Like the one I’ve been secretly dreaming about. The shop looked like I’d always imagined it would—big windows, dark wood floors, gleaming glass-and-wood display cases, a few whimsical decorations. There was a tree with chocolate ornaments, a bird’s nest of spun chocolate with colorful chocolate eggs decorated with fancy sprinkles perched in the branches. It was cozy and tasteful and fanciful and lovely.
“You were all there, standing around me in the shop.”
They’d been gathered close to me—Mom, Dot, Dani, and Gus, who was clutching a glass bottle of fancy soda, and a few other folks I recognized, fellow shop owners from town…and Jakob Kristensen was standing next to me too. Weird. I don’t let myself dwell on that one too long.
“Everyone was holding champagne coupes, and I was wearing the prettiest yellow dress that looked like sunshine. I think it was chiffon. And Henry Summers was…” I hesitate, not sure how to say this. “Well, he was proposing to me.”
There was no mistaking that famous face—the warm hazel of his eyes, the swoop of wavy hair across his brow, the touch of scruff along his strong jaw. The posh UK accent, the Breton striped shirt and his signature swazer. In my vision, Henry Summers of the melting eyes and dreamy accent was down on one knee, holding up a little red box to me. An engagement ring–sized box.
I had my hand over my heart and happy tears were streaming down my face. Not ugly crying. Pretty crying. Which is also how I know this can’t really be my future. I don’t think I know how to pretty cry. In the vision, I reached out to accept the little box, and then Henry got up and embraced me, brushing a kiss against my cheek. The look on my face…I’ve never looked more joyful. I was as radiant as sunshine, even through the happy tears. Which is why it hurts so much to realize this is all clearly just a figment of my imagination.
When I finish telling them the vision, no one says anything for a full minute. Then Dot clears her throat. “Well hot dang,” she says. “I got nothin’. Gwen?”
Mom looks puzzled and a little troubled. She takes a small sip of her aquavit and shudders, pushing it gently away.
“Tell me again how it starts,” she says. I describe the gold sparklers, the clear and precise sensation of being somewhere else entirely. Shehmms when I’m done.
“It sounds right, Emmie, like you really saw your vision. You don’t think there’s any way it could be true?” she asks me cautiously.
“Mom, come on.” It’s like a mash-up of all my daydreams in one five-second clip. My own boutique chocolate shop. Everyone I love gathered around. Henry Summers proposing to me. Me, elegant and beautiful in a floaty dress. “None of it can possibly be true. It’s all just wishful thinking,” I conclude glumly.
No one disagrees. Silently we finish our drinks and cake. I’m so disappointed I just want to go home and have a good cry. Even though the sun is still shining, the evening feels faded and already over. Dani asks Freya to bring the check, and Mom carefully wipes off the candle and wraps it back up. Freya boxes up the remainder of the prinsesstårta. No one speaks.
Inside I feel the hollow throb of bitter disappointment jumbled up with a hopeless sense of longing. I know it can’t possibly be true, that what I saw must be just a product of all my secret wishes smashed together in one perfect fantasy scenario. I know there’s no way it’s actually my future, but if it could be…if it were…it would be everything I’ve ever wanted right there in one beautiful, impossible moment. I’d give anything to really live that moment. It crushes me that there is no way it could ever really come true. With a wistful sigh I take my uneaten birthday cake and prepare to return to my normal life.
So much for thirty-four.
Chapter 5
“Moe, this loco moco is the best I’ve ever tasted. Tell us about this recipe and what it means to your family. You learnt it from your grandmother, is that right?”
It’s midnight and I’m standing at the stove in the homey warmth of my kitchen, stirring dried lavender buds into a Le Creuset Dutch Oven of honey sea salt caramels and trying to forget the disappointing vision from earlier this evening. It’s a little difficult to do though, because as I stir, I’m half concentrating on an episode ofSavor. Onscreen, my TV heartthrob Henry Summers is in Los Angeles, eating at a diner tucked into a bowling alley. He’s sampling their Hawaiian fusion food and chatting with the owner, who is a double amputee. Henry really does have the plummiest accent. It makes me think of armchairs in wood-paneled libraries and polo parties on manicured lawns. It makes me think of Henry down on one knee with a red box in his hand…
I shake my head, trying to dispel the feeling of longing anddisappointment. Here in the shabby little kitchen of my childhood home, under the bright overhead lights, the delicious aroma of melted butter with honey, vanilla, and lavender perfumes the air and soothes me with the familiar scent. It’s been years since I made these caramels—or anything from my life in Europe, as a matter of fact. Tonight I was inspired by my vision, impossible though it may be. As soon as I tucked Gus into bed and bid good night to Mom, I came down here and started making these from memory. I can’t recall the last time I made something that wasn’t fudge or a simple dinner whipped up quickly between the shop closing and Gus’s bedtime.
