“I already told you,” Lia says, not even bothering to hide her annoyance. “I don’t need your help.”
“Maybe not,” I admit, offering a conciliatory smile, “but your sauce certainly does.”
She snorts, offended. “What do you know about my sauce?”
“I tasted it.”
Her eyebrows shoot up questioningly as she grabs a heavy bottle of olive oil from atop the range and unscrews the lid.
“You had some leftovers in the fridge.”
I watch her wilt ever so slightly. “I bring those home for my dad at night. I usually end up throwing them away.”
“Let me guess, people are sending food back. That’s why you’re in here every day, trying to figure out what’s wrong with the sauce.”
I put it all together on the train.
The low sales. The printed recipe. The bland leftovers.
I can tell by her indignant expression that I’m right. But she doesn’t respond. I watch as she removes a slip of paper from her pocket, unfolds it and presses down on the seams with her palm to make it flat. A quick glance tells me it’s another recipe. For a tomato-based pasta sauce. She traces the first line of instructions with her finger and steps past me to the dishwashing area.
Her proximity nearly makes me dizzy, the scent of her wafting into my nostrils and lingering long after she’s already returned with a measuring cup.
She gives me a funny look. “What?”
“Nothing.” I swallow and step into the small alcove between the stove and the prep counter. “So, about that sauce.”
She sighs and pours olive oil from the tin into the measuring cup. “I told you. I don’t need your help.”
She holds the cup up to the light, eyeing the fill line with precision.
“You can’t do it like that.”
She scowls at me, her lips appearing distorted behind the glass. “Do you have a better way of measuring olive oil?”
I shake my head. “I mean, you can’t cook like that. Like it’s a computer program. Cooking is an art form. Like painting. Or sculpture. Or music. You’re trying to paint by numbers.”
She bristles. “So are you telling me Mozart never read music?”
“Mozart used to play blindfolded.”
My comment seems to take her off guard and her angry mask falls for a fleeting moment. I decide to take advantage of her speechlessness and step closer. She leans back a little but doesn’t move away.
“Let’s start with this.” I pick up the recipe she’s clearly printed off of some internet cooking site, crumple it, and toss it into the nearby trash can. “You don’t need it.”
Lia opens her mouth to object but I cut her off. “You have to cook from here.” I extend my hand and place it on her chest, immediately realizing what a terrible idea that was. My hand feels like it’s been lit on fire. The blaze soars up my arm, electrifying my poor, twisted heart, which has already missed so many beats since she came back into my life, I’m not sure it will withstand another setback.
Her eyes slowly fall to my hand and I feel her pulse quicken beneath her T-shirt. For a long, hesitant moment, we stand like that, both too afraid to move. Too afraid to not move. Petrified of what either choice might mean.
Being this close to her again is making me woozy. Numb. All my thoughts seem to fizzle and evaporate into the air that’s been scented by the sweet smell of her shampoo. It takes every ounce of strength in me not to bend down and inhale her long, chestnut brown hair. Not to rake the fabric of her T-shirt into my fingernails and pull her toward me, seizing her mouth with mine.
The ferocious battle between my cautious brain and my rebellious muscles is making me bleary with frustration.
I gnash my teeth together, commanding myself to get a grip.
I pull my palm away, leaving an indentation in the fabric of her shirt. An imprint. Like a reminder of everything that is still unsaid between us.
“What I mean is,” I begin, clearing the rusty anxiety from my throat, “you have to let yourself feel what you’re doing. You have to let your senses guide you.”
She scoffs. “And who taught you that? Martha Stewart?”
“Actually, it was your mother.”
She falls quiet.
So I keep talking. “If you just follow instructions, you’re not creating anything. You’re just parroting someone else’s creation. That’s what people are tasting. That’s what people are sending back. People want food that moves them.”
Lia presses her lips together, considering what I’ve said, and then finally, she laughs.
Not the reaction I was hoping for.
“You give the people of Eastbrook way too much credit. This isn’t New York City. We don’t make love to our food here.”
I concede a small smile. Maybe I went a little overboard with that last part. “Okay. Fine. But you can’t deny the fact that people aren’t liking what they’re eating here.”
She blows a loose strand of hair from her face and crosses her arms over her chest. I take that as an agreement.
“And when your mom was the chef, everyone loved the food, right?”
“I followed her recipes to the letter,” she complains, getting worked up again. “I didn’t change a thing—”
“That’s the problem,” I insist. “You didn’t make the recipes yours. Your mom never followed them to the letter. She just used them as a guideline.”
Lia’s eyes narrow at me. “How do you know so much about my mother’s cooking?”
“She used to let me help sometimes. Back in high school. I learned a lot in this kitchen.”
“I don’t understand why you even cared.” Her tone is biting. “Didn’t you end up majoring in business or something?”
I stare at my feet. “Actually, I was originally going to go to culinary school.”
“You were?” She’s clearly surprised by this admission.
I nod. “I got into the Culinary Institute of America in New York. But someone talked me into going to NYU to study business instead.”
I don’t tell her who this mystery person is, but by the way she averts her gaze, I know she already knows.
We’ve both been living under the reign of Alex Smart for long enough to recognize a fellow subject.
But this is not a memory I feel like reliving right now. So before Lia has a chance to comment on my confession, I push myself in front of the stove. “Here. Let me show you what I mean.”
“Grayson,” she protests. “You’re doing it again.”
I light the burner under the large stock pot and pour in the pre-measured olive oil. “Doing what?” I ask innocently.
“Trying to rescue me.”
I laugh and shake my head, trying for relaxed with a hint of condescending.
“I told you, I’m not rescuing you.” I turn and flash her a beatific smile. “I’m rescuing your sauce.”