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But then, he tried, didn't he? He made some lovely (and expensive) dinners and he showed up with his groceries (though she would have preferred money), wearing unwashed clothes like some favorite eccentric, homeless, genius uncle, and Carmen leapt into his arms and Claire drifted down and glowed and everyone was so happy to have him there, even Anna.

Now she looked over at him and he winked and smiled with a familiar, desirous glint. She knew that he physically, honestly wanted her and would spend the night if given half a chance. It felt good to be wanted in that way even after all this time, after all the lines drawn in the sand and then recrossed and redrawn. In that way he was forgiving. He never held it against her. She was
the one,
he'd told her so often, and she knew he meant it.

“Thanks for coming tonight,” she said to break the silence. “It meant a lot to have you there.”

“Wouldn't have missed it.”

She saw him smile out of the corner of her eye.
Don't you get any ideas
. She studied him, his unruly hair, the bandage across his temple that he hadn't explained well (“tripped, coffee table”), the glaze from his champagne buzz. And somewhere behind his amorous intentions she could see something else, something he wanted to tell her. “So, how's the book coming?” she asked finally.

“Great!” he said.

“Good. I'm glad.” He was lying. She could tell by the smallest twitch of his eyebrow. “Everything else going okay?”

“Well . . . I've been wanting to talk about something . . .”

Uh-oh.
He turned to her. She was nervous.

He led her over to the kitchen table, making a show of pulling out her chair. She braced herself for one of his schemes as he sat across from her. He fished into his pocket and pulled out a wad of cash and coins. “This,” he said proudly, pushing the money over to her, “is for you.”

She straightened the bills as she counted. Close to seven hundred dollars. “Where did this come from?”

He retrieved a check stub from
Gourmet
and carefully unfolded it, laying it in front of her and patting it. It was for a thousand dollars. Double-entry accounting was hardwired into her being, and before she could think she asked, “Where's the rest of it?”

He was silent.

“You spent it on groceries, didn't you? And how much was that bottle you brought tonight?”

“We had to celebrate the good news about Carmen, and . . . “

“And what?”

He was bouncing in his chair now. This couldn't be good. He fished around his pockets . . . his jacket and jeans were his filing system . . . until he produced a slip of paper. He handed it over and produced another pile of cash from a different pocket.

“What is this?”

“A business plan.”

“For what?”

“My new business. I'm starting a consultancy and a blog.”

“A blog?” she asked, trying to contain her skepticism. Bruno
could barely use an ATM—how the hell was he going to run a blog? She swallowed and said as calmly as possible, “You don't own a computer.”

“Claire's got one, hasn't she?”

“And what's this?” She gestured to the second wad of money.

“Start-up capital. Not all of it. I'm looking for other investors.”

“Where did it come from?”

He shrugged. She was suspicious. She couldn't help raising her voice. She could see him measuring his words. “It's from my severance check, and you can have some of it, but I'll need to set some aside . . .”

“Severance check?”

“So, this consulting business . . . do you know how much value I could add to a new restaurant? Just a few simple suggestions and I could boost the chance of a favorable review every time a critic walks into the joint. I could help them with word of mouth. For just a few hours of my time I could increase their chances of success in the first few months . . . exponentially! Do you know how much I could charge?”

“Severance check? You got fired?”

“Um . . . yeah, I'm not at the
Times
anymore . . .”

“Bruno, what the hell? What the fucking hell? Haven't I been telling you that I need help with the bills?” She was losing it, and she didn't like it when this happened. She tried to keep her voice below the level of a shriek, for the girls' sake. It wasn't working.

“But I have this plan,” he said, tapping the wrinkled paper. He shrank back in his chair as she stood up.

“That's not a plan, Bruno. It's a fucking grocery list!” She grabbed the paper and flipped it over to where he had written the shopping list for the pirozhki. “Jesus, it's like having another child around here! It's worse than another teenager . . . Claire
and Carmen have got it way more together than you could ever imagine. Look at yourself! Look at this!”

Adrenaline surged. She knew that when it subsided, if she allowed, she'd cry with her blanket over her head. But not until the girls were asleep. Not with Bruno here. She wouldn't let him see that. So she just stood in front of him and shook the paper and he hunkered down like a dog that had just shit on the rug.

“You can keep the money,” he said, pushing it across the table to her. But then he licked his lips nervously and plucked a pair of hundreds off of the pile, tucking them into the inside pocket of his blazer. Anna returned to the sink, dumping the rest of her champagne down the drain.

*      *      *

Minutes later Bruno was lying on Claire's bed, ostensibly helping her with an essay, hands laced behind his head, trying not to think about what a mess his life had become.

Claire sat at her desk, laptop open, fingers hovering over the keyboard. After a long moment of inaction, she sighed and leaned back.

“I just can't figure out where to start.”

“I know the feeling.”

Claire flopped down next to him. They sighed together.

“You and Mom had quite the row.”

“You heard that?” Bruno winced.

“Hard not to. So you lost your job?”

“Uh-huh.”

“It was kind of a crappy gig, wasn't it?”

“I guess.”

“Cheer up. You still have the book, right? How's it coming, anyway?”

“Ah, fine.” He grimaced. He hated lying to his daughter.

“What's it about?”

He swallowed. Did he continue the charade? Or did he 'fess up and admit that, in addition to his newfound unemployment, he had an entire drawerful of false starts? It was to be a book about wine. About the meaning of wine in his life. But the problem was that wine was one of the things that had likely mucked up his life.

“Come on, Dad, you can tell me. Don't be so secretive. I won't tell anyone. Is it another one of those food-sex books, like
Twenty Recipes
?”

“That's
food-romance
.”

“Yeah, right. Wink, wink. So tell me what this big secret book is about. I want to know.”

