Page 54 of The Spirit of Love
I stumble back into Miguel Bernadeau, who is regaling Amy’s husband with the specs of his new electric truck.
“Sorry, Miguel,” I say.
“Fenny, did you talk to JDS for me?” he whispers.
“Uh—”
“Jude, darling!” I hear Amy coo from the door. “Give me some sugar, you absolute rock star genius.”
But Jude is looking past her, still staring right at me. “Fenny—”
Nope.
I duck around a corner and into the nearest escape—which turns out to be through the swinging doors that lead to Amy Reisenbach’s restaurant-grade kitchen.
“I was hoping you’d come see me,” a voice calls from behind a sage-scented cloud of steam.
“Summer, thank God,” I say and give the chef a long, tight hug.
It’s a little embarrassing to realize that I’ve been ducking into this kitchen—usually to escape Rich—for each of the past five years I’ve made the invite list for Amy Reisenbach’sZombie Hospitalparty. Luckily, Amy’s tastemaker taste extends beyond TV, so whenever I have to hide out in her kitchen, I get to do itin the company of Summer, the Reisenbachs’ personal chef and one of the coolest women I know.
I tend to see Summer only in person at this party once a year, but we have a pretty regular text conversation going. I message her whenever a new spice blend drops at Trader Joe’s; she hits me up when she comes across a good podcast on near-death experiences. Tonight, she’s jamming to Feist on low volume and snacking on sweet corn Turtle Chips.
“What’s good, sister?” she says, coming toward me with a spoon. “Taste this zucchini Parm?”
I open my mouth and let her spoon in. I chew and moan. “You are an alchemist, and that is gold.”
Summer smiles as if she’d been aiming for nothing less. “Courtesy of J&J Farms in the San Joaquin Valley. I’m glad to see you, but I wasn’t expecting you in the back of house tonight. Don’t directors get swarmed at these things?”
I think of Jude out there. I think of Amy’s open arms. “Directorsdo.”
“Uh-oh,” Summer says, reading my tone.
Everyone who meets Summer or tastes her cooking wants to hire her, if they have the means to. She worked as a private chef for Rich for exactly one juice cleanse, after which she told him point-blank she couldn’t take repeat clients she didn’t respect. Summer and I have a wordless understanding when it comes to a lot of the guests at this party, which saves us both the valuable energy it takes to complain.
“You wanna snip some herbs and dance it out?” she asks.
I nod as she hands me a big bunch of chives, a pair of tinyscissors, and a glass bowl. For a couple Feist songs, we prep and breathe and dance in Amy’s fortress of a kitchen.
“Should we talk about something other than work?” Summer asks. “How your sex life?”
“Worse than my work life.”
“Stop.”
“I had a fling. Which I thought was great at the time, but which now casts my real life in this very dismal light.”
Summer smears labneh on a plate and then drizzles chili oil over the top. “Maybe you need another helping of the fling.”
“I can’t. Doesn’t that defy the definition offling? Plus, he lives in a very inconvenient location for a booty call.”
“Honey, that’s why you make him come to you.”
I close my eyes. “I think, more likely, I’ll never see him again.”
“Oh,” she says, “youlikehim—”
The kitchen door swings open. My eyes snap open in horror at the sight of Jude ducking inside.
