“Treasure is their actual name,” Hiromi said. “But also what they mean to me.”
“Aww, you,” Treasure said, already on to the next salad. “So Garrett’s your boss. Does that suck?”
Hiromi stage whispered, “Garrett declined to represent them.”
“I’m too pedestrian.”
“Treasure does portraits,” Hiromi said. “Mine has a sparkling metal eye and a zipper scar across my cheek. Hardly pedestrian.”
“The boss doesn’t like figurative art,” I said. “He won’t represent textile artists either. Too close to fashion, which he’s bad at, clearly.”
Treasure laughed, flashing an I-like-her smile at Hiromi.
A waiter appeared, placing tiny bowls nestling tinier spheres before us, while another poured cups of something cloudy from two different carafes.
“First course: eel and grape accompanied by unfiltered makgeolli—minus the alcohol for you, Hiromi. Enjoy.”
Which meant alcohol for me, but the waiter was already gone.
First course? We hadn’t ordered. I remembered a word from a dinner party at the Wolvaardt compound. “Is this a degustation?”
“A special treat,” Hiromi said. “Sam loves a tasting menu, but the margins are too narrow.”
I looked around at the tables, saw nothing resembling what we had. “It’s just forus?”
“They’re tight,” Treasure said, with an emphasis that made me certain that Chef Sam was Hiromi’s ex.
I sipped the drink. Sweet, delicate, and alive, as if the rice were still fermenting. The bottles had looked expensive, the labels entirely in Korean.
Hiromi was a young struggling artist, a nobody, and yet this place was treating her like a celebrity. As if a cobbled-together family could be as powerful, in its way, as my own eternal one.
Hiromi took one of the spheres between her thumb and forefinger, and brought it to my lips. I briefly tasted the salt of her skin beforebiting into the ball, which burst, fishy, not quite sweet, tart, soft as a grape, with something crunchy inside.
“Your eyes!” Hiromi cried.
I covered my mouth, shy at being caught in such pleasure.
“I’ve never eaten anything like this,” I said truthfully.
Hiromi smiled. “No one has.”
On our tenth course—smoked black cod in a dunkel beer, accompanied by the same beer for me and a heather honey and almond milk concoction for Hiromi—Samantha Chan replaced Treasure at our counter, wiping her hands on her apron.
She leaned across to kiss Hiromi on the mouth. Perhaps they were still lovers.
“My taste buds explode!”
“Your lips to god’s belly,” Sam replied.
Hiromi giggled, like they’d exchanged these words many times before. It was a magic spell that recalled all the meals, all the individual bites, that Chef Sam had placed in her mouth.
I wanted to say something clever, but all that came to me were Morton aphorisms—Knives are sharper in the dark. My verbal reflexes were wrapped in fuzz. It occurred to me that after ten small, curated pours of matching wines, beers, and spirits, I might be drunk.
I watched mutely as Samantha pushed a lock of hair behind Hiromi’s ear.
“Nice to meet you, Jessica,” she said, switching her gaze to me. She looked older than her videos. Her hair was shorter too, buzzed close to her scalp.
“Thank you for doing this for us.” For Hiromi. “It tastes like…”
