But I didn’t need to be the third wheel for the remainder of their real-people evening. So as Jack banged in through the back door, I gathered up my tools.

He immediately called to his fiancée, “C’mere, Crazy, I’ve been waiting to get my hands on you all—oh! Hey, Roxie.” Jack smiled lazily over the top of Grace’s red curls as he tucked her in for a hug. “I forgot you were here tonight. Smells great, what is it?”

“Sliced hanger steak marinated in a little coriander and soy sauce, sliced on a bed of baby arugula and frisée, with roasted Jerusalem artichokes tossed lightly with lemon juice and pecorino cheese,” I said, taking their plates to the table. “Jack, you’re also getting prosciutto-wrapped bosc pears and a big slice of your favorite English cheddar. Grace, you just get pears.”

“How come she doesn’t get fancy pears too?” he asked, sitting in his chair and trying to pull Grace onto his lap.

“I don’t get fancy pears because I have a sex scene to shoot in two weeks,” she said lightly, planting a kiss on his cheek and barely escaping his grabby hands.

“And since I’m skipping the fancy pears, I get to have cake later on,” she said, digging into her salad. “And I might have licked the beaters.”

“Wish I’d been here to see that,” Jack said under his breath.

I shook my head and quietly finished cleaning up the kitchen as they ate their dinner. Which they loved.

After I poured lemon honey glaze over the still-warm pound cakes and prepared to go, Jack and Grace began imploring me to stay.

“You should have some cake with us,” Jack said, moving easily around the kitchen.

Jack Hamilton with an armful of Tupperware: I could sell that picture to a magazine and never have to work again.

“Can’t, but thanks for the offer. I’ve gotta get home and figure out some stuff,” I said, sliding my last knife into its sheath just as my phone rang. Unreal timing, my mother. I’d deal with her later.

“Everything okay?” he asked, concern in his warm eyes.

Unbelievably, I felt my eyes burning a bit. I swallowed hard around the sudden lump in my throat.

“She’s good. I’m going to walk her out,” Grace said, looping an arm through mine and heading toward the back door.

“Brilliant dinner, Roxie, really excellent. Thanks again,” Jack answered, whistling as he turned his attention back to rearranging the inside of the fridge.

I breathed in a huge, watery sigh as I headed out into the night air. “I’m so sorry about that. I don’t know what came over me just now.” I sniffled a bit, dabbing my eyes as we walked out toward my car.

“You’ve had a shitty day—it happens. Talk to your mom.”

“She’s just going to talk me into doing this for her,” I said, setting my things in the back of my car.

“I hate to say this, because it’d mean your pound cakes are leaving—but maybe you need a break. Maybe this would be a good idea. Get out of town for a while, clear your head.”

“If I leave, I’m leaving everything.”

“You already lost most of your clients, Rox,” she said. “Except for us, of course, your favorites.”

“Of course.” I sighed. “You know why I love cooking for you?”

“Because you get to stare at Jack?”

“Obviously. But other than that, I miss cooking real food. Homey food. Calories be damned.”

“Real food in the real world. I hear that.” Grace laughed. “Call your mother, talk it out, and decide what you want to do. Even if you leave, you can always come back.”

“Oh, I’d come back. It took me eighteen years to get out of that tiny town—there’s no way I’d stay there for good,” I said, shaking my head. Population two thousand and thirty-crap?

“Great! If you come back—sorry, when you come back—I’ll put the word out. We know tons of people who could use a great chef, none of them plastic. It’ll all work out.”

“Go eat your cake. I presliced some for you, exactly three ounces. No more,” I said, climbing up into my Wagoneer.

“We’ll see,” she said with a wink.

A few minutes later, I was halfway down the canyon. As soon as I had reception, I called my mother.

I listened to what she said.

Then I went home and looked at my stack of bills, and compared that to my now nonexistent income.

I called my mother back.

“Roxie, it’s after midnight.”

“I’m coming home, Mother. I’ll run the diner. You’ll pay me your salary. For exactly as long as it takes for you to run around the world on your quest with Aunt Cheryl. And then I’m done. No more favors. Ever. Clear?”

“Oh yes! Thank you, you fantastic daughter of mine, thank you! When will you be here? Can you be here by—”

“I’ll call you in the morning and we’ll work all that out, okay? You won, Mother—enjoy it.” I sighed, hanging up and lying back onto my bed.

Shit. I was going home.

A week later, I had sublet my apartment, packed up the Wagoneer, told my boy toy that I’d be gone for the summer and sadly without his company, and pointed the car right.

I mean, east.

Chapter 3

Driving across the country alone can be boring, especially at the beginning of a trip. Sorry, Nevada. Sorry, Utah. I enjoy what you offer the world, the gambling and the Osmonds, but when you’re feeling unsure about your life choices, the desert isn’t a great place to drive through alone for hours on end.

On the other hand, with only the cacti, the sand, and an actual buzzard to bear witness, the desert is the perfect place to roll down the windows and sing “Sweet Caroline” at the top of your lungs. I even did my own backup vocals, giving each bah bah bah my all, with some swerves across the yellow line as a dance element.

It’s possible the desert was getting to me.

But it kept the memories at bay. Memories that were fluttering around the edges between the songs. Thinking about spending some time back east, and maybe seeing my best friends Natalie and Clara, got me thinking about when we all met and that particular time in my life.

I’d left home for the American Culinary Institute in Santa Barbara, convinced it would be the cannon that would shoot me out into adulthood. The place where I’d finally find the life and the life’s work that fit me. I could focus on myself without my mother’s perpetual disasters or the awkwardness of high school holding me back.

I’d been a shy kid, embarrassingly so. Belonging to neither the jocks nor the geeks, the freaks or the brains, I lived in a kind of interstitial no-man’s-land. It’s not like there’s a high school clique comprised of food snobs. It’s not like there’s tons of kids spending their weekends perfecting goat cheese tartlets¸ or holding olive oil tastings in their backyard.

I did both.

I was shy; I was all elbows and knees and blushing as soon as someone looked at me. I fumbled my way through my first serious make-out session with a foreign exchange student from Finland after getting tipsy on smuggled aquavit. He touched my boobs and I liked it. But then I threw up. He never called again.

I once managed to get the zipper of my coat attached to a knot in my hair at lunchtime and spent five minutes trying to free myself, before calmly (I hoped it looked calmly; it felt anything but) eating the haricots verts tossed with almonds and Gruyère that I’d brought from home, trying not to notice the staring from classmates. I once tripped and fell down a flight of stairs in front of my entire class, landing with my skirt around my waist.

I once checked the wrong box on my elective class assignment, and instead of signing up for the Taste of the World parade of culinary delights, I signed up for debate class, and spent an entire semester fearing an egg timer and flop-sweating my way through “The Missouri Compromise—Or Was It?”