“My grandmother. Wasn’t she beautiful?”
Tilly was back in the room, a small brown purse over her shoulder.
“Very. You have her eyes.” He gestured to the other photographs on the sill. “The pictures are fabulous. Did you take them?”
“No. Renia, my sister, took them. She was at the Taste for my demonstration. She’s not in any of the pictures, because she won’t give up her camera.” Tilly laughed. “And the pictures I take of her don’t belong among these portraits. The photograph to the right is my brother at his college graduation.”
He looked closer at the photographs. “Your sister was the woman sitting behind me taking pictures. She’s a fabulous photographer.”
“Yes, she does weddings and portraits.” Love and pride were evident in her voice and the softness of her eyes. “Are you ready to go?”
Dan grinned as she shifted her weight from foot to foot. “Antsy to get the day over with?”
Tilly looked him directly in the eyes, her unease clear. “Nervous, but you promised cinnamon rolls and I promised I’d give you a chance.”
“Then let’s neither of us go back on our promises.” He captured her warm hand in his. “We’re going to get the best cinnamon rolls this country has to offer.”
“This country?” Her playful disbelief lifted one eyebrow and he relaxed, though not enough to let go of her hand.
“You haven’t been back in Chicago for very long and I get the sense you ate Polish for most of your childhood. Not to mention you’re a Southsider, rooting for the White Sox and all. You won’t have made it up to Clark for breakfast. These are the best in the city. They have other stuff you should order, but the cinnamon rolls are the reason people go.”
She laughed, a sound as warm and colorful as her personality. “You’re trying to sell me on goods I’ve already purchased. Let’s go eat.”
* * *
THE HOSTESS SAT THEM at a table in the back and Dan immediately ordered cinnamon rolls and coffee.
A waiter came back with coffee and Tilly stirred cream into hers. Dan drank his black.
“I have to ask, why the blue hair?”
She absently ran her fingers through her hair and the movement of the strands mesmerized him. “It’s stupid, really.”
“A bad bet.” It wasn’t a guess. She’d told him at the Taste.
“You remembered.”
“You say you’re the one giving me a chance, but my life would also be easier if I could forget about you.” Dull, but easier.
Tilly’s answering smile said she understood. Their relationship had been loaded with complications before he’d bought her a hot dog.
“But now you’re in my head and I won’t ever be able to get you out.”
“You have entirely too much charm,” she said, but she was smiling and Dan decided he could eat Polish food—and nothing else—for the rest of his life.
“The first week of culinary school, I got drunk with my new friends. I had some Polish honey vodka I’d snuck from my mom and everyone wanted to try it.”
“Tsk, tsk, drinking underage.”
“I was one of the youngest students, since I’d fulfilled the requirement of working in a professional kitchen by the time I was sixteen. Most of the other students were old enough to drink, but curious about my honey vodka. And as you will hear, I learned my lesson several times over, and not just from the hangover the next day.”
Dan nodded, remembering several occasions in college where he had “learned his lesson,” until the next time the shots came out.
“We were drunk and talking about our dreams, how we were going to get famous. I would own a haute Polish restaurant, another woman wanted to be the next caterer to the stars and this one guy wanted to be the next James Beard, with his own food foundation and food awards.” She paused for a sip of coffee. “We all laughed that the first person to achieve their dreams would have to do something drastic. I said I would dye my hair blue for a year.”
The waiter returned with their cinnamon rolls and to take their order.
“Mother Mary! How am I supposed to eat one of these and brunch?”
“Don’t try to eat it all. Anything you don’t finish we can drop off at my house later. Have you had a chance to look at the menu?”
“No, but I know what I want.” Tilly turned to the waiter. “I’ll have an omelet with tomatoes, mushrooms and Swiss cheese.”
Dan ordered Southern Decadence eggs benedict and the waiter left. When Tilly opened her mouth to finish her story, Dan pulled a piece of cinnamon roll off and put it in her mouth.
“You couldn’t finish the story without trying one of these rolls,” he said. The tip of her tongue darting out of her mouth to lick frosting off her lips was as arousing as he’d hoped and feared. Everything she ate should involve frosting or a sauce of some kind. Or salt, he thought, remembering the sight of Tilly licking celery salt off her lips at the Taste.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had a cinnamon roll so decadent. My teeth are going to rot just thinking about them.” She took another piece and popped it into her mouth. “Cinnamon courage, to finish my story.
“Where was I? Oh yes, I agreed to dye my hair blue. With my grandmother’s inheritance, I had the start-up money to start my own restaurant, so I moved back to Chicago and began hunting for space. A friend of mine reminded me of the old bet.”
“And you didn’t try to get out of it?” Honoring a bet was important.
“Sure, a little. But, drunk or not, I’d made the bet and I was the first to achieve my dream. I’m determined to make a success out of it, even if I have to work every station myself all day, every day on the way to excellence for each and every person who comes in the door. If that doesn’t happen, I will invite a Russian restaurant to invade.” She nodded hard and her bobbed blue hair bounced. Dan was struck by a desire to have Tilly with frosting on a beach in the Caribbean, even if the sand would grit his teeth.
