That Summer by Jennifer Weiner (read more books .txt) 📕

She showed him how to operate his coffee maker, and how to set its timer so it would brew coffee for him every morning, and taught him how to make his favorite breakfast of eggs over easy and bacon and his favorite lunch, which was a patty melt, and his favorite dinner, which was steak. She seared his rib eye in a cast-iron pan, and instructed him as he scraped up the browned bits from the bottom of the pan, then added butter and flour and red wine and cranked up the heat to a boil. “Once it’s reduced, you can add some fresh herbs and some more butter and you’ve got a sauce.”

“Huh.” Vernon didn’t exactly look impressed, but he didn’t look unimpressed, either. Daisy pulled the potato she’d baked out of the oven, gave a handful of sugar snap peas a quick blanch in boiling salted water, and mounded them on the plate, next to his steak and potato. “See? Doesn’t that look nice? You’ve got to give a plate a little color.”

“No,” said Vernon, picking up his knife and fork, “you don’t.”

At the end of the lesson, Daisy gave him the printouts of menus and recipes that she’d brought with her, and the address of a website where he could buy a cast-iron pan. When the lesson was over, he’d said, gruffly, “You’re a fine young lady,” and pressed a hundred-dollar bill into her hand. Then he’d eyed her carefully, as if she were a horse he was about to bid on at auction. She was ready for him to ask to see her teeth, wondering if he’d proposition her.

“Are you married?” Vernon asked.

Oh, here we go, Daisy thought. Vernon smirked at her.

“Not me. My son. Hal’s an attorney.” Vernon was already heading to his desk, in search of pen and paper. “I bet he’d love to meet a girl who can cook.” He’d handed Daisy a heavy piece of stationery, embossed with his initials, and a phone number written below. “Call him, don’t call him. It’s up to you.”

Daisy hadn’t decided whether she’d call or not. It had ended up not mattering either way because that night, Hal had called to thank her. “My dad spoke very highly of you.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Daisy said. “I wasn’t sure how much he was enjoying it. He was kind of hard to read.”

“Hard to read,” Hal had repeated, and laughed a little. “That’s nicely put. I’m sure he was awful. And I would like to take you to dinner to thank you for putting up with him.” Hal’s voice was deep, warmer than when he’d first called. “My dad couldn’t say enough about how great you were.”

“I think he just liked being spoiled a little. Or maybe he misses having a woman around.” As soon as she’d spoken, Daisy wondered if it had sounded like a criticism, but she was curious to know what kind of woman Vernon’s wife had been; what kind of woman had endured decades of marriage to Vernon Shoemaker and his incredible comb-over.

“All I can tell you is that he was about the happiest I’ve heard him when he called me.”

Hal had come to New Jersey to take her to dinner a few weeks later, when the school year was over, then to a play the following weekend, and to his house the weekend after that, where they’d slept together for the first time. By then, Daisy was madly in love with him, and her mom was madly in love with the idea of having Hal as a son-in-law. Six months later, they’d gotten married… and that, Daisy thought, had been that.

From the Trenton train station, it was just twenty minutes by Lyft to the house her brother and his husband shared. Daisy knocked on the door, calling, “I come bearing gifts,” and waited until her brother came to take the bagels and usher her inside.

The brick single-story ranch home Danny and Jesse had purchased ten years previously didn’t look special from the outside, but inside, thanks to Jesse’s eye, and all of the art and keepsakes the couple had collected over the years, the house was as beautiful, and as welcoming, as any home Daisy had ever visited. Gorgeously patterned rugs, in shades of gold and indigo and deep, glowing scarlet, overlapped each other on the floor, in a way that would have looked chaotic if she’d attempted it. Charming assemblages of paintings and tapestries and mirrors and framed photographs covered the walls, and the mantel was decorated with arrangements of dried flowers, Chinese ginger jars and seashells, and a single vintage postcard of Coney Island on a wooden easel. Small paintings of birds on gold-gilt backgrounds hung along one grass cloth–covered wall; the bookshelves that lined the hallway were filled with books, and antique bookends shaped like terriers, and photographs of Jesse and Danny on their travels. Fresh flowers stood on the table in the entryway, along with a bowl full of chestnuts and an antique nutcracker. The air smelled like cinnamon and nutmeg and smoke from the fire that crackled in the fireplace. Daisy could hear classical piano music—Bach, she thought—and could hear Jesse’s voice, low and calm, from the kitchen. “Okay, now we’re going to pat it until it looks like a circle. You want to try?”

“Hi, Di,” said her brother, and gave her a hug. There was flour on his sweater, and an apron tied around his middle. She hugged him back, smiling. Danny’s house was one of her favorite places. When Beatrice had been a toddler, Daisy had worried about bringing her to visit, afraid that she’d break something fragile, or pull the threads of one of the woven tapestries or plant hangers on the walls, but Jesse had put her at ease. “I think children need to learn to live with beautiful things. Besides, there’s nothing in this place as precious as you and that sweet baby,” he’d told her, and Daisy, her emotions already