Dilya's Christmas Challenge Read online

  “Oh, man,” Jimmy groaned. “That isn’t super cool, that’s super wicked extra cool.”

  “If you think my mom is cool,” Dilya couldn’t help being pleased. Kee was an awesome mom. “You should have met her commanding officer before she retired. She was the first woman to fly helicopters for the Night Stalkers.”

  Dilya didn’t know if they’d ever let her do that, but if they did, that was her dream. A sniper like Kee or a pilot like Emily. That would indeed be super wicked extra cool.

  6

  They’d eventually graduated from knife sharpening to ginger peeling—by the end of which Jimmy was wearing a pair of bright blue Band-Aids. The lunch was a rich borscht and corned beef on rye sandwiches, big enough to satisfy even Trevor, served right there at the counter with the other chefs.

  That was a welcome respite. All morning they had kept asking her questions—about her and about the White House. While it would be rude not to answer, she wished she’d managed to slip in more questions of her own. Except she wasn’t used to speaking. She was used to listening. By the time she’d think up her own question, someone would already be talking again.

  At least over lunch they started asking questions of the sous chefs instead.

  Finally able to listen, Dilya realized that the Chef’s Club had been doing this for a while. They’d ask to meet some elite chef—there were a lot of those in DC—and they’d go get a free class.

  “I know the chefs at Pauley’s Island. Would that help?”

  “We didn’t even dare try there.” “Wow, really?”

  One of the chefs was amused that the group had braved asking the White House for a visit, but not Pauley’s.

  “One of my mom’s closest friend’s family owns it.” Actually, Tim was also one of her friends. He’d been there at the 5D’s base since the very first day—doing his best to make her laugh when everything had been so different and terrifying. “I’m sure Tim Maloney would be glad to set it up. Wait, I don’t know where he’s stationed. I guess I could call his mom.”

  “That does it,” Kimberlee declared.

  “It absolutely does,” Trevor agreed.

  “Madame President?” Jimmy turned to Val.

  Val thumped her soup spoon on the counter like a gavel with a bright ting, “You are hereby inducted as an official member of the Chef’s Club. All in favor?”

  The others all said, “Aye!”

  “The ayes have it. Welcome, Dilya Stevenson.”

  Dilya didn’t know what to do with that. She’d never belonged to anything. But she couldn’t figure how to get out of it without hurting their feelings.

  That question plagued her through lessons on: measuring flour (by weight, never by volume), grating ginger (never mincing), mincing crystallized ginger (never grating), sampling a dozen different sugars, and tasting butter (salted, unsalted, organic, English Midlands, and finally French butter from Brittany). They spent the whole afternoon on ingredients. There were only thirteen ingredients in gingerbread, including all the spices and everything, but they spent a long time learning about each one.

  Did Emily Beale know all this? Dilya made a bet with herself that she did. So she paid extra attention and made sure to ask about anything that was unclear, even if it meant interrupting someone.

  “Tomorrow, we will mix and bake,” Chef Klaus announced. “If you learn very fast, we will decorate as well. Now go away. Get out of my kitchen, Kinder. I have a dinner that must be served to people far more important than you.”

  “I hate being called a child,” Val whispered once they were well clear of the kitchen.

  Dilya agreed completely. She also wasn’t quite ready to see everyone go. She was unsure why, but she’d learned to trust her instincts—or at least the ones that told her when to hide or run. Maybe she’d listen to this one too.

  “You know, just down this hall, the White House has a Chocolate Shop. The chef is my friend.” There was that word again. She’d always applied it to friendly adults: the former and current President, the Chief of Staff, chefs, pilots, gunners.

  If they were friends, then what was she supposed to call the Chef’s Club’s members? What was their agenda for “inducting” her? Just to get into Pauley’s? No, she’d already made the offer before they did that.

