“Oh, I know. Carbonara. Pad thai. There’s Chinese-style with spicy tomatoes and eggs.”
“Wait. Are you a chef?” Penny asks, peeking around their easel.
“No.” Esther saunters over, eating a tuna fish sandwich. She gives them a brief and mostly accurate rundown of my job.
“Wait. Really?” That’s Reggie.
I’m blinking around at everyone. Since when is my job interesting?
“Because my wife’s been on me to cook more often. You have any easy recommendations?” he asks me.
“Oh. Sure. What kind of stuff do you keep at home? Like in the pantry?”
He gives me a three-point list and I give him four quick dishes he could make. He scribbles them down.
Apparently this is a party trick because Shan gives me her pantry. I hand her two recipes straight from the brain.
Em goes next and her pantry is hard. Because it’s almost exclusively snack foods. But I pull out my trusted tomato and pinto bean soup in a blender and everyone oohs and ahhs.
“The enchilada dish you described,” Daniel calls from across the room. “Is the sauce in layers?”
“No,” I call back. “It’s sort of…hold on.”
I wave him over and do a little scribbling on my drawing pad, digging around for my colored pencils to show him the way the two sauces should alternate in stripes.
Em hands me some of her pencils. “Hey. Draw the ramen you described to me.”
I can’t imagine she’s never seen a bowl of ramen with various toppings in it, but I do what she asks, figuring it couldn’t hurt. The bowl ends up with wonky perspective and the green onions look like they’re attempting to jump ship.
But as soon as I’m done, I turn and see Daniel and Em grinning at me. The rest of the recipe-conversation-havers have mostly floated away, continuing different conversations elsewhere.
But not Daniel and Em.
“These are good,” Daniel says with a tap to my pad.
“Really good,” Em agrees.
I’m agog. To me, they’re messy and amateurish.
“Personality, charm, familiarity…” Daniel lists.
“They look,” Em decides, “the way food should feel when you’re eating it.”
“Exactly,” Daniel corroborates.
It is, hands down, the best compliment I’ve ever received.
Something old and familiar, new and exciting, flutters to life within me.
“Really? Wow. I…” I got nothing. Instead of replying, I just absorb the happiness.
Shan calls Daniel over and he drifts away.
I’m incapable of speech right now. I think I’m happy? I think I need to draw. I think I need to run home and crawl into my husband’s sweatshirt. I think I’m hungry. Regardless, Em and I must be looking pretty lonely over here and Lauro (clothed once more) is glancing in our direction.
“Quick! Talk!” Em requests of me. Those eyes of hers are burning me up. Let me tell you, Lauro has atype.
“Oh. Um. Uh. So, I heard you do a storytelling thing at a bar?”
