A Special Place for Women, Laura Hankin [brene brown rising strong .txt] 📗

He didn’t need my help—if anything, I was slowing him down—but still, he made me feel as if he appreciated it. And I appreciated his help as he listened seriously to the takedowns I’d come up with, letting me know if they were withering or entirely toothless.

At one point, in the close quarters, we bumped into each other and nearly knocked the saucepan off the stove. Raf caught it just in time. “You know you have a huge, beautiful restaurant kitchen,” I said. “You don’t want to do the recipe testing there?”

“Nah, I never do. Too much pressure that way. Makes me get in my head, having all those other people around.” He took a spoonful of the sauce out of the pan and handed it to me. “More or less cayenne?”

I rolled the flavor around in my mouth. “I’m hesitant to mess with near perfection. But . . . a little more.”

He shook in some spice and added a handful of fresh herbs. We each took a taste at the same time, closing our eyes, savoring it. Then we turned to each other, almost laughing with how good it was. “Holy shit, Raf. I think my taste buds had a full-on orgasm.”

“Welcome to Flavortown!” he said.

I squinted at him. “Are you doing Guy Fieri?”

“I’m doing Guy Fieri.”

“Cool.”

“Yeah, I’m not going to do that again.”

We laughed and dished ourselves up heaping platefuls of chicken stew, then leaned against his counter, feasting on five-star dining in our pajamas at nine in the morning.

“Thanks for your help with the article,” I said once I’d regained my ability to make words, instead of just noises of contentment. “I’m feeling jazzed about it.”

“I’m jazzed to read it. Thanks for your help with the cooking.”

“Oh, psh, I barely did anything.”

“No, really.”

“You probably try out new recipes with all your fake girlfriends,” I teased.

“I’ve never tried out new recipes with any girlfriend.” He stared at his fork, twiddling it in his fingers. “Or with anyone, really.”

I suddenly became aware that I was not wearing a bra. Shoving the final bite of my food into my mouth, I chewed quickly and put my plate in the dishwasher. “Well, I’m honored. Now I guess I should actually write this thing instead of just talking about it, huh?”

It probably wasn’t a good idea to stay with Raf too long either. I’d finish the article that day, I told myself, and then I’d rededicate myself to the apartment hunt with a vengeance.

TWENTY-THREE

I went to a coffee shop and wrote like a fiend. A poisonous side of me poured out, but it was righteous poison. How freeing it felt to be vicious in the name of justice. This man had wormed his way into power by virtue of nothing but his membership in the old boys’ club and now he was using that ill-deserved power to ruin the lives of people who’d worked harder than he ever had. He needed to be destroyed. I barely lifted my fingers from the keyboard the entire time, my coffee growing cold beside me as I crafted something that could work as either an article or a very in-depth Twitter thread. I wrote my concluding sentence. Only then did I feel how desperately I needed to pee. When I stood up to do so, my hip hurt from hours of sitting in the same position.

Stephen King says that, after finishing a draft of a novel, you should put it in a drawer for six weeks before coming back to reread so that you can see it clearly. I left what I had written on my computer for the time it took me to go to the bathroom (roughly three minutes), then read it over and decided I was fucking in love with it.

I texted Margot. Hey, I finished writing that thing. I added an exclamation point, then a biceps curl emoji, then deleted them both. “Just send the stupid text,” I muttered under my breath, and did so.

Ten seconds later, my phone rang. “You’re quick,” Margot said. “Can you bring your computer and meet me in an hour?”

“Sure. Yeah, absolutely. At the clubhouse?”

“No, just us,” she said, and gave me an apartment address on the Upper West Side instead. Funny that she lived there. That neighborhood seemed much more Caroline than Margot. It was too normal, too full of Juice Generations and The Gap. Unless . . .

“We’re not breaking and entering again, are we?” I asked.

“No,” she said, and laughed.

A few subway transfers and one elevator ride later, I knocked on a door. Margot answered with a glass of red wine in her hand, her feet bare, wearing no makeup except for a slash of bright scarlet lipstick. I hadn’t imagined Margot to be messy, per se, but I had thought her place would be cluttered, full of love letters and half-finished bottles of perfume. Like a Parisian garret, except huge and expensive. Instead, this living room was tastefully furnished, with everything put away in its place and what looked like Real Art framed on the walls. Through a large window, the trees of Central Park swayed, their leaves starting to turn orange and gold.

“Please, go ahead, sit,” she said, pointing to a brown leather armchair, so I did. I expected her to sit on one of the multiple other chair or couch options, but instead, she sprawled on the rug, lying on her stomach and cupping her head in her hands, her dress fanning out on the ground around her. I was starting to think that Margot was allergic to sitting up straight like everyone else. “All right. Read it to me,” she said, staring up into my eyes.

I blinked, not sure if I’d heard her right. “Now? Out loud?”

“In your head, but think it strongly in my direction,” she said, then smiled. “Or we could do out loud, if you prefer.”

I cleared my throat. “Um, okay,” I said, my hands