“What about in your job—do you ever get clients who have those kinds of restrictions? I would imagine that would be really frustrating as a chef.”
This strikes me as a very thoughtful question. “I’m super lucky. My main clients are a wonderful family of normal eaters, with a couple adventurous ones in the mix, and no restrictions or allergies. The usual personal preferences, of course—a couple of them don’t love things too spicy, the dad isn’t a huge fan of puddings or custards, and the smallest girl will not eat any condiment besides ketchup. And they all hate bell peppers.”
“Well, I’m with them on that—bell peppers are not exactly my favorites either.”
This makes me happy. I hate bell peppers. “Mine either. Were you beaten with stuffed peppers as a child?”
“Worse. My dad loved them on and in everything. In meat loaf and hamburgers and meatballs, stuffed, sliced on salads . . . on pizza.”
“Oh, no! Not on pizza! It poisons everything!”
“See? You feel me. It’s like grapefruit in a fruit salad. I love grapefruit, but it makes everything around it taste like grapefruit. I want grapefruit on its own, and I want melon to taste like melon, and I want no bell peppers anywhere near me.”
“I’ll drink to that.” We clink our glasses, as the waiter clears our plates.
We order desserts and decaf espressos.
“So, Eloise Kahn. A gorgeous, smart, native Chicago girl who can cook, is a Bears fan, hates bell peppers, and likes to eat. You know, you make a guy start to believe in unicorns. I have to ask, how it is possible that you haven’t been snapped up by now?”
I can feel the flush start in my neck and move up to my face, and I’m sure I’m now the color of a beetroot. “You are very sweet.”
“I’m just honest. You seem so—I mean, please take this the right way—normal.”
This actually makes me laugh, because it is the adjective most of the guys I have dated have always come up with. “By which you mean not obviously crazy and reasonably not high maintenance.”
“In all the best possible ways. I think I mean that you appear to be a rational grown-up. A rare commodity in the dating world.”
“Thank you, then, for that. I guess I just never really did enough dating to learn all the weird games and things people are supposed to play. I always mostly started as friends with guys, and then at some point something would just nudge us in a more romantic direction, and it never occurred to me to be anyone except myself. And since we were friends first, they already knew me, so it would have been weird to just change all of a sudden. I think you might actually be the first guy to ask me out in a traditional way!” I hadn’t really thought about that, but it is true. All of my dating life has been either ending up in bed with a friend and waking up in a relationship, or blind dates that went nowhere. No middle ground. I’m thirty-nine years old and Shawn Sudberry-Long is the first guy to ever meet me, ask for my number, and ask me on a real date. It’s exhilarating and sad all at once.
“That is an honor I will own happily. Makes me feel smarter than your average bear. I know what you mean about relationships of proximity. I had two girlfriends in high school and a couple in college. Mostly cheerleaders, since that was who was around with all the football. I rarely met many other girls. I dated a couple of fellow med students, out of desperate convenience, and a couple of nurses during my residency. It’s probably why I ended up with my ex, Linda. She was different, not in the medical game; we met at a charity event and hit it off, and that was that.”
I’m dying to know more, but I have to let him share on his own, at his own pace. I want to know what she looked like, what she did for a living, who she was and why it really ended. I realize that I want to know all of this so that I can be everything she wasn’t, because this is a really great guy and I’m liking him. Really liking him.
“That would make sense. My history is much the same; substitute fellow track-and-field guys for cheerleaders and culinary students and chefs for doctors and nurses and you’ve got it in a nutshell.”
“And the last ex? The idiot that let you leave and didn’t come with you?”
“The chef-owner of the last restaurant I worked at in France.”
“Hmmm, maybe I shouldn’t have gone for French food after all . . .” He has a twinkle in his eye.
“Oh, no, I still love all things French. Can’t let one bad apple spoil the most glorious country and cuisine—that would be a much bigger tragedy.”
“I’ve never been.”
“To France?”
“Nope. Spent a bunch of time in Italy, some vacations in Spain, Germany, Austria, and a great trip to Amsterdam once, but never made it to France. Yet.” There is something about the way he makes eye contact with me when he says “yet” that makes my heart skip a beat.
“You’ll love it.”
He doesn’t break the gaze. “I believe I will.”
I’m grateful for the arrival of our desserts and coffees. We place both plates in the middle and share them equally, a tangy lemon tart and a deeply flavored hazelnut cake.
When dinner is finished, he helps me with my coat and we head out to where another car is waiting for us. Shawn opens the door for me and then walks around to the other side and gets in. As soon as he sits down he takes my hand in his and I love how my fingers, always large and, to my mind, somewhat manly, feel dwarfed and delicate. His hand is huge and strong, and I can immediately feel my heart race and every nerve in my body is suddenly alive. The best way I can describe it is to say that I feel electric. As if he could touch me anywhere on my body and see visible sparks. He turns to look at me and gives a small tug on my hand, and I take his cue and shift toward him as he lifts his arm and slides it around me, pulling me close against his side. The warm length of him next to me is exquisite, and his arm around me makes me feel so safe. He leans over and kisses my temple as the car drives through Lincoln Park.
I turn to look at him and he kisses my mouth, very gently, like he is savoring me. It is so different from any first kiss I’ve ever had. There is no driving urgency, no devouring need behind it, and not a hint of insecurity or tentativeness. He kisses me as if kissing me is what we were made for, as if he knows that he has all the time in the world to just kiss. It isn’t the fumbling, curious kiss of high school or college, where the kiss itself is a question. It isn’t the kiss of two exhausted culinary students or chefs half-drunk and falling together to scratch an itch. And it certainly isn’t the all-consuming kiss that started my affair with Bernard, who grabbed me with force and determination and kissed me like he was staking a claim. Shawn kisses me like kissing me is his most favorite thing to do, and the kissing is for its own sake and not a part of something else. Then he stops, just as gently as he started.
“My goodness,” he says, his voice low. “I hope that wasn’t too . . . I mean, I don’t want you to feel . . .”