Taste the Love

by Karelia Stetz-Waters, Fay Stetz-Waters

Genres: Contemporary Romance; Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

A delicious, heartwarming romantic comedy about big dreams, life-changing friendships, and the people who bring out your best.

Six years ago, eco-chef Alice Sullivan and her culinary-school rival almost gave into the burning tension between them. But those kisses? Just the heat of competition boiling over. Sullivan never expected to see Kia after graduation . . . until Kia crashes back into her life with a plan to buy Sullivan’s beloved Portland greenspace.

Kia has worked hard building her social media empire as the big-hearted glitter-bomb queen of the food-truck scene. Now she’s one step away from opening a foodie utopia for underrepresented culinary talents. But Kia’s plans catch the attention of a bulldozer-happy food conglomerate, and now both Kia and Sullivan’s dreams are on the line. When a legal loophole turns out to be the only way to save what they each love most, they’re left with one option: pull off a very public fake marriage to obtain the deed to the land and keep their old rivalry under control.

As the line between fake and real love blurs, can Kia and Sullivan set aside their differences and find the perfect recipe for happily ever after?
 

Release date: July 15, 2025

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 352

Sample

Kia Jackson sat on the stage of the Jean Paul Molineux School of Culinary Arts in a white, double-breasted chef’s coat. She was waiting to receive her diploma and, much more importantly, to find out whether she’d beaten her culinary arts school rival, Alice Sullivan, to the designation of highest ranked student in the class and the winner of the Prix du Patrimoine Culinaire award. The seed money from the award would help her start her career as a food truck influencer, something she’d been working toward for years. She knew you didn’t just fall into being an influencer because you looked sexy in an apron. It was a career, and she was ready for it. She’d be even more ready if she won the money, but that benefit was a stale mini marshmallow compared to the luscious, gooey, gourmet Rice Krispies treat that would be beating Sullivan.

The president of the school stood at a podium in the center of the stage, flanked by ostentatious arrangements of peonies. He raised his hand to the ceiling.

“As graduates of the Jean Paul Molineux School of Culinary Arts, you stand as a bastion of high culture in a world degraded by the banality of modern society…”

Beside Kia, Sullivan, the only other woman in the graduating class, whispered, “Starting a food truck? Really, Jackson?”

“I’m not going to spend the rest of my life dusting fern fronds with organic bee pollen.”

Kia didn’t move her lips as she spoke. Four years in school with Alice Sullivan, and they could smack talk in their sleep. Kia did talk to Sullivan, in her mind, before snatching a few hours of sleep between finishing in the practice kitchen and morning classes, never quite remembering the conversations.

The president went on. “… upholding the integrity of…”

“Tursnicken,” Sullivan whispered.

The tursnicken was Kia’s one culinary fail (well… one of a very small number of fails). Really she just had to perfect it. The tursnicken wasn’t even for class, just a genius inspiration. A chicken stuffed with Snickers bars, stuffed inside a turkey, and deep-fried in a fryer outside in the parking lot on a freezing January day. Sullivan had strolled out in her men’s wool peacoat, turned off the propane, wrapped her Burberry scarf around Kia’s neck, and said, Go home, kid, before that thing blows up.

“And now it is my pleasure to introduce the student speaker for tonight. He will be announcing the students with the three highest scores in the class and giving the award.”

Kia glanced at Sullivan and tapped one finger on her breastbone to say, Highest.

Sullivan mouthed, Second place.

That mouth. Those sculpted lips, coral pink although Sullivan never wore makeup. And those chestnut curls falling over her eyes. The way Sullivan rolled up the cuffs of her sport coats. The way she tucked her tan button-downs into her tan slacks, looking like a naturalist from the 1920s. The way Sullivan flirted with the men in the program and occasionally their sisters when families visited for banquets. How many times had Kia watched Brad or John or Chad stammer, confused by their sudden attraction to this masc woman who charmed them with a smile and a strut? Probably every time, because Kia had been watching Sullivan since the first day of class.

“In competition for the prestigious Prix du Patrimoine Culinaire and the accompanying twenty thousand start-up… Would our three top candidates stand.” The student speaker read Kia’s name. Stage lights eclipsed the audience, but Kia thought she heard her father whistle and her aunt shush him. The student speaker followed with Sullivan’s name and the name of a quiet Midwestern man she’d never talked to.

