Second Helping

He said they should break up. She said okay before he got the whole sentence out. He stopped. Two seconds, maybe three. Long enough that she watched him decide whether to be surprised. "You're not going to—" "Delivery's here." She went down. When she came back up he was still on the couch, still in his coat, like he'd forgotten how to leave. She set the container on the counter and peeled the lid back. One portion. Hot pot, the quart kind, broth already darkening the paper. He watched the container for a while. "When did you start ordering for one?" She thought about it, or let him think she was thinking about it. "Around the time you stopped caring where we ate." He got up. At the door he looked back at the refrigerator. The photo was still up — the two of them at somebody's lake house, both squinting into the sun. He didn't say anything about it. He looked, and then he left, and the door made the small unhurried sound it always made. She'd changed the delivery address three days ago. Tonight was the last order that would come here. He didn't know about the tripe. She'd added it for him. She stood over the trash with the container in both hands and didn't do anything with it yet. --- Her phone rang three minutes after the door closed. "Hi, Grace? It's Wren." No preamble. Grace had heard her name said like that before — lifted at the end, a question Wren had already decided not to wait on. "Ethan asked me to get the backend password from you." She looked at the container. The tripe had settled at the bottom, one pale curl of it under the broth. "He said you've been handling all of it. He's not totally clear on—" A pause, a small wet laugh. "Most of it, honestly." Grace said nothing. "He's not doing great tonight." Wren dropped her voice a notch, warm with shared confidence. "I'm just keeping him company. You shouldn't feel bad. You know how he gets." "I'll email it to him tomorrow." "Okay, great! No rush at all, really—" "Anything else?" "Oh — actually, yeah. The sauce document. The one you put together? He said to send that too." A beat. "Those count as account assets." The sauce document was ninety pages. She'd eaten her way through a hundred and forty kitchens to build it, standing at other people's stoves, asking questions until the cooks got annoyed. Roughly half of it was stuff Ethan had never tasted. "Later," she said. She hung up and opened her feed. He was at the bar downstairs. The IPA, already half gone, a coaster gone soft under it. In the corner of the photo, half behind his sleeve, a pink phone case with little cartoon cats on it. Not his. Dana's comment sat at the top of the pile. **** He'd replied already. **** Wren hadn't commented. But she'd reshared one of his restaurant videos from three days ago, caption and all: *Can't wait to work with him.* Three days ago. Three days ago was when he'd sat on the edge of their bed and said they should talk. Her phone went again. Dana. "So it finally happened." "Yeah." "Good. Look, don't hate me for saying it, but you two were never the same species. He needs someone with, like, presence, and you're just—" "Just what." "Too mild. Honestly? You're white rice. Nobody hates white rice. Nobody drives across town for it either." That was his. In the car, a month ago, that was the sentence. She'd sat with her hands in her lap and let it go by. "I know." "And I say this as a friend — okay? Three years. He was out there grinding, building the whole thing, and you never really—" "Never really." "That's not what I— God. The editing and the coloring, fine, but anyone can do that. His face, the way he performs — that's not learnable. That's not something you can just replace. Just don't overrate yourself, you know?" The group chat was moving too. She watched it scroll without touching it. **** **** **** The bit at that last party — she'd rewritten it three times. He'd stood up and delivered it, and the room had laughed, and she'd sat on the arm of the couch with a bowl of peanuts in her lap, shelling them, because her hands needed something. Next morning it was posted. His name on it. "Dana. I have to go." "Wait — I'm just saying, if you're upset that he's moving ahead with Wren, don't put that on—" "I'm not." Wren's message came in while she was still holding the phone. **** She'd bought that knife with her first check from a brand deal — three hundred and eighty dollars, and she'd stood in the aisle at the restaurant supply place on Tenth for an hour before she let herself pick it up. **** **** **** **** **** Help. Clear out. Like she'd hired someone. Five minutes later, Ethan's name at the top of the screen. First time he'd written to her directly since the door. **** He didn't remember. The first time he came to her apartment she'd made broth from a whole chicken, four hours, skimmed it twice, hand-pulled the noodles on the counter while he sat there saying that was a lot of work for dinner. He'd eaten three bowls. He'd said, *I could eat this every day for the rest of my life.* Eight months later she put the noodle video up, and it did three million. Top comment: *this guy can really cook.* She'd read it twice and never said anything to anyone. He hadn't corrected it. She typed: *Does the chicken noodle formula count as an account asset too?* Three minutes. One word. **** She set the phone face down. The container was still on the counter, lid off, the broth gone slack and pale. She picked it up by the rim and held it over the trash, and the tripe slid to one side and stayed there, one curl, still whole. She didn't take it out.