A Second Bite at the Apple Read Online Free PDF Page B

make it home after another drink or two.
    The overhang above the bar’s entrance shoulders a good two feet of snow, the fluffy mounds bearing down with the weight of a small school bus. There’s so much white that from where I stand below the entrance I can barely make out the block stencil letters punched out of the bar’s copper nameplate. This is the kind of weather I loved as a kid. I remember missing two weeks of school in the seventh grade, when a major snow and ice storm pounded the East Coast. My mom and Libby baked chocolate chip cookies, while I looked on, peering over my copy of MFK Fisher’s The Gastronomical Me . The three of us played cards and watched movies and curled up on our couch with steaming mugs of hot chocolate. It’s one of the last memories I have of the three of us hanging out like that.
    When I walk inside, I find Heidi sitting along the wooden bar, chatting to the bartender as he fills up a glass from the beer tap, his back to a long wall of exposed brick. A song by the Doves purrs through the bar’s speakers, and as I tromp through the long, narrow bar in my snow boots, both Heidi and the bartender look up at me.
    â€œThere she is!” Heidi says, her blue eyes sparkling. She sips her beer and wipes a dab of frothy foam off her narrow freckled nose.
    I look around for the many friends I assumed Heidi would bring with her, but the only people here besides the two of us are a thirty-something couple sitting at a table and a man in a puffy vest sitting at the far end of the bar.
    â€œWhere are the ‘troops’?” I ask.
    Heidi smiles sheepishly and tucks a stray strand of her stick-straight blond hair behind her ear. “Everyone is snowed in. We’re an army of two tonight.”
    The bartender slides a beer to the man at the end of the counter and scratches his beard as he nods in my direction. “What can I get you?”
    I scan down the list of beer specials scrawled on the black chalkboard, but I’ve never been much of a beer connoisseur, and at this point, I really don’t care what I order as long as it contains alcohol. “Uh, the third one,” I say. “Thanks.”
    Heidi helps me unwrap my scarf and stares at me worriedly. “Did you even look at yourself in the mirror before you left?”
    â€œNo, why?” I glance in the mirror behind the bar and notice a crease down my cheek, long and deep like the San Andreas Fault, and a mysterious streak of mucus in the corner of my eye. I look like an extra from The Walking Dead .
    Heidi grabs my drink from the bartender and passes it to me. “To new beginnings.”
    We clink glasses, and I gulp down half my beer.
    â€œWhoa, slow down,” she says. “Happy hour lasts another two hours. We have time.”
    I slide my glass back and forth on the counter and sigh. “I can’t believe I lost my job.”
    â€œWho did they keep?”
    I roll my eyes as I take another sip of beer. “Fucking Charles.”
    â€œThat’s it?”
    â€œMelanie, too. Although she’s going to be some sort of quasi producer-slash-digital reporter, whereas Charles will produce his own spots. I almost feel bad for them, until I remember they will still be getting a paycheck.”
    â€œYou will, too, soon enough. And anyway, you never loved that job. Maybe now you can give the whole food journalism thing a try.”
    I throw back the rest of my beer. “If it were that easy to find a job as a food writer, don’t you think I would have left The Morning Show a long time ago?”
    Heidi rubs my back. “Fair enough. But you’ll get another job. Don’t worry.”
    We both know she has no idea whether or not I’ll get another job, but I suppose these are the stock phrases you say when a friend loses one. You’ll be okay . You’ll land on your feet. You’ll find work soon . People say those phrases so often they almost lose