Fairytale Come Alive (Ghosts and Reincarnation #4)(29)
Author: Kristen Ashley

Maybe her luck had changed.

“We’ve decided to call you Miss Bella!” Sally shrieked from her place on the stool at the counter, tea towels already wrapped around her.

“Have you, now?” Isabella muttered, entering the kitchen to see the groceries unpacked, the peas were at the boil and the water for the noodles was already at a flame on the stove.

At least Mikey had some uses.

“Mister Mikey says I can help,” Sally announced.

Isabella gave her a smile and started to get busy. “That you can, sweetheart. Your choice, you can do the crunchy bit or the smushy bit.”

“Can I do both?” Sally asked.

Isabella set a bowl in front of her, leaned in to kiss the top of her head and murmured there, “Why not?”

Sally threw both her hands up, nearly hitting Isabella in the jaw and shouted, “Hurrah!”

“Mental,” Jason mumbled.

Isabella looked at him and chuckled.

“I wish I found making tuna casserole so exciting,” Mikey remarked, carrying his whisky around the counter to sit beside Jason.

“You’re too cynical,” Isabella told him, opening cans of mushroom soup. “Making tuna casserole is exciting.”

And it was when one was making it for Prentice, his family and one’s best friend.

“She’s mental,” Mikey stage-whispered to Jason and Jason grinned as Prentice joined them from the other room.

Well, that reprieve didn’t last long.

Sally didn’t waste any time getting Prentice up to speed.

“Mister Mikey says we can call Mrs. Evangahlala, Miss Bella and I’m doing the crunchy and smushy bits for dinner.”

“Crunchy and smushy,” Prentice murmured, his eyes warm on his daughter. “Sounds like dinner is going to be interesting.”

“Tuna casserola!” Sally shouted and Prentice looked at Isabella.

Isabella busied herself with draining the tuna.

“Have you had her tuna casserole?” Prentice asked, she looked over her shoulder and saw he was talking to Mikey. The palms of his hands were at the edge of the counter and he pushed up to sit on it.

“I’ve sampled Bella’s entire culinary arsenal,” Mikey replied. “It must be said, the woman can cook.”

“We know. She made us chicken fingers, homemade, the other night. They were brilliant,” Jason put in.

Isabella ducked her head and bit her lip at the compliment while she went to stand behind Sally and set the cans around the bowl.

“All right, honey, we need to dump all this into the bowl and then smush it together. Yes?” she told the girl softly and Sally nodded exuberantly.

She handed Sally a spoon and Sally went straight for the mushroom soup as Isabella, her arms around Sally, her eyes looking over the girl’s shoulder, used a fork to flake out the tuna.

Isabella was attempting to ignore everything and focus on the food and Sally.

This was difficult.

It became more difficult.

“Isabella doesn’t seem the type of woman to have tuna casserole in her culinary arsenal,” Prentice commented and Isabella felt her shoulders get tight.

Didn’t he remember she cooked for him all the time twenty years ago?

Didn’t he remember what she’d cook for him?

She’d never made him tuna casserole, of course, that was winter food and she was only there in the summers.

But, still…

Mikey laughed, loud and with great hilarity.

When he was done, still chuckling, he replied, “Bella’s the Queen of Comfort Food. She used to cook all the time when she, Annie and I shared an apartment at Northwestern. Annie and I both gained fifteen pounds, each year.”

That wasn’t true. Mikey had gained twenty pounds.

“Did you meet her at uni?” Prentice asked.

“Sure did,” Mikey replied. “I saw her walking on campus our freshman year and I said to myself, ‘Who is that gorgeous girl with those sad eyes? She needs a little bit of Mikey in her life.’”

Isabella’s hands stilled but only for a moment.

Then she whispered in Sally’s ear, “I have to get the peas. Keep scooping.”

“Sad eyes?” Prentice asked, his voice had grown quiet.

“Yep,” Mikey answered shortly and also quietly.

“Why were you sad, Miss Bella?” Jason called.

Isabella dumped the peas in a colander, put them under a cold tap and turned to Jason.

“If memory serves, I stubbed my toe,” she lied, Jason’s head tilted to the side, Isabella felt Prentice’s eyes on her as well as Mikey’s and she ignored that too. “Badly. And everyone knows it hurts to stub your toe.”

“I hate stubbing my toe,” Sally declared, smushing the tuna and soup together. “It does hurt. That would make me sad.”

Thank goodness for Sally.

“You shared an apartment?” Prentice asked, unfortunately deciding this once to ignore his daughter.

And he asked even though he knew the answer. Or, maybe, he didn’t remember.

Isabella shook the water off the peas as Mikey answered, “Yep, sophomore and junior year.”

“Not your last year?” Prentice sounded surprised and she knew why.

Because he remembered.

And suddenly Isabella found it most irritating that Prentice had a good memory.

She knew that he knew, because she told him, that she shared an apartment with Annie and Mikey and that they’d be going back to it their senior year.

Except they didn’t.

Well, Mikey did, but Annie and Isabella didn’t.

Annie was in hospital then in rehab. Isabella was on house arrest after her father found out about her “tryst” with Prentice.

However, she was allowed to go to class and also to help Annie.

“Nope,” Mikey answered.

“Why not?” Prentice queried.

Isabella turned from draining the peas, placed a tea towel under them and walked back to Sally, sending Mikey a pleading look.

Mikey ignored her altogether and kept right on talking.

“Because Bella was closer to Annie at home.” He waved his whisky glass around and went on, “Would take forever for her to drive from Northwestern to Clarissa’s every day.” Mikey looked at Jason and announced, “Florence Nightingale is making you tuna casserole, bucko. Count yourself lucky.”

“Who’s Florence Nightingale?” Sally asked.

“She’s an angel from heaven,” Mikey answered.

“Really?” Sally breathed.

Isabella disregarded this, poured the peas into the bowl Sally was mixing and, attempting to shift the conversation, advised, “Be careful now, stir it gently. You don’t want to smush up the peas too much.”