The glass of Pinot didn’t do much to raise Carter’s spirits. She knew she was procrastinating, but she was in serious need of a diversion before returning to a more…er, realistic job search. Her eyes fell on an unopened bottle of raspberry jam, sitting on the dining room table. There was probably no better way to generate praise (especially from Taylor), and repair her confidence, than by making her Linzer torte.

As Carter routinely did before diving into a recipe, she ran through a quick inventory of her ingredients. She stared inside the refrigerator door, frowning at the sight of Taylor’s low-calorie imitation butter. Ugh, How could her sister use that abomination? Well, at least this would give her a chance to check out Freshville again. In fact, it would be a good test. She could compare how the co-op’s dairy department fared next to her regular grocery haunts.

Outside the co-op, Carter held the front door open for a man who looked vaguely familiar. Weighted down by his reusable grocery bags, he was wearing a vintage t-shirt and wrinkled jeans. She took a closer look, and stepped back in surprise.

“Chef Tyson Cole? James-Beard-Award-Winning-Food-&-Wine-Top-10 chef Cole?”

The man smiled at her.

“What are you doing here?”

“Uh, I needed some fresh ginger and a few other staples,” he shrugged.

“But, but… what are you doing here?” she gestured towards the co-op’s jumbled pile of vegan lunchboxes and the Rastafarian checkout guy.

Cole’s brown eyes twinkled. “I don’t miss a chance to come to Freshville whenever I’m in the neighborhood.”

A small dent in her wallet and two large grocery bags later, Carter returned home to a  spotless kitchen. Had Taylor been on one of her cleaning rampages, she wondered? Carter set about unloading the Freshville bags, opening a bottle of Topo Chico, and putting on some Kat Edmonson tunes.

She slipped a couple of pounds of organic ground bison meat into the bottom drawer of the fridge, then gingerly placed a handful of bright yellow pear tomatoes in her fruit and veggie bowl. Inhaling the pungent arugula, she pulled her Monday-through-Sunday meal list off the fridge door, wadded it into a ball, and tossed it into the trash. Now that she was unemployed, who needed such rigid organization? Maybe it was time to let her hair down a little.

Taylor, dressed in burnt orange sweats, interrupted her thoughts as she walked into the kitchen. How could that girl look that good, even in workout clothes? Did they really come from the same gene pool?

“I see you abandoned your crisis control job search station,” said Taylor.

“Just for an hour or so.”

“More like five,” said Taylor looking at her watch.

“And I see you’ve been doing a little cleaning,” said Carter, gesturing towards her sparkling spice rack. “Is everything okay?”

“Just burning off a little steam,” Taylor shrugged. Then she spotted a jar of fresh raspberry jam Carter had bought at Freshville. “Are you making your linzer torte?” It was Taylor’s new favorite dessert.

“What’s going on with you?” Ally asked in an unusually perceptive, pre-date moment.

“Nothing.” Taylor said, scrubbing the tub with Comet.

“Come on,” Ally said. “I’m about to confront my boyfriend who may or may not wear a toupee. Humor me, at least.”

“Tom called.”

“Oh.” Ally knew little about Taylor’s ex-boyfriend, presumably living in New York. They dated for a little over a year, but as the relationship ended, Taylor became very tight lipped about it—especially after she’d moved in with him (a decision that no one in the family, particularly Ally, had agreed with). Since Taylor had rolled up in front of the house three weeks ago, she’d hardly mentioned Tom.

“Didn’t you change your number?” Ally asked.

“Exactly,” said Taylor, moving her bucket of sponges, careful not to make Ally jump as she carefully applied mascara.

“I have no idea how he got my digits. I’m not in touch with anyone in his New York crowd, and I didn’t update my contact information on Facebook.”

“Men have their ways,” Ally responded slyly, trying to turn the situation into a film-worthy love story.

“It’s not like that, Ally,” Taylor said. “The last thing I want him to do is contact me.”

Taylor longed to fill Carter and Ally in—she almost spilled the whole saga over ice-cold French 76′s at Paggi House—but when it came down to it, she simply did not want to relive that last month in New York. The truth was, when she met Tom, she did think it was a big screen love story, starting with the party where they first laid eyes on one another.

Where had the American worth ethic gone, Carter wondered? Well, perhaps Mr. Graham was right—it was Saturday; maybe she should take a break. She could throw on her running shoes and try to catch Taylor somewhere along the Lady Bird Lake trail, or…wait a minute: The Pastry Queen: Royally Good Recipes from the Texas Hill Country. Rebecca Rather’s cookbook stared down at her from the shelf above her desk. Cinnamon buns! That sounded much more like it.

