Chapter IV
IV
James
After we order, Lucy gives me a little head shake. “I’ve been talking too much. Tell me about you,” she says. She folds her hands in front of her, and I can almost physically feel the vibe shift, but I’m not sure why.
I try not to dwell on it. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything?” She must see the flash of fear in my eyes, because she quickly recalibrates. “Let’s start with this restaurant of yours in Oregon.”
“Proposed restaurant. I’m not sure I’ll be able to make it happen.”
“Not with an attitude like that.” She gives me a cheesy fake smile. “But why Oregon? Didn’t you just get to New York?”
I nod, far from excited to now be the center of the conversation, but at least this is something I know how to talk about.
“This is just a stopover. I went to culinary school in Philly and worked at a restaurant there for the last five-ish years. That was great, but they made some changes recently and I ended up . . .”
Lucy offers a kind smile. “Going a different direction?”
I wasn’t exactly let go, but I might as well have been, so rather than get into the details, I move on.
“A friend of mine who’s the chef for a catering company offered me a spot here for the summer.
It’s the busy season, so.” I shrug. “I appreciate the work, and the money, but New York isn’t really my scene. ”
Lucy sips her Coke and waits for me to continue. It’s simultaneously nerve-racking and a rush to have her full attention on me.
“Back in Oregon, my parents and Rebecca’s parents still live on the same street.
And my grandma—not the one I share with Rebecca, my other one—her house is just a few blocks away.
She watched me all the time. Rebecca, too, and some neighbor kids that I still keep in touch with.
It was like one big extended family.” I run a hand through my hair, involuntarily remembering how my grandma used to ruffle it.
“The plan has always been to go back home. It’s my favorite place in the world. ”
As those words leave my mouth, I’m suddenly aware just how little of the world I’ve seen, especially in comparison to Lucy. But it’s hard to imagine finding another place I love as much.
“Have you actually saved enough to open your own place?” she asks.
“Oh, not even close.” She laughs. “But my grandma passed away last year, and she left me her house.”
Lucy seems unsure how to respond. “I’m sorry . . . and congrats?”
I hurry to put her at ease. “She was ninety-five, died in her sleep. I miss her, but she lived a great life.” A memory warms my chest. “She went on a three-mile walk the day before she died, just like every other day. She’d steal a flower from each neighbor, coming home with a huge bouquet.”
Lucy gives me a bittersweet smile. I run a finger over a crack in the vinyl seat.
“Newport—that’s the town in Oregon—it’s this old seaside village with a wooden boardwalk and unreasonable quantities of chowder.
It has lighthouses, it’s so fucking quaint,” I say, and Lucy snort-laughs.
“Not a lot of restaurant jobs, but I’ve always wanted my own place.
I’m looking at possible locations and trying to get a loan using the house as collateral.
” I shrug involuntarily. “I really don’t know if it’ll work, but I’m trying. ”
“Why wouldn’t it work?” She says it like it’s already a done deal, like she has zero doubts I can make this happen. Her confidence in me makes my heart pound.
“I need a big loan, and I’m not exactly a Michelin-starred chef.”
“You’re not? I thought they handed those things out like candy.” Her eyes shine, and we share a smirk.
“I just want to make comfort food for regular people. Nothing too elaborate. The dream is a locally loved haunt that flies under the radar, barely pays my bills, and lets me live out my life in my favorite place with my favorite people.”
Lucy beams at that, and it’s impossible not to beam back at her. “So that’s the plan,” she murmurs. “When the summer’s done, you go to Oregon. Forever.”
“That’s it.”
As the words leave my mouth, my ex-girlfriend’s face flashes across my mind—hazel eyes, dimpled cheeks, cropped auburn hair that she tucked behind her ears whenever she laughed.
Miriam and I dated for most of high school and broke up a year into culinary school.
The distance was too much for us, and there wasn’t a clear end in sight.
Miriam is still in Newport as far as I know, and I think she’s single—I don’t ask our mutual friends, and they don’t offer.
When I think about moving back, I think of her.
I wonder if I should say any of this to Lucy. If the way she reacted to my admission about leaving New York soon is any indicator, she won’t feel threatened or disappointed. But a lot has happened since the beginning of the night.
For now, I choose silence.
Our food arrives, and Lucy chuckles to herself. “What?” I ask.
She pushes the burger she ordered aside and goes for one of the French dips. “It’s just funny,” she muses as her eyes run over the sandwich fondly. “You’re heading to one side of the planet to put down roots, and I’m heading to the other side to go gallivanting from place to place.”
“Good use of ‘gallivanting.’”
“Thank you.”
I rearrange my sandwich with a bit more care than whoever first assembled it. “I guess it is funny. When I said this couldn’t go anywhere earlier—”
“You really meant it.” She’s clearly delighted by the dark humor of it all. Then she sits forward in her seat and grips her sandwich with both hands before lifting her eyes to mine. “Thank you for this. Truly.”
We both dip into the au jus and take a big bite. The thinly sliced roast beef and soft buttered roll mixed with steaming broth—no cheese, no nothing—are such a simple, remarkable pleasure.
The conversation dies down as we eat, both quietly savoring.
It almost feels ceremonial. Like we’re honoring Lucy’s mom through beef and bread.
I’ve always had a deep respect for the way food brings people together, the intense meaning that it can hold, but even I didn’t anticipate this outcome when I placed the order.
I steal a glance at her, her focus still fully on her sandwich.
She either hasn’t noticed or doesn’t care that her dress has slipped a few inches down her right shoulder, revealing a white satin bra strap.
I can’t stop myself from following the line of it down her chest to its vanishing point beneath the low cut of her neckline.
I trace the tops of her small breasts with my eyes and get lost in a vision of standing behind her, holding her long body against mine.
I feel myself start to get hard imagining what her nipples might look like.
She’s coming to the end of the first half of her sandwich, and she’s really going for it. I watch as she takes a particularly large bite and broth drips down her chin. I did not expect that to make me even harder.
I take a sip of my drink to cool off as she laughs at herself and wipes her chin with the back of her wrist. Her black eyes meet mine, and I feel like I’ve been caught. But I also sort of hope she senses where my mind is at, what being around her is doing to me.
And maybe she does. Her laughter fades away, but her focus stays on me. Her eyes gain a coyness I remember from the bowling alley. She had that same look after our kiss. “Eat fast,” she says. “There’s somewhere I want to take you.”