Free The Cookbook Collector by Allegra Goodman

Veritech, all the opportunities that money could buy: expansion, new hires, charitable giving. How could she fall asleep and dream, when all her dreams were coming true, first thing in the morning?
    All her dreams? No, not quite all. She thought of Laura’s children. Kevin, holding Meghan on his lap, the trays of cinnamon buns warming in the oven until the white glaze dripped down their sides, warm and gooey to the touch.
    Once, Laura had had car trouble and Emily had driven her home. She’d driven up Palm Drive into the Stanford campus through the winding roads of Escondido Village, where married graduate students lived.
    “That’s the one,” Laura said. “Seventy-six C.”
    The brown town house glowed with light. Kevin stood at the door, holding Meghan in his arms. “Come in,” he said.
    When Emily stepped inside, she saw toys everywhere, and baskets of yarn for Laura’s knitting. A high chair, a baby swing, stuffed animals on the couch. Kitchen counters covered with clear canisters of flour and sugar, muffin tins, and a standing mixer. A plate of freshly baked corn muffins.
    “Would you like one?” Laura asked immediately. “Oh, you probably want a napkin, don’t you? Please excuse the mess. Justin!” He must have been under two at the time. “Don’t touch. No!”
    “No! No!” Justin echoed cheerfully as he stood in his pajamas, pushing the buttons of the stereo.
    “He thinks all electronics are called No,” Laura said.
    “Hey, buddy, can you say hi to Emily?” Kevin asked, and Emily saw how round Justin was. Round tummy, round cheeks and chin.
    “Say hello when people are here,” Laura said gently.
    “Hello, people,” Justin said.
    Now Emily felt the longing come over her. Brief but intense, a kind of homesickness, a desire to paint herself into Laura’s family. It was strange. She knew how hard Laura worked. Laura was her assistant, after all. She knew Laura was exhausted. She could not forget Laura’s news and quiet sigh that meant no, not planned. No, not ready. No, we’d never get rid of it, but now? So soon?
    She knew she idealized Laura’s existence. Still, the night before the IPO, Emily imagined Laura’s life. How might she find a piece of that? Not everything. Not so many pregnancies, or so much church, but could she have a bit of Laura’s lamp-lit home? Could she divide the fullness of Laura’s days by forty?
    She got to sleep so late that she had trouble waking. At first all she wanted was to doze in the soft morning light. Then her jitters returned. She showered, dressed quickly, and drove to Veritech with wet hair, and Starbucks coffee for her breakfast.
    Veritech was a three-story building, a former self-storage warehouse of white cinder block with tinted glass windows. The company had already moved twice, and there was talk of new construction. In the meantime, the start-up had gutted the warehouse with the classic contradictory goals of opening up the space and at the same time packing in as many desks as possible. The result was a hollowed-out building with a freight elevator and a web of metal staircases and balconies overlooking a central lounge that Veritech’s architect called the Living Room.
    Now software engineers swarmed the oversized beanbag chairs. Every Veritecher in town had come to watch the company’s debut. There must have been eighty programmers sitting on the floor.
    “Take my place,” Alex told Emily, and he gave up his spot on one of the couches to kneel on the rug and open his laptop.
    “No, that’s okay,” said Emily. “I’ll find a chair.”
    “Please,” said Alex softly, and she smiled and took the seat. He was cute, trying to act chivalrous.
    Wild applause. Whoops of delight. Alex was projecting Veritech’s newly minted stock symbol, VERI, on a roll-down movie screen.
    Stamping feet and whistles at the graph plotting VERI’s numbers. Six in the morning. The Nasdaq had just opened in New York, and VERI’s price was climbing, scaling