“I don’t understand,” Sophie said. “I can’t sculpt for you, now can I?”
“No, but when you’re doing your own work I can learn by watching.”
“I don’t know,” Sophie said. “I’ll have to think about this. Think about everything.”
As Carter stood in the little restaurant and stared at Henry and Sophie walking down the street, he couldn’t help grimacing. He was sure Sophie didn’t even know who she was talking to, a man who made his father look like a pauper. It looked like what his father had said about Sophie not fitting in with “people of our sort” wasn’t true. But then, Carter had learned long ago that whatever his father did was for his own purposes.
Carter went to the big refrigerator on the far wall and opened it. While Sophie was upstairs Henry had said he was to make the soup. “Like I’m the damned maid,” he said aloud. “Like I’m not part of Treeborne Foods, like I’m not—” He stopped when he saw that the refrigerator was nearly empty. How was he to make soup—which he didn’t know how to make anyway—if there weren’t enough groceries? Was he supposed to go buy some?
He shut the door and looked around the place. All Sophie’s questions about that damned cookbook had made him think about his family’s so-called legacy. His grandfather had been an unpleasant old man, angry at the shrapnel in his body that would always cause him pain, angry at his own father for leaving his family. That his father had died when a boiler blew up made no difference. To his grandfather’s mind, the man had still abandoned his family. Most of all, he was furious because his exhausted mother made all four of her children spend their childhoods in a tiny restaurant. He went away to war saying he never wanted anything to do with food. But when he got back with a body riddled with metal pieces, he saw an opportunity and took it. He Americanized their family name and Treeborne Foods was created.
As Carter looked around Sophie’s little restaurant he knew that the one his grandmother had run was about the same size. Little more than a sandwich shop really, and she’d served skimpy plates of food—but she’d sprinkled her secret ingredient on top of everything. She’d been so successful that she’d managed to support her family after her drunken husband died, and she’d helped relatives come over from the old country.
“And now I’m supposed to carry on the family tradition,” Carter said with a sigh. He was supposed to step into the giant beast that Treeborne Foods had become and—
He had to stop his wallow in self-pity because someone was tapping on the door.
“Who’s this?” he muttered. “Someone else who wants to marry Sophie? Another man who wants to hit me?” Frowning, he opened the door. A young woman was standing there. She was dressed all in black: boots, tights, shirt, leather jacket. Her hair was cut straight at her chin line, with thick bangs at her brow. It was so black against her white skin that her hair had to have been dyed. She had a tiny silver dot pierced in her nose, and the edge of a tattoo peeped above her collar.
“You’re not Sophie,” she said, looking at him as though he’d just lied to her.
“And you’re not Sophie, either,” he responded.
Her blue eyes looked him up and down, as though assessing him, then she seemed to dismiss him as she walked into the restaurant.
“You’ll have to come back later,” Carter said, annoyed that this girl had pushed past him.
“Russell said I was to cook today.” Her tone was almost belligerent, as though she were challenging him.
“I have no idea who Russell is and you don’t look like any cook I’ve ever seen. We don’t do greaseburgers.” He looked her up and down just as she’d done to him. “And no vampires or werewolves come here.”
“Then how did you get in here?” she shot back at him.
Carter could only blink at her. Maybe what Sophie’d said about his being spoiled was true. No one—other than his father, that is—had ever spoken to him like that. He couldn’t help it, but he smiled.
She didn’t smile back but kept staring at him.
“So you came here to cook?” he asked, the anger leaving him. His mother used to say that he’d inherited the ability to get angry from his father, but her genes made it so Carter couldn’t stay angry very long.
The girl turned toward the door. “I think I better come back when this Sophie is here. Tell her I’ll be at Russell’s house.”
“Wait!” Carter said and put himself in front of the door. “I’m supposed to make some soup for tomorrow.”
“So make it.” She reached out to the door, but Carter didn’t move.
“I could spin straw into gold as easily as I could make soup.”
“This woman hired you as a cook but you can’t even make a pot of soup?” She again reached for the door.
“It’s not Sophie’s fault. I came here to ask her to marry me and she told me to leave, but I wanted a second chance so I stayed to help. Then Henry showed up and took her away because she remade that ugly little toad of a sculpture of his. So Henry is the one who told me to make soup. Sophie knows I can’t cook. I’m heir to Treeborne Foods but I hardly know a potato from a carrot. Ironic, isn’t it?”
She stood there staring at him for a long time, looking as though she was trying to figure him out.
Carter thought she had on too much makeup and he couldn’t help thinking that without it she’d be quite pretty.
“How’d you get the eye?” she asked.
He put his hand up to the side of his face. “Sophie’s boyfriend doesn’t want me here. He’s a doctor.”