurant biz, the running about and occasional panic as something burned or spilled or was missed. But with the two of us together, I know that we’ll avoid that. Most of it, anyway.
“What if we mess this up?” Lucy says in a low voice as we step back into the kitchen. “Maybe we should have had another soft opening, but with more people.”
“We’ll do fine,” I say, taking her in a hug. She clings to me, or rather, we cling to each other. It’s not a sinking ship, but my stomach roils a bit. “There are seats for thirty and we can handle that many. It’ll be the cleanup that gets us, all those dishes.”
“Dishes I can do,” Lucy says. “That’s easy.”
“We’ll get all the chicken in first, and get the rice going, and then we can tackle all the rest. I’m hoping we won’t just get orders for one dish, though.”
Lucy leans back, though we’re still embracing. “We don’t have enough chicken if everyone orders it,” she says worriedly.
“If we run out, we run out.” I shrug. “We have as much as we can manage, and if we’re short, then we’ll substitute one of the other dishes. People will understand.”
“I hope so.” Lucy takes a deep breath, drops a kiss on my lips. “Let’s get this party started, Kitty.”
“Yes, let’s.” I kiss Lucy back, longer this time, no mere peck on the lips.
“People are lined up,” Michelle says, coming back into the kitchen. “No more kissing, not until after.” She chuckles. “Should I let them in?”
Lucy and I part. “Let them in,” Lucy says. “And we’ll get rocking.”
* * *
I never thought a restaurant kitchen would be so insane. I mean, I’ve seen the shows, MasterChef and a few others, but still…this is something else entirely. Maybe it’s because I’m right in the middle of it, in the middle of the heat and smells and seeing a couple dozen orders up on the rack, Alice’s white notepaper fluttering in the breeze created by the hood fans. The busiest day at the farmers’ market has nothing on this.
Kitty’s got four plates on what I’ve started considering her side of the kitchen, and she has everything set up and ready to go. On my side, I’ve got the rice cooking in the rice cooker, but a second pot on the stove, because I just know the rice in the cooker is not going to be enough. The majority of the dishes have rice, and the rice in the pot is just about done. I have the tofu happening, but I’m worried it’s not going to be good enough. Fortunately, though, there haven’t been as many orders for that one. The big seller so far is the soy and honey chicken. The fish is a close second, and I check my timer. Only a few more minutes on that steaming, and the fillets will be done. I check the time again and count back in my head. The rice should be done now too.
I take up a spoon and lift the lid on the rice. There’s a lot of steam, which is good, but when I look at it, I see that there’s still too much moisture. Damn. I give the rice a good stir and put the lid back on. Just a couple more minutes on that. I hope. I will admit that it’s been a long while since I’ve cooked rice without using the rice cooker. It’s not hard, but it’s not quite so easy, either.
“Fish up?” Kitty asks, turning toward me.
I check the timer. “One more minute.”
“And rice?”
The rice cooker clicks off. Thank goodness. “Yes!” I take up my dish towel and open the rice cooker’s lid, lift out the inner pot. I take it and the scoop over to Kitty’s side. She’s checking on the chicken. And there are daikon fries coming out of the conveyor part of the oven. Everything at once. This is nuts, but it’s exhilarating at the same time.
“Rice on those four plates,” Kitty says, pointing, “then I’ll get the fries on the plates for the fish”—she waves a hand to a stack of plates sitting nearby—“and then the chicken.” I plate the rice in its molded scoops.
Not bad if I say so myself.
“Frisée,” Kitty squeaks, and I turn to look at her. She grabs a metal bowl and takes the frisée out of the fridge below the counter. I turn to grab the truffle oil and olive oil, and when Kitty holds out the bowl of frisée, I hold the open bottles above it.
“How much of each?” I ask.
“Five drops of the truffle, maybe six,” Kitty says, “then a couple tablespoons of the olive oil.” Once I do that, my hands suddenly slick with truffle oil, she tosses the frisée with a pair of tongs and then plates it with the rice.
My timer goes for the fish, and I rush back over, taking the stack of plates with me. Alice is waiting at the pass-through, and Kitty says “Two fish, two chicken.”
I rush back with the fish, and she plates the daikon fries with both dishes and puts them on the pass-through. Then she grabs the chicken from the oven and starts plating those. I check the next order. Three fish and one tofu. I take up the rice, scooping enough for each, then grab the fish, and then take my scoop to the wok and scoop out a healthy portion of the tofu and broccolini over the rice. Then back to the pass-through. And again.
And then I realize the rice is still on the stove. Shit.
I rush back and turn off the burner, and lift the lid.
There’s definitely no moisture there. I take a sniff, and to my relief, there isn’t that horrible smell of burned rice. A bit of scorch, maybe, at the bottom, but the majority is just fine. Thank goodness.
