Page 1 of Sister of the Bride

Chapter1

Toby

What do you call a fake noodle?

Pippin

Please not the dad jokes.

Toby

Come on, Pip. What do you call a fake noodle?

Pippin

I don’t know, what do you call a fake noodle?

Toby

An impasta!

Pippin

Ugh

Polly’s flight is due to land in an hour, and I still have seven lasagnas to make.

“Time?” I call, and Fernando shouts back, “One thirty.”

At the prep table in the back of the kitchen, I’m surrounded by cauldrons of Bolognese and béchamel, stacks of noodles Nonna made fresh this morning, and enough cheese to build a scale model of Noah’s ark. For the last eight years, this has been my Thursday task: layering pasta and sauces and cheese into enormous cast-iron trays that keep my arms in the kind of shape that usually requires a very malevolent person trainer. I can do it in my sleep. I oftendodo it in my sleep, if you count the nightmares I have where I forget to make the lasagnas and have to try to bang them all out in the fifteen minutes before the restaurant opens.

When I was a kid, this was Dad’s job, but I could usually be found perched on a stool nearby, talking through my school day or the latest Red Sox scores and occasionally pitching in.

“Noodles, Bolognese, béchamel, cheese…noodles, Bolognese, béchamel, cheese.” I mutter it to myself over and over like an incantation. Between layers I wipe my hands on my apron. I pause only to brush stray hair from my eyes with the back of my hand or to call for a time check; Fernando’s always ready with a response.

There are already thirteen finished lasagnas on racks in the walk-in cooler. These seven will make an even twenty, each ready to be cut into a dozen pieces that are individually baked until their edges are nice and crispy, then served atop a pool of Nonna’s marinara, made from the same recipe her father brought over from Sicily almost a hundred years ago. Two hundred and forty portions to last the restaurant through the weekend. Our regulars know they have to get in early, because once the Thursday lasagnas run out, they’re out of luck until the next weekend. For almost a hundred years it has been this way, and it’s one of the things I made sure not to change when Dad died. I had to make some alterations to cut costs, of course—running a restaurant is expensive, and the books were starting to creak by the time I took over—but the lasagnas? Those stayed.

“One carbonara, one risotto, and one spaghetti, hold the marinara, hold the meatballs,” Evie calls as the door from the dining room swings closed behind her.

A groan rises from the kitchen, and Evie throws her hands up, her order book flapping. “I know, I thought we’d made some progress last time, but the Buttered Noodle King of Back Bay has returned with a vengeance.”

Fernando stills his chef’s knife, which has been making rapid work of a pound of garlic for tonight’s dinner service, and tilts his head back as if to plead with god.

“That kid is going to be the death of me,” he says.

For the decade and a half that he’s worked at Marino’s—first as a busser, then in the kitchen as a prep cook, then a sous chef, then eventually the head chef—Fernando has been known for two things: his killer tomato risotto, and his relentlessly positive attitude. But one redheaded five-year-old might be the thing that finally breaks him.

“You chill out,” I say, pointing a silicone spatula at him. “I got this.”

I take a moment to try and pull back the curls that have escaped my messy bun, once again cursing the stylist who convinced me that a “lob” was a good idea for someone who has to keep her hair up at work. I’m dangerously close to requiring a hairnet, and while I’m not particularly vain, I draw the line at lunch lady chic. I finally give up on the rogue strands, tucking them behind my ears with a sigh, and head for the swinging door that separates the kitchen from the dining room.

“Don’t you have to go soon?” Fernando asks.

I pull my phone out of my back pocket and swipe at the screen. The app shows Polly’s little animated airplane still hovering over the Atlantic, but it’s running on time for a 2:35 p.m. landing. Forty-five minutes to do some quick child psychology and assemble six and a half more lasagnas, and then—if I’m very lucky—a few minutes to spare to swipe on some lip gloss and make an attempt to tame my hair.

Easy-peasy.

“I’ve always got time for the Buttered Noodle King,” I say with a wink. Fernando gives me a two-fingered salute, and I head off into battle.

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