Bliss by Hilary Fields Read Free Book Online

sound like Pauline,” Sera said, smiling into the phone. It was true, though. From the moment she’d left culinary school, her life had been a whirlwind of ninety-plus-hour weeks, racing to meet Blake’s expectations and her own high standards, medicating herself with alcohol when it got to be too much. By the time she’d bottomed out, Sera had been in no condition to scrape herself off the bathroom floor and hie herself off to parts unknown. Instead, Pauline had dropped everything to come to Sera, gotten her into a program, and stayed long enough to make sure it stuck. In the year since then, all of Sera’s nonrecovery energies had been spent on trying to salvage some semblance of a career—no easy feat with Blake Austin still actively out to ruin her. But now there was a glimmer of hope for something better…
    Serafina cleared her throat, her voice strengthening a bit. “Margaret,” she began cautiously, “Pauline floated a bit of a radical idea my way tonight, and I wanted to run it by you.”
    It had seemed more than a bit radical when Pauline had broached the subject over the homemade chile rellenos she’d prepared for their dinner. Yet Sera had liked the taste of the idea even better than the flavor of the traditional New Mexican dish. “What would you say if I told you I’ve been thinking of not coming back to New York for a while? Of… of… actually staying out here and trying something different with my life?” She spoke hesitantly, ninety percent sure her sponsor would trot out the “no major changes” mantra she’d drilled into her head so often during her first year of recovery.
    There was a bit of a silence.
    â€œI actually think it could be a great idea, hon,” Margaret said at length.
    â€œBecause, quite honestly, lately, when I think of the future, I’m just really unenthused. You know how slow things have been for me. I make a decent enough living letting restaurants and cafés sell my stuff under their own labels, but my career’s never really recovered from what happened, and I don’t see how that’s ever going to change so long as He Who We Don’t Deign to Name is around to keep the rumors fresh.” Sera tried to keep the bitterness from her voice as she plowed on. “Anyhow, Carrie practically runs the catering business on her own these days—or she could; she’s been angling for more responsibility for a while now. And what else do I have tying me to New York? I mean, shit, my social life consists of stitch ’n’ bitch parties with the crocheting circle from our AA fellowship and walking my neighbor’s nine-thousand-year-old pug while she whoops it up salsa dancing with our superintendent. I don’t have kids, houseplants, or pets of my own to worry about, and it’s not as if I couldn’t find someone to sublet my loft…”
    Belatedly, Serafina’s ears caught up with her tongue. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
    Margaret’s laughter tickled her ear. “You’re how old now, honey? Twenty-eight?”
    â€œTwenty-nine, but I’m stopping there,” Serafina joked cautiously. Had Maggie really said…
    â€œTwenty-nine. Old enough, now that you’ve got your feet firmly under you, to make these kinds of big life decisions for yourself. If you want to investigate a new possibility—follow your ‘Bliss,’ as it were—well, that’s what the whole process of getting healthy has been about.”
    The knot of anxiety Sera hadn’t even known she’d been holding on to began to loosen in her chest. Maggie was the person she most trusted to tell her if her secret hope—a hope of a future that looked nothing like her past—was a mere pipe dream, or something worth pursuing.
    â€œSo you think it makes sense to stay out here?”
    â€œWell, I mean, obviously you’re going to need some