The All You Can Dream Buffet Page 4

  “Hello!” she said quietly.

  Willow licked her chin, a thoughtful, unslobbery greeting. Her golden eyes studied Ginny’s face. This was a dog who took her responsibilities seriously, something Ginny could relate to.

  Ginny took her home. Matthew had thrown a fit, but Ginny pretty much ignored him. It wasn’t that she was unfeeling, just that she needed some company now that she’d quit her job and worked on the blog from home.

  “Let’s get you some breakfast,” Ginny said now, and they went downstairs, where Ginny opened a can and poured the contents into the ceramic dish she’d ordered online. There were, she discovered, a lot of high-end items for dogs these days. As Willow ate, Ginny drank coffee and watched more light leak into the sky. Her stomach leapt again, right up under her ribs.

  She was really going to do this!

  Her plan had been to fix Matthew some breakfast and then head out afterward. But he’d been so irritable at the party last night that she had decided to simply give him a kiss and be on her way.

  On her way! Bubbles of giddiness fizzed right below her skull as she headed up the stairs. In the doorway, she stopped, a buzz bolting down her spine.

  Matthew was sitting on the bed, fully dressed in knee-length cargo shorts and a camp shirt and his always too-white tennis shoes, a suitcase at his feet.

  “I’m coming with you,” he said.

  For one long minute, she stared at him. The buzz spread over her jaw and into her ears. His feet were settled side by side, exactly even, his white socks pulled to the exact same height on each side.

  In a whirl, she thought of the Foodie Four, of Valerie, who had lost so much, and Ruby, who was young and intrepid, and Lavender, who had spent her whole life without a husband and seemed just fine without one.

  “No,” she heard herself say. “I’m going alone.”

  The words shocked her, but saying them aloud made her draw her spine up tall, as if she were Lavender, five foot ten in her bare feet.

  Some men might have gone mulish or bossy. That was never Matthew’s way. “It’s ridiculous that you’re driving that far when you’ve never even left the state,” he said.

  “I’ll be fine,” she said, but the words stirred up some worry, pulling it out of the dark pot of accumulated insecurities. “I have Triple A, and I’ve practiced driving all over with the trailer. It’s not that hard.”

  “Not on Kansas roads, but what about the mountains? How are you going to drive in the mountains? You’re a Kansas girl.”

  Again, the splash of acidic worry. “I’ll be fine,” she repeated.

  Now he glared. “No, you won’t. You’ll be crying and lonely in two days flat. I know you, Ginny. You’re not the kind of woman who goes out there on her own.”

  Tears pricked her eyelids, but she blinked hard. No way he’d see those tears. “Why are you being so mean at the last minute? We’ve had lots of time to talk about it.”

  “Maybe I didn’t really think you’d go.”

  “It’s only three weeks, Matthew. Maybe a month at the most. I’ll be with friends—”

  “Friends? Friends are the people who’ve been there for you your whole life, people who’d bring you a casserole if I died or who’ll help you out when you’re old.” The skin beneath his left eye quivered. “You don’t even know those women. And you’re not in their class, anyway.”

  That one landed, right in her solar plexus. It was true—Ruby’s father was an inventor and millionaire, while Valerie had once been a famous dancer, married to a pilot. Only Lavender, living on her farm, had a life Ginny understood, and even she had been a stewardess for years and years, flying around the world until they stuck her in an office and she returned to the farm.

  Ginny was nothing but a college dropout who’d been a supermarket baker. The others probably liked her only because they’d never actually met her.

  What was she doing?

  But something rose in her heart, gently, as she stood there stinging. She remembered evening after evening sorting through Internet sites of Airstreams. Remembered the exact instant Lavender had sent her the link to Coco, her trailer. You and me, the trailer said, opening doors and windows to let Ginny come in.

  “I’m going,” she said to Matthew. “And I’m going alone. There’s a fresh pot of coffee, and I’ll have my cell phone so you can call me.”

  He stared hard at her, visibly trembling. “If you walk out that door, Ginny, don’t come back.”

