Sam wanted to call Liv and ask her out to dinner, so he procrastinated by cooking. Mole sauce, from scratch.
Each step a small, fragrant piece of the puzzle. Dry roasting the chilis and tortillas. Blackening tomatoes and tomatillos. Blending both with chicken broth. Onion, garlic, peanuts, raisins, thyme, cinnamon, cloves, and spices sautéed, then blended. Mixing everything together with hunks of dark chocolate, more salt, more broth. He’d learned the recipe from his host family when he was living in Oaxaca in his twenties. The trick, his abuela insisted, was timing. You couldn’t rush a single step. Todo tiene su tiempo. Everything has its time.
Finally, the rich, red-brown sauce was finished and simmering, making his newly rented garden-floor apartment smell rich and deeply delicious.
Pick up your damn phone and call!
He paced the kitchen as her cell rang. It’d been so long since a woman had made him feel this way: anxious, elated, slightly obsessive, slightly scared. He was almost hoping it’d go to voice mail when she picked up. “Hello?”
“Sam!” he said, a little too loudly. “Is me, and I’m calling you, Liv.” He leaned against the counter, eyes squeezed shut, wincing. “Hi.”
“Hi,” she replied, sounding a bit surprised. “How are you?”
“Grunderful.” Oh, for Pete’s sake. “Great. Wonderful. You?”
“Busy. Which is also grunderful.” Then: “Savannah, don’t mix up those name cards, they’re for two different weddings.” Back to him. “Sorry. What’s up?”
“I was wondering if”—you’d like to have dinner with me. You’d like to grab a drink. You like Mexican?—“you got the menu I sent you. For the Fitzpatrick-Maple wedding.” Coward!
“Yes, I sent my notes back. Didn’t you get them? Savannah set up a new email, and she probably didn’t—”
“Oh, no, sorry—here it is. Went into my spam for some reason.” It hadn’t. “Good call on the lobster. Perfect time of year. And green-pea risotto for the vegetarians, nice.”
“Well, you’re so good at it. You’re a very talented chef, Sam Woods.”
In pleased surprise, he brought his free hand down hard, hitting the wooden spoon sitting in the mole, flipping it out. Dark red sauce sprayed all over the ceiling, like a savory Jackson Pollock. “Oh, fu—antastic. That’s fantastic you think that.”
“That one.” She was talking to Savannah again. “That’s really cool, actually. But maybe change the font color to that red you had before?” Then back to Sam. “We’re designing a new logo. It’s a madhouse in here. Training someone new, et cetera.”
“I’m jealous,” Sam said, wiping up a puddle of mole. “I wish I had a partner. In work,” he hurried to clarify. “It gets lonely on my own. In the kitchen,” he rushed to add. “I’m not a sad, lonely guy or anything.”
Liv let out a laugh. “Well, I’m a sad, lonely woman, so if you want to join my club, you’re absolutely welcome.”
Was that an invitation? Before he could figure out what to do with it, he heard a doorbell at Liv’s end.
“I have to run,” she said, “Client meeting. Guess I’ll see you at the Fitzpatrick-Maple wedding. Looking forward!”
“Me too! Bye, Liv.”
“Bye, Sam.”
He hung up.
Well. That was an epic failure. But she did say he was a good cook. Very talented were her exact words. And dating post-divorce would be baby steps. And stepladders, Sam thought, turning his attention to cleaning a ceiling decorated in red mole.