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Thea knife

Pandy hated him immediately Unable to tear her eyes away, she’d picked up the azine for a closer look

His hair appeared to be so, dark curls that you wanted to run your hands through, rippling from a center part Pandy surmised that he’d carefully chosen this particular hairstyle to fra attention away from his nose It started off fine but then went to the left, as if it had been smashed with a baseball bat and the doctor had tried to smoosh it back into place (Pandy would later discover t

hat this was indeed true) His curved lips formed as probably an unintentional sneer; his ink-dark eyes shone with the knowledge that he was soazine at the ripe old age of thirty-two by accident

Pandy was broke, but she bought the azine anyway, mostly out of envy

This was back when she was penniless and struggling, before SondraBeth Schnowzer and Doug Stone, before Monica, even In those days, there was nothing that raised her ireit”—in comparison to her own diminished circumstances

Asshat, Pandy thought as she turned the pages to the story

Jonny Beluga was no doubt extre of his success At the very least, he must be hopelessly shallow

“A culinary wunderkind,” proclai hubris Pandy went on to read that Jonny had grown up on Second Avenue; his mother had been only seventeen when he was born and had raised hile parent Theoverdose before Jonny was born In his youth, Jonny had been part of a gang, which Pandy decided randizes on Second Avenue?

According to the article, after being in and out of trouble, including a short stint at “juvie,” as Jonny laughingly referred to it in the piece, he had lied about his age, clai to be sixteen when he was only fourteen, and taken a job as a busboy at an upscale pickup joint called Peartrees By eighteen, thethe place

And then he’d taken all the one to culinary school in France

This was followed by the usual: He returned to his beloved city deter new version of French food for the New York lifestyle—Whatever the hell thatas a head chef for various establishments, he raised money to open his own restaurant Apparently it had been one of New York’s “best-kept secrets”—perhaps too well kept It had failed, along with his second attereat A experiences that had allowed hinized the naame played by old a, she decided, wasn’t quite as clever as he thought

She tossed the ot all about Jonny

In the next few years, Pandy would hear his naossip columns, she skimmed over his mentions He didn’t cohan had an affair with him She met hi and the next thing she knew, she was going horown up in on Second Avenue Then he asked her to go aith him to Atlantic City