Maggie Fishwick cringed at the name that popped up on her phone. Sitting in an airport waiting for a flight didn’t give her a big enough excuse to ignore the call. She glanced down at her travel case with all her clothing inside. Seemed she was always on the move these days, and when her lease was up, she let the apartment go, figuring she’d find a new place when she could stay in one town for longer than a week.
She drew a deep breath before hitting the answer button and pasted on a smile, hoping the fakeness didn’t come across the line as she spoke to her agent. “Hey, Sammy, how’s it going?”
“I’m fine. But I’m wondering why my inbox doesn’t have a set of recipes from you.” Sammy’s tone was light but to the point.
Maggie lifted a shoulder as if deflecting a blow. “I’ve been on the road …” Her blog, a mix of 1950s housewife and modern woman, had taken off, and she’d had appearances on smaller daytime news shows talking about the benefits of simplifying life, taking daily joy in a good meal with the family, and not stifling your voice. Women were powerful, and she wanted them to know it, but that didn’t mean they had to turn their backs on the things that fed the soul. It was possible to wear heels and run a company, bake a cake and be the boss, care about your lipstick and speak up in a board meeting. She firmly believed that you could be fashionable, beautiful, successful, powerful, and kind.
“Six months ago, your oven went out,” Sammy started, and Maggie could imagine him ticking the items off on his fingers. He liked lists. “The month after that, you had the flu. Then there was the bee sting.”
“I’m allergic,” she countered.
“Be that as it may, as an agent, I’m beginning to worry that you don’t actually want to write this book.”
Maggie’s heart clenched and she clutched the front of her cashmere cardigan. The pearl button was cool against her palm. “Sammy, you know I want to write this book. It’s my dream.” She looked around to see if anyone was listening in. Overhearing conversations was just part of being crammed together in a terminal. Thankfully, she had a five-foot radius around her.
Sammy sighed heavily. “I know. It’s just that there are deadlines, and if you don’t meet them, it doesn’t look good on me. My job is to push you.”
“I know, and you’re really pushy.” Wait … she chuckled. “You know what I mean. You’re fantastic at your job. I just really stink at mine.”
Actually, she was great at creating recipes, and her cookbook was going to be a mix of her great-grandmother’s proven culinary success with modern twists to make them faster and easier. All the comfort foods that she’d grown up on—the ones that included a dose of love—would bring modern families together.
The problem was that unless she was blogging, traveling to interview or do cooking segments, or doing any of the other half-dozen odd jobs she took to live, she couldn’t afford to eat. Which left her with little time to focus on what she really wanted to do—write a cookbook.
“Honestly,” she continued, “it’s not just you I’m putting off, Sammy. I haven’t even seen my parents since Christmas because I’ve been so busy.”
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news. But you’re going to need to figure out your priorities. If this book is really important to you, you have to get it done in three months.”
“Three months?! I take it back. You’re totally pushy.”
Sammy went on as if she hadn’t just insulted him. “In three months, I have a meeting with a big publisher. I want to pitch them your book. But I can’t do that if I don’t have a full manuscript.”
If she landed the right publisher, the exposure for her cookbook and blog would be more than she could ever hope for. “I’ll figure it out.”
“That’s what I love to hear.” The smile on his face came beaming through the phone line.
They chatted for a few more minutes and then signed off. The gate attendant announced that first class was boarding.
Maggie dropped her face in her hands. How was she ever going to write a cookbook in three months? Not only did she not have a kitchen; she had scraps of recipes tucked into her purse. Ideas she’d brainstormed between everything else she did. Her big ideas were a jumble of napkins and receipts and backs of envelopes. It would take her a month just to sort through all that. And she had this sinking suspicion that there wasn’t enough to actually fill a cookbook. Which meant she had that much more work ahead of her in tweaking Grams’s recipes, testing, retesting, and then more testing before she came up with the final product.
She let out a groan. She was homeless.
She swallowed her pride and dialed her mom. Her parents were the biggest supporters of her dreams and goals. They let her crash in her old bedroom anytime she wanted and were happy to have her. Surely, they wouldn’t mind if she spent a couple weeks in their kitchen.
The phone rang five times and went to voicemail. Strange. Mom always answered.
The gate attendant called the next group of passengers. Maggie didn’t get up. She needed to know where she was going before getting on a plane. She dialed her dad.
He answered on the second ring. “Hey, sweetheart.”
Maggie could barely hear him over the noise in the background. It sounded like there were a dozen cattle running through the parlor. “Dad? What’s going on? I can hardly hear you.”
“Hang on.” Dad moved through the noise and to a place that was marginally better. “It’s just the workers. They make quite the racket.”
Alarm began to grow in Maggie’s chest—like a weed that had thick roots and a tall stalk. “What workers?”Please don’t be the kitchen, she begged silently.
“We found termites in the foundation, if you can believe it. The whole place needs to be fumigated and then put on lockdown for 60 to 90 days.”
Maggie rubbed her forehead. There went her free room and kitchen space. But that paled in comparison for her worry for her parents. They weren’t the type of people who rolled with change. “Are you guys okay?”
