Too Many Cooks

by Dana Bate

Genres: Coming of Age; Women's Fiction; Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

"Bate's writing is smart and compelling." -- Publishers Weekly In this hilarious, insightful new novel from the author of A Second Bite at the Apple, a cookbook ghostwriter finds that she's bitten off more than she can chew. . . When Kelly Madigan is offered a job abroad right after reading a letter from her late mother urging her to take more risks, she sees it as a sign. Kelly's new ghostwriting assignment means moving to London to work for Natasha Spencer--movie star, lifestyle guru, and wife of a promising English politician. As it turns out, Natasha is also selfish, mercurial, and unwilling to let any actual food past her perfect lips. Still, in between testing dozens of kale burgers and developing the perfect chocolate mousse, Kelly is having adventures. Some are glamorous; others, like her attraction to her boss's neglected husband, are veering out of control. Kelly knows there's no foolproof recipe for a happy life. But how will she know if she's gone too far in reaching for what she wants?

Release date: November 1, 2015

Publisher: Kensington

Print pages: 366

Sample

Twenty minutes after the pallbearers lower my mother’s casket into the ground, I am back at her house, surrounded by friends, family, and thirty-two salads. Everywhere I look, everywhere I turn: salad. Potato salad. Pasta salad. Tuna salad. Ham salad. There aren’t any leafy green ones, although some, like my aunt’s beloved cottage cheese lime Jell-O salad, are decidedly green. No, the bowls lining the tables and windowsills are filled with the kinds of salads I grew up with in Michigan, most containing some combination of proteins and carbs, the ingredients bound up with a spoonful of mayonnaise or its zesty cousin, Miracle Whip, my mother’s all-time favorite condiment. She told me she’d never met a recipe that couldn’t be improved by a spoonful of Miracle Whip. That, and maybe a dash of rum.

As I rearrange the dining room table to make room for a bowl of macaroni tuna salad, I feel a tap on my shoulder and whirl around to find Meg, my best friend for the past twenty years, holding a large glass casserole dish covered with aluminum foil.

“Another casserole,” she says. “This one from the McCrays.”

“Let me guess: chicken, broccoli, and rice?”

She peeks beneath the foil. “Yep. Although I think this one has carrots in it, too.” She takes another look. “Or maybe that’s just cheese. I can’t tell. Where do you want it?”

I scan the table, which, in the two minutes I’ve spent talking to Meg, has given birth to three more creamy white salads. “In the kitchen, I guess. With the others.”

“You got it.” She recovers the dish. “How are you holding up?”

“Okay. Not great. It’s been a rough week.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“I’m just exhausted, you know? Physically, emotionally—I’m drained.”

She glances over my shoulder. “How’s Sam?”

“My rock, as usual.”

“What a trouper. Most guys I know would have been on a plane back to Chicago after one night on your dad’s pullout couch. How old is that thing, anyway?”

“Ancient. And filled with equally ancient crumbs.”

“Gross.”

“Very. But Sam and I have been together six years. If he were offended by my family or my humble roots, he would have been out the door a long time ago.”

“Rest assured, there is still plenty of honky-tonk Michigan he hasn’t seen.” She looks down at her watch. “If he isn’t busy later, I’d be happy to give him a tour. . . .”

I chuckle for the first time in a week. “Thanks, but no thanks. Dealing with my dad for three days has been painful enough.”

“Speaking of which . . .” Her eyes drift over my other shoulder.

I turn around and spot my dad charging toward me, his graying, floppy hair falling into his puffy eyes. He is dressed in a faded black suit and tie, the only suit he has owned in the twenty-eight years I’ve known him. He buried both his parents in that suit, his brother, and now, after thirty-three years of marriage, his wife.

“I’d better put this in the kitchen. . . .” Meg says, backing away slowly to avoid having to converse with my dad. He’s a loose cannon on a good day, and the past three have been worse than most.

“Dammit, Kelly,” he says, adjusting his tie, which looks as uncomfortable being around his neck as he looks wearing it. “Where the hell is your mother’s spaghetti salad?”

It seems weird calling it her spaghetti salad, as if she might walk out of the kitchen at any moment, dressed in her oversize powder-blue sweatshirt, with a big bowl of spaghetti salad resting on her arms. My mom was never much of a cook—her style of cookery mostly involved cream-based canned soup and processed cheese—but her spaghetti salad was something of a delicacy in my town when I was growing up. The combination of spaghetti, ham, cubed cheese, and Miracle Whip doesn’t sound as if it should go together, but somehow, when combined, the result is downright delicious. Maybe it’s the fact that every bite reminds me of my mom, but when I crave something comforting and familiar, it’s the first thing that comes to mind. Just thinking about it causes a lump to form in my throat.

