I Know What You Did Last Summer, Part 2

Chloe Gonzaga was one of the neighborhood kids who'd gone through University with Yuri and his sister. Earlier in the summer, she had married Kevin Beare, a guy she'd met at a fraternity party while in college,

and the couple had had a baby boy, Charlie, in the middle of the summer.

Chloe was a talented cook and had run her own catering business during college, but she wanted eventually to have her own restaurant, so after graduation--and after a brief stint as a food stylist (her artist friend Orlando had found the job for her)--she took a job as a line cook to get some relevant experience. This restaurant job didn't pay very well and, even though Kevin was working his way up in the police department and now earning decent money, the couple was trying to save up for a house, so Chloe had decided to continue her catering business on a small scale.

Every Monday--her day off from the restaurant--Chloe prepared meals for some of her friends who couldn't (or didn't have the time to) cook, and they were happy to pay her well for her efforts.

Late afternoon on Mondays, when she was done preparing the dinners, Chloe dropped Charlie off at a neighbor's apartment and headed to the luxury condo building around the corner where Yuri lived. She let herself in with the key he'd given her, went through his fridge, threw out anything that had spoiled ("How does he live like this?" she wondered aloud, wrinkling her nose),

stored her freshly made food,

and left Yuri detailed instructions on how to feed himself.

Chloe knew two other people who lived in Cornerstone Condominiums--Yuri's girlfriend ("or ex-girlfriend, or whatever," Chloe harrumphed), Rebecka Louie, and the increasingly famous (or perhaps infamous) diva ballerina, Maria Ivanova. However, Chloe didn't provide meals for either of them.

In the case of the former, it was because Rebecka never ate dinner at home--she was always out entertaining clients or looking for new ones, taking people to dinner or for drinks,

or--for the more diet-conscious--to the dance/fitness place owned by Tosha Go and George McCarthy.

In the case of the latter, Maria Ivanova also never ate dinner at home. Unless she could get some guy to take her out to an expensive restaurant, Maria didn't think eating dinner was worth the calories.

After leaving Yuri's apartment, Chloe returned home to Boothbay Apartments, and waited for her friend and neighbor Alvin Futa to get home from his teaching job so that she could give him meals for himself and Brittany for the coming week.

Alvin, who was very probably a genius and had mastered cooking as well as six other skills while still in college--this in addition to graduating summa cum laude in math--had finally gotten the teaching job he wanted and, with the school year just starting, he no longer had time to cook for himself and his live-in girlfriend, Brittany Parker. (Brittany, a workaholic, spent long hours at her dream science job and had no interest in learning to cook.)

Chloe heard a knock and opened her door, and Alvin bounded in cheerfully. "Hi, Mom!" he teased. "What's for dinner?"

************
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Join us next time, when we catch up with Alvin and Brittany.