Nice? Isn't that exactly the kind of thing Steve would have said to her? All those years of him handing her those mild-mannered compliments, and she'd never considered that nice wasn't much of a compliment. To be fair, it would have also been the best thing she would have said to herself. That's nice, Gwen. Well, she wanted to say something more emphatic about her own life, like holy shit, Gwen, you're failing a cooking program!

She'd done caretaking and nobody needed that anymore, especially the mostly grown, somewhat pouty daughter she'd taught to put a tool like Austin at the center of her life. She was going to change that for both of them. "I'm going to be a chef."

"Like a cook? You already are. And you're good, Mom. All my friends said so." Her lip quivered. "And Austin."

"No, like a professional chef."

"Good one, Mom." Missy looked out into the hall. "A girl at the desk told me that was your room, but where are you really staying?"

"I'm living in that room. And I'm becoming a chef."

"You're a super good cook. Dad says so. I worked in a restaurant, and some really bad food comes out of some pretty good kitchens. Yours is lots better."

"No. I'm not going to cook for Dad. I'm not going to wait for either of you to come home so I can feed you. I love you, Missy, and I'm going to become a chef. For me." That may be part lie and part truth, but she wasn't going to tell the girl she might be doing even more for her. Missy didn't seem to be under-indulged.

Missy's face set in the stubborn way she'd mastered from her father, Gwen liked to think. "I don't want you to do that, Mom. What's going on?"

"I don't really know. But I think I've been wrong, maybe about a lot of things, maybe about some things. But I'm really good at this, and I think I'm going to find out how good."

"I have a headache."

Gwen smiled. They had that in common. "I'll show you where the aspirin is."

"Show me?"

Gwen headed back to her room, knew Missy was following her and thinking about all the fussing and cooing that usually accompanied the distribution of pain relievers. Maybe Missy could relieve some of her own.

Gwen hadn't slept like a log. She missed it, the sense of freedom, the deep dive into R.E.M. when she knew that no one who needed her was there to need her. But all night she'd listened to Missy breathing and worried and wondered and fussed over the girl in her head.

She'd tried to minimize the fussing she'd actually done. It had called on all her reserves to put Missy in the other bed, the one she'd made up with the spare sheet and an extra blanket. She felt terrible not giving up the comforter.

The guilt of using her daughter's college goods weighed on her even when it became clear she'd really picked them out for herself, but she was claiming them now. She didn't want to muddy the waters by giving up her own life so easily. It wasn't a life so much as the start of one, the edge, the sliver, the crack o' dawn.

Alright, who was she kidding? She didn't have a clue what her life was, but it was morning so she headed for the shower and hoped her head would clear once she got in it. Maybe when she returned, Missy would be up and happy and getting on with her life with such strength and vigor that Gwen could give up on hers.

"And I'm out of shampoo and conditioner. Toothpaste. Tampons. And that dental floss you always get me. I don't know what kind it is, you know, the fluffy one that gets smaller when you pull on it? That is great floss. I'll need some of that. You should get two because I go through it pretty fast."

Gwen reached for her purse and took out a twenty dollar bill. "Here."

"Thanks." Missy jammed it into her cell phone case.

"That's for whatever you need. The store is over the bridge on the east side of campus."

"What?"

"I'm going to my classes. I have a couple of meal coupons on the desk you can use in the cafeteria. I'm usually back by about three. I have a date tonight, and if you need more money, you'll have to call your father. Don't tell him hi for me." She walked out the door with her red leather student bag slung over her shoulder and felt herself shake all the way to the elevator.

"There's something in her eye. We'll be right back." Gwen pulled Deb down the hallway and into her office. The last thing Deb needed was to tear up in front of the whole class. Once they'd cleared the doorjamb, she saw Deb lean in to hug her with her lips pursed as if holding in a real crying jag, and Gwen clapped her hands once. Deb's head went back, but she took in a deep breath, and nodded in agreement.

Gwen pointed back toward the kitchen. "If I'd known you were going to fall apart, I wouldn't have told you in class."

"I didn't know. I just really love teaching, and I thought this program... It's... Sorry, Gwen, not your problem. I just... you're not just some student here. You're..." Deb blew her nose.

"Old, I know, the only one you can talk to. Well, ditto for me, Deb, but I'm a wreck too, so hold yourself together or I'll come unhinged with you."

Deb studied her. "You look fine. What's going on?"

"Besides that I'm now enrolled in a chef's training program I never intended to be? How about my husband, who gave me divorce papers, showed up in my dorm room Saturday night?"

"He doesn't want to lose you. You're great."

"I'm not great. I'm a train wreck." She tipped her head to the side. "His quote. And the lecture he gave me did me no good because I train-wrecked even more by spending the weekend at the Curtis."

