Anthony winced. He felt six hundred years old. He missed Joy: he wanted Joy.

“I said, Why’s everything have to be so serious?” Shelly continued, either ignoring or missing his wince. “I mean, the places he took me to! Atla. Fairfax. Le Coucou. I kept asking him, Why can’t we just keep going out to these amazing dinners and fucking?” She paused. “Actually,” she said pensively, “the sex was just okay, if you want to know the truth.”

“I don’t need to know the truth,” said Anthony.

“But seriously, the dinners and the apartment were amazing.” She was lost for a moment in a glassy-eyed reverie, and then she snapped out of it and turned her laser gaze on Anthony. Anthony flinched. “Everyone is too serious about everything these days,” she said. “I just don’t get it. So you copied a couple of paragraphs from some book by some dead writer nobody’s ever heard of. Does the world have to end?” Her gaze shifted, and she indicated the shot glasses in front of Anthony. “You going to do these or not?”

“Not,” said Anthony. “Definitely not.”

“Well, I’m not going to waste two shots of Herradura.” She lifted the glasses, one by one, and tipped them into her mouth. Then Shelly Salazar smacked her lips together, held out her hand, and said, “Goodbye, Anthony Puckett. It has been a pleasure working with you.”

“Goodbye, Shelly,” Anthony said. “Thank you for everything.”

“When you change your mind about that thing with your dad,” she said, “which I know for a fact you will, you pick up your phone and you call me immediately. Okay?”

“I’m pretty sure I won’t,” said Anthony. “But if I do, I will.”

Shelly Salazar slid off the barstool and straightened the skirt of her dress and left the bar. Anthony turned to watch her go; a slight wobble on her super-high heels was the only indication that anything had gone on in that bar, anything at all.

Chapter 32

LU

www.DinnerByDad.com

Did I ever tell you about the first meal I made for Jacqui? We’d been dating for three weeks and four days. She was in law school, stressed and exhausted and beautiful. I invited her to my apartment. I sent my roommates out for the night. That part was easy. I cleaned the bathroom! That part was hard. But I was halfway in love with Jacqui already, so I took my toothbrush and I went at the sink with it until the residue of four post-college young men was eradicated.

I went to the store. I bought spaghetti, cheese. I bought a new toothbrush, because the one I’d used to clean was my only one. Lettuce for a salad. It was iceberg! That’s how little I knew, back then. I had sauce in my fridge. When I got home and opened the jar I saw a bit of mold furred on the inside of the lid. I went back to the store. I got a new jar of sauce. This was before it was easy to find good sauce in a jar. I’m sure there were some, but I didn’t know enough to look for them. I think I bought Prego.