Today was a disappointment, but it wasn’t all a loss. I may not have seen my true purpose in life, but glimpsing the chocolate shop in my vision, the shop I’ve dreamed of for so long, inspired me to try my hand at something from my past, a recipe I learned in France. It’s a far cry from actually opening my own shop, but it’s a step toward reclaiming an important part of myself. I may not be able to make my vision come true, but still I was reminded tonight of who I was, who I always dreamed I’d be. These caramels are helping me reclaim a part of myself I’d tucked away and almost forgotten.
“What do you think this diner has meant to your community all these years, Moe?” Henry asks the owner, a large, bald Hawaiian man. “What would you say is the legacy of this place?”
Moe scratches his chin and thinks. “Legacy? Probably the community that comes here, that’s always been here,” he says. “This place is like the beating heart of our neighborhood.”
I slowly stir the butter and cream and sugar mixture as it melts, watching Henry onscreen. This is why I have a crush on Henry Summers. Because he asks questions like this. He cares about the history of places, about the people. He doesn’t justproduce a glossy reality show with manufactured drama and scripted tension. He really seems to be interested in people’s personal stories, in real life. He is thoughtful and curious and kind. And who doesn’t love a man wearing leather elbow patches?
The caramel mixture in the saucepan reaches a rolling boil, and I pour in another cup of heavy whipping cream and stir. Now I just need to keep stirring and wait for it to come up to temperature. I eyeball the color as it changes, then check my digital thermometer just to be sure. It reads 180 degrees. Still a ways off. We need to reach the soft ball stage at 250 degrees. I keep stirring.
It feels good to do something I understand, to control an outcome and make something delicious from this familiar process. If only I could do that with my life. The truth is that increasingly I feel stuck. I love my mom dearly, and Gus has my whole heart. I love our Poulsbo community too, and Dot and Dani. But my responsibilities are a heavy weight that feels like it presses out most of the energy and creativity I once had. I would never neglect caring for my mom or Gus. They’re the ones I love most in the world, but sometimes…sometimes…I just wish there was a little more of me left over at the end of the day. After I dole out my time and energy to everyone who needs me, what remains often feels scanty, like too little butter spread over too much toast. There’s not enough of me to go around. Tonight is a perfect example. All I have left over for myself is a little sliver of time when I should be sleeping. Instead, I’m making caramels in my pajamas at midnight and mooning over a guy who doesn’t know I exist.
Onscreen, Henry is tasting the diner’s famous butter mochi. His hair is a little longer, down past his ears, and wavy. I want to run my fingers through it. I recall my vision from earlier, Henryrising and embracing me as I cry prettily, and I find myself wishing that somehow it could be true.
“Bergamot,” I say aloud in the empty kitchen as I stir. “Henry Summers smells like bergamot.”
I am officially losing it.
I check the color of the caramels, which are turning a rich butterscotch shade somewhere between yellow and brown. Almost there. For the last degree or two, I use the thermometer to get it exactly right. Candy is finicky. A degree can make a difference. At 250 degrees exactly, I carefully pour the hot liquid caramel into a buttered glass dish. Then, before the mixture can cool, I sprinkle sea salt from nearby San Juan Island over the top and a pinch of dried lavender buds. It’s hard to beat a good caramel, but adding sea salt and lavender bumps it up a notch to a whole other level. As a last step, I scrape out the darker brown leftovers at the bottom of the Dutch oven and drizzle the hot caramel onto a little dessert plate, sprinkle on salt and lavender, and leave it to cool.
“Something smells good.”
I whirl in surprise. Mom is standing in the doorway in her floral cotton nightgown, leaning on her cane. Mr. Butters is at her heels. Her face is bare of makeup, her usually perfect coiffure a little mussed. She looks smaller somehow, and more tired. I take in her bent form with a sharp pang, a familiar mixture of love and worry squeezing my heart.
