Page 28 of Hold the Pickle

“Tell me about it. Wait until they come into the ER and get mad at you because you have to pull glass out of their butt.”

Nadia freezes, a cup of measured flour tilted over the bowl of butter. “Glass? In their butt?”

“You’d be amazed at how often people who’ve made the dumbest mistakes get nasty with you for trying to fix it.”

She continues with her recipe, adding various spices to the flour and butter. I haven’t teased out what she’s making yet.

“That’s just wrong. Doctors should be revered. You’re saying that’s changed?”

“I think it changed a long time ago.”

She stirs, her head tilted. “What do you think caused it?”

“Insurance. Cost of care. We’re mixed up in it even though we don’t like it any more than they do.”

“But in the hospital, you don’t have anything to do with billing or approvals, do you?”

I shift on the stool. “You’d be surprised at how many people ask how much this will cost way before how long it will take to get better.”

“I believe it.”

She leans over the warm stove to stir the garlic and onions. The tendrils at her temple curl in the heat. Her features are elegant with a sharp nose, defined jaw, long lashes. She looks like a fifties model, Elizabeth Taylor maybe.

“How long do you think you have before your family will try to force your hand?” I ask.

She shrugs as she opens a carton of chicken broth. “I signed a lease to make it harder for them to call me back to New York or Florida.”

“Those are the options?”

“If I’m going to be upper management, yes. We have delis in Boulder, where I’m from, as well as Texas and here, of course. But the restaurants aren’t the point anymore. We have entire enterprises around advertising, marketing, and product development.”

“Who’s in charge of it all?”

“Uncle Sherman, although if you ask him, he’ll insist he’s retired. He turned over the main deli in Manhattan to my cousin Anthony a few years ago.”

“Isn’t he the one who went viral after poisoning that TV chef?”

“Yeah, that was something.”

“You Pickles are kind of a bigdill.”

“Ha, ha.” She pours the broth into a big pot, moving it on the burner that held the pan with the garlic.

I stand up to be nearer to the amazing smells. “What are you making?”

“Dumplings.”

“It smells like heaven.”

“We had a lot of leftover chicken at the deli, so I brought it to dump in. Can you get it from the fridge? It’s wrapped in white paper.”

It’s nice working with her in the kitchen. I open the door and retrieve the oblong package.

“Thanks.” She opens it and chunks of chicken plop into the broth.

“Since you like to cook, did you want your own restaurant in the chain?”

She shakes her head. “Nope. That would take my happy hobby into work territory.”

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