“Manapua. It’s a sort of pork dumpling. Bread filled with everything from sausage to carrots and mushrooms, even bean sprouts. You make the pastry; I’ll make the filling.”
He handed her a recipe.
“Not unlike donuts.”
“Please don’t glaze these.”
She waggled her eyebrows at him and went to the dry pantry to retrieve the ingredients while he gathered sausage, onions, carrots, shiitake mushrooms, soy sauce, sherry, oyster sauce, and garlic.
He laid his ingredients on the chopping board and started peeling. The sun was already high—he’d slept in until seven this morning, at first opting out of a beach run for the luxury of lying in bed, opening his sliding door and listening to the waves.
In the wan morning light, with the furnace outside tempering the chilled hotel room air, for the first time since he’d arrived in Hawaii, the darkness had found him, burrowed inside.
Yes, he liked Grace way too much. So much that he found himself wishing for more. For a life beyond these three weeks. He’d like to look up in the stands and see her cheering as he stole the puck, made the score. Wanted to know she waited for him after a game, maybe with something homemade simmering on the stove.
He could even imagine a little girl with Grace’s blonde hair, her pretty blue eyes . . . and that’s when he got out of bed and changed into his running shorts.
He fought the images with a cruel workout, then showered and found Grace already on the breakfast terrace reading. He wanted to throw her book in the ocean. Instead, he sat down with her and outlined the game plan for the day.
“We’ll start with some Hawaiian basics—you already learned lomi-lomi and poke, poi and haupia. I’ll teach you manapua and loco moco, and then we’ll start mixing it up. The Honolulu Chop competition is all about using Hawaiian ingredients—some everyday, like Spam—”
“Spam?”
“They love it here. The Hormel company actually produced a limited-edition Hawaii can of Spam once.”
“Ew.”
“Also, I’ll teach you about alaea sea salt and saimin—a sort of Chinese noodle. They’re very thin and quick cooking. There’s bound to be fresh pineapple and coconut on the menu, and any number of the exotic fruits, so we’ll go over those.”
“Wow, Max, I just have to ask one more time—are you sure?”
He smiled because his voice was too eager and nodded.
Now, with manapua on the menu, she brought back her ingredients, started her yeast fermenting. “So do the guys on your team know you cook?”
He slid crushed garlic into a pan. “Uh. I don’t know.”
“You don’t have them over to cook for them?”
He reached for a carrot, began to peel it. “No. I mean, I’ve always been pretty serious about hockey on the ice, but after Owen left, I took it off the ice also. Started upping my workouts, my practice, and that meant no time for friends.”
“No time for friends?” She looked at him with what appeared to be real horror. “Then who will you eat with?”
You? He didn’t say it, though, just julienned the carrots.
“Well, when we get back, you need to have at least one party. Invite your friends . . . or better yet, your family. I’m curious—do your mean cooking skills run in the family? Was your dad a chef?”
He knew she hadn’t meant to walk into that one, so he kept his voice soft. “My mom was the chef. My dad passed away when I was thirteen.” He glanced up, giving her a smile that he hoped made it all right.
But she had an expression that could break a man’s heart if he let it. “Oh, Max, I’m so sorry. Please tell me he got to see you play hockey.”
Funny, she always knew just what to say to take off the sharp edge of his grief. Or regret. Or fear.
“He did. He was my biggest fan, I think.”
“Did he have cancer?”
He cut some green onion, added it to the pan. “No, he died of pneumonia.” A truth that helped him hide the real cause.
“Oh, that’s terrible.”
“I remember him coming to my game that last time. All bundled up in a blanket, sitting in a wheelchair. My uncle Norm rolled him right up to the glass, and every time I looked over, I saw him. I had a hat trick that game.”
“Wow. I’ll bet he was so proud.” She sifted in the rest of her ingredients.
“Told me that he expected me to be in the Hall of Fame someday.”
She began to stir. “You know, the US Hockey Hall of Fame Museum is in Minnesota, in Eveleth. Only three hours from my house.”
“Then someday you’ll be able to visit my monument,” he said, only half-kidding.