Read Out to Lunch for Free Online Page B

kisses my cheek. “Good girl. They’ll be delighted.”
    Lois comes over, handing us each a steaming cup of tea. She always remembers that I like mine with milk and one sugar, Andrea takes hers black; Aimee was a honey and lemon girl.
    “Go, sit.” She motions to the sitting area in the bay window, a pair of extrawide and extradeep down-filled gray linen reading chairs, with a small side table for each, and a low coffee table in between. Andrea and I settle into the chairs; Volnay jumps up to share my space. Lois comes back over with a plate of vanilla shortbread, barely cooled from the oven, with a small pot of grapefruit curd to dip the crisp, buttery fingers in. Eloise slides the doors closed, and flips the sign to “We’ll be back in 20 minutes.” She and Lois grab tea for themselves, and bring over two of the wood armchairs to join our circle. We have no sooner flicked the first crumb off our laps, when there is a clattering at the door. Benji is having a fit on the porch, scratching at the door like the stray tomcat he is. Eloise glides over to let him in.
    Our prodigal adopted son, Benji, came to us at sixteen as an intern. He’d been in a group home, taken from his addict single mom when he was fourteen, and was something of a problem child. But as he likes to say, cooking saved his life. The woman who ran the kitchen at the group home took him under her wing, and he found that he loved being in the kitchen and had a natural aptitude. He found a calling, discipline, and people who treated him with care and respect. Shavon, his mentor, served on the board of a small not-for-profit for which we were planning a pro bono benefit, and mentioned him to me. I met him the night of the party and immediately offered him an internship. He was one of the hardest workers I had ever met, and frequently saved the day when my team was in the weeds.
    When he graduated from high school, he won a scholarship to Kendall Culinary School. Aimee and I gave him a monthly stipend to cover books and equipment, and Aimee bought a small one-bedroom apartment in Lincoln Square and rented it to him cheap. Now twenty-two, and fresh out of culinary school, he’s having the classic struggle of figuring out whether he wants to focus on fine dining or casual; hotel work or restaurant or catering; whether he wants to open his own place someday, and he changes his mind every day. The fact that Aimee left him his apartment means that he has the freedom to continue training and exploring, since he just has to cover his bills with no rent hanging over him.
    Benji flies into the room and throws his arms around my neck.
    “Auntie Jenna! You’re back!”
    “Hello, darling.” I kiss the cheek he brandishes at me, trying not to poke my eye out on his heavy black-rimmed hipster glasses.
    He makes the rounds kissing the rest of his “Aunties” and collapses in Andrea’s lap, folding his long gangly legs up over the arm of the chair, and nuzzling in her neck. Volnay immediately abandons me and jumps into his lap, licking his face emphatically like he is a dirty puppy. Which, considering that he is twenty-two, completely adorable, and “sexually flexible” as he says, he probably is. I don’t understand the whole bi or “pansexual” thing, I’m old enough to think you just pick a side, but he seems happy and comfortable with himself and is having a good time.
    “Well, this is a sight,” Lois says.
    We all fall silent, take sips of tea, reach for more cookies.
    “This SUCKS,” Benji says, gray-blue eyes flashing behind thick black lashes, and blushing to the roots of his artfully mussed dark hair.
    “Ben . . .” Eloise admonishes.
    “No, THIS SUCKS. I miss Aimee. I hate that she isn’t here. And I’m really mad about it.” Tears swim in his eyes. Benji has received a lot of group therapy over the years, is very in touch with the immediacy of his emotions, and something about this circle of care has clearly put him in a sharing