My motel room is paid for through the week, but Elias tells me I’m free to move in whenever I want and just pay rent once I get my first check.
I spend the rest of my break looking through my emails on my phone, searching for the acceptance letter I got from the University of Chicago. I find it and click through the links until I get to the admissions page and figure out how to contact the school. If Dad hasn’t completely lost his shit yet, this’ll probably do the trick.
I send an email asking what I need to do to withdraw from school.
By the end of my shift, I have been up for nearly eighteen hours. My body is calling out for sleep, and my thoughts are muddled. The six hours in between now and my next training session won’t be nearly enough to recuperate, especially when I’m itching to see Emma and make it up to her for bailing yesterday. We meet outside a coffee shop to avoid discovery, and when I kiss her cheek, the comfort of her skin makes me want to fall asleep in the warm nook of her neck. How could I ever deny myself this? I lay my head on her shoulder and pretend to snore.
“Long day?” Emma asks with a laugh.
“Tell me the truth. Restaurant people have discovered a way to live more than twenty-four hours in a day, right?”
“Duh, it’s drugs,” Emma says. “If I learned anything from my dad, it’s that.”
I laugh but don’t pull my head away. “Shut up, that’s not true.”
“Oh, sweet, na?ve Carlos. Chefs are fucked-up people. My dad had cocaine parties at home when I was eight or nine.”
My first reaction is horror, an anger that anyone would put Emma in that position. Or any kid, for that matter. “Jesus. What was it like growing up with that?”
“Cozy,” Emma says and gives a single laugh, the sway of which goes from her body to mine. “It wasn’t all that bad, really. Just some crazy moments. They both became much better parents after they split up. Even if they still won’t teach me their secrets to a perfect grilled cheese.”
I force a laugh, and a thought flashes through my head that Dad has his parenting flaws too, but I’m not sure whether he’d count as a bad parent. I don’t want to think about Dad, though. I want to just stay by Emma’s side, talk to her.
“Wanna go to the lake?” she asks.
I groan. “I should sleep.”
“No, you shouldn’t,” she says, and I agree, because how am I supposed to do anything else? I’m whole when I’m with her.
Amazing that the hike through the woods can get any better. But the world has its surprises, and with Emma’s hand in mine the night becomes Technicolor. Fireflies light the way to the meadow, where we pick up fistfuls of berries as a midnight snack.
I want to tell her about Chef’s stipulation, but I don’t want to accept that it’s really happened. That I might lose her or the kitchen. The words are stuck in the pit of my stomach, and nothing gets them out, so I decide to smother them, to keep them in there until they’re no longer true.
We get to the lake, slip our toes into the water, shoot electricity out across the surface. We lie on our backs, face each other. In an instant we’re pressed together, kissing like we are drunk, kissing like it’ll make us glow. The way she kisses, it’s as if this is the only way I can breathe, through her. She kisses a spot just below my ear that makes goose bumps shoot down my arms, presses herself close to me. She kisses like she’s proving to the world that we’re alive.
*
The next morning, one and a half onions into the training session, I nick my finger. Chef Elise throws a dish towel at my face. “Stop bleeding all over my fucking kitchen,” she mutters as she walks away. Instead of wrapping the towel tightly around the bleeding tip, I let a few drops escape onto the counter, stain the perfect, shimmering steel.
I stand at my sink, listen to the kitchen come alive, try not to slam dishes into shards. I run the water so hot that steam surrounds me like the island’s thick morning fog. In this cloud, I can hide.
Later that night, Elias comes with me to the motel to help me carry my suitcase and the assorted kitchen utensils I’ve bought during my three weeks on Needle Eye. The house is on the other side of the island, a little closer to where Emma lives. I’m already picturing the best route to get to the lake, trying to remember the shortcuts she’s shown me. It takes me a while to recognize it as Matt’s house.
“Home sweet home,” Elias says, opening the door.
Inside, Matt is on the couch, playing video games with a kid I remember meeting at the barbecue, another one of Emma’s friends.
“Hey, man,” Elias says. “What are you guys up to?”
“Day off.” He does some button mashing on the controller and then notices me and kind of nods but doesn’t say hi. “What’s the Fake-xican doing here?”
“Moving in,” Elias says. We pass in front of the TV, eliciting some yelling complaints. Elias shows me the kitchen, which, unlike the rest of the house, is perfectly neat. The downstairs bathroom is a mess, tissues overflowing from the trash bin. A dirty sock lies on the windowsill, and it looks like it hasn’t been moved in weeks. “Sorry,” Elias mutters. “It’s the price I pay for living with fuckin’ eighteen-year-olds, no offense. I’m still up to my ass in debt, so I can’t afford to live alone, and other roommates are never quite as understanding about having people over for drinks at two a.m. once a shift lets out.”
We go upstairs, where my room is. There’s a mattress on the floor, pushed up to the corner. A dresser with its drawers still open. A few clothes hangers are piled on the floor, evidence of a speedy departure, as if Boris was afraid that Chef would show up any second to chase him away. It’s nothing like my room in Mexico, with its TV and video game systems, its view of the hills and high-rises of my neighborhood. No Rosalba will come by to tidy up every morning.
I drop my bag down on the floor, giving Felix a clandestine smile when he shows up in the corner. Back downstairs, Elias slips into the kitchen to grab himself a beer, which is almost the only thing available in the fridge, apart from some bagels, deli meat and a few bottles of hot sauce.
We settle down on the couch next to Matt and the other kid, Rob, watch them shoot each other up for a bit. “I see you’ve been going in early,” Matt says after a while. “Chef got you shining her shoes or something?” He chuckles at himself.
“Just some training,” I say, though his reaction makes me regret saying anything.
Matt pauses his game, eyes wide. “Training? With Chef? What the hell?” He looks at Elias and then back at me. “You just fucking got here.”
“It’s none of your business,” Elias says, taking a drink from his beer. “It’s her restaurant.”
Matt doesn’t turn his attention back to the screen, though. He leans forward, eyes glued on me. “What makes you so special, huh?”
“I wouldn’t be jealous,” I say. “So far she’s just found different ways to call me a moron.”