“In third place…”

The shy Midwesterner.

“In second place…”

Kia held her breath.

“Chef Alice Sullivan.”

Kia had done it! All those late nights, exhausted mornings, parties she didn’t go to, friends she didn’t make… It was absolutely, unequivocally worth it. She’d beat Alice Sullivan.

“Coming in point six percent higher, making her the seventy-eighth winner of the Prix du Patrimoine Culinaire, Kia Jackson.”

She was also the second Black woman to win, the fifth youngest student, and the student with the highest overall score. None of that mattered. She’d beaten Sullivan!

“You little brat,” Sullivan said with so much affection Kia felt a lump in her throat.

I love you. Kia didn’t really, but her body could not hold a higher volume of adrenaline than at that moment. She loved everyone and everything. She beamed into the spotlight shining from the theater’s light booth, but inside she was beaming at Sullivan.

While the speaker adjusted his microphone, the president walked over and shook hands with Kia, Sullivan, and the Midwesterner. Then he sat back down.

At the podium, the speaker cleared his throat. “If Jean Paul Molineux was here, I think he’d agree, we’ve never seen a fiercer competition.”

The crowd laughed. The graduating class knew all about Kia and Sullivan’s rivalry.

“Losing to your most hated rival, Chef Sullivan? Is Kia going to make it out alive?”

Sullivan looked shocked.

“I don’t hate Kia.”

The microphone didn’t catch her voice, and the speaker continued.

“For those of you who don’t know these two,” the speaker went on, “Chef Jackson and Chef Sullivan have been trying to destroy each other since day one. Don’t worry. There are enough kitchens for the two of you. I understand Chef Sullivan got a job in Japan at Nishi Rashu.”

The other graduates oohed. You didn’t get more prestigious than Nishi Rashu.

“It’s probably a good thing one of you leaves the country though. We don’t want you fighting at the alumni dinners.”

More laughter.

Was that the only way this bastion of borderline-toxic masculinity could understand what she and Sullivan were to each other? Sullivan was her muse. She’d learned more trying to best Sullivan than in half her classes. The speaker went on. The graduates kept laughing. Kia tried to cut in. Sullivan looked at her, confusion turning down the corners of her perfect lips. Kia couldn’t walk off the stage with everyone thinking she hated Sullivan.

“But, in fact, we’ve all been competing,” the student speaker went on, “with ourselves, and I would say that we are the best competition.”

At the end of the student speaker’s speech, the president returned to the podium. Along with two professors, he began handing out diplomas. The students were organized alphabetically except for Kia, Sullivan, and the Midwesterner.

“First in class.” The president handed Kia her diploma. “Chef Kiana Jackson.

“Coming in point six percent behind Chef Jackson, Chef Alice Sullivan. You two stay out of each other’s hair, okay?” The president spoke affectionately enough, but this couldn’t be how it went down. Kia couldn’t walk off the stage with don’t-you-hate-Sullivan? seared onto the moment by a roomful of men who didn’t understand the difference between fierce dislike and fierce admiration, so she turned to Sullivan, her diploma slipping from her fingers, rose up on her toes, and kissed her, tangling her fingers in Sullivan’s curls the way she’d longed to every time Sullivan pulled off her hairnet.

She realized how massively inappropriate it was a split second after her lips touched Sullivan’s. But before she could pull away, she felt Sullivan’s hand on her waist. Their lips melted together. In that moment, every car and pedestrian and pigeon and gritty breeze in New York froze, because this was too important. Nothing else could happen in this moment except this kiss.

When Sullivan pulled away, she was obviously trying to suppress a smile. She brushed her thumb across Kia’s cheek, half caress, half like she were brushing away a crumb.

“Point six percent.” Sullivan shook her head. “Well played, Jackson.”

Their classmates cheered. Deep in their hearts, they didn’t want the story to be about hate. This was graduation. They wanted a happy ending. Applause rang in her ears, and the lights dazzled her eyes as Kia picked up her diploma and made her way off the stage. The other graduates received their diplomas in the alphabetical order of the bottom ninety-seven percent of the class.

