Family Tree (36 page)

“What's the best place you've ever been?” Dana asked.

“Right here.” Annie laughed at the girl's expression. “I know it sounds lame to you now, but it's actually a good feeling, to realize your favorite place is the place where you are. Although in order to find that out, you have to go away to lots of other places.”

“What's this folder, the one called ‘Annie in the Kitchen'?” Dana asked, clicking on a file storage link.

“Wow, I haven't looked at those in years. They're digitized versions of some old VHS tapes I recorded when I was little. Do you know what VHS tapes are?”

“Yeah, old videotapes.”

Annie nodded. “I used a video recorder to produce cooking shows of me and Gran in the kitchen.”

“Cool. Can I watch one?”

“Sure. It should play if you click on it.”

“Okay—here's one called ‘The Secret to Perfect Pasta.'”

Annie grinned as she set the first batch of crisp on a cooling rack. “I don't even remember that, but judging by the title, I was very confident.”

Knox, Lucas, and Hazel wandered in, probably lured by the scent of baking blackberry crisp. Annie's recipe featured ground almonds in a streusel topping, and a touch of almond extract and lemon with the berries
, creating a perfect balance of flavors. Anticipating her hungry nieces and nephews, she'd made a small one for home, and a few larger ones for the picnic.

“You must be the taste-testing squad,” she said. “Just in time.” She fixed each of them a small serving with a sidecar of vanilla ice cream, and they looked at the treat as if they'd discovered El Dorado. Annie's special bond with her brother's family felt particularly strong in that moment. The kids reminded her of the richness of her own childhood.

“You're the best,” said Knox.

“I don't know about that, but I bet my blackberry crisp is the best.”

Hazel nodded. “No wonder Teddy Wyndham said his dad is gonna marry you.”

Annie stared at her. “Teddy said what?”

“That his dad's gonna marry you.” Hazel dug in. “And he should, if it means he gets to eat like this.”

“When did Teddy say that?” Annie's stomach churned.

Hazel shrugged her shoulders. “Recess, I think.”

“Okay, let's watch,” Dana said, angling the laptop so everyone could see. “It's Aunt Annie doing a cooking show when she was little.”

The first reel featured Gran. “Look at her,” Annie said, her heart blooming with love for the woman on the screen. “That's Gran. My gran.” She wanted to fall into the picture, wanted to feel her grandmother's hand and inhale the floury scent of her apron.

Gramps stepped into the picture and gave her a kiss, stole a cookie, and left with a grin on his face. “He likes my cookies,” Gran said with a twinkle in her eye. “I've never seen a man who couldn't be made happier by eating an iced raisin bar.”

Annie felt a phantom squeeze of warmth. They're not gone, she thought. They're still here. Still with me.

“I remember her,” Dana murmured.

“Me, too,” said Lucas.

“I wish the whole world had known her,” Annie said.

“We do now,” Dana pointed out. “Not the way you did, but she seems so alive here.”

And that, Annie realized, was the value in what she did. Her art and craft kept things alive.

The next file featured Annie. She took a seat on a kitchen stool and hoisted Knox into her lap. He was utterly silent, his mouth full of warm blackberries and melting ice cream. The opening shot showed a little girl of about nine, with her hair in pigtails tied with polka-dotted bows, and a chef's apron her mother had made her, with her name embroidered in the middle.

“I'm Annie Rush,” the girl said directly into the camera. “Welcome to my kitchen.”

Annie was amazed. Her voice sounded like Minnie Mouse's. She didn't remember producing this specific episode, but she did recall wanting to achieve the same look as her favorite cooking shows. She had created carefully lettered cards with the opening credits:
Starring Annie Rush. Written by Annie Rush. Recorded by Annie Rush. Special Thanks to Anastasia Carnaby (aka Gran).
She had labored mightily over the lettering.

The nieces and nephews were mesmerized as Annie demonstrated the pasta lesson. “It's all about the dough,” she said. “Starting from scratch is the only way to go. The best flour to use is called semolina.” She paused and held up the bag. “After that, all you need is an egg, salt, and two tablespoons of water. The most important thing is, you have to knead the dough until it's smooth. Work in all the crumbly bits. And whatever you do, don't let the dough dry out. You'll know when it's ready . . .” Here she stumbled a bit, though she never stopped the kneading rhythm with the heel of her hand. “You just know. Your hands—they know.”

Annie watched the girl on the screen. The joy on her face was infectious. As a child, she had always believed she could do anything if she
loved it enough, and she loved cooking that much. Her childlike wonder and passion came through as confidence and knowledge.

