She always harped on the sad fact that I didn’t know a thing about cooking. I found it an unnecessary talent to have when you lived in a city the size of Atlanta, where decent restaurants were a dime a dozen. Besides, my lack of culinary skills kept me in pity cupcakes from her. The woman could bake Martha Stewart’s stuffy ass under her antique, flour-dusted table. “Elle, you’ll never get a guy to stick around if you can’t cook him a halfway decent meal once in awhile.” She sounded entirely too much like my mother. “I can suck a golf ball through a garden hose,” I retorted. She rolled her eyes. “You can’t boil water.” “Can too,” I said, then under my breath added, “in the microwave.” “There’s no nutritional value in a cup of Ramen noodles.” When I opened my mouth to dispute that, because I could—sodium is a nutrient, she slid a chocolate-brown envelope embossed with elegant, gold script across the counter.
