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meeting Vivian Duncan. They’d die.
    â€œAnybody home?”
    As I turned on a light in my office, I detected the excellent aromas of frying olive oil and perhaps ham, wafting from the direction of the kitchen. Dropping my purse and Vivian’s pink portfolio onto my desk, I heard Wes’s voice calling. I hefted the bowl of lavender roses and headed toward the voice.
    In the kitchen, I felt at once relaxed and restored. The bright lights gleamed off all the shiny white tiles, the brushed aluminum appliances, and the worn butcher-block countertops. My two friends were here, huddled at the large, marble-topped island in the center of the room.
    â€œWe didn’t know when you would be home,” Holly said, looking up, a cup of coffee in her hand. “Ooh, great flowers!” She pushed her stick-straight bangs back off her forehead and looked a bit anxious. “We started to make dinner, hope you don’t freak.”
    â€œMoi? Freak?” How well they knew me.
    Holly grinned. Standing with one hand on top of her head, white-blond hair pulled back off her forehead, this beanpole of a young woman was stretched to her fullest height, a height that was formidable enough even without the three-inch open-toed wedgies she was wearing at the moment.
    â€œAnything left for me to do?” I asked, trying for nonchalant rather than freaky. I love to roll my sleeves up and become consumed in the, okay, I know it’s hokey, the joy of cooking.
    â€œOf course,” Wes said, sticking his head up from the magazine he’d been consulting. “We were just doing Bon Appetit roulette. Why don’t you take the main course, sweetie?”
    I keep an enormous stack of cooking magazines, back issues for years. Sometimes, we just close our eyes and open the page and make whatever we land on. Apparently Holly had just gotten back from the market.
    â€œGreat,” I said, looking at the recipe Wes was reading. “Great.” I gave him a little hug.
    Wesley Westcott is my right hand. Or perhaps I should say I’m his. We met just after I finished studying at the Culinary Institute in San Francisco about nine years ago, and have stuck like glue to each other ever since. I was working as the lowest sous chef at a celebrated foodie haunt up in Berkeley, paying my dues, and loving it. Wes was finishing up his Ph.D. in comparative intelligences, or something obscure, and he talked me into moving down to L.A. to see if we could start our own firm, catering big Hollywood parties and even working at the studios, catering meals for the stars.
    I thought it was a radical idea. I’d been very wrapped up in my own bitter love life at the time. In fact, I’d been dumped by a chef. And a major move southward was the perfect escape. In this way, a new career was born, and Wes and I have been together to this day. I vowed never again to let romance enter into the picture when I was cooking, and with Wesley Westcott, I’d been able to develop the best relationship I’ve ever had with a man.
    â€œWhat’s this? Paella ?” I asked, reading from the page they had marked. “Oh, the pungent taste of saffron !” I did a rather good Julia Child impersonation.
    â€œBut,” Wes insisted, as I read through the recipe, “we’re not putting in that many onions.”
    â€œI’m making the salad,” Holly said, bending down to whisper in my ear. “Mad, honey, I think Wesley’s taste buds are getting totally ghetto.”
    â€œAs in…?” I had gotten lost. Holly Nichols needed to come with her own glossary. Updated daily.
    â€œOh,” Wes said, airily, “skateboarder talk. She’s dissin’ me. Thinks I can’t hack the stronger spices.” Wes retied the white chef’s apron he wore over his denim shirt and dungarees. “Use however many onions you want to, board girl.” He picked up another magazine and flipped the page,