My Worst Review Is an Excellent Kisser

How it begins

Mina Ren had imagined meeting her worst critic again. In every version, she possessed excellent hair, a full dining room, and a remark sharp enough to leave a mark.

In reality, she was wearing borrowed waterproof trousers and holding a cabbage the size of a human head.

"Where do you need me?" Felix Nasser asked.

She knew his face from the tiny portrait beneath the review. Unambitious cooking in a room that mistakes warmth for distinction. She could still recite the rest while asleep.

"Somewhere else," she said.

Behind him, rain hammered the community center roof. Forty people waited for lunch. The river had taken the lower street, including Mina's restaurant and whatever remained of her dignity about accepting help.

Felix glanced at the queue, then at the mountain of unwashed pans.

"I'll start there."

He took off his coat without making her thank him.

For an hour, Mina refused to look directly at him. She chopped onions, portioned soup, and corrected a volunteer who believed boiling water could be hurried by shouting. Felix scrubbed. When the sink blocked, he fetched a bucket. When a woman arrived asking for meals she could carry upstairs to her father, he found containers with proper lids.

That last detail irritated Mina most. She preferred her enemies broadly useless.

At two, he put a clean pan beside her.

"You recognized me," he said.

"No. I routinely greet strangers with open hostility. It gives the soup depth."

He accepted this. Then, very carefully, he said, "I'm sorry about your restaurant."

"Which part?"

The question settled between them, larger than she had intended.

Outside, someone cheered as a rescue boat turned into the street. Mina set down her knife. She was hungry, tired, and in no position to have the conversation she had rehearsed for eighteen months.

Felix pulled up two chairs anyway, leaving the second one far enough away that she could choose whether to sit.