Chapter 4: The Cake

Every head in the dining room turned toward the kitchen door.

I stepped back from the round window.

Behind me the sous chef said, "Did he just say what I think he said?"

"Plate table nine," I said.

"Mara."

"Table nine."

Out in the dining room, Eleanor's chair scraped.

She swept out with her wrap trailing and went up the stairs to the Captain's Suite without finishing her wine.

Blair stayed.

She laughed and put her hand on Lawrence's arm and told the next table that her fiance had the strangest sense of humor.

Nobody at the next table laughed with her.

At eleven, when the last plate came back, a server handed me a folded note on inn stationery.

Tasting tomorrow, 3 p.m., dining room. Six samples. J.T.

He'd always signed things with his initials.

Grocery lists. Birthday cards. The note he'd left on my pillow the first morning.

I threw it in the fryer.

The next day I baked for nine hours.

Chocolate with sea salt caramel. Vanilla bean with raspberry. Almond with apricot. Coconut. Carrot.

A hummingbird cake with cream cheese frosting that won the county fair two summers running.

Six small rounds on six white plates, each with a little card in my handwriting.

Poppy sat on the counter and named every one of them after a fish.

"That one's Halibut. That one's Gary."

"Gary's an eel."

"Gary can be a cake too."

At three o'clock I carried the tray out to the dining room.

They'd made a show of it.

Blair had invited two of her friends up from Boston and they sat at the window table in sunglasses with their phones out.

Eleanor sat at the head, back straight, untouched water in front of her.

Lawrence sat at the end with a notebook he didn't open.

Lunch was still going at the other tables. A dozen guests. Two women from the church flower committee. Half of them stopped eating to watch.