Page 21 of Something About September

“Looks just like his mother.” She tested the words and found they didn’t hurt anymore.

“Lucky for him, right? Better than looking like me.”

“Oh, give me a break,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You look exactly the same as in high school, and every girl was in love with you.”

“Not every girl,” he said quietly. She quickly broke his gaze, heat filling her cheeks. Rebecca was grateful when Pip called out to them.

“Dad! Becca! You have to come see this!”

—

Pip was sitting in the booth holding a sheaf of old papers, some crumpled, some still folded. They were full of pencil sketches, pencil crayon drawings, childish block letters. “They’re all about the diner. Did you make these, Becca?”

Rebecca reached for one and looked down. It was a drawing of a sign that read, The Blackbird & Bramley Bookshop Café. Memories flooded her brain. “I had forgotten all about these,” she said.

Cort was looking at the pages now, too. There were drawings of menus, floor plans, recipes that had been scribbled in Sabrina’s youthful hand rather than Rebecca’s. One page showed the diner, but with bookshelves lining the walls. “Looks like you put some thought into this.”

“I was just a kid,” Rebecca said. “But I think I was the kind of kid who put a lot of thought into everything.” She picked up another page. There were sketches of book-shaped tables and chairs with spines as backs.

Most elaborate was her design for the ceiling—painted to look like open books with pages fluttering, creating a canopy of stories above diners’ heads. She’d written “quotations from famous books will be painted on ceiling beams” in careful block letters. Then: “I just need to read more books to figure out what they are.”

“This is so you,” Cort, beside her, said.

“You wanted to make a restaurant that was also a bookstore, and also like being inside a book?” Pip sounded impressed. “Look, Dad! She wanted to have special food for each book, like…‘Monster Mash Shepherd’s Pie for Frankenstein,’ ” he read.

Rebecca laughed. “I think those were Sabrina’s additions,” she said. “I had almost forgotten we were obsessed with starting a business together at one point. I guess Sabrina has always been an entrepreneur at heart.”

Cort read from one of the pages his son had proffered. “ ‘Manderley Meringue. Elegant but dramatic! Peaks of toasted meringue over a moody blackcurrant or lemon filling.’ ”

Rebecca gently eased the page from Cort’s fingertips. “ ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray: Vanity Mirror Glazed Doughnuts. Glazed to glossy perfection, with edible gold dust. Too pretty to eat!’ ”

“Could Sabrina really make doughnuts like that?” Pip asked, his eyes wide.

“I think Sabrina could make anything she put her mind to,” Rebecca said with a smile. “I, on the other hand, would have no idea where to start.”

“Baking isn’t easy,” Cort said. “Pip, tell Becca what happened when I tried to make an apple pie that was just like the ones served at this diner.”

Pip ducked his head and smiled. “Disaster,” he said. “Good thing we can just go to the market at Calloway’s Orchard when we want pie.” Rebecca handed the page back to Pip, and he sounded out the words: “ ‘Dracula’s Blood Orange Marmalade Toast—a mysterious breakfast special. Sweet, a little bitter, and very crimson. Served with tea that must be consumed before sunrise.’ ” He looked up at his father and Rebecca. “Blood orange? Gross. Is that from you and Sabrina’s imagination, too, Rebecca?”

“No, there really are such things as blood oranges,” Rebecca said. “And they’re actually delicious. No real blood involved. Maybe the market in town can get some in for you to try.”

He shook his head forcefully. “No, thank you!”

Cort was now thoughtfully studying some of the other drawings. “Some of these ideas are actually doable, you know. Like the built-in shelves.” Enthusiasm had warmed his voice—but Rebecca suddenly had a cold feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“I really just need to deal with the two-thousand-dollar BIA bill Crispin gave me right now, not introduce a costly built-in-shelving project,” she said, hearing regret in her voice.

“You’re right. These ideas are so great I got lost in them. But you’re just fixing this place up to sell.”

“Right,” Rebecca said. She was constantly repeating this, and it felt the same every time she said it. Wrong. But that was because this building was her history; it was where she had grown up. “Hey, Pip, there’s a little hot chocolate left in the pot. Would you like more?”

“Yes, please,” he said. “Your cocoa is even better than Dad’s, and he makes the best.”

Rebecca laughed. “Maybe I’ll have to challenge him to a cocoa-off sometime.”

“You wouldn’t stand a chance,” Cort teased, his gray eyes warm again. “My secret recipe is legendary in the Adams household.”

“Dad puts cinnamon and a little bit of cayenne pepper in it,” Pip stage-whispered, clearly unaware of the concept of a secret recipe.