Pour 1⁄4 cup batter onto a medium-hot griddle. When it’s bubbly on top, flip with a spatula, and continue cooking until lightly browned on bottom.

Recommended: Spray a metal cookie cutter with cooking spray and pour the batter into it to create shaped pancakes. This will elevate you in the eyes of friends and family.

Serve hot off the griddle with whiskey butter and real maple syrup.

Whiskey Butter

1⁄2 cup butter, softened

2 tablespoons bourbon

1 tablespoon maple syrup

1⁄2 teaspoon cinnamon

1⁄4 teaspoon nutmeg

Blend everything together. Chill until ready to serve.

[Source: Original; inspired by true events]

Chapter Five

chapter five

Sorry, I’m afraid I heard you wrong,” Darcy said to her sister Lydia. “Because I think I heard you say Huntley was planning to come to Thanksgiving dinner.” Darcy and Lydia had met at a lunch counter on Madison Avenue. She was juggling a big work project, but she’d made time to meet with her sister to talk about the upcoming holidays. She was already regretting the decision.

“No, you heard correctly,” Lydia assured her. “You know our families always celebrate the holidays together. It would just be weird if we suddenly stopped.”

“You know what would be weird?” Darcy demanded. “Forcing me to endure Thanksgiving within a mile of my ex. That would be weird.”

“Come on, Darce. There’ll be at least twenty people at dinner. You don’t even have to talk to him.”

I’ll have to breathe the same air as Huntley, she thought, seething. “I can’t believe you think this could work for me on any level,” she stated.

“I’m still married to Huntley’s brother, or have you forgotten? This puts Badgley and me in an incredibly awkward position.”

“And where does it put me?” Darcy shot back.

“At the far end of the room, eating and drinking with friends and family, the way we’ve always done.”

“The way we’ve always done no longer works for me.” Darcy tried to picture herself spending Thanksgiving the traditional way, pretending all was well as she slowly strangled inside. She pictured the gathering—friends, families, relatives, everyone convivial and excited as they set out the good china and their best recipes for the holiday feast. The gathering would convene at the Fitzgerald place on Long Island, in the house where Darcy had grown up. The big warm kitchen, with its old-fashioned hearth and scrubbed Colonial maple table, would be teeming with chattering women and guys trying to steal a sample of pumpkin pie or toasted sage dressing. Though the image made Darcy nostalgic, she knew she’d end up having a miserable day, trying to pretend that all was well, that the breakup had been so civilized that she could stand to be in the same room with Huntley Collins.

“Lyddie,” she said gently, “as much as I love you, I’ll break out in hives if I have to see Huntley.”

“Come on, your divorce was amicable—”