Page 23 of The Seven Year Slip

“What?” he asked, surprised, and suddenly schooled his emotions into a pleasant smile. “No, no, it’s fine. You asked what makes a meal perfect. It’s this. Food”—he motioned to our almost empty plates—“is a work of art. That’s what a perfect meal is—something that you don’t just eat, but something youenjoy. With friends, and family—maybe even with strangers. It’s an experience. You taste it, you savor it, you feel the story told through the intricate flavors that play out across your tongue... it’s magical. Romantic.”

“Romantic, really?”

“Absolutely,” he replied, almost reverently. “You know what I’m talking about—a rich cheesecake you dream about hours after. Soft candlelight, a plate of cheese, and good wine. The headiness of a brazen stew. The pillowy promises in a golden loaf of brioche.” The passion in his voice was infectious, and I bit back a smile as he painted a picture for me with his words, his hands waving in the air, getting carried away. His joy made my heart ache a little in a way I hadn’t ever felt. Not the sad sort of ache—but a longing for something I’d never experienced before. “A lemon pie that makes your teeth curl in delight. Or a piece of chocolate at the end of the night, soft and simple.” Then he pushed himself up from the table, went to grab something from a shelf in the refrigerator, and tossed it to me.

I caught it. A foil-wrapped chocolate.

“Romance, Lemon,” he said. “You know?”

I twirled the chocolate around in my fingers.No, I thought, looking at this strange russet-headed man in a shirt with astretched-out neck hole and frayed jeans, a tattoo of sprigs of cilantro and other herbs across his arm,but I might like to.

And that was a dangerous thought.

I’d had memorable meals before, but I couldn’t describe any of them asromantic—at least not in the way that he did: sprinting through airports with fast food in one hand and a ticket stub in the other, late-night rainy dinners huddled under awnings because the restaurant was too full, pretzels from streetside vendors, croissants from no-name bakeries, that lunch yesterday at the Olive Branch, washing it down with too-dry wine.

“I guess I just never had a perfect meal, then,” I said finally, putting the chocolate down on the edge of the table. “I’ve just always felt so out of my element every time I go to one of those fancy places you’re probably talking about. I’m constantly afraid of choosing the wrong spoon or ordering the wrong dish or—something. Pair the wrong wine with the wrong cut of steak.”

He shook his head. “I’m not talking about that. A restaurant doesn’t have to be fancy, with artfully plated smears of coulis and beurre blanc—”

“What’s that?”

“Exactly. It’s not important. You can get delicious meals from a mom-and-pop joint just as easily as you can get one from a Michelin-starred restaurant.”

“And one requires less Spanx. Or—hear me out—I can just stay home and eat a PB&J.”

“You could, though what if it turns out to be your last meal?”

I blinked. “Wow,thatwent dark fast.”

“Would you still stay home and eat a PB&J if you knew?”

I frowned, and thought about it for a moment. Then I nodded. “I think so. My aunt used to make me PB&J sandwiches wheneverI came to visit her because she’s a terrible cook. She’d always pack more peanut butter onto the sandwich than jelly, so it’d always get stuck right on the roof of my mouth—”

He sat up straight. “That’s it! The perfect meal.”

“I wouldn’t call itperfect, but—”

“You just said you’d eat it as your last meal, right?”

He had a point.

“Oh,” I gasped, finally understanding what he meant. “It’s less about the food, then, and more about—”

“The memory,” we finished together. His grin slid into a smile, crooked and endearing, and it made his eyes glimmer.

I felt a blush creeping up my neck to my face again.

“That’s what I want to make,” he said, resting his elbows on the edge of the table. The sleeves of his T-shirt hugged his biceps tightly. Not that I was looking. I definitely wasn’t. “The perfect meal.”

It might have been the good food, or the three glasses of wine, but I began to think that maybe hecould. Who knows—maybe he already had inmytime. I tried to picture him in a chef’s uniform, a white coat stretched across his shoulders, covering up the tattoos sporadically placed across his arms like afterthoughts, and I couldn’t get the image in focus. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy to play by normal rules. He seemed like an exception.

He unwrapped his chocolate and popped it into his mouth, and rolled it into his cheek to melt on its own. “And how about you?”

My shoulders squared at the sudden question. “What about me?”

“Why’d you want to be a book publicist?”

“I just... did, I guess.”

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