Chapter Twenty-Five

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Ellie

The Berkeley Marina was deserted in the endless heat wave. It was already over eighty degrees at nine o'clock, and a bead of sweat trickled down my spine as I got out of the car. Tad was a dark shape on a bench in the shade of a huge cypress tree, and I was torn between dragging out the seconds until we met and diving out of the early September sun's glare.

When I got close to him, he half-chuckled and put his aviators on his head. "I didn't mean for this to feel like a scene from a spy movie when I suggested we meet here. I honestly thought there would be more people." He held out a dripping plastic cup, a disturbingly cheery pink-and-white striped straw sticking out of the top. "One iced coffee with extra half-and-half. That's your favorite from Milano, right?"

The drink almost slipped out of my hand when the cold condensation met my sweaty palm. "Thanks," I said tentatively as I sat at the other end of the bench. I took a big gulp of bitterness, knowing the caffeine wouldn't help my anxiety, but desperate for something to occupy me.

For a moment we sat silently and looked out at San Francisco, hazy skyscrapers in the heat. This should have been an idyllic scene. Sunshine so bright it shimmered on the black pavement and turned into diamonds on the surface of the Bay, birds chirping sleepily in the trees, seagulls calling on the water.

"You must be angry," I said to get it over with.

He sighed, and my stomach dropped another story. "I'm not angry, Ellie. I'm hurt. Disappointed, too."

I closed my eyes, feeling his pain in my chest, my stomach. Anger I had more experience with. My mother specialized in sudden, quick explosions. I'd developed a protocol: take cover, stay quiet until it was over, and then once she was pretending nothing had happened, do the same.

I didn't have a framework for disappointment. Disappointment was a heavy sludge that got into every corner of me, weighed me down.

Tad turned his iced black coffee in his hands. " Whatever You Want looks good," he said thoughtfully, "but we still have the passes to get through, and I need you to bring your A-game to editing. Make the right calls. Can you do that if you're having sex with him?"

It would be so easy to tell him I'd fall in line. But I'd worked my tail off for him for years, and this was how much faith he had in me? "Have you ever had any reason to doubt my commitment?" I said, an edge of anger in my voice.

"No, but then you haven't done something I asked you expressly not to do. This isn't like you, Ellie," he said, sounding exhausted. He looked over at me and his lips curled up a little. "I did some digging in my inbox, and I found the first email you wrote me. Do you remember?"

"Of course," I said, smiling back. In my second semester of freshman year, I'd gotten obsessed with a cookbook by a baker who'd trained in a patisserie in Paris, worked in Michelin-starred kitchens in London and New York, then moved back to her hometown in Down East Maine to open her own shop. The recipes for potato-rosemary sourdough and sticky buns plump with honeyed apples were foolproof and delicious, but what I loved the most was the strong sense of home and joy and community. One day I'd turned to the back of the book and gone through the acknowledgments until I'd found Tad's name, and I'd written him a gushing email, telling him about the recipes I'd tried and asking how I could make a book like that. After a week, he'd written back to offer me a summer internship.

"You know we didn't even have an internship program when I offered the place to you?" he said now. "I had to make one up on the fly. HR was having kittens." He shook his head, laughing a little. "But I had this feeling about you, you know? That you would be brilliant to teach and train, and that if I didn't sign you up now, some other publisher would when you graduated."

He rested his hand on my shoulder. "You've been a dream to work with. You're responsible, and diligent, and you can see what matters the most."

The shame was a rope, tying me up tighter and tighter. "Until Kieran."

"Yes." He sighed and took his hand away. "I know what it's like, to lose your first big love. I remember what it's like to be so lonely it's like you're walking through an endless wasteland. I understand you getting to the point where you want to have a little fun."

The gray sadness I'd been sharing with him turned into something red and bristly. A friend with benefits was the textbook definition of a little fun, but making Kieran sound like fluff was wrong.

"But Ellie, I wouldn't want you to do anything that calls your professional integrity into question. You could have a great career ahead of you. I'd hate to see you wreck it for someone who wasn't serious."

The bristle disappeared, leaving behind fear. What if I became known as the kind of writer who sleeps with the talent? A huge hole opened in front of me, rocks and dust falling into emptiness. No more commissions. No more place of my own. No more possibility of writing my own book someday. Just waiting and waiting for my life to begin, stuck in a swamp of clinging grief.

