Page 22 of The Strawberry Patch Pancake House
‘First, we unwrap the pastry,’ she trilled in her best Julia Child impression. ‘And then we simply place it in the toaster for two minutes, not a moment more!’ She dropped the Pop-Tart in the toaster with a flourish and was rewarded with a giggle.
‘Now,’ she went on with a smile, spinning toward the fridge, ‘some juice!’ She continued on this way, narrating the breakfast making process like she was on a cooking show, delighting in Olive’s laughter at the spectacle.
Maybe she was good at this nanny thing after all.
Feeling pretty cocky led them to be ten minutes late for kindergarten drop-off, and with Olive wearing a pair of unicorn slippers to school, but Iris was counting it as a win.
She’d made Olive laugh. Not bad for her first day as a nanny.
ChapterTen
Another shit day at work. Another morning of rejected dishes, of customer complaints, of Cyrus’s know-it-all smirk. Archer hadn’t been this bad at his job since he was a line cook in college, getting constantly screamed at for his uneven vegetable cutting.
And it sucked.
Archer had lost his sanctuary. He’d lost the one place he felt totally in control. And now he was in control of nothing. He stood on his own stoop, staring at his front door, and raked his hands through his hair, working up the courage to go inside. If any of the neighbors witnessed this daily ritual, they probably thought he was insane.
He opened the door and was greeted with … nothing. No sullen child on the couch, no TV blaring a baking competition, no new nanny parading around without pants.
Archer sucked in a sharp breath at the memory. The memory he’d been doing a pretty good job of repressing since it happened three days ago. Iris in nothing but a T-shirt, her hair tousled from sleep, her eyes bright as she rambled on about murder podcasts. They were only a few nights into this situation, and between his need to perfect his pancake recipe and his half-naked nanny, he’d slept for maybe two hours each.
He dropped his bag by the door and peeled off his chef’s coat. It was absurd that he still wore the damn thing. No one that ate at a diner gave a shit that the guy flipping their pancakes went to four years of culinary school, apprenticed under some of the best chefs in Europe, and ran his own kitchen for the last several years. People came to a diner for consistency, for comfort. For the same damn food they’d been eating for the past twenty years. And it was for that reason that Archer’s new recipes were going up in flames.
Giggling from down the hallway momentarily distracted him from his depressing thoughts. He found Iris and Olive in Olive’s bedroom sitting cross-legged on the floor. A circle of stuffed animals sat with them.
‘Pinkies up!’ Iris said in the worst British accent he’d ever heard. She held a tiny teacup with her pinky stuck out. Olive did the same, a big smile on her face.
‘Why do we have to put our pinkies up?’ she asked, still not noticing Archer standing in the doorway.
Iris shrugged in that way that she did, like life was a game she was playing. ‘It’s fancier that way,’ she said. ‘It’s the same reason we’re wearing these lovely hats.’ She tipped back the hat she was wearing, something made of straw that had been covered in big tissue paper flowers, and caught Archer’s eye.
‘Oh look, Olive!’ she said, her voice overly bright. ‘Your dad’s home! We should invite him to our tea party.’
As usual when he entered the room, he felt the joy flee Olive’s body. Smile gone. Laughter gone. Ability to speak, gone.
‘Uh, that’s all right. I don’t want to interrupt your fun,’ he said.
Iris unfolded herself from her seat and came to where he stood, grabbing him by the hand. ‘Oh no, I insist. You simply must join us. The tea is top notch.’ She slipped back into that terrible accent, but it seemed to be working. Olive was having a hard time keeping the smile from creeping back onto her lips.
Iris dragged him down to the floor and before he could really register what was happening, he was seated beside a rainbow striped narwhal and a bear with one eye. Olive peered at him from under her hat.
‘Well, thank you for the invite,’ he said, offering Olive a tentative smile. She didn’t return it, but she didn’t look away. ‘I could really go for a cup of tea.’
Iris grinned at him as she poured him an imaginary cup. ‘There you are, dear,’ she said. ‘Olive here was just telling me about her day. Do go on, Olive.’
And maybe Iris was a genius or maybe she was a crazy person, but between her insane accent and the fake tea and the stuffed guests and the homemade hats, Olive was loosened up enough to actually speak in his presence. He wanted to cry into his imaginary tea.
‘We have assigned seats in the cafeteria now because we were being too loud,’ she said. ‘But it’s not fair because I’m not loud.’
‘Of course you’re not loud,’ Archer burst out, irrationally angry about this injustice. ‘What kind of school is this? Why would they punish you if you didn’t do anything wrong? I should go down there.’
Iris was looking at him with a strange sort of smile on her face as though maybe she thought he was being crazy but also maybe as if she was proud of him or something.
‘Settle down, Papa Bear,’ she said, patting his knee. ‘Let’s not storm the elementary school quite yet.’
‘Well, it’s not fair,’ he grumbled and a small smile curved Olive’s mouth.
Iris laughed. ‘Lots of things aren’t fair. You may have noticed.’
