And if I really thought about it, the whole thing was too clumsy. To kiss a total stranger on a fire escape? Of course he wasn’t calling back. Served me right. No matter how exotic it had seemed at the time.
I’d always been too ready to believe in the fairy tale. But it wasn’t good to keep rolling around in the memories of this first chapter, when that was obviously all the story there was.
10
Blood Perfume Shoes
“Presenting! My famous! Roasted fig and goat cheese with rosemary in a Stilton crust pastry pizza!” I slid it out of the oven onto the counter. It looked pretty damn gorgeous, if I did say so myself. Bubbling and crisping in all the right places.
But right from Rachel’s first bite, I knew the truth. “What?” I demanded. “What’s with that face?”
“I’ve told you how I feel about goat cheese. Tastes like goat butt.”
“Oh, so sorry. I didn’t realize that my making you this special homemade gourmet lunch was so bottom line, poor you.”
“I’m just saying.”
“Try a corner.”
“Eh. I don’t know, Emb.” After a third bite, Rachel set down her slice. “Give me a stuffed-crust Little Caesars pepperoni any day over this.”
“It’s not that bad.” Except that when I wheel-sliced out my own triangle, I had to admit it wasn’t great, either. It wasn’t anything. It had no soul. I flipped back to the recipe. “What the hell. You saw me follow this to a T.” Did it need more honey? Were the figs watery? You couldn’t do anything about the mustiness of goat cheese—you were either into it or it tasted dirty, or as Rachel had more bluntly put it, like butt. “The ingredients looked so fresh at the farmers’ market.”
But none of the elements had added up.
“The main thing about your cooking,” said Rachel, “is that it used to be…”
“Used to be what?”
Her teeth found her bottom lip. “I dunno.”
“No, seriously. Used. To. Be. What?” I could feel myself all flamed up in agitation. I didn’t want to be. I wished that Rachel’s answer didn’t matter so much to me.
“Ember, not everything about you needs to be remade into a Nancy Drew mystery. And it’s the weekend. I thought weekends meant time off from playing ‘The Clue to Your Old Self’ or ‘The Secret of the Rehabbed Psyche’ with you, right?”
“Don’t joke, Smarty. Just tell me—for two seconds indulge me and explain what you meant. How was I different?”
“Okay. Fine.” Rachel sat up straight, like a pupil ready to recite the correct answer in front of the whole class. “Here’s the thing. Your cooking used to be a hobby that you enjoyed. You did it for fun and games. A pinch here, a dash of that, oops, forgot to preheat in time, but who cares? That kind of thing. But now you do it like homework. Like something you’re studying for—a physics test. And the whole process…well, I hate to see how it upsets you, okay?” She put up her hands. “I come in peace.”
I nodded. I knew Rachel was right. My attitude was off. I couldn’t find the joy of the experiment. The measuring, tasting, seasoning, wondering. In the past couple of weeks, I’d challenged myself to multiple dishes—comfort food like lasagna, plus more complicated recipes using egg whites and double boilers. Not a single dish had turned out to be anything special.
I had to face it: I was just an okay cook.
My friends used to love dropping in for Friday Follies because those Fridays had been a party, with the menu made up of their own special requests: blackened skillet chicken for Perrin, butternut squash tart for Rachel, ginger-chocolate ice cream for Keiji. They’d come over, hang out, and inhale my feasts, then gear up for a later night of parties or clubs or the movies—or sometimes they’d just thump downstairs, lazy and overfed, to the den to watch random television.
I’d daydreamed of those Follies while I’d been at Addington. It had been yet another reason to get well and come home. Dr. P had even encouraged it.
“Find your safety zone,” he’d told me. “Find your comfort.”
Once upon a time, I’d loved being in the kitchen. And I’d been good at it, too. Was the love still there? Or was the new me just flying blind in a wobbly parody of my old self?
I refocused. The sheet of figs and cheese, no longer bubbling, now looked curdled and sad. I picked at my slice. “It’s like somewhere down recipe lane, I just dishrag and then—”
“Will you please, please stop describing yourself as a dishrag?” Rachel asked exasperatedly. “I don’t need a smelly hand towel for a best friend.”
“Easy for you. You’re not the one who’s lost—”
“You haven’t lost a single—”
“Don’t tell me what I haven’t lost,” I snapped. “Or what I was. Or who I am.” I foil-wrapped the pizza—maybe my parents would want it—and then began tearing the extra pastry apart with my bare hands, shoving it through the garbage disposal’s rubber shield to the teeth below and flipping on the switch for the motorized grind.
Had Anthony Travolo liked to cook?
These kinds of questions had begun to circle me like vultures lately, especially since my Google searches hadn’t pulled up anything more breakthrough than names and addresses of various random Travolos in Carroll Gardens and Bensonhurst. His name was Italian—had he been a pasta guy? A steak eater? What had his last meal been, before he got in the car with me? What had we been talking about, that moment before I lost control of the wheel? What were the last words in his last conscious breath? My eyes brimmed at the thought, my throat went thick. Another side effect of head trauma—laryngeal reflux. Also known as occasional mucus overload.
Pretty gross. Plus it made me hate to cry.
Rachel was at my side, her hand steady on my shoulder. “Relax, Ember. It’s only food.”
“It’s not. It’s me. It’s a part of me that’s missing. Where did I go?”
“You’re right here. Come on. You have to stop being so hard on yourself. It’s going to come back just the way you want, Embie. I know it.” She began to crack her knuckles, her usual sign of nervousness. “Okay, here’s my worst, but I really feel like you asked for it. What did the cannibal order for takeout?”
“What?”
“Pizza, with everyone on it.”