Page 52 of A Class of Her Own

“Did you say soulful eyes?”

Ruby nodded. “Big and soulful.”

I smacked my lips together. “Like a basset hound?” Ruby playfully hit my arm. “Great. Hope those big eyes get here soon because I’m ready to get going.”

Tori, it turned out, was the daughter—not great- or grand—of the original owner, whose name was Salvatore. He’d named the restaurant after his grandmother, whom Tori had never met, and he was still alive. Tori was probably fifty-five; she had long, gray hair; and her eyes were kind of squinty. There was nothing soulful about them. But she was warm and funny and charming in a way that helped me relax and pay attention.

I’d never been an actual cook. I could throw together basic meals, but it was about function and necessity, never about expressing love or care in some way. Tori made me want to be different. As we mixed with our hands and she talked us through the process of pasta from scratch, I thought about how much it would have meant to learn to cook from my mother. I’d simply been too young when she passed, and that old familiar wanting rose in my chest—the grief of losing things you’d never had.

A slap across my cheek pulled me out of my thoughts, and I glanced up to see Ruby whipping her pasta around her head like it was pizza crust and she was in the cartoons.

“What are you doing?” I ducked as spaghetti came at my face.

“I’m keeping it loose and elongating it,” she said, looking up with intense concentration as her noodles became helicopter blades.

“No one else is doing that,” I pointed out. “But now they’re watching.”

“They are?” Ruby looked away from her noodles, and they flew off her hands, across the room, and landed with a flop near Tori’s demonstration area.

“What an interesting technique,” Tori commented placidly. “What did we learn from that, Ruby?”

She knew Ruby’s name? Of course she did.

Ruby hurried forward to pick up the mess. “We learned that this is not the proper way to handle noodles.”

The class laughed as Tori chuckled. “Exactly. Mistakes can be very helpful. Now, Ruby, go back to your station and try again.”

Ruby dropped her pile of pasta into a trash can and met up with me again, a big grin on her face. “She’s much nicer than my mom. Whenever I launched a wok full of veggies into the ceiling fan, she’d always yell down the house.”

“So, you have a history of throwing food and it failing?”

“Yep.”

“Then why do you keep doing it?”

“Because one of these days the idea in my head will work, and when it does it’s going to be awesome.”

I watched, working my own pasta and following Tori’s instructions explicitly as Ruby went about her business with careless glee. Eventually we both had pasta dishes: mine pristine and hers a little lumpy. But they both tasted great, and at the end Lizzie laughingly awarded Ruby the gold star for creativity—an award that the whole group clapped for.

After we ate our creations, Aryn led us another few doors down to a large salon where we’d receive after-hours pedicures. Everyone sighed happily as we kicked off the heels we’d been standing in for two hours and dipped our feet in hot water. I was happy to see I’d been seated next to Lizzie. She was beaming. In fact, she’d beamed the entire night.

“Not as horrible as you expected, right?” She turned to face me, her tight curls falling over her eyes.

I smiled. “Not at all. It was a great activity requiring no social involvement from me. The people thank you.”

Lizzie laughed. “I was thinking about asking you to do the main toast at the wedding, but I was afraid you’d steal the show and never give the mic back.”

“You’re smart to keep me out of the spotlight; I crave it so.”

She leaned her head back, and I watched as a secret, little smile landed on her lips. “Only two more days, Mer. Can you believe it? What are the odds that we’d have gone on the very river rafting trip that he was guiding?” She sighed. “Have you ever wanted something for so long and thought you’d never get it?”

“Yeah,” I replied quietly. A lot of things.

“I got it. I got Jackson, and we’re going to build this whole life together. I’m so happy.”

I reached out for her hand, and she wrapped her fingers around mine tightly. “I’m going to miss you,” I admitted. After the wedding she’d move hours away, and we wouldn’t see each other hardly at all.

“It’s going to be so strange to be teaching at a new school and be the new girl, in a way. I’ve lived here my entire life, but now my world will change so much. New city, new family, new daughter, new job.”

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