Cook the Books

clearly liked the homemade dough stuffed with fresh mozzarella and herbs. I’d have to copy this and make it myself. I could practically smell the dough baking just thinking about it!
    I was feeling good about honoring Digger’s memory when I came upon some of Josh’s recipes in Josh’s own handwriting. Running my hands over the familiar script, I felt terribly sad. The consolation I’d found in the thought of including Digger in the book suddenly vanished, and everything about the smoky bag felt heartbreaking, as if there were nothing left of Digger’s life except some smelly recipes. I felt more or less the same way about my relationship with Josh. Corny as it sounds, it was as if what we’d shared had also gone up in smoke, and all I had left was this ugly, stinky mess.
    The phone rang, and my stomach dropped. I glared at the caller ID as I waited for the number to appear. It could be Josh, I told myself. Did I want it to be Josh or not? I wasn’t sure.
    Instead of my ex, the caller was Kyle. I wanted to sound completely nonchalant and to behave as though I had never assaulted him, but instead of staying cool, I found myself rattling off ideas at an auctioneer’s pace. “Kyle! Oh, good! Listen, I got ahold of Digger’s recipes, and there are tons here that would be perfect for the book, and I really think that we need to use some of them, which reminds me that we absolutely have to start testing the recipes we do have, because you can never trust a chef, and just because a recipe came from a chef doesn’t mean that the amounts and proportions of ingredients are right and—”
    “Breath!” Kyle demanded with a laugh. “Stop and take a breath! But you’re right. We should test the recipes. Why don’t you pick out a few, and we can get together and do some cooking.”
    Obediently, I took a slow breath. Kyle was behaving normally, and I should follow suit. “Great. I have some ideas already.”
    “Would you mind if we cooked at your place? The apartment I’m renting has a really small galley kitchen, and we’d have a tough time here. I know your place isn’t gargantuan, but it’s the better of the two options.”
    “Absolutely. How about Tuesday night? I should be home from my internship by five thirty.”
    “Why don’t you do the food shopping, and then I’ll reimburse you in your next check. Oh, and have your friend Adrianna come over if she wants. I’m sure we could use the help, and she seems like she’d give us some honest feedback about the dishes.”
    “I bet she’d be thrilled. I’ll give her a call.”
    I hung up, started a shopping list, and immediately realized that I was going to blow my entire last paycheck on ingredients. I would get my money back, of course, and I’d charge for every second I spent at the store, but I’d have to go shopping tomorrow night so that we’d have everything we needed for Tuesday. I called Adrianna and Owen, and left a message inviting them over to cook and taste the food with Kyle and me. I was sure they’d take me up on the offer, especially because money was super tight for them these days. In fact, I was seriously worried that they weren’t eating well. In particular, since she was still nursing, Ade needed all the sustenance she could get.
    Going through recipes and planning Tuesday’s cooking projects helped to distract me from dwelling on Josh. Helped. Somewhat. A little. In addition to being broke, I was still a jumpy, frazzled mess, and I gave in to the compulsion to keep checking my e-mail every ten minutes or so until I went to bed. Tomorrow, I assured myself, I’d be at my internship all day and nowhere near my computer. Maybe my supervisor would let me use hers, and I’d be able to check my e-mail from work? No, no! Josh does not exist. Josh does not exist, I repeated uselessly.
     

ELEVEN
     
    I shifted my weight in the uncomfortable armchair and forced myself to look sympathetically at my client Alison. She was exceedingly beautiful, there was no doubt about that, but nutty as a loon. I was midway through my day at my internship—pardon me, my field placement—at the community mental health center and was listening to one of my regular clients drone on about her love life. Alison was a twenty-one-year-old college student who could have had practically any man she chose, yet she had a pattern of falling for unavailable older men. The woes of the young and beautiful, huh? Most of our counseling sessions centered on my