Free Apron Anxiety by Alyssa Shelasky

cross the line between adorably foodie-illiterate and downright stupid.
    At the tented, outdoor markets, we shop for the glorious food basics I grew up with—fruit, cheese, yogurt, bread, and cakes—with a few delicious diversions. I can’t say no to baklava and he’s a lamb gyro junkie. One après-beach afternoon, Chef waits in the car while I run outside to buy a few bags of succulent peaches and plums for the house. My selection looks outstanding, but when I feed him a rock-hard peach, he scrunches his face and tells me it’s totally not ripe! I’m not sure where I got the idea, but I had always assumed
all
fruit should be hard and crunchy like apples. He delights in calling me out on that one (and I still prefer nectarines hard as tennis balls).
    For dinner, we eat casually and compatibly, popping into the local trattoria for Greek salads, a shared order of pasticcio, and maybe a few bites of sweet, giant baked beans. While eating gelato or ice-cream sandwiches, we walk home, watching for shooting stars.
    On our last night in Greece, we have to pack up our things and close down the house for the season. I can’t seem to fit all my sarongs and straw hats into my suitcase with all the evil-eye charms and jars of honey I’ve bought for my family. Chef nonchalantly suggests that I leave my beachwear here. “You’re going to need everything next year, aren’t you?” he says, with no clue how much his suggestion means to me.
    Flying home, we review our upcoming schedules, with me in New York and him in D.C., and suddenly the long-distance just seems insane. It takes a two-minute conversation to decidethat we should move in together in Washington, and by the time the plane lands, I’ve already e-mailed my boss, Liz, that we need to talk.
    The same day I return to New York, I tell everyone that it’s official. I am leaving town and moving to Washington, D.C., to be Chef’s writerly girlfriend, who wears off-the-shoulder T-shirts and says provocative things. Yes, me, in the nation’s capital, where I have no roots, no friends, no facialist, no freelance work, no favorite homeless guy, no transgendered Starbucks girl, no go-to spin instructor—nothing other than my unbelievable new boyfriend and his uncontaminated, hippie-like heart. We’ll light up the city, grow Chef’s business, make babies, and map out a beach house halfway between his restaurant and my family. Or something like that.
    I give
People
as much notice as they need, which most of my colleagues use as precious time to dissuade me from “throwing away my career.” They’re not trying to be negative. It’s just not the kind of culture at the magazine where women leave their promising jobs with full benefits and car service just because they’ve met scruffy guys with great hair who whoosh them away to the Greek Islands. I can barely look at Liz, who’s been like a big sister to me since the day she brought me in for a formal interview, when I couldn’t help but blow off all the super-corporate questions and fixate on her translucent skin and uncanny resemblance to Julianne Moore. A seasoned editor with supreme grace, Liz has done her best to keep me on track ever since, and because I respect her so, it’s my great pleasure to deliver her good work. But like my mother, my sister, and the other good women in my life, Liz also knows that my mind is made up on moving to D.C. She accepts that I’m three parts love, one part logic.
    I have a good-bye lunch with J.D. Heyman, another topeditor at the magazine and a smart, funny, straight-shooting guy that everyone at
People
really respects. Unlike Liz, he’s openly apprehensive. “I know you really like this person, Alyssa, but are you sure you want to do this?” he says, looking me directly in the eye. It’s not like J.D. to get so personal. “I’m asking you to wait it out. Give it a little more time, will ya?” J.D. recently guided me through my first cover story, a huge profile on the