was startled—Portia help with a household task?—but wisely retreated. “I have to make a couple of calls. Yell when it’s ready.”
“Will do, boss,” she said, putting him in his place.
Where he needed to stay.
Back at her apartment, Elena took some time to rest and read, only walking over to the restaurant in the very late afternoon. Alvin slumped on the porch, enjoying the sunlight. Roberto washed dishes, singing along to the radio, and Ivan scraped a bowl clean with a spatula. He looked fine, and she realized that she’d been worried that the drinking would make him binge. “You didn’t have to come in,” she said.
Ivan shrugged. “I know.”
“Is Hector here today?” she asked.
“Tomorrow,” Roberto said. “He has Sundays off when he can. Likes to go to mass.”
“Does he have a sister?” Elena asked.
Roberto raised his head. After a moment, he nodded. He touched his temple. “Ella es adivina.”
Fortune-teller. “Will you see Hector tonight? Will you tell him for me that I want to see her?”
Roberto nodded. He rinsed the bowl and put it away. From his pocket, he brought out a cell phone and punched in the numbers. Elena left him to it and went to the office. She had paperwork to do.
There was an email from Mia, of course. Ripe anger bloomed in her throat and she was tempted to delete the post unread. Instead, she stabbed the button to open it.
From: [email protected]
Subject: (no subject)
My darling Elena, I know how angry you are this morning, but please call me. Please don’t see this as a betrayal, because you’ll never forgive betrayal, and it isn’t. I swear. I’ve been trying to tell you for two months that I wasn’t sure, that I might really need to stay with this man, that he’s right for me, and you haven’t been listening.
Babycakes, my dearest, dearest sister, please call me. I want to tell you the story. It was so romantic—Kevin came to the airport with flowers, begging me to stay. I am so in love! It happens to you all the time, but not to me.
Call me, call me, call me.
I love you.
Mia
Elena glared at the page. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she muttered at the email. “I don’t fall in love all the time!”
But with shame, she saw a sudden parade of men—serious love affairs. Christopher and Timothy and George and Andrew and Dmitri. Between them, minor connections—a blues singer in San Francisco, a sturdy businessman in New York, a soccer player in Vancouver.
And Edwin, of course, so long ago. The only lover who visited, over and over, the memory of him unsullied, always sweet. She thought of her dream, of his supple, unflawed eighteen-year-old flesh, his unmarked face and furious passion.
Perfect. And of course, no one could ever measure up to a memory.
But Mia, as her note plainly displayed, knew what the price of betrayal was. She had known Elena would not forgive this, and she had chosen a man over a friendship. “Sister!” she said aloud to the screen. “Some sister.”
Somewhere at the core of her, Elena wanted to put her head down on the desk and wail. She had so been looking forward to having Mia here, a woman, a friend, an ally.
But she didn’t put her head down—because she already knew this truth: people left you. It was the one true thing she knew. Everyone always left you. She could only count on herself.
And she could count on work. Focus on her job. That was where real reward lay. She deleted Mia’s email and pulled up the books and ordering forms. Almost time. She would make a checklist to make sure nothing was missed for this week.
Work.
The first tasting, for the staff on Monday night, went over with wild success, and despite her annoyance at Mia—who called every day to leave apologetic messages on her voice mail, and sent email after email, which Elena deleted unread—Elena felt the first real surge of confidence. Thanks to the long hours of training and establishing the spirit of the kitchen, the evening ran very smoothly.
Elena put Peter on figuring out desserts. He wasn’t happy, and it didn’t help that the other guys in the kitchen snickered over it—pastry chefs were an entirely different realm. Not really chefs at all, in the opinion of the male world. Peter protested, too, said he was a cook, not a chemist. But she’d seen something in his loving attention to detail that made her think he’d do a good job, that he