Excerpt from The Big Door Prize by M.O. Walsh, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Still, seeing her cry at wine time was new. He tried not to overreact.

Douglas understood to take his time with the curveballs of marriage. He was a good husband, after all, a kind man, and wanted to gather what information he could before trying to brighten her mood. So, he simply approached the kitchen counter, watched Cherilyn dog-ear a few of the magazines' pages, and listened to her breathe in through her small and freckled nose. After a moment, he touched her arm.

"What's going on in here?" he asked. "You feeling okay?"

"I dropped my phone in the oil," she said, and took to her soft crying again.

"The oil?" Douglas asked.

"Olive oil," she said. "A full cup of it. Our last of it. And then when I picked it up it slipped out of my hand and hit the ground and broke. I mean, completely. I'm afraid it's totaled."

"The cup?" Douglas said.

"No, Douglas," she said, "not the cup."

Cherilyn pointed over to her phone, which stood propped and shattered in a bowl of rice like an unfortunate sculpture. "I was trying to find this recipe," she said. "I wanted to try something new and it just slipped." She rubbed her palm as if trying to remember the feeling, to re-create the scene. "And then I got to looking at these magazines and there are just so many different dishes out there, Douglas." She paused to keep from crying again and said, "So many things I've never tried. I mean, have you ever heard of baba ghanoush? It's made with tahini, of all things. Who has tahini, Douglas? What is tahini? That's what I want to know. And eggplant, too. You know, it turns out that, in certain parts of the world, a lot of things are made with eggplant. We're talking about beautiful parts of the world! Why don't we ever have eggplant, Douglas? Why don't we ever have eggplant?"

Douglas rubbed her arm to calm her.

"I can't say I've ever been asked that question," he said.

"And then I saw this one for beef Wellington," Cherilyn said. "Have you heard of that? I thought, I have ground meat. I have beef. Maybe we have a roast in the freezer. But I apparently need some sort of p‰tŽ to make beef Wellington. Is there a p‰tŽ aisle at Johnson's, Douglas? Is there a p‰tŽ aisle at Walmart?"

Douglas had no idea where any of this was coming from, and so, instead of asking if she'd started wine time a bit early, instead of trying to calm her with a simple joke, moved his gentle hands to her shoulders. They were as warm to the touch as if she'd been jogging, as if she were coming down with a fever, and as Douglas began his light and practiced massage he saw that the magazines she'd been reading, at least twenty of them, were indeed all opened to recipes. He recognized the magazines from a subscription they'd received as a gift a few years ago for which they made their own little shelf in the kitchen but never read. They looked to have a rather gourmet agenda, all splayed open before him now, with high-quality photos of skewered meats and bright vegetables at the top, ads for products like pomegranate juice and organic cereal along the margins. He continued to rub Cherilyn's shoulders as she closed and stacked each of the magazines carefully without ever leaving his touch, constructing a pile that reached from the countertop to her soft chin, which she then rested on it.

Douglas took a deep and obvious whiff of the air. "I love Burger Wednesdays," he said. "Who needs eggplant?"

"I know," she said, and turned to face him. "It's not that. It's not you. I'm sorry. I don't know what got into me. I'm sorry about the phone. I know they're expensive."

"Don't worry about it," he said. "We'll get you a new one. In the meantime, maybe we can string together a couple of cans."

"I just don't know what's gotten into me," she said again, and turned back to the stove. "Anyway," she said. "How was your lesson? Tell me everything."

"You sure?" he said. "Because all the evidence here suggests you're pretty upset. Exhibit A, I'd posit, is anxiety over beef Wellington. Exhibit B, I'd say, is the water leaking out of your face."

Excerpted from The Big Door Prize by M. O. Walsh. Copyright © 2020 by M. O. Walsh. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.