The Girl Who Chased the Moon: A Novel - By Sarah Addison Allen Page 0,12

of lemon zest.

The window in the room was wide open, because that was the way Julia always baked. Bottling up the smell made no sense. The message needed some way out.

“What are you making?” Emily asked from the doorway as Julia turned off the stove.

“I experiment with recipes here before I make them for the restaurant. My madeleines aren’t up to snuff yet.” Julia picked up a madeleine from her first batch. “See? Madeleines should have a distinct hump on this side. This is too flat. I don’t think I refrigerated my batter long enough.” She took Emily’s hand and placed the small spongy cake in her palm. “This is how the French serve madeleines, with the shell side down, like a boat. In America, we like to see the pretty shell side from the shape of the madeleine pan, so we serve them this way.” She turned the madeleine over. “Go on, try it.”

Emily took a bite and smiled. She covered her lips with her hand and said, her mouth full, “You’re a really good cook.”

“I’ve had a lot of practice. I’ve been baking since I was sixteen.”

“It must be nice to have such a gift.”

Julia shrugged. “I can’t take credit for it. Someone else gave it to me.” Sometimes she resented the fact that she never would have found this skill on her own, that she had only discovered what she was truly good at because of someone else. She had to keep reminding herself that it didn’t matter how the skill got there, it was what she did with it, the love that came out of it, that mattered. Emily looked like she was going to ask what Julia meant, so Julia quickly said, “How was your first full day here?”

One more bite and Emily had finished the madeleine. She took a moment to chew and swallow, then said, “I guess I’m confused.”

Julia crossed her arms over her chest and leaned a hip against the ancient, olive-drab refrigerator. “About what?”

“About why my mom left. About why she didn’t stay in touch with people here. Did she have friends? What was she like when she lived here?”

Julia paused with surprise. Emily had a lot to learn about this town, about the havoc her mother had wreaked. But Julia certainly wasn’t going to be the one who told her. “Like I said, I didn’t know her well,” Julia said carefully. “We weren’t in the same social group in school, and I had my own problems at the time. Have you talked to your grandfather? He’s the one you should ask.”

“No.” Emily tucked back some of her short, flyaway hair. Her whole demeanor was so achingly sincere. “He’s been hiding in his room all day. Did he and my mom not get along? Do you think that’s why she never came back?”

“No, I don’t think that’s it. Everyone gets along with Vance. Come sit down.” Julia put her arm around Emily’s shoulder and led her out of the kitchen bedroom and into the living room bedroom. This room contained the only nice thing in her apartment—a royal blue love seat Stella’s mother had given her from her decorator’s showroom. There was also a television on an old coffee table and a rickety bookcase full of pots and pans—overflow from the kitchen. Julia had put most of her stuff in Baltimore in storage when she’d moved here, and brought only her clothes and her cooking supplies, so there wasn’t much to the apartment. It was shabby and sparse, which was fine with her. There was no sense in getting comfortable. When they sat down, Julia said, “All I can tell you is that your mother was the most beautiful, popular girl in school. She made it seem effortless. Perfect clothes. Perfect hair. Supremely confident. She was in a group that called themselves Sassafras, made up of girls in school whose families had money. I wasn’t one of them.”

Emily looked astonished. “My mom was popular? Grandpa Vance had money?”

There was a knock at her door. “Excuse me,” Julia said as she got up. She assumed it was Stella, which was why her whole body gave a start when she opened the door, felt a gust of air that smelled like freshly cut grass, and saw Sawyer standing at the top of the staircase.

“I brought pizza,” he said with a smile. “Come down.”

Something was definitely afoot. A year and a half of Thursday night get-togethers, and Sawyer had never asked her to come