Georgia's Kitchen Read Online Free PDF Page A

agape.
    “Georgia! Over here!” Clem waved her hands over her head. She, Ricky, and a bunch of Marco people had commandeered a table in front of the stage, which looked as if someone had pieced together a dozen or so milk crates and then stapled a sheet of plywood on top. The last act had walked off with their limbs intact, so Lo would be fine, especially since she’d just finished a ten-day master cleanse and was even waifier than usual.
    Georgia started making her way to the table, but her eyes scanned the room for Glenn, the one person she really wanted to see after that mess with Marco. Please, she thought, please let him still be here.
    “George!” Glenn stood at the end of the bar with a group of guys he’d never met before and would probably never see again. They were laughing. Holding up his hand, he mimed tipping back a drink, then pointed to Georgia.
    Relief washed over her, and she smiled for the first time since arriving at the Rumpus. She walked over to join him, and before he could say anything, she slipped her arms around his waist and squeezed, resting her head against his chest and closing her eyes.
    “Does this mean you’re not mad at me?” he asked after a minute.
    “No. But this does.” Standing on tiptoe, she kissed him, knowing she’d catch flack from the line cooks, who were almost certainly watching, and not caring. “Although, even if I were still mad, I wouldn’t tell you. You might punch me out.”
    “Funny, George.” He leaned down to kiss the top of her head. “Real funny.”

T he apartment door slammed shut behind her, and Georgia reached down to unclick Sally’s leash and collar, dropping them to the floor with a clank. It was eleven o’clock. An hour earlier and she might more carefully have closed the door, placed the leash and collar on the table. But it was eleven, the first Saturday in a long while that she and Glenn would be able to spend together, and he had slept long enough.
    She walked into her living room, flopping down on the sofa. A sea-grass carpet stretched across the cheap parquet floor, and a large glass coffee table was stacked with books and magazines. The walls were painted a warm khaki and lined with vintage prints of Italian and Spanish food products. For an unremarkable Upper East Side rental, it felt like home. The fifty-inch flat-screen, dominating an entire wall, had arrived via special delivery the day Glenn moved in.
    She left a voice mail for Bernard in case Marco forgot he’d given her the day off, which seemed likely considering the shit-faced shape he was in by evening’s end. When last she saw her boss, he was draped across a girl who looked as ifshe’d gone to the Rumpus straight from an SAT prep course. Not one to moon, Marco either didn’t care or didn’t remember that minutes earlier he’d been trying to make out with his head chef. As long as her surname wasn’t Sante, he could sleep with whomever he wanted. Between Marco’s meandering mouth and Mercedes’s review, Georgia felt she’d more than earned a three-day weekend. “See you Tuesday, Bernard,” she said before hanging up.
    En route to the kitchen, she cocked her head and pressed her ear to the bedroom door. Nothing. She continued into the kitchen and Sally followed, watching as Georgia scooped up coffee beans from the silver tin and dumped them into the fancy grind-and-brew Glenn had bought for Christmas.
    “Whaddaya think, Sals? Do I tell him about Marco?” She purposefully hadn’t told him at the Rumpus or in the cab ride home. After the bouncer incident there was no telling how he’d react, but chances were he’d be much more levelheaded when he didn’t have five or six drinks sloshing around his stomach.
    “You need a clip, my friend,” Georgia said, scratching the yellow Lab mix behind the ears. “And as usual, you’re right. Of course I should tell him.” Coffee in hand, she walked to the living room and took a seat at the dining table pressed against