Carter loved to bake, especially if she was feeling nervous or anxious about something (quitting her job with no Plan B came to mind). Not only did baking yield (mostly) tasty results, but it also brought structure and order to an otherwise uncertain world. And sure enough, as Carter followed Rebecca’s recipe for homemade cinnamon buns, mashing tablespoon after tablespoon of chilled butter into sugar and cinnamon, she had a sweet epiphany. No, it wasn’t about her future career path, but then why worry about your own problems when you can focus on someone else’s? Carter realized that there was one person who could help Ally sort out her fuzzy future with toupee-clad Greg, and that was Carter’s oldest childhood friend and former housemate, Lizzy.

Judging by the varied thumps against their rooms’ shared wall, Carter knew that Lizzy had been with nearly half the eligible men in Austin, some of whom had to have been rug wearers, statistically speaking. The laws of probability also came into play when Lizzy ended up unexpectedly pregnant—despite precautions, one especially perky sperm had eventually reached the end zone. Pregnant or not, Lizzy would make a great dating counselor for Ally, thought Carter, and freshly baked cinnamon rolls certainly wouldn’t hurt the cause either. She put the finishing touches of a light cream cheese swirl on top of the warm pastries, and tucked them under aluminum foil for safekeeping.

Carter walked down the hall, and paused outside of Ally’s bedroom door. She could hear soft sniffles and lots of nose blowing. Though Ally wasn’t Lizzy’s biggest fan when it came to relationship ethics, Carter knew she was a girl in need. She gently pushed Ally’s door open, and there, confirming that fact, sat a red-eyed Ally, surrounded by self-help tomes and glossy magazines spread across her bed. Clearly Elle, Marie Claire, and even Oprah had failed to offer much comfort so far.

“Throw some clothes on,” Carter instructed in her most authoritative-eldest-sister voice. “We’re going to talk with Lizzy.”

In fact, Ally had recently overheard Carter telling their Dad that “the institution of marriage was deeply flawed,” and that she herself was not sure she’d ever marry. Their dad, ever the quirky philosopher, had just nodded noncommittally. Ally, on the other hand, was shocked and slightly amused by Carter’s unorthodox views. She was, proudly, much more traditional. She may have failed to get her MRS degree at Notre Dame, but was making up for lost time in her paralegal position at the male-dominated Kleiner, Mayberry, Steinberg & Rosenwhizz. True, it was a bland nine-to-five gig, but it wasn’t a terrible way to pass the time until she had that two-point-five-carat teardrop on her finger—and in desperate times, it was a decent dating pool.

But tonight, things had, once again, gotten off track—at least with Greg. Ally stared up at her bedroom’s dark ceiling, as if searching for clues for the evening’s mishaps. She reached over to touch the space where Greg had been lying. It was stone cold. For what must have been the 50th time, she glanced at her cell phone, but not a text, tweet, direct message, or email from him.

Ally’s thoughts began to spiral, as they sometimes did in the wee hours between dusk and dawn. She envisioned herself wizened and childless, hair in a bun, spectacles on a chain, wearing a conservative long black dress. (No matter that she sported a sexy lavender La Perla number right now.) In her nightmare, she could see herself shuffling home from the Austin Public Library with another stack of outdated romantic comedies on DVD. Her only companion, a sixteen year-old Calico rescue, rubbed against her leg at her apartment door, the kitty’s meows both lonely and sorrowful.

That was it! She threw the covers off, and fished beneath the bed for her slippers. Quietly, she slipped outside her bedroom, and padded down the hall. Across the way, Taylor’s room was dark, but Ally could see that further up, a bit of light shone beneath Carter’s door.

“Sorry about the box,” Carter said, noticing the sweat streaming down his legs. “I usually walk home from work…” She paused, gearing up for her confession. “Only, I quit today. I hadn’t planned on resigning, so I had to pack up my desk pretty suddenly.” Carter looked guiltily at the extra large cardboard container.

The cyclist breathed heavily. “Dude, what have you got in there? The company’s Xerox machine?”

She looked inside. Her gleaming brass trophies and paperweight awards flashed back at her.

“Oh, these?” She picked up a shiny figure of a man carrying a briefcase, a cell phone glued to his ear. “Just some work awards and recognitions, nothing special,” she tried to say casually.

“You should recycle that stuff over at Eco-Earth. Tell Ann-Marie, the owner, that Ted sent you.”

“Excuse me?” Carter said. Perhaps she should mention the cell phone replica, gilded in 10-karat gold.

“What else are you gonna do with that junk?” He pointed to a bumper sticker on the front of his passenger cab. A RIND IS A TERRIBLE THING TO WASTE. COMPOST.

“These trophies aren’t exactly fruit rinds,” Carter shot back.

Carter knew she thought about food more than the average Rachel or Martha. For as far back as she could remember, she’d loved all things edible—throwing culinary themed parties in college, organizing chocolate-chip cookie bake-offs in high school, and begging her parents to take her to their local gourmet grocery, Central Market, when she was so young, she could barely pronounce it.

