The Glass Kitchen (22 page)

As she read the words, Portia had finally set aside her own misgivings and opened herself up to what might come. It had been then that solutions appeared. Her sisters had shown up without her having to ask, the three of them working day after day in a way that gave each hope that a Glass Kitchen really could happen. For a week they had pulled down Aunt Evie’s dark draperies, replacing them with a cheerful gingham Cordelia found in the huge sale bins in the Garment District. Olivia filled the space with flowers. The sisters had bought white paper bags and pink baker boxes, then sat around the kitchen island drinking wine, laughing, and hand-decorating them.

Once the apartment was ready, Portia had begun to plan out what foods they would showcase in this little glimpse into a Glass Kitchen world. Her sisters couldn’t help her with this part. Portia had let go, and dishes had come to her, all of which she wrote down and prepared to make. Then, at eight that morning, she got to work. Olivia and Cordelia served as
sous
-chefs; they started by making a decadent beef bourguignon. Olivia and Cordelia washed and chopped as Portia browned layer after layer of beef, bacon, carrots, and onion, folding in the beef stock and wine, then putting it in to slow bake as they dove into the remaining dishes. They opened all the windows and ran four swiveling fans Portia had bought and found that pushed the scent of the baking and cooking out onto the sidewalk. Then they had put up a fairly discreet sign in the window, hand-painted by Olivia: T
HE
G
LASS
K
ITCHEN.

Portia had gotten the idea while walking down Broadway and passing the French soap store. Scents had spilled into the street from the shop—lavender and primrose, musk and sandalwood—luring passersby inside. Portia had realized that the best way to get investors interested was to show them a version of The Glass Kitchen. The food. The aromas. She had realized, standing there on Broadway, that she needed to create a mini version of her grandmother’s restaurant to lure people in. This way, they’d have no monthly rent as they would if they tried to lease out space somewhere else. No extra utility bills. It was perfect. Standing there now with her sisters flanking her, she explained as much to Gabriel. “Ta-da!” she finished. “What do you think?”

Gabriel’s jaw hung slack for a second before he snapped it shut. “You can’t open a restaurant here.”

“But that’s the thing! It’s not a restaurant.”

“Definitely not a restaurant,” Olivia confirmed, then raised a brow at Gabriel’s pointed glower.

“It’s just an example of a restaurant,” Portia hurried on. “At best, it’s more like counter service to go!”

He narrowed his eyes.

She gulped and persevered. “We’re showcasing the fabulous food we’ll be making at the
real
Glass Kitchen when we open it somewhere else. This way, people can get a taste, get the feel of what our café will be like, get excited.”

She spread her arms wide to encompass the old pine table they had painted robin’s egg blue, lightly sanding it in places so the white primer showed through. She had pulled out Aunt Evie’s moss green platters and bowls, filling enough of them with everything from cheesy quiches to creamy chocolate pies, butterscotch cupcakes to the beef bourguignon to cover every inch of counter space. The place smelled heavenly.

“Admit it, you’re drooling.”

“You can’t open anything here. Not a restaurant. Not even an example of a restaurant.” Each word enunciated.

“Says who?”

“Says the zoning laws,” he bit out.

Portia felt his exacting gaze all the way down to her bones, and not in a good way. She ignored it. All they were doing was giving people a taste of her food. Granted, they would be charging for those tastes. But they weren’t doing anything close to opening a real retail establishment.

“Olivia and I will let you two talk,” Cordelia said, gathering her bag.

“Seriously?” Oliva protested. “This is just getting interesting.”

Gabriel turned to Olivia with an expression that made her shrug; then she strolled out the front door after Cordelia.

Portia swallowed as Gabriel stepped closer. Then she squared her shoulders. “Has anyone pointed out how moody you are? One minute you’re all—” She searched for the right word.

“
I’m all
what?” The words were deep, sensual, but still exacting.

“One minute you’re, well, nice. Then the next you go all Sybil on me and out comes the big bad beast.”

The words flew out, yet again, before she thought them through, and emotion shot through Gabriel’s eyes. But a second later that implacable façade was back in place.