“Crap—I made it last night and forgot to put it out,” I say. “It’s in the fridge.”

“Well, could you go get it? Everyone is asking.”

“Sure. Of course.”

“Good.” He runs his fingers through his hair and looks as if he might say something more, but instead he stares at me. “Today, please?”

“Sorry—I’m on it.”

“Thirty minutes too late . . .”

I hurry into the kitchen, telling myself through deep breaths that my father isn’t a jerk; it’s just his grief talking. Realistically, he is a bit of a jerk, but not a mean-spirited one. Expressing emotion has never been one of his strengths, and since my mom’s heart attack, his feelings have come bursting out in fits and starts, like water from a punctured hose. Last night he kicked his couch and yelled at it for being “lazy.”

I push past a few old neighbors and head for the refrigerator, where I find the bowl of spaghetti salad I made last night. Preparing it seemed like a fitting tribute to my mom, using my professional cooking skills to re-create the one dish for which she was known. While I’d boiled the spaghetti and diced the ham, I’d blasted ABBA’s “Dancing Queen,” my mom’s personal anthem, which she’d play on repeat as she danced around the house, often after a Rum Runner or two. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to hear that song again without picturing her twirling in the family room, her blond, feathered waves bouncing off her shoulders, a boozy grin on her face.

“Need help?”

Sam is standing behind the refrigerator door, looking handsome and decidedly out of place in his tailored Hugo Boss suit. His honey-colored hair is styled with a bit of pomade, and, as always, his deep dimples make him seem as if he is smiling, even when he is not. When Meg first met him during my senior year at University of Michigan, she called him “Ken” behind his back because he bears such a striking resemblance to a Ken doll. By extension, I guess that would make me Barbie, which, given my long flaxen hair, might work if I weren’t a slight and flat-chested five foot three. I’m also pretty sure there was never a “Cookbook Ghostwriter Barbie” or an “Art History Major Barbie,” or at least if there was, she certainly never made it to Ypsilanti, Michigan.

“No, I’m okay. Just need to put this on the table.”

Sam glances down at the bowl. “So that’s the infamous spaghetti salad?”

“The one and only.”

“Ever try making that for François?” he asks, referring to François Bardon, one of Chicago’s most famous chefs, whose cookbook I just finished ghostwriting.

“I don’t think he’d know what to do with it. I can hear him now: ‘What ees zeese . . . spa-gay-tee salade?’ ”

Sam laughs. “His wife would probably assume it was some sort of Midwestern aphrodisiac.”

“The way people fight over it, maybe it is. . . .”

Sam raises his eyebrows suggestively, then catches himself. “Sorry—bad timing.”

“It’s okay. My mom wouldn’t have wanted a big, weepy scene.”

“No?”

“Are you kidding? She hated being around sad people. She’d want us to be laughing. Laughing, and drinking.”

Even though my mom never told me this explicitly, I know it’s true. At my grandpa’s funeral, when I was ten, she’d started singing the theme song to Cheers while some old guy played piano, so that she could, in her words, “lighten the mood.” Granted, she was on her third rum and Coke and had a long history of breaking into song at inappropriate times, including at several of my birthday parties, but nevertheless, I know she’d have preferred a veiled sex joke to tears at her own funeral. Part of me is surprised she didn’t demand an ABBA-themed graveside song-and-dance in her will.

I’m about to ask Sam to restock the bar when my dad bursts into the kitchen, his face flushed. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” he says. “Where is the damn spaghetti salad?”

“I was just bringing it out,” I say, lifting the bowl in my hands.

“Oh, really? Looks to me like you were talking to Dr. Cock.”

I let out a protracted sigh. “Dad, we’ve been over this a zillion times; it’s pronounced ‘Coke.’ And you don’t have to keep calling him doctor.”

“Well, he is a doctor, isn’t he?”

“I am. But please—call me Sam.”

My dad clenches his jaw as his eyes shoot from me to Sam and back to me again.

“I just buried my wife. I can call him whatever I want.”

I take a deep breath and look at Sam, but he just shrugs and stares back because, really, how can anyone argue with that?

In what is surely a Madigan family record, we blow through a handle of vodka, two bottles of rum, a bottle of Jim Beam, two cases of beer, and thirty-six salads in less than two hours. By the time most of the guests have left, only a humble bowl of ham salad and a trickle of whiskey remain.

