Twenty minutes. The words hit me square in the chest, seizing my heart into a concrete ball, and I battle to catch a breath. My ribs feel like they’re packed in cement, the muscles locked up tight. The air can’t make it to the bottom of my lungs.

My phone buzzes with an incoming call, and I yank it from my pocket, my chest deflating when I see the screen.

Not Jade.

Not Ed.

I swipe and press it to my ear. “Hey, Mom.”

“Well, don’t sound so disappointed. I was just calling to see how you’re doing.”

No way in hell I’m telling her about Jade and the kids. Mom is a worrier. She’ll spiral and call me every two seconds. I love her, but I wish I hadn’t picked up.

“I’m okay, but I can’t really talk right now.”

“Aw, sweetie. Don’t take it so hard. I know the article was not the most flattering, but you can recover. Maybe you can get that PR person of yours to work some magic and have some of the worst parts retracted.”

“What worst parts?”

Mom keeps talking, her words tumbling over mine. “And maybe while you’re at it, you could talk to your attorney. I mean, I’m not saying you should sue, but they might be able to twist an arm or two.”

“Mom. What are you talking about? What article?”

“The one in the AJC. ‘The Joylessness of Cooking,’ that’s what that reporter titled the piece of trash. And don’t you worry, I’ve already written a letter to the editor complaining about journalistic bias.”

I wince. Great. A letter from my mother, published in Atlanta’s largest newspaper. Just what I need.

At the front of the line, the woman smacks her bag to the counter. The teller leans around her form and mouths, Sorry. I stare at the woman’s backside and try not to faint. Nineteen minutes and counting.

“Sweetie, did you hear me?”

“She actually used the word joyless?”

Then again, maybe that’s what I get for letting the reporter, a peppy twentysomething food critic, shadow me for a day. She tagged along as I trekked from kitchen to kitchen, where I was careful to put on my best, most agreeable face.

But I’ve caught enough flashes of my own sourpuss in the window, or shimmering in a pot of hot oil. I know how I look, which is why I can barely stand a mirror for more than a second or two. You don’t have to be a genius to see how miserable I am, how joyless my job has become.

Mom sighs, long and loud. “Oh, honey. A whole bunch of times.”