Page 32 of Best Served Hot

At least the fancy lobby prepared me for Bennett’s extremely fancy apartment, so I didn’t gawk like I’d never seen floor-to-ceiling views of the sparkling city lights before. His kitchen was as big as my living room, all the appliances sleek and chrome, and the connected living space had a ceiling that stretched high above us, the walls lined with bookshelves. I didn’t see a TV.

Because I was actually curious and also because I wanted to delay what was going to be a sure humiliation in the kitchen, I stepped up to the closest bookshelf and let my fingers trail along the spines. “Bourdain!” I exclaimed, and felt the dagger of sorrow through my heart I always felt when reminded he was dead. Anthony Bourdain had introduced me to the idea of sharing my love for food and good restaurants through his TV shows. I was so sad I’d never get to meet him, and even sadder that his love was gone from the world.

“I love Bourdain.” He stepped up beside me. “They’re all first editions. And signed.” Of course they were. “I’ve got A. J. Liebling over there, and Jeffrey Steingarten. Clementine Paddleford, James Beard, Ruth Reichl. And of course there’s M. F. K. Fisher.”

“Oh!” I moved over to squint at the spines but didn’t dare touch them. I’d read many of the famous food writer’s books in college. Back at home, I still had the editions I’d picked up in secondhand shops, the bindings tattered and page corners worn away nearly to nothing. “She’s my favorite. She broke so many barriers.”

“ ‘There is a communication of more than our bodies when bread is broken and wine is drunk,’ ” Bennett recited. “ ‘And that is my answer when people ask me: Why do you write about hunger, and not wars or love.’ ”

When I looked at him in amazement, the tips of his ears had turned red. He said, “That’s my favorite M. F. K. Fisher quote.”

I became aware that I was holding my breath. I didn’t want to breathe out, though. It felt like it might make this moment end. This moment where he was standing so close to me, those words on his lips, those lips slightly parted, telling me that food stood for love, and war stood for love, too, or maybe it was just in my own mind that I was mixing the two of them up, because I knew Bennett and I could never be together, knew that our positions meant we were at war, and yet . . . and yet . . .

My lungs begged for air. I sucked in a deep breath and broke eye contact, broke the tension that had been hanging between us. “That’s a good quote. Do you want to know my favorite?”

“Sure.” His voice was rough. In the corner of my eye, I saw him lick his lips.

Like most normal people, I didn’t have any M. F. K. Fisher quotes memorized. So I selected one of her books at random—well, not random, the one that looked the least valuable—and flipped to a random page. Hoping I’d find something beautiful but decidedly unsexy, maybe about the smell of a mushroom farm or boxes of durian.

Where my eyes landed: Sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should not be indulged in lightly.

Thanks a lot, Mary Frances Kennedy. I shut the book with a snap. “Never mind, I forgot it.”

“The book’s right there.” It felt almost like he was studying me, his arms crossed as he leaned against the bookshelf. How could something so simple as a lean be so sexy? It was like he was mocking me.

I brushed past him. I couldn’t watch him lean if my back was to him. “It’s late. We should probably get cooking.”

I remembered once I was in that giant stainless steel kitchen that, Wait, I definitely do not want to “get cooking.” But it was too late. I was in it now.

At least the fact that we’d volunteered to make our own buns meant that I could consult my phone. “I haven’t memorized the ratios of flour and yeast and . . .” What else went in hamburger buns? God, I’m in trouble. “. . . all the other things we need for baking. It’s not like I’m making hamburger buns every day,” I said, while covertly googling How do I make the best hamburger ever?

“Fine. But phones go on the counter. To make sure we’re not looking up anything else.” He gave me a pointed look. I rolled my eyes, mostly to hide the guilt, and quickly switched over to googling How do I make the best hamburger buns?

“Whatever.” But I propped my phone on the counter up against the iridescent blue-and-pearl backsplash, the kitchen’s only pop of color. “But don’t try to cheat by reading my recipe. It’s the best one.” I knew that because the recipe creator had called them “The Best Hamburger Buns,” and obviously, she wasn’t biased at all.

“I don’t need your recipe.”

Panic swelled inside me as he went back and forth between his pantry, which was about the size of Marcus’s walk-in closet, which was the prize of our apartment and something I’d sacrificed for the bedroom with the better view (aka the street and not the sad “courtyard,” where you faced the backs of other buildings). He strode purposefully, like he knew exactly what he was doing, and he didn’t have to stop and rummage around to make sure he had something—again, like he knew exactly what he was doing.

I swallowed hard, pushing my shoulders back. Trying to project confidence. “I guess I’ll start my burgers while you’re doing that.”

He didn’t answer, just gestured at a cabinet over the stove. I opened it to find what appeared to be every bowl or cutting board or rack that a cook could ever possibly need. What did I need to make a burger? I should chop some onion, right? And I’d need a mixing bowl for the beef. I pulled down a cutting board and big bowl—which still had a label in it, odd—and grabbed a knife from the knife block, laying it gently on top before realizing that I’d picked a knife almost as big as my head. Big knives scared me, but it wasn’t like I could chop with a paring knife here the way I sometimes did at home. It would immediately mark me as an amateur.

I’ve done a lot of things in my life that have freaked me out. For one, purchasing and eating gas station sushi coated with Cheetos dust as an attempt to get attention in one of my earliest reviews (#badidea). But chopping that onion with that giant, extremely sharp knife was definitely up there. It took all of my focus, first trying to cut it in half while it rolled merrily around the board and then chopping it into irregularly sized, probably too-big pieces, to keep myself from chopping off at least part of a finger. I’d broken out in sweat by the time I finished, my heart beating like that time I’d downed a caramel macchiato without realizing I’d accidentally ordered four espresso shots in it.

Bennett paused in his mixing of hamburger bun ingredients to glance over his shoulder and judge me judgily. His eyes slid down to my pile of onions, then back up to me. I said, defensively, “I like it rustic.”

He said nothing, just turned back to his bowl. I dumped my package of hamburger meat into the bowl with the onions, then went for my phone, then reconsidered and washed my hands thoroughly before touching it. I opened up the camera function in selfie mode, smoothed down some of the escaping hairs from my ponytail, and fixed my big fake smile. “Hey, everybody! So, change of plans. Your favorite New York Scroll reviewer Bennett and I were supposed to go out for another joint meal tonight, but, long story short, the reservation gods were not on our side. So what are we doing instead?”

I explained our plan to the camera, leaving my face for only a few seconds to show them the bowl of meat (with just a few of the prettier onions poking out from underneath). Another hank of hair fell free with the motion. I tucked it behind my ear as I turned the camera back to myself, in the process catching Bennett’s eye . . .

. . . because he was openly staring at me while I spoke. Fortunately, I was a professional. My cheeks heated up, but my viewers would pass that off as a healthy glow and probably ask me for my skin care routine. “Anyway, stay tuned for my post later when you’ll get to see by just how much I kick Bennett’s ass.”

It is to my testament as a performer that I managed to wink into the lens without dissolving into embarrassment. I watched it over once quickly to make sure I hadn’t flubbed anything—listening to the sound of my own voice used to make me cringe, but I was used to it by now—and hit post. Which freed me up to set my phone back down and demand, “What?”

“Nothing.” Bennett’s lips quirked in amusement. “It’s just funny watching you work.”

I bit my tongue so that I wouldn’t retort something about how it was work. “Weren’t you going to post, too?”