Page 46 of Aftertaste

“Suicide hotline,” she informed him. “For teens. One of my side hustles.”

“Shit. Well now I want to crawl into a hole.”

“Think you could make me some coffee first?”

Kostya messed with the coffeepot while Maura frowned into her fridge and began pulling ingredients out of it—leftover slices of salami, half a container of strawberries, a jar of gherkins, three brown eggs.

“You gonna put all that in a mystery basket?”

She looked down at the counter. “Julia Child I am not.”

“Julia? The school lunch lady wouldn’t touch that combo.”

“Don’t make me deduct points.”

“Oh, so there’s points now?”

“Obviously.”

“What about prizes?”

Maura slapped two Kraft singles onto the pile, gave him a mischievous smile.

“You make all that into something edible and I’ll see if we can top last night’s performance.”

Kostya processed this a moment.Holy cannoli, Batman.

“Set your timer.”

FORTY-TWO MINUTES LATER,Maura was moaning.

“Oh my God. Oh myGod.” She took another bite of strawberry soufflé. “This is some next-level tantric Kabbalah shit.”

“That’ssupposedto be dessert,” Konstantin tsked.

“Life is uncertain.” She wagged the spoon at him. “Eat dessert first.”

“Try the Benedict.”

He slid the plate over, watched her crack the crispy salami basket with the edge of a fork, the yolk of the poached egg beneath oozing out, mixing with the Hollandaise, five stars for the preparation. She closed her eyes as she chewed.

“I think I love you,” she said, swallowing. “Where’d you learn this?”

“Saveur Fare, mostly.”

“Saveur Fare?” she repeated. “As in three Michelin stars, exec’d by culinary legend Michel Beauchêne, reservations six months out Saveur Fare?”

“You side hustle as a food critic, too?”

“Just as a foodie.” She dug her fork back into the eggs. “Saveur’s been on my bucket list for ages. Look at you, fancy pants.”

“It wasn’t like that. I was a glorified dishwasher.”

“Isn’t that how all apprentices start?”

“That makes it sound more… intentional than it was. I just—I got lucky. Guys on the line quit, I moved up. Don’t get me wrong; I’m grateful. Saveur taught me everything about how a restaurant works, how a kitchen operates, how to make something out of just about anything. But the flavors—the spices, the combinations, the mouthfeel—that education, that’s mostly the ghosts.”

He said it without thinking, without any reflex to hide or deflect or explain it away, because Maura already knew. There was something so freeing in being able to tell her, in having someone he could confide in again, confess what it felt like to live with the Dead. It made him realize, with a pang, just how much he missed Frankie, how alone he’d been with his secret since he died.

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