She tried to see the strain on Missy's face. Her family home, her family... but she just seemed so grown up about the whole thing, her focus on the Mexican bar. "You know, Mom, the food's not as good as yours."

"It could stand a little improvement. And it wouldn't take much work." She laughed at herself as she put a burrito on her plate. "Toasted cumin and lime juice in the refried beans."

"What?"

"It's a game I play when I eat here. I try to think of what inexpensive thing I could do to the dish to make it taste considerably better. It's how I got fired."

Now Missy looked shocked. "You got..."

"Yeah, I never told you that, did I? Old man Jameson did not take kindly to work study students who failed to follow explicit written instructions," she shrugged, "The recipe."

"Did Dad know?"

Gwen couldn't remember if it had ever come up. Probably not. "I knew Dad a little from high school, but he was a couple of years older. He was getting ready to leave Belmar, really, when I got here. Well, I left during my sophomore year, and he graduated that spring."

"You dumped Max for him."

"I..." There was a difference, wasn't there, between secrets and privacy? Even with people you loved. "Max left me, and I went home. Your Dad called me when he got back to town, and we went out."

Missy seemed to have heard enough about her parents as people and took a hamburger off the serving line. "Okay, do this one."

Gwen lifted her chin as if to say the challenge wasn't great enough. "Worchester sauce in the beef."

Missy lifted the small bowl of potato salad.

"Celery salt."

"Really?"

"I've put celery salt in every potato salad I've ever served you."

"Well, it was always good."

They sat at one of the small rounds near the coffee urns, and Gwen felt... not like friends. Mothers and daughters were mothers and daughters for a reason, a one-of-a-kind relationship. But she and Missy together had a friendly quality they'd never had before. It was something on more even footing, more generous in nature. The relationship felt promising. "Well, since you have complimented my cooking, and you took my side and gave me a Kleenex, let me return the favor and tell you how great you were on Halloween."

Missy smiled.

"Really, really great. I haven't heard you like that before. It was different than choir."

Missy laughed. "Duh."

"That's what you love. You should do that."

"You know what's weird?"

"Your grandmother as Hannah Montana?"

"How weird was that? She's got good legs. Except for when she broke one."

"Yeah, except for that one ankle, she was hot." And living with Max. She'd go get her later, but what the hell was she going to do with her?

"What I was realizing is that I miss choir."

"Well, honey, you just left high school. It's natural to miss that."

"No, just choir. The music. It was challenging. Sometimes I wasn't happy with the band in Washington because it was so boring. After I learned the songs, I didn't learn anything." She looked apologetic. "I know it's, you know, kind of lame, but I like all kinds of music. And I like to try lots of things and for it to be hard sometimes."

"I don't think that's lame at all. I think that's another sign that it's your gift. If I had to cook Italian all day every day I'd be bored. I love it, but I also want to try other things, lots of other things. Why wouldn't singing be that way too?"

"Yeah."

"You should..." Gwen stopped herself.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"What? I know your nothing doesn't mean nothing. Ever. Why didn't Dad ever figure that out?"

Gwen laughed. "I don't know." She studied the girl, the young woman who had been her little girl and felt, for the first time, that Missy would be all right without having anybody to worry over her. She'd screw up, probably plenty, but she would be as okay as anybody could be. "I don't want to tell you what to do any more."

Missy raised her eyebrows.

"I will, on occasion, give you a suggestion."

Missy nodded as if accepting the compromise they both knew would be violated a million times over. "I will, on occasion, take one."

"How about now?"

Missy looked around the cafeteria, put her finger quickly in her mouth, and lifted it as if testing the wind. "Yeah, okay."

"I suggest that you look into the music program here. You can use your college money next semester, and I'll talk to your Dad about settling things and pay my own way."

"I already have."

"Have what?"

"Checked on the program. Got the paperwork in the room."

Gwen felt a relief she hadn't realized she'd been waiting to feel. She'd done a good enough job after all. "We'll celebrate."

"They have brownies."

"That need cinnamon."

"They have brownies that need cinnamon."

"And I have your favorite movie."

"You brought Cinderella?"

"I brought Cinderella, and it doesn't need anything but us."

Gwen stopped in the hallway when she spotted her bag propped against the door. He'd been there.

Missy walked to the door and waved her over. "You gotta see this."

"No. No, I don't."

"Oh, yeah, you do."

