The breakfast room is bright; sunlight streams in through the palladian windows. The air smells of bacon and coffee and the subtle saltiness of sea air drifting in from off the sound. A platter of croissants and slices of lightly toasted Portuguese bread sits on the center of the table, flanked by delicate Royal Delft dishes holding softened butter, marmalade, and beach plum jam. Will saunters in, his hair tousled and his shirt rumpled, testament to the late hour he stumbled home the night before. Despite the gorgeous day unfolding and the leisurely breakfast awaiting them, there’s tension humming in the room.
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The air is cool, the heat of the day diffusing into the canopy of trees overhead. A breeze drifts in from off the river, ruffling the leaves of the quaking aspen that ring the campsite. Jack is stomping through the low bushes in the distance, his arms full of sticks for kindling. He drops the pile next to the fire pit and brushes the dirt from his shorts. His t-shirt is a soft faded navy with the words CHARLIE DON’T SURF emblazoned across the back. (Because she’s never been a fifteen year old boy, she doesn’t get the reference to Apocalypse Now.)
Read moreFRENCH TOAST LAYER CAKE
The sun is watery but strong, filtering down through the canopy of dogwoods that marks the boundary between their lawn and the neighbors’. She sets her laptop down carefully on the patio table. A bowl of sliced plums, ice cold and just on the firm side of ripe, sits next to a glass of fizzy salted lemonade. The lemonade is something she picked up in college: Her sophomore year roommate in college had been dating a chemical engineer named Atid who’d grown up in Thailand.
Read moreCARAMELIZED ONION FOCACCIA
The sky overhead is awash in pastel colors, as if someone had taken to it with a paintbrush and over-enthusiastically daubed on broad watery brushstrokes.
This is her absolute favorite time of day: just after a sweaty run and a shower, but before cocktails or dinner, when the entire world seems to be taking a breath before nightfall. It’s not dusk that she loves, but the minutes just before it, when the sun is considering its descent but hasn’t begun, when the day is on the precipice of turning off the light but remains bright.
Read moreSPICED ALFAJORES
She waits for a long, slow second. It stretches like taffy into another second, then another, until nearly half a minute has elapsed. The silence becomes so meaningful that she can picture it like expanding like a balloon, taking on more air as it swells uncomfortably.
“Okay,” she says stiffly, the word coming out crisp and business-like: the verbal equivalent of rapping sharply on the top of a creme brulee, cracking the sweet candy coating around her heart.
“It’s not…I’m sorry. I tried but I can’t change it,” he stumbles over his words but rather than sounding apologetic, he sounds impatient, like he’s placating a child and wishes to be done with it.
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