After the ceremony, friends and family pressed into the banquet hall. Kia introduced Sullivan to her father, aunt, uncle, and cousin. Sullivan introduced Kia’s family to hers, including her grandfather, who wore the same dapper vest and tie that Sullivan wore when she wasn’t in her chef’s whites, and a woman introduced only as Miss Brenda. The woman glanced knowingly between Kia and Sullivan and smiled. Music played. Hors d’oeuvres circulated. She lost track of Sullivan for several hours, but when the graduation party was over and Kia was just about to admit that she’d seen the last of Sullivan, Sullivan appeared beside her where Kia leaned against the wall by the door.

“You blew their minds,” Sullivan said.

“Did I blow your mind?”

Flirting was not Kia’s forte. Cooking was. Charming people into letting her use their fancy restaurants’ kitchens. She also had a few impressive, if less-than-useful, superpowers. She could sail a yacht and train a dog to use a composting toilet thanks to a father who thought a yacht full of spaniels was a good place to raise a child. (He was right.) But her flirting always landed at the extreme ends of the spectrum that started with so-subtle-no-one-would-notice and ended with cheugy-enough-to-be-creepy. But Sullivan’s appreciative grin told her tonight’s flirtation hadn’t failed.

“You want to go back to the practice kitchen and finally show me how you make those pear Rice Krispies treats?”

Kia was also the only person to ever make Rice Krispies treats at the Jean Paul Molineux School of Culinary Arts. Some of the professors had refused to taste them. Everyone else agreed they’d beaten all the other desserts combined.

“If you tell me the secret ingredient in your gazpacho.”

Sullivan nodded. “You’re on.”

Sullivan met her in the kitchen twenty minutes later. They hadn’t turned their keys in yet. The kitchen rested in after-school silence, lit by the security lights. All the stations immaculately clean. Everything put away. Kia reached for the lights, but Sullivan stopped her, gently placing her hand over Kia’s. Kia’s whole essence—mind, body, and soul—sparkled like the bubbles in a fine Veuve Clicquot. And Sullivan kissed her again. Sullivan pressed her up against the wall with a quick, “Is this okay?” It was more than okay. It was everything Kia had wanted since she’d walked into class on the first day.

Sullivan didn’t take their kiss further. Maybe she knew that Kia would be so overwhelmed with fangirl delight, she’d pass out. Still, Kia was breathless when Sullivan drew back and said, “Well? Your secret technique, Chef?”

They’d cooked all night. First Kia showed Sullivan the secret to her Rice Krispies treats (brown butter) and a pear reduction sauce. Sullivan had produced a packet of heirloom tomato seeds and explained that growing the tomatoes from seed was her secret technique. Kia swatted her gently and Sullivan pulled her into a casual kiss, then released her and said, “Do you ever notice, you never get to eat anything at these social gatherings. You have to shake people’s hands and hold your wine. Where do you hold the yellowfin hand rolls? You don’t have any hands. I’m starving.”

So they whipped up a plate of soup dumplings and goong hom pha. The dumplings led to debate about vol-au-vent. Could you really make a good vol-au-vent with ham and cheese? Kia said yes. Sullivan said no. Or foie gras? Kia said no, Sullivan said yes. So they had to make both types and taste test. They agreed the foie gras was superior.

“No one can make foie gras like you,” Kia said.

“Thank you, Jackson,” Sullivan said. “You’re not bad in the kitchen yourself.”

Eventually, they’d ended up sitting on the floor with a bottle of wine, legs stretched out. And Kia thought it was the beginning of something. They’d kiss again. Maybe they’d sleep together. And they’d figure out a way to be together. True, Sullivan was moving to Japan. True, Kia planned to park her food truck in all forty-eight contiguous states in two years. But there had to be a way… But when they’d finished the wine and the vol-au-vents, Sullivan had said, “I’m going to miss you, Jackson. Stay in touch,” and that was it.

“You will submit,” Chef Alice Sullivan said mildly, pushing her knuckles into the recalcitrant ciabatta dough, “to my superior strength and intelligence.”

Across from her, her childhood friends—Nina Hashim and Opal Griffith—had just sat down to mugs of fair trade Assam tea at Sullivan’s kitchen island.

Though rain was on the horizon, the early evening sunlight filtered through the Douglas firs in her backyard, illuminating the trays of microgreens in the windowsills. (She grew all her restaurant’s microgreens in her house.)

“You know there’s this thing called a…” Nina flourished acrylic nails that had never touched bread dough.

“You don’t even know what it’s called.” Opal was the sous-chef in Sullivan’s restaurant, Mirepoix du Bois. “Nina’s right though. You’ll give yourself carpal tunnel. Use the mixer.”

