I know a publisher will gobble this idea up, was the line Lu kept reading over and over again. The big bloggers all had cookbooks. A legitimate cookbook could raise the profile of a food blog exponentially. Abigail Knowles had sent a follow-up email with more detail. She loved Dinner by Dad’s charcoal drawings of his family. She loved that he was a mystery, but he also was not. She felt like she knew him, like she’d like to have a drink with him at a barbecue, and she was positive zillions of home cooks would feel the same.

“Don’t get excited,” Lu told herself. You had to be careful with good news—you had to hold it gently, like a glass ornament, or else it might shatter. Good news is for other people, Lu’s mother used to say grimly. (In her case it was usually true.)

Nancy had taken Chase and Sebastian out for bagels at the Old Post Office Bagel Shop. (In some ways it was turning out to be sometimes quite handy to have a mother-in-law around.) Lu sat outside on the front porch of the cottage for a few minutes, savoring the email, wondering what it would be like to call or text Jeremy and say, You’ll never believe what happened!

Just then Anthony rode up to the cottage next door on the rickety old bike she’d seen him depart on the evening before. She’d wondered where he was going but she hadn’t asked. She hadn’t felt cheerful and expansive the day before, because the boys had been cranky and it was hot and she hadn’t just gotten enough work done and she hadn’t just had an email from an agent in New York. But now she had Abigail Knowles tucked inside her like a present she hadn’t opened all the way. Lu called, “Hello! Hi!” waving until Anthony turned in her direction.

Anthony waved back. She couldn’t help noticing that he was wearing the same clothes she’d seen him in the day before. He always wore a gray shirt, but the shorts were plaid, and distinctive. In college they’d called this the Walk of Shame, when you returned home the next morning in the same clothes you’d left in. Was Anthony doing the Bike of Shame? Well, good for him if he was.

“What’s with the bike?” she called.

He made a face and walked toward her. “Car broke down. Had to get towed.” But he didn’t look too upset about it. He actually looked pretty happy. He was smiling more openly and more sincerely than she’d seen him do yet. When he smiled that way he looked so familiar—where had she seen his face before?

“You know,” she said, “I just can’t shake the feeling that I know you from somewhere.”

Almost imperceptibly, his smile changed. “I doubt it. I have one of those faces that people think they know. This happens to me all the time. I look like people’s uncle or their vet or the guy at the supermarket who gathers up the carts . . .”