“He thinks because his family’s rich and mine isn’t that we’re different classes. He thinks that I wouldn’t know how to act in the Treeborne mansion. I guess I’d hang the laundry in the front hallway.”
“Like Mrs. Adams,” Henry said, and Carter and Sophie looked at him. “When she moved into the White House it kept raining so she hung the laundry in the East Room.”
Sophie didn’t know what that had to do with anything. She took a plastic tool out of the roll and began carving away at the upper body of the clay soldier.
“Why’d you say such a stupid thing?” Henry asked Carter.
His face turned red. “My father . . . ” Carter glanced at Sophie.
“The Palmer deal,” Henry said.
Carter nodded.
Sophie looked from one man to the other. “Oh great. I have two of you from the same world. This is my lucky day.”
“I used to be in that world,” Henry said. “But now I’m in yours.” He watched as Sophie began to work on the soldier’s face. “Is that ring from you?” He nodded at the box on the table as he looked at Carter.
Carter grimaced. “I asked—”
“I saw you on your knee,” Henry said, “but I was hoping that you’d dropped something. A proposal is a serious matter and needs some planning. It shouldn’t be done in front of a window where everyone can see. And not wearing everyday clothes.” Henry smiled at Sophie.
“Let me guess. You’ve been married to the same woman for thirty-two years.”
“Thirty-four,” he said, his eyes twinkling.
She looked back at Carter. “I think you could learn a lot from this man. Now, if the two of you will excuse me—” She turned to leave the room but Henry caught her arm.
“I haven’t stayed married all these years by leaving a lady to stew in her own anger. Let’s take a walk.”
Sophie gave him a look of I-don’t-know-you.
“We can walk to the church, in plain view of everyone, but I do think you need to get out of here. And besides, young Treeborne here can vouch for me.”
“He is—”
Sophie didn’t so much as look at Carter. All she knew is that she very much wanted to get out of the restaurant. “I’ll get my coat,” she said and hurried up the stairs.
Minutes later, Henry was holding a door open for her. As they went out into the fresh air her mind began to clear. “I’m sorry about that in there. Especially about your sculpture. It does show talent. It’s just that your armature was out of proportion and that made everything off. Your teacher should have caught it.”
“Don’t have one,” he said.
“I’m sure the local colleges have art courses and you could take one.”
“I’ve had too many years of being the boss to be able to stand there and listen to some kid talk to me about form versus line versus perception.” He waved his hand. “Besides, in a college classroom I’d be called ‘the old man’ and my ego couldn’t stand that.”
“Better than being too low class to marry,” she said before she thought. “Sorry. Carter showing up today threw me. Usually, I have rather nice manners.”
“That makes one of us. I have three daughters, all of them about your age, more or less, and you should have heard what I said to the last boy who played with my third daughter’s heart. His ears will be stinging when he’s ninety.”
Sophie couldn’t help smiling. “You sound like a good father.”
“If I was, it was because my wife made it clear that no matter how successful I was in the business world, at home I was to help with the dishes and the diapers.” He chuckled. “I used to spend the day making multi-million-dollar deals with Tokyo, then on the way home I’d have to stop and pick up half a gallon of milk.”
“And was it all worth it?”
“My daughters are sane and sensible, and my wife still loves me. What do you think?”
“I think you’re a very lucky man.”
They’d come to one of the town squares and there was a bench under a huge oak tree. “Want to sit for a while?” he asked.
She hesitated. There was a lot of work to do before tomorrow and she needed to get busy on it.
Henry reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out two fat little red-and-white-striped bags. “I have peanuts.”
She smiled. “In that case, how can I refuse?”
They sat next to each other on the bench and for a few minutes they shelled peanuts and ate them in silence.
“So, Sophie, what’s really wrong in your life? You seem to be more agitated than young Treeborne could have caused. Is there someone else?”
“Maybe,” Sophie said hesitantly. She didn’t know this man, but at the same time there was something about him that inspired confidence. From the way Carter had been in awe of him she was sure that Henry had been some very high powered man in the business world.
She wanted to pour her heart out to him, but since she’d graduated from college her life had been one long series of people wanting things from her. “What do you want from me?” she asked and couldn’t help narrowing her eyes at him. “You showed up complete with a sculpture and two bags of peanuts. This isn’t a coincidence.”
Henry smiled. “If you’re an example of this generation, it’s good I got out. You’re too clever for me.”
“I doubt that. So what is it?”
He took a moment before answering. “My wife’s sister lives in Williamsburg. I wanted to retire to a place of endless sun, but it was either come here or lose her.”
“She’s a good bargainer.”
“Tyrant, is more likely,” he said. “So anyway, I hate golf, can’t stand country clubs, and I don’t know what to do with myself.”
“You’re the man Russell mentioned.”
“That’s me. When I was a kid I used to make figures out of mud. I wanted to go to art school, but my father sent me to study business. Back then I was as bullied by him as young Carter is by his father.”
“But you seem to have survived.”
“I guess business was in my blood,” he said. “But then I early on learned how to look at a deal as though it were an art form. Was my opponent a Gainsborough or a Pollock?”
