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He’d done it because he was afraid. Because he felt threatened by me and Jada Knox and all the others, because we were moving in on his territory. Because his medium was dying, with fewer and fewer mostly old people still subscribing to print publications every year, while ours was booming.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, I lectured my inner monologue. Who even knows if all that is true? You’re just starting to like him and looking for a reason not to hate him.

“It’s a lot of hashtags and search engine optimization and cross-promotion and things,” I said. “Not that hard to learn. Especially if you have a dedicated social media guy.”

“He’s helping, but not enough,” he said gloomily.

Just then our appetizers arrived, meaning I could change the subject before I started feeling bad for him. “Who would’ve thought you could combine kimchi and chopped liver and have it taste good?” I mused, definitely not because I was feeling bad for him. It was hard to feel bad with something this good in my mouth, for real. The chopped liver was smooth but just a little grainy, rich but with just a slight iron tang. The kimchi was sour and tart and crunchy and a little fishy, clearly the real thing. Piled together on a toasted slice of baguette and with a little extra richness from homemade mayo, it was an excellent bite.

But not one that photographed all that well. Sure, the kimchi was bright red and pretty, splayed out like phoenix feathers, but the chopped liver was brown and mushy. I didn’t think liver would get me all that many hits. Something that also tasted good but didn’t photograph very well: the bite-size orbs of gefilte fish, the puree of who-knows-what soft and smooth, its pearly grayness flecked with orange bits of carrot. At least the vibrant beet and cardamom pickle on top, reminiscent of horseradish, looked nice.

“The Scroll isn’t going anywhere,” I told him. “It’s been around forever, and it’s going to be around forever.” I pulled over my half of the latke appetizer. It seemed pretty simple, a lacy-edged potato pancake fried until plush in the middle and golden-brown around the crispy edges. Like nachos, the toppings were what really made it. The chef had played off the traditional latke toppings of applesauce and sour cream (#teamapplesauceforever), pairing her potato latkes with a spicy apple chutney, with chunks of both meltingly sweet cooked apples and crunchy tart raw apples, and a thick cucumber raita that reminded me of sour cream. “This is a really interesting dish. It’s both Jewish and Indian.”

“India has ancient Jewish communities, you know,” he said, and though my hackles went up at the you know, he really didn’t say it like he was condescending to me. He said it like he was sharing a piece of information that was interesting to him. “I went to India a few years ago and visited one of their old synagogues down south.”

“That’s nice that you got to go to India,” I said, trying and failing to tamp down a flare of jealousy. I’d wanted to travel through Asia most of my life, sample all the incredible street food in Thailand and Vietnam, tour Japan’s famous convenience stores that sold food as good as their restaurants, slurp cumin lamb hand-torn noodles in China. But vacation time was limited, and the cost of airfare was several months of student loan payments.

Bennett took a big bite of latke slathered in both toppings. “You’re wrong, you know,” he said with his mouth full. I tensed, assuming he was going to start talking about how his trip to India hadn’t been all that, but he said, “The Scroll is in serious trouble. It’s part of the reason they wanted to bring in a millennial as their new restaurant reviewer instead of someone more established. They thought it might get young people interested in subscribing.”

“But the paper has five million subscribers,” I said, after swallowing, because I had manners. “It sounds like you’re doing fine to me.”

Bennett hesitated, his eyes darting from side to side as if they might have tried making a break for it if not for the prison of his glasses. Then sighed. “It was at almost seven million a couple years ago,” he said. I blinked and shoved another bite of latke down my gullet to disguise the shock. It didn’t work. I choked, coughing it up, which just made it more obvious. I half expected Bennett to just get up and stride out of the restaurant, leaving me with the bill.

But he didn’t. He actually kept talking. “We’re bleeding subscribers at an alarming rate, losing them to digital publications and social media. And our most avid, most loyal readers are dying.” He noticed my look of surprise and added, hastily, “Not because we’re killing them off. At least, I’m not killing any off.”

“That would be quite the plot twist,” I said seriously.

His cheeks flushed. “I’m not a murderer, I swear.”

