The Next Best Thing. Kristan Higgins

Rhode Island is part of Red Sox nation and we’re raised to hate all things New York, I thought Mr. Torre was a very nice man. Dinner cost $112 that night; he left $500 and a signed napkin that said “The service was very special. Thank you so much. Joe Torre.” Whenever I pictured a stepfather, it was always Joe Torre’s dolorous, bulldog face that came to mind.

      It was fair to say that I was hungry for men…not in the sexual way necessarily, but in the way a vegetarian yearns for a steak when the scent of roasting meat is in the air. The way a Midwesterner can yearn for the ocean, even if they’ve only seen it once. When a man came into the bakery, I hustled to be the one waiting on him, regardless of his age, and soaked up all that fascinating masculinity—how he moved, spoke, stood. How his eyes crinkled when he smiled at me, how decisively he’d ask for whatever it was he wanted. The blunt fingers, the hair on the back of the hands, the shadow of beard.

      At the time I met Jimmy, Ethan was probably my closest male friend, but he was all fun, no gravitas. A boy, in other words, not a man. Not then.

      Jimmy…he was a man. Strong, solid, tall, three years older than I was, he was so commanding and capable. He’d never worked anywhere but in a kitchen, and he knew what he was doing. Quick, sure movements, the ability to make a decision in a heartbeat, confident and secure and talented, he was dazzling.

      I started coming home from school more and more, because Jimmy’s job didn’t give him much wiggle room on the weekends. Gianni worked in the kitchen alongside his son, yelling at the sous chef and prep chefs, and whenever he saw me, he’d give me a kiss on the cheek and call me Jimmy’s Girl. Marie, who served as hostess of the patrons and terror of the waitstaff, would seat me at the family table, urging me to eat more so I wouldn’t be “so thin.” She’d grill me about if I wanted children (yes), how many did I think I wanted (three or four) and did I ever want to move away from the area (absolutely not). Then she’d smile and, I imagined, do the math as to how much longer she’d have to wait for a grandchild.

      And then Jimmy would come out of the kitchen, schmooze a little with the diners, always hearty and friendly. His eyes would seek me out, and he’d look at me a beat too long, letting me know I was the one he wanted to be with. He’d walk past, back to the kitchen, stopping for a kiss, squeezing me on the shoulder with his strong hands, leaving me in a wake of garlic and lust.

      Being with him was being with a local celebrity—someone who was better looking than first remembered, who smelled better, who, when he wrapped his arms around me and lifted me off my feet, made me dizzy with love. Everyone knew Jimmy, despite the fact that he’d just moved to town a year or so before, and he remembered everyone’s names, sent over complimentary appetizers, asked after children. Everyone adored him.

      He was a wonderful boyfriend, bringing me flowers, hiding notes in my dorm room on the rare occasions he made it to Providence, calling a couple of times a day. He constantly told me I was beautiful, and with him, I felt it like never before. He’d gaze at me as we lay in the grass in Ellington Park as the tidal river flowed past, the smell of brine and flowers mingling as the sun beat down on us, and he’d forget what he was saying, breaking off midsen—tence to reach out and touch my face with his fingertips or kiss my hand, or even better, lay his head in my lap and say, “This is all I’ll ever need. This and a little food.”

      It was Jimmy who gave Bunny’s a boost when he suggested that Gianni’s buy their bread from us. He recommended us to other restaurants, too, and that side of the business mushroomed. My mother and aunts thought he just about walked on water because of it. “That Jimmy,” they’d say, shaking their heads, their dormant love of men peeking through the snows of their widowhood. “He’s something, that Jimmy. He’s a keeper, Lucy.”

      They didn’t have to tell me.

      Jimmy waited till I was done with college to propose. He asked me to have a late dinner with him at Gianni’s one night, after everyone else had left. It was something we did once in a while, the restaurant only lit by a few candles. I still remember the taste of everything he made that night…the sweetness of the tomatoes, the yeasty tug of the bread, the smooth vodka sauce on the perfectly cooked pasta, the tender, buttery chicken.

      When it came time for dessert, Jimmy went into the kitchen and returned with two dishes of Marie’s famous tiramisu, a cool, rich combination of chocolate cream, sponge cake and coffee liqueur topped with the creamy mascarpone. He set my dish down in front of me. I glanced down, saw the engagement ring perched on top of the cream. Without missing a beat, I picked it up, licked it off and put it on my finger as Jimmy laughed, low and dirty. Then I looked into Jimmy’s confident, smiling, utterly handsome face and knew I’d spend the rest of my life crazy in love with this guy.

      Obviously things didn’t turn out quite that way.

      When we’d been married for eight months, Jimmy drove down to New York for a chef supply show. He’d gotten up at 5:00 a.m. to get there early, spent the whole day learning about new oven technologies, hearing how remodeling a restaurant kitchen could save time and money, looking at hundreds of new or redesigned tools for the chef. Then he and a bunch of other chefs headed out for dinner.

      It was past midnight when he called me from outside New Haven, nearly two hours from Mackerly.

      “You didn’t have too much to drink, did you?” I asked, cuddled up in our bed. I’d been waiting up for him, and in truth was disappointed that he was still so far away.

      “No, baby. One glass of wine at about five, that’s it. You know me.”

      I smiled, mollified. “Well, you’re not too tired, are you?”

      “I’m a little beat,” he admitted, “but not too bad. I miss you. I just want to get home and see your beautiful face and smell your hair and get laid.”

      I laughed. “Now that’s funny,” I said, “because I just want to see your beautiful face and get laid, too.”

      I didn’t say, Jimmy, at least pull over and take a nap. I didn’t say, Baby, we have our whole lives together. Get a motel room and go to sleep. Instead, I said, “I love you, honey. Can’t wait to see you.” And he said the same thing, and that was the last thing he ever did say.

      About a hundred minutes after we hung up, Jimmy fell asleep at the wheel, crashed into an oak tree six miles from home and died instantly, and the rest of my life was rewritten.

      “HOW’S THE CAKE?” I ask Ash, my seventeen—year—old Goth neighbor from down the hall.

      “It’s fantastic. You sure you don’t want any?”

      “I’m sure. I taught this one in class, remember? You can make it yourself.” Ash, who doesn’t have a lot of friends her own age, helps out at my six—week pastry class from time to time.

      “Why bake for myself when I, like, have my own bakery right down the hall?” She takes another huge bite. “Anyway, stop stalling, Lucy. Get this done.”

      Feeling the need for a little company, I’d bribed Ash with bittersweet chocolate cake and the latest James Bond DVD. Tonight, I’m registering on a dating Web site, and while it seems like the perfect way for me to find someone, my stomach jumps nonetheless. I drain my wineglass, then drop a kiss on Fat Mikey’s head. He blinks fondly at me, then, fickle as only a cat can be, pricks my knee with his claws and jumps down.

      “Lucy, I’m, like, aging rapidly here,” Ash reminds me. “I do have school tomorrow, and my stupid mother wants me home at like, eleven.”

      “Sorry, sorry,” I mutter. I need to do this. Aside from hitting a sperm bank, this is the way to get what I want. Find a husband. I glance at my young friend, who could also do with a boyfriend. As always, her hair is Magic—Marker black, her eyes ringed with eyeliner, her eyebrows painfully overplucked. Because she’s been eating, some of her black lipstick has been dislodged, revealing a Cupid’s bow mouth in the prettiest imaginable shade of pink.

      “What are you staring at?” she asks. “Get your butt in gear. The movie’s two hours long.”

      I