here are nine of us in the cooking class, each standing behind a long wooden table with a small range and oven at each station, and a sink in between. The classroom is at the back of Epicurean, a gourmet kitchen cookware and cutlery store, and a wall of windows looks out onto the floor—gleaming stainless steel pans, racks of dishes, colorful ovenware, tablecloths, and linen napkins.
I open my satchel and remove my notebook, then check to make sure I brought at least three pens. You know, a backup in case one runs out of ink and a spare in case my station neighbor needs a loan.
I tighten my hair in its ponytail, then line up my notepad and pen beside the range just as my cell phone rings.
“Are you still at the library?” Dean asks.
“My cooking class starts at seven. I told you yesterday.”
“Oh. Sorry, I forgot.”
Irritation prickles my skin. “Yeah, well, there’s a chicken pot-pie warm in the oven for you.”
I snap the phone shut with an audible click, which catches the attention of the woman at the station beside me. She gives me a sympathetic smile.
“It started out as a frozen pot-pie,” I say, dropping the phone back into my bag. “Obviously the reason I’m here.”
“Welcome, everyone.” A blond-haired man wearing a white chef’s jacket steps up to the instructor’s station at the front of the room. “I’m Chef Tyler Wilkes, owner and executive chef of the restaurant Julienne over in Forest Grove. Natalie invited me to teach this class for the next few months, and I hope I can help you learn some exciting new cooking techniques.”
At this point, I’d be happy to learn any cooking technique, whether or not it’s exciting.
Chef Tyler Wilkes drones on about a bunch of his accomplishments—four-star this, five-star that, an award here, another award there—then he wants us to introduce ourselves and tell everyone our reasons for taking his class.
Charlotte Dillard, my station neighbor, just returned from a culinary tour of France and is anxious to recreate some of the dishes she enjoyed. Laura Gomez has had a lifelong love of food and is considering leaving her insurance job to pursue cooking as a career. George Hayes, the one man in the group, recently retired and is finally getting around to trying new things. Susan Chapman wants to learn more about preparing local and organic ingredients to provide healthy, delicious meals for her family.
My introduction couldn’t be more straightforward.
“I’m Olivia West. Everyone calls me Liv. I’m taking the class because I can’t cook.”
Tyler Wilkes smiles at me from behind his station. Even though I’m in the third row, I’m a little dazzled by the effect of brightness.
He’s cute, I think in the abstract way I think puppies and stuffed animals are cute.
“Why don’t you think you can cook, Liv?” he asks.
“Uh… I don’t think I can’t. I know I can’t.”
“Why?” he persists.
I have no idea what he’s talking about. The rest of the class is looking at me, as if expecting some grand philosophical answer like, “Well, I wasn’t really nourished as a child, so I never understood what…”
Oh, shit.
My fingers curl on the edges of the counter. For a second, I feel blindsided.
“Liv?” Tyler Wilkes presses.
“Er, I guess… I mean, I’ve never done much of it. Cooking, that is. In my life.” My face is starting to get hot.
Tyler Wilkes smiles again and moves on to talking about what to expect from this class (good cooking techniques, the basics of classic French cuisine, learning to cook individual dishes, then the grand finale of preparing an entire menu), then he reviews all the implements at our stations.
I’m half-listening, taking notes mechanically. My mind fills with unwanted memories of my culinary past—greasy, fast-food hamburgers; dinners of saltines and fried eggs, scrounging in a stranger’s pantry for a can of beans.
Suddenly I want Dean so badly my chest aches. I want to feel his arms tight around me; I want to press my face against his neck.
I force my attention back to the front of the room. Tyler Wilkes is demonstrating, with lightning-fast speed, how to chop carrots, celery, and onions for something called a mirepoix, a word he writes on the whiteboard behind him.
Then he tells us all to get started. I grab a carrot, and the sound of knives thwacking against wood fills the room as we all start chopping. Tyler Wilkes walks around observing everyone’s “knife technique.”
I concentrate, slicing the carrot down the middle, then into neat little cubes. Tyler Wilkes pauses beside my station neighbor Charlotte and praises the speed and evenness of her carrot dicing.
“Thank you, Chef,” she replies, glowing.
“How are you doing, Liv?” He stops in front of my station.
“All right… uh, Chef.” That sounds weird.
“Tyler,” he says, a smile in his voice.
I glance at him. He’s not much taller than I am, not much older, and he has a pleasant, open face and bright blue eyes.
He watches my chopping for a minute. “Too tight.”