The Cooking Class Partners

Dahlia signed up for a six-week cooking class. She mostly wanted to learn how to make bread. She was tired of it turning out like a brick every time. On the first night, the instructor assigned partners by pulling names from a bowl. Dahlia was paired with a stranger named Arjun.

Dahlia mendaftar kelas memasak enam minggu. Ia terutama ingin belajar membuat roti. Ia sudah bosan karena rotinya selalu keras seperti batu bata. Pada malam pertama, instruktur membagi pasangan dengan menarik nama dari sebuah mangkuk. Dahlia dipasangkan dengan orang asing bernama Arjun.

Their first dish, a simple tomato soup, went badly. Arjun added the cream too early. It curdled into something neither of them wanted to serve the instructor. They laughed about it more than they worried about their grade. They scraped the ruined pot into the bin together.

Hidangan pertama mereka, sup tomat sederhana, berjalan buruk. Arjun memasukkan krim terlalu cepat. Krim itu menggumpal menjadi sesuatu yang tak ingin disajikan keduanya kepada instruktur. Mereka lebih banyak menertawakannya daripada mengkhawatirkan nilai. Mereka mengerok panci yang rusak itu ke tempat sampah bersama-sama.

The instructor, to Dahlia's surprise, kept pairing them for the rest of the course. She insisted it was random, even though the same two names seemed to come up every single week. By week three, Dahlia had stopped minding the coincidence. She had actually started looking forward to it.

Instruktur itu, yang mengejutkan Dahlia, terus memasangkan mereka sepanjang kursus. Ia berkeras bahwa itu acak, padahal dua nama yang sama tampaknya muncul setiap minggu. Pada minggu ketiga, Dahlia sudah tidak mempermasalahkan kebetulan itu. Ia bahkan mulai menantikannya.

Their dishes improved steadily. The soufflé that collapsed in week two became a nearly perfect one by week five. Their final bread was made together on the last night. It rose exactly the way Dahlia had always wanted hers to.

Masakan mereka membaik dengan mantap. Soufflé yang ambruk pada minggu kedua menjadi hampir sempurna pada minggu kelima. Roti terakhir mereka dibuat bersama pada malam penutup. Rotinya mengembang persis seperti yang selalu Dahlia inginkan.

"We should keep cooking together after this ends," Arjun said, wiping flour from his hands. The class packed up around them. "Not for a grade. Just because the food's actually good when we don't panic."

"Kita harus tetap memasak bersama setelah ini selesai," kata Arjun sambil mengelap tepung dari tangannya. Kelas berkemas di sekitar mereka. "Bukan demi nilai. Hanya karena masakannya ternyata enak kalau kita tidak panik."

Dahlia agreed, a little faster than she'd meant to. She admitted she still had the instructor's tomato soup recipe folded in her bag. It was the one they had ruined together in week one. If they made it again properly, she said, it would almost feel like finishing what they'd started.

Dahlia setuju, sedikit lebih cepat dari yang ia maksudkan. Ia mengaku masih menyimpan resep sup tomat dari instruktur terlipat di tasnya. Itu resep yang mereka rusak bersama pada minggu pertama. Kalau mereka membuatnya lagi dengan benar, katanya, rasanya hampir seperti menyelesaikan apa yang telah mereka mulai.

They exchanged numbers outside the cooking school. The last few students said their goodbyes around them under a streetlight. Dahlia and Arjun agreed on a date the following Saturday, to try the soup again.

Mereka bertukar nomor ponsel di luar sekolah masak. Beberapa murid terakhir mengucapkan selamat tinggal di sekitar mereka di bawah lampu jalan. Dahlia dan Arjun menyepakati tanggal Sabtu berikutnya, untuk mencoba supnya lagi.