Natalie greets me with a squeal as I walk into Fast Glass Tavern, and any lingering worries about whether she’s still mad at me melt away. She pulls me into a hug, and I know she’s asking me questions, probably about the drive and my plans, but I can’t focus on her words as I search the room for Dominic, finding him absent.
Didn’t he say he was working today?
We didn’t make plans to meet here, but I figured he’d be here when I arrived. Was that too presumptuous?
I feel Vyla’s muscular arms wrap around both of us, and her wide chest blocks my view.
“Welcome back, gorgeous,” she chuffs in my ear.
I wave to the few other members of the staff as Natalie pulls me toward a particular stool at the bar. She starts mixing me a martini, and I hear the loud swing of the door separating the bar from the kitchen.
“Lindsay,” a sultry voice says from my right, and I feel my toes curl inside my boots. He’s prettier and taller than I remember from the last time I was here. Sure, we’ve FaceTimed since but seeing him in person is different. A treat. A borderline honor. His smile grows wide enough to create several lines in his cheeks that look like they were carved just for me. My stomach pools with warmth as he approaches, and my feet close the distance between us despite my brain feeling like mush.
“Hi again,” I reply, my voice dreamy. The last time I felt this awestruck was when I was ten and got to meet Jonathan Taylor Thomas at a fan event in the mall. I reach my hand out to shake his––no idea why since we’ve met before––just as he opens his arms to hug me. I end up shoving my freshly done acrylics smack dab into the middle of his sculpted chest. “Sorry.”
We chuckle as we stand there, not knowing where to go from here.
A few small groups filter in, and the staff starts getting busy. I sip on my martini, enjoying the soft `80s pop hits humming from the jukebox, and the monster watching available to me as the townspeople fill the space.
If Natalie noticed a vibe between us, she doesn’t comment on it. In between customers, she returns for short bursts of chatter about how wonderful things between her and Winston are now.I keep offering to donate any of my nonna’s junk that she doesn’t want, but she declines.
“Winston found this journal, though, and thought you might want it.” She drops a heavy leather-bound notebook in front of me that I’ve never seen before. A brown leather string is tied around the middle, holding the many loose pages stuffed inside. “Winston didn’t read it, but he said there were a ton of recipes in there, and since you love to cook, I figured you’d want to hold on to those.”
“Hm,” I mutter, mostly to myself as Natalie shuffles away to refill someone’s beer. The journal’s owner scrawled their name on the inside cover, and to my surprise, it belongs to someone I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting––my great-grandmother on my father’s side, Lucia Russo. She’s someone I’ve thought a lot about recently, as she might be the reason me and my late grandmother were able to enter this town at all.
It’s hidden from the average human, unless invited by a resident. Otherwise, the only way to cross the town line and into Mapletown territory is if you have the ancestral blood of a paranormal creature running through your veins.
The only thing I’ve heard about my ancestors that could indicate I’m “special” in this way is that my great-grandmother, Lucia, would recite spells while cooking. My dad remembers her collection of cookbooks that were passed down from her mother and grandmother, with recipes that included spells and other rituals for good luck while preparing a meal. If there’s any kind of monster in my blood, it’s got to be a kitchen witch.
I continue skimming the journal for a while, noticing that the written passages between recipes are mostly written in Italian, which I can’t read. The recipes do look good, though, and I definitely want to try them when I get back home. I miss cooking so much. I can throw together a quick meal for me and Jules on a weekday, but my life is currently too busy to engage in the funkind of cooking that I used to do. The red sauce that would take all day to taste just right, beef Wellington, paella––the dishes that are hard to perfect. I loved the challenge of them.
I’ve even made my own kimchi, andgamjatang. It took me a few tries to get them right, but I was proud to learn how to make a couple of Korean foods on my own, even though I had to rely on YouTube. What I still need to work on, is my spice tolerance. Unfortunately, I have the taste buds of a Midwestern farm boy.
When I let out a wistful sigh, Dominic stops in his tracks in front of me. “You okay, gorgeous?”
Even though I know his flirting is part of his bartender schtick, I still preen at the compliment. “Yeah, I was just wishing I had more than twenty-four hours in a day. Or could afford an entire staff to handle the daily tasks that I don’t want to do.”
He scratches his salt and pepper stubble and nods. “I feel you.”
A woman with familiar curly brown hair sits down next to me, tossing her large purse on the bar with a huff.
“Camilla, what’s wrong, babe?” Vyla asks, grabbing a wineglass from a high shelf.
She groans, looking exhausted. “My caterer has Covid and can’t make it to Hugo’s birthday party tomorrow. We were going to have pizza pinwheels, fruit skewers, and a cupcake design station. He was so excited.”
Vyla pushes a glass of chardonnay with one ice cube toward Camilla. “That sucks. You could order a stack of pizzas, though, right? A few tubs of ice cream?”
“That’s all we had at my birthday parties growing up,” Natalie adds. “No one complained.”
Camilla lets out a sigh. “Yeah, I know it’s not the end of the world. I just know Hugo will be bummed, and I hate the idea of him feeling that way on his birthday.” She starts staring blankly at the home screen of her phone––specifically, the large digitalclock. “I guess I could make the fruit skewers myself. I’d have to do it in the morning…” she trails off, likely subtracting an hour of sleep from what she planned on getting tonight.
I could recognize that look a mile away––the look of an already over-scheduled and sleep-deprived mom trying to squeeze in another chore.
It breaks my heart, and without thinking, I say, “I’ll do it.”
“You what?” she replies, her eyes filled with so much hope I want to backhand her husband for letting her put this much on her plate. I know she has one because when she asked Dominic to babysit, she said the reason was that her husband had to go into work. Where the fuck is this joker now?
“Camilla, have you met Lindsay? Natalie’s friend?” Dominic offers. “She’s visiting for the weekend from Boston.” He turns to me. “Lindsay, Camilla is a high-ranking member of the Mapletown coven.”
