Chloe shook her head. “No. It’s not that.” She took another piece and made herself concentrate as she chewed this time. Naomi had used Unnamed Sauce; she detected those rich, contradictory notes of vinegar and sweet and savory almost instantly. New peas, freshly shelled and cooked until just done through, added a hint of crunch. She shut her eyes.
“It’s excellent.” She nodded. “This is going to be an outright clinker of a dish.”
Naomi just looked at her. “Chloe. It is already a clinker. I have had guests smell the sauce cooking from the back and demand it for breakfast. I used my last jar of your Unnamed Sauce to make this. I was supposed to have jars that I could sell at a profit. I was supposed to have little cards that would say where more could be purchased. I was supposed to have all of those a week ago.”
Chloe grimaced. “Yes. Of course. This is…true.”
“Where are my jars? Where are my cards? You promised me fifty percent of the profits on any sales I made. I could have sold two dozen jars by now.”
“Yes. Well. Of course. The jars need labeling, and the cards need a name on them, and we can’t do any of that until Andrew carves a nameplate in reverse for stamping…”
“Don’t you blame this on my cousin.”
“Which,” Chloe added hastily, with a stretched, false smile, “he cannot do until we have a name! And we do not.”
“Who is we?” Naomi rolled her eyes. “You mean you. The Trials are two days from now, you utter clown. Name your sauce.”
“I know, I know! It’s been on my list for nine months. I have generated a huge number of not perfect names.”
“Good.” Naomi scowled at her. “Pick one of those.”
“But—”
“I don’t want to hear your excuses. I have as much to do as you and stand to gain less from this endeavor. I am happy to make a profit with a little work. I like money. But I cannot work and have you just…collapse like a bad soufflé. You need to name your damned sauce. And I want my jars tomorrow afternoon, no later. The real rush starts then when the visitors will start arriving en masse.”
But I can’t. It has to be perfect.
No good. Chloe had reached the end of all her possible excuses. There really was not a moment longer to put this off. She was going to have to settle for imperfect.
Chloe shuddered. “Argh.”
Naomi flicked her forehead. “I love you, but you must get on with it. You’re as bad as your father. How many jars are you bringing me on the morrow?”
Chloe sighed. “More than zero?”
“Chloe.”
Chloe sighed again. “One hundred.”
“It won’t be enough.” Naomi tossed her head. “I can guarantee already that it won’t be enough. I’ll take three hundred if you can give them to me.”
“I could not! I’ve only got four hundred filled as it is.”
Naomi just shrugged. “You purchased a thousand empties, and I know you’ve enough sauce in kegs out in your barn to fill quite a few more.”
“But—” But I can’t, she did not say. She didn’t have time to fill any more jars.
If she was to succeed with this endeavor as she hoped, she also did not have time not to sell every jar that she possibly could. The more people who purchased their sauce, the more who would tell friends and family, the more who would write in inquiry, and the faster her father’s sauce empire would grow. She couldn’t possibly not. It was just a matter of how to fit such a task onto her ungainly list, now bulging out at the sides.
She and Naomi had planned this out nine months ago. Chloe and her father would have their booth on the green that used their sauce; Naomi would offer heartier fare in the inn that did the same. For her trouble, Naomi would split the profits on any jars she sold.
“What are you calling the dish for now?” Chloe asked.
Chloe had dithered too long and had finally printed labels and little cards with advertisements, but had left a blank space at the top of both. And now here she was, two days before the Trials would start, and she had choose a name that Andrew can carve in reverse on a wood block, then stamp hundreds of pieces of paper with that name still on her list.
Naomi just shrugged. “I thought ‘pork in brown sauce.’”
“Brown sauce.” Chloe could have torn her hair out. “Just…brown! How dare you! This is nothing so generic as brown sauce!” She frowned. “Also, it’s more…reddish brown, don’t you think?”
“This is why you don’t have a name yet. Everything you think of is always wrong. Of course Unnamed Sauce is nothing like brown sauce. But brown sauce is familiar and people like things that are familiar. Think of White and Whistler’s Pure English Sauce, for instance.”
“I have thought of this so many times my head is aching. I am sick to death of thinking of White and Whistler.”
Naomi didn’t let that stop her. “Did they say ‘sauce made by a Chinese man with Chinese ingredients according to a Chinese recipe?’ No. Because that scares people.”
“Technically true.” Chloe sniffed. “I have said the same myself. But it is also extremely unhelpful in the moment.”
“‘Pure English Sauce’ sounds comforting. It sounds homey. It sounds not frightening at all. Then once people have committed to trying it, you reach in and grab them with the deliciousness. Hence: brown sauce.”
It was true. Chloe knew it was true. “Yes… But… The sauce isn’t entirely brown. And the appellation is so…nondescript.”
Naomi just shrugged. “Then come up with something better.”
Chloe gave up. “I can’t. I just keep going over the same names in my head. ‘Very English Sauce.’ ‘Extremely English Sauce.’ ‘Nothing but British Sauce.’ They’re all wrong, and I don’t know how to fix them.”
“You’re trying to imitate White and Whistler too much, is all.” Naomi shrugged. “And they’re lying thieves, so stop doing that.”
“I have two days! I have ten million pieces of paper that all need to be stamped with a name I don’t have! It’s not working.”
Naomi raised an eyebrow. “What you need is someone to sit on you until you come up with something halfway acceptable, and then beat you until you accept it. It doesn’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to be perfect.”
Chloe made a scalded noise. She wished her friend were…less right. But it was true; every time she sat down by herself and made lists of names, she crossed every single one off. Not a one was perfect, and she and her father had worked too long on this sauce to not have the name be perfect in every regard.
“I would do it, but…” Naomi trailed off and then looked at her. When their eyes met, the corners of her mouth turned up. “But,” she continued, with a hint of glee in her voice, “you would owe me.”
Oh, no. “I already owe you.”
“I haven’t time for this any more than you do,” Naomi said. “But if you do one…no, two…little things for me, I may be able to find a little extra time to sit down with you at eight this evening to do the aforementioned sitting. And beating.”