Epilogue

There are cameras and video equipment surrounding Mom’s test kitchen area at the restaurant. Even though I’m not standing right there, the combined heat from the lights and all the extra people milling around makes the room temperature rise at least fifteen degrees. My armpits are prickly with sweat.

I can’t believe how fast everything came together. One minute I’m talking to Mr. Semple, and a week later I’m in the kitchen at La Salle, getting ready to film a segment for The Soul of Food.

Mr. Semple is a superb human being. He knew Julia Child! He also knows Alice Waters (which makes him ultra-cool), Jacques Pépin, Kylie Kwong, and the African American pastry chef Beth Setrakian. His assistant, Mr. Dolinsky, has interviewed hundreds of five-star chefs. I can’t believe that they want to talk to me—just me, plain Elaine Seifert, from San Rosado. The Soul of Food is just a local-access piece for a few TV stations in the area, but Mom says you never can tell where the little roads might lead you. That’s what she keeps calling this—“a little road.” I feel like I’m in the middle of a superhighway.

I’m watching the action in a computer monitor set back a ways behind the camera. This is where Mr. Semple will stand when the film starts rolling. At the edge of the shot, I can see Mom, looking a little anxious, and MaDea, who is in one of her fanciest tracksuits and is waving to me, newly manicured nails catching the bright light. Pia is dwarfed by Cheryl standing next to her. The camera pans, and I see Topher, who looks up and crosses his eyes for the cameraman. I shake my head and smile.

When I found out I could have a few people observe the shoot, I asked Cheryl after physics if she’d be interested. I’ve been whipping up a new recipe almost every day, trying to figure out what to cook. Cheryl got the idea that Soy to the World, where she works, could be more than a coffee shop, and get this—she talked her manager, Persephone, into tasting the spelt-flour, lemon poppy-seed bars I made one day. Persephone suggested I make her up a whole tasting tray, and then she said she’d like to take her pick and make a weekly order. Mom just about died of pride over that. I’m pretty shocked too. My first baking job!

Mom tries to tone it down, but she’s really, really excited that I’m hanging out with Cheryl—combat boots, brow ring, and all. She’s started leaving stuff in the fridge for us to eat after school, but Cheryl doesn’t come over to hang out too much. When she’s not working at Soy, Cheryl tutors—guess who? Topher Haines.

Mom and I have actually gone over to the Haineses’ house a couple of times to socialize recently. When I asked Topher if he wanted to come to the shoot, the look on his face made me laugh out loud. I’m amused to admit it, but the guy’s starting to grow on me.

The segment consultant turns to me one more time.

“Okay, Elaine, we’re almost ready for you.”

I nod. I’m ready, even though the makeup person keeps pressing powder on my sweaty face. I feel stupid, wearing a red T-shirt, Santa hat, and Christmas apron when it’s only two weeks till graduation, but I know what Mr. Dolinsky’s after. We’re working the family angle, he said. He wants me to exude holiday charm, mention the restaurant by name, and talk about my recipe and my holiday memories. I can do that. I still think the hat’s a bit much, but we’ll see after the first take. Even though Mr. Dolinsky’s going to be practically interviewing me, I’m more worried about forgetting what I’m going to say. Panic closes my throat. I gulp, close my eyes, and take a deep breath.

I’m not making anything hard. It’s just a gingerbread house. Mr. Semple said he wanted me to share a cooking memory I have of the holidays, and that’s the one I picked.

Mom frowned when she heard my choice. “A gingerbread house? But, Lainey, we only made one once. Don’t you want to make MaDea’s pecan pie? You can tell how you figured out her secret recipe without her telling you.”

“Nope,” I told her. “I’ll stick with the gingerbread.”

Mom doesn’t understand, but the memory of the gingerbread house is important. Even though we only made it once, I need to remember it.

I was eleven. Mom made up the dough. I carefully cut out the shapes and baked them, carefully edged the doorways with icing. Sim came over, and we decorated the house with gumdrops and hard candies, chocolate chips and licorice whips. We used chocolate mint candies for shingles and sprinkled sparkly sugar over the wet white icing to make the snow shimmer. When we finally got it all assembled, I was on the verge of tears, I was so excited. It was gorgeous. It was mine. I loved that house. I had such a feeling of pride when it was done.

Mom told me I should enter it in the Culinary Academy’s gingerbread house contest.

“Why can’t I take it home?” Sim asked me when I wanted to set it in the window. “You and your mom can make another one. I did half the work….”

I remember feeling trapped. Mom didn’t say anything. I don’t know if she even heard what Sim had asked me. Maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference. I just know that somehow I ended up giving him that house even though I didn’t want to. I was afraid that if I didn’t, he wouldn’t be my friend anymore.

He brought it to school the next day, and he and his guy friends tore off the gumdrops, ripped off the roof, and demolished it.

“Lainey gave it to me,” I heard him tell one of them as they smacked and gobbled. “She didn’t want it.”

Breathe, Lainey.

I can feel the air in the kitchen swirling around me. I know what I want, I told Sim, and I do. I want to have friends who really see me and know who I am and what I want. I want to make my dreams come true and have them matter to the people who love me. I want to get in front of the camera and make my gingerbread house and know that it’s something I made with my own hands, that it has value. I can do this.

“That’s it,” I hear Mr. Dolinsky say. “Get in your zone, Lainey. Just pretend you’re Julia Child.”

“You can do it, Laine,” calls Topher. Cheryl gives me a thumbs-up.

“We’re ready for you,” Mr. Semple says.

Okay, Saint Julia. It’s on.

I can hear my tiny television audience applaud. I open my eyes and walk toward the lights.