“Of course,” I say, answering them all at once. “You have to stay for dinner.”

I finish the table setting, the cupcakes angled so their frosted spiders will fill the frame. For the background, I’ve chosen a swath of fabric with a bold, fifties pattern and vintage ceramic pumpkins picked up at a flea market.

“Cute,” Sam says, the wrinkling of her nose indicating it’s not a compliment.

“In the baking blog biz, cute sells.”

We stand shoulder to shoulder, studying the display. Despite all those minute adjustments, it’s still not right. There’s something missing. Some intangible spark I’ve neglected to include.

“It’s too perfect,” Sam announces.

“It’s not,” I say, when, of course, it is. The whole display is flat, lifeless. Everything is so pristine the cupcakes might as well be fake. They certainly look that way. Plastic frosting atop a Styrofoam base. “What would you do differently?”

Sam approaches the display with an index finger on her chin, lost in thought. She then goes to work, tearing through it like Godzilla stomping Tokyo. Some of the plates are cleared of cupcakes and hastily stacked. A ceramic pumpkin is knocked on its side and a napkin is crumpled and casually tossed, bouncing into the middle of the scene. Wrappers are torn from three cupcakes and dropped into the mix.

The once-pristine display is now chaotic. It resembles a table after a raucous dinner party, messy and satisfying and real.

It’s perfect.

I grab my camera and start taking pictures, zooming in on the disheveled cupcakes. Behind them sits an uneven stack of Fiestaware, some bearing globs of orange icing bright against the green.

Sam grabs a cupcake and takes a gargantuan bite as crumbs drip and cherry filling oozes.

“Take my picture,” she says.

I hesitate, for reasons she can’t begin to understand.

“I don’t put pictures of people on the blog,” I say. “Only food.”

Nor do I take pictures of people, even ones not intended for my website. No Lisa-esque selfies for me. Not since Pine Cottage.

“Just this once,” Sam says, faking a pout. “Pretty please? For me?”

Hesitantly, I look into the camera’s viewfinder and suck in a breath. It’s like peering into a crystal ball and seeing not my future, but my past. I see Janelle, standing in front of Pine Cottage, striking wacky poses with her too many suitcases. I didn’t notice the similarity earlier, but now it’s obvious. While Sam and Janelle don’t physically resemble each other, they share the same spirit. Vivid and unapologetic and startlingly alive.

“Something wrong?” Sam says.

“No.” I click the shutter, taking a single picture. “Nothing’s wrong.”

Sam hurries to my side, nudging me until I show her the photograph.

“I like it,” she says. “You definitely need to put it up on your blog.”

I tell her that I will, which pleases her, even though I plan to delete the picture the first chance I get.

Next, it’s time to arrange and photograph the pumpkin bread. I let Sam saw away at one of the loaves, the uneven slices unfolding off it like pages torn from a book. The ceramic pumpkins are replaced with vintage teacups I found a week earlier in the West Village. I fill them with coffee, varying the amounts in each. When a splash of coffee hits the table, I leave it there, letting it pool around the base of a teacup. Sam finishes things by lifting the cup and taking a long, slurping sip. Her lipstick leaves a mark on the brim. A ruby kiss, mysterious and seductive. She stands back to let me photograph it. I click away, taking more pictures than necessary, drawn to the chaos.

CHAPTER 8

Dinnertime arrives in a panicked whirl of preparation and last-minute details. I whip up linguini with the homemade puttanesca sauce Jeff’s mother taught me how to make. There’s salad, freshly baked breadsticks, wine from actual bottles, all perfectly laid out on the rough-hewn dining room table we bought the previous summer in Brooklyn.

Jeff comes home to find Rosemary Clooney standards drifting from the living room stereo and me clad in the mid-Fifties party dress I felt compelled to change into, my face pink and gleaming. God knows what’s going through his mind. Definitely confusion. Perhaps worry that I’ve gone a little overboard, which I have. But I hope there’s pride in the mix, too. At what I’ve accomplished. At the fact that after so many crowded, informal meals with his family, I finally have a guest.

Then Sam emerges from the dining room with her face scrubbed of flour and a fresh coat of lipstick and I know exactly what Jeff is thinking. Concern mixed with suspicion tinged with surprise.

“Jeff, this is Sam,” I announce.

“Samantha Boyd?” Jeff says, more to me than to her.

Sam smiles and offers her hand. “I prefer Sam.”

“Sure. Hi, Sam.” The situation has jolted Jeff so much that he almost forgets to return Sam’s handshake. When he does, it’s weak. More hand than shake. “Quincy, can I talk to you for a sec?”

Off we go into the kitchen, where I quickly brief him on the afternoon’s events, finishing with, “I hope you don’t mind that I asked her to stay for dinner.”

“It’s certainly a surprise,” he says.

“Yes, it happened very suddenly.”