What Love Tastes Like. Zuri Day

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      “Yes, he’s still as fine as he was in Rome,” she said by way of greeting.

      “I thought you went to Italy to work. Who’s still as fine as he was in Rome?”

      Damn! “Oh…Mom.”

      “Well, don’t sound so enthusiastic,” her mother answered sarcastically. “Obviously you were expecting someone else. Now back to my question. Who’s still as fine as he was in Rome?”

      Tiffany barely suppressed a groan. The last person she wanted to be discussing either her past lust liaison or her future employment with was her mother. Her mind raced for a deft way to put the proverbial cat—that was almost out of the bag—back inside. “Oh, just somebody I had dinner with, a casual acquaintance. How’s business? Did you get the airport contract?”

      Normally any question about Janice Matthews’s technology firm could send her into a nonstop spiel about the center of her world…her business. Now, however, was not one of those times.

      “My business is fine. Now back to yours. Who’s this casual acquaintance you met in Rome? Your comment didn’t sound all that casual to me.”

      Tiffany had never found it easy to lie to her mother. She figured she would tell as little of the truth as possible and hoped it would satisfy her mother’s curiosity. “Okay, Mom, you got me. Actually, he’s not a casual acquaintance, he’s the man who might be my boss.”

      “Tiffany, now, I know I raised you better than that. Office liaisons are the easiest way to throw a career off track, get you booted out of the workplace, and have you landing flat on your rump, pun intended. But then again, if this is another one of those kitchen jobs, that might not be such a bad idea.”

      “Look, Mom, I don’t want to argue about my career choice today.”

      “Neither do I. I just wish you’d change it.”

      “I can’t talk right now, all right?”

      “Wait, Tiffany. There’s a reason why I called. Your father is going to be in town this weekend. He asked about you. I gave him your new number. It’s time you two talked.”

      Tiffany was stunned into silence. She hadn’t talked to her father in over a year, hadn’t seen him in almost five.

      “I hope you’re not angry at me for giving him your number. But no matter the differences you two have had in the past, he’s still your father, Tiffany. Tiffany, are you there?”

      “Yes, Mom. I’m here. What’s the business that’s bringing him to town?” Tiffany asked the question because she knew he wasn’t coming just to see her.

      “Some new partnership he’s checking out. I don’t know the details. Would you like his number? Just in case, you know, he gets busy? You know how single-minded he can be when he’s working on a deal.”

      “Yes, Mom, I know all too well. But if he’s too busy to call his only child, especially when we’re in the same city? Then he’s too busy.”

      Janice sighed at the sarcasm she heard in Tiffany’s voice, even as she understood it. She couldn’t blame her daughter for feeling resentful, and she couldn’t deny that her daughter was right. Her father had always put business first—before his child and his marriage. She’d probably shared too much of the bitterness she felt toward him with her daughter, but at the time, she’d been too angry and hurt to care. That the divorce was acrimonious was an understatement, and for years after it was over, Janice tried to wipe every trace of Keith Bronson from their lives. That’s why when she’d taken back her maiden name, she’d changed Tiffany’s last name also—from Bronson to Matthews. She’d justified it at the time, saying it would be easier for her, her daughter, and the grandmother who was helping to raise her to have the same last name. Later she regretted it, and when Tiffany was sixteen, Janice asked if she wanted to have her father’s last name again. But by that time, Janice’s bitterness had become Tiffany’s. She said no.

      “Well,” Janice concluded, “let me give you his number, honey, just in case.”

      “No, Mom, if Dad and I talk, it will be because he calls me.”

      An hour later, Tiffany pulled up to a familiar curb in the older, yet well kept neighborhood of Los Angeles known as View Park. The row of medium-sized, stucco-covered houses stood behind freshly mowed lawns and newly trimmed bushes. A profusion of color burst forth from bird of paradise plants that lined the walkway leading up to the bright red front door. As Tiffany approached the porch, a giddy lightness replaced the wisps of heaviness that still coiled around her heart following the conversation with her mother. The mood had lifted somewhat as she walked the aisles of her favorite market, gathering up items for the dinner she planned to cook. But it was only now, as she rang the doorbell shaped like a flower, that a smile flittered across her face.

      “Tiffany!”

      “Hey, Grand!”

      Tiffany stepped into the cozy foyer and hugged Gladys Matthews, her favorite person in the world. It was at the elbow of Gladys, her maternal grandmother, that she had not only developed a love for great food, but a love for preparing it as well. While both her parents had adamantly opposed her decision to become a chef, one of the few things on which they agreed before, during, or since their ten-year marriage, Gladys had encouraged her to follow her dreams. Whenever Tiffany was at her grandmother’s house, the world righted itself and everything was possible. If anybody could help her make sense of what was going on in her life, it would be the woman Tiffany simply called “Grand.”

      “Come on in the kitchen,” Grand said, noticing the bags Tiffany carried. “What have you got here?”

      “Dinner,” Tiffany replied. “I hope you’re hungry.”

      “Child, a little bird must have tweeted in your ear. I was just thinking about how I sure didn’t feel like cooking tonight. And here you are.”

      Tiffany felt the tension begin to leave her body as soon as she stepped into Grand’s kitchen. The familiar smells of the onions, peppers, and garlic that were hanging in a vegetable basket by the window, as usual, blended perfectly with the warm color of the kitchen walls and the copper pots that hung from a rack near the ceiling. Tiffany had helped Grand pick out the mellow yellow wall color almost ten years ago, and had chosen the bold, bright fabric depicting every kind of vegetable imaginable from which Grand had sewn curtains for the side and back windows. A well-worn teapot held its usual spot on the back burner. Grand was always ready to make peppermint tea. It was her favorite, which might explain why it was Tiffany’s favorite as well.

      “Well, it sure is good to see you,” Grand said as she bustled around the kitchen to prepare the ladies’ favorite brew. “I can’t wait to hear all about your trip to Rome, and especially about the fella who has you wanting to cook up a storm.”

      “Grand! Who said anything about a ‘fella’? I’m here because I wanted to cook for you, and so you can help me perfect my would-be scallop masterpiece.”

      “That may be so,” Grand said as she walked to the other side of the island, which contained a massive cutting board. She picked out an appropriate knife from the butcher block and joined Tiffany in dicing vegetables. “But you’ve got a slew of food to cut on this here table, enough to supply a small soup kitchen. You got that habit honestly. I used to do the same thing when your grandfather was trying to court me and got on my last nerve in the process. I’d retreat to the kitchen and get to slicing and dicing. Better those vegetables than his neck! Now, tell me about the man who’s got you practicing your cutting skills.”

      “His name is Nick,” Tiffany said with a sigh. “But it’s not how you think, Grand. We’re friends, that’s all.”

      “Uh-huh,” Grand said knowingly. “And Mona Lisa was a man.”

      15

      To say she had experienced first-day jitters at Taste was an understatement. Less than two hours