Even these days, she always seemed to be planning her next meal, drafting dinner party menus, or experimenting with unlikely food combinations. Last night, for example, she showered lime, mint, and Mexican cotija cheese on perfect spheres of watermelon (thanks to her nifty new mini-melon baller). Sometimes these dabblings turned into great chef d’ouevres; other times they fell flat. Happily, last night’s undertaking landed in the former camp.

Carter often dreamt about a food-focused future. And yet, for someone smart enough to graduate with honors from an Ivy League school, she was stumped by how she could transform her long-time passion into a full-time career. Culinary school was out of the question thanks to her pile of college debt. Besides, she could just hear her Mom saying, “y mi hija, tell me again why you went to that fancy college? To become a waitress?” Ugh, Carter rolled her eyes in frustration. Is that why she stayed at Speed Mobile?

Below, she could see several paddle boarders; they looked like stick figures from where she stood. She wondered what Greg would look like on a paddle board? Most likely bronzed, buff and gorgeous. Then she pictured the two of them in a kayak together, she tan and svelt; Greg, handsome and muscular, like something straight out of a J. Crew catalog. She peeked into her purse for the hundredth time to make sure his declaration of love was still there. When she saw the crinkled edge of his card, her stomach did a flip.

What she really wanted was for this relationship to work. At twenty-five, Ally knew she was still young, but it seemed as if many of her friends, especially her Texas girlfriends, had already gotten married. She longed to be in their shoes, to have a husband, to be running with a baby girl in a sport stroller, quickly shedding the baby weight…she caught herself. First things first: Why couldn’t she just get a guy to commit? Wasn’t she pretty? Didn’t she have what guys wanted? She would even go so far as calling herself…traditional.

Ally thought back; did she make a mistake by choosing to go to Notre Dame? She believed those Catholic boys would be all about commitment, and they were – but to football and lacrosse. Plus, northerners seemed to settle down much later than their southern counterparts. She suspected that her dad had something to do with her singledom status —why didn’t he encourage her or her sisters to settle down with a nice teddy bear of a man, as she’d heard her friends’ fathers say? Instead, he was always rambling about how important it was for a young woman to find herself before she could truly know another. What did that mean, anyway? And the opposite pressure from her mother certainly didn’t help—she was supposed to have already pushed out two babies on that woman’s clock.

After giving Carter a quick call at work to check in, Taylor lay in bed and gazed out the window, thinking how distinct the Austin light was compared to Manhattan’s hazy glow.  Things here seemed brighter, clearer. And of course, Austin had the wide-open expanses that New York did not. It was a good change, Taylor decided; one that gave her some room to think clearly and breathe with a little more ease.

Taylor had hightailed it from Manhattan to Austin only a couple weeks earlier, and in quick succession, checked several major items off of her list. She’d moved into her sister’s house, bought a light blue Mini-Cooper convertible, and filed a few basic forms online to start her own business. But as she ticked through her mental checklist, she realized there was a lot more she needed to do now that she was home.

Home, perhaps, was not the most accurate word for it. At fifteen, when Taylor, at a healthy five-feet-ten-inches, towered over her high school guy friends, her mother had signed her up for modeling. What started as a $7-an-hour weekend gig, standing like a beanpole with her almond eyes and thick, curly dark hair outside of The Limited Too, accidentally turned into a startlingly fruitful modeling career. Spotted by an agent from IMG Model Management, Taylor’s part-time job catapulted from there.

She was swept up to New York City with an incoming class of twenty-five other “junior models” from around the world, and after a surprisingly scant amount of training – she worked one-on-one with a British runway coach and choreographer for a couple of weeks – Taylor went on to strut the catwalk in London, Paris, and Milan. She mastered her best fashion poses, and was photographed for the likes of Catherine Malandrino, Zac Posen, and Oscar de la Renta. She finished high school on the road, and like many models, her career was practically over at age twenty, at which point Taylor moved permanently to Manhattan to model part time, and get a fashion and marketing degree at New York University.

The reality, two and a half years later, was not exactly what Carter had envisioned. Reconciling corporate accounts and combing through spreadsheets until 10 pm every evening to figure out how she could “up sell” customers was a far cry from facilitating peace talks. Sure, the money was good and she’d made a dent in her student loans, but her noble goals had been replaced by free text plans and unlimited mobile minutes. At twenty-seven, she’d become just another bean counter. She was in a state of perpetual exhaustion, and her life outside of work? Non-existent.

Carter stood in the break room and stared at the industrial coffee machine as it ground its generic beans. Her boss, Jim, interrupted her thoughts as he hurried into the kitchen. “Your shoes need a polish, Carter.”

Jim was a former Sergeant Major in the Army. After Carter was hired, she learned that she’d almost lost the job to another candidate, but upon closer inspection, Jim discovered that the guy had been Marine ROTC at Vanderbilt. Apparently the Army-versus-Marine rivalry lived on in certain crew cut circles.