Her dad just shook his head, though Ariel wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was about the way Portia looked. Truthfully, who could blame him? He had seen Portia in all her flowered-Keds-and-strange-clothes glory. Maybe if Ariel figured out how to fix Portia up some, he’d take the bait. Hair, clothes, attitude. But how to make over an adult?

Great. Something else she had to figure out.

She picked up her bowl, set it in the sink, and headed for Trident Prep. But if managing the illogical workings of the standard American family was tricky, three and a half hours later she decided the whole middle-school hierarchy thing was preposterous when she sat at a back lunch table in the school cafeteria and her tiny world erupted in a battlefield of peer pressure and social awkwardness.

It wasn’t like she had been popular in New Jersey or anything, but Ariel was her sister’s sister and she had lived there forever, so people left her alone. But now she was the new girl, and no one had even heard of her sister—who went to a different school anyway. Ariel was on her own. Plus, Mindi Hansen thought she was the head of the world and—no surprise—she couldn’t stand Ariel.

Ariel was sitting by herself doing homework when Mindi came over. “So, uh, Ariel, right?”

“Last I heard.”

Mindi obviously couldn’t take a joke. “What are you?” she demanded, tone biting. “A geek, a nerd, a moron?”

Mindi’s friends all laughed as they walked away.

“Actually,” Ariel muttered to the girls’ backs, “I’m someone who doesn’t need other people’s approval to understand my self-worth.”

Quite frankly, she blamed her dad for what happened next. If he hadn’t made her go to the Shrink, she never would have known anything about self-worth and outside approval.

Mindi froze in her Tory Burch ballet flats. “What did you say?”

“Nothing.” Her heart pounded like a fist on a drum. But because she just never learned, she opened her mouth and added, “There’s no point in repeating it because you’d never understand.”

It was that or give in to the knot of total sad-anger raging inside her—which she had no intention of doing. What would come out? Crying? Disappearing right then and there instead of the slow melting away it felt like she was doing every day?

Mindi leaned closer. “So, Ariel”—saying her name as three long, drawn-out syllables—“where’s your mom?”

The question caught her by surprise.

Mindi tapped a pink nail on her cheek. “Let me see. Is your mom, like, dead?”

Ariel just stared at her.

“And not dead of, like, cancer or something. She wrecked her car driving like a maniac in New Jersey, right?”

Ariel’s mother had died in a car accident, slowly disappearing as she bled out before the ambulance could get there. Ariel knew, because she had been in the car.

“That’s not cool,” one of Mindi’s friends said, grabbing her by the arm. “You’re putting the B in Bitch, girl. Let it go.”

Mindi tossed her hair, smiled, and walked away.

Ten

PORTIA GASPED AWAKE with the taste of apples in her mouth—crisp green apples smothered in brown sugar and spice. She needed to bake.

Lying tangled in the sheets, she tried to calm her racing heart. She tried to write off this urge, too. It was nothing more than a knee-jerk reaction to moving to the Big Apple. But no matter how forcefully she told herself she had stuffed the knowing back down, she realized that she hadn’t. Not really. When she should have smelled bleach and sundried cotton, it was the scent of apples and buttery caramel that swirled in her mind.

The urges to bake and cook were getting stronger, the knowing coming back to life like simple syrup spun into cotton candy.

For those first couple of weeks she had managed to feel alive and carefree. But with every day that passed with her unable to find a real job, the images of food growing more persistent, panic started to grow. The only thing that kept her from a full-blown panic attack was the promise of Robert’s settlement.

Groggy and disoriented, Portia made it out of the bedroom just when Cordelia arrived. Maybe her sister knocked, maybe not, but whatever the case, Cordelia walked right in using her own key, holding her cell phone to her ear with her other hand.

“I’m here. I’ve got to go,” Cordelia said, looking at Portia. “I promise,” she added quickly. “I’ll call as soon as I know anything.” She dropped her phone into her handbag.

Cordelia wore a cream blouse with a camel cashmere sweater tied around her shoulders, camel pants, and brown suede Chanel ballet flats. Her hair was pulled back in a demure twist at the nape of her neck, pearls at her ears. She looked just like a politician’s wife. No politician’s wife would be caught dead in Aunt Evie’s old dress, which Portia was now wearing regularly.