"It's a little shabby but not a bad place."

"I ended up in bed with a man."

"Is his name Ty?"

"Ty? No. Worse." Really? Was Ty a better choice than Max? "Kind of worse. This man is at least my age. What were you even thinking guessing Ty?"

"He's got a thing for you, and he's very handsome. And he knows his spices."

"He does. He completely introduced me to Icelandic seasonings." She thought about all that Deb had said. "He does not have a thing for me. Ty? You're crazy. Not him."

Deb wiggled her eyebrows. "Not him yet."

"Not him ever. The one that it was... and we didn't sleep-together sleep-together. You know what I mean."

"Yes, but I'm going back to the kitchen if the story's gonna be boring."

"No, it's not. He's my college boyfriend. College from the first time around. He's the guy I dated before Steve. The one I left or who really left me. But at any rate, he's the major first love of my life I did not share my life with, and now it's very weird, and tonight he's making me dinner."

"Okay, that's better. The sex will be tonight."

"No, I have to get back to the dorm because my daughter will know if I don't come home."

"You're being paranoid now. How could she know?"

"She's staying with me."

"That's not good."

"She needs to be home..." Gwen shrugged, felt the weight of her own failure. "This is the closest she can get right now, or I can, for that matter." She heard a rap on the doorjamb, and she and Deb jumped, their hands defensively over their hearts.

Ty eyed them as if trying to figure out what they were up to and put his hand on his chest. "If you're done doing the pledge of allegiance, the lamb's ready."

Deb gave him a little wave, but he didn't go. "We'll be right there. Gotta copy off the recipe for the lamb kabobs."

"Lamb," Gwen made a face. "We've done a dozen lamb recipes already today. You are very, very thorough, Deb, but I think you may have rounded the sheepy bend."

"Chef Gaspard wants us to work through all these recipes." Deb's forehead wrinkled as she patted the bulging file folder. "She bought twice as much lamb as any program in the country could use. It's half our semester's budget."

Ty smiled. "Then there must be a good reason for it." He headed back to the kitchen and, god help her, she did check out his butt.

Deb laughed. "Not him yet."

The address Max had given her, four-hundred Cedar Avenue was in the U. district, so she'd decided to walk. It couldn't be far from her dorm, and Missy did own the car. Missy had also disappeared with it, and rightly so. In fact, Missy had disappeared in general. Her things were in the room, but she'd gone off in a huff when Gwen had given her a twenty and encouraged her to run her own errands.

Leaving the edge of campus, Gwen crossed into the well-loved older neighborhood that surrounded Belmar. She was glad to be on foot and had come to love walking again. She did so much of it on campus, always with her bag strapped on like she was setting out on a great trek. Adults usually missed out on that, driving for errands, work, entertainment. But even something as small as getting milk at the store felt like an adventure on foot, although October was getting a little chilly.

She steadied a bottle of wine under her arm and zipped her coat an inch higher. Fall had always held the motion of falling to her, like summer fell into winter. One fall, a really long time before, she'd fallen in love, hadn't she? She tried to remember what street Max's parents had lived on. If she covered enough ground, she knew she'd eventually spot the large brick Dean's house. It probably still had the historic marker out front, but she couldn't pull the address out of her memory.

When she reached the four-hundred block of Cedar, she felt nervous, more nervous than she'd been earlier when she'd taken a shower to get the lamb aroma out of her hair and shaved her legs even though she completely one-hundred percent didn't need to because no one was going to see, feel, or even think about her legs.

She also felt more nervous than when she'd gotten dressed, and getting dressed had been pretty upsetting. She'd tried on three sweaters, one accidentally in a shade related to pink, salmon technically, but he wouldn't make that distinction. She'd put on her own jeans because the ones she'd bought for Missy were lower and could, if she leaned real far over or sneezed while reaching into a refrigerator, for example, expose the animal print underwear her mother had picked out.

Seeing the houses... four-hundreds every one, made her heart race. Then she saw the sweet bungalow. All bungalows were, she supposed, so this one wasn't anything special. It needed some attention, certainly. Its once bright blue trim had faded. But the porch invited her with its width and charming scattering of golden leaves. The door stood red, just as it should, flanked on either side by leaded glass windows perfectly balanced. Max had accidentally rented a honey.

She climbed the stairs and didn't letting herself think, just knocked. She really wanted to see the inside of the house, and that was the rationalization she'd be sticking with.

And then Max opened the door. He wore a dark grey turtleneck that brought out the dark streaks in his blond hair, something she would notice if she were the kind of woman who noticed those things. His jeans were light from so many washings he might have owned them when she first met him, but he wouldn't have looked like a grown man in them back then. He hadn't been all the way there yet. And he hadn't ever smelled like some citrusy soap that was enough to make her mouth water.

