“Oh, no. I mean, I worked for a mechanic for a bit when I was in my twenties, but now I work for GM in one of their corporate offices. What kind of car do you drive?”
“I don’t. I live in New York City.”
So that was the end of that.
The second guy was a young adjunct college professor who dressed the part in a tweed blazer and button-down shirt open at the collar. He taught freshman English at three different schools in the city to make ends meet. Paige had a mental image of him constantly in motion to make it to all these classes.
“You’re not far off the mark,” he said when she explained that. “On Tuesdays and Thursdays I teach at Cooper Union and City College. That’s a solid half hour on the subway.”
Paige laughed. “You ever see that episode ofFriendswhen Ross has to teach classes across town from each other and ends up getting roller skates?” Then she silently cursed herself for spending too much time with Evan.
The guy frowned at her. “Is that a show? I don’t own a TV.”
The next guy was a foodie, and they did have an interesting conversation about a new Manhattan restaurant Paige had eaten at the month before. “Best gnocchi I’ve ever had,” she said.
“I love Italian. My sister is a chef, actually. She’s the executive chef at Acre in the Village.”
“Oh, cool. I’ve never eaten there. What kind of food is it?”
“New American, I guess? The menu is pretty eclectic. And it’s all organic, farm-to-table with a large vegetarian and vegan selection.”
“Sounds great. A friend and I ate at a place like that in Brooklyn about a month ago…” But she stopped talking because she’d been thinking about Josh and the day she’d taken him to brunch before they’d walked to the Brooklyn Bridge. That had been… Well, it had been one of the best days of her life, if she was honest. Remembering it made her wonder why she washereand not with Josh.
“You okay?” the foodie asked.
“Yeah, sorry, I was thinking about something unimportant.” Paige smiled.
“Brooklyn has agreatfood scene,” the guy went on. “A lot of new places are opening in neighborhoods where you wouldn’t expect.”
She managed to learn that the foodie’s name was Gabe and she invited him to be her partner when the chef organizing the event called for them to do so. Paige saw Evan approach the guy who’d been holding up a pillar. As they approached the table in the middle, Paige looked around and saw a lot of mixed-up gender pairings, same and opposite sex and a few nonbinary couples, which made her smile.
The chef assigned each couple to a hot plate and quickly explained the instructions. All they really had to do was dump the pre-measured ingredients in a bowl when instructed to do so, then they’d be tossing vegetables in this spice mix and frying them in a pan with tofu or chicken, depending on the couple’s preference. Easy enough.
It turned down that Gabe liked to eat but cooking was not really something in his wheelhouse, so Paige ended up doing most of the work. They opted for chickenandtofu and tossed them both with the veggies in the wok. The chef walked around to check on them as they cooked and deposited a little Styrofoam container of rice for them to add to their meal.
The meal came out pretty well and Gabe praised Paige’s skill at cooking.
“They did a lot of the work for us,” said Paige.
“Sure, but I don’t know if I could have done that much. I can barely boil eggs.”
“How do you eat?”
“A lot of takeout.”
Paige and Gabe exchanged phone numbers before Gabe’s friends pulled him away to go get drinks at a bar down the street. Gabe invited Paige, but Paige begged off to find Evan, who was shamelessly flirting with the pillar guy. Evan put his phone number in the guy’s phone before the guy wandered away.
“Well?” said Evan.
“Gabe was nice, but I don’t think he’s very good at life.”
Evan let out a surprised burst of laughter. “What makes you say that?”
“He can’t cook. Like, at all. And yet I learned that he’s thirty-three and lives alone.”
“I don’t know if that’s a character flaw, but the fact that this is a cooking-related event does make him seem suspect.”
Paige sighed. “How about you?”
