Chapter 13: Summary, Analysis, and Key Takeaways

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

The chapter opens on a Tuesday during Maddie's regular catch-up with her manager, Kris. Maddie asks how the previous week's Creative meeting went, and Kris admits it was poor—the team is in a creative slump and has been losing new projects. Kris explains that Penny, a colleague, had started an initiative during a difficult period: instead of competing with other publishers for outside titles, the team would generate book ideas for food writers already on their list. Penny's idea had produced Carmen Loremo's bestselling book about Sardinia, since Carmen's husband is from there and the couple travels frequently. Kris notes that the approach only works when the team has good ideas, and that their current list of writers is limited in foreign experience—a polite way of acknowledging the list is culturally homogeneous.

Maddie takes the opportunity to pitch her own concept: a cookbook called Cooking Combos, focused on classic and unexpected flavor pairings, the science behind them, and how to cook with ingredients already at home. Kris listens patiently and says she will think about it, praising Maddie for bringing ideas to the table so early in her tenure.

After the meeting, Maddie prints a list of the publisher's authors going back a decade. The list confirms what Kris hinted at: the roster skews heavily toward white, middle-aged men writing about pies, potatoes, and bread, while the female authors focus on comfort cooking and family meals. On the train home, Maddie reflects that the list needs something different—a quiet, undiscussed cuisine—but no one on the list seems qualified to deliver it.

Back at the flat, while her pasta boils, Maddie searches online for the publisher's other food writers. She lands on one man's Instagram, where a photo of a colorful food spread looks nothing like the food in his books. The caption credits his wife, Afra, whose page Maddie clicks. Afra's account is full of bright, unfamiliar dishes—rice topped with seeds, breads bursting with add-ins, platters of roasted meats. There are no recipes in the captions, but the dish titles sound promising because Maddie has not heard of most of them. She bookmarks the page.

Jo bursts into the kitchen with news: her friend Emma's parents have a holiday home in Florence and are away in Greece for the summer, so Emma can host friends for free. Jo invites Maddie and Cam to join her for a week in August—they would only need to pay for flights. Maddie is excited; Italy has long been on her bucket list, and travel is on her New Maddie list. But she is also anxious: it would be only her second month at work, and her finances are tight after the jump in rent and everyday expenses. Then she realizes the flight out falls on her father's birthday, and she cannot miss that. Jo suggests Maddie join a couple of days later, which would also ease her worry about taking so much holiday so soon. Maddie hesitates, then reasons that her savings exist for moments like this. Cam declares she is in, and Maddie, caught up in the moment, agrees too.

Maddie texts Ben about the trip. He responds enthusiastically, insisting he now has to make them pasta for dinner and declaring a second date sorted. Their exchange is playful—Ben is obsessed with his new pasta machine, which has ten thickness settings, a table clamp, a drying function, and can make 750 grams of fresh pasta in minutes. Maddie teases that he might like the machine more than her, and he jokes back. They agree to meet the next day.

Maddie realizes she needs to wash her hair before seeing Ben, in case he kisses the top of her head and smells the sweat and dust from the office and the Underground. She normally reserves wash day for Saturday, but now she must compress her usual twenty-four-hour routine into twelve. The chapter details her method for caring for her 4C hair: shampooing until the water runs clear, conditioning and detangling with a wide-tooth comb under a shower cap, drying with a microfiber towel, sectioning the hair into ten parts, oiling the scalp, applying moisturizing spray and a sulphate-free cream, then a natural oil blend, plaiting each section, air-drying overnight, and styling the next day. It is an exhausting process she has followed for five years.

Midway through section five, Maddie goes downstairs for a snack. Jo asks if she is putting in weave, then questions why half her hair is long and the other short. Maddie explains shrinkage. Jo reaches out and pulls a damp coil, saying