Max got out and pocketed the car keys, so she followed, walking beside him to the front door where orangey red flowers bloomed in an oversized urn. It was all so well-tended, she was sure she'd once lived in its ugly twin. There'd been a dilapidated rental when she was twelve or thirteen and her mom had lost a job from fraternizing with the boss. She'd had to look up the meaning of the word, and it took half way down the entry before she understood exactly why Ellen was unemployed. That house had all the front windows blocked by ragged shrubs, like someone had possessed an ounce of enthusiasm to plant them but didn't stick around long enough to do the tending.

Reaching for the brass door handle, Max turned to her and smiled, so dazzling, so unexpected. She said yes in her head and worried she'd said it out loud, all breathy and intense like she meant it.

He put his hand on the small of her back, and she involuntarily leaned in. She did mean it. Opening the door for her, they stepped across the threshold, and she knew immediately that the place smelled way too good to be a frat house. It had to be...

"Max."

Gwen saw her at the end of the hall, her blonde hair short and frosted so discretely it looked like the sun lit up the dark hallway. This was no woman with a bottle of sun-in from the drugstore who took a couple of hours in a lounge chair out back when she needed to spruce up her roots. That would be her mother. This elegant woman would be Max's.

"You've brought a friend."

Even her voice had class. Gwen sighed. Max was so lucky. No wonder he'd brought her here. She'd drag strangers home too if this was her family.

"This is Gwen. Gwen, my mother, Margaret Holter."

"Mrs. Holter." Gwen thought her eyes looked surprised, but her voice was so neutral, it was hard to tell if it was a good thing or a bad thing to be the uninvited dinner guest.

Margaret raised a groomed eyebrow up a notch at Max. "No last name, Max? Surely dorm life with those boys hasn't removed all your manners."

Gwen rushed in. She may be the daughter of that woman Ellen and only at Belmar by the grace of a scholarship, but she was a woman with a last name even if Max didn't have a clue what it was. "Ciarrochi."

Margaret smiled. "I love Italy."

Gwen hooked her thumb toward the door. "I'm from Phillipsburg. But my dad was Italian."

Margaret motioned toward the end of the hallway as if they were supposed to follow her but a few steps down it, she stopped, and Gwen realized the past tense had done it. One of the worst parts about not having a dad was having to explain yourself over and over. "He passed away when I was little." At least he'd died of natural causes. In case that was the next question. Gwen had that going for her. She could at least say it was a heart attack although her mother still couldn't without crying. Maybe Ellen had loved for real once, before she'd half fallen in love with a dozen men and flirted with a million more.

But Margaret didn't ask any more questions, just nicely excused herself to get, no doubt, another plate for dinner. She acted as if she'd known Gwen was coming all along, which made her a very smooth hostess. She'd like to be one of those someday.

When Max led her into the dining room, she saw it was set for three, just as she suspected. They both ignored that, and she admired the room with its dark paneling about waist high and an honest to god chandelier above the most polished table she'd ever seen. She wondered what she was doing there and felt some relief when Max held out a chair for her. It was something to do and later there'd be food to keep her busy.

She began to relax as she watched him take the seat across from her, and then the dean walked in. Belmar's dean. The guy who'd stood next to President Hoffman at the welcome address. And he had on a tie, a tie for dinner. In fact, if he popped on a navy blazer, he'd look exactly like he had on the podium.

"Dad, this is Gwen Ciarrochi."

She was glad she'd at least worn her green corduroys and not her Levi's. She extended her hand. "Dean Holter." She had packed the one black skirt, blazer, and pair of pumps she'd needed for speech and debate. That outfit would have been better than the cords for the parents but completely wrong for Max. Nothing said I was dateless for prom like a business suit and white bow blouse. And she'd had a date for prom. The salutatorian, Will Arnold, thank you very much.

Max nodded to his dad. "Gwen's an elementary ed. major."

Her eyebrows rose. He may not have told her that dinner would be with his parents, or warned her his dad was Dean Holter, but he'd remembered something from the night they'd met.

Max's dad shook her hand and smiled kinda warmly she thought, for a Dean. "Call me James."

Dean James? Oh, that wasn't going to go well. She'd blurt out James Dean before the salad was eaten. Margaret came in and efficiently put another place setting on a white linen placemat that Gwen hoped she wouldn't spill on. Then Gwen watched her and Max's dad sit down on each end of the dark wood table. She wasn't sure which spot was the head of the table since she'd eaten most of her dinners in front of a TV. But she did like the view from her seat, looking across at Max. He was almost pretty, and she wondered how she'd hold up next to him.

Max leaned towards her while his father uncorked the wine and his mother rubbed a napkin over her glass rim. "Rebel without a cause."

