Aftertaste by Meredith Mileti Read Free Book Online

restaurants in the city, doubtless including Le Bernadin—is a flamboyant guy. The kind of guy who likes to make a splash (one of Eddie’s own unfortunate puns). He wears a diamond pinkie ring and talks like Tony Soprano. What possessed Renata to think we would have the slightest interest in each other?
    â€œRenata, I can’t go out with Eddie. We have a business relationship. I buy fish from him.”
    â€œSo what? He likes you. I ran into him at Esca last week, and he asked about you, said he’s seen more of Jake lately. He heard about the divorce and asked if you were seeing anyone. He told me he’s always kind of liked you.”
    â€œI’m not divorced yet,” I tell her. What I really want to say is that I have no desire to date anyone, never mind Arthur Cole or Eddie Macarelli, and I can’t be forced. Suddenly I wish I’d had the foresight to come up with a more believable excuse. Ebola maybe, or a touch of bubonic plague.
    â€œOkay, okay, forget Plan B. Let’s stick with Plan A,” says Renata. “Let’s just go and have a wonderful dinner. Michael and I will bring Gabriella over to your place at seven. You can show her around and get Chloe settled. I’ll tell Arthur we will meet him at the bar at eight.”
    I’m relieved when Renata hangs up, telling myself that I’m only going because no one passes up dinner at Le Bernadin.
    When I arrive at Grappa the next morning, Jake is there, even though it’s only a little after seven in the morning. Gesturing with the knife he’s using to score the ends of cipolline, he tells me that there’s some mail on the desk in the office I need to attend to. He then turns to me and says with a mysterious little smile that I also should take a look in the refrigerator where there’s a small package with my name on it. Not only is Jake here uncharacteristically early, but scoring cipolline isn’t the sort of work he usually does. That’s the work of the sous-chefs. He looks slightly rumpled, and I again wonder what possibly could have gotten him out of bed this early.
    On top of the stack of mail there’s a phone message from my lawyer, in Jake’s handwriting, confirming our meeting with opposing counsel on the disposition of the marital assets set for the week after Thanksgiving. Then, I open the refrigerator door, and my stomach lurches. Inside is a package wrapped in brown butcher paper and tied with string. On the package is a crude drawing of a fish with huge caricature-style cheeks. Underneath the drawing is a message scrawled in an uneven hand. “Cheeks for the sweet! Dinner for two, sometime?” I’m mortified that Jake knows old “Make a Splash” Eddie wants to date me and by this bizarre courting ritual that involves leaving halibut cheeks wrapped in butcher paper in my refrigerator.
    I make myself an espresso and bring it over to the pastry station where I begin the pasta. I can hear Tony whistling in the large walk-in refrigerator as he unloads the day’s shipment of meat and eggs. I measure out the semolina and deposit it into several piles of approximately equal size on the marble station. Tony has set out a large bowl of fresh eggs and several containers of pasta flavorings, two kinds of pepper (red and coarsely ground black), lemon zest, and anchovy paste. Over the years, I’ve trained all the sous-chefs to make pasta, but I really prefer to do it myself. It’s a quiet and intense activity, a muscular workout, and relaxing, all at once. My favorite time to make pasta is in the early morning, before the full staff arrives, and before the kitchen really comes to life.
    Evening is the time Jake loves best, when, at the height of the dinner service, he screams orders and brandishes kitchen knives like a frenzied maestro. During those times there’s only room for one chef in the kitchen, no matter how large. When Jake and I first met, I