Sullivan’s hands ached from kneading, but it was good to feel the stick and pull of the notoriously hard-to-work-with dough.

“The more we do by hand, the smaller our carbon footprint.” Bands of gluten stuck to her fingers. “I know you think you can control this relationship.”

“Is she talking to us?” Nina asked.

“She’s talking to the dough.” Opal pushed her bright red glasses up her nose with her index finger. “They have a complicated relationship.”

“Drink your tea.” Sullivan tried to flick a bit of dough at Nina’s designer tracksuit, but the dough held her like quicksand.

“The goddess always protects me from uncooked evil,” Nina quipped as she whipped her curly hair back and forth. Each ringlet seemed to have a life of its own.

It was the perfect Sunday evening in May. Sullivan’s high-end eco-restaurant, where she worked alongside Opal, was closed Sunday through Tuesday, so her weekend had barely begun. Two more full days of hiking and testing low-waste recipes in her own kitchen lay ahead of her. Her best friends gathered at the kitchen island for tea before they moved on to drinks at Opal’s favorite bar and Sullivan wandered through the urban forest to the Oakwood Heights Neighborhood Association meeting. Not exactly a wild party, but a nice chance to reconnect with some neighbors she hadn’t seen in a while. Evening sunlight dappled the ciabatta dough. Often she forgot that May was close to the solstice. It was usually so rainy it felt like an extension of winter, but not tonight. Tonight felt like the beginning of summer.

“Check this out.” Opal reached into her Portland She-Pack women’s rugby satchel. “A Black woman won the American Fare Award. Youngest woman and the first food truck owner.”

“Ooh, shit,” Nina said. “Sullivan’s conniption fit in three, two, one.” She counted down on her fingers.

Food trucks were nomadic salt bombs, crawling across the country leaving plastic forks and environmental apocalypse in their wake. Sullivan pointed it out every time she saw one.

“She’s gotta be a rock star to get past that wall of prime-rib-loving white guys on the award committee.” Opal flashed the magazine cover in Sullivan’s direction.

Sullivan glanced at it for the second the magazine deserved. The cover photo featured a woman with a loose Afro standing in front of a food truck. (It was the hair Opal wanted but never had the patience to grow.) Turquoise sunglasses shaded the woman’s eyes, picking up the specks of turquoise on her splash-patterned overalls. She beamed, raising both hands to form a heart. Why did this talented Black woman have to destroy the earth with microplastics? And of all the talented Black chefs, why did American Fare pick a food truck owner?

“It’s offensive,” Sullivan said.

“Because you didn’t win?” Nina asked.

“Because they didn’t pick Chef Gregory Bruselle of Maple Savor or any of the Renaud sisters or Tyron Hisaki.”

Opal opened the magazine and pushed it across the island toward Sullivan.

“They’re all old school. Look at her,” Opal said, her pointer finger stabbing the page. “She’s drippin’ style. Look at those glasses.”

Sullivan looked for real this time.

Behind the glasses.

Beneath the Afro.

Sullivan stopped kneading. And for a moment her friends and the dough and the sunlit microgreens disappeared. Sullivan was standing in the practice kitchen at the Jean Paul Molineux School of Culinary Arts. A fire she’d almost forgotten surged in her lungs.

“Kia. Fucking. Jackson. You little brat.”

The American Fare Award. Kia had gotten there first. Sullivan shook her head.

“You know her?” Nina asked. The definitely gold, not gold-plated, rings on her fingers gleamed brighter with surprise.

“We went to school together.”

Opal picked up the magazine again. “She’s the one you kissed!” She pumped her fist as though she’d just scored a winning try on the rugby pitch.

“I want to see.” Nina snatched the magazine out of Opal’s hands. Her voluminous mane of wavy hair swirled around her as she turned to look at Sullivan.

“The woman you kissed in front of the whole auditorium.” Nina nodded. “The one who beat you by point six percent.”

“Didn’t you say she was the best chef you’d worked with? I’m offended, by the way,” Opal said, not looking at all offended. “Kia was the one who got away.” She gave Nina a knowing look. “Sullivan had feelings for her.”

