Temple wandered into the kitchen, her hair scraggly and eyes red, looking more like the scullery maid than the Evil Queen. Lucy poured her half a glass of wine from the bottle of sauvignon blanc she’d just bought and handed it over without speaking. Temple brought it to her nose, inhaled, then took a small sip. She closed her eyes and savored.

“We’re eating outside tonight, and I want flowers on the table.” Lucy gave her a lumpy blue pottery vase that looked like a grade-school art project. “Scrounge around and find something.”

Temple was too drained to protest.

Her effort consisted of hosta leaves, Queen Anne’s lace, and a few black-eyed Susans. Predictably, the end result didn’t fit her definition of perfection, so she hated it, but Lucy couldn’t imagine an arrangement more suited to the faded red-rooster tablecloth and unmatched dishes.

The picnic table, turned for a lake view, sat under the oak. Panda took the bench across from Lucy and Temple. Lucy set an ear of corn on Temple’s plate and her own, but gave him two. “I forgot to buy butter,” she lied. “Try that instead.” She pointed to the lime wedges lying on a child’s plastic Sesame Street plate.

As she’d hoped, the explosive sweetness of the corn combined with the tang of fresh lime juice and a sprinkle of sea salt made up for the lack of butter. She wanted to feed Temple’s soul but not sabotage her body. Despite a few charred places, Panda had done a good job grilling the fish, and the interior was moist and flavorful.

“God, this is so good.” Temple uttered the words like a prayer.

“Amen.” Panda moved on to his second ear of corn, eating far more tidily than either Temple or Lucy.

Temple examined her cob for a kernel she might have missed. “How did you learn to cook like this?”

Lucy didn’t feel like bringing up the subject of White House chefs. “Trial and error.”

After Temple had chased the last remaining pine nut around her empty plate with a moistened fingertip, she studied Lucy with genuine curiosity. “What’s in this for you? We all know I’m crazy. Why do you care what happens to me?”

“Because I’ve grown weirdly fond of you.” Besides, trying to fix other people was a great distraction from trying to fix herself. With her deadline less than a month away, she hadn’t written even a page of the material her father wanted, she wouldn’t let herself think about going back to work, and she barely talked to her family. All she’d accomplished was to bake a lot of bread, perfect her honey caramels, and have a dead-end affair with a man she was using as a sexual convenience.