“This is just an experiment, Gabriel,” she hurried on. “We’re going to show investors how much people love my grandmother’s food. That’s it.”

Portia felt a flash of panic. She had spent the rest of her meager savings pulling it together. “This is just temporary, and only a way to show investors how great our food is,” she pointed out.

“You can’t run a restaurant out of my home!”

“
My
home. And it’s not a restaurant!”

His gaze slammed into hers, then took a deep breath, dragging his hands through his hair.

The doorbell rang.

“Now what?” he snapped.

Footsteps clattered down the steps before Cordelia and Olivia dragged a woman inside.

“Our first customer!”

“Seriously?” Portia squeaked. “I mean, yay!”

“Ah, well,” the woman looked a little frightened by the sisters’ enthusiastic welcome. “I was just walking by, smelled the heavenly aroma, and noticed your sign tucked in the window. I thought … well, I thought this was a restaurant, not a home.”

“Actually, it’s just three sisters cooking!” Portia emphasized for Gabriel. “Cooking and baking very real food! Think of it as a kid’s lemonade stand. Come in!”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t worry, we’re from Texas, which might mean crazy, but definitely not dangerous. Just look at all the wonderful things we have.”

Hesitantly, the woman came farther inside—though one glare from Gabriel made her stop dead in her tracks.

“Don’t mind him,” Portia said. “He’s not as ornery as he looks.”

The woman saw the fragrant dishes on the counter, and every bit of hesitation evaporated. “This is wonderful!” she said, walking straight past Gabriel. “Quiche? And pie? Is this a tart?”

Portia explained the dishes while Cordelia offered samples. By the time the woman headed out, she was loaded with food Olivia had wrapped up. At the door, the woman stopped and shook her head. “I just have to tell you, you saved me.”

“What do you mean?” Portia asked cautiously.

“I’m having a book party for a friend tonight, and the caterer canceled. Last minute, said she had an emergency and no backup plan. I had no idea what I was going to do. I turned down Seventy-third by accident.” She beamed at all three of them. “At least I thought it was an accident.”

The woman left in a rustle of white bags and pink boxes. Cordelia and Olivia started talking. When Portia turned, Gabriel was still there. Their eyes met and held. Despite herself, a slow pulse of heat went through her body. He was like the darkest, richest hot chocolate she could have imagined. She remembered the way he had stared at her, hard, his jaw ticking, then the ruthless control that seemed to shatter when she had reached up on tiptoes and kissed him. Barely a kiss, tentative, before he crushed her to him with a groan.

A breath sighed out of her at the memory, and his gaze drifted to her mouth. But then the buzzer rang again, making her blink, and he seemed to remember that they weren’t alone.

“This isn’t over,” he said, his voice curt.

He left before she could respond. She drew a breath, pushed worry from her mind, before all three sisters squealed in delight and danced it out in the seconds before their next customer arrived.

*   *   *

For the next two days, Portia cooked and baked like a dervish while Cordelia sold The Glass Kitchen’s fare to a growing line of people who had heard about their amazing food. She still cooked breakfast and supper upstairs as well, though there were no more cheeky conversations in the kitchen with her employer. Actually, she didn’t see Gabriel at all, as if he stayed away intentionally.

But after the third day of sales, with every minute of her last three days filled to overflowing, she was lying in her bed, still damp from a shower, completely exhausted, when there was a knock on the garden door. She opened it to find Gabriel. Surprised, she glanced from him to the fire escape.

He stood there and looked at her, just looked, his jaw working, his eyes narrowed in frustration. “Even with strangers traipsing in and out, I can’t stay away from you.”

His voice was hungry, and he reached for her even as the words left his mouth.

They fell back into her apartment, he kicking the door closed. He made love to her with an intensity that made her arch and cry out, his hands and mouth possessively taking her body. There was a near desperation in the way they came together, both of them knowing it was a bad idea, but neither able to fight it. He lost himself in her body until early dawn, when he rolled over, kissed her shoulder, and said, “I have to get back upstairs before the girls wake up.”

Portia felt drugged, her limbs deliciously weak, her body sore and aching in a wonderfully used way. “Be up soon,” she murmured, burrowing into the sheets and covers. “Making huevos rancheros for you guys this morning.”