“Rice,” Kitty squawks, and I take the empty cooker pot from her and move the pot from the stove to a spot on the counter. We scoop and prepare plates, trying our damnedest not to make things look like a mess. I make more stir-fry, and Kitty puts more daikon fries in the oven.
And then, about as suddenly as it started, all the orders are done.
They’re done.
We’ve done it.
I look at Kitty. She looks at me. Her hair is coming loose from its ponytail, and her face is flushed, and her toque is askew, and I have no doubt that I look similarly ruffled.
“I think we did it,” she says, and we lean against each other and against the counter. My hand is in hers, and she squeezes my fingers. “We should go look.”
“In case anyone’s getting sick from the food?” I joke.
Kitty nudges me. “Don’t jinx us,” she quips. We tiptoe out of the kitchen and poke our heads around the corner to look out at the dining room. Alice and Mama and Cindy are moving around the tables, taking dishes, talking to the customers, and everything is running as smoothly as I could have imagined. The murmur of voices and conversation is louder here, the clink of cutlery occasionally heard over the chatter.
“Should we say something?” I ask. I’d thought about it a little bit but could never settle on anything specific. Kitty nods.
“We really should. Just a brief thank you for coming and all that?”
“You or me?”
“Both of us,” Kitty says. “I’ll talk restaurant, you talk food?”
I nod. She smiles, and I lean into her for a kiss. “We’ve got this.”
I step out into the dining room, Kitty just beside me.
Everyone is talking and eating and having fun, and I’m amazed to see everyone enjoying the food we made. You’d think it should be a given, should be obvious, but until you see it with your own eyes…well, until then it’s just a hope, a wish.
Cindy spots us and she stands from her table, ringing a spoon against her glass. I glance at Kitty, and she glances back at me, and Kitty gives me a quirky grin. Then she faces our customers.
“Thank you so much for coming to the first evening for Ming Kitty,” she says, her skilled lawyer’s voice going out over the crowd, projecting to every corner of the dining room. “It means a lot to us that you’ve come and tried our food, and from the looks of the plates, enjoyed it right to the very end.” There’s a slight tinkle of laughter.
“This is a dream come true for us,” I add, “and it’s one that I’ve always wished for. And I’m so proud to announce that the majority of the food you’ve enjoyed tonight is very, very local. The produce is all from Country Mouse Farms, the honey is from the shop down the road, the Verandah, and the proteins are from the Hutterites.”
“The only bits that aren’t local are the truffle oil and sauces,” Kitty quips, “so if you know a local source for those, our next pop-up will be even more local than it already is.”
“Our next dinner evening will be posted on our social media,” I add, “and we’ll put the word out locally too. As a thank you for being our first ever customers, we have two kinds of dessert for you: a homemade red bean soup and locally made ice cream.”
“Thank you so much for coming,” Kitty says. “You guys are the best.”
There is applause, loud enough that I feel like my ears are ringing. Kitty squeezes my hand. Mama waves at me from their table in the back. Next to her, I notice an older couple, and the woman looks an awful lot like Kitty.
“Did your parents come?” I ask her, leaning over, my voice quiet. Kitty scans the room. “There, by Mama.”
“They did.” Kitty sounds shocked, surprised. But we don’t get a chance to go over there. A woman approaches us.
“Hi, Kitty! Oh my God, you’ve done something amazing, you two.” She turns to me. “I’m Kitty’s friend Jo Raj, freelance food critic extraordinaire. Can I chat to you about your pop-up?”
Kitty nods. “Why don’t you come back into the kitchen while we prepare the desserts? Then you can ask us whatever you’d like.”
“Plus we’ll give you an early taste of the red bean soup,” I add. Jo looks delighted.
“It’s been so long since I’ve had any,” she says, “and that was only once at a restaurant in Chinatown. I wish I knew how to make it.”
“I might tell you while we’re plating it up,” I say, “but I hope you’ll come back to our next pop-up for more.”
“Of course,” she gushes.
Once we’re in the kitchen, I set to organizing thirty bowls, and Kitty goes to bring out the ice cream from the walk-in freezer. Earlier we had figured on ten bowls of the red bean soup and twenty of the ice cream, with room for refills. We saved a bit of money by buying the ice cream in bulk, but it’s a definite investment, offering it free. But I’m glad we’re able to do something to thank our customers, even if most of them were direct invites. I don’t want this to be our first and last evening.
“Where did you come up with the idea?” Jo asks.
Kitty and I look at each other.
“I met Lucy at her stall at the farmers’ market,” she begins, “and I tasted her blackberries.”
“Do we get blackberries tonight?” Jo asks.
“Unfortunately we’re out of them right now,” I reply, “but in future evenings, we definitely will have some. Tonight, though, we have some fresh raspberries for the ice cream.”
“How did you go from blackberries to Ming Kitty?” she asks. “And how did you come up with the name?”
