Aftertaste by Meredith Mileti Read Free Book Online Page A

thought we were perfectly complementary, my yin to his yang. That our relationship was better suited to a business partnership than a marriage is something I’ve only lately begun to realize. In a marriage, it’s the little similarities that bring you closer. Nicola is more like Jake; they are both passionate people who take up the room, who burn up the space around them, who consume you, if you let them, and then toss you aside.
    Jake approaches, sits down on the stool near the pastry station, and watches, silently, intently, as I knead the pasta dough. It’s still in the early stage, before the gluten has developed, and I can feel the fine grains of the semolina scrape at the skin of my palms.
    He doesn’t say anything, and I don’t look up. My hands have begun to tremble ever so slightly, and I don’t know if it’s because I’m working hard at suppressing an urge to strangle him or worse, grab him and kiss him. Because I’m not sure what they will do, it seems safer to keep my hands in the dough, which I know I won’t be able to stop kneading as long as he’s sitting there watching me.
    â€œHow’s the baby?” he finally asks.
    â€œ Chloe is fine,” I say, curtly, noticing again that Jake never calls Chloe by her name. “Totally recovered.”
    â€œGood. That’s good,” Jake says.
    I continue working the dough. Jake continues watching me. I sense there’s something more he wants to say, but I have no idea what it might be. Suddenly, I know there’s not much more of this I can stand. I can’t stand being here making pasta with Jake watching me, pretending that we are merely business partners.
    â€œI’d like to come over and see her,” Jake finally says. “See Chloe.”
    I keep kneading, unsure of what I’ve just heard. When I don’t respond, Jake says, “I know that I haven’t, ah,” he pauses, “that we haven’t worked out the details about Chloe and everything, but I won’t leave the apartment with her if you don’t want me to. I can just, you know, visit her. You can be there, or not.”
    It’s unlike Jake to be so compromising, and his tone is vaguely deferential. Could it be that Chloe’s near brush with death has caused him to reconsider his relationship with her?
    â€œSure, you can visit her. She’s your daughter, after all.” I look up at him for a split second. My subtle dig has had no visible effect on him.
    â€œIt would have to be a Sunday,” Jake says, after a pause. We’re closed on Sundays. God forbid Jake miss work to spend time with his child. So much for compromising. “Maybe in the early afternoon?”
    â€œSure,” is all I trust myself to say.
    â€œWell, I’ll see you guys on Sunday afternoon, then,” he says, standing. By the time I look up again, he has crossed the kitchen and returned to scoring the cipolline. I listen to him whistle the theme from “Musetta’s Waltz,” wondering what all this could possibly mean.

chapter 5
    That evening after Chloe falls asleep, I dig out the last two years’ worth of Chef’s Technique. Comfortably ensconced on the couch with a glass of Barolo, I pore over Arthur Cole’s articles, trying to get the measure of a man who makes eleven different attempts in search of the perfect spinach salad and writes, in excruciating detail, about each one.
    As a person who eschews written recipes, I don’t dwell on the obvious irony that I have at least five years’ worth of back issues of Gourmet, Bon Appétit, Saveur, and, of course , Chef’s. The more recent issues I keep on shelves in the kitchen; the rest are in carefully marked boxes, with the index of each issue taped to the box top. I don’t attempt to analyze this behavior. All I know is that it is somehow comforting to know that if I ever have to whip up some bibimbap ( Gourmet, August 2004) on