“Here’s a picture of the three of us. Chelsea, you and me.”
He squinted at the album his sister shoved under his nose. The event was Sarah’s birthday and the three teenagers stood together. He had his arm around both girls. The cake read Happy 15th Birthday, Sarah, and they’d posed beside it. He’d have been nineteen, he supposed, and he towered over the two girls. A slight, thin girl, Hermione had shiny dark hair, he remembered, that was like a curtain, hiding her face. She used to blush when he was around, which made him suspect she had a bit of a schoolgirl crush on him. She’d been a nice kid, though. He was pretty sure he’d helped her with her homework a few times.
“What’s she doing now?” he asked, trying to sound casual.
“She studied at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. She only got home a few weeks ago and is looking for a kitchen. She plans to start her own catering company.”
His mother came and looked over his shoulder. “She was such a nice girl. I’m glad she’s back. We’ll have to have her over when we get back from vacation.” Then she asked his next question for him. “Is she still single?”
“Yep.”
Meg sighed. “I don’t know what it is with you young people. Doesn’t anybody get married anymore?”
“Sure we do, Mom. David and I are selective, that’s all.”
David was still staring at the photograph, trying to imagine Hermione all grown up. He studied her at fifteen. Nice hair, big eyes, clear skin. He could imagine her older. He pictured a librarian type with her hair in a bun. Maybe glasses from all that reading. He really liked the image. He had one fear that Sarah’s update had raised. “Catering, huh. Has she gained a lot of weight?”
Both women sent him identical withering looks.
“What? I’m just asking.”
“I had drinks with her on Thursday. She’s not as skinny as she was at fifteen. She’s filled out a little. She looks the same only twelve years older. If anything, she’s prettier than she used to be. Otherwise, she’s exactly the same,” she assured him. “You’d know her anywhere.”
David felt like his world had suddenly transformed from a bleak black-and-white European film into a bright, happy Technicolor blockbuster. Chelsea Hammond was bright, studious, a little shy, which was fine. She’d been to Paris, which suggested a level of sophistication. And if she could cook? The old boys were going to wet themselves.
Chelsea Hammond didn’t know it yet, but she’d just become his perfect fake fiancée.
3
“SO? AM I A GENIUS OR WHAT?” Sarah exclaimed, sounding ridiculously pleased with herself.
Another long second of silence passed. The coffee shop was busy with midmorning traffic, moms with kids in strollers, older folks with crossword puzzles, a large noisy table that seemed to be some kind of walking club. The babble of voices was punctuated by the steaming hiss of the espresso machine.
“Are you kidding me?” Chelsea finally managed to respond.
She’d spent the morning looking at two hopeless places to rent in the South Street area, one where a cat came to greet her at the door and her eyes started watering before she could even cross the threshold, and the other with a supposed nonsmoking roommate who seemed to think marijuana didn’t count. They’d met at a coffee shop in the area, Sarah pleased with her purchase of an old book of art deco photographs from an antiquarian bookseller. She’d bought Chelsea an old Pennsylvania Dutch cookbook, with recipes for things like schnitz pie and young duck with sauerkraut. So she hadn’t fully paid attention when Sarah promised she had the answer to Chelsea’s prayers.
When she glanced up, Sarah’s eyes were alight with mischievous laughter. She shook her head. “On the level. Dead serious. My brother wants you to pretend to be his fiancée.”
“I don’t believe it.” She’d had a hopeless crush on David Wolfe since the first moment she saw him, out in the back of his house shooting baskets. Her attention was caught by his long, athletic teenage build, his fierce focus and that face. She’d never forget that moment as long as she lived. She and her mom had just moved in with her aunt and uncle, since her parents, not content with messing up her young life with their divorce, couldn’t even work out an agreement that let her stay in her home, near her school and friends. She remembered feeling lost and lonely and hopeless. Then she’d looked out her window, seen that boy leap into the air, sun gilding his hair, and fallen hopelessly, madly in love.
She’d been fourteen years old and to this day no man could match the impact on her of first seeing David Wolfe.
Of course, as in all cases of unrequited teenage love, he’d barely noticed her existence. Now the grown-up David wanted her to playact the part of his lover?
“You haven’t heard the best part.”
“There’s a best part?”
“Because I am your lawyer—”
“No, you’re not.”
“I would be if you needed a lawyer. Quit interrupting. I negotiated terms.”
“Terms? I’m about to be homeless, I’m in no mood for your tricks. Play them on your brother.”
Sarah shook her head so violently her hair flew all over the place. “I’m not messing with you. I told him that if you were going to do him a huge favor and save his ass, then he had to do you a favor.”
“Which is?”
Sarah favored her with a huge smile. “You’re not homeless anymore.”
“What?” As the possible implication of what her best friend was saying sank in, her eyes opened wide.
“I told David you had to give up your sublet. I suggested that if you’re going to do him this huge favor, then he has to do you one and let you live in his guest room.”
Shoofly pie and the best way to cook a young pig were both forgotten. “You’re suggesting I move in with your brother?”
“Sure, his place is fantastic and there’s lots of room. The guest room’s professionally decorated, has its own TV, you’ll love it. But wait,” she said, sounding like a late-night TV commercial, “there’s more.”
“I can’t imagine.”
“He’s got this amazing kitchen. Designer everything, top-of-the-line appliances. All he ever uses is the microwave and the ice dispenser. I told him you’ll be running your catering business out of his kitchen until you can afford your own place.”
In spite of every rational brain cell—of which she used to have a lot more—she was starting to get excited. “And he said yes?”
“He said, ‘Thank you, Sarah. You are a goddess among women and I am privileged to be related to you.’”
“In other words, you told him he has to put up with me in his house or the deal’s off.”
“Pretty much.”
She sat back in her chair and sipped her latte as visions of stainless-steel appliances and a bedroom to call her own faded. “I don’t think so.”
“Are you crazy? This is everything you want. On a silver platter. I admit, having to pretend to be in love with David is going to be hard, and if I had to live with him again I’d kill myself, but you’re much nicer than I am.”
“It’s not that. I would be an unwanted guest in his house. It would be weird.”
“Believe me, that man is so desperate I could tell him he has to move out while you live there and he’d start packing.”
She chuckled.