“Yeah?”
“Do you want to be a chef?”
“I think so.” He sets the pan down and lifts up the saucepan from the stove. When he drains the water into the sink, steam swarms the air. “I can’t really imagine doing anything else.”
“So you’ll go to culinary school, do you think?”
“I hope so. Eventually.” After he dumps what I now know to be red potatoes into a bowl, he adds a little milk and a cut of butter. I keep waiting for him to elaborate, but like I said, Jonah Daniels can be an enigma.
So I’ll prod him. I know we’re not in the most comfortable topical territory for Jonah, but it’s good for him to talk about his feelings and plans. “Would you take over Tony’s?”
Jonah frowns thoughtfully. He mashes the potatoes with a silver kitchen tool I don’t recognize, and the muscles in his arms flex as he does so. I sit on my hands so they’ll stop trying to reach over and unbutton his shirt. “No. I don’t think so. At least not for a long time. I love the restaurant, and I love Verona Cove . . . but I want to live in a bigger city.”
The scents carry across the air between us—faint garlic and melted butter and another earthy spice that I can’t place.
“There’s school for costume designing, right?” he asks. “Are those in big cities?
“New York and LA, mostly, I think. But I’m sure I can find an apprenticeship with some fabulous designer because I’m already a rather talented seamstress. Also, I want to go to Japan for at least a year. After that, I’ll probably live in California for work.” I consider this, opening my mind to the many possible visions I see of my life. “But maybe New York, doing TV or indie films. You know, people tend to think of costume design as, like, beautiful, accurately re-created gowns in period films. But there’s such an art to costume-designing for modern realism, like in TV shows. You have to study the character and know what choices he or she would make, and you help create the idea of the portrayal, you and the writers and the actor or actress and the hair and makeup team.”
“I can see you doing both,” Jonah says, smiling. He’s spooning the smashed red potatoes onto a bed of lettuce called arugula. I’m becoming very well-versed in vegetables tonight.
“You’re right—I’d love to do a current-day TV show, but I’d have to have at least one big, sweeping statement movie. Because, you know, clothes can be the difference between a movie scene and an iconic moment in film.”
“Oh yeah?” He looks amused by such a grandiose statement, but I’m right. I’m always right about costume design.
“Of course. Without the black scoop-back gown, the elbow gloves, and the statement necklace, Audrey Hepburn is just a random girl on a New York City street.”
“And the tiara.”
I blink at him a few times while I process this. “What?”
“She wears a little tiara, too, right? Holly Golightly?” He doesn’t look up at me because he’s carefully placing the salmon onto the mound of mashed potatoes.
I’m charmed. Oh Holy Mother Earth, am I ever charmed. “You’ve seen Breakfast at Tiffany’s?”
“Sure. My mom made me watch all those old movies when I was little.” Both plates are almost done now, and he’s putting a little more glaze onto the salmon. This whole experience is mouthwatering, and I have to wonder how I got so lucky—a beautiful boy on this beautiful night, making me this beautiful meal.
“Hey, Jonah?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t really know how to break this to you,” I say. I hop down from the counter and look up at him. “But I think you are maybe falling in love with me.”
He hands me my plate, and his smile is the faintest bit smug. “Viv, I just made you wild-caught Alaskan salmon baked with mango chutney, on a bed of garlic red potatoes and arugula. While talking about an Audrey Hepburn movie. I think you are maybe falling in love with me.”
I lift to my tiptoes so I can press my mouth against his. When I return to my heels, I smile right back. Even though there are no maybes at all in this situation and we both know it, I can be an enigma, too. “Maybe so, Jonah. Maybe so.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Jonah