The corners of her lips rose, but her expression wasn’t a smile. It was an unhappy realization of the indisputable facts of their relationship. “I don’t know where that leaves us.”
“With a chance,” he reminded her.
“Right.” She blinked and the loss in her eyes dimmed. “The day before opening I went to a salon, near here, actually, and got my hair dyed blue. The hairdresser recommended the turquoise. She said it would go better with my skin tone.
“Anyway, I’ve talked a lot about me. How did you get into writing?” She took a bite of her omelet. Her part of the conversation was over. She said she wasn’t certain she could trust him, so he’d tell the truth to whatever she asked. Then she’d see why he couldn’t retract the review, and that it didn’t have to define their relationship, if they didn’t let it.
“I got my degree in journalism, specializing in magazines, planning to write about sports. I wrestled in college, so I traveled a lot. One day I wrote a review of some nasty diner in Ann Arbor, just as a joke, but it got passed around the teams. Everyone thought it was funny and so I wrote more. Eventually I stopped writing them as a gag and slogged my way through the freelance trenches until I could make a living.”
“I always assumed you lived in New York. I know your work, of course. The article on noodles was in Food & Wine and the other one on the international trade of women was in The Atlantic. How did I not put two and two together at the Taste?” She looked at him with wide, astounded eyes. “I knew the chef who was thrown in prison from my externship. He was the nicest, most supportive person I worked with. I was surprised by the news of the child slavery ring, but I suppose you can never really know a person. I remember being so impressed with the dedication of the writer.” She cocked her head and her mouth opened in a smile. “With you.”
“Thanks.” Pride lifted his shoulders at the respect in her eyes. “I like my job and am proud of that article.”
More than liking his job, he loved it. He got to eat and travel for a living and, much to his father’s su
rprise, made money doing it. He was well respected in his field, invited to speak at events and sought after for magazines and newspapers. When he’d been struggling to make a name for himself, the promise of family money (and finally actual money) had kept him alive, but now he lived solely on what he earned. Writing gave him a freedom hard to find in any job. He never had to worry about someone standing over him, berating him for minor mistakes and trying to control his every moment.
When his father called, Dan could hang up the phone.
But the independence his job afforded him was nothing when compared to the admiration in Tilly’s voice as she talked about his work.
“Chicago’s an easy city to travel from. Plus, I like it here. I went to Northwestern and Chicago feels like home. My family lives close. I don’t see them often, but I can’t seem to leave them.”
Dan couldn’t seem to leave his sister. While he had successfully edged himself out from under his father’s manipulative thumb, Beth hadn’t been so lucky. She still strove to please a man who could not be pleased and he couldn’t abandon her while she tried to do it. So he stayed a drive away from Meier Dairy’s headquarters in Wisconsin for whenever she needed a break. It was the only thing he could offer her.
* * *
TILLY ATE HER BRUNCH as she and Dan talked about first-date things: jobs, sports and favorite hangouts in the city. She had promised to give him a chance, but today was also about giving herself a chance. No question she was attracted to him; if it wasn’t for the review, she’d pursue a relationship despite her work life. Babunia had trusted her enough to leave her the money for Babka. Did Tilly trust herself to make a good decision about Dan? She wouldn’t know unless she tried and she couldn’t try halfheartedly. This was a date, as innocent and as complicated as two people exploring a relationship. If she shortchanged the day, she’d always wonder.
People afraid of risk didn’t own their own businesses or work as chefs. She wasn’t planning to fail, but she wasn’t afraid of it, either. Dan, and the attraction she felt for him, was a risk she had to take.
Dan listened and understood her connection to food and family, how the two interacted and how she couldn’t separate one from the other. He was smart and charming and warm. And sure of himself. She was sick to death of worrying about her restaurant and how risky the business was. It was nice to talk with a man who seemed not to worry about anything. He was confident about everything he had done in his life and who he was. When she forgot he was The Eater, Tilly relaxed into the feeling that the world was the way it should be, and, if she kept plugging away, everything would work out.
The waiter took their plates away and returned with cinnamon rolls packed tightly in foil. They got in Dan’s car and drove the leftovers to his place.
She let the exotic, buttery spiciness of the cinnamon rolls filling the car overwhelm her reluctance about Dan and, for the first time in months, felt free of all her burdens. Her anxieties flapped in the wind with her hair and eventually blew out the window. She imagined them flying past the mansions on north Lake Shore Drive and over Lake Michigan, past the B’Hai temple, and far away.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
DAN’S TOWNHOME WAS tidier than it had been when she’d come here for an emergency shower, but it still had all the personality of a furniture-store window. His kitchen, on the other hand, was a dream.
“This is magnificent. Can I cook you dinner sometime in this kitchen?” Tilly ran her hand over the butcher block countertop next to the six-burner gas range. The butcher block was near the stove while the area around the sink was stainless steel. The island in the middle had a third type of surface, a large square of marble. To some, the kitchen would seem a hodgepodge of oversize appliances and mismatched countertops. To Tilly, it was heaven. Every surface had its purpose and every task had its own surface. She put her hand on the cool marble and imagined making chocolates and pies, the stone keeping the butter cold until her culinary masterpiece was finished.