And she had star power. By now, Annie had worked in the business long enough to recognize it. She had a way of engaging with the audience and with the subject matter that held people's attention. It was written all over the faces of her brother's kids. Yes, she had star power.

Now she went back into the skin of her nine-year-old self, and began to remember what it was
she
loved. There was a time when she had fervently believed she could do something simply because she loved it. This was it, she realized. This was how to begin anew. She had to start from scratch.

A
nnie finally found a way to reconnect with her past and her old dreams. The key, after all, was simple. Go back to the original dream.

Paging through her grandmother's cookbook, she felt Gran come alive again in the deepest corners of her heart, where the small blessings of life were only hiding.

Getting out the old camera gear and renting better equipment from a place in Burlington, she started filming again. She laughed and played in the kitchen, recording herself, her nieces and nephews, friends who came over to hang out, leaning against the counter, eager for samples and gossip.

She filmed herself making cookies with Knox, whose cuteness nearly broke the camera. She created a happy hour segment with Pam and Klaus, featuring the Sugar Rush old-fashioned and a clover club cocktail—“Shake that shaker like you're mad at it.” She did a homemade ricotta demo for a local book club whose members were all divorced—“Squeeze that cheesecloth like it's your ex-husband's . . . wallet.” For the staff of the local library, she created snacks and drinks inspired by literature—catcher in the rye bread, green eggs and ham, madeleines of maximum remembrance.

She dove into the work, capturing the laughter, the mistakes, the banging pans and spilled ingredients. She stayed up late to find the perfect sound tracks as she self-produced, filmed, and edited her own
pieces. The old work flow that used to take her over kicked in again. She spent hours creating reel after reel, honing them sometimes one frame at a time.

This was what she loved—the preproduction, recipe testing, shooting, animating, and editing, darting back and forth in front of the camera and behind during filming. Like the nine-year-old Annie of long ago, she became her own writer, producer, and star, reveling in unfiltered creative freedom.

The new reels were a celebration of the deeper pleasures of home cooking for friends and family, though they were not entirely focused on cooking. She mused aloud about the nature of family, the bonds that held people together, the meaning of home. This was
her
key ingredient, and it had nothing to do with fatty duck livers, water-buffalo milk, or venomous fish. The key ingredient to life lay beyond the kitchen.

Regaining confidence along with her deepest, most authentic voice, Annie was ready to take the next step.

She went to see Fletcher, because on the nights he didn't have Teddy, she couldn't keep herself away. But more than that, he was becoming her best friend again. “I want you to see what I'm doing now.”

She linked up her computer to the big screen and ran a short piece she'd labored over for hours. The simple opening credits lasted mere seconds, twelve beats of a great song and the title
Starting from Scratch
.

Fletcher didn't move a muscle as he watched. When it ended with the credit screen, he turned to her. “This is what you've been working on?”

“Yes. I love doing this. I miss it. And it bugs the hell out of me to see that I'm nothing but a footnote buried in old production details.”

He indicated the screen. “This is not the work of a footnote.”

Now she felt a flutter of nerves. “I have a dozen segments ready to go.”

“To go where?”

She took a deep breath. “Live. On the Web.”

“Another cooking show?”

“Yes. And no. I won't be doing anything like the material that's already out there. I'm far from the perfect host, but I know what I'm good at. I think people will connect to that, maybe even find inspiration. No more stunt cooking. No more crazy episodes about catching frogs in a swamp or insects in Asia. I just want to share with people who love food and want to learn.” She showed him a bit she'd done at the rehab center, making pizza with Pikey and a patient who had lost an arm, and another with the guys at the fire station.

She regarded the town of Switchback with a filmmaker's eye. The independent shops and restaurants, the painted church steeples, library, and courthouse, the brick-paved streets lined by clapboard houses and picket fences would be the backdrop for future productions. As her online channel expanded, day by day, she reveled in the feedback—even the criticism—from her viewers, feeling a sense of connection that had been missing from the network production. She could take her webcast out among the old barns and trout streams, the farms tucked in among the mountains. She wanted to highlight a genuine farm-to-table connection, sharing the things that had once inspired her, but had been slowly buried by her busy lifestyle.

“What do you think?” she asked him.

“I think you're magic,” he said, turning off the screen and taking her in his arms. “I always have.”

She woke up the next morning drowsy from lovemaking. Fletcher was already up and freshly showered, wearing a crisply pressed shirt, a blue necktie hanging unknotted around his neck. He brought coffee in a French press on a tray with two mugs. “Check your computer.”

“Um, good morning?”

“Oh, yeah. Good morning. Check your computer.”

She scrambled to sit up and grabbed for the coffee. Her channel had gone live for the first time last night. She opened the page and studied the analytics. “I have views,” she said. “I have followers.”