She tried not to smile.

"Lots of causes. Rebellion is verboten."

German. Max had, no doubt, traveled there. The whole family would've gone after the vacation to his mother's favorite, Italy. They would have been wining and dining where her father's family, unknown and unidentified, probably filled the lowest ranks of the Sicilian mafia.

Dean James pulled the cork out with a soft pop. "Maggie, hand me that coaster will you?"

Margaret didn't look like a Maggie to Gwen, and judging by the thin line of her mouth, she didn't like either the nickname or handing people coasters or maybe Dean James.

Well, things might not be perfect at Max's house, but they were unquestionably beautiful. She had to stop herself from tracing around the silver rim of the creamy white dinner plate in pure admiration. Instead she studied Max across the table where he waited in neutral territory. Maybe ignoring his parents was the reason he'd brought her. She felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. Maybe he hadn't really asked her out at all.

He considered while he ate that he'd never been one to use girls. Once, at thirteen, a really hot girl in his study hall had run naked in his head. Maybe more than once. But he'd been thirteen, and Sheila was pretty developed, and it was only homemade brain porn not the real girl. Running and running, her melon-sized... well, he was an adult and done with adolescence.

He focused on Gwen who was answering an elementary ed. question from his father. He tried not to, but Sheila had jogged his memory, and he covertly checked out Gwen's body, what he could see above the table. Hard to know with the sweater, but they looked pretty big and just as high. He needed to stop doing that, especially after not even warning her but springing James and Margaret. Not cool. Not cool at all. At least he had her last name now, and it was a good one. Gwen Ciarrochi.

She smiled, but it couldn't be easy to do with Margaret giving her a look with one eyebrow higher than the other. And Gwen looked really pretty, really something when she smiled. He might not have ever called her since she was a serious kind of girl, but there at the table with her head tilting a little back and forth between his parents, who weren't talking to each other, but seemed to with her in the conversation, he felt glad and guilty that he'd sent her to do his job. The way she did it, it looked more like an entertaining tennis match, and it seemed do-able and ok and not bad at all.

He'd been right to bring her but still needed to make it up to her. Something good, like one of those things girls really liked. Once, he'd given some flowers on Valentine's Day before he had a car and could just take a girl to a movie like a man.

He hadn't worked at it that much in high school, but his friend, Joel, at five-six had moves. He'd had to. By the time they graduated, Joel had gotten half the girls they knew by making females his full-time job. He had a stash of gold heart necklaces he gave during big girl holidays like Christmas, Valentine's Day, birthdays, one month anniversaries of things like kisses or whatever. Joel hadn't dated any of them long enough to have to give them a second heart, so the system worked. But Max couldn't give Gwen jewelry. That would be first date creepy. What would Joel do?

The phone rang, and his father left the table for it. Typical. His mom looked pissed, also typical, and headed to the kitchen for coffee, leaving them alone with dessert. There was a smooth scoop of white in the silver parfait dish with a line of chocolate spun over the top. It looked perfect, but Gwen didn't know. He looked up at her, and it was already too late. She'd taken a bite.

The spoon stayed in her mouth with her lips closed around it, her hand still on the handle.

He leaned across the table. "It's frozen soybean milk."

Her eyebrows came together, and he watched her throat move. She could be swallowing or getting ready to barf. Either would move it along, and no one would blame her.

"My father has a dairy allergy, so we get soy ice cream and carob topping."

Gwen slipped the spoon out of her mouth and set it beside the bowl, quickly picking it back up and sticking it in the ice cream. The girl had her game face on, got to admire that. He reached across and put his hand over hers. He let her keep the empty spoon but took the dish. Tipping back in his chair, he dumped the soy into the nearest plant. While no person with taste buds could enjoy fake ice cream, the plant didn't seem to mind. It was as green as the others. Growing up, he tried to not just make one plant suffer, but suffering sometimes fell on the nearest target.

He turned to Gwen, her mouth making a little O of surprise, so good-girl shocked and sweet that he leaned all the way across the table and kissed her before he even thought about it. Her lips were warm and cool at the same time and moved so softly against his he wanted to crawl across the table for more. He heard the kitchen door and sat back, watching Gwen study him. Gwen's O had relaxed from the kiss, and it looked softer and more open now. She was surprised, maybe, like he felt. Maybe she was something more.

His mom set down the coffee carafe and silver tray with the creamer and sugar, and they made a bell-like tap together that brought him to his feet. He reached his hand across the table for Gwen. "We're gonna go."