“Who was that?” she asked, trying to pull herself together. She had no interest in letting Cordelia know she was out of sorts.

“Oh, just Olivia.”

“Just Olivia?” Portia sliced her a look. “What do you need to let her know?”

Cordelia waved the words away. “Nothing.” Then she looked around. “My God, you must have worked around the clock.” She brushed past Portia, walking into the kitchen. “The place is still hideous, but at least now it’s clean.”

Cordelia sat down at the table and pulled out a stack of books and two magazines from her shoulder bag. Portia sat down opposite her. Her oldest sister was infamous for the self-help articles and books she distributed like a librarian encouraging a reluctant reader.

“I thought you might like some company,” Cordelia said, setting the assorted reading on the table.

“Did you think I’d be driving myself crazy by now?”

“Something like that.” Cordelia didn’t smile, didn’t laugh. Instead, she pushed the stack across the table.

Portia’s eyebrow flew up. “Bon Appétit? Fine Cooking magazine? Restaurant Management for Dummies?”

With a shrug that didn’t match the determination in her eyes, Cordelia pulled a plastic shopping bag from the tote. “I stopped at the market.”

“How sweet,” Portia said, trying to sound sincere. “But I have more than enough groceries.”

“What do you mean?” Cordelia scoffed. “I bet you hardly have anything in this place. Plus, I brought you a surprise. A present.”

Portia stared as Cordelia began pulling items out of the bags with the efficiency of a nurse preparing an operating room for surgery.

“Remember that fresh apple cake you used to make?”

Portia’s heart practically stilled in her chest.

Cordelia continued, laying out ingredients on the counter. She looked through the window, momentarily distracted. “It made me think about how much I miss The Glass Kitchen. For days now I’ve done nothing but think about that place.”

Portia’s heart surged into her throat. “You hated everything about The Glass Kitchen.”

“I did not. I might have been too young to appreciate it, but I didn’t hate it. But that’s beside the point. I would be over the moon if you’d make me one of your famous apple cakes.”

Portia stared at the ingredients her sister had lined up with perfect precision on the scratched countertop. Apples. Butter. Brown sugar.

Cordelia cocked her head. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” Portia said, her voice weak. “It’s just that I’m not in the mood to bake, is all.”

That was a lie. Her fingers itched to dive in, peel, and core, sift the flour, fold in the softened butter and brown sugar. Again and again since moving into the apartment she’d had to ignore her tingling fingertips and the smells of chocolate and vanilla that didn’t really exist. She had thrown every bit of food in the apartment away, and it still hadn’t helped.

“I don’t believe you,” Cordelia said. “You want to bake like nobody’s business. I can see it in your eyes.”

“No.”

It was panic that glittered in her eyes. It was her fingers that wanted to betray her.

But her brain knew the real cost of baking. She didn’t want to be someone who knew things. She didn’t want to sense that something was going to happen and have no idea what that was until it was too late.

The knowing spelled worry and stress and desperately trying to save people. Under no circumstances did she want the stress and uncertainty of the knowing back in her life. “No,” she repeated, determined.

Cordelia sat there, quiet and watchful. After a second, she said, “Just hear me out.”

“Cordelia—”

Cordelia raised her hand, stopping her. “Olivia and I were talking. We want to open a restaurant.”

Portia felt the blood drain from her face.

Cordelia didn’t let up. “A café, really. Something small. A quaint version of, well, The Glass Kitchen. We thought, maybe, you had brought Gram’s cookbooks with you.”

While Portia didn’t want any part of the knowing, she definitely wanted nothing to do with another Glass Kitchen.

“It makes all the sense in the world,” Cordelia continued, with more of that calm efficiency. “And, of course, you’ll do it with us. Olivia and I agree.”

“You and Olivia?” As if that decided everything. Apparently, nothing had changed after the loss of her grandmother, her home, her husband. She was still the little sister to be bossed around.

“Yes, and it will be fabulous—”

“No.”

“Portia, it could be like old times.”

“What has that got to do with old times? You and Olivia weren’t there. You had nothing to do with The Glass Kitchen. You were here, in New York. You—” Portia cut herself off, forcing herself to be calm.