Kaye Dacus - Menu for Romance

Marci shrieked a yes. Meredith swallowed and blinked hard.

Jenn fled the room.

Meredith groaned. Not good. Fortunately, Marci and Shaun were too preoccupied with each other to notice Jenn’s reaction. Meredith dabbed the corners of her eyes with a napkin and stood, waving her mother back down. “Let me.”

She passed through the kitchen and down the main hallway, calling her sister’s name. She followed the sound of sobbing to the powder room under the elaborate staircase. She knocked softly. “Jenn?”

“Go away.”

“Jennifer.” Meredith tapped on the door again.

“Go away! I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”

“Do you want me to go get your stuff and tell the family you’re sick and we’re going home?”

A long pause. “No.”

“Then talk to me. You can’t stay in there all night.”

The doorknob rattled and clicked; Jenn didn’t come out, though. Meredith pulled the door open. “May I come in?”

Jenn perched on the closed commode, elbows on knees, weeping into a wad of toilet paper.

Meredith closed the door behind her and leaned against the edge of the pedestal sink.

“It’s not fair,” Jenn wailed.

“What? That Marci’s engaged? Or that she’s twenty-four and engaged?”

Jenn moaned into her fistful of tissue.

“Look, I understand—”

“How could you possibly understand what I’m feeling?”

Meredith rocked back, the words hitting her like a sucker punch to the gut. “Wait just a minute. You haven’t forgotten that I’m almost three years older than you, have you? And that I’m having to figure out how to accept the fact that my sister who is ten years younger than me just got engaged?”

“But you’ve never been in love—you’ve never even dated! How could you understand what this means to me? I’ve been trying for half my life to find what Marci found with her first boyfriend.”

Meredith separated the hurt and anger Jenn’s words caused from the need to counsel her sister through this emotional crisis. She’d deal with her own emotions later. “Just because I’ve never dated doesn’t mean I’ve never been in love.”

Once again the specter of Major flickered in Meredith’s mind, but she shoved the thought aside. “When I was in college, I fell in love with someone who didn’t return my feelings, and I had to stand by and watch him marry a girl who was supposed to be a friend of mine: my roommate, who knew I was in love with him. So how do you think it makes me feel to know my younger sister has found something I’m still searching for? Something I’ve been searching for longer than you? How do you think I feel every time a handsome, interesting man asks you for a date? Or when Rafe doesn’t come to Thursday night dinner because he’s on a date? Or being maid of honor for Anne?”

Jenn sniffed, but her sobs subsided.

“We can’t begrudge Marci the fact that she found the love of her life at a young age. We both know all she’s ever wanted out of life is to be a wife and mother—yes, I know you want that, too. But you and I both had aspirations for our education and for careers. Look at how successful you’ve been with the restaurant. Do you think you could have done that with a husband and babies to take care of?”

“But I’ve been praying so hard for God to send me my husband. What’s wrong with me?”

Meredith moved to kneel in front of her sister—after shifting the rug closer with her foot—and rubbed Jenn’s upper arms. “Remember that just because it seems like God isn’t giving us the main desire of our hearts doesn’t mean He’s not working in other areas of our lives—blessing us in ways we can’t see because we’re focusing so hard on the one thing we want but don’t have.”

“How can you be so calm about this?” Jenn grabbed a fresh wad of toilet paper and patted her face dry.

“Because I’ve had all day to think about it.”

“Forbes?”

“Forbes.”

Jenn rolled her eyes. “I swear he knows everything everyone in this family is going to do three days before we know we’re going to do it.”

The continued celebration of Marci’s engagement created enough chaos that only their parents, Forbes, and Rafe looked at Meredith and Jenn in concern when they returned.

Though she smiled and laughed, Jenn remained subdued for the rest of the evening, cuddling the puppy on her lap. As they walked out, Forbes wrapped his arm around Jenn’s shoulders and leaned his head close to hers. Rafe came up beside Meredith and encircled her waist in a quick half hug and walked with her toward the front door.

“Crazy, huh?”

“What do you mean?” Meredith tilted her head to study her younger brother’s profile. Though he would turn twenty-nine in a few weeks, she could still trace elements of the pudgy-faced, red-haired little boy.

“I mean that Marci is the first one of us to get married. I always figured it would be Jenn.”

Rafe’s words pressed salt into the gaping emotional wound Jenn’s had ripped open. “Gee, thanks.”

“Oh, come on, you know what I mean—Jenn had her first serious boyfriend when she was barely fifteen.”

“The first one Mom and Dad knew about, you mean.”

“Yeah.” Rafe opened the door.

Meredith shivered in the cold, damp air and buttoned her jacket.

“She’s taking this kinda hard, isn’t she?” He nodded toward Jenn and Forbes, standing next to Meredith’s SUV. Jenn hugged the puppy to her, like a shipwreck survivor hanging onto a buoy.

“She’ll get over it—as soon as she finds a new boyfriend. And that won’t take long.” But Meredith wasn’t certain about herself. She’d known a day would come when her younger siblings started getting married, but she hadn’t expected to still be single when it happened.

“So long as she doesn’t make any rash decisions, like eloping with the next guy who asks her out.”

Meredith laughed and dug her keys out of her purse. She used the key fob remote to unlock her car. “You know Forbes would never let any of us make a rash decision about anything.”

“He’s so ... I don’t know, anal retentive or obsessive-compulsive or something. He needs serious psychological profiling.”

“I think all they’d be able to tell us is that he’s a massive control freak.”