  She’d always loved the amazing scents of the Chocolate Shop, almost as much as the treats themselves. Chef Clive Andrews teased her with funny looks about her silence. As if she’d ever known what to say. If the others noticed, they were too excited to comment on it as the chef explained the tempering of chocolate and pulled out a tray of holiday truffles he was developing.

  She was no wiser by the time she escorted them back to the East Wing entrance.

  7

  “Are you my friend?”

  Emily tried to make sense of the question. Was the problem the question or because it was four in the morning?

  “Who is this?”

  “It’s me, Dilya.” Then there was a small gasp. “I’m so sorry. I forgot about the time zones. How far away is Montana?”

  “Three thousand…” No. “Two hours. I think.” She’d know for sure if she could wake up.

  “I’m sorry. I’ll go away and—”

  “Wait! Just hang on, Dilya.” She took her phone into the bathroom and shut the door. She’d accidentally left the ringer on and, thankfully, it seemed as if Mark had slept through it. “Now what was your question?” She sat on the edge of the tub, then stood to throw a towel over it before she sat back down. She pulled another one over her bare legs. It was only a little damp.

  “It’s stupid.”

  “Good. Because if it was a smart question, I wouldn’t be able to answer it right now.”

  Dilya remained silent. Emily tried to remember the last time she’d received a call from the girl, and wasn’t sure she ever had.

  “You asked if I was your friend?”

  “Yes,” her voice was tiny.

  “Well, you aren’t my daughter, so I guess that’s about the best word for it. Yes, I’m your friend.” She had her own issues with that, but this call wasn’t about her, so she shut them out. “Don’t you want to be?”

  “No. Yes. I… Oh pooh!”

  Emily had to fight hard not to laugh. Winnie-the-Pooh was the first book Dilya had learned English from and Pooh’s typical curse had stuck with Dilya ever since. Emily also remembered that odd negatives still tripped Dilya up sometimes.

  “Do you want to be my friend?”

  “Yes. I—” Dilya sighed. “I bet I’d make more sense if I’d slept last night. Is a kid supposed to have adults for friends?”

  “Sure, why not? Besides, you aren’t really a kid anymore.” Especially not with the things she’d survived.

  “But if adults are my friends, then what do I call people my age?”

  “Hasn’t this ever come up before?”

  “No!” Dilya practically shouted. “My friends are Tim and Big John. They’re White House chefs and the heads of Secret Service details. Don’t know how to have friends!” Then she seemed to manage a breath. “I guess… Like at school and stuff.”

  Emily hung her head and tried not to think about the parallels in her own life. Friends were a new concept to her as well.

  “I—” she started then stopped again. “I’ve always just had a team. Or at least for a long time that’s all I had. I flew with your mom and dad, Connie, Lola, and all the others.”

  “But you’re Emily Beale,” Dilya protested.

  Emily sat up and narrowed her eyes, until she saw herself in the bathroom mirror wearing a faded West Point t-shirt and a slightly damp bath towel. She closed her eyes again.

  “What do you mean?”

  Dilya sputtered in surprise. “You’re…you! Everyone wants to be just like you.”

  “You want to be just like me?”

  “Well, not the blonde and tall part, I’ve kinda given up on that, but the rest of it, absolutely!”

  “Dilya,” Emily h
ad had many strange conversations, including the one with Miss Watson yesterday, but this was fast outpacing that. “I’m just a woman. I’m not even a pilot anymore.”

  “But you’re Emily Beale!”

  “Stop saying that. Please?”

  “Well, okay… But you totally are!”

  “Dilya.”

  “Okay. I’m sorry I called. I’m sorry I woke you up.”

  “I’m not.”

  Again her voice had gone tiny, “You’re not?”

  “You get to call me anytime you want. Day or night. I mean it.”

  “Because my mom was on your team?”

  “Because I like you. You are my friend.”

  Dilya actually sniffled. “Okay…thanks.” Another sniffle. “Emily?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Is it okay if I still want to be like you, even though you’re my friend?”

