The Cookbook Collector

“Sure.” She hoped that sounded diffident enough, as if to say, Since you’re just standing there, you might as well, but she wasn’t diffident at all. She lifted off as he pushed gently, hand between her shoulder blades. When she returned to him, he pushed lower on her back. A strange sensation, the brief contact, and then the long downstroke of anticipation. “My sister used to push me,” she told him.

“I have sisters.”

“Really?”

“Are you surprised?”

She stretched her legs and leaned back to swing higher. Her hair blew over her shoulders. Her skirt came loose and billowed over her knees. He was watching her, and as she rose and fell, she felt his gaze as radiant warmth. Of course she knew all about the male gaze, and she resented being gazed upon, but she was young enough that her resentment was purely theoretical. She was a paper feminist, just as Emily was a paper millionaire.

“You don’t look like the kind of person who has sisters,” she said.

“What do I look like?”

She thought for a moment as she swung forward. When she returned to him, she said, “An only child.”

“Too selfish for siblings?” She was almost horizontal now, leaning back as she held the ropes.

“Way too selfish.”

He pushed hard with both hands, and she shot forward, laughing. It felt so good to plunge feetfirst into the night. She felt a rush of air as she vaulted up into the dark branches. Too quickly she sank down again, the ground rose up, and the blood rushed to her head and dizzied her. She dragged her feet to slow herself, but she couldn’t stop all at once. Twice, then three times, she braked with her feet, until Leon caught the ropes from behind. He was close enough for her to feel his breath against her hair. “Are you all right?”

“Just tree-sick.”

He held her by the shoulders, as if to steady her, but she still felt the garden rushing toward her, and the sickening rush of air.

He touched her collarbone with his fingertips. “I remember you from Brandeis.”

“Really? You remember me! Why didn’t you say something?”

“I thought I’d wait,” he said.

“How do you remember me?”

“I remember you as … lovely,” he said.

She slipped off the swing to face him, laughing in disbelief—not just that he’d find her lovely, but that he would use such a delicate word.

“I asked people about you.”

She shook her head at him and he couldn’t help smiling. She was so innocent. Delicious. “Why didn’t you ask me about me?”

“I was shy,” he said, and that was true enough, although his shyness had been situational. He’d been unhappily involved.

“Shy?” She remembered him as arrogant, eloquent, and also tough. She’d heard him at a press conference, denouncing violence against the logging industry. He never hesitated at the microphone.

He couldn’t resist asking, “Did you start volunteering because you remembered me?”

“Not only shy, but vain!”

The swing hung between them, but he grasped the ropes above her head.

“I was interested in halting systematic deforestation of the planet and petitioning for the ballot proposal to ban clear-cutting in Northern California,” she said, “… and I did remember you.”

“Oh, you did.”

“Well, vaguely.”

“Only vaguely?”

“Very, very vaguely. Just that you were busy, and you never even looked at me. When I got to Save the Trees you stayed true to type.”

“Now I’m a type.”

“Well …”

They were standing so close their noses almost touched. She looked up at him and wondered how his eyes were so blue and his skin so dark, and how he could be shy and also confident, and most of all, what he was thinking, but she didn’t dare ask. And he saw her wondering, and he gazed at her delicate upturned face and felt a sudden tenderness for her, a little pang of responsibility. I’ll never never hurt you, he promised silently, even as he imagined taking her into the office and locking the door. He spoke with a cautious sincerity he didn’t feel. “I know you’re dating Noah and I won’t interfere with that.”

“Dating is a relative term.”

“Relative to what?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Really?” His lips brushed hers.

“I didn’t take offense that you ignored me,” she explained, “because what interests me is what you do.”

“That’s good to know.”

“I meant your work.” Her mouth grazed his. “I wasn’t talking about … right now.”

At first they kissed so lightly, there was no decision. They kissed the way they might trail their fingers in the water. I’m not really standing here with him, Jess thought, and she kissed him more deeply, just to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. She touched the corner of his mouth with the tip of her tongue; she sucked his lower lip and tasted wine, and he was surprised, and also charmed, because he saw that she’d surprised herself. She was so curious. She trembled with curiosity.

They flew apart as two wailing fire engines careened down the street. Flashing lights illuminated the yard.

“That must have been the smoke alarm.” Leon stood for a moment, watching as the firemen approached in full regalia—boots, jackets, hats. “Wait here,” he told Jess. “Stay by the tree, and I’ll send someone to take you home.”

“Shouldn’t I …?”

“No, I don’t want you to come in. Stay here.”

Already partiers were streaming out, gathering in the front yard and on the sidewalk. There were hundreds, more than Jess would have thought possible, even in that rambling house. Two police cars pulled up. The hordes spilled onto the sidewalk. Jess stayed in shadow, sheltered by the oak.

Two officers entered and instantly a hush fell over the assembled. Jess could actually hear a pall fall over the blazing Bacchanalian house. It took her a second to realize that what she heard was the plug pulled on the sound system. The cops had stopped the music.

One officer stood on the landing, talking to Leon. “We’ve got noise ordinances, and we’ve got more than one complaint.” She couldn’t hear Leon’s reply, but she saw that he was perfectly calm and quiet. “Generally speaking, if we have a smoke alarm on top of a noise situation …,” the officer continued loudly and laboriously. “When alcohol is served …” She couldn’t catch all the words, but did hear inebriation mentioned and underage.

Leon interrupted here, objecting.

“Let’s put it this way: There are students on and off campus; there have been incidents on and off campus. You think you’ve got a friendly gathering…. In the morning you may find yourself with a situation. By situation, I mean someone dead. This has happened in the past. I don’t like to spell it out for you, but that’s my job—to spell it out for you.”

Through the lit windows of the house, Jess glimpsed the firemen tramping through the rooms. What would they find there? She didn’t see Noah in the crowd.

“Okay, let’s go,” someone ordered Jess. Her breath caught. Irrationally, she thought, They’ve come looking for me too. Then she recognized Daisy, small, fierce, humorless. “I’m taking you home. You have everything you need?”