And in another swift motion, Jacob was up and over the lip of the dumpster. Janey looked nervously out onto the street, certain that everyone walking past them knew she was committing a crime. But life seemed to go on as usual, as herds of young men and women descended on the now wildly hip and expensive neighborhood for a night of seventeen-dollar martinis. Before she knew it, Janey had her hands filled with avocados, bananas, and onions.
“Anything with a thick skin is completely safe.” Jacob’s voice echoed on the metal edges of the can. “I know guys who go for the grapes and apples, but that’s a little too hard-core for me.” He tossed her a container of waffle mix, a cylinder of cinnamon with a slight crack in it, three cardboard boxes of gluten-free pasta, likely tossed because their packaging was slightly damaged. There was a whole chicken, still wrapped in plastic, two loaves of ciabatta, and hunks of Brie, cheddar, and blue cheese.
“Today is the sell-by date on these guys. But they still have a few more days in them.”
Within twenty minutes, as promised, both of their backpacks were filled and Jacob bounced on his toes in front of her.
“Are you ready for the second part of the evening?”
“This wasn’t it?” Janey said coyly. “There’s more?”
“I don’t want to be presumptuous, but I was hoping you’d come home with me and let me cook for you with all our spoils.”
“Where’s home?”
“Not far. Orchard Street. I’m gonna cook you a feast tonight, baby girl.”
Janey couldn’t explain why she found him even sexier now than she had at the start of the date. “Lead the way.”
As they walked, hand in hand, through the Lower East Side, Jacob occasionally reached into his backpack to take out a banana, a hunk of cheese, or a loaf of bread to give to someone who appeared to be down on his luck, sitting on a heap of cardboard and garbage bags in the small alleyways between the former tenement buildings.
“You’re like Robin Hood,” Janey said with genuine appreciation as he handed a carton of muffins to a bearded man sitting in a doorway with his pit bull. “Except instead of stealing from the landed gentry you’re pilfering from corporate America.”
Jacob puffed out his chest. “You can call me Sir Robin, milady. In fact, you can call me whatever you wish…as long as you call me.” His nerdy humor reminded her of Michael, but in a good way. He laughed at his own cheesy joke.
Jacob lived in a tidy two-bedroom walk-up above Russ & Daughters Cafe. The furniture was a step above Ikea but still standard bachelor fare, a black leather couch, bookshelves filled with college required reading and science fiction, and a fish tank. In the corner was the most immense dollhouse Janey had ever seen.
“You have a daughter, right? Where is she tonight?” Janey kneeled down in front of the massive toy to see that it had been mostly carved by hand, with furniture from various found materials: bar stools with bottle caps for the tops and individual-sized cereal boxes for beds. The kitchen floors were all made from pieces of wooden wine crates, and the tiles in the kitchen were smoothed over sea glass. It was beautiful.
“Did you make this?” Janey yelled into the kitchen, where Jacob was unpacking their spoils.
“What?” He peeked his head around the corner. “I did. Yeah. I made it for Sunny. She’s with her mom tonight. Allison, her mom, is an actress, a stage actress, for Broadway shows that move around the country. So Sunny’s with me most of the time, but when Allison’s in town I want them to spend as much time together as they can, so she’s there. I think the best thing you can do as a father is show you care about the kid’s mother.”
“Were you married?” Janey stood and walked into the kitchen, passing a framed school portrait of a little girl with wild black hair and Jacob’s puppy-dog eyes. She took the large goblet of wine Jacob held out to her.
“I hope you like red. This is a 2011 from Mendoza in Argentina. I bought a case when I was there last summer. No, we weren’t married, and Sunny was not exactly what you’d call planned. We’d just been dating six months and I thought she was on the pill. She wasn’t. So it goes. The kid’s still the best thing that’s ever happened to me, no regrets. Sunny was so tiny when she was born. She was two months early. Allison hardly gained any weight for the pregnancy. Try making an out-of-work actress eat. It’s harder than sleeping in when you have a toddler. I was so relieved the day they took Sunny out of the incubator that I proposed to Allison. Got down on one knee right there in the hospital.”
“What’d she say?”
“Thankfully, no.”
“You didn’t want to marry her?”
“I didn’t. But I don’t think I want to marry anyone. Marriage is bullshit in my opinion. Who needs a piece of paper?”
Janey disagreed, but she didn’t say it out loud. Even though her own marriage hadn’t worked, she loved the concept of marriage, of pledging your commitment to another person, of having one best friend in a harsh world. It just had to be the right person.
“How old is Sunny?” The wine was good and it helped Janey shed her doubts about the rest of the meal.
“She’s four and a half going on twenty-seven. I built that dollhouse for her last birthday, and I have no idea how to top it except maybe a ride on a rocket ship. If you have any suggestions, let me know.”
“I have no experience with little girls, or kids for that matter,” Janey said, savoring another sip of the dry red.
“But you were one once. Right?” Jacob handed her a peeler and a sack of russet potatoes. “Or you just came out of the packaging like this. A fully formed beautiful adult woman?”
“I was a little girl,” Janey laughed. “It was a long time ago. And I don’t know if I did all the normal little girl things.” She thought of Beau and how the two of them had tried so hard to act like adults. Stop it! she warned herself. You are having dinner with an incredibly sexy, mature, interesting man who seems to like all of the things he knows about you so far. Do not think about Beau. “So, do I get to know what we’re making tonight or is that a surprise too?”
“You’re helping me cook! I’m a modern man.” Jacob delivered a comical curtsy. “I believe in equality in all things, including the kitchen. I thought we’d have some crispy potatoes with a garlic aioli and then for the main course a coq au vin, all ingredients courtesy of tonight’s adventure, save for the au vin. What do you think?”
“I’ll withhold my judgment about any food that came from a dumpster. I don’t know why I assumed you’d be a vegetarian.”
“Ehhhh. I like to think of myself as a flexitarian. It means I avoid meat except for when it’s delicious…and humanely raised. That’s different from a freegan, who only eats meat he finds on the ground or in the trash. You’ll be so impressed with this dinner you’ll want to open a dumpster-only restaurant with me.”