He came around the table for her, and his mom stopped arranging the teaspoons at an angle from the creamer and managed an "oh" before he dragged Gwen by her, planting a quick kiss on her cheek on the way past. He gave Gwen a beat to say thank you over her shoulder, and they were out. They'd cleared the front door, and he was aiming for the car before she asked, "What's happening?"

Standing on the front lawn where he'd played ball and later counted the days until he could leave, he looked at the girl he was definitely going to kiss again, but beyond that... "I don't know."

He led her across the lawn to the car and opened the passenger door, waiting for her to slide in. But she didn't. She just looked at him like she knew a million things he didn't and was still just as confused as he was. Then she put her hand in the center of his chest. He felt, or imagined he did, the heat of her skin and knew she'd push him away, but she bunched up his shirt in her hand and pressed him up against the rear passenger door. She kissed him so hard he felt the window against his back. Her mouth was hot and inviting, and he didn't care if they broke the window. But before he could get his arms around her, she pulled back, leaving him against the car with an erection he couldn't begin to hide.

The sweet girl smile came back to her face, and she said, just like she'd said thank you, Mrs. Holter, for dinner, "I love college."

Back to U...

The alarm shocked her awake, the sound piercing like a knife to her head. Swinging her legs over the side, she held onto her temples because it was more like many knives stabbing into many heads. Who knew a football/Cinderella party would do that much damage? She shuffled to the desk, reached down, and unplugged the clock. She wasn't taking any chances fumbling for the switch. It was the size of a grain of rice.

Wrestling her robe on, she grabbed her shower caddy and towel and headed for the communal bathroom. But when she opened the door, she heard a thunk at her feet and saw the picture. She picked it up, even though the bending cost her an extra pounding in her forehead.

The boys had gone to the trouble of framing it. Her finger was raised with the texture of couch behind her looking like a somewhat professional backdrop. And her lips... beneath the gansta bandana, they were puckered for a kiss, all red and full. Whoever's phone had captured it had a pretty good eye. She backed up and set the picture inside her bag. After all that work, the least she could do was hang it.

What had seemed an interesting idea filtered through Red Bull, vodka, and too much Cinderella, seemed crazy as she stood in Max's hallway, showered and aspirined. He could come out of his office at any minute. She could literally end up standing in a pool of her own urine. She took a deep breath because even though her husband left her, and her daughter was completely ignoring her, nobody, not any single person in the world, could say she wasn't a team player.

She ripped the pee photo off the wall, glad the small nail remained. She hadn't thought that through. She pulled the finger photo out of her bag and slid it around for what felt like whole minutes before the nail hit the hole. Then she bolted down the hall and turned toward the shelter of the kitchen. He'd never find her there.

She let out a breath of relief when the doors closed behind her and she saw Deb wave her over. There were a pair of students there, cooking students by the looks of their chef's coats, but they weren't in her class.

"Rick, Kelly, this is Gwen. She's joining us in second year advanced."

Gwen's stomach contracted, and she felt like she might need to calm herself down under one of the stainless tables. She'd gone from being ahead to falling behind in an instant, but if Deb knew how she felt she didn't show it, just marched right ahead in typical Deb mode. "They're transfer students, recruited from other programs so we'd have a couple of graduates our first year." Deb pointed to the peg where her coat and hat hung and headed off toward the coolers.

Gwen knew she didn't have the energy to defy Deb and get under the table. Wasn't that the definition of a dilemma? If she defied Deb, she'd have to just stand there and that would be doing what Deb wanted. If she crawled under the table, she'd be defying Deb, and with a hang-over and an attempt at a photo protest behind her, she was incapable of any more action. She took her jacket off the peg and shrugged into it. All she'd wanted was to go back, as best she could, to the place where she'd taken a wrong turn and correct just a bit of it, a couple of credits, a degree she'd never gotten. But instead of feeling like she was making progress, she was suddenly swimming over her head, cooking out of her league.

Deb rounded the corner with a strange-eyed fish in one hand and a bag of lemons in the other. She put them down on the table and scooted them over to make room for the bucket of herbs and potatoes Ty carried. The funny moment of recognition on his part must have been on her face as well. They both laughed and then he came to stand beside her as Deb started class. "Now I want you all to feel this eyeball. It'll be on the weekly quiz, so wake up. Fresh fish has a convex eye. Shouldn't be cloudy at all or shrunken."

Gwen reached out and ran her finger over its marble of an eye. Standing beside three students who were really becoming chefs and battling a lingering hang-over made her more than a little sick, but, god help her, she loved being in the kitchen. Despite it all, she breathed in the clean sea smell of fish and wanted to get her hands on the thick lemons. She'd never picked a lemon up that she hadn't scraped her thumbnail along the pebbly skin and smelled that luscious citrus.

"Gills should be nice and red. No mucus."