Gwen took the remaining steps down the hall. There, on the floor in front of her bag, Max had left a dozen peppercinis, their waxy yellow skins still shiny and pickly damp. They were arranged to spell out one word. Sorry. "Bastard."

Missy nodded. "Bastard."

Goddamn him if it wasn't the most charming thing any man had ever done for her. Maybe she needed a wider range of male acquaintances, but she was pretty sure it really was that quirky and sweet.

"Austin would have never done anything that great."

Gwen shook her head. "Bastard."

"Austin wouldn't know a peppercini from a pepperoni."

Gwen tried to breathe deeply and stop her head from racing around in contradictory directions. It was sweet and charming, and that was his problem, his problem that became her problem, twice. He'd ditched her once in a crisis and ditched her again for his beautiful French chef. What the hell was wrong with her? Was she still wearing that kick me sign from third grade?

Missy sighed. "And Austin would never be able to spell sorry."

Gwen snorted, tried not to laugh, but Missy started to giggle, and they both laughed until Missy doubled over and Gwen put her back against the wall and slid down to the floor, the peppercinis kicked into a new arrangement on her way down.

Across the hall, a door opened, and Annie peeked out. "Everything okay?" She reluctantly stepped into the hallway, eyeing Gwen laughing into her knees and Missy, bent over with her head against the door.

Gwen waved toward the peppercinis but couldn't talk, so Annie studied them. "It looks like a message."

She leaned closer and pointed to the first pile. "That looks like an S and then, I don't know, a P... Must be from Guy. It looks Norwegian."

Gwen hooted in renewed laughter and tried not to wet herself.

Cinderella, the poor girl, suffered in story after story, movie after movie. Never once in a remake had she been given a break. Gwen reached into the large bowl of popcorn balanced in her lap. Cinderella would always find herself left home when the step-mother and inferior step-sisters headed to the ball.

"Cinderella, huh?" Annie took a fistful just before Missy's hand reached in from the other side.

It felt right to be between the two of them, enjoying the common ground of butter and romance. "It's not just any Cinderella. It has Bernadette Peters."

"Who's Bernadette Peters?"

Missy leaned around Gwen to help Annie catch up. "And Whitney Houston."

"Who's that?"

Missy shrugged like she didn't really know either, and Gwen considered that Bernadette Peters had been a long shot, and Whitney Houston probably equally obscure for anyone born after the eighties. But surely Annie would have heard of... "Brandy?"

Annie glanced at her water bottle.

Gwen laughed. "She's Cinderella in this one."

"Oh." Annie went back to the popcorn. "We were only allowed to watch PBS."

"This one's more PBS than the other versions. A little bit feminist even." Gwen hit play, and they watched Whitney belt it out over the opening credits. She'd return later to trick out Cinderella's coach, the curly tendrils of pumpkin vine turned to gold but still keeping an organic beauty.

Missy had said something the first time she'd seen the movie, something so child sweet. It was in the saddest part before the fairy godmother came... "Missy, do you remember when you saw the part where everyone leaves for the ball and Cinderella is crying? And you said, you were little, you said, momma, why doesn't she ride her bike?"

Missy laughed. "Really, I said that?"

"Yep."

"Well, I was adorable."

Annie leaned forward to see Missy over the bowl of popcorn. "And wise."

Missy smiled. "I was." Gwen felt Missy tap her ribs with her elbow. "I forgot that for a while. But I remember now."

"We'll all try to remember." Gwen elbowed Annie like a game of tag and waited for her to respond.

Annie's eyes widened as she got it. She grinned. "I'll remember too." She seemed to think about it for a moment. "I can still like Guy right?"

"Of course," Gwen turned up the volume as the dreamy prince appeared in his opening scene and all three sighed. "We're not dead."

"You are so dead."

Max, his back to Gwen, continued to toss the salad. It was Caesar. The bastard.

"You give me back my mother."

"Nope."

"You can't keep her."

"Can and will."

"She's not your mother. She's mine, and she'd be mine even after a divorce."

Max turned, eyebrow raised, and Gwen had to concede that one. She wasn't technically divorced herself, although she'd done her part so couldn't really be blamed. Not really. And at least he knew she was married. She hadn't known he was living with anyone. "Hey, why isn't she here?"

"Your mother?"

"Chef Gaspard."

"We aren't together anymore."