Georgia approached cautiously and gave the hives a wide berth. “What are you doing?” she asked curiously.
Star slid one of the square sections of the hive out and examined it closely. Bees thickly coated both sides of the panel. “Inspecting the hives to make sure the bees are happy and healthy and have enough to eat. It’s finally warm enough for me to do an inspection. It’s too cold over the winter. But now things are warming and blooming and the bees are ready to get busy making honey through the summer.” Star slid the panel back into the hive.
“There.” She stepped back from the beehives. “Want to help me label the honey from last season? I need to get more jars ready to sell at the farm stand.”
“Okay,” Georgia agreed. Maybe that would be a good opportunity to ask Star about her email. She followed her mother to the table under the apple trees. Star slipped out of the beekeeper outfit. Underneath, she was wearing a worn pair of soft blue denim overalls and a shirt the color of moss.
“Grab a seat,” Star instructed. Brushing apple blossoms off a chair, Georgia sat down. On the table were a dozen or more glass Mason jars of honey lined up in rows, as well as scissors, labels, markers, and rough twine. Star sat across from her, and Pollen collapsed at their feet under the table with a heavy sigh and drifted off to sleep.
“I’ll make the labels and stick them on the jars. Can you tie a twine bow around each of the necks?” Star asked, reaching for a sheet of labels.
“Sure.” Georgia picked up one of the jars. Inside, the honey looked like liquid gold, thick and viscous and the most beautiful amber color.
“I harvested this honey last August,” Star explained. “The bees like the lavender out front of the house. Gives the honey a lovely flavor.” She scribbledSan Juan Island Lavender Honey—$15on a label.
“Star?” Georgia asked, deciding to be brave and ask the question she was so curious about. She picked up the ball of twine and turned it in her hands. “When you sent me the message inviting me to the island, you said there was something you needed to tell me, something that could change my life. Can you tell me what that is?”
Star set down the labels and gave Georgia a thoughtful look. “Are you sure you’re ready to hear it?” she asked quietly.
Georgia hesitated. “Do you think it could help me?”
Star pressed her lips together and considered. “Yes, I think so, but I think it will do far more than that.”
“Then tell me,” Georgia said firmly.
Star surveyed her for a long moment, so long Georgia grew uncomfortable under her assessing gaze. She glanced down at the twine in her hands.
“What do you feel when you cook?” Star asked finally. “When you touch ingredients, when you create a dish?”
Around them, the air was filled with the contented hum of bees buzzing from the hives and gathering pollen from the apple blossoms. The scent of the blossoms was heady and luscious.
Georgia considered for a moment. “I guess I feel more alive, like everything is in Technicolor. It’s exhilarating.” She hesitated. “I know this will sound crazy, but when I touch ingredients, it’s like all my senses intermingle. I can taste and see and hear elements of the ingredients. I instinctively know what each dish needs, how everything fits together. It’s a gut intuition, a sense of... rightness. At least that’s how it’s been up until recently.” She glanced sideways at Star. “That probably makes no sense, right?”
Star smiled. “It makes perfect sense. You’re a Stevens woman, after all.”
Georgia was puzzled. “What does that mean?”
Star ignored the question. “And how do people respond when they eat the food you cook for them?” she asked. Her tone was conversational, but Georgia had the feeling that somehow her answers mattered a great deal.
“I... I don’t know. They respond positively?” No one had asked her that question before.
“I’m sure they do,” Star agreed, cocking her head and studying Georgia. “But more specifically, when you cook a meal and someone eats it, what happens? How does your food make people feel?”
Georgia was stymied. She knew she was a talented cook, and that food could touch people on a deep, primal level. Her food seemed to do that particularly well. But she’d never really thought about it before. She considered for a moment.
“My mentor in Paris said that my cooking filled him with a sense of wonder, of possibility, that it gave him joie de vivre,” Georgia said slowly. “He said that with every bite it was as though he could taste a better future, full of possibilities, that he could see things more clearly, could glimpse a better world. He said it gave him hope, and that it felt... sublime.” She looked down at the scattered apple blossoms on the grass under her feet and blushed, feeling awkward to be singing her own praises. But they were Michel’s words, not hers.
“And do other people feel the same way about your food?”
Georgia looked up to find Star watching her intently. She furrowed her brow and considered the question. Looking out over the bay, she thought back over the years and kitchens and meals. Memories and moments came to her in brief flashes. A grown woman tasting a spoonful of Georgia’s Mousse au Citron at a late afternoon lunch, then suddenly standing and announcing that she needed to reconcile with her estranged sister before it was too late. She’d hastened away, leaving her coat, onehundred euros to pay the bill, and the mostly uneaten mousse at the table. After devouring Georgia’s beet and goat cheese tart one bitter winter evening, an American man with an engagement ring nestled on top of a slice of Georgia’s cherry clafoutis looked across the table at his girlfriend and said later that he could suddenly see clearly that she was not the love of his life. He’d hastened back to the kitchen to remove the ring from the dessert where it was waiting to be served at the right moment. They left the restaurant with the ring in his pocket and his girlfriend in tears. There had been others. Many others, now that she thought of it. It had been a bit of a joke among the kitchen staff, that Georgia’s dishes could cause more breakups and engagements and family feuds and reconciliations than the restaurant had ever seen. She’d never really put it all together before, but now that she thought of it...
“I think my cooking might give people clarity somehow,” Georgia said in surprise. She told Star about the instances she could remember. “I never put it all together before,” she admitted. “I guess I just figured it was normal, that people connect over food and sometimes that leads to big life changes, but now that I think about it, it does seem like an awful lot of customers’ big life moments happen over meals I’ve made.” Quite a lot of them, if she were honest.
“Have you ever eaten something another chef prepared that gave you that sense of clarity, that changed the course of your life?” Star asked, pausing to write out another label. A small smile played around her mouth. That smile made Georgia pause. What did Star know that she wasn’t saying?
“Never,” Georgia admitted, unfurling a length of twine from the ball and snipping the end. “I’ve eaten amazing meals in my life, things that make me happy to be alive, to enjoy everymorsel. But I’ve never eaten a meal that changed the course of my life. Not once.”
“And there you have it,” Star said matter-of-factly. “That is your gift, Georgia May, and the true mark of a Stevens woman. Your cooking gives people clarity about their own hearts.” She finished the first sheet of labels.
