They Called It My Little Cooking Hobby

What I didn't know, until I checked the guest list two hours before the event, was that twenty minutes from Diane Whitfield's penthouse, my sister Sarah was hosting her own much smaller Christmas Eve gathering in our parents' Upper East Side apartment, and that one of her invited guests, a contact she'd been chasing for months through a mutual acquaintance, was also Victoria Chen.

Victoria, it turned out, had two invitations for the same night, and chosen the one that came with better company and, as she later told me with a laugh, the better caterer.

I arrived at Diane Whitfield's penthouse at six, in my white chef's jacket, doing what I always did before a major event: checking plating, tasting sauces, making sure my team of three executive chefs had everything timed to the minute. I wasn't thinking about my mother. I wasn't thinking about Sarah. I was thinking about seared duck and pomegranate glaze.

At seven fifteen, Diane pulled me aside near the buffet to introduce me to a guest who'd just arrived, a woman in an elegant emerald dress who extended her hand with the easy confidence of someone used to being the most important person in any room.

"Lily Sullivan," Victoria Chen said, shaking my hand. "I was hoping I'd get to meet you before tomorrow morning. Diane has been telling me all night that you're the reason this dinner is the best one she's thrown in years."

It was, in the strange architecture of New York, a small enough world that none of this should have surprised me, and yet it took me a full three seconds to find my voice.

"Ms. Chen. It's an honor. I'm looking forward to Florida tomorrow."

"Please, Victoria." She smiled, glancing around the room. "Funny thing — I almost went to a smaller family dinner across town tonight instead. A young woman named Sarah Sullivan invited me through a colleague, said her sister was a private chef who'd be cooking. I told her I already had plans with Diane. Small world that you'd share a last name."

I felt the floor tilt slightly under my feet.