Page 37 of Aftertaste

Anna, his very first ghost—the drink that brought her back had been a cocktail she and her husband had shared, from a night they’d both agreed had been special.

The best, she’d called it.

And hadn’t Sister Louise said something similar, when Kostya was clearing her plate?

That soup was the one meal we shared that hadn’t come from the convent. A taste of what might have been. The best things.

Kostya read his list again. Reread. Summoned back the aftertastes that had flitted across his tongue over the decades, across space and time, across death. It struck him, suddenly, how specific each one was; not always delicious, but always distinct. Even the Reese’s at that warehouse party, he’d be willing to wager, had a story behind it, something that made it unlike every other Reese’s Cup the good people at Hershey mass-manufactured. Unique enough to trigger an individual moment, some unmistakable instance in a person’s life, strong enough to reach across the Afterlife and yank them back.

Madame Everleigh—at that party—had accused him of having no idea what he was tasting, and maybe he hadn’t then, not really, but Kostya felt sure now.Thiswas what the flavors in his mouth were: the single best thing any spirit could remember consuming. But the reasons for a food’s greatness were as personal as a fingerprint. That, maybe, was the point.Whatthey were eating didn’t matter nearly as much aswhy. If he could just figure out thewhy, understand it, find some way to prompt it for the Living reaching out for their Dead, maybe that could trigger the spirit to come.

It still didn’t explain why sometimes he got an aftertaste and sometimes he didn’t, unless not every spirithada memory like this to guide them back. Something powerful. Life-changing. Linked, inextricably, to food. Something theyneededto taste again, a craving that demanded satisfaction.

A sort of suffering only he could relieve.

Kostya closed the notebook and slipped it back into his coat. His hand twitched as he felt his phone there, and he pulled it out and stared hard at the screen.

He was itching to make the call but fighting the urge.

No.He shook his head.Uh-uh.It was too painful. Every conversation with her was excruciating.

His hand hovered over the screen, about to slide it back into his coat.

But then… hehadto know. Thewhy—only she could give him that.

His knee bounced as the phone rang. One ring. Two.

“Mama. Hey.”

“Kostya? Everything is okay?” She always jumped to the worst conclusion.

“Da.Listen. I gotta ask you something, but I really need an honest answer. It’s important.”

“I always tell you truth. Maybe if you call more, you remember.”

He could feel the barbed edge to her voice but took a breath and pushed around it.

“When you cookpechonka, do you burn it on purpose?”

He heard her laugh.

“What’s a strange question from Mister Top Chef! I think you know all cooking already! See, if you go culinary school, they—”

“Mama!”

She huffed. “Okay.Nyet.I cook few minutes each side. Burntpechonkaunbearable thing. Everybody know this.”

“How about when you made it for Papa? Did he like it burnt?”

She got quiet then, so eerily silent he could almost feel his father there, hovering in the empty airwaves between their cell signals.

“Papa—I only made it for him special times. One,” she said slowly, “was when I make it to tell him about pregnancy. Oh, Kostya! He dance me through kitchen! It burn while we celebrate. He ate anyway.”

Kostya swallowed a lump in his throat. He wanted to ask more, to understand, to remember his father with the only other person in this world whocould help him to, but his phone beeped through another call then, the ID flashing out a number he recognized instantly, one he’d memorized after staring at it for hours a day on the Restaurant Sanitation poster that hung over the dishwashing station at Saveur Fare. The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

“Mama, lemme call you back.”

THEY SHUT HIMdown right over the phone. By the time he paid for his beer and walked home, there was a pink Cease and Desist notice taped to his door.

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