Page 19 of The Seven Year Slip

This was a terrible idea. The worst idea. What hadpossessedme to do this?

He glanced back at me, standing there in the entryway to the kitchen, and asked if I’d like a glass of water while I waited—or something a little stronger.

“Stronger,” I decided, tearing my eyes away from this handsome man in my aunt’s kitchen, beginning to feel like I’d just made a grave mistake. “Definitely stronger.”

7

Better Acquainted

I watched from myperch on the barstool as Iwan made himself at home in my aunt’s kitchen. My aunt and I usually ate TV dinners or went out, and for the last week since I moved in, I’d gotten takeout from my favorite Thai place. The kitchen was a foreign battlefield to me, somewhere I just cautiously passed through on the way to the bedroom or to get another glass of wine. I could cook the essentials—my mom made sure of that before I left for college, she wasn’t going to let her only daughterstarve—but I’d never been very interested in the art of it all. Iwan, on the other hand, seemed to fit so well there, like he already knew where everything was. He’d taken a worn leather knife roll from his duffel bag, which he put back into the bedroom, and set the knives down on the counter.

“So,” I asked, nursing a cheap glass of rosé my aunt had bought before she left for the summer, “you’re a chef or something?”

He retrieved a brown bag of vegetables from the refrigerator. I hadn’t even realized he had stocked it full of food. The fridgehadn’t seen anything besides takeout and leftovers for a week at least. He gestured toward his knife roll. “Did my knives give it away?”

“A little. You know, context clues. Also, please say yes. The alternative is that you’re actually Hannibal and I am in grave danger.”

He pointed to himself. “Do I seem like the kind of person who would ruin his perfectly acceptable palate with a cut of human tenderloin?”

“I don’t know, I barely know you.”

“Oh, well, that’seasyto fix,” he said, planting his hands on either side of the cutting board in front of him, and leaning against the counter. There was a tattoo on the inside of his right arm, a country road weaving through pine trees. “I went to UNC Chapel Hill on a scholarship, planning on heading to law school like my mom and sister, but I dropped out after three years.” He gave another one of those one-shoulder shrugs. “Worked in a few kitchens while I tried to figure out what I wanted to do, and it was the only place I really felt at home, you know? My grandpa practically raised me in a kitchen. So, I finally decided to go to CIA.”

“The Central...”

His mouth twitched into a grin. “Culinary Institute of America.”

“Ah, that was my second guess,” I replied, nodding.

“Got an associate’s from there in Culinary Arts, and here I am, looking for a job.”

“You’re chasing the moon,” I marveled, more to myself than to him, as I thought about my own career—four years in college for art history, and then seven working my way up, slowly, at Strauss & Adder.

“The moon?”

Embarrassed, I replied, “It’s something my aunt always says. It’s one of her cardinal rules—you know, like keep your passportrenewed, always pair red wines with meats and whites with everything else...” I counted on my fingers. “Find fulfilling work, fall in love, and chase the moon.”

He bit in a grin, taking a sip of bourbon. “Sounds like good advice.”

“I guess. So, you’re, like, what?” I studied him for a beat. “Twenty-five?”

“Twenty-six.”

“Jeez.I feel old.”

“You can’t be much older than I am.”

“Twenty-nine, almost thirty,” I replied grimly. “One foot’s already in the grave. I found a gray hair the other day. I debated whether to bleach my entire head.”

He barked a laugh. “I don’t know what I’ll do once I start going white—I won’t go gray. My grandpa didn’t. Maybe I’ll shave my head.”

“I think you’d look refined with a bit of white,” I mused.

“Refined,” he echoed, liking how that sounded. “I’ll tell my grandpa you said that. And anyway, my track record for sticking things out hasn’t been very steady. When I said I wanted to go to CIA, my mom was beside herself at first—I was one year away from a business degree—but I just couldn’t see myself sitting at a desk all day. So instead, I’m here.” He flourished his hands like it was a magic trick, but there was a sparkle in his eyes as he said, “There’s an opening at a pretty famous restaurant, and I want to get in.”

“As a chef...?”

He was completely serious as he said, “As a dishwasher.”

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