“Y’all talking about me?” Forbes turned to face them while opening the car door for Jenn. “Because there’s only one control freak allowed in this family.” He waggled his eyebrows.

“Rafe, are you in town Thursday?” Jenn settled the puppy on the floor while she fastened her seat belt.

“I think I get in late in the afternoon, so I should be there for dinner.” He blew her a kiss then hugged Meredith.

“Fly carefully.”

“I always do.” Rafe clasped hands with Forbes then trotted off to his classic red Corvette in the driveway.

Forbes closed Jenn’s door then walked around the SUV to stand with Meredith. “What’re you thinking about?”

She couldn’t bring herself to admit to her emotional turmoil over tonight’s events, not even to Forbes. “Just stuff.”

“Marci-related stuff?”

“Yeah—sort of.” She leaned against the door—then regretted it when the beaded raindrops soaked through her jacket.

“You want to share?”

Tell Major’s best friend in the world that she’d had a crush on Major for eight years? “I don’t think so.”

He reached over and squeezed her shoulder. “I think it would be good for you—you know how you get when you keep things bottled up too long.”

“I’ll take it out on the house.” She sighed. “Are you coming to dinner Thursday night?”

“Of course. I have to be there to orchestrate my siblings’ and cousins’ lives, control freak that I am.” He opened her door and waited until she was in with her seat belt fastened before closing her door, then waved as she drove away.

Jenn stayed quiet on the fifteen-minute drive home, staring out the window and slowly stroking the sleeping puppy in her lap. Approaching the large Victorian—one of the largest on the block of turn-of-the-twentieth-century houses in Bonneterre’s garden district—Meredith could see lights on in the second-floor windows. Once in the driveway, she recognized the dark Buick parked behind Anne’s convertible.

George was over—probably for dinner and a movie ... with a little work mixed in, now that he was officially Anne’s business partner as well as her fiancé.

Melancholy caught in Meredith’s throat. She was tired of praying the same prayer Jenn had lamented earlier: When, oh Lord, will it be my turn?

At least Jenn dated—a lot. Meredith didn’t even have that opportunity. Even if she weren’t in love with Major, she never seemed to meet eligible men anymore. None of the single guys at church had ever shown the least interest in her; they’d always vied for Jenn’s attention. Meredith had even tried the online dating thing. But whenever she started getting close with someone, a feeling of dread—of wrongness—overwhelmed her, and she withdrew.

“Can I keep the puppy with me tonight?” Jenn asked as she trudged across the back deck.

“Sure. You’ll need to let him run around the yard before you take him inside, though, since he hasn’t been out for a while.”

“I know how to take care of a puppy.”

Meredith forgave her sister’s snappish tone and bade Jenn good night. Meredith didn’t bother turning on the lights but felt her way through the dark apartment to her bedroom. She changed into her favorite pajamas—an old Bonneterre High School T-shirt and stretchy cotton-knit shorts—and climbed into bed.

The tears she’d been fighting all evening welled up and overflowed onto her pillow. She couldn’t deny it anymore—Major would never return her feelings. She had to move on, find someone new.

Meredith turned on her back and stared at the shadowy ceiling. Though she’d told her family her goals about the house, a new, more important goal begged to be made, to be spoken aloud.

“Lord, my real New Year’s resolution is that I won’t still be single by this time next year.”

“Great spread this morning, Major. I meant to tell you earlier.”

Major accepted Lawson Guidry’s proffered hand, his stomach twisting. “Thank you, sir.” He hadn’t slept much this week, visions of and plans for the restaurant running constantly through his mind. This morning he’d given up on sleep around three o’clock and been at work at four, half an hour early, to prepare breakfast for Mr. Guidry’s weekly prayer breakfast.

“What brings you down here at this time of the afternoon?” the older man asked.

Major looked beyond Mr. Guidry toward the offices at the end of the hallway. “I came down to bring Meredith’s takeaway box for her dinner, but she’s not in her office. I need to talk to her.” At her father’s raised-brow look, Major quickly added, “About my part of the financial report on the New Year’s event.” Which was sort of true, though what he needed to ask her about could be done over the phone.

Maybe he read too much into Mr. Guidry’s expression, but he was pretty sure Meredith’s dad didn’t believe him. “She had to go out to meet clients at Lafitte’s Landing—probably won’t be back for a while.”

“Oh. Okay. I’ll catch her later, then.”

“Don’t you have an interview scheduled for this afternoon anyway?”

Major checked his watch. “Yes, sir. I guess I’d better get back up to the kitchen, since that’s where I told them to meet me.”

“You’ll have to let us know how it goes.” Lawson raised his hand palm forward, his own unique good-bye wave. “I’d wish you luck, but you don’t need it.”

“Thank you, sir.” Major nodded his farewell, then booked it back to the elevator and returned to the twenty-third floor.

Several kitchen and service staff stood facing him when the doors opened.

“Bye, Chef.”

“Have a great afternoon, Mr. O’Hara.”

“See ya tomorrow, Chef.”

He tossed a good-bye over his shoulder as he exchanged places with them, then headed across the expanse of Vue de Ceil to the kitchen on the opposite side. Vacuums’ whines filled the cavernous space, run by two of the waiters, both of whom had changed from their black pants and white button-downs into droopy jeans and sweatshirts.

In the kitchen, only Steven and the sauté chef and two dishwashers remained. Steven and his second-in-command hovered over the whiteboard, which they’d taken down and laid on the long prep table in the middle of the room, discussing tomorrow’s lunch menu and assigning components to the various staff who would be here.