Dear god, she did not knock on the door to see the inside of the bungalow. She handed him her coat and watched him scan the length of her body. She closed her eyes like a small child who wishfully thought that if they couldn't see, the other person couldn't see them. "Talk about lamb."

She opened her eyes to see Max's head tilted to the side. "Were we?"

"Nope." She gave him the bottle of wine and walked past him. If she were a lamb to the slaughter, she might as well have it over with and get back to failing the rest of her life and further disappointing her daughter.

She stopped in a living room that was the perfect size. It was smaller than her house, the one she'd left temporarily, and sometimes knocked around in, but it was larger than her dorm room, which she actually knocked around in because the desk jutted out a couple of inches farther than it ought to. But his perfect-sized living room looked not fully moved into and that was vintage Max.

There was one thing unusual for the old Max, well, the young one she'd known. This time he'd attempted to make the place comfortable. A worn quilt in polka dots and paisley lay bunched up at the foot of the couch, and there were a couple of pictures hung, although many were stacked against the side wall near the fireplace. It was a start. And maybe more of a start than Max had managed before in his long-time bachelor nomad existence.

She turned to him. "I tried to remember what street you lived on." She should have qualified that with twenty years ago. He must have lived on many, many streets in between the two houses near Belmar.

"Eucalyptus."

She smiled. He'd known exactly what she was asking. "The Dean's house." And their first date that she'd thought was a date but was really him ambushing his parents with an uninvited dinner guest.

This time Max smiled. "Surprised you, didn't I?"

They'd all been surprised. She'd been surprised he'd called. He'd been surprised when she kissed him up against his car. Well, that had taken them both by surprise. And his parents. She hadn't even asked and hardly anyone she knew still had both of them anymore. "Your parents..."

Max let out a puff of air that would have been a sigh had it been any louder. "Dad died about ten years ago. Heart attack. He was a pretty serious guy, as you know."

She could see him at the dinner table in a tie before he left for a phone call, intense in his way. "And your Mom?"

Max hesitated. "This summer."

"I'm sorry."

"Cancer. Quickly. I came to help out," he shrugged, "What I could do at the end. And then I stayed to take care of things and..."

"That's why you're here now."

"Yes, and there's..."

A timer beeped in the kitchen, and he shrugged in apology and left her there. She followed slowly, making her way through the dining room, the table nicely set. There were place mats, which impressed her, and the dishes matched. No flowers, natch, but the blue pottery said more Max than furnished house. The wine glasses were empty, and she'd need to fix that pronto if she was going to get through the evening without jumping out of her skin from nerves. But the water glasses were full. Ice even. Maybe Max had domesticated some. Maybe she lived in a dorm, and her standards were low. She followed him into the kitchen and looked around. "May I?"

He invited her to check out the dinner with a flourish of his hand.

She admired the mixed green salad waiting in the wooden salad bowl, tongs beside it, and what appeared to be a homemade vinaigrette in a small glass bowl. She picked up a miniature silver whisk and looked at him in question.

"And still I get to keep my man card."

She gave the dressing a stir, smelled the sweet tang of balsamic vinegar and noticed the bits of peppered bacon. "Most of the world's chefs are male."

"Most of the world's chefs are assholes."

"Really?" He'd said it with such intensity that she didn't doubt he had examples. "Well, I guess you've traveled the world and would know."

"Yeah. We'll talk..."

"An odd sexism, I think. I mean, most cooking domestically is done by women. We have the job of preparing food for free. And then when there's a chance to really make a living doing it, a good living that for some involves fame and fortune, bam, it's a man."

She spotted a simple risotto, "Impressive. Where's the main course, card carrying man?"

"On the grill," he quickly moved to the back door. "Damn!"

She followed him out, the screen door banging behind her. The cold air chilled her immediately, and the temperature seemed to be dropping, but late October always teetered a few degrees from snow. She crossed her arms to retain some heat and watched Max pull the kettle lid off a charcoal grill where two massive salmon steaks sizzled and smoked. She caught the fragrance of ginger, maybe lime.

Max flipped the first one, a little scorched, but scorched was a serious improvement over the last grill experience she'd had with him. He turned the other one over, perfect, and leaned against the porch rail. "You're thinking about the last time I cooked for you."

"Oh, is that what you did?"

He laughed. "I was very smooth back then, very skilled."

"You almost burned down a house."

"The house was in no danger, just the porch and some of the siding. You're the one who loved wine coolers." He tipped his head, an attempt to shift blame that she wasn't going to fall for.