concentrate on her classes. She tried hard to think of what she
could say or something she could do to try to talk to Dani. The
casserole the other night had gone over well, so Emily thought
maybe cookies would be a good idea.
Until she’d started baking them.
The dough did smell divine, but with the raw eggs that had
gone into it, she didn’t dare taste it. She did eat half a handful
of chocolate chips after she’d opened the bag. She really
hoped Dani wasn’t saving this stuff for any other reason.
Cookies ate up a large amount of margarine and sugar.
She got a baking tray out from under the oven, spread on
some of the parchment paper she’d found on top of the fridge,
and began spooning out dough like the video she watched
showed. Hers stuck to the spoon, her fingers, the paper, and
the bowl. She must have done something wrong, but she
wasn’t sure what it was and didn’t want to start experimenting,
adding this and that until she had a real mess going and the
whole thing was ruined. That would be a waste. She kept
going with the sticky dough until she filled the whole tray,
then she stuck it into the preheated oven and set the timer on
her phone for twenty minutes.
Maybe cooking wasn’t so hard. Or baking. At the amateur
level at any rate. If she kept going like this, Emily figured she
could outcook a ten-year-old soon. She knew she was far, far
behind in the life skills department and had a lot of catching
up to do.
It made her think about her parents again, the way she’d
been raised. She didn’t want to think about home, so she
pushed those thoughts away. She pulled up one of the chairs
from the table and set it in front of the oven door so she could