“You called my tomato sauce watery.”
“I did.”
“That sauce,” I say, voice low, “is my grandmother’s. I cook it exactly how Nonna taught me. She fed half of Carlisle with it when she was still alive.”
“I’m sure she did,” she says. “But last week, in Carlisle, the sauce didn’t do much for me.”
That lands harder than the word watery ever did.
“What else did you have?” I ask, too quickly. The question is out of my mouth before I’ve decided whether I want the answer. “Because all you wrote about was the sauce.”
She blinks, clearly caught off guard. “I had…”
She trails off, eyes lifting slightly, like the information might be written on the ceiling if she just looks hard enough.
Before she can recover, a voice cuts in.
“What seems to be the problem here?”
A woman has appeared at my shoulder, immaculate in a way that suggests she runs things. Hair smooth, posture perfect, expression polite but sharpened by years of dealing with people like me. She offers a hand.
“Marie-Louise Buckett,” she adds, offering her hand. “Editor.”
I shake it automatically. My pulse is thudding now, anger and something like dread tangling together.
“Tom Philips,” I say. “I own La Cucina di Rosa.”
She nods once, waiting.
“I’m here because the article was unbalanced,” I say. “It focused almost entirely on the tomato sauce.”
Chloe turns towards her. “It was part of the overall experience.”
“It was one part,” I say. “So I’ll ask again. What else did you eat?”
Chloe opens her mouth. Closes it again.
The silence stretches. My chest tightens with it. I don’t want this answer. I can feel that already.
Marie-Louise looks at her. “Chloe?”
She exhales. “I had pasta.”
“What kind?” I ask.
There’s another pause. Longer this time. Too long.
“I don’t remember,” she says.
Something in my chest drops. Not a bang. More of a quiet thud. The kind that tells you exactly how this has gone wrong.
Because if she doesn’t remember the dish, it wasn’t memorable. And that hurts far more than the article ever could.
I feel something sharp and ugly spark to life. Anger, yes, but also a kind of wounded disbelief. Because surely. Surely when you write something that definitive about someone’s food, you know what you ate.
“You reviewed it,” I say. “You published it. You must have known at the time.”
Marie-Louise’s gaze slides to Chloe. Not accusing. Expectant.
