The Sunshine Potluck Society, page 1
The Sunshine Potluck Society
Sunshine Series
Book One
Lilly Mirren
For my Mum…
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Also by Lilly Mirren
About the Author
Chapter One
The sweet scent of golden corn and heady aroma of cilantro wove its way through the air and around Joanna’s head as she bent over the hot open oven door. She breathed in deep, then shut the door again. It would be ready soon, and she couldn’t wait for the guests to arrive. Corn off the cob and refried beans dusted with grated cheese were only two of the dishes that she’d be serving at this month’s potluck. There was also shredded pork, Mexican rice and an assortment of fresh salads to go with their Mexican theme.
She smiled at Emily, her in-home carer and unofficial sous-chef who was frying tortillas in an electric pan on the other side of the kitchen island.
“How’s it going over there?”
Emily tucked a strand of her long, straight brown hair behind her ear. Her brow creased. “I think…good. I’m not sure. Do you want to take a look?”
Joanna strode around the outside of the island, lifted the edge of the foil, and studied the pile of tortillas on a large plate. “They look great. You’re doing a fantastic job. Well done, Sous-Chef!”
Emily grinned with pride. “Thanks, Chef.”
The monthly gathering of what Joanna impulsively called the Sunshine Potluck Society had become a staple in her life. In fact, it was more than a staple. It was her life. Her children had moved away years earlier, and they were busy with their careers and families. When Ron passed a decade ago, she’d taken to spending more and more of her time indoors until finally, three years ago, she realised she hadn’t stepped a foot outside of her front yard in six months.
These days, she tried to go somewhere once a month, but the effort usually left her feeling worn out. And she much preferred to stay in. It was safe in her home, warm and cozy. She ordered her groceries online, and just about anything else she wanted could be delivered.
Still, she realised that it wasn’t a good thing for her to always be cooped up in the house alone. That was when she’d finally decided to hire an in-home carer. Someone who could help her around the house and make sure she took her medication, give some form of social interaction and a much-needed hand in the kitchen. Emily hadn’t come highly recommended. In fact, most of the people in her life told her she was crazy to give someone like Emily a chance. Her resume was nonexistent.
Emily had grown up in Sunshine, just as Joanna had, on Bribie Island’s eastern shore. But for some reason, none of them knew much about her. And she seemed to mostly keep to herself. Still, Joanna had liked the young woman right off the bat, and so she’d decided not to hire someone with in-home care experience but instead go for the unknown, which had been a risky move at the time but had paid off in spades. Emily had turned out to be the exact right person for the job. The two of them got along well, Emily was a hard worker, and Joanna couldn’t be more pleased with the choice she’d made.
Emily was twenty-three years old, which was exactly the kind of youthful antidote to aging that Joanna wanted. At sixty, she had slowed down a little. But she didn’t want to give up just yet, even if she struggled more and more to get away from the four walls of her home. And she liked to think that Emily’s exuberance for life and positivity kept her young at heart and gave her hope that she could someday do something like take a walk on the open beach again.
At least, Emily always told her she’d do it. “Someday,” she’d say. “You’re gonna walk down that beach. You’ll feel the wind in your hair, the open sky above you, and you’ll be happy. I promise.”
Joanna clung to those words, even as they scared her. But the fact that Emily believed her promise gave Joanna the strength to believe it as well.
Emily slid a piece of pulled pork into her mouth as she waited for the next tortilla to fry. “Mmmm… It’s delicious. Will you include this recipe in your next cookbook?”
“Maybe.” Joanna had worked as a head chef at the restaurant she and her husband ran for twenty years, with a break to have children. Now she wrote cookbooks for a living. When Roy died, she’d done her best to keep their dream alive. The long hours and late nights had never really suited her, but she’d made it work. With Ron gone, she struggled to maintain the schedule, the paperwork and to keep the restaurant afloat. Now, she didn’t like driving past the place where it’d stood all those years ago. A sad reminder of what once was, the life they’d had, the family they’d grown, the business they’d built together.
They’d spent so many happy times in that restaurant. She hadn’t worked full time while raising the children, but she’d still spent many hours a week there. She managed the menu and oversaw the kitchen staff. The children would run and play, hide-and-seek or tag, much to the dismay of the new head chef and the delight of the rest of the staff. They knew every nook and cranny of that place.
She often had to go searching through cupboards and crawl spaces to find them and bring them home at the end of the evening. She’d watched them sit up at the bench to do homework throughout their high school years and even seen them bring dates to eat there once they’d graduated. The restaurant was a big part of their lives, and it saddened her that it was gone. If only one of the kids had wanted to go into the business. But they hadn’t. In the end, it wouldn’t have made much difference.