“Not like that.” Sullivan missed the look in Kia’s eyes when Kia realized Sullivan’s coq au vin beat hers hands down. She missed Kia’s gloating grin when Kia’s mille-feuille had a million more feuilles than Sullivan’s. Their competition had made Sullivan want to be better than Kia at everything Kia was great at. But she hadn’t had those kind of feelings for her. “And it was one kiss.”

A lie.

She’d never told Nina and Opal about kissing in the practice kitchen after graduation or why, no matter how much she changed her dessert menu, she always featured the Golden Crisp Experience. It was such a Mirepoix staple now, she’d almost forgotten that she first prepared it to tease Kia for her inexplicable love of the Rice Krispies treat.

Those kisses didn’t fit the story Sullivan told herself—and then told her friends—about that night. The way she’d told the story, they’d competed, came in first and second, kissed once, and went their separate ways. They’d had thousands of hours in the kitchen to figure out if they had romantic feelings for each other, and they didn’t. They’d just been riding high on the night’s excitement. It was a special night, but Sullivan was heading to Japan. Kia was about to set off in a food truck. (What a shame.) So Sullivan left the story at we kissed once. She’d dropped the night of kissing and cooking out of the story when she told it to Opal and Nina. Adding it later made it feel too momentous.

God, if Opal knew Sullivan and Kia had kissed more than once, she’d drag Sullivan to the American Fare Awards and ask Kia out for her. If she had to, Opal would send Kia a postcard reading Will you go out with my friend. Check this box. Yes No

“I respected her cooking, so I kissed her.”

Opal raised a naturally arched eyebrow. “As one does.”

Kia would be close to thirty now. Funny to think that twenty-year-old prodigy was a grown woman. If the magazine was any indicator, she still dressed like a Fresh Prince of Bel-Air rerun. And it was still cute.

Opal pushed her bright red glasses up again and read from the article. “Kia Jackson, who goes by Kia Gourmazing—”

“Gourmazing?” Sullivan rolled her eyes.

“—made her mark on the street food scene with the tursnicken, a take on the classic turducken. Instead of the usual turkey-duck-chicken combination, Jackson stuffs Snickers bars inside a whole chicken, inserts that into a turkey, and deep-fries. ‘It can be hard to find turkeys large enough,’ Jackson says, ‘but if I can’t find one through my regular vendors, there’s always a local farmer who can hook me up. That’s a beautiful thing about America. We go big.’ Jackson made her mark on the social media scene, jumping onto the newest social media platform U-Spin, and making it her own. ‘I love Insta and the classics,’ Jackson says, ‘but U-Spin is my new love.’”

“You should reach out,” Opal said, closing the magazine.

“Sullivan won’t eat at a food truck. She’s not going to date a food truck owner,” Nina said.

“I said reach out! Not date! Why do you think I’m always trying to set her up?” Opal’s freckles rearranged themselves to spell the word innocence.

“You’ve tried to set Sullivan up with every woman on your rugby team. And you said she has feelings for Kia.”

“Had feelings,” Opal said.

“I did not have ‘feelings.’” Sullivan put feelings in air quotes.

“I didn’t try to hook her up with Megan,” Opal said to Nina, ignoring Sullivan. “Megan has a girlfriend.”

“Okay, you tried to set her up with the other four hundred women on your team,” Nina countered.

“Fifteen plus alternates,” Opal said firmly. “But you could rekindle your old flame if you wanted to.” Opal adjusted her glasses. “You own Mirepoix. You could get a ticket to the award ceremony.”

“They’d probably let you give a speech,” Nina added.

“You were friends,” Opal said. “It’d be nice.”

“It’d be weird.” Sullivan sank her knuckles into the dough.

“Or DM her and say, Congrats on American Fare,” Opal suggested.

“You know I’m not on social media.”

Opal’s face softened. “You’ve got to get out there, buddy.”

“Just because Aubrey ate up your life with her stupid Instagram feed,” Nina added, “doesn’t mean you need to get off social media forever. Insta will always take you back.”

Aubrey’s dreams of being an influencer had replaced Sullivan’s life with a fake, glittering facade. Everything staged. Everything filmed a dozen times until Sullivan’s smile was sexy enough, her shoulders were straight enough, and any finger cots she’d incurred in the process of chopping through the hard skins of butternut squash were hidden.

“I hated social media, even before Aubrey.”

“Just because you fumbled at the line-out doesn’t mean you can’t get back on the pitch,” Opal said gently.