"I understand," I said to my half-full cup. If I wanted to keep moving forward, I had to stay in my lane. Keep my head down, work hard, get rewarded. Eventually.

Tad nodded. "Good. I know you, Ellie. You'll be back on track in no time. This was a blip, that's all."

I tried not to cringe at the dismissiveness of that word. Tried not to remember the comfort of the haven Kieran had made for me, the whole parlor's worth of ice cream he wanted to try. He wanted to be worthy of me. It had been so beautiful, but what if it had been all wrong from the beginning?

He wasn't for me. He couldn't be. "Yes," I said quietly to Tad. "Just a blip."

W HEN I PULLED up in front of my cottage, Diane came out the kitchen door and waved to me.

"Wonderful timing," she called cheerily as I got out. "I've just made cookies and the teakettle's boiling."

I didn't know how she could stand to bake in a heat wave, but in the three weeks since the Berkeley semester had started without her, there had been wafts of vanilla and cinnamon and stone fruit drifting from the kitchen windows. Now I could smell a warm, bitter puff of baked chocolate, but unhappiness was making a sour brew with the coffee in my stomach. I wanted to get into bed with Floyd and pull the comforter over us, shut out the world where I couldn't seem to move without disappointing someone. "I'm not super hungry, Ema," I said carefully.

She shook her head, smiling. "You've made me plenty of cups of tea. Let me make you one. Please."

I was too tired to demur. I followed her into the kitchen and took a seat at the kitchen table, where she put a small red-and-white china plate and matching teacup in front of me. "These cookies are held together with powdered sugar and cocoa powder instead of flour. Gluten-free things seem to be everywhere these days. I figured I'd give it a try," she chattered.

I reached for one of the tiny deep-brown cookies on the plate and took a tentative bite. The unprepossessing outside packed a rich, bittersweet punch on my tongue, and then dissolved. Some tiny part of me woke up that had been dormant for three years. Diane hadn't lost her touch. She could still make amazing food, the way she'd taught me to.

"Nothing like a nice cup of English tea," Diane said as she filled my teacup. "Good cookie?"

"Really good," I said, unable to keep the surprise out of my voice. After another minute of Diane's chatter about the vegan chocolate cake she wanted to make next, my confusion overwhelmed me. I put my teacup down and blurted, "Is everything OK, Ema?"

She stopped speaking midthought. Five seconds passed, and I was about to take back the question when she said, turning her teacup in a circle, "It's strange, being retired. I thought things would be better once I wasn't dealing with department politics and students who only wanted recommendations for law school, but they're not better. They're just different."

She put her hand over mine. "I know I haven't been paying you much attention recently. But now that I have so much more time, I'd like to spend it with you. Like we used to. I know you're very busy with your work, though."

It was like my wishes were being granted on a time delay. A year ago, I would have wanted nothing more than that. A year from now, would I suddenly stop wishing for the man I couldn't have if I wanted to keep my career?

"I want to go to the City and pick you out a new dress," Diane said, because she couldn't read my mind. "When was the last time you went shopping there?"

"Not for a long time," I said, dragging myself back into the present. I hadn't gone since I'd started my budget spreadsheet, not to mention that it was easier now to buy plus-sized clothes online than in a store.

She nodded enthusiastically. "That's good. We can have a girls' day out on Union Square. Lunch in the Nordstrom café, too."

From a conversation about the end of my career to ladies' lunches—my poor, overheated brain couldn't cope. I took a deep, shuddering breath.

Diane's brow furrowed. "Ellie? Are you all right? You're so pale under those freckles of yours."

I rubbed my face and let off a strange, high giggle. "Work has been really stressful," I said. "This last project took a lot out of me." True, but not the truth.

But Diane just nodded. "Oh, sweetheart, I'm sorry to hear that. Maybe you need to take a break before you do the next book. Sleep in, go for walks, read for pleasure." She smacked the table lightly. "I know! Maybe we could all go on vacation somewhere! It's been years since we've been down to Monterey. Some sea air would put the color back in your cheeks—I'm sure of it."

I couldn't tell her I wanted to leave her, not when she seemed to be climbing out of the hole she'd fallen into. Maybe I could wait a little longer. Save a little more. Soak in a little bit of her certainty.

So I kept eating the rich cookies, and listening, and when my phone vibrated with Kieran's text, I ignored it.