Karen had become a teacher and married a school principal down in Melbourne. They only came home for holidays, and their children were now grown too and living all over the world. Brett was a carpenter, and he’d moved to the Sunshine Coast. He was only an hour away, but it might as well have been ten hours. He rarely visited, since his building company kept him busy. And his kids were in high school, which meant they no longer wanted to see her much. They were too occupied with their friends and extracurricular activities.
“Oh, there’s the postie. I’m just going to run out and grab the mail,” Joanna said suddenly as she spotted him zooming by the front window on his motorbike.
Rain sprinkled across the green grass in her front yard. The sky overhead was grey. But the world was washed clean and bright. There was no point in bringing an umbrella. It was hardly raining. She’d hurry, and then she could dodge most of the drops.
She glanced down at her slippered feet. That wouldn’t do. She took them off and slid her feet into the gumboots by the front door. Much better.
Then she took off at a brisk pace in the direction of the mailbox. Best not to think about it too much. The clouds overhead helped to make the sky seem less big, and she wasn’t far from the comfort of the roof over her head. The overhang almost reached her. But still, she was outdoors, and the familiar rush of anxiety washed over her. It elevated her heart rate and made her breathing shallow. Her head felt light, and she squeezed her hands into fists as she pushed herself forwards.
“It’s not very far. And I’m fine,” she chanted to herself in a bright tone. “What’s the worst that could happen?” Probably not the best approach at self-encouragement, but it generally worked well enough.
She spied her neighbour, Chris Hampton, trimming a hanging vine that had climbed over her side of the fence. He glanced up at her with a smile and a wave.
“Good morning, JoJo.” He sometimes called her that. It made her feel young. But good grief, the man was obsessed with gardening. Here he was pruning a vine with rain falling down on his wide-brimmed hat.
She waved back, but as she did, her gumboots slid out from underneath her and she flew up into the air and landed on her rear end with a grunt.
The wind was knocked out of her for a moment. She sat up and blinked. “I hope I didn’t break anything. Ouch!” She felt along her arms, then both legs. Everything seemed fine. She tried to get back onto her feet, but the panic was weaving its way up her spine. She was stuck out in the open and couldn’t get traction with her gumboots on the wet pavement.
Chris was by her side. “Did you hurt yourself? Here, let me help you.” He held her by one elbow, and she pressed her weight against him to rise to her feet.
“It’s slippery, and I wasn’t paying attention,” she said as she balanced herself.
“It can happen,” he replied. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
She patted her rear end. “I think so. Nothing hurts too badly, other than my pride. I’ll have some bruising, but I don’t think anything’s broken.”
His kind blue eyes crinkled around the edges. They were the same blue eyes she’d
“Well, let’s get you inside, then,” he said.
“I came for the mail,” she replied. “And now we’re both soaked.”
He laughed. “I was soaked before this. And since I’m not made of sugar, I don’t think there’s any great risk of me dissolving.”
He left her standing there and fetched the mail from her mailbox. He tucked it under his arm to keep dry, then took her by the elbow and helped her back to the house. By now, she’d forgotten all about the anxiety. It had flapped away the moment Chris arrived to help.
Chris opened her front door, then removed his own boots and helped her out of hers. Her body was already stiffening. She could tell she’d be struggling with pain throughout their potluck brunch today. Never mind—she’d been through worse.
“What happened?” Emily asked in alarm when she saw them.
“I fell. It’s nothing. I’ll be fine,” Joanna said.
Emily hurried to her side and immediately got to work towelling her dry, finding her a seat and putting her feet up.
Chris watched with an amused expression. “You’re well taken care of here.”
Joanna smiled as she opened a large manilla envelope. “You have no idea. Emily is truly a godsend. Now, what is this?”
Emily handed Joanna her reading glasses, and she pushed them up the bridge of her nose. “Oh, yes, it’s from my publisher. They want to buy the idea we sent them!” She beamed at Emily. “They want to publish The Sunshine Potluck Society Cookbook!”
Chapter Two
Debbie Holmes had been practicing law for thirty-eight years, and she wondered if she’d ever grow tired of it. She loved being a barrister. Loved going to bat for her clients. The excitement of it never failed to get her adrenaline pumping. But now she was sixty years old, her husband, Caleb, had asked her to slow down.
“Don’t you ever think about retiring?” he’d said to her the previous week.
She’d wanted to reply with something snarky like, “Don’t you?” Because the truth was, he worked as many hours as she did, and he hadn’t mentioned one thing about retiring yet. But maybe he was thinking about it more than he’d let on. After all, why would he ask her to retire if he didn’t intend to do that himself?
