Page 9 of Not My Finest Hour

Kim’s smile stretches from ear to ear. “Thanks so much for this. I really appreciate it.”

That evening,when I get home and open the door, a strong, garlicky scent hits me right in the nose. It’sstrong. I’m talking knock-you-on-your-ass strong. But I’m not repulsed by it at all. In fact, it smells delicious, amazing even, and my stomach grumbles in response. I didn’t realize it had been so long since I last ate. Normally I’d have at least one, maybe two snacks in me by now, but I stayed a little over to make up for the time I missed this morning.

“What are you making?” I yell to Fern, who is standing in the kitchen at the stove. She’s been home from work for a while since she’s already changed into her comfy clothes, which tonight is a pair of black leggings and a sweatshirt. I shrug off my coat and hang it on the coatrack by the door, then set my purse down on the sofa table.

“You’re probably smelling the garlic bread I have in the oven,” Fern replies once I meet her in the kitchen. She reaches back and tightens the ponytail that’s holding her wavy red hair in place, although a few tendrils fall loose, so she tucks them behind her ears. “I thought I’d try out an old recipe of Mom’s that she had in the cookbook she gave us.”

The cookbook she’s talking about is a cookbook our mother made for Fern’s old roommate Julie when she was getting ready to move back to Texas. It was the going-away present no one saw coming. Our mother took all of her recipes and compiled them into a cookbook, then gave each of us a copy, keeping one copy back for herself. Even though it was a very sweet gesture for Julie, that cookbook carries more meaning for Fern and me, and not just because it’s our mom’s recipes. Our dad had been on our mother for years to put all of her recipes into a cookbook for us. He always said that it’s a piece of our mother we can carry with us forever in the event that one of us ever moves far away from home.

“You know you don’t have to make something fancy to impress me. I’m just your sister,” I say with a grin.

Fern rolls her eyes. “I thought that if we both like it, I’d make it for Brett sometime. But I’m not so sure about this one. As I was making it, I thought I was reading the recipe wrong because there’s no way that a single loaf of garlic bread requires ten cloves of garlic.”

“Ten cloves?” I say, my eyes bulging. “Do you want to kiss him that night or scare him off?” A timer pings in the distance, and Fern silences it right away.

“I know! I told Mom it had to be too much. I called her tonight to make sure that what I was reading was correct. But she said to trust her.” Fern pulls the loaf in question out of the oven and sets it on the counter where a couple of hot pads were set out. “I’m going to be sad if a perfectly good loaf of bread goes to waste tonight.”

“Well, it smells good and looks good, so if Mom says to trust her, then you should trust her.”

“Why don’t you go and get changed? By the time you come back I should have everything plated up.”

I do as she says and go back to my room to change into some lounge clothes of my own. Hair in a ponytail? Check. Baggy sweatpants? Check. And because I’m feeling like I need a little reminder of this morning before things got weird, I throw on Justin’s running shirt he let me borrow/keep. Fern probably won’t even notice that it’s not mine. She has enough clothes of her own that I doubt she ever looks in my closet.

“Whose shirt is that?” Fern says, placing a hand on her hip. The girl does not miss a beat. As soon as I crossed the threshold to the kitchen, she pounced on me. She narrows her eyes, a subtle move to let me know that she’s not going to drop the question no matter how many times I try to evade it. “Is it that guy’s?”

I throw out a fake laugh. “Why would you think that? How do you know it’s not mine? I have lots of T-shirts. This is just one of them.”

“Because it’s a running shirt, and you don’t run. And I saw you wearing it this morning with a pair of ill-fitting running shorts and high heels. I don’t want to judge, but it wasn’t your best look.” She throws me a sly wink.

Damn. She’s got me there. “Yes, it’s Justin’s. And I’m only wearing it so I don’t have to dirty something else.”

Fern looks away like she doesn’t believe my lie and proceeds to bring two plates over to the table. Our plates are filled with bow-tie pasta that has a meaty red sauce ladled all over the top. Just in case that wasn’t enough, Fern whips out a cheese grater and grates some fresh parmesan cheese on top of our pasta. So I don’t feel like a complete waste of space, I cut up some of the garlic bread and bring it over to the table on a plate.

“Is there a special reason you’re practicing making this dish, or is it just for a regular date night?” I ask.

“This is the dinner I want to make for when Brett and I finally set a date for our wedding, so I want you to be honest with me when you eat it, and don’t hold back with your complaints. I want to get better at cooking so we’re not one of those couples that gets takeout all the time.”

I start off my dinner by taking a couple bites of the pasta first. I have a feeling that after I eat the garlic bread, it’s going to be all I’ll taste, so I want to be able to give Fern my opinion on the dinner without the influence of that.

“What do you think of the sauce?” Fern asks, leaning forward to hear my response.

“I think it’s great.” It’s the truth. It really is a great sauce, and the pasta is perfectly cooked. If I were served this in a restaurant, I’d be happy with it.

“That’s it? No comments other than ‘great’?”

“If I had one complaint, it would be that there’s an herb in there that’s a little overpowering for me. But it might not be a problem for someone else.”

Fern nods, her gaze drifting off as she mulls over my comment. “Hmm…that’s probably the oregano in there. I thought it was a little strong too.” She picks up a piece of the garlic bread. “Should we try this together?”

I pick up a piece of my own, and we touch the pieces together like one would clink two glasses together. “On three…one…two…three.”

We both take a bite at the same time, and…I’m shocked. I expected this garlic bread to be overpowering with garlic, but it’s really not. It’s mellow, and the garlic is almost sweet. I think if there were any less than ten cloves in the recipe, it wouldn’t be as good.

“This is really,reallygood,” I say. “And I’m not lying about that either. It’s hands-down the best garlic bread I’ve ever had.”

Fern breathes a sigh of relief. “I’m so glad you think that because I feel the same way.” She takes another bite, then another, until her piece is gone. “Why didn’t Mom ever make this for us?” she asks around her bite.

I shrug. “How long did it take you to make this?”

---