“I’m going to take off,” Meg says, leaning in for a hug as she slings her purse over her shoulder. “You’ll be okay?”

“I’ve got things under control.”

“If you need anything, you know where to find me. When do you drive back to Chicago?”

“Tomorrow afternoon. Sam is flying back tonight because he’s on call tomorrow.”

She sighs. “Dr. Dreamy. What a catch.”

My eyes wander over her shoulder, to where I see Sam drying a big salad bowl with a dishtowel. “He’s a good one.”

“Good? Try great. Although I can’t believe he hasn’t popped the question yet. What is he waiting for?”

I pick at a ball of fuzz on my black cardigan. “We’re not in any rush.”

“Obviously. It’s been six years.”

“He was finishing med school when we met, and then there was residency, and—”

“And now he’s doing his fellowship. I know. Those are excuses, not reasons.”

“Those aren’t excuses. We’ve both had a lot on our plates. You know how precarious my job is—I’m always chasing the next project.”

“I still don’t fully understand why you’re writing other people’s books. When are you finally going to get your own gig?”

“Writing about what? Spaghetti salad?”

“Hey—don’t kid yourself. Not everyone can afford truffles and filet mignon. Some of us might like to hear from someone on our level.”

“And if a big, fat paycheck falls out of the sky for me to do that, I will. Until then . . . things are a little in flux.”

“That may be, but it still doesn’t explain why Sam hasn’t made an honest woman out of you. What, is he afraid you’d say no?” She chuckles to herself, but stops abruptly when I don’t join in. “Wait—you’d say no?”

My stomach curdles. “What? No. Of course I wouldn’t say no. He’s great. He’s . . . perfect.”

“You’re damn right he’s perfect. A cardiologist who looks like a Ken doll? Who lives and works in Chicago? You’re living the dream, my friend. The dream.”

“I know,” I say. “I know,” even though I’m no longer sure if that dream belongs to me, or the me Sam met six years ago.

Thirty minutes before I’m supposed to take Sam to the airport, I wander past my brother’s old bedroom and find him sitting on the bed in the dark. His twin bed still bears the Detroit Tigers comforter my parents bought him when he was ten, above which hangs a dated poster of Britney Spears in a pair of denim cutoffs and a fluorescent crop top.

“Stevie? What are you doing in here?”

“Don’t call me Stevie,” he says. “I’m twenty-five. People call me Steve.”

“I don’t care how old you are. You’ll always be Stevie to me.” I notice a folded-up letter sitting on the edge of his bed. “What’s that?”

“A letter from Mom.”

“From Mom? From when?”

“Not sure. Dad found the letters when he was looking for something in one of her drawers.”

“What do you mean the ‘letters’? There was more than one?”

He scratches the light brown stubble on his chin. “I think she left one for each of us. Yours is probably in your room.”

My head feels light. “But . . . she dropped dead of a heart attack. . . .”

“Which, apparently, was a surprise to everyone but her.”

I nod, conceding his point. A few hours after she died, my dad got a phone call from her doctor, who was effusively apologetic. Evidently my mom had visited him six months ago thinking she had a cold, but she was troublingly short of breath, so he ordered a few tests, including an echocardiogram. It turned out she had cardiomyopathy, a heart muscle disease. He’d put her on medication and told her to follow up in three months, and if the drugs didn’t work, he recommended she get an implantable defibrillator. But she never showed up for her follow-up appointments and didn’t return any of his calls, so he wasn’t sure if she’d even filled her prescription.

This was the first any of us had heard about a heart problem, including my dad, and it made me furious. Why would she keep her condition a secret? So we wouldn’t worry? Surely we had a right to know, a right to worry. Maybe Sam could have helped her—he’s a cardiologist, after all. But what bothered me most of all was the question I’d never be able to answer: If I’d known about her condition, would it have mattered? Would our relationship have been any different? Or would it have remained the same, loving and complicated and admittedly dysfunctional?

“But I mean . . . a letter? Mom didn’t even write Christmas cards. Why would she write us a letter?”

Stevie hunches his shoulders. “Do I have an explanation for half the things Mom did? Maybe this was her way of saying good-bye, on her own terms.”

I concede his point once again. For a guy who, at twenty-five, technically still hasn’t finished college, Stevie often surprises me with his perspicacity. I sometimes wonder where he’d be if he’d been born into a different family, with parents who took a genuine interest in his intellectual development and didn’t delegate most parental duties to his big sister. Maybe he would have made more of himself.