“I wanted to be first,” he told her, “but there were already four thousand subscribers when I woke up.”

She set aside her coffee and scooted up on her knees to help with his tie, looping the ends in a loose knot. “Ten years ago, I got my start with an online video. Is it pathetic that I'm back here again?”

“It's cool. The world is different. You're different. More talented, more sure of yourself. Your channel is going to be huge.”

“From your lips,” she said, kissing his coffee-warm lips, “to God's ear.” She kissed his ear.

He slid his hands down her torso. “Do you know how easy it would be to blow off the world and stay right here with you all day?”

“Maybe we should do that.”

“I have to go perform civic duties.”

“Fine.” She neatened the knot of his tie, then let him go. “I've been dreaming up an episode on pumpkin soup with fried sage-butter croutons.” She reached for her laptop just as an e-mail popped up. She must have made some audible sound, because Fletcher leaned over and brushed his lips against her shoulder.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

She nodded, although every cell in her body turned to ice. “It's a note from my ex.”

She deleted the note without reading it, and tried to shake off the feeling of violation. It wasn't terribly hard, because she suddenly had a lot of work to do. In order to keep the momentum going online, she had to produce material regularly, and the quality had to be impeccable.

In the next few weeks, subscribers signed on in droves. Major publications wrote about her and sent referral links. With the sort of hyperbole found only on the Web, she was dubbed tomorrow's brightest food star. Her well-crafted reels appealed to everyone, the articles touted, not just foodies and professionals. Her authentic, smart segments resonated with anyone needing a fresh approach to life.

She should not have been surprised when Alvin Danziger called, but she was. Her agent was part of a past she hadn't dealt with yet, and the phone felt cold in her hand as she listened.

Alvin said, “Empire wants a meeting.”

She didn't move, except to tighten her grip on the phone. The production company was one of the biggest in the business, working with major networks, not just in the niche markets. By comparison, Atlantis was a small player. Finally, she found her voice. “I'm listening.”

The first person she wanted to share the news with was the last person who wanted to hear it—Fletcher. Because once again, Annie was being pulled in a different direction.

They met at one of their favorite places on a Sunday afternoon—Moonlight Quarry—to hike with Titus.

The season hovered on the edge of fall and winter. The last of the confetti-colored leaves clung to the tree branches, the sky was a clear sharp blue, and the air held a bite of cold. Annie had always liked this time of year. To her, it meant getting out her favorite sweaters, jeans and boots, the crackle of leaves underfoot, football games, cinnamon donuts, and apple cider.

When Fletcher saw her, he swept her up into his arms and swung her around, looking so happy it nearly broke her heart. Not so long ago, she just wanted to hole up and be with him and forget the rest of the world.

But no. She couldn't belong to him. How could she belong to anyone until she belonged to herself?

They hiked around the periphery of the quarry. Titus went crazy, bounding around and sniffing out the wildlife. He flushed a quail, and the bird made a rattling noise as it sped skyward.

Annie tucked her hand around his arm. “Something came up.”

“I'm not going to like it,” Fletcher said, correctly reading her tone.

They sat on a rock ledge overlooking the pool. Annie looped her arms around her drawn-up knees and stared at the still blue water. “I'm going to L.A.”

Nothing. No movement. Not a sound.

She didn't want to insult him by making excuses or rationalizing her decision. “I'll be getting an offer to take
Starting from Scratch
to a major network. I'm not saying I'll agree to it, but I want to hear what they have to say. If I don't, I'll always wonder.”

They sat quietly for a while. “You'll always wonder about us,” he said.

She braced one hand behind her and turned to face him. “I won't wonder,” she said. “I already know.”

“You're leaving.”

“I need to face up to what happened to me. Reclaim what's mine.”

He touched her cheek, then leaned forward and softly kissed her lips. “This is the third time we've said good-bye,” he told her. “I'm not doing it anymore, Annie. I'm not.”

“Neither am I. Fletcher—”

“So we both agree. Because last time, you changed your mind and came running back—”

“You knocked up Celia before my landing gear was down in L.A. That didn't work out so well for us, did it?”

“Okay, I deserved that, but we're different people now. And there's Teddy. I'm not going to budge an inch because of him.”

“I wouldn't ask you to.”

“Then . . .”

“Then you'll just have to trust me.”

“Trust you. To do what?”

“To make this work. Place has nothing to do with it. What matters most is what two people want together.”

“I know. Annie—”

“I have ambitions. You have your judgeship and your unswerving sense of obligation to Teddy. That doesn't make us bad people.”

“It makes us people who can't seem to coexist in the same space for more than a few months.”