Page 22 of Summer Reading

See? Loyalty. I may not have gotten it from my old boss, but I was getting it from my friend.

“It is what it is.” I shrugged.

“It’s crap is what it is,” Em said. She studied me for a moment. “It must be weird for you to be here for the summer. Your life was so glamorous in Boston, like a rock star but with food.” Her voice held a note of longing I’d never heard before. I felt the need to offer a reality check.

“Which part was glamorous?” I asked. “The crummy hours, lousy pay, frequent third-degree burns, lazy sous-chefs, uptight managers, or the misogynistic owner?”

“Well, when you put it like that...”

“Don’t get me wrong,” I said. “I love cooking. It’s just the restaurant biz is brutal. It will chew you up, swallow you down, and then spit you back out.”

“Ew.” She cringed.

“Exactly.”

“Well, so much for living vicariously through you.”Em’s tone was light and teasing, but there was an underlying heaviness to it, as if the truth weighted her words like dry beans held down a piecrust. She shook her head as if I’d just dispelled any fanciful notions she had about me or my life. If I wasn’t mistaken, she looked disappointed that I wasn’t quite the immense success she’d thought I was. Huh.

I’d always thought that Em and I had a friendship that went beyond the surface trappings. In my mind, we were the human embodiment of a pinkie swear with a sisterhood forged in the hellfire of raging hormones, both of us, and no impulse control, mostly me. It had never occurred to me that she might see my life in Boston as something to aspire to, and I wondered if Em was happy.

She’d lived on the Vineyard most of her life, leaving for college but then coming back to live at home and work as a librarian. Growing up, she’d always said she wanted to see the world, but when she didn’t pack a bag and head for parts unknown, I’d assumed that she changed her mind. But now I wondered if that was accurate. Had she abandoned her dreams? And, if so, why? I didn’t know how to ask, so I went for a diversion instead.

“We’ll have to get up to some shenanigans while I’m here for old times’ sake,” I said.

She grinned. “I’d like that.”

When our gazes met and held, it felt as if we were still teenagers riding our bikes on Beach Road, sneakingbeers, and breaking curfew, much to our parents’ deep disappointment.

It goes without saying that I was the bad influence. I had a lot of anger pulsing through me during my teen years, and Em was my wingman. Thankfully, she reined in some of my dumber ideas while I made sure she actually got out and lived a little bit. We’d been good for each other that way.

“You know you’re going to be fine, better than fine, right?” she asked.

I glanced at her. She was looking at me with a surety I hadn’t felt since packing up my knives and leaving the Comstock.

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?” she cried. “You’re one of the best chefs in Boston, no, Massachusetts, no, the United States.”

My eyes went wide. “That’s high praise.”

“I mean it,” she said. “Remember I visited you at the restaurant when I came to Boston. I sat on a stool in the corner and watched you work. You’re going to find your footing again. I know you will.”

“Thanks, Em,” I said. I was feeling a bit choked up. Whenever Em came to Boston, which was a couple of times a year, she always stayed with me and frequently hung out at the restaurant while I worked. This was a pep talk that only a best friend who had seen me in my element could deliver. “I really appreciate that.”

She considered me for a second. “What do you thinkabout doing a cooking demonstration for our teen summer reading program?”

“Cooking program? As in teaching teens to cook?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m in charge of the teen programming, and I haven’t been able to think of anything that’s engaging, but a cooking program...”

“Will likely bore them to death unless I’m teaching them how to make their favorite fast food at home,” I said.

Her eyebrows shot up. “That’s it. That’s brilliant. Could you do that?”

“You’re serious?”

“Yes,” she said. She bounced on her chair and clapped as if she’d just won a cakewalk. “That would be so much fun. Say you’ll do it.”

“Okay, I’ll do it,” I said.

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