Page 16 of Frappe to Know You
He’d essentially heard the same thing from Liam himself, since they’d been texting back and forth since Alec arrived. “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” he said, assuming such a reply was expected. “And yes, Maren is an excellent hostess. But is it normal that she makes her guests work for their meals? Shoveling through three feet of snow and chopping up fallendown trees? Your father and mother are still out there,” he joked, “haven’t gotten their section cleared yet.”
Jasmine was obviously bright and could sense when lies were being told and didn’t buy his quip for one minute. “She would never,” she called over the phone, with a mock gasp. “Although, really, what are you guys going to do all day, stuck in that big house?”
Without missing a beat, Maren put forth, “Actually, since Bethany couldn’t make it in, I thought I’d form a cleaning brigade of the guests. It’s a good day for an early spring cleaning, don’t you think? Floor to ceiling, woodwork, windows, and all. I bet we can have the first floor sparkling by dinnertime.”
“Yikes,” uttered Aiden, as he glanced at the phone in his hand. “Oh, that’s my cue, and just in time. By Mar. See you, tomorrow, Jas!” He turned to Alec and struck out his hand. “Nice to meet you. I gotta get back to the Loft,” he said, waving his phone briefly, which showed a flashing picture of what looked like a security camera image, and three men standing near the café’s counter.
He pumped the kid’s hand while Maren and Jasmine both called goodbye.
Alec helped himself to a cup of coffee from the maker on the counter behind Maren.
“All right, Jas,” Maren said next. “I have to go. I’ve got to get breakfast out on the table. Listen, we can’t do anything about the weather. We just can’t. All we can do is make contingency plans. I’ll give you a call later, before dinner, and let’s see where everything is at, okay?”
“Thanks, Mar,” said Jasmine. “Love you. Bye, Alec, nice to meet you.”
“Take care, Jasmine,” he replied. “See you tomorrow.”
Maren clicked off the phone and directed Alec, “Creamer is in the fridge—oh, but there’s sugar and creamer on the dining roomtable. Everyone is out there already. Well, everyone if Rachel has since come down.”
Alec went to the fridge and poured a splash of creamer into his cup.
“Do you mind guests hanging out in the kitchen with you when you’re trying to get breakfast ready?” He asked as Maren adorned her hands with two pot holders and removed a large pan from the oven.
“Um, not at all. Although I’m almost done here.” She flashed a smile at him. “Obviously, with all the help you’ve given me today, you’ve probably earned the run of the house and first dibs on all the goodies in the baskets if you want.”
“Hal came over and gave me a hand with the tree. We got some of it done—not even a quarter of it, sorry.” He considered the antique stove with its polished chrome accents and classic porcelain enamel finish. “That’s an old stove,” he remarked.
“My prized possession,” she boasted. “I found it at a salvage place—in this fabulous condition if you can believe it. It’s a 1950 O’Keefe and Merrit stove—two ovens, one broiler, one warming oven, and the snazzy griddle up here between the burners.”
“Very cool.” It was indeed a great aesthetic for this old house.
She lined up several dishes on the island and then began to fill those serving pieces with food from the cooking pans. The first to be transferred was a pan of fluffy scrambled eggs, which happily appeared to contain either chopped green onions or chives.
“I can’t thank you enough,” she said. “And I’m sorry that I haven’t even had a chance to peek outside again.” She flashed him a grin before turning back toward the stove and saying over her shoulder. “Otherwise, I promise, I would be more effusive in my gratitude. What’s Hal doing now? I should’ve told him to come in for breakfast.”
“He was working on his own driveway and went over to help the neighbor next to him, I guess.”
“Oh. Mrs. Giacomini, I bet. I’ll catch up with him later.”
Alec stepped in when she was about to empty a large stock pot of what looked like his mom’s old fashioned sausage gravy into a square, footed serving dish with a lid. “Here, let me hold that,” he said. “You can scrape it all out.”
Maren let him take the pot, the handles warm but not too hot. He tipped it over the dish while she used a spatula to steer the thick gravy properly.
“So, Jasmine seems relatively calm,” he noted, “despite the very real possibility that her wedding might have to be delayed.”
Though he was pleased with what little he’d discerned of Jasmine from her phone call, he was indeed still fishing, wanting to know more about her character.
“Possibly, a lot of money might be lost if they’re forced to cancel,” he added when Maren was slow to respond. “Not all vendors and venues will be gracious regarding the storm.”
“I know, and that would be awful,” she said, standing side by side with Alec. “Although, I know Jasmine didn’t want to spend a lot on the wedding,” she said and glanced around Alec at the swinging door to the dining room, “despite what her mother wanted in contrast. Hence the small guest list.” She stood up on her toes to scrape the walls and bottom of the pot. “Jasmine has some idea in her head that the more money spent on a wedding, the greater chance of that marriage ending in divorce. And since she’s nuts about Liam, I know she doesn’t want that.”
With the pot empty, Alec returned it to the stove while Maren brought over a pan of bacon, which had cooked on a wire rack, the grease all dropped and still sizzling below.
She used tongs now to move each piece of bacon from the pan to the center of a rectangular serving dish. Alec decided she’d cooked enough bacon to feed ten more people thanpresently occupied the inn. She brought over a frying pan from the stove and filled up both ends of the long pan with two dozen sausage links.
“Do you subscribe to the same theory?” He asked.
“What? About the correlation between the cost of the wedding and the chances of the marriage surviving? No, I don’t think about things like that.”