Nina fluttered her fingers in Opal’s direction in affectionate dismissal. “No one knows what that means.”

“I mean go out. Have fun. Maybe meet someone at a bar,” Opal said. “Skip that HOA meeting and come to the Tennis Skort tonight.”

“The Oakwood Heights Neighborhood Association meeting is a nice way to connect with people.” Sullivan regretted the statement the moment it left her mouth.

Opal wanted her to meet someone, but Sullivan didn’t need that. She just needed to get out, see a few people, make small talk. That was as close to dating as she needed to get, even if sometimes her body ached for a person’s touch and the house echoed with emptiness. She was lonely at night, but that meant there was no one filming a carefully constructed version of her life, a life where Sullivan and Aubrey had always been happier than other couples. And if Sullivan did tear up, it was carefully edited for maximum pathos. After all, one of Aubrey’s biggest influencer rivals got ten thousand comments when their parakeet died. You could sell sadness but only in small doses in the right lighting.

“Connect with people,” Nina groaned. “The Oakwood Heights Neighborhood Association meeting is where your sexuality goes to die. Remember you took me once? Said we just had to stop by. It was two hours before they got to your agenda item. What was it? Moss abatement?”

“Do you know how many species of beneficial insects die if they use Moss Out!?”

“If you think the neighborhood meeting is where you meet people,” Nina said, “your vagina will suck back into your body, close its doors, and die.”

“I have to go tonight. They’re reconfirming the Bois as green space for another two years.”

The Bois (French for forest) was the undeveloped land at the center of the Oakwood Heights Neighborhood and directly between Sullivan’s house and her restaurant. Every morning and every evening she followed a narrow path through the woods. As a child, she’d explored the Bois under her grandfather’s loving eye. Did you know that a newborn opossum is the size of a jellybean? Doesn’t the stairstep moss look like a tree in a Japanese painting? An epiphyte is a plant that grows on another plant without hurting it. That’s how we should all be, Alice. (Only her grandfather called her by her first name.)

“Is something going on?” Nina got that gleam in her eye that said, Can we sue someone?

“It’s just a formality. They’ll confirm its status for two years. By then the Oakwood Greenbelt Land Trust will have enough money to buy it and make it green space permanently.” That was Sullivan’s promise to her grandfather. He had protected the land for fifty years. She would protect it forever. “It’s slow, but we’re getting there.”

“Your grandpa would be so proud of you,” Opal said.

“But you’re not thinking of this formality as your social life.” Nina wasn’t asking. She was commanding.

“You two are my social life.”

“Dating life,” Opal amended for Nina. “Hey, I know! My cousin’s coming in from Savanah. She’s queer. Why don’t you take her out.” Seeing Sullivan’s look, Opal added, “Just as friends. Or that nice guy who comes into the restaurant and eats alone. He likes you.”

“No cousins. Definitely no customers.” Sullivan laughed. “If you keep it up, I’m going to make you go to the neighborhood association meeting. After they approve the green space, we’re talking about on-street parking and storm drains.”

Nina put her arm out in front of Opal as though protecting her from an attack.

“Opal’s our girl. You can’t do that to her.”

And the three of them were off, bantering back and forth about Sullivan’s bread dough and the trays of microgreens in her windowsills, Opal’s rugby team, and Nina’s latest divorce case in her life as attorney to the rich and dysfunctional.

An hour into their banter, Sullivan’s phone rang with a Miriam Makeba song, “Pata Pata.”

“Miss Brenda,” Opal said, recognizing the familiar ringtone.

Miss Brenda was Sullivan’s grandfather’s friend. The two of them swore they’d never been anything other than friends and fellow activists fighting for the earth and running their respective restaurants. They were still so perfect for each other, everyone put “friendship” in quotation marks when they talked about them. Or they had. When her grandfather was still alive.

Sullivan took the call on the porch. A moment later she returned.

“Speaking of storm drains, Miss Brenda’s green roof is leaking again.”

“It’s a roof made out of lawn. Of course it’s going to leak every time it rains,” Nina said.

“Green roofs are rarely planted with grass.” Sullivan noted the first drops of rain on her window. You couldn’t hope for too much sunlight in Oregon in the spring. Sullivan’s mind jumped from broken pipes to clogged gutters to errant nieces and nephews climbing the fire escape to water the roof (which did not need watering). “But yes. The thing leaks every time it rains.

“I’m going to. . .