CHAPTER 12
“Okay. Think sexy ,” she ordered herself in her empty kitchen.
So far, she’d come up with maybe a few tentative dishes, but there still wasn’t any cohesion. She’d gone for low-hanging fruit, culling the best potentials from his existing material. They hadn’t told her she couldn’t use his videos, after all, and Vanessa had actually pointed her to his social media. Of course, she wanted to test the recipes themselves. In a lot of them, he didn’t offer measurements, or the ones he did use seemed off.
That was the food scientist in her, though, not the ghostwriter of sexy cookbooks, she thought doggedly. She didn’t have any time to waste.
She frowned at the blank page and thought about some of the ingredients she’d bought at the local grocery. It was small but surprisingly well stocked, even though their produce wasn’t nearly as good as what she’d gotten from Marigold Farm. If she hadn’t made such a spectacle of herself—and if she hadn’t still been wary of the goats—she’d have gone back and cleared out the farm stand.
Maybe she’d put in an order with Hudson, she thought. Then felt her ears heat.
Stop that.
She sighed. Then she picked up her cell phone.
Nat picked up after a few rings. “Hey there. How’s island life?”
“Pretty good,” she prevaricated. “Getting my bearings, you know?”
“Still planning on living there?”
“I’d like to, maybe? I mean, it’s still early, and I don’t know if I’ll like living here in winter or anything. But right now, in summer? It’s beautiful,” Willa said, doodling on the paper in front of her. She sketched the few Rainiers she had left, washed and ready for her to eat in a plain white bowl. “You wouldn’t believe the fruit and vegetables out here too.”
“Really?”
“Seriously. Yum .”
“I’ll have to come up and visit,” Nat said, the smile clear in her voice. “That’s a hint, if you missed it, by the way.”
Willa smiled back. “Let me get a little time under my belt. I’m still not sure how long I’m going to ...”
Last here.
“. . . stay here,” she finished.
Nat paused. “Don’t tell me. Your parents ever-so-helpfully suggested you sell and move back to Irvine.”
Willa winced. They had had a brief conversation that afternoon, or at least she’d spoken with her mother. (Her father would rather be forced to jump out of a plane than talk on a phone, to anyone.) Her mother had gently circled around her intentions: “You can’t live on your savings forever,” she’d hinted.
The joke being on her, since Willa didn’t really have savings, per se. The advance she’d received would carry her through the end of the summer. Then ...
Well. Then she’d see what happened.
Her mother would be horrified.
“They’ll get over it,” Willa said, with a confidence she didn’t feel. “I got a cookbook gig. Can’t really talk about it specifically, but you won’t believe what I’ve got to write about.”
“Wait, wait, let me guess,” Nat teased. “Purely vegan Super Bowl snacks.”
“Nope.” Although her mind started playing with ideas. It’d be hard, but that could be a fun challenge at some point.
“Okay, other direction. A hunter’s guide to five-star cooking in the wild?”
“No.”
Nat made a thoughtful hmmm sound. “How to cook hamsters?”
“What? Ewww! No! ”
“All right, I’m out,” Nat said. “What’ve you got?”
“I have to write a sexy cookbook ,” Willa said, laughing as she said it.
There was silence for a beat. Then Nat prompted: “... and?”
Willa’s laughter cut off, and she frowned. “Let me restate that,” Willa tried again. “ I have to write a sexy cookbook.”
“Still not seeing the challenge here,” Nat said. “I mean, it’s kind of boring, it’s been done a billion times, I’m sure—like, every Valentine’s Day—but what’s the problem?”
Willa felt uncomfortable. She started sketching the water glass she’d been drinking from, half drained and sweating from the ice. “Well, there are some elements I can’t talk about, like I said,” Willa added. “But yeah. It’s like everything’s been done, and I don’t feel ...”
She stopped herself.
“You don’t feel it, huh?” Nat’s voice was gentle and understanding.
Willa sighed. “I really, really don’t,” she said. “Everything I’m thinking of seems either like a cliché or a stereotype. Or a joke.”
And I’m really, really counting on this project to get me more assignments. She couldn’t just phone it in. Not if she was going to keep working.
“That sucks,” Nat said sympathetically. “But I know you, and I know you’ll come up with something. Remember what Marceline always said?”
She had met Nat when Nat was a saucier at the Cloisters, under Marceline. Willa had staged there, to help her recipe process and because ... well, because Marceline had not only been open to it, she’d insisted .
“Marceline said a lot of things,” Willa pointed out fondly.
“She said that if things aren’t working, or are boring, it’s because you’re thinking too small. You need to be bold. Bold flavors. Bold, unexpected combinations.”
Willa remembered the woman’s stern voice, her strong French accent only somehow adding to her gravitas, even if she was one of the kindest, most thoughtful people Willa knew. “Si tu as peur de merder,” she murmured as the memory came back to her, “tu ne survivras pas dans ma cuisine.”
“God, you even almost sounded like her there!”
Willa barked out a laugh. “Not sure if that’s a compliment or not.”
“Have you called her, since . . . ?”
Now Willa felt a burn of guilt. “No.”
Nat sighed. “I’m glad that you still call me, that you trust me,” she said. “But you know there are a lot of us that miss you, right? That you don’t have to be alone?”
