Friday’s daytime review went like this: spelling, solid; science club, joyful; mood, stable; rumor weather at school, calm. Anika emailed Patricia: Requesting to hold Saturday the 25th as a tentative second session under identical terms, confirmation to be finalized by evening of the 23rd, Delia’s continued consent required. Patricia replied: Held. No marketing. Rainer informed.
Rainer read the email on his phone in the alley behind Emberwick while a delivery driver argued with a GPS. He felt relief and something like caution. Two sessions were not a curriculum. Two sessions were a beginning that could still end. He went back inside and broke down a tuna with more attention than usual, as if attention itself were a vow.
On the evening of the 23rd, the Rowe family held a short meeting at the table like people in movies, except the agenda included who would bring orange soda to the cookout. Delia confirmed she wanted the 25th. Anika confirmed she would be present the entire time. Ellis confirmed he would pick them up and drive Delia straight to Priya’s uncle’s cookout without letting restaurant adrenaline eat the party.
“And if I hate it that day?” Delia asked.
“We leave,” Anika said. “No debate in front of staff. We can debate in the car.”
“Okay,” Delia said. She hesitated. “Do I have to be as good as the first ninety seconds?”
Ellis shook his head. “You have to be as honest as the first ninety seconds. Good comes and goes. Honest scales.”
Delia stored that the way she stored recipes.
Saturday the 25th arrived with a clear sky and a cool edge. Delia wore the mustard-yellow sweatshirt again on purpose, washed now, free of hood grease, a reclaiming rather than a costume. At Emberwick, Rainer kept the lesson narrower: pan sauces only, tasting discipline, how to speak a correction to a superior without performing humiliation—role-played with Carmen as the stubborn chef, which made Delia giggle and Carmen ham it up until Rainer muttered that the point was dignity, not theater.
Near the end, Delia rebuilt the original broken-sauce scenario from a cold start. She did not get ninety seconds of myth. She got four minutes of ordinary careful work, one break, one recovery, a final sheen that pleased her without making her float away from herself. Anika watched and felt, for the first time since the incident, more proud than afraid. Fear remained, a responsible low hum. Pride sat beside it without erasing it.
Rainer did not offer a third date. He said, “You know where the offer lives. It doesn’t expire this month. It also doesn’t chase you.”
Delia wiped her hands. “I’m in school. I can’t chase it either.”
“Good,” Rainer said. “Then we’re evenly unmatched.”
Patricia walked them out through the quiet dining room. “Health inspector’s due next week for a routine. Your sessions are logged as private educational visits with guardian, not labor. I like clean paper.”
“So do I,” Anika said.
In the car, Delia leaned her head against the seat and closed her eyes. “My feet hurt.”