“That’s exactly what a murderer would say,” I told him, and he only got redder. I grinned. “Relax. I know you’re talking about your subscribers dying off from old age.”

“Exactly.” He was still rosy as he went on. “So many magazines and newspapers have shut down or gone digital-only in the past few years. If I can’t turn things around . . .”

“Bennett.” This might have been the only time I’d said his name without wanting to spit it out. “I can’t imagine they hired you assuming you were going to turn the entire fortunes of the paper around.”

He swallowed one last bite of latke. Somebody laughed in the background. Like magic, the waitress showed up to whisk our plates away. “Of course not. But I’m part of it, and if the paper fails while I fail, part of that is on my shoulders.”

Your very broad shoulders, I did not say. I didn’t say anything else, actually. What was I supposed to? That I felt sorry for him? Or for the paper? I didn’t, not especially. The paper had made one bad decision after another, probably because they kept hiring a homogenous group of rich white dudes connected in some way to their board. And it wasn’t like this job was Bennett’s lifelong dream, the way it had been mine. He’d just stumbled into it.

Or so I’d assumed based on the stereotype. I didn’t actually know for sure. “Why did you want the restaurant-reviewing job there?”

There were two ways this question could go. He could respond with something like, I was bored after gallivanting around the world on a trip paid for by my trust fund and thought it might be fun to get paid to eat out every night, in which case that would be it; I’d lose whatever respect for him I’d gained over the past week or two. Or he could answer with something like—

“I’ve just always loved food,” Bennett said. “Always. My parents . . . weren’t together, so . . .” His lips thinned slightly. “Usually, whenever my dad would come visit and take me and Penny out, he’d take us to a restaurant. All kinds of restaurants, French and Italian and New American, sure—I was fascinated by molecular gastronomy as a kid, how you could turn juices into foams and oils into edible sand—but also Ethiopian and Chinese and Japanese and Peruvian and Indian and . . . and I just loved all of them, how they were similar and how they were different.” He pushed his glasses up his nose; he’d been talking so animatedly that they’d slid down. “I couldn’t picture myself doing anything but writing and learning about food. So when this opportunity came up at the Scroll . . . it was the most exciting job application I’d ever sent.”

I couldn’t trust myself to speak, so I nodded. I hated that I understood. Because if my mom happened to be best friends with the CEO of a major paper like the Scroll (she was most certainly not; the most interesting person she was friends with was the owner of a tiny and not uncreepy museum of old puppets situated in a decrepit former barn) . . . wouldn’t I take the opportunity, too? Wouldn’t I have done the same thing?

“Coming through!” The waiter appeared with our food, spreading our plates over the table with a bright smile. All thoughts momentarily fled from my mind as I took in the smells drifting from every plate. They made my mouth water.

“Where do we start?” I said, mostly to avoid having to respond to what he’d said.

This time, as we ate our way through the table, I kept an eye on him. Sure, I made certain to take clear photos of everything on the table, both pre-bite and mid-bite, and I took good, thorough notes on my good, thorough thoughts, because I was a professional.

But I also watched him closely, waiting to see that love of food. The surprised delight on his face when he took his first slurp of the brisket ramen, enjoying the tender shreds of savory meat, the chew of the crinkly noodles, the light but complex broth that hid the reveal of a plush matzah ball with a thick corn flavor. The concentration as he tried to place the flavor of the rub on the bowl of shredded carnitas that we portioned out ourselves and wrapped in marbled rye tortillas with tiny sour pickles and thinly sliced red onions and shreds of Havarti cheese. (“It’s a pastrami sandwich,” he murmured as he took the first bite.) The sheer pleasure as he closed his eyes while chewing the duck, rosy and meaty in the middle and crispy-skinned on the outside, in one perfect bite with pickled and fresh beets.

I didn’t have to look hard. It radiated out of his very soul.

“Julie—” Bennett started, maybe ready to ask about why I was staring at him like I was attempting to cook him with my eyes. Neither of us found out, because we both jumped as the waiter came to clear our plates.