  “How about you being more like you?” That definitely echoed some pieces of what Miss Watson had told her.

  “I don’t know. It’s kind of…I guess…lonely being me.”

  “You’ll find friends your own age, Dilya. It doesn’t mean that the grownups are going to be any less your friends.”

  “Kinda like a team? Everyone always wanted to be on your team.”

  “Teams are different than friends.”

  “How?”

  “It’s four in the morning, Dilya. Give me a break.” She’d forgotten about Dilya’s insatiable appetite for answers. She always wanted to know.

  “Okay,” Emily tried to clear her head. “You lead a team. You have responsibilities for their actions, if not their lives. But you get to be yourself with friends.”

  There was a long pause before Dilya responded, “I like that explanation.”

  “I do to,” she just hoped that she remembered it when she woke up.

  “Thanks. I’m…no longer sorry I called.”

  “Anytime. Seriously,” though she had to fight to keep a massive yawn silent.

  “Emily?”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “I love you, Emily.”

  “Love you too, Dilya.” The end-of-call tone came so fast, she wasn’t sure Dilya had heard her answer. As far as she knew, Dilya had never told anyone except her new parents that she loved them.

  The innocence of a child’s love. Except Dilya was no child. She was a young woman who had seen an even worse slice of the world than Emily had. And if Miss Watson was right, she understood exactly what was happening to her in a way that Emily never had.

  When she crawled back into bed, she didn’t care if Mark was asleep, she just curled up against him. Without questions, he held her as she cried on his shoulder.

  When she was done, she whispered to him softly, “I love you, Mark.”

  In answer, he just kept holding her tight. It was all she needed.

  8

  Dilya had the kitchen set up, even before Chef Klaus came in. She had each of the ingredients aligned in an arc, including the ones they’d spent so much time preparing yesterday. She even prepared the cookie sheets with parchment paper—better for crispy edges and bottoms than silicone mats he’d told them. She tore off the correct lengths and tacked them in place with quick swipes of butter underneath the corners.

  Chef Klaus looked surprised for only an instant when he came in.

  He neatened the rows to make everything perfectly linear, orderly and symmetrical. She let him. As soon as he was done and had gone to hang up his coat, she moved everything back to the arc it had been. It would be easier to reach everything, radially from one position, the way she’d arranged it.

  He stepped back into the main kitchen and stuttered to a halt just as the others arrived.

  Without speaking, she simply reached out her hands to touch each item without moving from where she stood, rather than having them spread neatly down the length of the table.

  The chef made a show of buttoning up his white chef’s coat and pulling on his towering hat before he offered her a nod. He even made a grimace that just might have been a smile.

  Through the morning they made numerous batches of dough. The variations to make hard sheets of gingerbread and soft ginger cookies. The difference between over- and under-beaten. Proper aeration of the mixture. Why different ingredients were added at different times. That was when quiet Val finally stepped into her own. She and the chef discussed baking soda activation, protein molecule deformation in the eggs, ingredient density, different mixing techniques to ensure even distribution of the grated versus the minced ginger…

  Even Kimberlee’s eyes were crossing by the time they were done with Val’s questions. And Dilya suspected that it only stopped because Val finally realized how thoroughly she’d monopolized the chef. She wasn’t a team leader the way Emily was—charging to the front and proving who was best, while beckoning others to try to follow. Val was simply one of the Chef’s Club with her own interests and specialties.

  Maybe these people didn’t need a leader.

  Maybe they were just friends.

  She toyed with that idea through the rest of the day. They’d rolled out the dough perfectly evenly—done by placing thick rubber bands on either end of the rolling pins so that every spot of dough was exactly the same thickness.

  “What should we make?”

  A gingerbread house was out of the question. They’d all seen the framework of the massive traditional Christmas gingerbread White House taking shape in Clive’s kitchen yesterday afternoon.

  “Is there a game that the President likes to play? Maybe we could make a gingerbread version of it for the First Family.” Jimmy was clearly picturing ray guns and spaceships.

