The Seven Year Slip

“THIS IS CLEMENTINE WEST,” Drew introduced me. “Though I think you might’ve met her for a few seconds last month?”

Last month . . . ? Had she figured out that this was Iwan? My Iwan? No, I hadn’t told Fiona or Drew any specifics about him, and besides, he looked very different than the man I’d met in my aunt’s apartment.

Then it occurred to me, suddenly—

I’d run into him on my way out of the restaurant. That was what she meant.

“Clementine . . . ?” Drew asked, a bit hesitantly.

I snapped to my senses and smiled—don’t show gums, look pleasant, just like I’d rehearsed. “Oh, hi, yes, sorry. I think we had a bit of a collision, actually, at the restaurant. I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to meet you properly then.”

“It’s quite all right, we can meet again now,” he remarked in that familiar Southern lilt, not unpleasantly. Beside him sat his agent, a shark of a woman named Lauren Pearson, who was, undeniably, one of the best in the business. He still hadn’t taken his eyes off me—almost as if he thought I might disappear.

Was he trying to place me—I had that kind of face, really. Someone you might see in a crowd and almost remember.

Do you recognize me, too? I wanted to ask.

No, he couldn’t. It’d been seven years. I didn’t even remember my one-night stands from seven years ago.

Get it together, Clementine.

“You made a good save with that dessert, if I recall,” he went on.

“It would’ve been a shame to wear the dessert out of the restaurant,” I replied, and sat down beside Drew, situating my notebook in front of me.

And then the worst thing of all happened, the thing that I had been dreading: he smiled, perfectly straight and perfectly white and perfectly practiced—like mine—and stretched his hand across the table to me. “I’m sure it would’ve looked stunning on you. I’m James, but James is my granddad’s name. My friends call me by my middle name—Iwan.”

I accepted his hand. It was rough and warm, marked with scars, so many more from the seven years between us. The last time I had felt those hands, they’d been cradling my face, his thumbs tracing my jawline, gentle, like I was a work of art—

“How would you classify your future publicist? A friend?” I asked, and his agent barked a laugh.

“I like her!” she crowed.

James Ashton’s smile turned a little crooked. A small slip in his refined image. “We’ll see, Clementine,” he replied, and released my hand.

“Clementine’s a senior publicist here at Strauss and Adder. She basically runs the entire publicity department when Rhonda’s away. Last year, she was recognized as a rising star by Publishers Weekly. Needless to say, any book we have is in good hands with her.”

“I have no doubt,” Iwan—James—replied, and turned to Drew, and as he did, his body shifted and he sat up a little straighter. “Tell me about Strauss and Adder.”

So Drew did. She talked about the company’s history, our authors, and our work ethic. As she talked passionately about her team, and how we could best serve his career, using a PowerPoint to show other successful book launches and campaigns from over the years, James asked thoughtful questions—about how Drew liked to edit, what was expected from the cookbook, the process of turning a draft into the final product.

I must have been staring at him because his eyes—bright with the light from the PowerPoint—flicked to me. He caught my gaze and held it for one heartbeat, two, as Drew answered one of Lauren’s questions. His pale eyes were a perfect and cloudy gray, like my favorite autumn days, perfect for dirty chai lattes and chunky scarves. The way he looked at me made my stomach burn.

He couldn’t remember me from that weekend. It was seven years ago, and he’d met stars a lot brighter than me.

Then he looked away again, back at the onslaught of numbers and projections, and nodded along to Drew’s passionate presentation. The way she talked about her job, her authors, you could tell she loved what she did. She loved helping creative people plant seeds, and she loved watching those seeds bloom into fascinating projects, and her track record so far indicated just that. She mostly dealt in memoirs and historical fantasy, but she truly loved the way he wrote, and his recipes.

“And I want to help you share them with the world,” Drew declared, turning off the projector. “I think we could be a really great team.”

“Well, that is absolutely lovely,” his agent replied, and I couldn’t tell whether or not Drew’s pitch had endeared James Ashton to us or not. His agent was certainly impossible to read. She made a motion with her hand toward us. “Would you like to start off, James, or should I?”

James sat up a little straighter, lacing his long fingers together on the table in front of him. “I’ll start, thank you, Lauren,” he began, and his voice was level and cool, and he turned that shale-colored gaze to Drew. “I believe food should be an experience.”

