“My dilemma now is, how do I even admit how good this is without you gloating about it forever,” I said, taking another savory bite of tuna tataki, “thereby ruining my enjoyment? Quite the quandary.”
“If it makes you feel safer, I’ve been known, upon rare occasion, to be Jessica Lange gracious about being right.” She dipped her petal-pink sashimi in soy sauce, then nibbled at it in a way that abruptly catapulted raw fish to the unlikely top of my “most erotic foods” list. “And my favorite sushi happens to be the kind I make fresh at home. So until you’ve had mine for comparison, I can’t completely trust your judgment.”
“Wait a minute.” I stared at her with narrowed eyes, brandishing a chopstick at her. “You make sushi? You cook?”
She watched me, amused, candlelight dancing in her frosty irises. “I don’t know that rolling maki qualifies as cooking. But I do like to actually cook with heat, too. And bake, even. Why, Harlow, are you surprised by my tremendous domestic prowess?”
I made jazzy exploding fingers on either side of my temples. “More like mind blown. Tell me more.”
“Well, for your information, I enjoy doing all kinds of”—her voice deepened, turning deliberately husky as she leaned forward, holding my gaze—“homey shit. In fact, I’ve been told my chocolate babka is the dessert equivalent of tantric sex.”
I burst out laughing, though a small, snotty part of me wondered if it was the notorious Jessica who had told her that. “Makes one of us, I guess. I keep trying out meal subscription boxes to get into cooking, but that particular skill set just does not seem to take. I’ll lie about it if you ever tell anyone, but I’ve managed to burn rice at least three times in the past few months. Like smoke-alarm-and-pissed-off-neighbors burnt.”
Her inky eyebrows soared. “I was going to give you the benefit of the doubt, but damn. That’s tragic.”
I swirled the prickly pear sediment in my glass. “I just don’t have the patience for it. Like, what’s the point of slaving over beef bourguignonne or whatever, when all your hard work is just going to get eaten? Hours of labor, and then poof, it’s gone?”
“That is generally how food works, yes.”
“I get that, but still. Feels like such a waste of effort.”
She flicked one gleaming bare shoulder in a shrug. “For me, it’s the satisfaction of it. You’ve fed someone, made them happy and comfortable for at least a little while. Taken care of them in a way that they could feel. Granted, there’s a way bigger payoff if you’re cooking for at least two—all that effort for just yourself is kind of a drag.”
I took the last sip of my cocktail, trying to process this new information. I’d never have pegged the Talia Avramov I remembered, self-contained, lovely, and elusive as a ghost flower, as such a nurturer and caretaker. But then again, this novel perspective fit better with the Talia I’d seen in the Witch Woods, the necromancer witch who’d spoken to a lonely shade with such tenderness. The Avramov who couldn’t quite understand the appeal of her own family’s unfettered lifestyle.
Maybe, I remembered her saying at the gala, I’m not such a bad decision anymore.
And maybe, just like the Thistle Grove I thought I knew, the aloof and heedless Talia I’d held in my memory since high school, like a petal caught in amber, was a reflection of someone who hadn’t really existed for years.
Somehow the complexity made her only that much more intriguing, an unexpected conundrum I badly wanted to unpack.
“What can I say,” she said, reading my mind with one skimmed look over my face. “Frilly aprons by day, ectoplasm by night . . . truly, I contain multitudes. Your turn, Harlow. What don’t I know about you that I should?”
“Hmm,” I considered, as our main course maki arrived. “Obviously you know I really like to read. But! I’m also pretty into ice-and roller-skating. I was even part of a roller derby league for a while last year, before work got too intense for all that time off elevating ankles and icing my various bruises.”
“No shit,” she marveled, a lip-biting smile curving her lips. “Emmeline Harlow, elbow-throwing spitfire on wheels. You’re right. Would not have guessed.”
“Make that Electra Hex,” I said, twirling one of my chopsticks with a dramatic flourish, “formerly of the Mass Marauders.”
“？‘Though she be but little, she is fierce,’？” she quoted, arching a playful eyebrow. “And don’t tell me that one’s overused, because I know—and in this case, don’t care.”