“So what did it say?”

“That’s between me and Mom.”

“Stevie, I’m your sister. You can tell me.”

“Go read your own letter.”

“Stevie . . .”

“Kelly . . .” he whines back.

I let out a huff. “Fine.”

I march across the hall to my old bedroom, which like Stevie’s looks almost exactly as it did nearly twenty years ago: hot pink comforter with brown and green polka dots, a two-foot-tall piggy bank shaped like a crayon in the corner of the room, and a small white desk and chair below the window. I creep toward the desk, on top of which sits an old blotter studded with hot pink hearts. A white envelope rests to the left of the blotter: To Kelly. From Mom.

My hands shake as I tear open the envelope and read the letter inside, which is written in my mom’s swooping cursive, the slanted lines indicating the involvement of a blackberry brandy or two:

My dear little Kelly Belly,

If you’re reading this, I’ve finally kicked the bucket. I hope it was quick and relatively painless and didn’t cause the rest of you too much trouble. Lord knows I gave you enough trouble when I was living, so I hope I went out on a high note.

I have a few parting requests for you, so I thought I’d put them all together in a list. That’s right—a list! I bet you’re liking me better in death than in life already. (Kidding.) Unlike you, I’m not much of a writer, so I hope you’ll bear with me.

Okay, here we go.

(1) First of all, keep Irene O’Malley away from your father. She always had her eye on him, and even though I’m dead, I do NOT want her getting her hands on him. Frankly, I don’t want him dating any of my friends, but especially not Irene.

(2) Speaking of Irene, if I had to guess, she still has my square Tupperware container with the maroon lid. Now that I’m dead, she’ll think it’s hers, but it is not. Make sure you get it from her and explain that I hadn’t forgotten she never returned it—even though I reminded her seven times. (You can mention the part about seven times; I bet she’ll be impressed I remembered that.)

(3) If anyone asks about the rest of my Tupperware collection, it is not up for grabs. It’s for you, your dad, and Stevie. (You’re welcome.)

(4) As for your dad, don’t let him get too kooky. He never liked to feel a lot of feelings, so he’s probably acting all sorts of strange, and that’s okay, but don’t let him get too weird. I’d say a good gauge would be: if he’s shouting at the newscasters on TV, that’s fine, but if he starts talking to the bushes, you might want to encourage him to get a dog.

(5) Look after your brother. I don’t mean move back to Ypsilanti (please, don’t do that, I’ll explain why below), but check in on him once in a while and make sure he isn’t doing something stupid, like growing pot or dating that floozy, Catherine Gornicki. I know you’ve always looked out for him, but now that I’m not around, it’s extra important that you’re there for one another.

(6) That brings me to you. I know, I know, I can see you rolling your eyes: “Here goes Mom with her kooky ideas!” But a person only gets one chance to make a dying wish, so listen up! Here’s what I want: I want you to walk away from the beaten path and, for once in your life, do something unpredictable and a little crazy. Not crazy by Kelly standards. Crazy by my standards, which, as you know, are pretty darn crazy. You’ve spent your whole life following the rules, and it’s time for you to make a change. I’ve always seen you as my star, the Madigan who would go on an adventure—a real, honest-to-goodness adventure—maybe in Hollywood or New York or someplace really exotic like Switzerland. I’m so proud of all you’ve accomplished so far, but you haven’t managed to leave the Midwest, and I feel like you were destined for so much more. You’re probably thinking, “What does Mom know? She’s never lived anywhere but Ypsilanti!” And that’s true. But that’s also why I know what I’m talking about. I’d hate for you to turn 40 and never have lived anywhere outside the Midwest. If you decide to come back here someday after all that travel, so much the better, but as Dr. Phil would say: “Make an informed decision.”

(7) Finally, a word about this Sam guy. Really, Kelly? I get that he’s a doctor and looks like a Ken doll and is steady and reliable, etc., but I have to be honest with you: he is a little boring. Is this what you want for yourself? A fifty-year snoozefest with some fuddy-duddy who eats the same bowl of cereal for breakfast every single morning? Zzzzz . . . oh, sorry, I fell asleep just thinking about it. I’m not saying you have to marry Crocodile Dundee, but I think your life will be a lot more exciting and interesting if you find someone a little more spontaneous.

