Page 25 of Whisking It All

“Come on, guys. We can do this,” Gavin said, ever the optimist.

“First question!” Mike called. “What former child star turned pop star made headlines for having an on-set relationship with the actor playing her father in a recent Broadway musical film adaptation?”

Jamie laughed, shaking his head as he reached for the answer sheet in front of Gavin. “Give me that. I actually know this one.”

Chapter 9

Everything in the room was beige. Beige carpet, beige walls. Tessa wasn’t sure what she’d expected from the church community hall, but it hadn’t been this.

From the outside, the church was lined on three sides by rows of intricately detailed stained-glass windows. At night, when the church was lit up from within, the stone building resembled the gingerbread houses she made at Christmas with crushed candy windowpanes. But this room was in the church basement, and the attention to aesthetics clearly had not made its way underground.

Gavin, Ethan, Tessa, and Baz stood in a line at the back of the room in front of the pathetic coffee and Danish table like the four horsemen of the disappointing pastry apocalypse. Tessa made a mental note to bring something to contribute to the table for the next meeting. Maybe her cinnamon buns or apple spice bread.

When Tessa and Ethan had arrived at St. Anthony’s, Gavin had bounded over to greet her with a wide, genuine smile and a warm, if awkward, hug. With his shaggy, sandy blonde hair and his overly friendly demeanor, he was the human equivalent of a golden retriever. He was the only person—aside from her father—who seemed genuinely happy to see her, and not because she was a town curiosity.

Half the people in the room kept craning their necks to catch a glimpse of Stephanie Cordeiro’s child, the prodigal daughter all grown up. The child that had disgraced both the Cordeiro and Hart families by her very existence. Ethan swore that wasn’t true, that no one in his family—her family—felt that way, but that’s not what her mother had always said. And Tessa remembered the whispers in the grocery store when she had lived in town as a kid. The way people stared as she and her mother selected apples for the week, the saccharine smiles of the church ladies who sidled up to them at the deli counter in hopes of a bit of salacious gossip about the teenage mother and her bastard child.

Tessa planted her feet firmly, crossing her arms over her chest and focusing her gaze on Jamie and his presentation at the front of the room. She would not let small town narrow-mindedness run her off again.

Kyla appeared at her side. “Hey, did I miss anything important?”

Tessa tried to hide her surprise at seeing her there. “You know you didn’t have to come to this, right? Just because you’re working at Sugar Grapes doesn’t mean you’re obligated to work on the festival too.”

“I was planning on helping Cheryl anyway,” Kyla said with a shrug. “It’s not a big deal.”

But it was a big deal to Tessa, having someone who had her back, and not out of familial obligation. She nodded, flattening her lips to hide her smile so as not to embarrass Kyla, but she couldn’t help the warmth in her chest.

At the front of the room, assembled local business owners sat in rows of beige folding chairs and sipped weak coffee out of beige cardboard cups while Jamie explained his plan for the food and wine festival.

“But how will you get more tourists to come?” a confused-looking woman with short-cropped, brown hair asked.

“Gavin and I have been in touch with several media outlets and we’re planning an advertising and press blitz to explain how our festival will be different from the hundreds of other festivals around the country,” he answered.

Jamie turned a dimpled smile on the assembled group and Tessa could feel their anxiety calm under his reassuring gaze. Couldn’t they tell that was a fake smile, that it didn’t reach his eyes? It was nothing like the way he’d grinned at her that night while they’d sat on the grass eating tacos.

“We are confident that our food will be top notch,” Jamie continued. “Ethan’s daughter Tessa is in town temporarily to reopen Sugar Grapes for the holidays and has agreed to help with the festival’s menu. While we will miss Cheryl’s red wine brownies, Tessa has an impressive pedigree and some exciting new ideas to contribute. Make no mistake—culinarily, Aster Bay’s food and wine festival will be one of the best festivals in the country.”

Did he mean it? The words were glowing but the dimple in his cheek had disappeared, his eyes gone steely as he’d spoken about her. Even if he respected her food, he didn’t like her.

“That’s great for once the tourists are here, but you gotta get them into town first,” a large man in a plaid flannel shirt and knit beanie said.

“I hear you, Norm, but Gavin’s the best. He’s going to get us featured in all kinds of news outlets.”

“Which is exactly what we’ve done every other year,” Norm fired back. “This year’s gotta be bigger. You said you could make it bigger.”

Jamie glanced at Gavin at the back of the room, as if to confirm, before addressing Norm. “We’re going to highlight what makes us different, the things that only Aster Bay can offer.”

“Like what? We’re not the only beach town hunting for tourists in the winter,” Norm said.

“Like our restaurants, our vineyard. Like package deals with tickets to the festival and a stay at The Barclay,” Jamie said, glancing again at his friends at the back of the room. Beside her, Tessa could feel the men stand a little taller, as though they could project their support across the room to their friend.

“That’s what we’ve always done. It’s not enough!” someone shouted from the crowd.

The concerned murmuring rose to an all-out barrage of unease, accusations of false promises starting to fly as Jamie struggled to regain control of the meeting. But he just kept repeating the same thing about advertising, and the more he doubled down on the talking points he’d clearly rehearsed, the more the crowd grew incensed.

Kyla shook her head. “They’ve got to target a different demographic,” she mumbled.

“What?” Tessa whispered back.

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