“Or a Mondrian?” she said, amused.
“If I figured out his style I knew how to deal with him.”
“So what was on the walls of your office?”
Henry laughed. “I had my daughters’ drawings framed.”
“Ah yes. Family. Everything for them. Did anyone ever figure you out?”
“Not until this moment,” he said.
“Which brings us back to my original question. What do you want from me?”
“A teacher. No, actually, I want an art buddy. As much as I love my family, I miss the office—and my wife dearly wants me to get out of the house.”
“An art buddy? And you’re thinking about me for this?”
“Russell Pendergast gave me the idea. You know who his father is, don’t you?”
“Randall Maxwell, isn’t it? Colleague of yours?”
“Off and on. I can’t say we’re friends. When it comes to business he’s a Robert Motherwell.”
Sophie had to laugh. Motherwell’s paintings were a white canvas with huge, rough-edged black slashes and ovals, sometimes with a vivid splash of red. Very dramatic. Unforgiving. “Did you beat him?”
“Only once.”
“Is this Edilean preacher like him?” she asked.
“More than he knows. After all, he’s trying for a merger between you and me. He said you want to be an artist and that you’ve done a lot of bronzes. He also told me what you did for your sister.”
“I guess he learned all this from my friend Kim?”
“I think so.”
While the idea was appealing, Sophie didn’t think it would work. “The problem is that I’ve never been good at teaching. You saw that in there. A teacher needs to have patience and to . . . well, teach. But I just grabbed your sculpture and tore it apar
t. That’s not the way a teacher should be.”
“I can get those on every street corner. I like the other half of that saying ‘those who can do and those who can’t, teach.’ ”
“I don’t understand,” Sophie said. “I can’t sculpt for you, now can I?”
“No, but when you’re doing your own work I can learn by watching.”
“I don’t know,” Sophie said. “I’ll have to think about this. Think about everything.”
As Carter stood in the little restaurant and stared at Henry and Sophie walking down the street, he couldn’t help grimacing. He was sure Sophie didn’t even know who she was talking to, a man who made his father look like a pauper. It looked like what his father had said about Sophie not fitting in with “people of our sort” wasn’t true. But then, Carter had learned long ago that whatever his father did was for his own purposes.
Carter went to the big refrigerator on the far wall and opened it. While Sophie was upstairs Henry had said he was to make the soup. “Like I’m the damned maid,” he said aloud. “Like I’m not part of Treeborne Foods, like I’m not—” He stopped when he saw that the refrigerator was nearly empty. How was he to make soup—which he didn’t know how to make anyway—if there weren’t enough groceries? Was he supposed to go buy some?
He shut the door and looked around the place. All Sophie’s questions about that damned cookbook had made him think about his family’s so-called legacy. His grandfather had been an unpleasant old man, angry at the shrapnel in his body that would always cause him pain, angry at his own father for leaving his family. That his father had died when a boiler blew up made no difference. To his grandfather’s mind, the man had still abandoned his family. Most of all, he was furious because his exhausted mother made all four of her children spend their childhoods in a tiny restaurant. He went away to war saying he never wanted anything to do with food. But when he got back with a body riddled with metal pieces, he saw an opportunity and took it. He Americanized their family name and Treeborne Foods was created.
As Carter looked around Sophie’s little restaurant he knew that the one his grandmother had run was about the same size. Little more than a sandwich shop really, and she’d served skimpy plates of food—but she’d sprinkled her secret ingredient on top of everything. She’d been so successful that she’d managed to support her family after her drunken husband died, and she’d helped relatives come over from the old country.
“And now I’m supposed to carry on the family tradition,” Carter said with a sigh. He was supposed to step into the giant beast that Treeborne Foods had become and—
He had to stop his wallow in self-pity because someone was tapping on the door.
“Who’s this?” he muttered. “Someone else who wants to marry Sophie? Another man who wants to hit me?” Frowning, he opened the door. A young woman was standing there. She was dressed all in black: boots, tights, shirt, leather jacket. Her hair was cut straight at her chin line, with thick bangs at her brow. It was so black against her white skin that her hair had to have been dyed. She had a tiny silver dot pierced in her nose, and the edge of a tattoo peeped above her collar.
“You’re not Sophie,” she said, looking at him as though he’d just lied to her.
“And you’re not Sophie, either,” he responded.
Her blue eyes looked him up and down, as though assessing him, then she seemed to dismiss him as she walked into the restaurant.
“You’ll have to come back later,” Carter said, annoyed that this girl had pushed past him.
“Russell said I was to cook today.” Her tone was almost belligerent, as though she were challenging him.
“I have no idea who Russell is and you don’t look like any cook I’ve ever seen. We don’t do greaseburgers.” He looked her up and down just as she’d done to him. “And no vampires or werewolves come here.”
“Then how did you get in here?” she shot back at him.
Carter could only blink at her. Maybe what Sophie’d said about his being spoiled was true. No one—other than his father, that is—had ever spoken to him like that. He couldn’t help it, but he smiled.
She didn’t smile back but kept staring at him.