So there you have it. My wish list. I’m sure there are plenty of other things I’ll think of before my time comes, but knowing me, I’ll forget to add them. I wasn’t always the most reliable mom along the way, and I know that, but I loved you and your brother more than anything in this world, even if I made a hash of showing it at times. You, especially, have made me so proud, even if I still don’t fully understand what you do for a living. Whatever it is, you can be sure I’m bragging about it in heaven.

Love you so very much.

xoxo

Mom

p.s. You don’t have to do everything on this list, but if you don’t, I’ll haunt you for the rest of your days. (Kidding. Or am I?)

“You ready?”

I jump as I look up and see Sam standing in the doorway. “Sorry,” I say, clutching my chest. “You scared me.”

His eyes land on the letter in my hand. “What’s that?”

I glance down at the piece of paper, the words inside still spinning in my head. I consider telling him about my mom’s laundry list of dying wishes, about Irene O’Malley and the Tupperware and my mom’s desire for me to see the world. About the shock I feel that she actually wrote a letter. That she was worried about my brother and my dad. That she had the gall to call Sam boring. But instead I fold the letter into a small square, hold it tightly in my hand, and rise from the bed.

“Nothing,” I say. “Just my mother, torturing me from beyond the grave.”

Because, as both of us know, there is nothing shocking about that.

I should probably clarify something: Sam is boring.

He is. But that’s part of what I fell in love with—his boringness. After twenty-two years of dealing with an eccentric and unreliable mother and an inept and crotchety father, I felt blessed to have found someone so normal. Someone who didn’t break into “Dancing Queen” randomly and without warning. Someone who actually kept stamps and lightbulbs in the house. Someone who showed up.

We met during my senior year at the University of Michigan, while I was working an afternoon shift at Zingerman’s, a gourmet deli in Ann Arbor. I was running the sandwich counter that day, and he came in wearing a big U of M sweatshirt and blue scrubs, his honey-blond hair sticking up in every direction. He sauntered over to the counter and ordered the Zingerman’s Reuben—a sandwich consisting of house-made corned beef, nutty Swiss cheese, pungent sauerkraut, and Russian dressing, all piled together on fluffy slices of house-made rye and grilled—except he asked me to hold the sauerkraut.

“Then you don’t want a Reuben,” I said.

He furrowed his brow. “Yes, I do.”

“If you don’t have sauerkraut, then it isn’t a Reuben. It’s a perfectly fine sandwich, but it isn’t a Reuben.”

“Okay, then I want a grilled corned beef sandwich with Swiss cheese and Russian dressing on rye.”

“Do you have something against sauerkraut?”

“And what if I do?”

“Have you tried our sauerkraut?”

He blushed. “No.”

“Then how do you know you don’t like it?”

“Because I’ve never liked sauerkraut. Our cafeteria used to serve it with hot dogs on Wednesdays when I was a kid, and it smelled terrible.”

“Did you ever try it?”

He blushed again. “No.”

I put my hands on my hips. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to make you a Zingerman’s Reuben—with sauerkraut—and you’re going to try it, and if you don’t like it, the sandwich is on me. Sound like a plan?”

He smirked, his eyes sparkling. “Sounds like a plan.”

Long story short: He liked the sandwich.

But more than the sandwich, he liked me. And I liked him. He had a gentle touch and an easy smile, and he was studying to become a doctor. Some of my friends heard the word “doctor” and saw dollar signs, but that wasn’t the main attraction for me. What I saw was someone with discipline, diligence, and drive, three attributes neither of my parents had ever had. Anyone who could study hard enough to get into medical school and then survive four years of exams and overnight shifts—not to mention cut open a living person and sew her back up—was probably someone who wouldn’t flake out and leave me standing on the side of the road.

And I was right. Sam is as steady as a metronome. He pays his bills on time. He never runs out of toilet paper. He does his own laundry and stacks his T-shirts with the folded side facing out. I never have to worry that I’ll come home like I did in the fifth grade and find a lake-size puddle in the middle of the living room because there was a thunderstorm and he left all of the windows open. He is dependable. Consistent. Predictable.

That also means he has never booked a last-minute trip to Barbados or played hooky from work so that we could catch a movie or have a picnic in the park. We’ve never dropped everything because we were suddenly craving tacos from a Mexican joint on Chicago’s South Side or bought a new TV on a whim. We never have sex on a Tuesday. Everything in our lives is planned and steady and.. . well, after six years, a little boring. Boring, just like my mother said, which is why her words gnaw at me the entire three-and-a-half-hour drive back to Chicago, stirring up doubts I’ve tried to silence.