  “Don’t say things you don’t mean.”

  “Oh, I mean it. You’ve made me a laughingstock in this town. Mr. Cake. The husband of the famous blogger. I’ve been patient, but this is going too far. Not one of my friends can understand why I’m letting you go.”

  “You’re not letting me, because I don’t have to ask permission! We’ve never had that kind of a marriage.”

  He stared at her for a long time. That quivering spot under his left eye intensified. Between them were all the conversations she’d tried to have, all the things she’d tried to get out in the open—why aren’t we having sex? Are you gay? Are you having an affair? What?

  All at once, he seemed to hear those conversations. “Is this about the sex, Ginny?”

  She sighed. “Not all of it.”

  “I don’t understand why you keep making such a big deal out of it. It’s not like we’re kids. We have a good marriage.”

  Carefully, she softened her voice. “I came in to give you a kiss goodbye. I need to get going.”

  “I don’t want a kiss. Just go.”

  It stung more than she expected, but Ginny turned on her heel, whistled for Willow, and headed outside, sure that Matthew would follow. The sun was coming up, pink and gold, and it burnished the top of the Airstream, as if promising good things ahead. Ginny opened the door to the backseat to let Willow inside. The dog settled down on her bed, ears alert.

  Ginny glanced back at the house. It already looked like a place she used to live, a long time ago. One deep-red peony was blooming. Ginny walked over, pinched it off, and put it in her hair.

  Then she climbed into the driver’s seat, put a hand over the butterflies in her belly, and turned the ignition. The iPod was set to the playlist Christie had made for her, and as she pulled out of the driveway, Ginny turned it on.

  “Born to Be Wild” blasted into the car, and Ginny cracked up. Leave it to Christie to set exactly the right tone. Heartened, she sent a mental tip of the hat toward her daughter and pointed the car in the direction of the highway. She decided to name the fizzing in her blood and somersaults in her tummy “exhilaration.”

  It was only as she looked in the rearview mirror that she thought to wonder: Am I leaving my husband?

  Chapter 5

  Sunday afternoon

  She made it to Rocky Ford, Home of the World’s Best Melons, by just after three. One of her readers, a backblogger who commented almost every day, had invited Ginny to stop in and have tea with her and some friends when she came through.

  It had sounded like fun, finally meeting some of the people she had been talking to online for years, but shyness swamped her now. Tina had directed Ginny to drive to the Tastee Freez and park in the vacant lot behind it, and she managed to do that much without any fanfare. She turned off the car and sat in her seat, holding her phone.

  What if she didn’t make the call but drove on to what was supposed to be her first stop—Manitou Springs, which she had wanted to visit since she was nine and Marnie had brought back copper bracelets and candy rocks from there—and made some excuse? Would Tina really mind that much? Ginny was probably overestimating her own importance, imagining that some stranger was eager to meet her just because she had some dumb blog. And everybody said blogs were dying anyway. And—

  She took a breath. Blew it out.

  What would Lavender say? Get your butt outta that car, girl, and find some adventure.

  Ginny dialed the number Tina had given her. A bright voice answered, much younger and more cultured
than Ginny had expected. “Hello, Ginny!” the girl/woman said. “I’ve been waiting on pins and needles for your call. I’ll be there in two minutes.”

  And she hung up before Ginny had a chance to say much of anything. She tucked her phone into her pocket and got out of the car, smiling in spite of herself. Leashing Willow, she walked toward a stand of tall old elm trees, where Willow squatted in relief, then sniffed along the weeds.

  It was a pretty little nothing town. The Tastee Freez was busy, with both tourists and locals in shorts and ponytails. A small downtown area built of stone in a style popular around the turn of the twentieth century housed a clothing shop and a couple of diners and a hardware store. Just like Dead Gulch.

  A woman drove a newish black pickup truck into the lot, waving madly at Ginny. She was slight and thirty-something, and she jumped out, slamming the heavy door behind her, and put her big round mod sunglasses on her head. “Ginny?” Her teeth sparkled.

