Chapter 1
My name is Lily Sullivan, and the night I finally stopped being my family's unpaid kitchen staff started with a phone call I almost didn't answer.
I was in my Manhattan apartment, folding a navy blazer into a suitcase, packing for a flight to Fort Lauderdale, when my mother's name lit up the screen. I already knew, before I picked up, that it wasn't going to be a pleasant conversation. It never was, not when her name appeared the night before a holiday.
"Lily," she said, without a hello. "Cancel whatever silly plans you have tomorrow."
I kept folding. "What's happening tomorrow?"
"Sarah is hosting her networking group for Christmas Eve dinner. Very important people. Twenty-five guests, including executives from Pinnacle Hospitality. You'll need to arrive by noon to start cooking."
My hand stopped on the zipper. "Cooking?"
May you like
"Seven main courses. Ten sides. I'll text you the menu. Use the good china. These are people who matter, Lily. Don't embarrass us."
People who matter. Unlike me. That had been the unspoken architecture of our family for as long as I could remember. My younger sister Sarah mattered. I was useful. For fifteen years, every holiday had placed me in the kitchen while Sarah floated through the living room in dresses our parents bought her, charming guests who never once asked what I did for a living, because my mother had already answered for me. Lily's between opportunities. Lily has her little cooking hobby. At Sarah's engagement party I'd spent fourteen hours on appetizers while she held court in a three-thousand-dollar gown, and when someone finally asked what I did, my mother laughed and changed the subject before I could open my mouth.
