Page 25

Sullivan felt both relieved and nervous that Kia was taking the initiative with the social media campaign.

They sat down at a table by the window of Mirepoix, like a couple on a date at a quiet café.

Sullivan rarely experienced her restaurant from this angle.

It was peaceful. A white gravel path lined with low boxwood hedges led from the parking lot to the front door.

In a few weeks, she’d set up the outdoor seating area and turn on the string lights that lit the forest like fairies.

And next year… it was hard to transpose Kia, perfectly coiffed with dark purple glitter sparkling in a halo around her Afro, onto the image of Kia in a hard hat bulldozing the Bois.

It felt like Sullivan should be able to say, Let me help you find another property .

Kia would say, Thank god. I hoped you’d say that.

Then they’d drive around the industrial neighborhoods looking for attractive vacant lots.

In the evening, they’d cuddle on the sofa, with Zillow open on Sullivan’s laptop, and Kia reading off the specs because the concentration it took Sullivan to read the screen made her eyes tired.

Sullivan must have been lonely like Opal said.

Images of Kia floated in and out of her mind all day.

If she’d just been noticing Kia’s attractive body or gorgeous hair, that’d be one thing.

Having dirty thoughts about Kia would be inappropriate, but it was natural to notice a woman as striking as Kia.

But Sullivan hadn’t been ogling Kia’s ass.

Well, okay, she had once or twice. But mostly she thought about Kia reading on the sofa, Kia cooking in her pajamas, Kia standing in the bathroom doing whatever it was she did to style her hair in a perfect sphere.

Sullivan pictured sitting beside Kia in Kia’s truck watching the ocean on a rainy day at the coast (which really meant there was something wrong with Sullivan, because using a truck that size for all-purpose transportation—over the Coast Range at that—was unconscionable).

Sullivan pictured falling asleep next to Kia, and her own bed felt emptier than it had before.

“Are you ready?”

Sullivan jumped.

“I’m sorry. Yes. What?” She’d been staring at Kia’s purple nail polish and the collection of glittery bracelets on Kia’s wrists. There was something very personal and very crush-like about pondering a woman’s wrists.

“Do you want to talk about things we could do for social media?” Kia asked, although that was the express purpose of their meeting.

Of course, we’ll have to do wedding-y stuff.

Then after that, I asked the manager at the Tennis Skort if we could stage a spontaneous cooking challenge at the bar.

You know. You. Me. Throw down on the cocktail napkins. ”

“They’d let us use their kitchen?”

“Sure. I asked nicely. We need to go on dates. The socials love cute couples on dates. There’s a new exhibit at Hopscotch. We could do a mani-pedi.”

“Do you know how much formaldehyde is in nail polish?”

“No. And I don’t want to,” Kia said. “What about zip-lining?”

“Terrifying.”

“Thank god.”

“You don’t want to zip-line?”

“I’m just trying to be helpful here and think of dates for us, something that might go viral. You definitely have to come to the state fair and watch me cook. And we can play Ping-Pong at Pips and Bounce.”

“You grew up on a yacht. Do you know how to play Ping-Pong?”

“Of course not. And going back a few, I think we should make our own wedding cake. That’d give great reels.

I’ve had this idea for a pinata cake with.

… wait for it… Pop Rocks! I haven’t quite figured out the engineering, but when you cut open the cake, the Pop Rocks spill out, and somehow they get activated.

With water. Or liquor.” Kia scrunched her lips to the side, looking adorable.

“And maybe you could set it on fire. But anyway, flaming Pop Rocks would look great against a traditional three-tiered cake. You could do the cake. I can do the Rocks.”

“Sweetheart, I am never making anything with Pop Rocks.” Sullivan only said sweetheart to take the sting out of her teasing since Kia was obviously (and unexplainably) delighted with her Pop Rocks wedding cake.

And calling Kia sweetheart was funny, because they weren’t sweethearts.

That was the whole reason they were discussing Pop Rocks wedding cakes.

And yet the endearment felt natural, and Kia smiled shyly.

“Fine,” Kia said, looking up at Sullivan coquettishly. “What do you want to do to look sexy and in love on social media?”

“Mushroom hunting?”

“Oh, babe, there is nothing sexy about mushroom hunting.”

Kia calling her babe didn’t mean any more than Sullivan calling her sweetheart , but the word still felt friendly.

“You don’t know how sexy mushroom hunting can be.”

To Sullivan’s surprise, Kia said, “You’ll have to show me.”

Sullivan was thinking about mushroom hunting when her mind flashed to her parents and her brother, Paul, with their wood-paneled offices at the University of Chicago and Northwestern University.

“Who do we tell about the wedding? I don’t want to lie to my family.”

“You’re not going to tell them what’s really going on?” Kia asked. “I told my cousin Lillian, and she’ll tell her folks. I’ll tell my dad as soon as he’s back in cell range.” Kia sighed. “Don’t worry. They won’t give up our secret. I absolutely trust them.”

“I trust my family,” Sullivan said slowly.

She tried to picture their reaction. I’m in a marriage of convenience with a developer who wants to buy the Bois.

Yeah, the land Grandpa spent his whole life trying to preserve.

They wouldn’t know what to think. She wasn’t an unruly child who made bad choices.

But she didn’t fit in their PhD-ed trio.

They didn’t keep her confidences because she never shared any.

They talked but they never talked . “I mean, if I told them that I’d be in trouble if they talked about it, they wouldn’t. ”

Kia sat quietly. Her back straight, her elbows resting on the table as she leaned forward ever so slightly.

“Tell me about your family.”

Kia’s wide eyes were fixed on Sullivan, and Sullivan felt like Kia was soaking in every word.

“We like each other. They want good things to happen to me, and I want good things to happen to them. But they’re a set.

