“Probably a good idea,” Elias says. I feel my heart sink a little. This isn’t what I want to hear. I take a sip of beer, think about getting up, rejoining Isaiah and Morris, who I hope are still talking about Prime Minister Jackie Chan.
“Not that I’m saying stop seeing her or anything,” Elias continues. He is picking at the label on his beer, looking at Emma and then back at me. “Just, you know, appreciate your place in the kitchen. You don’t know because you’re new to this, but what she’s doing for you? It’s rare, man.” He runs a hand through his hair, rolls a little corner of the beer label into a snowball and throws it on the floor. Memo sits quietly by, listening. “I know from experience that Chef pushes the people she believes in. She gives you opportunities that shouldn’t be granted to you because you haven’t earned ’em, or, like me, because you’ve thrown others away.
“But she’s hard on people wasting those opportunities. That buddy I opened the restaurant with in Seattle? He was here too, man. But dude fell back into drugs and Chef literally put all his fucking belongings on the ferry back to the mainland the very next day.” Elias gives me a hard look. “I’m a romantic. I’m all for forbidden love. Just, you know, be careful.”
I look over my shoulder at Chef and then at my phone to see if Emma’s responded to my latest text. I wonder if the booze has made me reckless tonight, how many people other than Elias and Memo have noticed me gawking at her. “Yeah, I know,” I say. “I am.”
“Lo que tú digas,” Elias says. Whatever you say. Then he reaches into the cooler next to him and offers me another beer, and since I can’t go sit next to Emma, I take it.
I continue to enjoy myself throughout the party, flitting around from group to group, even having a less-than-awful interaction with Matt about the greatness of noodle soups for breakfast. As the alcohol compounds and people leave, I spend more time looking at my phone, wanting to talk to Emma somehow, wanting her to carve a path for us in the woods where we can disappear together. But her phone must have died, and a little while later she waves a silent good-bye.
When my body tells me it’s time to call it a night too, I carry myself up to my room, to the mattress on the floor, which I literally plop onto face-first. I entangle myself in the still-unfamiliar sheets, and, while my last few thoughts before falling asleep are about Emma, Elias’s words play over them, like foreboding music in a horror film.
CHAPTER 22
GYOZA IN ORANGE-BASIL BROTH
For the filling:
1 pound flor de calabaza
2 pounds shrimp, peeled and deveined
? pound portobello mushrooms, chopped
? pound shiitake mushrooms, chopped
2 red onions, chopped
6 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons ginger
2 tablespoons sesame oil
For the broth:
12 cups veggie stock
4 tablespoons ginger
? cup packed basil leaves
2 tablespoons sesame oil
2 tablespoons sriracha hot sauce
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
METHOD:
The next day, I wake up aware of death.
It’s just there, prodding at me, reminding me it exists. It’s too early to get out of bed, but I know only activity will drive the thoughts away before they can shake me to my core. I drag myself off the mattress, splash water on my face, go downstairs. I find my phone in the kitchen, battery drained, inches away from a puddle of some unrecognizable liquid.
Before the puddle can shape itself into Felix, I mop it up with a paper towel. I plug my phone in, look around the house to see where I should start cleaning. This happened often those first few weeks. After the funeral, I would wake up with too much awareness of How Things Are. The realization would claw at me that if Felix hadn’t been in the way of a bullet, something else would have got him in the end. I’d start thinking about how I too will inevitably die, how everything I know is transient, fleeting, impermanent. Sometimes it’s just flashes, in the middle of the day, of how things could go wrong. But when I wake up like this, I know I have to keep busy or else go completely insane.
Though my stomach lurches with movement and my head is pounding, I grab a garbage bag from beneath the kitchen sink and start collecting beer bottles, taking pleasure in the little clinks of the glass, the crumpling of plastic cups and aluminum cans. I open every window and both doors to allow the smell of the party out and the cool morning air in. Memo’s still on the couch, Reggie on the floor. They barely stir as I tiptoe around them.
Once my phone is charged and the house is tidy, I text Emma to see if she’s free. She might still be sleeping, and so I walk to the grocery store, listening to music. It’s a gorgeous day, and it feels like the world is trying to reassure me. I meander through the aisles, waiting for inspiration, hoping that death won’t creep into the space I’m carving in my thoughts for food.
On the walk back home, the weight of groceries digs into my shoulder, clouds move swiftly overhead and the leaves flutter as if they’re breathing. I set my bags on the counter, turn on the oven, wash the vegetables. The restaurant is closed, Emma asleep; nothing else beckons.
My roommates wake up and turn on the TV. The house comes alive as I cook. Elias goes out for a run. Matt heads to the city to meet up with friends. Before he leaves, he looks around groggily, takes heed of the state of the house. “Thanks for cleaning,” he says. The noose around my neck slackens.
When Emma wakes up she comes over, sits on the counter as I concoct dish after dish, things I’ve never tried to make before, things that might read like a dream on a menu. Every now and then I bring a spoon up to her lips, wait for the steam to dissipate and then tilt it so she can taste. Every now and then I step into the space between her legs, and when a surge of affection threatens to make me say something stupid, I lean in and kiss her.
Some things we eat, some things we only taste and cover with cling wrap. The fridge is full by nightfall, and when Emma lies down next to me, it’s hard to think of anything but life.
*
Tuesday morning, and Chef pushes away another omelet. I try to eat it calmly, hiding the fact that I want to throw it in her face, because at this point all doubts that she’s a sadist have disappeared into a puddle of egg yolks. I try to keep Elias’s words in mind.
Instead of throwing something at her, I ask if I can start cooking the staff meal early.
Chef looks at the time, raises an eyebrow. “Already?”
“I’d like to be productive, Chef. Don’t plan on going home, and there’s no dishes for me yet.”
She studies her clipboard, leads me to the walk-ins. “Use all this shrimp,” she says. She tells me to use any station I want, but that I’ll have to clear away as soon as the staff starts to show. “Yes, Chef.”