By the time I got to my car I'd stopped trying to keep the day at arm's length. It had gotten all the way in. I sat there a minute before I started the engine, my face a wreck with emotions in the visor mirror, and I let it be.
Julian knocked atseven fifty-eight on the dot.
Charcoal suit, white shirt open at the throat, nothing done but a shower, and still he looked like a man who walked into rooms. He stepped in, set his keys in the dish on the entry table because his keys had lived in that dish for two months, and came to me. Hand at the side of my face. One slow kiss.
“I missed you.”
“I missed you, baby.”
He drove with Elmiene’sLight Workplaying low, his hand on my thigh, and a cologne I didn’t know on him, darker, something with smoke in it.
“This is new.”
“Mm.”
I knew it before he answered. “Bibliothèque.” The one I’d told him was my favorite, the night we danced. “You remembered.”
He pulled into Solé, the Italian place on Maple. Came around, opened my door, walked me in with his hand at the small of my back. The maître d’ greeted him by name and walked us to an alcove at the back, the light softer than the rest of the room. He pulled out my chair. There was no menu.
“Julian. There’s no menu.”
“I took the liberty.”
A waiter appeared with a white wine, poured and left.
Julian raised his glass, paused and cocked his head to the side thinking. “I had something. It's gone. Just — happy Valentine's, Lyss.”
The first course came out twelve minutes later, and my body went still before my mind caught up. White ceramic. A round of injera at thebase. A square of bacalhau over it, golden-crusted. Piri-piri around the rim, that specific red.
I knew that plating. I’d eaten off that plating for the better part of a decade. I looked up at the kitchen door, and Chef Marcos was standing at the side of the table.
“Chef!”
He smiled. “Senhora Carter.”
I was on my feet before I knew it. He hugged me, brief and warm.
“How—”
“Mr.Wade flew me down this morning. Me and the wife.” He smiled and nodded at Julian who nodded back. “Go back and sit. Eat your food while it’s hot, Senhora. Enjoy.”
He gave Julian another small nod and went back to the kitchen, and I sat down and looked at the man across from me, who had his hands folded on the table and a smile he wasn’t even trying to hide.
“You flew him from Newark to North Carolina to cook me dinner?”
“I did.”
“Julian.” I was stunned. I looked at the bacalhau. I looked at Julian.
“You flew him here,” I said again, still in shock.
“Eat, Lyss.”
I picked up my fork, and the first bite was exactly the way I remembered it — the crackle of the bacalhau, the give of the injera, the heat coming up slow at the back of my mouth half a second late. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them he was watching me.
“Is it the way you remember?”
“It’s exactly the way I remember it.”
