Page 99 of Aftertaste

First—about us. I’m sorry we didn’t start like you deserved. But my love isn’t any less real because it’s messy. Probably the opposite. Some salt gets mined out of the ground, every crystal perfect, its flavor so predictable it graces every kitchen. But other salt comes out of marshes, gets harvested by hand, tastes like the journey it took to find you, including the wrong turns. I love you more because of where I’ve been, and I’d stay Hungry forever if it would make you believe that loving you was never about not feeling empty. It was about the chance to feel this full.

Second—ghosts. Sorry I dropped that bomb on you. It’s a lot. Too much. And I heard what Viktor said. That you have to raise a zillion ghosts—or else. He’s a fucking movie villain, but I can’t put you in danger, not when I pushed you at him. So do what he says. Try not to worry. On the tracks tonight (Ev says hi, btw) I think I figured out a solve. A way to fix things. And I can do it without you. So here I go again.

Stay safe in the meantime. Stay alive. And maybe someday, if I’m lucky, I’ll be able to beg you to love me again.

Xx, M

FOOD POISONING

KONSTANTIN CALLED. HEtexted. He emailed and even—was it possible to hate himself more?—slid into her DMs. But Maura never replied.

He tried her apartment, too, but she wasn’t there, the spare key she normally kept above the door gone, which he took as a sign that she really didn’t want to see him. His best guess was that she’d watched him cave to Viktor, fold like the coward he was, promise to raise oodles of ghosts after she’d begged him not to. She was probably too pissed to talk.

Well. It wasn’t like he’d be overjoyed to see her either. He was still angry. Still felt used. And lied to. Hurt. It was just that he also wanted to make sure she was okay. You know, alive. Breathing.

He finally slipped a note under her door—Hey. Just wanted to make sure you made it out of the subway. LMK.—and went home, a mix of emotions simmering inside him.

What a fucking night.

WHEN HE GOTto his apartment, he heard the faint sound of the TV behind the door and felt the tension in his chest unspool. Had Maura gone to his place? Was she inside right then, waiting to talk? He fumbled with his keys.

“Shit, you really had me—”

But instead of Maura, it was his mother seated on the couch, the blue light of the screen casting shadows on her face. She turned at the sound of him, her cheeks damp with tears.

“Mama? What’re you—how did you get in?” he began, but stopped when he heard his own voice chuckle through the speaker. A fake laugh. A TV one.

She was watching his interview.

“Actually,” the TV him was saying, “the DUH concept came out of my own experience with food, and with death. I lost my dad as a kid. And my best friend, Frankie—Chef Francis O’Shaughnessy, of Wolfpup—earlier this year.”

He watched himself on-screen, in hair and makeup. Confident. Cool. Even a little handsome. The tattoos—visible from his elbows down, where the stylist had tucked his sleeves—an extension of him, no longer just an imitation of an actual chef. He was owning the room, this other Konstantin, this stranger who looked more together than he’d ever felt, certainly more together than he felt right now. But what he was saying was his truth, Kostya’s own words. The one part of the interview unscripted by the media trainer. Unvetted by the publicist.

“Food is how I found my way back to them. Eating the food they loved, the things they cooked. Someone told me once that grief is like having leftovers, with no one to serve them to. So the things I still had to say, all the moments we never got to have, the love I never got to give them—I put it all into my kitchen. I used it to feed other people.”

His mother paused the DVR. He waited for her to tell him he’d given a great interview. That she’d been moved to tears by the power of his words. That he’d looked good on-screen. To congratulate him on the opening, or maybe tell him he’d lost some weight. Instead—

“You trying give me stroke?”

“What?”

“Why you not answer phone? I call! I text! What you wanting, carrying pigeon? I’m so worried I come myself to make sure you alive!”

“Jeez. Okay, Mama. I’m alive.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to divert the oncoming headache. “Listen, I really have to get to bed; the opening’s tomorrow and—”

“Nyet.I’m not leaving now! You just get here. You ignore me and ignore and ignore and now I see you opening restaurant with mafioso!”

A few days ago, he might have argued the point, but now, well. Touché.

“Yeah… I know he’s not exactly a model citizen. Thank you for your concern. But I’ll take care of it, okay? It’ll be fine.”

“Nyet!” She stomped her foot on the floor. “Nyet, you not taking care of nothing. You take my help this time.”

And maybe it was just the culmination of an unbearable few hours—of feeling utterly betrayed by Maura, who was supposed to be the love of his life; of discovering Viktor’s two faces, one of which was decidedly bloodthirsty and unhinged; of finding out that everything he had worked so hard to create was more than likely a Chekhov’s gun with a kickback like Chuck Norris—but his mother, sitting in his living room, force-feeding him help of the wrong variety, trying to pretend she suddenly cared after two decades of judging and nagging and shipping him off to a psych ward, was absolutely the last straw.

“Are youseriousright now?” He could hear the acid in his own voice.

“Yes. Very serious. I am here to help.”

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