I sat up a little straighter, because I knew this part. I knew he was going to talk about love in chocolate and comfort in butter and poetry in spices—and I was excited, perhaps for the first time since seeing him, because it meant he wasn’t so different. The best parts of him were—

“Anyone can make a grilled cheese, anyone can make a tomato bisque, and with the right tools, I believe anyone can make it well. It’s all in the presentation,” he went on confidently. “It’s the skill. It’s the way you create your culinary art that truly makes for a memorable experience.”

I thought about my aunt’s peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, always getting stuck to the roof of my mouth, and how the Iwan I knew had told me that was—

“A perfect meal,” he said.

No, it wasn’t.

I quickly looked down at the printed proposal in front of me. Drew gave me a small smile, and I smiled back and nodded, and hoped I didn’t look too confused.

Experience? Skill? What about your memories and stories—what made those foods endearing?

“As you could probably tell from the proposal,” he went on, “I’m looking for a publisher who will offer just as much as I’m also able to offer, between my online impressions, media, and connections—all of which are stated in the proposal. The recipe book in question will coincide with my restaurant opening in NoHo. It will detail seasonal specialties and new recipes for those looking for more exciting cuisines, and it strives to capture what makes a perfect meal,” he finished, and stole a glance at me.

I couldn’t meet his gaze.

“It’s a very lovely idea for a cookbook,” Drew said, her fingers folding and unfolding the corner of the proposal, “and with the perfect photographer, I’m positive we can make the pages absolutely sing—along with your thoughtful asides at the start of each dish of course. Like you wrote in your Eater article.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed the article,” he replied pleasantly. “I wrote it years ago.”

And I wondered if there was anything of that author left in him, because what Drew didn’t say, but I could hear between the words, was how . . . out of touch the proposal felt. There was just something so sleek in the pages—almost untouchable. It was all so high-concept and . . . alien to me. He once waxed poetically about comfort foods and yet there was none of that here. Who had dry ice hanging around for a noodle dish? Or spent three days prepping a sauce to dribble on a cut of steak? There was something just so disconnected in this pitch from the man I’d first met, and I’d understood why Drew had told me the article was more important. All of the warmth and care in the piece was at odds with the stilted polish here.

Just six weeks ago—or seven years ago, I suppose—he was telling me with great enthusiasm about his friend’s fajita recipe and his grandfather, who never made the same lemon pie twice. That was the man who wrote the Eater article. Not this one. And his recipes weren’t hidden behind a skill-set paywall, inaccessible to anyone who didn’t know what jus was.

“You look like you have something to say,” James Ashton—Iwan—remarked, giving me an unreadable look as he leaned back in his chair, and I quickly schooled my face.

“No, sorry,” I replied, and Drew gave me a hesitant look. “That’s just my face.”

“Ah.”

“Well, we have a few other meetings with publishers after this,” Lauren said as she gathered up her things, “but we’re asking that, if you are interested, you submit your preliminary bid by tomorrow afternoon. This will be a slightly . . . different process than usual.”

Drew and I exchanged a strange look. Usually there was a bid—sometimes an auction if there were multiple offers—and Lauren Pearson loved auctions. I figured we’d be going up against quite a few other imprints, so I was confused as to what could be different.

Lauren said, “We are going to take all serious bidders on to a second round—a cooking class—in which we’ll assess how the publishing teams work together. And just to have a bit of fun. Then we’ll take the last and best bid, and we’ll decide from there.” She laced her fingers together on the table in front of her. “And you might be wondering why we’re going through all this trouble.”

Yeah, actually.

“And I wish I could tell you more,” she went on, clearly enjoying dangling a secret in front of us, “but this is just a preliminary meeting. We’ll be looking at all parts of your offer, and so, very likely, as long as a publisher comes to play and has dynamic ideas, they’ll be invited to continue on to the second round.”

Then she stood, and Iwan—James, I had to remind myself—followed suit.

“It was a pleasure to meet you,” he told Drew, and shook her hand. “I look forward to perhaps working with you in the future.”

“I hope so. I could do so much with you—respectfully,” she replied.

He grinned, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I have no doubt.”

Drew followed the agent out the door, guiding her to the lobby, and suddenly I found myself alone with the talent. I quickly pulled all my papers together and shoved them into my notebook, wanting to leave as quickly as possible, but it would be rude to leave before him, and he was certainly taking his time.

A knot formed in my throat.

“James?” his literary agent called.

“Coming,” he replied, and started for the door, but as he passed, he bent toward me, and I caught a bit of his expensive cologne, woodsy and sharp, and he whispered in a deep and delicious rumble, “It was good to see you again, Lemon,” before he slipped out of the conference room, and I was left, mouth open, staring after him.