She’d always thought they would both retire at sixty-five and travel the world, lounge around tropical swimming pools, and visit all of the cathedrals and museums they’d never had time for in the past. But now that time had almost come, she found she wasn’t quite ready for it. She still felt young. The thought of hanging up her barrister’s robe terrified her. What would she do with her days? She wasn’t the type of woman who’d fostered a series of hobbies or who liked to do charity work. She didn’t have a garden; they lived in a high-rise apartment in the city. She couldn’t imagine how empty a day would be without work in it.
Still, she couldn’t work forever. Could she?
The phone rang, and she answered it as her heels clacked along the tarmac on the way to her car. “Yes, this is Debbie.”
“Hi, Deb. It’s Evelyne. I need those reports signed by the end of the day.” Debbie’s firm was a small one. Boutique was the term she preferred. And as the senior partner, she had a very competent assistant. Evelyne was reliable, focused, detail-oriented and had become indispensable in Debbie’s life. And because of that, she’d stepped into more of a management role than assistant, really. Debbie had increased her paycheque to reflect that.
“Of course, I forgot. I’ll have to do it on my phone because I’m going to be late for the potluck brunch with my friends in Sunshine if I go back up to the apartment now.”
“That’s fine—you can sign digitally. Also, you have a client appointment at nine am Monday, so don’t forget to bring what you need with you. It’s right after the partner’s meeting.”
“I won’t forget,” Debbie assured her. “Is this for the Herberton lawsuit?”
“That’s right. They don’t want to settle. Otherwise, I would’ve set up a mediation. But apparently they want to go to court. It’s going to be huge.”
“Can you forward me the documents so I can read up on the case before the meeting?” Debbie asked as she unlocked her red sports car.
“Will do,” Evelyne replied. “Also, you didn’t hear it from me, but Phil is on a rampage again about the dishwasher.”
Debbie sighed. “What now?”
“He put up a sign in the office kitchen calling anyone who doesn’t put their coffee cup in the dishwasher a slacker.”
Debbie stifled a laugh. “Okay, I’ll deal with it when I’m in the office on Monday.”
“It all falls apart when you’re not here,” Evelyne replied in a singsong voice. “We need you.”
Debbie rolled her eyes. She couldn’t be out of the office for more than a day or two before the political argy-bargy between the partners began. It was always someone pushing their weight around, attempting to assert their dominance. She wasn’t sure what would happen when she finally retired. Phil was the next in charge. He had the most seniority in the partnership besides Debbie, but she couldn’t imagine how the rest of the team would survive his tyrannical leadership.
“I know you do. I’ll be back on Monday. I’ve only been gone for three days.”
“And it feels like three weeks. See you then!”
She hung up the phone and started the car engine. Three days at a conference in Sydney, and the office was coming apart at the seams. She’d hoped to pull back to a part-time position rather than retire entirely, but if she did that, how would they manage? Would Phil and the other partners collapse in an all-out brawl? And what would the clients think? She’d spent twenty-five years building this firm into a top-notch corporate law firm. Businesses throughout Australia relied on her and her team to manage their legal affairs in court. The last thing she wanted was for her reputation to be ruined by a premature retirement. Especially one she wasn’t sure she wanted.
But then there was the issue of Caleb and the fact that they barely talked anymore. They’d been so passionately in love in the early years. But these days, she felt almost as though she didn’t know him. Who was he? Who was this man she’d spent the vast majority of her life with? They shared an apartment and a bathroom, even a bed, but they hardly exchanged words more than twice a week. And when they did, it was more like a business discussion than a conversation between lovers.
Was that normal? She was sixty, but she still wanted more from her romantic relationship than that. Did other couples go through the same thing? She hadn’t been game to ask her friends. She liked them to think she and Caleb were still as hot and heavy as ever. After all, they’d sacrificed so much for the life they’d built.
Debbie drove through the city and jumped onto the highway. She stopped at a nearby bakery and bought a package of twelve vanilla slices. It wasn’t exactly Mexican fare, but she wasn’t sure what Mexican desserts looked like, and she was certain she wouldn’t find any in a Brisbane café. Besides, the Potluck girls all knew she didn’t cook. They wouldn’t expect her to bring anything other than her regular café purchase and her camera.
Speaking of the potluck brunch, would Caleb come? She had asked him the previous evening, and he’d grunted something indecipherable in response while he watched the latest cricket match on their enormous flatscreen television set. She couldn’t be sure if it was a yes, no or maybe. And she hadn’t wanted to push him. He hated when she pushed him.
He hadn’t attended one of the brunches in months, but she knew for a fact he didn’t have anything on today. He’d gone golfing first thing, but surely he’d be done with nine holes in time to drive to Sunshine. He might be late, but that wouldn’t matter. She flicked on the Bluetooth in her car and dialled his number. It went to voicemail, and she left him a message reminding him. She didn’t much like the chances of him coming, but it was worth a try.
