CHAPTER TWELVE
They started arriving at six.
Joey was first, which surprised no one. He came through the door carrying a bakery box, already talking before it was fully open.
“Muffins,” he announced, setting the box on the kitchen counter. “Lemon blueberry, classic. Plus two new variations—cranberry walnut and a chocolate chip that I’m still evaluating but early feedback from my study group was extremely positive.”
“Your study group evaluated muffins?” Tyler asked.
“I brought them to Thursday’s session. Brandon said the lemon blueberry was quote ‘life-changing’ and Amanda cried.”
“Amanda cried over a muffin?”
“She’s going through something. The muffin helped.” Joey opened the box and arranged the muffins on Tyler’s counter with the focus he brought to napkin placement. “These are ready. I’ve been ready. The question is whether the rest of this operation is ready.”
Tyler looked at his plate of poached eggs on the stove—six of them, lined up, slightly uneven but intact. The survivors of a dozen-egg campaign that had started at seven this morning and ended in something that could, with generosity, be calledcompetence. The kitchen still smelled like vinegar. There was a stain on the ceiling he’d deal with later.
“We’re getting there,” he said.
Meg and Luke arrived next, Meg carrying a grocery bag and Luke carrying what appeared to be a six-pack and a calm disposition. Meg surveyed the kitchen—the eggs, the vinegar pot, the muffins, the ceiling stain — and set her bag on the table.
“I brought hollandaise ingredients,” she said. “I’ve been watching videos.”
“Since when?”
“Since this afternoon. I watched eleven videos. Two were contradictory but the French one seemed most authoritative.” She pulled out butter, lemons—Margo’s lemons, Tyler noticed, which meant Stella’s trip had been redistributed—and a whisk that looked new. “I’m going to make it. Nobody else touches the sauce.”
“Nobody was going to touch the sauce,” Tyler said. “Not after I realized how hard it looked.”
“Good. Because hollandaise is temperamental and it responds to confidence.” Meg tied her hair back and positioned herself at the stove like she was about to give a presentation, which in a way she was.
Anna came through the door with Bea, who had her calculus textbook under one arm and a bag of fruit under the other.
“Fruit,” Bea said, setting the bag on the counter. “For the breakfast menu. Mom’s idea.”
“And I can extend the focaccia into breakfast,” Anna said, looking around the kitchen. “Toast it, serve it with butter and jam. Plus the soup can carry over for dinner. We stretch what we already have.”
“So the breakfast menu is muffins, fruit, focaccia toast, and Tyler’s eggs,” Luke said, opening a beer. “That’s a menu.”
“That’s barely a menu,” Meg said, whisking butter over a double boiler she’d assembled from Tyler’s only saucepan and a mixing bowl that didn’t quite fit. “That’s a suggestion.”
“It’s a start,” Anna said.
“It’s what we can do by tomorrow morning,” Tyler said.
“We could do more if we?—”
“We can’t do more.” Tyler leaned against the counter and looked at his family—his sister whisking butter, his other sister arranging fruit, his daughter photographing muffins, his niece doing calculus at his kitchen table, his future brother-in-law drinking a beer and being the calmest person in the room. “We can’t do more because I can makeonething. I spent twelve eggs learning to poach. I can do it now—mostly. Tomorrow I can do eggs, toast muffins, and heat up Canadian bacon. That’s what I’ve got.”
Meg stopped whisking. “That’s eggs Benedict.”
“That’s eggs Benedict. If the hollandaise works.”
Meg looked at the double boiler. Looked at Tyler. “The hollandaise will work.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I watched eleven videos and I have good lemons and I’m not going to let a sauce beat me.” She went back to whisking. “Taste this in two minutes.”
