Page 33 of The Woman at the Funeral

“Let me guess. London, Paris, Berlin. Maybe a little Tokyo and Venice.”

“Wow. How did you know that?”

“Aside from New York and L.A., they’re the biggest art scenes in the world.”

“Yeah,” she said, watching me with something soft and sweet that had my heart swelling in my chest. “Though, I never did get to Tokyo. I ran out of money. In Venice. I took a bunch of cooking classes there,” she admitted. “And ate out way more than my pocketbook would have liked.”

“But if you’re going to do it, you should do it right,” I said, finally taking a forkful of food. “And the cooking lessons really paid off.”

“You like it?”

“Best lemon chicken I’ve ever had,” I told her, meaning it. It was a fucking crime to choose fast food over this kind of cooking.

Blair’s cheeks tinged pink at the praise, making me think it had been a long time since she’d received any.

“What were you going to make?” she asked, reaching for her glass of wine.

“Pasta primavera. I always fall back on pasta when I don’t know what to make. I think it’s a holdover from growing up, when I’d have to cook for my siblings who objected to just about everything but noodles.”

“I think that’s a phase all kids go through. Along with ketchup on everything.”

“I don’t mind the ketchup. But I have a nephew who dips everything in French dressing. Chicken nuggets, fries, you name it—it’s covered in thick orange salad dressing.”

“I can’t judge. When I was little, I ate nothing but boxed macaroni and cheese for months on end. The powdered cheese boxes,” she added, wrinkling up her nose.

“Not gonna lie; I still pick up a box here or there when I’m feeling nostalgic,” I admitted. “It holds up.”

“I’ll have to grab a box too. It’s strange cooking for one now. I mean, I guess I was always cooking for one, technically, but—”

“Anytime you want to share a meal, I’m game. And you’re welcome to try out mine sometime. Though, if this is your typical, you might be disappointed by mine.”

“I’ve never had a man cook for me. Well, no, that’s not fair. A very nice elderly gentleman I rented a room from in Italy made me ravioli when he caught me crying one night. It was the anniversary of my grandmother’s death.”

“Did she like to travel?”

“Oh, God no. My grandmother was the definition of a homebody. She said that if she wanted to travel, she would grab a book. She said she couldn’t imagine anything more exhausting than airports and lugging around bags everywhere. She wasn’t wrong about that part, actually.”

“You didn’t like traveling?”

“I was traveling for work, honestly. I wanted to be able to say I’d seen all the best art in all the most famous galleries and museums. I figured it might help me land a good job. I wasn’t wrong. But traveling itself was definitely draining at times. And a little scary. I’d never been anywhere, mind you. Before going to college, I’d never even been out of Manhattan.

“In a sad kind of twist of fate, it was my grandmother’s book collection that paid for my travels.”

“Really? She had that many?”

“Yes, but that’s not really the reason. She came from a long line of readers. And people who refused to get rid of books. When I’d been going through her things to clean out her apartment after she passed, I found two first editions of some very rare books. And signed copies of others.

“When I got the money from the sales, I figured I could either use it to pay off my student loans or travel with it. I chose the latter.”

“Smart decision. The traveling gave you a lot of content for your blog.”

Her head tipped to the side, watching me with intense eyes.

Shit.

Had I just freaked her out?

“You’re right. I didn’t know you knew about my blog.”

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