Read Online On a Night Like This by Ellen Sussman - Free Book Online Page A

Blair asked. The girl took something most nights—to sleep or to party.
    “Up. I’m going dancing. New club south of Market. Wanna come?” She did a little shimmy and shake to the blaring music.
    “No thanks. Another time.”
    Philippe pushed through the doors and dropped his plates in the sink, where Manuel slapped his hand. “Other side, hombre,” Manuel told him, lifting the dirty dishes into the dirty dish sink. Manuel slapped Philippe as often as he could. Blair thought he still hadn’t managed to get him to bed, though.
    “Philippe, I’ve got a question for you,” Blair said.
    “Ask. And if you’re not eating that, I’ll take it. I’m famished.”
    Daniel shot Blair a look and she picked up her fork, starting to nibble at the plate of food on her lap.
    “You’re a film buff. Do you know Luke Bellingham? I think he writes screenplays.”
    “Won the goddamn Academy Award,” Philippe told her. “
Pescadero.
Amazing film. A friend of mine worked on it.”
    Blair smiled. “I went to school with him,” she said. “A million years ago.”
    “Did the movie man have the hots for Ms. Chef?” Philippe asked.
    “I was invisible,” Blair told him. “It’s a good thing. Being invisible. I might just try it again.”
    A day ago, she had blurted out, “I’m dying,” like a fool. She had run away, like a coward. She had liked him, like a teenage girl.
    “Eat,” Daniel said; Blair had left her fork lingering on the plate.
    “Don’t tell them,” Blair said quietly when the waiters left to finish clearing in the dining room.
    “I don’t want to lose you,” Daniel said so softly that Blair could barely hear him.
    She looked up from her plate. He was standing in front of her, looking at her, lost without a spatula or pan in hand. Her heart caught in her throat.
    “Don’t,” she told him. “I’m not ready—”
    “You’ll keep working, then,” Daniel said. He whirled back around to face the stove.
    “For a little while.”
    “I love you, Blair,” Daniel said, though his spoon swirled in the pan, his hand reached for some herbs on the shelf, and his finger dipped and tasted the latest sauce creation.
    “I know you do,” Blair told him.
    Over the years they had developed their own sort of intimacy—Blair talked to Daniel about her daughter and about her lovers, and Daniel talked to Blair about food. He was the most private man she had ever known, but he listened well. And he gave her his true heart—the kitchen in his restaurant.
    But this is another universe,
Blair thought—
the prospect of death. How do you talk about that? How do you even begin to think about that?
    “So who’s Luke Bellingham?” Daniel asked.
    “Just a guy,” Blair said. “I didn’t know him then. And I don’t know him now. I’m invisible.”
    In the morning, when Blair woke up and looked outside, she discovered Sweetpea sitting on the front porch of the cottage.
    “What’s that? A wolf?” Amanda asked, peering out the window at her mother’s side.
    Blair opened the door and let the dog in. “She’s nicer than she looks,” Blair explained. “Don’t let her owner in.”
    “Who’s the owner?”
    “Some guy.”
    “Some guy who drops his dog off in the morning? What are you, the dog walker?” Amanda asked. She scooted down and cuddled with Sweetpea, who buried her nose in Amanda’s armpit.
    “Yes,” Blair said, pleased. “I’m the dog walker.”
    “Can I come?” Amanda asked. “I don’t have class until ten.”
    “Absolutely,” Blair told her. “Let me get dressed. We’ll take her to the beach.”
    She left Amanda and Sweetpea in the living room while she went back to her room to find jeans and a sweatshirt. When she returned, Amanda was standing on the front porch, the dog waiting expectantly at her side.
    Blair called out to her. “If you see the guy—you know, the owner—tell him to go away. He can pick up his dog when I leave for work at four-thirty.”
    “How am I supposed to