Turn Up the Heat by Jessica Conant-Park, Susan Conant Page A

arms covered in tattoos. He was clutching his cell phone and nervously scanning the aisles. “What do you mean, wings ? Where are they flying to?”
    I stifled a giggle and pointed out the feminine product he’d clearly been sent to buy. After I’d paid, I took a quick T ride to Coolidge Corner in Brookline and browsed at the Brookline Booksmith. I couldn’t believe that Adrianna hadn’t read anything about pregnancy or kids. No wonder she was such a wreck! What she needed was information. I put together a collection of what I thought were upbeat introductory books about pregnancy and babies. The super-introductory baby care book Ade actually needed would’ve had a title like This Is a Baby or How to Avoid Dropping Your Infant on Its Head , but I settled for a couple of Dr. Sears’s books and a few humorous ones on the joys and perils of breast-feeding. I’d practically fallen over when Ade, who didn’t like children, had said that she was going to breast-feed. I also upgraded my CVS photo album by buying an expensive scrapbook with a gorgeous fabric cover and rice paper pages. My hopes for the memories that would end up inside were anything but high, so it seemed smart to have an attractive, if deceptive, outer package.
    By the time I got home, Noah’s narcissistic sunbathing show was over; he was nowhere to be seen. His welcome absence made me think of Doug’s advice about memorizing the DSM diagnoses by associating them with particular people: I wondered whether Noah counted as having a narcissistic personality disorder. I’d have to look up the full list of symptoms, but Noah certainly did display a “pervasive pattern of grandiosity” and a “need for admiration.” Furthermore, he had the empathy of a rock. God, Josh would be rip-roaring mad if he knew that I was thinking about Noah. And Noah, the narcissist, would just love it.
    At my computer, I printed out requests to Simmer’s staff members to put their loving memories of Leandra in writing and to give the results to Josh or to me. At the top of the page I had a brief sentence encouraging the staff: “Gavin hopes to fill a memory book with the staff’s fond remembrances of Leandra. Please include any detailed feelings, anecdotes, or thoughts about Simmer’s lost employee.” At the bottom of the page I wrote my phone number and e-mail address, and I even volunteered to write up the memories for anyone who wanted to call me. The easier I made the task, the more people who’d do it. Or so I hoped.
    Josh called as the last page was printing.
    “Hi, babe. You’re still coming out with us tonight, right?”
    “Of course. Where are we going?”
    “Porcaro said to come see him at the Hub.”
    Josh always called Mark Porcaro by his last name. He was the executive chef at Top of the Hub, the restaurant at the top of the skyscraper known as the Pru, the Prudential building. Smack downtown, the restaurant offered fabulous views of Boston. Tall, wide windows wrapped around the dining and bar area. The Pru’s Skywalk Observatory gave a three-hundred-sixty-degree panorama, and I was hoping that we’d get a chance to walk around. The city looked especially beautiful at night. But most importantly, the food at the Hub was awesome. I’d been there only once before, when Josh and I had had a few appetizers at the bar, but they’d been wonderful. Because we were friends of Mark’s, I was sure he’d “take care of us,” as Josh always said, meaning that delicious off-the-menu dishes would magically appear from the kitchen.
    “Cool. Who else is coming?” I asked.
    “Digger and Lefty are meeting us there, but they won’t be free until ten. How ’bout I pick you up at quarter of?”
    Digger and Lefty, whose real names I didn’t even know, were both chefs. I was beginning to wonder whether the culinary industry had some peculiar regulation that required chefs to use pseudonyms. If so, Josh must have been granted a special exemption.
    “Sounds good.