“They’re the white flowers,” Lucy says, pointing. “The ones that look like snowballs. They have the most beautiful spicy vanilla scent.” She steps toward one of the plants, gesturing for Vikram to accompany her. He looks at her for a beat of time, and then, to Fitz’s surprise, follows her. “Can you smell them?” she asks Vikram again, so softly that Fitz has to strain to hear her. “I think you will like them.”
Vikram bends his tall form toward the flowers. Fitz sees how his thin back expands, filling his light sweater, as he inhales.
“Oh,” he says. He takes another deep breath, and then another, and then he straightens. The chef’s dark eyes seem suddenly bright within the shadowed garden. “I’m sure your mother’s favorite was my chai spice cake,” he says. “It was my signature dessert. I developed the recipe late one night in the kitchen of Jackson Place.” He chuckles as though surprised by his own sudden nostalgia. “I’d forgotten all about that night. How could I have forgotten? I remember it so clearly now. I feel as though I was… I was just there again.”
He takes another deep breath in and smiles. “My San Francisco apartment was a horrible, dank little cave, and so in those early years I spent as much time as I could at Jackson Place, where the kitchen gleamed, all silver and white. One night, I was working very late, all alone. I heard the sounds of city traffic outside, and the wind that blew up from the bay, but it all seemed distant in that way that happens when you are deeply within your own mind, your own creativity. The warm scents of spices and vanilla and sugar and butter danced around me. I often felt that way, you understand—that the scents of my ingredients were so strong that I could practically see them, could practically pluck them from the air, knowing exactly which ones danced together most beautifully.
“That particular night,” he goes on, “I pulled together vanilla, cardamom, nutmeg, cloves, and brown butter that smelled of caramel and hazelnuts. It was a warm, dark mixture of flavors—rich and spicy, comforting and bold. Remarkable. I knew even then, in that very night in that kitchen, that it would be my triumph. Mychai spice cake.” His dark eyes glow with pride. “We were awarded a Michelin star thanks to that perfect little cake.”
For a moment he looks at Lucy thoughtfully, almost searchingly. “Do you know, I’ve always thought it absolutely maddening that the moments in time that stick with me, haunting me, are the bad ones, the traumatic ones, the ones where I behaved poorly… or someone else did.” He smiles. “It’s nice to know how wrong I was, that the very best memories stay with you, too.”
Lucy’s face lights up with that smile of hers, the one so full of charm. “The famous Vikram Neel chai spice cake,” she says. “My mother tried for years to replicate it, but she said she could never get it right.”
Vikram dips his head toward Lucy and a lock of his thin white hair falls onto his forehead. “Well, she didn’t know my secret,” he says. Fitz can suddenly clearly see how dashing the old chef once was. It’s astonishing, really, and Fitz can’t make heads or tails of what he is witnessing. A man who moments ago seemed on the brink of collapse, with sickly skin and bony hands held warily in front of his chest as though he feared that they would break, now appears confident—robust even. It’s like a dusty old blanket has been ripped away, revealing the gleaming work of art that has been waiting safely beneath it all along.
“Tell your mother that I will give her my recipe,” Vikram says magnanimously after glancing sadly down at his hands. “Someone should make my cake even if I’m no longer able. Teaching her my recipe is the least I can do for the mother of the gardener who is restoring the beauty of our home.”
Lucy’s expression shifts. “Oh, she would have loved that.” Fitzthinks he can hear a quiver in her voice. “Unfortunately she passed away six months ago.”
Fitz exhales. Lucy’s mother is dead—and recently. They were close, he can tell, by the way she speaks.
“I’m very sorry to hear that.” Vikram sounds sincere, but disappointed, like he really had been excited to teach Lucy’s mother his baking secrets.
Lucy must hear his disappointment, too, because after a pause she brightens and says, “Do you know who you could give your recipe to? Adele. Adele Abrams. She told me about the most wonderful desserts that she enjoyed when she visited France. I think she has a refined palate… and a sweet tooth. I have a feeling she would enjoy hearing about your years in the kitchen, Mr. Neel.”
“What a fantastic idea!” chimes in Isobel, who has been gaping back and forth at Lucy and Vikram this whole time like she’s watching a particularly surprising tennis match.
“Do you think so?” asks Vikram, head tilted.
Isobel and Lucy both nod and overlap each other with such enthusiastic, encouraging blithering that Fitz is relieved he can’t make out a single word.
“I suppose…” says Vikram uncertainly.
Before he can come to his senses, Isobel says, “Should we go find Adele now?”
Vikram nods. “It was truly wonderful to meet you, Lucy,” he says, and gives a little bow before turning and heading back toward the home with Isobel.
Fitz doesn’t wait. He gets up and marches right toward Lucy, shoving his walker in front of him. “What wasthat?”
She spins around to face him, her hand rising to her chest. “Oh, Mr. Fitz! I didn’t realize you were still here.”
“Well?” he demands again. There must be an explanation for what he just saw, and what he saw with Adele the other day, and he’ll be damned if he leaves without hearing it. “What just happened?”
They’re close enough for Fitz to see that Lucy has grown pale. “What do you mean?” she asks, blinking those big blue eyes of hers.
“I saw the entire thing! You told Vikram Neel to smell that flower, and then suddenly he became a whole new person, just like Adele did yesterday. You can’t tell me it didn’t happen. Vikram looked like he was about to topple over when he first stepped through that gate, and then you gave him that memory of that time in his kitchen, and when he left he was practically whistling, skipping off to share recipes with Adele Adams.”
But Lucy shakes her head. “I didn’t give him that memory. You can’tgivesomeone a memory.”
“Damn right you can’t!” Fitz barks. Lucy jumps a little, and Gully somehow squeezes himself between them, forcing Fitz to pull his walker back a couple of feet. Fitz feels unsteady, and he doesn’t know if it’s his confusion about what he just witnessed or the uneven path below his feet. He looks between the dog and the girl, both so kind that he feels a wave of shame. “I—I—” He wants to say he’s sorry, but he can’t seem to find the words. “I just want to know what that was,” he sputters. “What was it I just saw?”
Lucy looks at him. Her face is calm, but Fitz senses that her thoughts are racing. A beat passes. “I had a feeling that Vikram would like the scent of the viburnum,” she says at last, lifting her chin almost defiantly.
“You had a feeling,” Fitz repeats incredulously.
Lucy nods. Behind her lifted chin and placid face, Fitz detects a note of panic. She stands as though poised for flight. Is she afraid of him? He has the strangest urge to reach out and take hold of her hand, but of course he does not.
He sighs, deflated. What is he evendoingout here? “Well, you were right,” he mumbles. “He liked it.” He’s beginning to feel exhausted. “I’ll—I’ll leave you to your work.”