  Ginny was suddenly self-conscious of her travel clothes, her ordinary hair. Tina wore a crisp red and white polka-dot blouse and white capris and wedges that tied around her slender ankles. Her hair was expensively cut and streaked, with auburn highlights woven into the long dark mass.

  Her mother always told her to focus on others when she was feeling shy, so that’s what she did now, putting a big smile on her face. “Tina? You are so young! And beautiful!”

  “Oh, no, I’m not.” She laughed and hugged Ginny. “What a thrill it is to meet you! My friends and I have a big spread for you over at my house, so let’s get you over there. Your trailer and car will be fine here for a little bit—my cousin owns it and I told him you’d be coming, so just lock up and let’s go. You must be famished and exhausted! How far did you drive?” Without waiting for an answer, she squatted in a somehow ladylike, pinup-girl way and greeted Willow. “You’re a beauty, aren’t you? I’ve got goodies for you, too, and you can have a nice run out in the backyard to stretch your legs.” She opened the door to let Willow into the narrow backseat in the cab. “Go on, I’ll get the air conditioner on.”

  Ginny blinked and headed back to the Jeep, trying to equate the Tina of her imagination—a forty-something, maybe plump and ordinary housewife—with this vivacious ball of energy. She grabbed her camera bag, locked the door, and double-checked the trailer.

  At least she wouldn’t have to talk much.

  Tina drove them down a farm road, going quite a bit faster than Ginny would have, chattering, fiddling with the music. A long bank of cottonwoods lined the fields in the distance, marking the path of the Arkansas River, and in between were thickly planted fields—some cottonwoods, but mostly the cantaloupe for which the region was famous. “I hope you’ll find something to take pictures of this afternoon. We have all been baking our heads off. We used a lot of your recipes. Have you ever done this before, met any of the people who go there, to the blog, I mean?”

  Ginny started with the first question and moved through the comments, as if she was online. One at a time. When the comments first began to multiply, she’d been overwhelmed—forty per day, then a hundred. How could she answer all of them? And yet the commenters had each taken the time to come to her blog and say something in response, so she did her best.

  “I’m sure I’ll have so many choices that it will be hard to decide which one to use,” she said. “I’m thrilled that you’ve used some of my recipes—and, yes, this is the first time I’ve met any of you.” As she spoke, she found that the Ginny of the ordinary world was slightly overtaken by the Cake Ginny, a more confident person who could make witty asides and genuinely loved the watering hole she had inadvertently created. She smiled. “Thank you so much for inviting me.”

  Tina smacked her palm against the steering wheel. “I’m just so honored! Ginny, from ‘Cake of Dreams,’ right here in Rocky Ford!”

  Her house turned out to be a large, beautiful modular plopped down beneath a copse of elms in the midst of a vast expanse of fields. A vegetable garden spread out in a green checkerboard behind the house, and a clothesline stretched between two tall trees. Brave pots of red geraniums were stationed on the porch, as if to stave off the loneliness creeping in from all directions.

  “Did you grow up on a farm?” Ginny asked.

  Tina nodded. “And I swore I wouldn’t live here when I grew up, but you know how it happens—I fell in love and got married, and, sure enough, he was a farmer from right here in town.”

  “Were you high school sweethearts?”

  “I knew him in school, but, no—I actually managed to get away for a while.” She opened the back door to let Willow out and looked toward the horizon. “I went to school in Fort Collins, got my teaching degree, and I was going to live in Denver, but I came home for the summer and that’s when I met Tom.” Her shoulder twitched in a shrug. “He’s a good man.” Her smile was wistful as she added, “He’d never let me do what you’re doing, drive across the country by myself.”

  Ginny met her eyes steadily. “You might be surprised.”

  A woman slammed out of the house to the wide porch. “Tina, stop hogging her!”

  They all went inside.

  Later, Tina drove Ginny back to the trailer. “Would you mind—would it be too imposing to ask if I could see inside?”

  “No, not at all. She’s my pride and joy!” Ginny pulled her keys from her pocket. “I love showing her off!”

