I just turned forty-three, and I swear I’m a different person than I was fourteen years ago. For starters, I was a new father with a one-year-old daughter.
Now I’m a grumpy old man. It comes with being a single father, getting cheated on, and raising a teenage daughter by myself.
I grab a few fresh ingredients from the fridge and take out a giant pot to boil water. “Is there anything that you’re allergic to?” I ask.
Cali shakes her head. “No, but I don’t like cheese.”
“Noted,” I say with a wry grin. “I’ll make us pasta, but no cheese on yours.”
“Thank you.” She pulls the stool out from the counter and sits on it while she watches me cook.
“Do you drink wine?”
“I’d love a glass,” Cali says, and climbs down from the stool. “If you point me in the direction, I can grab us each a glass.”
I open the cabinet and reach for the wine glasses on the top shelf. She’d never be able to reach without climbing on a chair, and that’s entirely out of the question.
“There’s a bottle of red on the counter and a corkscrew in the drawer beneath it.” I gesture toward the wine bottle display. There are only a few bottles out. Most are kept in the basement cellar beneath the lodge.
Cali pops the cork and pours each of us a glass.
I inhale the fragrant aroma before taking a sip. The taste is exquisite. That’s what five hundred dollars a bottle will get you. I have a case in the wine cellar. Most of it is reserved for special guests and when I entertain, which hasn’t happened since the divorce.
My closest friend, the one who didn’t screw me over, Levi Luxenberg, is back in New York City. Not that he can’t visit, but he’s busy with his daughter and his fiancée. The man is quite upstanding. When he learned that he had a five-year-old daughter and she had no one after her mother’s death, he jumped on a plane and brought her home. The nanny too.
When I get settled with the lodge, I have plans to bring them out to explore the slopes. They ought to teach the kid when she’s old enough to ski or snowboard.
Perhaps Julianna can teach Amelia.
“We should have done a toast,” Cali says as she sips the wine. “Wow. This stuff is divine.”
“Yeah, that’s what five hundred a bottle gets you. Divine,” I repeat with a smile.
She coughs on my remark, her eyes wide, and she puts the glass on the counter.
“You don’t like it?” I ask, glancing at her over my shoulder. “You can open a different bottle if it’s too dry for you.”
“No, it’s perfect. It’s expensive. I don’t want to waste a sip before our meal.”
I wave my hand dismissively. “It’s fine. I have another case of that stuff in the wine cellar downstairs.”
Cali watches from the counter while I chop the vegetables and dice up the tomatoes, making my homemade spaghetti sauce.
“Where’d you learn to cook?” she asks.
I can’t scold her for asking. It’s a fair question, even if I don’t want to discuss Jess. “My ex never cooked, and I wanted Julianna to eat a proper meal that was healthy and nutritious. Which meant I had to learn.”
“Recently divorced?” she asks.
I’m sure she can Google it if she’s curious. Her phone isn’t out. She’s being polite at least, which I appreciate.
“Yes. I’d prefer not to talk about it.”
“Fair enough.” Cali forces a smile, and she takes another sip of the wine before resting the glass and her hands on the counter. “I’m not much of a cook. I mean, I can boil water and make jarred spaghetti sauce, but following a recipe is my downfall. I glance at the sheet, and there are too many instructions, and it gets overwhelming.”
“That’s how Julianna is when I tell her to help with dinner. I can read her the recipe, but if she has to read it, it’s like she’s staring at a foreign language.”
“Yes!” she exclaims. “You get it.”