The Other Side - J. D. Robb [153]
She looked back over her shoulder before entering the kitchen to see her mother and Imogene walking up the stairs to the rooms they felt most comfortable in to await their own interrogations. Eventually it might prove beneficial to talk to all of them at the same time, but for now she’d concentrate on one at a time—looking for common threads in their stories, similarities of any kind, or something lost that one may have forgotten but one or both of the other two recall very well.
“Apple pie again? Did you never make any other kind of pies?”
“Don’t you like apple pie?” She took her oven mitts off the counter and opened the shadowy oven door. “I thought it was everyone’s favorite. I won a bake-off with this recipe and received fifty dollars in the mail when it was published in the Pillsbury Down Home Fall Favorites Cookbook.”
“But Grandfather still wasn’t impressed?”
“Oh, but he was. He was thrilled for me. He loved my cooking. He always said he was my biggest fan. He even sponsored several annual cooking bees to raise money for the local schools. But when I kept winning, it started to look like the contests were fixed, even though Papa always refused to be one of the judges. Eventually it came down to making money for the schools or keeping me as a contestant, so I stopped participating.” She set the steaming-hot pie on the counter and, admiring it, sighed. “Papa said it was probably for the best. I was putting too much stock in winning, getting my hopes up too high on a dream that could never come true.”
“But what about Julia Child? Didn’t you ever use her as an example of what you wanted to be?”
“Of course I did.” She turned to the pie waiting on the counter behind her and put it in the oven, closing the door silently. “He said the only reason she was who she was, was because she was a freak . . . a freakishly tall woman, with a freakishly odd voice and a similar sense of humor—people are always drawn to the ridiculous. I, on the other hand, was a lovely girl, he’d say, that any young man would be honored to have as a wife, but I was too ordinary to be like Julia Child.” Her laugh wasn’t amused. “And thank God for that, he’d say.”
“What an ass.”
“I beg your pardon?” Odelia looked up, startled.
“I’m sorry. I know you loved him, but your father was an ass . . . in my opinion. I think you would have made a wonderful chef. He should have encouraged your dreams.”
She smiled her gratitude. “It was a different time, dear. Perhaps it was for the best. It wouldn’t have been easy, you know.”
“Nothing worth having ever is. But with his encouragement and some of his money and all your talent and a little luck, there’s no telling what might have happened.”
They stared at one another for a long moment, the truth about hope hanging in the air between them like a bright string of sparkling Christmas lights. In the end it was Odelia who sighed softly and lowered her gaze to the piecrust in front of her. She took up her rolling pin.
Sitting at the table, her chin in her hand, M.J. said, “I wish there was a way to taste your prizewinning pie, Odelia. It looks amazing, and it smells even better.”
She just laughed at the compliment and gave her niece a thrilled little grin, then sobered. “But there is a way for you to taste it.”
“There is?”
“Yes. The recipe is right over there in that drawer.”
M.J. followed the direction in which the rolling pin was pointed, below a set of glass-front cupboards containing dust-covered dishes, bowls, and platters, and opened the middle drawer. It was stuffed to the brim with notebooks and journals, not a page left unfilled. And pressed below were hundreds and hundreds of loose sheets.
“Pesto-Turkey Manicotti.” She began to read from the loose sheets. “Cheesy Mashed Potato Casserole. Devil’s Favorite White Chocolate Frosting. Crock Pot Pork with Root Beer Sauce?”
“Oh. I’d forgotten that one. Fabulous. And so easy.” Odelia shook her head and began to trim her crust. “I was always going to write two cookbooks. One