  “Yes there is.” First Lady Anne Darlington-Thomas stepped into the kitchen. “My husband likes to think he can do The New York Times Sunday crossword. Which means every week my Sunday breakfast is about telling him the answers. Two across. A seven-letter word for a fool. Easy: husband. As in one who thinks he’s doing the crossword on his own. I’m so glad that’s now done for the week.” Though her easy smile said she might enjoy the weekly ritual just as much as the President.

  All the kids of the Chef’s Club laughed despite their obvious awe at being in the First Lady’s presence.

  “Good morning, Dilya.”

  “Hi, Anne.” The others looked at her goggle-eyed.

  “Are you all having fun?”

  There were a lot of mumbled, “Yes ma’am.”

  “Well, if Chef Klaus gets out of line, just sic Dilya on him. If anyone can keep Herman in line, she’s the one. Now I have to go face him about the menu for next week’s Residence reception for the Australian Prime Minister.” And she breezed off into the back of the kitchen.

  “Whoa!” Kimberlee whispered.

  “Why did you use her first name?” Even Trevor was whispering.

  “She asked me to. Besides, I’m nanny for her kid most days after school.”

  They all exchanged looks, but it was Jimmy who voiced the group’s consensus opinion. “Super wicked uber-cool.”

  9

  Dilya’s face and sides hurt.

  She’d didn’t get why, until Val made one of her dry French observations or Kimberlee teased Trevor.

  Laughing and smiling. She simply wasn’t used to doing that for a whole afternoon.

  With Kimberlee, as head of Debate Club, leading the way, they’d mapped out a gingerbread crossword puzzle. Christmas down the middle; the First Family’s names attached crosswise (though they had to use the First Daughter’s middle name to make it all work—she actually had two of them, so she got to be in twice). Then they’d toyed with words until it was totally filled.

  Chef Klaus had taught them piping and flooding techniques—requiring different mixes of royal icing because one had to stay where it was placed and the other had to flow to fill in the squares that needed to be white. Jimmy tackled the vast expanse of cookie that needed conversion into the puzzle. He was in nerd heaven.

  Val had the best
handwriting with a piping bag, so she took a large sheet of dark gingerbread and began writing humorous clues on it.

  Dilya sat with Kimberlee and Trevor calling out suggestions for Val and making ornate letters on round, softer ginger cookies.

  Whenever a cookie was broken or had its icing smeared past recovery, it was shared around, until they were all sick of them—even with tall glasses of milk. Kimberlee scrounged up a brown paper bag and started filling it with the broken bits and pieces.

  All through the long afternoon, they sat together and worked on the ginger crossword. And all afternoon, Dilya could only sit in wonder. At school lunchtime, Kimberlee’s table was always popular. Trevor sometimes sat with her and sometimes with his teammates. Val sat with a few other equally brilliant friends. She wasn’t sure where Jimmy ate lunch.

  Dilya ate with no one. Half the time, she didn’t even go into the cafeteria, preferring to find a quiet corner. For this one great day though, her afternoon was filled with laughter and ideas.

  As the day progressed, it became clearer and clearer where the members of the Chef’s Club would end up.

  Val was headed straight for the diplomatic corps—that was so obvious. She was too smart and too nice to do anything else. Maybe a science liaison or something.

  Kimberlee could well follow in her senator-father’s footsteps. Maybe she’d even end up in the White House someday.

  Trevor was going to cook—it was clear that he was in the club for a lot more reasons than following around after Kimberlee. Dilya did wonder how long it was going to take him to ask her out. Kimberlee was going to be in for a big surprise, as she really was clueless that Trevor was hot for her.

  And even in joking, she could sense Jimmy’s clear grasp of how strategy worked. He could teach her some things about that, but he was weak in the real world. They’d have to talk about his strategy skills and what was actually going on globally—instead of inside some online game.