Not on the Menu

Eleanor Marsh knows how to read a room. After years of writing for Manhattan magazines, she has learned to spot the wine that costs more than rent, the smile that belongs to someone who has been told where to stand, and the exact moment a compliment becomes a transaction. When a fellow journalist leans across a linen tablecloth at The 21 Club and tells her she would be "perfect" for one of New York City's most powerful millionaires, Eleanor says no.
But the invitation doesn't disappear-and neither does the question of what she was being offered and at what price. Moving between the polished dining rooms of Manhattan's elite and the steamy warmth of a Brooklyn diner, Not on the Menu is a taut, intimate novella about women who are seen and women who vanish, about the hunger that fine food can never satisfy, and about the moment a woman decides-quietly, completely, without ceremony-that she belongs only to herself.