Skinny Bitch in Love by Kim Barnouin Page B

rocked as a sister.
    We headed over to the farmers’ market, where Elizabeth oohed and ahhed at the rosemary artisan breads while I bought ingredients for tomorrow’s personal chef clients—two college students who were thinking of going vegan and hired me to teach them how to make some easy, freezable meals, like pizzas and burritos.
    With three loafs of bread sticking out of her tote bag, Elizabeth joined me at a big basket of gorgeous red bell peppers. I took six and moved on to the green and yellow.
    “Bringing a date to Mom and Dad’s party this weekend?” she asked, her two-carat diamond ring glinting in the brilliant July sunshine. Elizabeth was engaged to a fellow lawyer who didn’t believe she really came from organic hippie farmers until he met our parents last summer. No matter what any of us said, his response was a half-good-natured, half-appalled, “That’s so interesting.”
    Our parents were celebrating thirty years of marriage and having a huge party at the farm. A weekend among my kind and I’d be better armed against the face and charisma of Zach Jeffries.
    “Nope,” I said, paper-bagging some mushrooms and moving to the garlic bushels. “Not seeing anyone.” Shit. Shouldn’t have said that. Elizabeth was constantly trying to set me up on blind dates with any lawyer at her firm who had remotely cool hair or carried a messenger bag instead of a briefcase. Once she tricked me into being anecdotal data for a case involving an employee demanding vegan options at her workplace cafeteria. The guy and I got into a huge fight, and I ended up dipping the end of his tie into his coffee. But the fix-up offers kept coming.
    “Glad to hear that,” said someone with a British accent.
    I turned around to find the cute vegan chef—Alexander, I now remembered, with his nice-chap smile and dimples—standing with two reusable shopping bags full of produce and wrapped goods. He looked so fresh-scrubbed, like he’d just washed his face a second ago. Two days had passed since we’d re-met in my apartment during the cooking class, and he hadn’t called. There’d been something so puppy-dog about him, I had almost expected a call that night.
    He lifted the bags. “One of today’s three specials at Fresh. Cherry Barbeque Seitan Napoleon. Eight layers.”
    “Barbeque week was my idea,” I said. And ha. Emil probably hated that he’d been unable to resist trying it.
    “And a good one. Crazy reservations for the weekend.”
    “Sounds like dinner at our house growing up,” Elizabeth said. “Not just vegan, but weird vegan.”
    Alexander smiled and stuck out his hand, which Elizabeth shook. As I introduced them, I could tell Elizabeth approved.
    We made the usual small talk and I could also tell that Elizabeth was aware of how Alexander was looking at me, as though he couldn’t bear to drag his eyes away from my face (which I appreciated, even if he didn’t quite inspire the same can’t-take-my-eyes-off-you lust in me), so she moved on to the gingerbread table three booths away to give him a chance to ask me out.
    Except he didn’t. He told me a funny story about one of the new waiters at Fresh. Asked how the cooking class had gone. Told me I had to try the baba ghanoush from Mediterranean, a former favorite restaurant that had scorned me on my job hunt, so no. And said he liked my shirt. But he didn’t ask me out. Which, of course, made me slightly more interested in him. He wasn’t even looking for an in, like asking if I’d seen a certain movie, if I’d been to a certain restaurant.
    He glanced at his watch, said he had to go, called “Nice to meet you, Elizabeth” at my sister, flashed us a wide smile, and took off.
    Huh.
    “He’s so cute,” Elizabeth said, biting into a gingerbread man’s head as we watched him disappear into the crowd.
    “Yeah, he’s cute, but not my type.”
    “Too nice?”
    “Ben was nice,” I reminded her as she stopped at a table full of chocolates.
    “Yeah, I