“What can I say? She takes a joke a lot better.” I smirk, walking over to rinse the egg from my hands. “Cuter too.”
“Yeah, I’d replace you with Siene in a heartbeat too,” Danny says, drinking from his beer, taking the opportunity to delve into the story of the Belgian girl he fell in love with overnight in Venice. How instead of joining the guys on a train to Munich, he just walked around the city with her, and ever since he hasn’t been able to get her out of his mind.
I julienne carrots and bell peppers for the slaw while Danny talks about her. It goes on for a few minutes. Meanwhile, Nico and Poncho regale Dad with Eurostories. Then Danny seems to have exhausted himself of the topic. He leans back against the counter, watches me dredge some pounded chicken breasts in flour. “Anyway. Everything okay with you?”
I pause, think for a second. I still expect to see Felix showing up places. In the flour, in the condensation sweating off the beer bottle, in any corner of any room. “No, not everything,” I say with a shrug. Then I add a smile, wash my hands again.
Danny seems content with the answer. We turn our attention to the main conversation. I switch the deep fryer on, and while that’s heating up I cut the brioche buns in half and slide them into the oven. I make a quick dressing for the slaw, mix it with the mayo, a good amount of lime that I know will make the flavor of the chicken’s seasoning pop as well as dissipate its heat. Chopped cilantro, olive oil, a little apple cider vinegar. I picture Elias scooping a tiny bit of slaw into his palm, getting that approving look in his eye. I picture the lake at night, Emma kicking pebbles as she walks, arms folded, glasses resting on top of her head. I picture life unfolding. Not in any particular direction or manner but just the sheer fact of it, the steady unraveling of time. Outside, the summer storm is unusually late, patches of blue sky still visible out in the valley. I wipe the counter clean, carrying plates to the sink.
The thermometer on the fryer dings, and so I turn to it, setting up the chicken to go in in batches. I prepare a bowl with an absurd amount of cayenne pepper, some sugar, garlic powder, paprika. I pull the quick-pickled cucumbers from the fridge. This, I’ll always have. The joy of a dish come together.
We eat on the balcony, taking advantage of the weather. As best as we can over the sound of chewing, of drinking, of sharp intakes of breath when the spice is almost overwhelming, we talk. Of Europe and the island, of the guys going off to school in a few days, of my application to a culinary school in the city. We talk about Felix, how sweaty he got anytime he had spicy food but how he never shied away from it.
Later, when everyone has left, I walk by the kitchen, getting ready to do the dishes, a little conflicted about the fact that they’ve been washed and stored away. It is, of course, a relief. But I was looking forward to the nostalgia of it all. Which is insane. I was doing dishes for twelve hours a day only a couple of weeks ago. But I haven’t seen my fingers wrinkle in a while, and I somehow miss the sight. My lower back is relaxed, and I do not get to enjoy the relief of being done with the small, temporary pain of standing at the sink. There’s something to be said for discomfort that doesn’t last.
I go to my room, try to read. I still get too aware of life in those moments, see my fingers holding the book up, see my hands attached to my wrists, feel way too close to any of it. I grab my computer, set it atop my hamper as I search for some show or movie to fall asleep to. I end up reading through old emails Felix sent me, looking at pictures from his travels. Just because I expect the pictures to move, to speak to me, there’s no reason they ever will again. I let the sadness crush me for a moment, then quickly click on the first movie my fingers find and lie back in bed, trying to calm my mind.
While the movie plays on, I grab my phone, looking up random recipes, just to see what people are trying out. I look up, again, stuff about the culinary school I’ll be attending. Then I move on to random pictures I took on the island. A bunch of the dishes I made. Emma in the meadow, eating a berry. The full moon from the top of that one hill, its impressiveness in the photograph a sad imitation of the real thing.
We haven’t talked since I left. Not a peep. She never answered any of my messages or calls, and once I got back home and was dealing with everything else, I didn’t know what could possibly be the point of continuing to reach out, other than self-inflicted torture. But because it’s three in the morning, and these things tend to happen at three, I open up my email. I type the first thing I can think of into the body of a new message and then immediately delete it because it was a soufflé-related joke which is intensely stupid. I go the exact opposite direction and tell her I love her. Then I delete the hell out of that.
Years of this, it feels like. The movie ends, credits roll. I still have my phone in my hand, the email perfectly blank. It feels like this will never go away.
I really wish you’d been in my life longer, I finally write. I wish you still were. I’m not entirely happy with all it does and does not say. It’s something, though. I look around my darkened room for a second to see if Felix is about to show up with some words of wisdom, and when it’s clear that’s not going to happen and that I should just go to sleep already, I type Emma’s name into the address line, send it off into the ether and rest my head on my pillow.
Food’s not on my mind. Neither is Felix. Neither is death. Just Emma. It won’t always be like this, I know.
Sleep finally takes me without my noticing, and in the morning, for a moment or two, I am unaware of anything at all except how it feels to be awake again. Then I reach for my phone, flick my fingers this way and that, tap the screen.
1 new email, my phone reads. Emma St. Croix, it elaborates.
What a world, I think.
*
Acknowledgments:
First of all, I’d like to thank the chefs and cooks who read early drafts of the book and consulted on kitchen matters for authenticity. Agata Swinska, Sergio Rodriguez, Diego Valderrama and Kevin Todd, I’m indebted to you for your insight and time. Thank you to the staff at Cooper’s Hawk in Cincinnati for letting me observe a shift in the kitchen. Same goes for Alex Souza and Pixza in Mexico City. I’m also indebted to a few wonderful books: Blood, Bones and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef by Gabrielle Hamilton; Yes, Chef: A Memoir by Marcus Samuelsson; Sous Chef: 24 Hours on the Line by Michael Gibney; Kitchen Confidential and Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain. Also, the dishwasher forums I perused online and all those who posted in them, which helped me shape Carlos’s experiences in the kitchen.