Like a restaurant kitchen, nothing was hidden from view. Open shelving allowed easy access to all the pots and pans while utensils hung on racks within easy reach of the stove. And, while the rest of the apartment looked barely lived in, every shiny surface of the kitchen gleamed with life.
“My Realtor didn’t believe when I bought this place that I did so for the kitchen,” Dan said with obvious pride in the room. “The previous kitchen was a bland disaster of poor planning and even worse materials, but it was huge and I could imagine what it would become. I didn’t feel any guilt when the first cabinet was ripped from the walls.” He held out his hand and she took it. “Come see the pantry.”
Tilly followed Dan into his pantry, which was bigger than her kitchen and filled with well-organized and interesting dry goods. She picked up a bag of organically grown beans from Idaho. “I thought you would be too busy eating at exotic locations to cook.”
“I test recipes and I like to collect local and interesting foods as I travel, especially by small producers. I give a lot of it away to my friends, but—” he gestured to the pantry full of packages, cans and jars “—I can’t seem to give it all away.”
Dan smiled as he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her close. The plastic bean packaging crinkled between them. He took the bag from her hands and placed it back on the shelf, never once taking his eyes off hers.
Tilly’s knees turned to softened butter. Why this man, knees?
“I’ve dreamed about you standing in your fridge at Babka, surrounded by all that cream and cheese.” He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and ran a finger along the side of her chin.
The intensity of his blue eyes trapped her, and her breasts felt heavy with desire. She questioned the wisdom of her breasts, too, but she didn’t pull away. Now was not the time to think about the intelligence of her actions. She just wanted to feel.
He leaned his head down until his lips brushed hers. “Just the thought of kissing my hot chef surrounded by all this food was enough to distract me from work, not to mention what I pictured every time I made my toast in the morning.”
The soft touch of his lips sent hot shivers down her spine until the butter in her knees melted into a pool on the floor. “Are you going to kiss me or just talk about it?”
Dan’s phone sang in his pocket.
“Damn,” he said as he pulled away to dig in his pockets. “It’s my sister. She never calls unless it’s important.” He dropped a peck on her lips. “Stay like this, thinking the same thoughts, for a minute. I won’t be long.”
Tilly resumed peeking through Dan’s collection of dry goods as she kept the same dirty, delicious thoughts in her head. She was examining a small jar of zucchini relish from some store in Iowa when Dan came back into the pantry, his face a tight mix of lust and frustration.
“Is your sister okay?”
“She apparently gave her boss the finger and is nearly in Chicago, looking for a place to sleep.”
“Oh. Is that good or bad?”
“Good, because her boss is an asshole who will never see how wonderful she is for the company.” Dan’s near permanent smile withered away. “Bad, because her boss is also our father.”
Mother Mary, the blessed virgin. “Do we need to cancel our date?”
Dan scowled. “No, she has a key. I told her I was on a date and wasn’t going to be home. She said she didn’t mind.”
“Did she say it like she really didn’t mind or like you would be the most awful person in the world if you weren’t home?”
Dan chuckled, bringing back a bit of the twinkle to his eyes, though the sound was hollow. “I think the latter, but I’m going to risk it. If she did quit, I’m going to be busy with family problems all week. I’m not even sure I’ll make it into Babka for a beer. I want to spend as much time with you as possible before any shit hitting the family fan splashes back on me. If we pack our dinner now, we can be gone before Beth gets here.”
“Are you sure you don’t need to be here fo
r her?”
Dan grabbed her face tightly in his hands and kissed her, hard, as though he had to pack a week’s worth of kissing into one brief second. “I’m sure. My dad will follow my sister to Chicago and I don’t know when I’ll see you again. Plus—” his smile was a little sad “—I promised I’d have you home early so you could work. Beth’s arrival guarantees I do that.”
* * *
DAN WAS DRIVING A BEAUTIFUL, vibrant woman up to one of his favorite Chicagoland destinations with a picnic basket of delicious food in the car and he couldn’t think of a single thing to say. His only coherent thoughts alternated between joy that his sister was finally stepping out on her own and annoyance with her for doing it today. Couldn’t she at least have waited until next week when she was coming down for a wedding?
But she had to choose the moment right before he was going to kiss Tilly. And having no place other than his townhome to escape to. And needing to escape in the first place.
He circled his jaw to loosen the tension in his face. This was a date, dammit. With a woman he wanted to spend time with. He needed to think of clever things to say, to get Tilly to look past the review. Instead, he was thinking about Beth.
“Tell me about your family,” Tilly said quietly.
Dan looked over to see Tilly watching him with compassion etched on her face.
“You’re obviously thinking of them,” she said. “Talk to me.”
“You know Meier Dairy.” It wasn’t a question. Everyone knew Meier Dairy.
“‘Meier Means Dairy.’” She quoted the slogan from the packing on everything Meier made. “I grew up eating Meier grilled cheese at my best friend’s house. Never at my house, because my grandmother didn’t make such things.”
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