“I don’t think that’s a defense for the cops.”
But she kept walking down the hallway and into the kitchen, taking in the enormous stoves, the bay windows leading out to the porch, and the gorgeous views of the beach and the ocean beyond it. The rain was still coming down hard, the wind whipping up, making it all feel slightly magical.
“Please tell me she’s a good chef,” Rain said.
“No idea, but . . .” I reached into the fridge and pulled out a loaf of our favorite bread. “You hungry?”
“Now we are just stealing.”
“She’s got a stocked fridge, and it’s all going to go to waste.”
“That’s what we’ll tell the police.”
“Grilled cheese?”
She considered. “All right,” she said. “But I’m taking the seat with the view.”
Here was how I made the grilled cheese:
First—and the ordering of the ingredients mattered—I took a loaf of country boule bread and sliced two pieces half an inch thick. Not from the ends, but from the middle of the loaf. This was the second-most important part of building a great grilled cheese—the bread itself, and then its ratio to everything else. Once I’d cut the bread, I buttered the inside of each slice and started to add the goodies. I added a generous layer of good quality Swiss cheese, then very thinly sliced cherry tomatoes. Of course, cherry tomatoes were small and difficult to slice thinly—and, it was summer, so I could have used any fresh tomato—but the rest of the year, only a cherry tomato was sweet enough. I put five tomatoes on each side, then another layer of Swiss, even more generous than the first. If Danny was there, I would have added a top layer of avocado, but avocado (a grilled-cheese purist might say) is a controversial ingredient. And not needed. What was needed was that I focused on the most important part: I put the sandwich together and coated the outside of each slice with mayonnaise. No thin layer, a solid coating. The salty goodness of the mayonnaise sealed the sandwich together, and made it grill on the grill pan more smoothly. Five minutes or to your desired level of toastiness. (But the right level of toastiness is five minutes on each side.) This might sound simple. And that is because it is.
It is also, without a doubt, the most delicious sandwich in the world.
I found the house’s sound system and attached my phone, turning on “Moonlight Mile.” I listened to it all the time now—I wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t just that I loved the song. It felt like there was something else it was supposed to be telling me.
Rain and I sat next to each other on two stools facing the ocean, facing the rain, the song quietly playing, eating silently.
We each had an entire sandwich, and then we split another.
“That’s pretty much the best sandwich ever,” she said, finally.
“Right?” I said. “And they all say I can’t cook!”
She laughed. “Too bad they won’t let you do a show on just that.”
“They probably would,” I said. “They’d call it Say Cheese. And it would be all things cheese.”
“And toast,” Rain said.
“No. There’s someone else who has that market cornered.”
“The toast market? I was kidding. That’s a thing?”
I nodded. “Amber’s.”
She shook her head. “Exhausting.”
Then she took our plates and walked to the sink, turning on the faucet.
“I’m going to wash these by hand,” she said.
I followed her and reached for the dishtowel. “I’ll dry,” I said.
“Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m not using the fancy dishwasher?” she said.
I shrugged. “I figure you have your reasons,” I said.
“I’ve read that now you can attach all your appliances to your phone so you know when any of them have been used,” she said. “I don’t want her getting a ping somewhere that people have broken into her house.”
“To clean it?”
“I’m sure weirder things have happened.”
She focused on the dishes, handing over the first plate.
“Danny called looking for you.”
“When?” I said.
“Last night,” she said. “I didn’t talk to him.”
I nodded, taking that in. I had no idea why he would call her as opposed to calling me directly.
“He’s called before.”
I looked up at her.
“He’s called a few times to check in and make sure you were doing okay. But he shouldn’t have,” she said. “Not after what he did.”
“Do you believe him? That he had good intentions?”
“Yes. But that makes me angrier.”
“Why?”
“?’Cause I don’t know whether to be furious at him for what he did or to be upset that I didn’t think of it first.”
I smiled at her and, almost in spite of herself, Rain smiled back.
“Anyway, don’t call him. At least not yet.”
It was the first big-sisterly thing she’d said to me in a long time. And yet, I wanted to call him. I wanted, more than anything, to hear his voice—to hear that he was doing okay. I wanted to hear that he missed me.
She wiped her hands on a dishtowel. “I heard you got a job offer.”
I looked up. “Where?”
“When I ran into the bedroom to change, Sammy followed me in and pointed her finger at me and said, ‘Mommy, she got a job offer. Be nice about it. Be nice!’?”
I laughed. “I appreciate her support.”
“What’s this job?”
“Basically, it would be doing another show. Filmed here. All about starting over, finding my roots.”
“Ah . . . redemption TV.”
I nodded. “Yep. Pretty much.”
She reached into the cabinet, started putting the plates away. “How do you feel about it?”
“Great. And not so great.”
Rain turned and looked at me as if considering whether to say something. “Do you know Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management?”
“Is that a book Sammy wants?”
“No, no. Isabella Beeton. She was like the original Martha Stewart, back in the 1800s. Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Cookery and Household Management was the definitive book on cooking and keeping your house together.”
“How do you know that?”
“How do you not know that? Next time you take on a role, you should do a little research.”
I smiled.
“I read about her years ago, and of course I thought of you, ’cause, apparently, this Beeton lady didn’t write any of her own recipes either. She literally copied recipes from other people, going as far back as the Restoration. And then she would add the list of ingredients to the front of every recipe. So it would look different from the original. So she could sell it as her own.”
“Seriously?”
Rain nodded. “This is the best part. Even after she died, her husband pretended she was still alive and went on publishing more books. There’s some real fraud!”
I shrugged. “It was easier back then.”
“I just think it’s kind of interesting. She did a bad thing, right? But she also put the ingredients at the beginning. And now that’s how every recipe is written. She did a bad thing and she was the first person to ever do that.”
“So you’re saying that’s what I have to do? Put the ingredients at the beginning.”
“Metaphorically speaking.”
“That’s your pep talk?”