Page 20 of Apple of My Eye
I catch Eloise staring at me, one hand over her mouth, attempting to suppress a giggle that quickly explodes. She coughs to cover it, flushing red.
‘What?’ I whisper at her as Betsy clucks over the spread. There’s fresh bread broken in a basket and butter softening on the table, a heaping salad in the middle. Candles dot the table and there are checkered napkins on each plate.
‘Mmm,’ Eloise says, her tone lilting, a spark in her eye as she mimics me.
I roll my eyes. ‘I didn’t think I said that out loud,’ I whisper, ‘that was an internal thought thing.’
‘Is that something you do a lot? Voice your internal thoughts out loud?’
Her remark feels like a veiled reference to our grocery store run-in, which I don’t know how to process, so instead I throw caution to the wind and take out my phone to take a picture of the table. If Eloise is already making fun of me, it’s not like I can make it worse. Plus, I candefinitelyuse this. I just might need to fib and say the butter is apple butter or something.
‘So nice to have you, Nick,’ Hazel says warmly.
‘It looks delicious, Mrs. Anderson.’
‘Oh, stop, this is nothing,’ she demurs. ‘I’m sure you had better food in San Francisco. Did Betsy tell you our son Linden lives there? Also, call me Hazel.’
‘She did. Is he coming home over the summer at all? I’d love to meet him.’ I swear I see Eloise’s eyes roll into the back of her head. She pulls out a chair and plunks herself down at the table.
‘I’m sure you’ve all put this together,’ Betsy says as she eases herself into her chair, ‘but Nick is our savior from Stanford and he’s going to turn the whole farm around.’
Eloise’s brows furrow. ‘How is he going to do that?’ she asks, pointedly looking at Betsy instead of me. Hazel’s head snaps towards Eloise.
I clear my throat. ‘I guess you’ll have to stick around and find out.’
Cal laughs, the first time I’ve heard him say or do anything since I walked through the door. His smile transforms his whole face, and pretty soon the rest of the table is exchanging generous smiles. When Cal laughs, he looks youthful—and just like Eloise. They share the same light blue eyes, the same nose.
‘Well, we certainly plan to stick around, dear,’ says Betsy.
Eloise is the only one whose expression remains unchanged.
Chapter Eleven
Eloise
Recipes to Learn from Mom
–Chicken Cacciatore
–Apple Pie
–London Fog Concentrate
–Blackberry Cobbler
–Banana Pumpkin Muffins
–Carrot Cake
–Gnocchi Tomato Soup
–Spritz Cookies
–Sticky Toffee Pudding Cake
–Cheese Crackers
Mom outdid herself with the cacciatore, and still, dinner is slow torture as I try to piece together exactly what Nick is doing here. Mom is the perfect hostess, peppering Nick with questions about San Francisco even though I’m sure she knows the answers seeing as Linden has lived there longer than Nick has, which leaves me to stew in my own conflicting thoughts.
