Forgive Me by Amanda Eyre Ward Page B

before every meal, taking the bottle from a mini fridge in the corner of his dorm room. He taught Nadine how to give him the shot, and he taught her about writing music, his passion. They went to jazz shows in the city, Cameron’s fingers tapping the beat on Nadine’s knee.
    He brought her to Vermont for Thanksgiving. Cameron’s house, filled with skis and musical instruments, was never quiet. He had five siblings, and none sat still. Something was always cooking—bread, apple pie, vegetarian lasagna—and someone was always telling a story or practicing an instrument. Nadine threw away a bread bag, and Cameron’s mother, who wore fleece tops and athletic pants, fished it out of the garbage. “We can use this again,” she said kindly, her hand warm on Nadine’s shoulder.
    Cameron’s home could not have been more different from Nadine’s. Jim never saved a bread bag to refill with a homemade loaf, or cooked at all, for that matter. Nobody ever trailed through Nadine’s house wearing a wet suit and flipper fins, the way Cameron’s brother Horace did after swimming in the nearby pond. Even when the whole family was finally assembled at the table for to-furkey Thanksgiving dinner, Cameron’s house buzzed with noise: clattering plates, scraping chairs, booming classical music. Nadine held the butter dish, which Cameron’s mother had made and painted with butterflies. She soaked in the noise of a happy family, and thought,
It is possible. I could have this.
    “What was it like?” said Hank. “The house Cameron’s parents built?”
    Even after Cameron dumped Nadine for a willowy oboe player, she thought of his family: a table of loud people who belonged together. She looked at Hank. “It was wonderful,” she said.
             
    N adine tried on clothes at the Lilly Pulitzer store, refusing to even exit the dressing room in the bright outfits. Finally, she found a store she liked, and charged jeans, slim black pants, leather boots, and two sweaters—more clothes than she’d bought in years.
    Hank made elaborate dinners, which they ate in front of the fire: clams and linguine, lobster Diablo, steaks on the grill for Christmas. While he cooked, Nadine sat at the kitchen table and watched. “Where did you learn how to cook?” she asked.
    “Maryjane could have been a chef,” said Hank. “When we broke up, I couldn’t peel a garlic clove. In fact, I had lost every skill she had—remembering people’s names, keeping up with Christmas cards, knowing where to hang a picture. One day I was in the grocery store, throwing ginger ale in the cart, and I stopped and asked myself,
Do I even like ginger ale?
Learning how to cook was a way of making my own life. I took lessons, actually, at Cape Cod Community College.”
    “Do you?” said Nadine.
    “Do I what?”
    “Like ginger ale?”
    “You know,” said Hank, “I prefer Pepsi.”
             
    T hat night, Nadine dreamed of dinner at her favorite restaurant in Mexico City. It was a small, neighborhood spot called Alejandro’s. Alejandro’s wife, a slight woman named Marguerite, made a chicken dish with a rich sauce from her native Oaxaca. The sauce was called
mole,
and Nadine loved it so much she decided to feature Marguerite in an article. She arrived at Alejandro’s with her notebook and convinced Marguerite to take her into the kitchen. The resulting story was a huge success, and Nadine committed the
mole
recipe to memory.
    In the morning, Nadine decided to make
mole
for Hank. She presented him with a list of twenty-six ingredients and told him dinner would be late and fabulous, just the way it was at Alejandro’s. Hank stared at the list. “Chocolate?” he said. “I thought you were making chicken.”
    “It’s a sauce with chocolate and chiles,” said Nadine. “You’re going to love it. Might as well get some sipping tequila, too.”
    “Nadine,” said Hank, sinking into a kitchen chair, “You think the Nantucket Stop & Shop is