I shake off those doubts as I park the car beneath our apartment building, a twenty-six-story tower of glass and steel perched on Chicago’s famed Lake Shore Drive. The building was designed by Mies van der Rohe, which had appealed to my inner art history nerd when Sam showed me the apartment two summers ago. We’d been living in Chicago since he started his residency at Northwestern four years earlier, but now that he was doing his fellowship there as well, he wanted something closer to the hospital. I couldn’t believe I was seeing the work of one of the architects I’d studied in college and, improbably, might also call that building my home. The lease was only for two years, but Sam said that was fine because in two years we might be ready to buy a place of our own. The idea scared me a little, but I told myself I had more than 730 days to get comfortable with it. Well, here we are, two years later, and I still haven’t set up a time to meet with a realtor. Buying seems so . . . permanent. Technically we have until July to find a place, but given that it’s already mid-April, I’m not sure how much longer I can stall.

I take the elevator to the eighth floor, and when the elevator doors open, I toddle with my suitcase toward our apartment at the end of the hallway and let myself inside, knowing Sam will still be at work until at least eight tonight.

As soon as I open the door, I take a whiff: Pine-Sol. Sam must have cleaned the apartment last night before going to bed. Because he knew I would be emotionally drained when I got home and wouldn’t want to do it myself. Because he thinks of things like that. Because he’s perfect.

I dump my suitcase in our bedroom and make my way to the kitchen, a small galley lined with gray-and-white granite countertops, espresso-colored cabinets, and stainless-steel appliances. As much as I was attracted to a building designed by a famous architect, the kitchen is what sold me on the apartment. It isn’t big—with only one bedroom and a small living room, neither is the apartment—but all of the appliances are new, meaning I can test recipes at home and not worry my efforts will be foiled by a forty-year-old oven.

As I open the refrigerator to deposit some containers of macaroni tuna salad, my cell phone rings. It’s Sam.

“Welcome back,” he says. “How was the drive?”

“Not bad. How was your flight last night?”

“Mercifully brief. Which is less than I can say for this day.”

“Bad?”

“Bad. Don’t expect me home before nine.”

“Ugh, I’m sorry. Will you have a chance to eat? I could bring you something.”

“Nah, I’ll be fine. Thanks, though. Speaking of food, I left some for you in the fridge—for dinner or a snack or whatever.”

My eyes land on the middle shelf, where he has left a container of chicken noodle soup, an apple, and two chocolate cupcakes. “Aw, thank you,” I say, wedging the macaroni tuna salad between the soup and the cupcakes. “That was sweet of you.”

“My pleasure. After everything you’ve gone through the past week, I figured you might not feel like cooking.”

I twitch. Cooking is exactly what I feel like doing, what I always feel like doing when I’m overrun with emotions I don’t know how to process. I’m not sure Sam fully understands that or if he ever will. In his efforts to be supportive and helpful, he often overlooks my need to “do” and instead does for me. Part of that is probably my own fault. After taking care of everyone else for so many years, I liked having someone take care of me. But some days I feel as if I’ve created a monster—though if I ever said that to Meg, she’d probably punch me in the face.

“Thanks,” I say. “I brought back some leftover macaroni tuna salad, so you’re welcome to have some when you get home, if you have any interest. Which, I realize, you very well may not.”

“Are you kidding? That stuff was delicious. Consider me a convert. Did you bring some leftover spaghetti salad as well?”

“Sorry, no. Everything went the day of the funeral, except a little ham salad. The macaroni tuna came from an old neighbor who dropped it off this morning.”

“Ah, well. Another time, then.” He clears his throat. “So, I e-mailed a realtor today about potentially seeing some properties. I’m on call this weekend, but she said she could take us to see a few places next Saturday.”

My chest tightens. “Oh. Wow. So soon?”

“Soon? Our lease runs out June 30. It’s the middle of April.”

“I know, I just . . . After everything that’s happened with my mom, it feels sort of sudden.”

“We’ve been talking about this for almost two years.”

I gulp. “I know.”

“Do you not want to live with me or something?”

“Don’t be ridiculous—of course I want to live with you. I’m living with you now.”

“I mean live with me . . . permanently. As in, forever.”

The word lands with a thud, sitting in the empty space between his phone and my ear like a steaming hot turd. Forever. Forever? As in... “this is a proposal” forever? No. No, proposals involve rings and romance and face-to-face interaction. Proposals don’t happen over the phone, at least not proposals from guys like Sam. He is a planner. He is not the kind of guy who, wh. . .