page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | all | buy Every thing mattered. Even the table setting. She knew it had to be fixed. But then she had caught the look of anticipation on her youngest daughter's face. The wide eyes, the mouth slightly open, just enough to catch the glimmer of her metal braces. Her heart caught in her throat: Gus had assumed the sad little decoration on her table was a way for Sabrina to make clear how little she cared about Gus's career. But could her daughter have been trying to help? she'd wondered. At precisely that moment, Aimee had slouched into the room, alerted, no doubt, by the radar all kids have when they sense–hope–their sibling is about to get in trouble. What is it about family that makes them close ranks to outsiders but attack one another with impunity in private? Gus wondered. Thinner and two inches taller than Sabrina, her light brown bangs dyed pink from Kool-Aid, fifteen-year-old Aimee grinned slyly as she saw her mother frowning at the table. "Nice!" Aimee said, catching her sister's eye, gesturing toward the stone-feather combo. "Mom's totally going to throw that away. It's not perfect. And Gus Simpson doesn't do anything that's not perfect. Right, Mom?" Then Aimee shifted all her weight to one hip, as though standing up straight would take too much effort. She waited. Sabrina waited. Gus hesitated as her mom side duked it out with her career side. "I think Sabrina's arrangement is lovely," Gus declared. "It's very modern, very sleek. It stays on the table." Aimee rolled her eyes. "Shut up, Aimee, it's a very karma design," shouted Sabrina. "I think you mean Zen, dear," smiled Gus. She recalled Sabrina's huge ear-to-ear smile, the silver braces gleaming on her teeth, her sweet blue eyes wide and shining. It was the right choice, even though she'd felt a twist in her stomach when Mr. Holt, the CookingChannel president, had looked questioningly at the table as he sat down. But Gus had made no apologies, aware of Sabrina hanging on her every word, and in fact praised her daughter's creativity. "Part of being a good host is to let everyone feel they've played a part," she'd told him with confidence that spring day long ago. Mr. Holt, a divorced father, had nodded thoughtfully. "You're just the type of person I'm looking for," he announced. And by the end of cake, Gus Simpson–an unknown gourmet-shop owner without a cookbook to her name–had been asked to host a few episodes on the fledging cable channel. Sabrina's display, it turned out, had been karma after all. And voila! A few years on TV's CookingChannel and she became an overnight sensation. That was the thing with all that "overnight" business: It typically took a lot of work beforehand. And now here she was in 2006, the very heart of food television, The Luncheonette long since sold away. She lived in a stunning manor house in Rye, New York, precisely the style of house that Christopher would have loved: a three-story structure, white with black shutters, with a large formal dining room to the left of the foyer, a conservatory, a small parlor that Gus had converted to her private den, a wood-paneled library, page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | all | buy