“Noted.”
While I sit and sip my wine, Shawn deftly unpacks the grocery bags. There is a pair of beautiful veal chops, some potatoes, thin French green beans. A foil-wrapped loaf. Shawn opens the veal chops and seasons them well, setting them aside on a tray, then puts the potatoes into a pot of water and sets it on the stove to bring it to a boil. He deftly snaps the ends off the beans, one by one, dropping them into a colander. I marvel at his ease in my kitchen. He won’t let me help, beyond guiding him in the right direction for equipment. Simca, feeling left out and done with her new antler for the moment, paws at my ankle, and I hoist her up onto the seat next to me. She rests her chin on the countertop, watching Shawn put some heavy cream and butter into a small pan to warm.
I reach over and peek inside the foil loaf.
“Shawn, did you bring me a fruitcake?” Being Jewish, fruitcake has always been a punch line and never an actual food product. I’ve seen them, but never tasted one.
“Yes, ma’am. That there is my grandma Lou’s recipe, sort of a cross between a Jamaican black cake and a southern fruitcake, and trust me, you are going to love it. It takes almost a week to make, and ever since Grandma Lou died, I’m in charge of the fruitcakes for Christmas. You’re lucky Uncle Doug is on a Christmas cruise with his new flame; that would have been his loaf.”
“Well, then, thank you, Uncle Doug. It smells good.” There is a spicy aroma wafting up from the dark loaf, which doesn’t look anything like the ones I’ve seen with their garish green and red candied cherries.
“It’s shockingly delicious. I swear.”
“I trust you.”
Shawn pulls out a small hunk of cheddar and puts it on a plate, cutting off a slice and popping it in his mouth before sliding it across to me. I cut off a sliver and slip it to Simca.
“Woman, did you just give twelve-year-old cheddar to the dog?”
“Yep. She has a very refined cheese palate.”
“Good to know.”
I cut off a slice for myself, savoring the sharpness and the little salty crystals that pop on my tongue before the cheese melts into savory creaminess.
“So,” he says, giving the potatoes a stir and setting the oven to 400. “Let me get this straight: you are going to spend Christmas Eve at the movies?”
“Yep. Traditional Jewish Christmas. We do it every year, either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day—movies and Chinese food.”
“What do you see?”
“Well, when my dad and Buddy were alive, we’d always see whatever big action blockbuster was the holiday release that year, and whatever the big kids’ movie was, the perfect double feature. Now that they’re gone, we’ll still do the kids’ movie if it doesn’t look too awful, and something chick-flicky.”
“That must be hard, to have them both gone.” Shawn drops the chops into a heated cast-iron skillet with a sizzle.
“Yeah. But it’s been long enough that it is more wistful than devastating. The first couple of years were hardest, as you can imagine, but we hang in there.”
“Wish I could have met them,” he says, flipping the now-browned chops over. He slides the pan into the oven.
“Me too. Thank you.” It is about the sweetest thing he could say to me.
Shawn drains the potatoes, takes the masher from the tub on the counter, and begins to slowly smash them while drizzling in the warm butter and cream mixture. When he likes what he sees, he reaches for a tub of sour cream and adds a healthy spoonful, gently folding it in.
“You’ve got skills, Mr. Sudberry-Long.”
“Well, the women in my family believe in men who can cook. Especially big boys like me who eat everyone out of house and home!” he says with a laugh. “My mom always said if I was going to eat more than twice what she and my dad did combined, I’d have to pull my weight in the kitchen. My brother never really mastered it, but he’s good at dishes.”
“Will Ronald be there for Christmas?” Shawn’s brother is apparently his polar opposite, a small, slight man with no athletic prowess, but genius-level brain; he’s posted in Hong Kong at the moment, doing some sort of change management consulting for a major international corporation.
Shawn reaches across the counter with the spoon, and I taste the creamy potatoes, rich and delicious, with just the perfect amount of tartness from the sour cream. I roll my eyes in ecstasy. Shawn looks pleased with my reaction and winks at me. “Nope. He couldn’t get away. But he said he might make Easter, so you’ll meet him then.”
“I dunno, that’s, like, four months away. What if you’re sick of me by then?” I say this in a very joking manner, but the little twist in my stomach belies my genuine fear that this might be true. Shawn and I are still in the early flush of exciting newness of our relationship, but we haven’t had any serious discussions, not about the important stuff like money or religion or family. We haven’t ever spent more than seventeen contiguous hours together. Neither of us has farted in front of the other. There are many, many milestones to get through to even see if this thing could be the real deal in some serious way.
But I want it. Deep down, as much as I have been trying to keep my heart in the moment, my head keeps taking flights of fancy into the future. You’d think that after Bernard blew up my heart all those years ago that the scars would be so old and faded that everything would be almost as strong as if nothing happened. But it doesn’t feel that way. Everything that Shawn makes me feel, every layer of me that he peels away, it puts pressure on those ancient fault lines, and if I’m not cautious, if I don’t tread very lightly, then the potential for Shawn to hurt me, maybe even more than Bernard did, is very real. I love Shawn, if I’m honest with myself, but I’m not ready to give him that power, to let him in that deeply.
Shawn looks up at me and directly into my eyes. “Let me be very clear about something, my darling girl. I could never get sick of you. Now, we are both grown-ass people, we know that in romance, there are a million things that can mean we won’t be a forever love match. But we are friends, and I don’t believe you could ever do anything that would hurt me in ways that would make me want to not still have you in my life as friends if it turns out we shouldn’t be lovers. And I know for sure that I have no intention of ever hurting you in a way that would make you cut me out of your life.”