“So you came here to cook?” he asked, the anger leaving him. His mother used to say that he’d inherited the ability to get angry from his father, but her genes made it so Carter couldn’t stay angry very long.
The girl turned toward the door. “I think I better come back when this Sophie is here. Tell her I’ll be at Russell’s house.”
“Wait!” Carter said and put himself in front of the door. “I’m supposed to make some soup for tomorrow.”
“So make it.” She reached out to the door, but Carter didn’t move.
“I could spin straw into gold as easily as I could make soup.”
“This woman hired you as a cook but you can’t even make a pot of soup?” She again reached for the door.
“It’s not Sophie’s fault. I came here to ask her to marry me and she told me to leave, but I wanted a second chance so I stayed to help. Then Henry showed up and took her away because she remade that ugly little toad of a sculpture of his. So Henry is the one who told me to make soup. Sophie knows I can’t cook. I’m heir to Treeborne Foods but I hardly know a potato from a carrot. Ironic, isn’t it?”
She stood there staring at him for a long time, looking as though she was trying to figure him out.
Carter thought she had on too much makeup and he couldn’t help thinking that without it she’d be quite pretty.
“How’d you get the eye?” she asked.
He put his hand up to the side of his face. “Sophie’s boyfriend doesn’t want me here. He’s a doctor.”
She blinked at this a few times. “Do you think that making some soup will impress your girlfriend enough to get her back?” She hesitated. “To make her marry you?”
He gave a little half smile. “No. I can see that that’s not going to happen. But I’d really like to make her forgive me. I did something I regret and—” He broke off because she’d turned her back on him and gone to the refrigerator to open it.
“Not even I could make soup out of this. Where’s the wholesale market?”
“Don’t look at me, I just got here. I live in Texas.”
“Ah, right. You’re Treeborne Foods. The freezer kings.” Her tone was condescending.
Carter couldn’t help groaning. “I guess you eat only what you buy at the local farmers’ market. You turn your nose up to anything that was picked longer than two hours ago, and I’m sure you’d starve before you used anything that had ever been frozen.”
“For the last year I’ve been working at an inner-city homeless shelter and we used anything anybody gave us. People look in their pantries, see a can of beans that’s been in there for three years, and give it to us. They think they’re doing a good deed. Treeborne Foods’s fancy frozen packages would have been a step up for us. You have any more elitist remarks to make to me or you want to go find a grocery and make some soup?”
“Soup,” he said and couldn’t help his smile.
She stood by the door. “Well?” she said and he had no idea what she meant. But she was waiting for him to open the door for her. Carter rushed forward and opened it wide.
Once they were outside, he hesitated. “I don’t have a key to get back in. Sophie will probably be back, but . . . ” He didn’t seem to know what to do.
“This doesn’t seem to be a town of rampant thievery,” she said, looking up at him. “Do you have a car? Or did you come with a driver and a limo?”
“It’s a rental and I drove it from the airport all by myself.”
“Congratulations. You’re on your way to being one of the people.” They walked a block to where his car was parked and she let him open the door for her.
“Kelli,” she said when they were both inside. “Kelli Parker.”
“Lewis Carter Treeborne the Third,” he said. “Better known as Carter.”
“Is that what Sophie calls you?”
“Not at the moment,” he said. “Do you know where the grocery is?”
“The bus passed it on the way in. Turn left here. I want to know everything that’s going on.”
“Well,” Carter said, “my father is trying to make me marry some girl to seal a deal, but—”
“So you came here and tried to get Sophie to marry you because then you’d be safe. Gee. Can’t imagine why she said no.”
Carter couldn’t help grimacing. “In the Texas town where I live everybody works for Treeborne Foods. And everybody . . . well, treats me with courtesy.”
“And here you have to earn it. Poor you. Turn here. Tell me about this restaurant you’ve been left in charge of.”
“It’s not like that.” He pulled into a parking space, turned off the engine, and looked at her in speculation. “Why did you come from wherever you came from that took a bus to get here just to work in some two-bit sandwich place? I bet there are higher paying jobs back there, wherever it is.”
“Chicago,” Kelli said.
He was incredulous. “You couldn’t get a job slapping ham and cheese on rye somewhere in Chicago?”
“If we’re going to make soup I think we need to get started.” She pulled up on the door handle but Carter pressed the button and locked it.
“Who are you and what are you up to?” he asked.
“Look. I just met you thirty minutes ago. My life is none of your business, so let me out of here or I’ll start screaming.”
Carter didn’t move. “Trouble with the law? Were you working in a homeless shelter for community service?”
Kelli just stared at him, but the slight flushing of her cheeks gave her away.
Carter leaned back against the door, smiling. “So what did you do? Hot-wire a car? Threaten someone with a gun? Lewd sexual behavior?” On the last one he looked hopeful.
“I borrowed some tart pans! There. Now will you let me out?”
Carter, intrigued, unlocked the door and followed Kelli into the grocery. The last time he’d been in one had been with Sophie. He leaned on the basket and guided it as Kelli tossed produce into it. They were silent for a while.