Page 14 of Change My Mind
“That’s to be expected for the first few days as you readjust.”
“Yeah, I know. That’s not why I’ve called, though. I want to cook Eli a sort of ‘hey, we’re living together’ dinner, but I don’t know what his food preferences are, and I was wondering if you had any insight?” I started checking the ripeness of some avocados just to give my hand something to do while I stood in the middle of the supermarket.
“Oh, he seems pretty laid back when it comes to the food he eats. He’s changing the menu, and we’re trialling a lot of new dishes at the moment. There is a lot of variety in his contenders, which suggests a wide palette. I think he prefers chicken over red meat, but he seems pretty open to everything.”
“Okay, that’s helpful.” I paused. Now I had an answer to my problem, my brain was catching up with everything else Dad had said. “Is he changing everything on the menu?” I knew that Vivi’s worked seasonally, so some dishes changed, but some had been on the Vivi’s menu since the beginning. It would be sad if some guy who thought he knew all there was to know about food decided to get rid of them all just because he was technically in charge now.
“No, he’s keeping the tried and true dishes that customers have come to rely on. But some of the dishes are a bit tired and in need of a revamp. Plus, he’s working on the seasonal dishes. I think the biggest change will be in the dessert department. He’s brought along this pastry chef, who is just as wonderful as he is, probably more so because she works with desserts.” I laughed at the reminder of the sweet tooth I inherited from Dad, in addition to his eyes, and threw the avocados into my basket. “She was out in Detroit for a while and had pretty much done what you’ve done, returned home for a good job.”
“Oh, well, I love that for her. I look forward to trying everything out.”
“We are thinking of having a little launch in a couple of weeks. Just waiting for Eli to give the go-ahead, but he seems pretty happy with where everything is at today. I’m hoping it will be soon.”
“I will be there whenever that day comes. Thanks for the tip on the chicken. I think I know what I’m going to make for dinner now.”
My sisters and I had a go-to dish that got us out of most culinary situations, and I figured you couldn’t go wrong with chicken and potatoes.
“Happy to be of assistance. I hope the jet lag stays away,” Dad said.
“That makes two of us. Love you.” I signed off, hanging up after Dad returned the sentiment.
Eleven
ELI
The flat smelled like paprika when I walked in just before seven. It had been so long since I had smelled cooking that wasn’t my own, and even longer since I returned home to find someone else making food for me.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and closed the door just a little too loudly to make sure that Adrienne knew she was no longer alone.
“Hello?” a voice called out, half wary, half welcoming.
Despite talking to her for the past few weeks, I had forgotten that I hadn’t actuallyheardAdrienne’s voice for years.
It sounded almost exactly the same as it used to. But deeper. Huskier. Richer. Overall, to be honest, it sounded sexier.
“Yeah, it’s Eli,” I called back. I heard muttered curses ring through the kitchen as I stepped into it.
Adrienne’s back was to me. She still wore her hair in black braids that were currently piled messily on top of her head,revealing a sprawl of black ink on the back of her light-brown neck that I couldn’t quite identify from this far away. She still held her spine almost impossibly straight, never one to shy away from her height, which was kissing six feet when we were sixteen. She was taller now, but not by much.
‘You okay?” I asked. I saw the slow rise and fall of her shoulders, heard a muttered sentence that sounded a bit like ‘does she fucking hate me?’ before she turned around, and my breath caught in my throat.
I remembered a lot about Adrienne, but I had completely forgotten just how stunning her eyes were.
They were a shade of green that I was sure hadn’t been invented. When we were younger, I had never been able to make eye contact for too long, or I would start to feel like I was drowning in them. I wanted to study them extensively so I could figure out what it was exactly that made them look like they carried every shade of green that we knew of, but if I did that, she would have dragged me through the mud and fifteen-year-old me didn’t need to give her the ammunition for that.
In certain lights, they looked like emeralds. At different angles, they turned to moss. Sometimes, they were bottle green or the colour of leaves at the peak of spring. On one occasion, they looked like the darkest depths of a dense forest.
Right now, they were two perfect emeralds, framed by thick black square frames, staring daggers at me.
It was like being fifteen all over again.
She still hated me.
And I still had the world’s biggest crush on her. I’d been ignoring that fact while there had been an ocean between us, but now that we were in the same space, I had no choice but to at least acknowledge it to myself.
She threw the tea towel draped over her shoulder onto the counter behind her. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“What?”
