“Plenty of people.”
“Yeah, well, I guess if you lack some sort of nurturing instinct …”
She responds sharply, “Or you just don’t like kids. Some people don’t like dogs or roses—not liking something doesn’t make you a freak.”
Ali looks up. “Do you like us, Aunt Susan?” he asks.
“Of course I do, sweetie,” she replies warmly, bending down to hug him. He wriggles away and goes back to his football. Susan sighs.
Chris straightens. “Sorry,” he says.
This isn’t how he imagined it would be, their first meeting. He’d planned all those things to say—nasty, hurtful things—but the second he saw her today, they all vanished. His mind went blank, and all he could do was stare at her like some creep. And some of the rancor he felt disappeared, too, at the sight of her on the ground, laughing, playing, tangled up in toddler limbs. It reminded him of the last time they were happy together—really, truly happy. Regent’s Park, a day like today. Before her mother got sick. He with a beer and she drinking Pimm’s, which stained her upper lip red. He’d rubbed it off gently with his thumb, kissed her, and tasted it …
He clears his throat and looks away, fiddling with the dog’s leash.
Susan seems to feel the awkwardness too. She glances around and settles on the dog. “What’s her name?” she asks, bending to scratch behind the dog’s ear.
“Dug,” Chris replies, cringing inwardly with embarrassment.
Susan responds with a raised-eyebrow look. “Doug? For a girl?”
“Not ‘Doug.’ ‘Dug,’ as in … uh, ‘Dog.’” Oh God, he sounds like an idiot. He should’ve renamed the poor dog by now, but when the hell does he have time to come up with a dog’s name? He doesn’t even have time to put pictures on his walls! “She came with that name,” he adds, as if that excuses it.
“Ah. Well, she’s lovely.” Susan straightens. “The color of a ginger biscuit.” She laughs, a little nervously, the way he remembers her doing whenever she felt embarrassed. “Congratulations on your opening,” she says. “I hear it went really well.”
The press was salivating over the place. The opening went brilliantly—better than anyone expected (breakout dish of the night: the mussels. “I never ever would have thought of doing that with a Shetland mussel,” one reviewer swooned. “This is a whole different way of looking at classic dishes.”) Even Beth was extraordinarily complimentary (“No bad, no bad,” she nodded, examining a half-eaten pheasant pastry. “Ya know what? I’d eat this again. Wouldn’t even share it with the dugs.”) They’ve been going full tilt in the three weeks since the launch. This is the first chance he’s actually had to get away, and it only happened because Calum essentially banished him from the restaurant for the afternoon. (“Just go out and get some fresh air, will you? You look wan, mate.”)
“Thanks,” he says to Susan. After another painful silence, he adds, “I’m sorry about Regent Street. And … all of it.”
“Yeah,” Susan sighs. “We got … really unlucky.”
He can’t help but smirk, even as he shakes his head. “You got screwed by your head chef, mostly. He always was a dick.”
“Yeah,” Susan agrees. “He really was, wasn’t he?”
The pair of them share a chuckle despite themselves. Then Chris asks, “I hear you’re redoing the Royal Mile restaurant. How’s it going?”
“Oh, it’s going,” Susan sighs. “These things always end up being bigger jobs than you expect, right?”
“Yeah.”
“We’re hoping to reopen in about three weeks.”
“Good.”
They stare at each other for several long moments.
“What brings you to this part of town?” she finally asks.
“I’m meeting someone for a drink at the Raeburn,” he answers, gesturing in the direction of the restaurant, which lies on the other side of the park’s duck pond.
“Oh well, don’t let us keep you,” Susan says, looking relieved to have an excuse to end this uncomfortable encounter. “I should probably get the boys home soon anyway. Their mother’ll probably kill me for letting them have refined sugar, so I may as well face the music. Good seeing you!”
“Yeah,” he says. “You too.”
She flickers a smile, then runs after Ali, growling, “Fee-fi-fo-fum! I’m coming to get you!”
Chris watches them for a little while, then turns to the dog, saying, “Come on, Ginger,” and is on his way.
* * *
Susan resists—strongly resists—the urge to turn back around and see if he’s watching her go. Of course he isn’t. Why would he? She’s nothing to him. Clearly.
She concentrates instead on buckling Ayden into his pram. He wriggles and shouts in protest. “Ali! Time to go!” she calls after nephew number two, who’s once again running after his ball.
“Just a minute!” he calls, as her phone chirps at her.
“Oh my God, Susan, you won’t believe this amazing thing that happened over here,” Julia cackles as soon as Susan answers. “It’s hilarious—you have to hear it. Oh, and also? There’s dry rot in the walls, and the pastry chef just walked out.”
Chapter Eleven
The Curse of Crème Brûlée
How is this happening? How? How?!
Susan stares, horrified into speechlessness, at Julia’s phone while her sister laughs and says, “Just wait—the best bit’s coming up now.”
This is not how today was supposed to go. She had a plan: up early, good breakfast, and off to the restaurant to get work done. The plan did not include babysitting or an excruciating surprise face-to-face with her ex, and it sure as hell didn’t include having the pastry chef walk out. And yet, here she is, getting the story from Julia, of all people.
Julia pelted toward her almost as soon as Susan came through the front door of the restaurant. “There you are! You missed it! It was amazing! But here—I got most of it.” She skirted some workmen looking gravely at a bit of the wall, pulled out her phone, and pressed the “Play” button on the screen. A second later, a recording of Gloria’s voice spilled out.
“Crème brûlée? Crème brûlée? I asked for innovation, and that’s what you came back with?” Gloria shrieks.
“It’s cranachan inspired!” the pastry chef counters in a wounded tone. “With Madagascar vanilla, and a raspberry sorbet.”
A sigh, from Gloria. Then: “I don’t think ‘innovation’ means what you think it means. It doesn’t matter how nice the vanilla is; it’s still vanilla. The flavor that actually defines boring.
“Now, don’t get me wrong, crème brûlée is delicious, and it’s a classic for a reason, and twenty or so years ago, you could really impress someone by putting it on a restaurant menu, because they had no clue how to do it themselves at home. But now! Now we have cable TV with whole channels devoted to showing you how to up your home baking game. Now, we have the internet full of videos where Nigella and Delia will lovingly show you exactly how to make the perfect crème brûlée every time. And you can finish it off with the nifty little torch you picked up at Sainsburys for five pounds because it was just too cute and isn’t it fun to have this wee little torch in your kitchen?