Okay, a lecture involving the word mucus might actually do her in, but still there was no place else she'd rather be. Not even her own kitchen it surprised her to realize.

Chapter Five.

Expand your horizons with new and fresh spices.

I know this little spice store sounded like a line, a not very good one. But between cooking students it meant business, she decided, as she followed Ty into what could only be described as a little spice store. It couldn't have been more than ten feet across. If she lay down on the scuffed wood floor, and she wouldn't, she'd run out of room by the second body length.

Ty acknowledged the woman at the desk with a wave, and she smiled back as charmed as everyone seemed to be by him. She would exclude herself from that, naturally. He was a mere twenty-nine. Probably. Maybe a young looking thirty... three? She started to follow him to the back of the shop where four ceiling-to-floor shelving units sat along the end wall with hardly a foot to pass between them, but the bottles of oil stopped her. She picked up the smallest one that was a murky red color. She couldn't read the label, and even if it had been in English, she'd need glasses to decipher the tiny letters. Luckily the skull exhaling fire told her everything she needed to know. Surprise Chili she'd call the caldron of it she'd whip up for Steve, maybe Missy if she didn't call soon.

Continuing along one wall, she took in the earthy smells and beauty of the assorted flavored sugars. The bin with lavender-studded raw sugar proved irresistible, and she picked up a plastic bag and scooped out a couple of dollars worth. She wasn't sure when she'd use it, but she couldn't leave it behind.

"Gwen, back here." Ty sat on his heels in the last row, studying a tin-lidded glass jar.

She walked over to him, leaned down, then realized she'd have to get on the floor as well. She crouched down and was relieved her knees didn't crack. An audible creak would have been an awkward geriatric moment for her.

He pointed to the ink-faded label, which was nearly impossible for her to read, but she thought she could make out Iceland. "What grows in Iceland?"

He shook his head. "I have no idea. I find something new every time I'm here." He leaned in. No doubt his eyes could read very small print. "Arctic thyme."

"That sounds promising."

"Bog bilberry."

"You're just making things up now."

Ty laughed, pointed to the spot where the ingredient must appear.

She squinted. "I can't read that. My eyes don't work that well."

He turned to look at her, inches away, his face just above hers. "They're beautiful. They don't have to be good too."

She elbowed him, and he laughed as he regained his balance and turned back to the bin. "Oh, and juniper." He put his hand on the lid. "Shall we?"

"You had me at Bog bilberry."

He removed the top, and they both sniffed. And sneezed. Ty twice, but she got three out and worried that one more would have her incontinent.

Ty's hand covered his nose. "It burns."

"My sinuses are on fire." She shook her head like a dog trying to get something off his snout.

Ty reached for the scoop. "We have to get some."

She held a bag open. "Absolutely."

They'd made sea scallops in a creamy sauce peppered with Arctic thyme and bog bilberry that tasted like delicious fire but made even Deb sneeze. And it had been only one of the highlights of her week. She'd learned how to slice filets, two per wing, on a critter she'd never even heard of before, the Skate fish. It looked like a less dangerous version of a stingray. In fact, the entire seafood unit, with its sweet crab meat and delicate flakes of various fish, made her glad she stood at the top of the food chain. She'd spent five days side by side with the second year students and Deb had taught her so much, she almost forgot she didn't belong there. But all delightful weeks seemed to come crashing to a halt on Friday.

Heading into the dorm, she understood that in the universe of university students, Friday meant gearing up to party. She felt the energy pulsing in the lobby as she made her way to the elevator, but the ride to her floor convinced her that what she needed was a nap. She'd try one more time to get the garlic smell off her hands from the fish en papillote, the sea bass they'd baked in parchment paper after a good dousing of ginger and garlic. She unlocked her room, closed the door, dropped her bag and wanted to fall into bed, but first she'd shower. She didn't want to musk up her lovely comforter.

A rap on the door made her jump. She hoped there wasn't a game on and it was the boys come calling. She hadn't fully recovered from the weekend of Red Bull past. Opening the door, she saw her mother, rolly suitcase beside her, hand bag in the crook of her arm.

"Mom? Is everything okay?"

"Of course, dear." Ellen rolled right into the room, and Gwen stepped aside but not quick enough to avoid one wheel bumping over her foot.

Ellen took in the room, sighed, "Well, it couldn't be cuter. It's precious, Gwen."

"Thanks, Mom. And, uh, what brings you here? Is this a visit? Tonight?"

"As if you didn't know."

"No, actually." She pulled her phone out of her bag, not that anyone ever called. No messages.

Ellen sniffed the air. "There's a very strong garlic odor."

Gwen rubbed her hands together. "It's so hard to get it off. I'll go and..."