Hilary Fields: Bliss

Not even. If you knew just how not good it was, you’d have a conniption, Sera thought. Pauline, with her vast experience in all matters intimate, would never understand—and given her life’s work, would probably never forgive Sera either. But Sera’s problems were bigger than Blake Austin. Even in her current state, halfway to oblivion with half a bottle of vodka in her, Sera was beginning to see that.

Whatever else she could lay at his door, Blake wasn’t to blame for her drinking.

Sera had known there was something unusual about her relationship to booze the first time that, as a shy teenager, she’d been introduced to a corner bodega beer and she’d felt that click. That click that turned her from awkward social outcast to someone who could maybe tell a joke or two. Who could hang out with the cool kids (okay, the drama geeks) and not feel like she was wearing a neon sign that said “Pitiful.”

Someone who could swallow the sudden, wrenching loss of her parents and bury the aching loneliness that attended it.

Only Pauline’s loving guardianship had kept Sera on the straight and narrow then. College had had more than a few wince-worthy moments—scary blackouts, hangovers, and humiliations that, if she’d been honest with herself (and she hadn’t), far outpaced her friends’ experiments with alcohol. But it wasn’t until she hit culinary school that her drinking really took off.

Still, the way her fellow students partied—and booze was the least of what these dudes crammed into every orifice—it had been easy for Sera to convince herself she wasn’t out of control. That people with a real problem looked nothing like her. Those people landed face-first in the bouillabaisse. Those people hung out in service alleys waiting for guys in hoodies who wouldn’t tell you their names. Those people sniffed a lot and talked really loud and had a wild look in their eye and could tell you stories that would curl your hair.

When Sera drank, she just felt… normal.

Until she’d needed to drink to feel normal.

She’d started getting scared about a year ago. The pressure of working under Blake’s exacting standards and famously hot temper had had her reaching for the bottle more often than ever. Part of her had known their relationship was a disaster, but she’d been too caught up in the whirl to really take a long look at her life. It was easier to drink away her shame and hurt than to stand up for herself and walk away—from her high-flying career and her high-handed boyfriend.

After a few particularly hazy, horrible nights, she’d pulled back on the reins, stopped hanging out after hours with the crew. She’d gone as much as a couple months at a time without a drink, ignoring how the sight of it in her restaurant kitchen made her sweat; how the champagne flutes at the parties they catered seemed to be filled with cool, crisp elixir, begging her for a taste. How her mouth would go dry when she’d pour Kahlua over the thirsty ladyfingers in a dish of tiramisu, and how the mere sight of her boyfriend’s signature sneer made visions of vodka dance before her eyes.

She’d been trying, damn it. But then came Blake’s betrayal. And it was exactly the excuse she’d needed to let go and fuck up royally.

Sera laid her burning cheek against the cold porcelain of the tub, awash with shame.

“So is it Awful Austin?” Pauline prompted.

“Well… it is kind of about Blake, but…” Sera didn’t know quite how to describe the nuclear meltdown that had just incinerated her life.

Pauline harrumphed. “Spill it, kid.”

Where do I start? The booze was way out of control. Her career had just died a violent death. And she was so alone. Sera opened her mouth to try to explain, to justify, to deflect. What came out instead was a simple admission, born of grace.

“I think… I think I need help.”

Pauline didn't chide her, question her, or tell her she was being dramatic. Instead, she said the six simple words Serafina most needed to hear.

“Help’s coming, baby. Just hang on.”

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Right about now

Dry and crumbly.”

Serafina delivered the verdict dolefully into the cell phone cradled between her shoulder and cheek as she let the rest of the batch of red velvet cupcakes tumble like little boulders from the pan into the waiting trash bin in her aunt’s capacious kitchen. She’d frosted only one; now she had enough cream cheese icing left over to… well, try again, she supposed. Once she figured out exactly what had made one of her most tried-and-true recipes fall flat.

“Aw, hon.” Margaret’s sympathy came through two thousand miles a little tinny, but just as warm and honest as ever. “I’m sure they’re not all that bad. I mean, c’mon: When was the last time you made a dessert that wasn’t mind-bogglingly delicious?”

In Sera’s opinion, there was delicious, and there was delicious. She’d been born with olfactory bulbs that could sniff out the faintest subtleties of anything edible. (In her wine-drinking days, she’d amused people at parties by allowing herself to be blindfolded, then identifying—by smell alone—the origin of any vintage placed before her. That was, until she’d passed out after guzzling too many of her test subjects.) And if anything, her taste buds were even more discerning. When it came to chocolate, for instance, she could instantly parse the difference between a single-source Peruvian and an Ecuadorian free-trade blend, then tell you the precise percentage of cocoa in each. Texture and flavor captivated her the way a dicey derivatives market enthralls an investment banker, and she’d known from early childhood that she was destined to work with food.

Determined not to rely solely on her innate gifts, Sera had trailed some of the best pastry chefs in New York while still in cooking school, even taking a semester in France to apprentice herself under one of the most legendary chefs in Paris. She’d worked hard to hone her baking skills, studying the alchemy that turned simple yeast, flour, salt, and water into heavenly bread. She could have written a dissertation on the effects of gluten on those lovely bubbles that characterized the crumb of her tender, crusty loaves. But it was in her confectionery creations that Sera’s perfectionism truly came to the fore. She’d spent hour upon hour training herself to pipe precise lines with a pastry bag, until she could have written a perfect “Happy Birthday” on any cake with her arms behind her back. In fact, Sera was so adept at shaping lifelike sugar sculptures that the couples who’d ordered her wedding cakes had often refused to believe they could actually eat the flowers that adorned them.

Of course, all that was before booze and Blake Austin had done a double whammy on her. But she’d promised herself she wouldn't dwell on the bad old days. Instead, she focused on her sponsor's encouragement.

“Thanks, Maggie, but they really are pretty inedible. Don’t worry, I’m not getting down on myself.” Sera wouldn’t dare, after all Maggie’s hard work helping build up her self-esteem this past year. “It’s not that I’ve lost my touch, it’s just the altitude.” She sighed, tucking a lock of chin-length black hair behind her ear. “That and the dry air. They screw up the rise and mess with the proportions of wet and dry ingredients. Not to mention, play absolute hell with my head.” Sera rubbed her temples. The headache had started soon after she’d touched down at the Albuquerque airport, and had only worsened as she and Pauline made their way north to her aunt's home in the mountains of northern New Mexico. Seven thousand feet above sea level was no joke.