“I know.” That was the worst part. She did. But for so long, she’d felt like part of a unit—Steven-and-Willa. He’d introduced her to so many of them. And then, when he’d died, she hadn’t known how to reach out or what to say, especially in the face of incessant sympathy and plaintive, uncomfortable offers of help that she knew she’d never take.
“All right. Let’s attack the problem,” Nat said briskly, and Willa was grateful. “You said that you’re not feeling inspired. So there’s your answer. Get inspired.”
“I’ve been trying,” Willa said. “I told you, the ingredients here are—”
“Not with food, ding-dong,” Nat scoffed. “Or at least, not just with food. Try focusing on the sexy aspect.”
“Oh, ugh ,” Willa blurted out.
“So that’s the problem,” Nat said. “It’s not just that you’re writing a sexy cookbook . It’s that you need to tap into your sexy side, period.”
Willa felt her face flame. “You have no idea.”
“All right. So, what turns you on?”
Willa laughed until she realized Nat was serious. “I can’t talk about that!”
“Why not? We’re all adults here, and trust me, I am impossible to shock.”
“I’m not!” Willa protested. “I’m very easy to shock!”
“I’m not saying go watch a bunch of dungeon bondage porn,” Nat said, and Willa choked on air. “I’m saying ... all right, let’s start smaller. Who do you find hot?”
Willa frowned. “You mean, like, actors?”
“Or singers, or whoever.”
“I don’t know. I don’t really pay attention to that sort of thing. I mostly watch cooking stuff.”
Unbidden, her mind provided a flash of Hudson in her kitchen, smiling at her over the ridiculously large welcome basket.
“I can’t think of anyone,” she squeaked, shoving the thought aside.
Nat huffed. “How about situations? When you watched movies, or from books you’ve read?” she pressed. “Anything?”
Willa thought hard, her mind scrambling to find something. “Um ...”
“Seriously, anything,” Nat said. “I’m not going to judge you, promise. This is brainstorming, so anything, no matter how bonkers, is a jumping-off point.”
Willa felt her shoulders slump over. She drew a rough skull and crossbones. “I am so screwed,” she finally said. “I literally can’t think of anything.”
“Oh, sweetie,” Nat said, and it was tinged with sympathy. “Okay, I’m sorry to bring this up, but ... does this have to do with Steven?”
God damn it. Willa felt cold flood over her.
“Because ... everyone’s grieving takes a different time period, I know that. I’m not trying to rush you or say you shouldn’t be feeling anything that you’re feeling. I’m just wondering if that’s part of the issue, here?” Nat waited a beat. “That you haven’t let go?”
Willa grimaced.
“It’s not that,” she said. “Not exactly.”
She and Steven hadn’t had sex in a while, especially in those last years. Since he’d died, it felt like she’d been dealing with one bureaucratic Gordian knot after the next. She’d been battling the aftereffects of death after several years of dealing with the realities of dying, when she’d been dealing with continual crises that cropped up like Whac-A-Moles.
It was hard to fantasize when you felt so exhausted you didn’t dream.
“It’s okay,” Nat said without pushing any further. Which was why Nat was her best friend. “Maybe you can take some more time with this? Or just pass on the project, give it to someone else?”
Willa snapped out of it. “No! No,” she said quickly. She wasn’t going to reveal the depth of her desperation here. “It’ll be fine. I just, you know, need to push through, find the angle. I’ll figure it out.”
“You always do this.”
“Do what?” Willa asked, confused.
“Decide to brute-force things.” There was a note of disapproval in her voice, but again—no pushing. “Well, you are right in one way: somehow, you usually pull it out in the eleventh hour. You’re one of the best clutch players I know. Remember that ridiculous pop-up that Steven planned? The one in the graveyard, where we—”
“Cooked with Sterno because the camp stoves and stuff weren’t working,” Willa said, shaking her head but still chuckling. “That was so last minute. We had no prep time. I wanted to kill him!”
“Yeah, but it was amazing,” Nat said. “People still talk about that, and you know how hard that is in our industry. Best Halloween ever.”
Willa smiled.
“That was you, you know,” Nat added. “Steven could dream bigger than anybody I’ve ever known, but you made things work.”
Willa sketched a tartlet, shading it with the pencil. “Now I just have to make this work.”
“You will.”
With that, they said goodbye and hung up, with Willa promising to check in soon. She looked down at her page.
She’d sketched a bunch of food, some silly cartoon faces, some phrases from what she’d talked about with Nat. One, in particular, stood out to her.
Si tu as peur de merder, tu ne survivras pas dans ma cuisine.
She translated it in her head:
If you’re afraid of fucking up, you won’t survive in my kitchen.
She wasn’t failing. She closed her eyes. Think sexy, think sexy, think sexy ...
Before she gave up and threw the pencil at a wall in frustration, she thought of something.
Hudson, moving the oven. The back muscles flexing beneath his neat black polo shirt. The way his forearms bulged, slightly, with the effort.
The way his blue eyes shone at her.
That half smile.
She took a deep breath, then pulled out more ingredients.
There was not being afraid of fucking up, and outright courting disaster. She’d come up with inspiration somehow. But it was not going to be her next-door neighbor.