“Um. Actually.” Hildy wrinkled her nose in apology. “He wants to watch Lillibet make them. I told him you weren’t our bitch, and he said, ‘I thought you wanted her to be our bitch,’ and then I said, ‘You can’t say bitch, Uncle Richard,’ and then hewanted to know why I could say it if he couldn’t—it was a whole thing. Long story short, it would be great if you could dazzle him with your crepe-making skills.”
“Sacrebleu,” Keoki said under his breath.
Hildy glanced from him to Libby with a stricken expression. “I hope this doesn’t ruin Me-mas. We can save the Me-mosas for tomorrow, at least.”
Libby’s friend, the un-housekeeper, sailed into the kitchen in time to overhear. “What’s going to ruin Me-mas?” Her eyes went to Jefferson, as if he were the most likely culprit.
“Nothing.” Libby stood a little straighter, lifting her chin. “We’ll just have to make it work.”
“Crepes,” Keoki filled in, tipping his head at Libby. “He wants to watchhermake them.”
“Crap,” Jean whispered.
“Am I too early?” Uncle Richard asked, pausing to sniff the air.
“Go sit down and drink your coffee,” Hildy told him, flicking her fingers in the direction of the breakfast bar.
“I had a wonderful night’s rest,” her uncle informed the room at large as he settled himself at the counter. “It must have been that exceptional bathtub. Hildy, are we doing enough plumbing coverage?”
“Yes,” she said, with the finality of a slamming door.
Libby and Keoki were huddled near the refrigerator, conferring in hushed voices, while the housekeeper looked on, offering the occasional nod.
“What are we discussing?” Libby’s husband asked, wandering in with a leather-bound notebook.
“We’re having crepes for breakfast,” Uncle Richard informed him, patting the stool at his side.
“Really? How wonderful.” He did not sound like a man who regularly enjoyed that particular menu item.
“You should watch and learn, Hildy.” Uncle Richard gestured to the stove, where Libby was adjusting the heat beneath a flat-bottomed pan. “So you can make crepes for your own family one day.”
“Because that’s going to happen,” his niece replied through gritted teeth.
“What’s that, dear?” Uncle Richard cupped a hand to his ear.
“I said, this is the kind of work I do in the kitchen.” Hildy snapped her fingers twice. “JJ, I need you to take some pictures of Lillibet while she works. We can use them to promo the story.”
“Which story would that be?” her uncle asked, with the trepidatious air of someone who knows he’s supposed to know the answer.
“The one about me. And JJ. We’ll do a whole behind-the-scenes bit about our tropical vacation and meeting Lillibet. The story itself will be part of the story.”
“And that young man’s charming grandmother?” Uncle Richard nodded at Keoki.
“A totally separate story.” There was a strongly impliedduhat the end of that sentence. “Trust me, it’s handled. This is what it looks like when someone is a tastemakeranda rainmaker.”
“That was one of my first showerheads,” Mr. L said with a dreamy smile. “The Rainmaker 3000. Obviously I’ve come a long way since then.”
That was Jefferson’s cue to pick up his camera and move away from the plumbing talk. On the other side of the kitchen, Libby had lined up a pitcher of batter, a mason jar with a handwritten label (“lilikoi-guava puree”) and a plastic tub with a sticky note that read “yuzu-infused crème fraîche.”
“She likes to prep everything in advance,” Keoki explained, as Jefferson snapped a close-up of the ingredients on the sunlit counter. “All she has to do now is warm up the caramelized mango.” He spoke with the slowed-down, slightly-too-loudcadence you might use with someone who wasn’t fluent in a language.
“I just take the pictures,” Jefferson said, assuming he was the one being talked down to.
“Is she flipping them yet?” Uncle Richard called.
“No,” Keoki said, before Libby could answer. “She always makes sure the pan is nice and hot first. Which she can tell because she flicks some water droplets on it first and hears the sizzle.”
Keoki stepped aside to let Jefferson get a better angle on Libby. She shifted uneasily, turning the handle of the pan toward the back of the stove before twitching it back to its starting position.
