nineteen
Invitation:Chef J Final Tasting Menu
Time: Today, 4 p.m.
Attendees: Penelope Ainswright (Optional), Josh Goldberg (Optional), Eitan Moreno (Required), and Ruby Hirsch (Required)
I readthe unsolicited calendar invite, sent this morning. My hand still aches from finishing the escort card calligraphy last night. But even that pales in comparison to the realization that the careful boundary I’ve constructed to avoid Eitan has been blown to smithereens.
The caterer is on an unassuming block of Humboldt Park that hardly looks like it’s zoned for commercial spaces. The dog days of summer are almost over, though it still feels hot enough to cook an egg on the sidewalk and you can cut the humidity with a knife. The only acceptable clothes at this point are athleisure, so I wear a mini tennis dress that makes me feel like a country club wife, sans the diamond tennis bracelet.
Eitan’s Subaru lumbers into a parking spot, and he steps out, wearing shorts that show off toned legs tufted with hair anda ribbed tank top beneath a linen short-sleeve button-down. A gold chain peeks out from the edge of the tank top.
“Hey.” He waves. “Long time no see.”
“Hi,” I say, trying to frown at him. But the reality is, it’s been a month since I’ve seen him, and his face in the sunlight feels like the first sight of search and rescue after getting lost in the wilderness.
This. This is exactly what I need to shut down. I just have to keep it professional. And avoid any and all mention of the disastrous almost-kiss.
Which is why I brought an ace up my sleeve: my wedding planning notebook, filled with at least five work in progress items to fill any awkward silences.
“Welcome!” An older woman, with a face etched by fine lines and hair a wisping silver, opens a rusted door. “You made it.”
“Hello,” I say, holding out my hand. The woman bats it away and strongarms me into a hug. “I see you brought the groom with you!” The woman winks at me as she pulls away.
“What?” I glance at Eitan before laughing nervously. “No, he’s not. I’m not?—”
“Relax, I’m kidding. I met Penelope and Josh at the first tasting.”
A relieved breath shakes out of me.
“You two just look like such a cute couple. I got excited.” The woman laughs. I wince at the mention of Eitan and I being a couple.Like that would ever happen, a nasty voice in my head jibes. “Normally we don’t need two tastings, but there were a lot of menu changes after the first one.”
Oh, I can only imagine what the first tasting was like, given the state my life is in.
“Here, come in, come in!” The woman holds the door open for us. “I’m Carrie, by the way. The chef—Jonathan—is my son.”
The studio is windowless, draped with mauve curtains and faux ivy to break up the industrial brick. A lone table sits in the middle, with an aubergine tablecloth and place settings for two. Carrie lights two candlesticks in the center of the table, bathing everything in a fiery, intimate glow.
“Make yourselves at home, I’ll be out with sample plates of the hors d’oeuvres in a jiff.” Carrie disappears behind a swinging kitchen door, and Eitan and I are left to eat a gourmet candlelit dinner, all on our own.
Crap.
Eitan sits, opening his napkin and draping it over his lap, entirely unfazed by the whole thing. I mirror him, sitting straight up in my chair, picking up a thick cardstock menu that sits on top of the place setting. I try to read the items we will be tasting, but the chairs are set so close that it’s impossible for our knees not to brush. I keep moving so that they don’t. But his knees keep drifting toward mine like magnets.
His hand finds my knee beneath the table. “Relax,” he says, giving it a light squeeze. The touch is like being singed by a hot pan.
I scoot my chair away from him as subtly as I can. It’s too late, though. My skin breaks out in goosebumps, my overexcitable nervous system taking an inch and running a mile.
Carrie pokes her head out. “Wine?” she asks.
“We don’t drink,” Eitan says plainly. The ‘we’ flutters through the air.We’re not a ‘we’!I resist shouting. Eitan continues, oblivious, “Do you have anything nonalcoholic?”
“I’ve got N.A. champagne that’sdivine.”
“Sounds great.” Eitan smiles, then looks back at me. “The ceviche looks good.” He points at the hors d’oeuvres section of the menu. “And I love croquetas.”
He speaks so quickly, the words falling like water off his tongue, it takes me a second to follow.
