“Really?” I shouldn’t have been surprised. The Mission was the latest San Francisco neighborhood to be dragged into gentrification. Don’t get me wrong; much of the area was still seedy and it wasn’t giving up its gritty underbelly without a fight. I always held on to my purse when I went walking around there.
But lots of cool new restaurants and hip boutiques were sprouting up daily along Eighteenth Street and up and down Mission and Valencia, all the way over to picturesque Dolores Park and several blocks farther in all directions.
I tried not to make a face, but I was dismayed to know that I would soon be sharing my beloved city with the likes of Baxter. There was nothing I could do about it, though. Savannah seemed happy and I had to admit that the trendy but rough-around-the-edges Mission District was an ideal location for an opportunistic slug like Baxter Cromwell to make a killing.
“He’s got a fantastic two-week opening planned,” Savannah explained, excited and clearly ignoring my strong feelings against Baxter. “It’s going to be huge, the foodie event of the century.”
“Of the century?”
“Maybe bigger,” she said, ignoring my sarcasm. “He’s featuring a different visiting chef every night. Some of our old friends from Le Cordon Bleu are coming to cook.”
“Is Kevin coming?” I asked. Kevin Moore had been Savannah’s roommate and best friend in Paris. Despite her boyish name, Kevin was all female and beautiful to boot. She’d been so nice to me while I was staying there. I couldn’t wait to see her again.
“Kevin and Peter will both be here,” Savannah said.
My heart gave a little tug on hearing Peter’s name. I’d developed something of a crush on him while I was visiting Paris. “Are they still together?”
“No,” Savannah said, and made a sad face. “They broke up a year or so after I left Paris, but Kevin insists they’re still friends. It’s too bad. They always seemed to be so much in love.”
“I thought so, too. I’m sorry they broke up.” But it would be cool to see them again, anyway. “Who else is coming?”
“Raoul and Margot and some others you might know. Baxter’s giving each of us a night to highlight our own styles of cooking.”
“That sounds like fun.” And the thought of seeing Savannah’s fine-looking friend Raoul again sounded equally fun.
“It will be,” she said. “And it’s very generous of Baxter, so be nice to him.”
I curled my lip. “If he’s nice to me. Anyway, I’m excited for you. Will you get us reservations for your night?”
“Of course. I’ll call tomorrow. It’s going to be a sellout.”
I could believe it. It was a clever idea and would surely receive lots of media coverage. If only Baxter hadn’t been the one to come up with the concept.
“So you’re giving him this book as a…what? A thank-you?” I tried to keep the tone of incredulity out of my voice, but it was impossible. It was such a waste of a beautiful, rare book. Couldn’t she just buy Baxter a box of chocolates or something?
“Jeez, Brooklyn. Lighten up about the book.” She poured herself more wine. “If it’s any of your business, I’m giving it to Baxter because it originally belonged to him. He gave it to me while we were dating in Paris. And to tell you the truth, I’d forgotten all about it until he called out of the blue to ask me to cook at his new place. When I remembered that I still had it, I thought it would be fun to give it back to him as a surprise.”
“Oh.” I didn’t know which detail shocked me more. The fact that my sister had literally forgotten that she possessed such an exquisite old book or the fact that the book had originally belonged to Baxter, who didn’t seem the type to appreciate such a fine piece of art and history.
I capitulated with a nod. “Okay, I get it now. So, was it handed down through his family?”
“I don’t know exactly.” She sipped her wine as she considered for a moment. “I realize you think it’s special, but Baxter didn’t. I remember him brushing it off as some tacky English village version of a ladies’ church society cookbook. He thought I would be amused by some of the horrible old recipes. We laughed about them, and then he told me to tuck the book away and forget I ever had it. He seemed sort of embarrassed about it, which I thought was terribly endearing at the time.”
“Oh, please. The man is as endearing as a badger.”
“I know.” She laughed lightly. “I was an idiot.”
“No, Bugs,” I said fiercely, using her childhood nickname for emphasis. (Savannah had been given the middle name of Dragonfly, so naturally we kids had always called her Bugs.) “Baxter was the idiot, not you.”
She set her wineglass down and hugged me. “Thank you. But you can see why the book isn’t as valuable as you seem to think it is. If it was, then why would he ever have given it to me? I wasn’t important to him, so why would he give me something so rare? It’s not like he considered me anything more than a fling.”
“True, and that’s his loss.”
“Well, thank you again.”
“You’re welcome.” I let her sip her wine in silence for a moment, then added, “So I don’t suppose you’d reconsider giving him the book.”
She chuckled. “Nice try.”