She texted again: Call me.

I’d quit FarmHouse as soon as October had hired me, but they hadn’t found anyone who could work on weekends yet, so I filled in for them when they needed help. I’d been parked in a driveway in Petaluma that morning, about to pick up a dozen boxes of heirloom tomatoes, and I was so caught off guard by October’s request for a call that I put my phone in airplane mode without writing back.

I couldn’t keep avoiding her though. I lived fifteen yards from her front door, for Christ’s sake. And as soon as I got back to Casa Diez that night and saw the light on in her house, I knew I had to respond. But before I did, I got out my blender and fixed myself a cocktail, adding considerably more tequila than necessary. I downed a glass, waited a couple of minutes for it to start kicking in, and then made the call.

“Hey,” I mumbled.

“Hey.” There was a pause. Then, “I’m sorry if I freaked you out with that note. I have this terrible habit of holding in my feelings for too long and then expressing them at really inopportune times.”

“It’s OK,” I told her, hoping that would be the end of the conversation; that we would pretend it never happened.

“You’re home,” she said, as if she’d just looked out her window to check. “I’m coming over.”

She knocked on my door five minutes later, barefoot, in threadbare sweats, a big gray hoodie around her shoulders, and carrying a pie.

“I bake when I’m anxious,” she said, handing it to me.

She’d used all of the extra piecrust to make little clouds and lighting bolts, which she’d placed around the top of the pie before she baked it. It looked like an edible storm.

“Thanks.”

“Blackberry. From the bushes in the yard. You should have some while it’s still hot.”

She followed me to the kitchen, and as I cut myself a piece of the pie, she eyed the frothy, mud-colored drink in the blender.

“I make cocktails when I’m anxious,” I explained.

“That looks disgusting.”

“Brown recluses are not disgusting.”

I grabbed a clean glass from my dish rack and poured her one. She slipped her arms into her sweatshirt, took the glass from my hand and held it at arm’s length, as if I’d given her shit, which, I admit, it did look like.

“I invented this cocktail,” I said with pride. “Tequila, chocolate milk, cinnamon, a pinch of cayenne pepper, and ice.”

“It sounds even worse than it looks.” She smelled the drink and made a face.

“There’s a word for that, you know.”

“A word for what?” she said.

“For a person who makes a disgusted face when they’re drinking liquor.”

“Oh, yeah? What’s the word?”

“‘Paper-belly.’ You’re a paper-belly.”

She tried to swat me with her hand, but her sweatshirt was too big and the sleeve kept sliding down so that not even the tips of her fingers were visible.