You Were Meant For Me by Yona Zeldis McDonough

in a more serious way; now he was a professional who did mostly catalog and commercial work. “Mostly it’s work to pay the bills, not to feed the soul, but I do some work of my own too.” He held up a camera whose leather strap was on his shoulder. “Small format, black-and-white.”
    â€œSounds intriguing.” The camera looked unfamiliar to her; she guessed it was not digital, but something older. “What do you photograph?”
    â€œWhatever looks interesting. I can’t predict exactly what it will be; that’s why I keep the camera with me. I want to be ready in case the muse taps my shoulder.”
    Miranda had heard plenty about “the muse” from Luke, and the word set off warning bells; was he going to be another self-absorbed, entitled user of a guy? But she was getting ahead of herself.
    â€œWhat about you?” he asked. “Your profile said you’re a food editor. Did you go to cooking school? Train in Europe or something like that?”
    â€œNo. I grew up on the Upper West Side, but before my freshman year in high school, we moved to Larchmont. Then, in college, I did the usual liberal-arts kind of thing—heavy on the humanities, light on the math and science. No cooking, though.”
    â€œSo what got you into food?”
    â€œMy mother.”
    â€œShe was a good cook?”
    Miranda laughed. “God, no! She hated to cook. Her mottowas,
Why waste time making what you can buy or thaw?
Once, when I was in summer camp, I begged her to send me brownies. Not from a bakery, not from a store, but real, honest-to-God homemade brownies. The mother of one of my bunkmates used to send her care packages, and they always included brownies. I was so jealous.”
    â€œDid she do it?”
    â€œYes. I was so excited when I got the package. When I opened it, I found a box full of what were basically crumbs. She’d made the brownies from a mix, and they were so dry they crumbled in transit. I just threw them out. And never asked again.”
    â€œSo you learned to cook to compensate?” He really did seem interested.
    â€œNot exactly. She got sick when I was a freshman in college. Cancer. The chemo took away her appetite, and she totally lost interest in food. When I came home for the summer, I started playing around in the kitchen. I wanted to tempt her to eat. To live, I guess.”
    â€œDid it work?”
    Miranda looked down into her coffee cup. “Sort of. I did get her to eat—for a while. But she died anyway.”
    â€œYou were young to lose your mother,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
    â€œI’m sorry I didn’t get to know her better. That we weren’t closer.” She looked down at her coffee mug. What was she doing, going on about this now?
    â€œHow about you? Do you like to cook?” She was on a first date; she wanted to veer off the topic of her mother’s death—now.
    â€œAre you kidding? I eat out three times a week and order in the rest of the time.”
    Miranda was frankly disappointed by a guy who couldn’t cook; Luke had often joined her in the kitchen, and preparing a meal was just one of the things they did well together. But Evan was already on to the next question. “So what’s happening with that baby you found?”
    She had only to hear the question before she took off nonstop for the next fifteen minutes, recounting the visit from Joy Watkins in considerable detail. When she finally came up for air, she realized that she might have blown this date entirely. Not so. Evan didn’t seem in the least bit put off by her recitation. If anything, he seemed to be very engaged. “Do you have any pictures of her?” he wanted to know.
    â€œWell, since you asked . . .” She pulled out her phone. There was the baby in the rosebud dress, as well as in the various sweaters and other garments Miranda had bought. He looked through them all before