  “It was so much fun to follow the journey on the blog—the search, then when you found it. Was it Lavender who helped you find it?”

  “It belonged to her friend.” Ginny opened the door and waved Tina in ahead of her. “Ginger Holmes was an artist in Carmel-by-the-Sea. She died just last year, and her daughter was trying to get rid of the trailer, so I got lucky.”

  “Oh, it’s beautiful.” Tina sighed, putting her hands on her heart. “Look at all the decorative wood and the special touches. Do you call it Art Nouveau style?”

  Ginny nodded, seeing the space with fresh eyes. She heard faintly the sound of some tinny music, caught a waft of ocean-scented air. She imagined sitting on the beach at dusk, a mai tai in her hand, watching the sunset.

  Tina moved, touching the stove and the little sink, peeking her head into the bedroom. When Tina turned around, Ginny could see she was close to tears, and she impulsively hugged her.

  “I am so envious,” Tina whispered. “I’d give up a lot to be doing what you’re doing.”

  Ginny pulled back and looked her in the eye. “I’m scared out of my mind,” she confessed, and they both laughed. “But I’m also very glad I’m doing it.”

  “I’ll be following along.”

  “And maybe imagining what your adventure will be?”

  Tina squeezed her hand. “Maybe.”

  The Flavor of a Blue Moon

  a blog about great food…

  Comfort Food

  We all need comfort food now and then—fat and carbs in some luxurious combination. I woke up with that hunger in my heart at 3:00 A.M., after driving a couple of days to get here to Lavender Honey Farms.

  My answer is a cheesy fettuccine, made with cashew cream, greens, and beans. I use whole-grain noodles, though if you have a yen for the usual semolina variety, no one will judge you. I love the creamy taste of the beans, contrasted with the greens and the fettuccine. A hearty meal.

  Cashews are a rich source of heart-healthful fats and are chockful of minerals, including iron, magnesium, and zinc. They’re high in fiber and protein and … as you know already, they taste delicious.

  FETTUCCINE WITH CASHEW CREAM, GREENS, AND BEANS

  Serves 4–6

  Start with the cream, and the rest should go easily—pasta, greens, then combine. If you are not using canned beans, they will need to be prepared the day before, too. This is a very, very nutritious dish, but if you don’t tell your friends, they’ll never know.

  Cashew Cream

  ½ cup cashews, soaked overnight in 2 cups water, or boiled for three minutes, then draine
d

  ½ cup nutritional yeast flakes (not powder!)

  2 cups water

  1 tsp dried mustard

  Blend until smooth. If you don’t have a monster-style blender like the Vitamix, strain the mix through a sieve. Heat on low, adding salt to taste and soy or plain almond milk if it gets too thick.

  1 lb. fettuccine

  Cook it according to package directions, approximately ten minutes. While the water is getting ready to boil, prepare greens, below.

  1 cup white beans, any variety, cooked or canned (I love butter beans and have lately been using a lot of mayocoba beans, which are a beautiful color).

  If cooking them, start the day before. Check out the basic recipe here.

  Greens

  2 T olive oil

  1 yellow onion, roughly chopped

  3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed

  4 cups fresh baby spinach or collards, washed and picked over

  Heat the oil in a heavy skillet and cook onions on medium heat until translucent, then add garlic and stir for two minutes. Add the greens and cook until wilted. Add beans.

  Place hot fettuccine (warm it under hot water if you like) in a large bowl, add greens and beans, then stir in cashew cream. Serve!

  Chapter 6

  When Ruby awakened, it was dark. Not just evening dark, but the kind of full, silent dark that falls after midnight. She had to pee, which was not so unusual these days, but when she stretched out again on her bed, nestled into the three pillows she most liked to have—one under her head, one to hold, one between her knees—she realized there was no way she was going back to sleep. Her mind was cheerfully awake.

  It happened sometimes. With a shrug, she tossed off the covers and stood in the doorway. Her view in daylight was a row of blue mountains on the horizon and rolling green fields in between. Now there was only velvety darkness, broken here and there by a lone light shining over a barn or a porch, maybe, far away.