*   *   *

A few days later, she finished another breakfast upstairs—after Gabriel had pulled her behind a door, slammed her against the wall, and kissed her until her head spun—then she came down to her apartment to start cooking for The Glass Kitchen. She decided to make salmon baked in a touch of olive oil, topped with pine nuts, and served over spinach flash-fried in the salmon-and-olive-oil drippings. She added brown rice that she had slow-boiled with the herb hawthorn. Just as she finished, Cordelia arrived with a woman she had found standing on the sidewalk out front.

“My husband has high blood pressure,” she explained, negotiating the stairs down into Portia’s apartment with care. “He’s never happy with anything I make for supper, so I should tell you that you probably don’t have anything that will work for me.”

Cordelia took a look at the meal, raised an eyebrow at Portia, and then turned to the woman. “This is the perfect meal for your husband’s high blood pressure. Fish oil, nuts, hawthorn, whole grains.”

Next, a pumpkin pie went to a woman who couldn’t sleep.

“Pie?” she asked in a doubtful tone.

“Pumpkin,” Portia clarified, “is good for insomnia.”

An apricot crumble spiced with cloves and topped with oats and brown sugar went to a woman drawn with stress. Then a man walked through the door, shoulders slumped. Cordelia and Olivia eyed him for a second.

“I know the feeling,” Olivia said, and fetched him a half gallon of the celery and cabbage soup Portia had found herself preparing earlier.

The man peered into the container, grew a tad queasier, and said, “No thanks.”

“Do you or don’t you have a hangover?” Olivia demanded, then drew a breath. “Really,” she added more kindly. “Eat this and you’ll feel better.”

He came back the next day for more.

“Cabbage is no cure for drinking too much,” Cordelia told him.

He just shrugged and slapped down his money for two quarts of soup instead of one.

The knowing was steering Portia with a force and intensity that she had never experienced before. She tried to be happy about it, but it was hard not to worry. Yes, the knowing had brought good into her life, but the good was far outweighed by the bad. So she worked all day, and then when Gabriel came down the fire escape to her, they made love half the night. She didn’t tell her sisters. He was her secret. They behaved with circumspection when they met in the kitchen (most of the time); they never went on dates; they never talked about anything serious. When it came to The Glass Kitchen, they existed in a sort of wary standoff, too busy losing themselves in each other to talk about it.

Ariel started wandering into The Glass Kitchen after school and doing her homework at a space she had carved out for herself in a corner. It was easy to forget she was there. One afternoon about two weeks into their new endeavor, Olivia jumped when Ariel spoke.

“Sweetie, you scared me.” Olivia laughed. “When you scrunch up like that, doing homework like a mad little scientist, it’s like you’re practically invisible.”

After that, Ariel planted herself at the end of the kitchen counter, where no one could help but see her.

A few days later Portia was upstairs completing the Kanes’ meal of grilled lamb chops, sliced potatoes roasted in olive oil, and sautéed broccoli rabe. After having found a stack of blood oranges at a street cart on Columbus, she planned to surprise her charges with a blood orange ice she had thrown together, minus the orange liqueur Gram had always included.

Miranda walked into the kitchen, ignoring Portia and Ariel. She pulled out some green tea in a tiny bag, threw it in a cup of water, then slammed it into the microwave.

Miranda’s phone beeped with a text. Her fingers flew over the keyboard as she responded, forgetting as the tea circled. Portia wasn’t paying close attention when Miranda pulled the cup out and immediately took a drink.

“Ahg!” the girl cried, dropping the cup to the counter with a splash.

Portia had just finished chopping the flavored ice. She instantly put a scoopful into a glass. “Put this in your mouth!”

The girl gasped and gagged, closing her eyes, and she sucked on the shards of ice. After long seconds, she sagged back against the counter and swallowed, then just stared at Portia.

“It’s weird, you know,” Ariel said, looking at them.

“What’s weird?”

They turned and saw Gabriel walking into the kitchen, going through the mail.

“Hey,” Portia said softly.

He shot her a look under those thick lashes of his that made her remember the way he had shuddered the night before when she had kissed a path down his abdomen.