The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister Page B

your mood. We’ll use sausage this time.” Waves of fennel and pepper, the smell of sizzling red meat, mingled with the air.
    “Breathe in,” Lillian said. “The air is different now. If you want a dish that is lighter, you can make this sauce with eggplant instead of meat. Or a summer version, with just olive oil and garlic and fresh tomatoes and fresh basil, cooked for a moment or two. But sometimes, especially in fall and winter, it’s nice to have a little more intensity.”
     
    Before Tom kissed Charlie, he had felt as if she was in his every thought. Afterward, he knew differently. It was almost mortifying how the thought of making love to Charlie took over his most mundane meditations. He started taking a toothbrush to work, although he knew full well that she had no particular passion for the taste of plaque-reducing mint.
    “Good God, man, have you given up law for dentistry?” she had asked.
    But he couldn’t help it. His lips, having touched Charlie’s arm and mouth, wanted to wander, and where lips couldn’t go, the mind would. Fried eggs, forgotten in the skillet, solidified into doorknobs, while Tom threw fries on the grill, lobbed steaks into the deep-fat fryer.
    “Charlie, for Christ’s sake,” the dishwasher had yelled across the kitchen in exasperation, “would you give him a break before this whole place goes up in flames?”
    Charlie walked back to Tom’s station. She looked at the mess on the grill.
    “Dinner, my house. Tonight,” she said, then crossed the kitchen to the back door and punched out her time card. The prep cooks howled.
     
    Charlie lived in a blue and orange cottage two houses away from the ocean. The paint had given up most of its color to the wind and sun years before; daisies and gladiolas grew with haphazard abundance, scattering petals across the gravel pathway that led to the house. When Tom arrived the front door was open, and he could see the inside of the cottage was tiny, with a futon that did daytime duty as the living room couch, and a kitchen large enough for a single slim cook.
    Charlie stood at the stove, the wooden spoon in her hand. He could smell wine in the air, butter, and garlic.
    “I just knew you’d be on time,” she said. The skin below her ear was warm against his lips. She smiled, and nodded toward the counter, where he saw a blue bowl overflowing with chopped melon and a set of brilliant white plates. “You can take those out to the patio.”
    Tom ducked his head as he went out the back door and found himself under a trellis heavy with green vines and deep purple blossoms, the evening sunlight filtering down through the leaves. Beneath his feet was a patio made from old bricks that moved with his weight, clinking softly as he walked to the green metal table and placed the bowl and plates next to a basket of bread. He stood straight again, his head almost touching the leaves, and breathed in the pepper-sweet smell of wisteria. Everything suddenly seemed twice as quiet as he thought it ever could be.
    “Wine?” asked Charlie, coming up behind him and handing him a glass. The wine was cold and clear and tasted like flowers and snow. “I love this patio. It’s why I rented the house, really.”
    She returned to the kitchen and came back with a plate covered with slices of meat, thin as leaves.
    “Prosciutto,” she explained to his questioning eyes. “With the melon. You’ll see.”
    They sat at the tiny table, their toes touching as Charlie ladled a spoonful of dripping melon chunks onto his plate.
    “Taste the melon first,” she suggested. “There’s a guy at the fruit stand who saves his best for me.” She laughed when she saw the expression on Tom’s face. “He is very, very old. And he loves his melons like children. You’re lucky—this is the time of year when they are at their best. And Angelo’s melons . . . well . . .”
    Tom skewered a piece with his fork and put it in his mouth. The flavor opened like a flower across