They make puns. They’ve read the same German philosophers, and they have in-jokes about them.

And it’s been that way since I was a kid.

They tried to include me, but it was like trying to include Nina in a rugby match.

So we see each other on holidays. They live in Chicago, so they always get together.

I’m always invited, and I go when I can. ”

“Did you grow up in Chicago?”

“Suburbs. But I feel like I grew up in the Bois.” That sounded pointed, but Sullivan couldn’t tell her story without talking about the Bois.

“I came alive when I visited my grandpa. I loved being in the woods with him. Climbing. Jumping off things. Catching bugs. Getting dirty, except it never felt dirty. I never thought, Eww gross . I knew what was dangerous. My grandfather taught me what to do if I saw a cougar or a paper wasp nest. I was part of nature, so stuff like touching slugs or getting mud in my mouth when I went swimming in a creek didn’t make me uncomfortable.

It made me feel… whole. I was home. The Bois was home.

Chicago and school felt like a nice prison.

When I was home in Chicago and I couldn’t go outside because it was twenty below, I’d cook.

When I was cooking, I had the same feeling of being in my body.

Using all my senses. Being a part of something that wasn’t my own body.

“My parents suggested I go to culinary arts school and paid for it. They believe in education even though no one in our family had ever done physical work. But they wanted me to have the best, so they paid for the Jean Paul Molineux School of Culinary Arts. That’s them.

That’s us. They love me, even if they’ll never care about filleting techniques and I’ll never spontaneously say, Putting Descartes before the horse . ”

“That’s a good pun,” Kia said grudgingly.

“I feel weird telling them I’m getting fake married.

We’re not close enough to tell things like that, but it would be wrong to lie and tell them it’s for real.

What would I do when we get divorced? Tell them we fell out of love a month later?

But I don’t want them to find out online and think I got married and didn’t invite them.

And what about the She-Pack and my regulars and the other chefs I know?

What about the kids I’ve worked with from the Night High School?

I hire interns from there. If they all found out I’d been lying?

Or if they all think you dumped me after a month, they’d all try to comfort me. ”

Like they had when she’d left Aubrey. She should have taken advantage of all those invitations to dinner and coffee and double dates and meditation classes instead of just hiding away.

“They’ll send me links to empowerment webinars.” Sullivan put her head on the table in mock despair.

To her surprise, she felt Kia’s hand ruffle her hair and then Kia’s fingers glide closer to her scalp, massaging the back of her head. Her touch was luxurious. Sullivan never wanted her to stop. Could she just stay like this forever?

“I’m sorry,” Kia said. “That’s a lot to think about. It’s easy for me, I’ve got five people in my life.”

“You’ve got followers,” Sullivan mumbled into the bliss of Kia’s touch.

“They used to count. I used to have real conversations online with some of them. Now Deja does most of my replies. Now Fizz Bang pays me five thousand dollars for every recipe I write that features their soda.”

Kia sounded so sad, Sullivan tore herself away from the best feeling she’d had in ages and sat up so that she could look at her.

“That sounds really hard.”

“I just want to be me, to be real,” Kia said.

“And this is even less real than usual.”

“Yeah.”

Sullivan wanted to take Kia’s hand, but she didn’t. Kia had touched her and if she touched her back… that would change something, and Sullivan didn’t know what, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted it to happen.

“If we pour a can of Fizz Bang soda over the wedding cake, will they give us ten thousand dollars? Because I need a new walk-in freezer.”

“After everything I’ve put you through, wife,” Kia said, her smile returning, “I will buy you a whole new kitchen.”

“You could afford it, couldn’t you?”

“If I wasn’t sinking my money into Taste the Love Land, I totally could.

But even so, I’ll find a way.” Kia sounded both deflated and defiant.

Before Sullivan could find something sympathetic to say, Kia said, “I got it. We’ll do an engagement scene.

I’ll surprise you by asking you to marry me.

Then we’ll kind of skip over the whole getting married part.

And find a different occasion to make a Pop Rocks pinata cake. ”

She winked at Sullivan, a gesture so cheeky and cute, Sullivan could have kissed her.

“Then if your family sees it or your customers, you can tell them we were never serious.” Did a shadow flit across Kia’s smiling face? “Tell them we went out for a hot second, and it wasn’t for real, but you got tons of free press for Mirepoix. And I—” Kia shrugged.

“Just did it for the engagement?”

“Ha!” Kia slapped the table.

“What?”

“Your family’s got nothing on you.”

It took Sullivan a second to catch on. Then she laughed and pretended to polish her nails on the shoulder of her jacket.

“I’m pretty good, aren’t I?”

“Alice Sullivan, you are very good. That’s why I married you.”

“I suppose,” Sullivan said slowly. “We should have some rules about… you know. Consent-type stuff. I’m okay with holding hands, arm around your shoulders, kiss on the hand.”

“You really are old-fashioned.” Kia gestured toward the tweed sports coat Sullivan had put on when they left for the restaurant.

Sullivan closed in on herself, like she wanted to hide the jacket or defend it.

“Come on, Chef. Your fashion is dope as fuck. It always has been.”

Sullivan relaxed and went on. “I guess we probably want… no lips unless the whole room is shouting, Kiss, kiss .”

“Where are we going to be with a bunch of people shouting, Kiss ?” Kia asked.

Sullivan could have sworn she sounded more curious than disbelieving, like she would be on the lookout for a room full of people chanting, Kiss . Sullivan kind of liked that.

“At a rugby drink-up?” Sullivan ran her hand through her hair, messing up her curls, then stopped, suddenly hyperaware of the nervous gesture.

“And what if we do get bullied by the rugby team that wants us to kiss?” Kia asked, a grin hiding behind her faux-serious expression.

“If a whole rugby team tells us to kiss, I guess we should probably kiss.”