Page 47 of Ideal Life

“Just temperature,” Erin said.

“Okay then, here—let’s try it again.” Georgia filled the spoon with soup but blew on it this time to cool it down.

Erin sat mesmerized. Georgia, at least, knew how to make her mouth look incredibly sexy around food.

“I think it’s edible now,” she said, holding the spoon out.

Erin leaned in and sipped it. The coconut soup was sweet but also rich with all sorts of spices she wasn’t familiar with. “Mm, that’s incredible. If that’s the window to your soul, I need more.”

“I’m so happy you like it.” Georgia put some noodles into the spoon this time, along with more soup, and fed Erin again.

Within minutes, they’d polished off the bowl together.

Georgia pointed to the dishes Erin had gotten. “Should we have some of those, too?”

“Sure, I—”

But Erin couldn’t finish. Her throat started closing up. She gasped.

“Are you okay?” Georgia’s eyes went wide.

Erin winced. “I’ll… be… fine. Just—” She rubbed at her neck.

“Here.” Georgia thrust the cup of sugarcane juice at her. “Maybe some liquid will help?”

Now Erin’s pulse was really racing, but not because of the date. She frowned at the empty bowl of laksa.

“Nuts?” she managed to say, pointing.

“No, just noodles and coconut—oh no, coconut!”

But Erin shook her head. In terms of allergies, coconut was a fruit, not a tree nut, despite the name. It shouldn’t have been a problem.

Georgia was furiously typing on her phone.

Meanwhile, Erin’s eyes started to itch and her nose was running. She could also feel little red hives beginning to rise on her cheeks and around her mouth. She fumbled for her purse to get her EpiPen, but the bag tumbled off the chair and onto the food court floor, spilling its contents everywhere.

“Shit,” Georgia said. “There’s a little bit of candlenut ground up into a paste in the laksa. Are you allergic to them?”

Erin had no idea what candlenuts were, but it didn’t matter now, because it was pretty clear what was happening.

She fell to her knees and scrambled after the EpiPen, which had skidded a couple of feet away. But even when she had it, her hands shook with panic because her throat was closing up more, and Erin couldn’t get the safety cap off. Involuntary tears spilled from her swollen eyes.

“Somebody call an ambulance!” Georgia shouted, before dropping down to the ground next to her and taking off the EpiPen’s cap. “Let me help. Show me where to inject it.”

The thigh was the best place because it was a large muscle with good blood supply and would rapidly absorb the medicine. Erin yanked up her skirt, inadvertently exposing her seamless but ugly nude-colored panties that she’d chosen for smoothness, not sexiness. Georgia jabbed the EpiPen in while snot ran down Erin’s hive-ridden face.

A few minutes later, the swelling in her throat began to ease, and the ambulance arrived. The EMTs insisted on taking her into the hospital, just in case.

Mortified, Erin told Georgia not to accompany her. Could there have been a worse date?

By the time Erin was released, Georgia had driven her car back to campus for her and left the keys at the dorm with Colette. She’d left only a short note:

I’m sorry how that turned out. Hope you feel better soon.

See you in class.

—G