“Well . . .” Bruno knew that though this sounded like idle conversation, it was an important moment. Claire was a teenager, practically an adult. She'd soon be driving two tons of steel and hot metal filled with combustible fuel. Her peers were likely copulating, drinking and doing the things teenagers do. In a pair of years she'd be able to vote for president or die for her country (though not drink wine). She was smart, witty. And she probably still loved him.

Bruno could easily squander her trust as he had that of her mother. The thought of it conjured a pain in his chest, or maybe it was heartburn from the pirozhki. Should he lie and say that the book was going well? Or should he confess that his career was in the tank with no prospect of resurfacing? That he was beginning to see himself through Anna's eyes, and it wasn't pretty? He'd been on a roll in his twenties and thirties that led to the slow downhill slide of his forties and now he'd hit bottom. A part of him wanted to admit this all to her. He wanted his
daughter to console him. Motivate him. Inspire him. He released a long sigh.

“Dad?”

Bruno struggled to draw breath, the ache in his chest growing nearly unbearable. He reached up and undid his collar and then pressed his hand against his ribs.

He felt the cork in his blazer pocket. An idea struck him.
This was it!
His heart pounded. He suddenly saw a way forward for his book. The cork . . . the cork was the key!

“Actually,” he said, barely realizing he'd reached a decision, “can you keep a secret?”

“Sure. I'm not a blab like Carmen.”

He sat up and pulled the cork out of his pocket. He held it in the lamplight. Claire leaned forward and studied it. She frowned, unimpressed.

“What's that?”

“A cork.”

“So?”

“The bottle that it came from supposedly doesn't exist. Some say the entire vintage was stolen by the Nazis. Whatever the case, no trace of it has ever been found. But this cork . . . if it's real . . . suggests that it's still out there somewhere.”

“What if it's a fake?”

“Morty just offered me two hundred bucks for it. Trust me, it's real.”

“So what do you think happened to it?”

“Well, that part of France was occupied. The vineyard was crawling with German soldiers. Somebody either stole it, or it was hidden away. And now it's turned up again. And . . . I'm going to go look for it.”

“That's cool. So it's kind of like a treasure hunt.” Claire
brushed her hair out of her face and looked at him, a hint of childish awe in her eyes. She scooted next to him like she used to when she was little and he would make up stories about fairy castles (and the sumptuous banquets that went on inside them). “What if you don't find it?”

“Even if I don't find the wine, there's still a story there.”

“The journey
is
the destination, right?”

“Exactly. Wow. You're the one who should be a writer.”

“I thought about that, but that's where Mom draws the line. She doesn't like that chef thing at all, but she really hates that writer thing. She said that if I was a cook, at the very least I'd be able to eat and feed my family.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah. Anyway, I like your story idea. What does your agent think?”

“Harley says they're going to go crazy for it in New York.” Bruno couldn't help adding that little exaggeration. But he was sure this idea would sell. He'd never been so sure about anything before.

Don't allow anyone to tell you that you can't cook. I know, dear reader, that you may be intimidated. You might be afraid of failure. And fail you shall. Often. There are those who claim a superior palate. Maybe they've summered in Florence and own stainless-steel appliances. They have kitchen gardens and wine cellars, which are fine, though hardly required. All you truly need to learn to cook: a pan, a flame, good ingredients, an open heart, a dash of tenacity and a pinch of courage. The rest will take care of itself.

—
B
RUNO
T
ANNENBAUM, FROM THE FOREWORD TO
T
WENTY
R
ECIPES FOR
L
OVE

H
arley Collins stood behind his desk staring through the glass wall of his office. It was eleven o'clock, but he was thinking about lunch. Lunch at an expensive restaurant. Harley didn't have time for cooking. He was a salesman, and he was always working a deal. He burned long hours. He didn't have time to
stock a kitchen or shop for groceries. No time for relationships. He didn't have a family. He made sacrifices for this job. For his clients. And he deserved the occasional reward.

But there was one problem. Expensive lunches were, well, expensive. And sitting in the chair across his desk was his former client Bruno Tannenbaum. Bruno once had a career. But, like many writer-types with appetites larger than their talent and work ethic, he crashed hard after his first bestseller and hadn't written a word since. Harley held out hopes that he'd eventually shake his slump and crank out, at the very least, a solid follow-up to
Twenty Recipes for Love
. So he'd endured Bruno, entertained his presence, and even took him to lunch from time to time, as the fading gourmand always seemed to conveniently show up just before the noon hour—and before he knew it, Harley would be spending two hundred dollars at Everest. But that wasn't going to happen today. Today, after listening to Tannenbaum's latest pitch, Harley was ready to cut the man loose. He issued a forced sigh and tried to sound sympathetic.

“Bruno . . . how shall I say this . . . they're never going to go for this in New York.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Harley, this is big . . .” Bruno leaned forward.

“It's just too risky. Where would you even start?”

“I've been doing research. Trevallier's granddaughter is still in the business. I go to France and interview her about the old man. Then I follow the clues. I dig up the best little bistros along the way. I'll stop at the big chateaus, the small producers, taste from the barrel.”

“The story's great, if there's even a shred of truth to what you're telling me. That's not the problem,” Harley said. He faced Bruno now, hands in his pockets, head cocked. Bruno slumped
in his chair. He looked like a partially deflated, bearded balloon in a bad tweed sport coat.
He's really letting himself go,
Harley thought.

“Then what's the problem?”

“Frankly, you're done, Bruno. And I hate to say this, but it's true. You crashed too many auctions. You've slept with too many tasting-room girls. You now live with your mother. And I guess that's all well and good, but you committed the granddaddy of all writerly sins: you quit writing. I haven't seen a manuscript in ten years. I could sell that story just fine, Bruno. But not with you attached. You've got nothing.”