I feel suddenly shy. I didn’t think that a reporter would want the full details of our story. I go to pick up the pot of red bean soup and let Kitty answer that one.
I carefully fill each bowl and listen to Kitty as she tells our story. She is so confident and steady that it’s easy for me to fall into the story, to listen like it isn’t our own.
“And the name of course,” Kitty says, bringing me back to full focus, “is for both of us, right, Lucy?”
Jo turns to me. “It’s part of both of us,” I say. “Ming Nhon is my Chinese name, and of course, Kitty for Kitty. It’s both Western and Chinese, like our menu, and us.”
“That is so great,” Jo gushes, scribbling in her notebook. “I have enough to make an article, and then some.”
“Fantastic,” Kitty says. “We really appreciate you coming. I hope the publicity will help us on our way.”
“I think you have a great concept,” Jo says. “And you’ll have a full-time restaurant in no time at all.” She finishes scribbling in her notebook and then tucks it away into her purse. “I’ll get out of your way, and of course, I’m looking forward to that red bean soup.”
“I’ll make sure you get a bowl,” I promise.
Mama and Alice appear in the doorway. “Are you ready for us?” Alice asks. They are both carrying trays, and I see Mama has a second one.
“We are,” Kitty says. Alice comes in and holds out her tray, and Kitty places bowls of ice cream, each decorated with half a dozen raspberries. Mama comes over to me, and I fill her tray with bowls of red bean soup. Then I fill the second tray and lift it up.
“Ready?” I ask Kitty. She has laden herself with bowls even though she doesn’t have a tray.
We head out into the dining room. The chatter is still there, a dim roar, but there’s a slight quieting as our customers take in their dessert. To my surprise, I run out of red bean soup and have to go back for more. Mama does too, and Alice has to come back for more ice cream as well.
After we’ve made the rounds and everyone is eating, Kitty and I start helping Mama and Alice clear the dinner dishes. It’s a lot of trips back and forth from the dining room to the dish area with the three trays, but it’s more elegant than hauling in a big plastic tub like it’s an old-time diner. I scrape the minimal leftovers into the organics bin and stack the dirty plates on the counter, and Kitty finds a spot for all the wineglasses. Alice comes back.
“You two should get out there and talk to people,” she says. “Let me organize this. Go talk to your adoring public.”
Kitty sets down her tray. “Yes, ma’am,” she says, and Alice laughs.
“I’m not old enough to be a ma’am. Go on, you.” She waves us out.
In the dining room, our customers are lingering at their tables, empty dessert bowls in front of them. We start at the nearest table, where Cindy and a few of her friends have set up camp.
“So delicious,” one of Cindy’s friends gushes. “You have to tell me when your next night is, because I want to bring all my friends.”
“We’re not all here already?” jokes another of the women at the table.
“Other friends,” the first woman replies, sticking her tongue out. It’s hard not to laugh.
“You’ll be full every night,” Cindy says, “and deservedly so.”
“Thanks, Cindy,” Kitty says, bending to give her a hug. Then we move on. I keep looking at the table where Kitty’s older almost-lookalike is sitting, and eventually we come around to that table. The woman smiles and rises to her feet.
“You did so well, honey,” she says, giving Kitty a hug. “And so did your…friend.”
“Girlfriend, Mom,” Kitty corrects, but gently. “This is Lucy.”
“It’s so good to meet you, Lucy,” Kitty’s mom says, shaking my hand. It’s very formal, but then, Mrs. Kerr seems like a formal kind of lady. She’s wearing a similar type of skirt suit to the ones Kitty wears to work, but somehow it seems stiffer, less comfortable. The man with her rises as well and gives Kitty a kiss on the cheek.
“I always thought you might become a chef,” he says to Kitty.
“Really?”
“You were always trying out new recipes,” he says. “It was bound to happen.” He smiles at me. “I’m Clarence, Kitty’s dad.”
“Nice to meet you,” I say. “Glad to hear you liked the food.”
“We wouldn’t have missed it,” Kitty’s mom says. I notice Kitty stiffen, but it’s subtle and I doubt anyone else has noticed. “Can we take you two for a celebratory drink?”
“We have a lot to do,” Kitty says. “Those dishes won’t wash themselves. But how about we have dinner next weekend?” She turns to me. “Would that work for you?”
“Friday?” I suggest. “I’ll be in the city for the farmers’ market.”
“Sounds perfect,” Kitty’s mom says. She gathers her light jacket from the back of the chair. “I’ll text you,” she says to Kitty, “and we’ll leave you to your fans.” She gives Kitty another hug, and Kitty’s dad does the same. I want to ask Kitty more about her parents, but we’re beset by Beatrice, and then by some of the other townspeople. By the time we get back to the kitchen to start tidying up, I feel like I’m floating on air.