Chapter 27
NOW
The tastes of this place, and so many others, are the basis I have for flavor. The food of my mother’s kitchen and this island set the gold standard for me that even some of the most buzzworthy restaurants haven’t been able to beat.
“Shit,” I say, “I’m not wearing any shoes. I can’t go in.”
Austin looks down at my feet. “It’s a shack on the beach, I don’t know how much it matters. We’ll sit outside.”
“Health code–wise, it matters.”
He wrinkles his nose at me. “I once watched you eat a cheeseburger you dropped on the ground.”
“Okay, that was a long time ago.”
“Like, the patty fell out—”
“I have grown since then, okay?” I can’t help but laugh. “But that was a really good burger.”
“I have some sneakers in the back.”
He leans back to reach for them, shirt lifting to expose his truly amazing stomach and the suggestive curvature that leads down from the waistband of his jeans. I tear my eyes away just as he sits back, holding up a pair of Nikes.
I hesitate and then snatch them. “God.”
I dust the sand off my feet and slip my size eights into his size twelves.
We walk up the boardwalk and I hear him chuckling behind me as my feet flap noisily on the planks.
“It’s not funny!” But I’m losing the battle with my straight face.
We hate him. Ignore his charm.
The A-frame outside advertises with glee that it’s SATURDAY! and tells us that ice-cold draft beers are five dollars.
For casual outside dining, there’s a quaint ordering window. I forgot about that, but it’s been on my “if I ever open a restaurant” dream board forever.
He orders fish and chips, I get the shrimp roll, and we decide to split an order of shrimp cocktail. You can, in my opinion, never have too much shrimp.
“You have the pilsner on draft?” he asks. When the cashier confirms, he says, “One of those.”
“Two,” I correct.
He looks at me in surprise. So far, I’ve been teetotaling this whole time. But I can’t resist. The smell of fried food, the ocean, and sunscreen in the air, plus the key advertising words of ice-cold have suckered me in.
“Two beers, please.” He hands over his card and then punches in a generous tip.
I secretly, involuntarily add this to the pros column in the tally my mind is always making around him.
This implies a cons column, but it’s very unpopulated.
Mostly just big red letters that read: brOKE YOUR HEART MORE THAN ONCE.
“You don’t have to pay me back.”
“I didn’t plan on it,” I say. “You owe me.”
See: heartbreak.
He accepts this without comment as we sit down at a picnic table shaded by a live oak strung with fairy lights that can only be seen once you’re beneath its branches.
I take my feet out of the shoes under the table and rest them on top of the laces.
“So how do you make money these days?” I ask, then after taking my first sip of beer in who knows how long, I say, “Oh god, that’s good.”
“You’re not an alcoholic having a relapse and not telling us, right?”
“No,” I say, “though I appreciate the concern. I just work so much and feel like I can’t risk being anything but completely on my game.”
“So … what do you do for fun?”
“I do Pilates? And my gym has really good equipment.”
“Fun, I said.”
“There’s a steam room and a sauna.”
“Even I think that’s a little sad. And I’m me.”
Coming from a world-class athlete, I have to fold. “Fine. Right now, there’s not really any time for fun. I recognize this isn’t a great balance, but … the fun will come.”
“When?”
I let out a big exhale and say, “Great question.”
“At least you love your job, right? Cooking makes you happy.”
The words don’t ring true in this moment. But I know that they are, so I shrug. “Yeah.”
He looks unconvinced, but doesn’t press the matter.
“And you, what are you doing for work these days?” I ask this because I have to.
Because he’s a ghost on the internet and I haven’t been able to properly stalk like we’re all supposed to be able to do these days.
Isn’t that the trade-off for all the bad things about the internet?
That we can stalk our exes and make sure they’re miserable and/or dating people who look like they probably suck and aren’t as funny or cool or smart as we are?
Austin raises his eyebrows and then says, adopting a spot-on Cary Grant accent, “Come now, how uncouth. Dreadfully tacky to talk about money, isn’t it, dear?”
I bite the inside of my cheek and run a hand through my hair. It’s inflated by an inch since we got here. “Well, I’m wondering. It’s been at least a year since I’ve seen you in a new Adidas ad. Speaking of which, isn’t it a crime to have Nikes in your truck?”
Austin gives a dry laugh. “Yeah, the old sponsorship well finally ran dry.”
“Oh.”
“They don’t love giving sponsorships to guys who haven’t played in a decade and don’t use social media.”
I nod. I don’t like it, but even the restaurant has to play that stupid game.
He goes on. “I, uh, I coach.” He makes his lips a flat line and says, “You’d be surprised what rich people are willing to pay a guy who almost went to Wimbledon.”
I tilt my head at him, unable to let this through, no matter how mad at him I am. “You didn’t just almost go. That makes it sound like you failed.”
He gives a half smile. “Didn’t I?”
I breathe in and try to manage the flood of feelings threatening. “No. And you know it.”
Again, I see he doesn’t buy it, but doesn’t argue either. “Okay, so why are you trying to sell the house, Chef Bennett?”
“Dreadfully tacky.”
“I’m just saying. Times articles, a fancy position at a fancy restaurant, on a fancy street, in a fancy city. You don’t seem broke.”
I roll my eyes.
“You brought it up.”
“I just don’t know when I’ll break even.
I still have a shit ton of student loans, and I don’t know if you’ve heard much about those things?
But they don’t … seem … to go down.” I punctuate each of the last few words with a light slap on the table.
“Even when you can finally afford to pay every month.”
“You still have those? Damn. I’m sorry, Red.”
“Yep. Pretty hard to make any real dent, life costing what it does in New York. And pretty annoying to send a bunch of money into the void every month for something I didn’t even want to do. And all because Babe had to project her regrets onto me!”
And not onto Sammie, I don’t add. Because he knows. He was there. Babe always regretted not going to college, so she insisted I go. She said restaurants were all the same, that no matter how high you climb, you’re still in a hot kitchen, toiling away over a stove, on your feet twelve hours a day.
In a way, she was right. But in another, possibly more important way, she wasn’t.
So rather than going to culinary school or skipping it altogether, I did as she asked. I went to a state school where I learned nothing much and then never used my degree, pivoting right after graduation to work in restaurants.
“Four years of school and all I have to show for it is six figures of debt and some super dope beer pong skills,” I deadpan.
“You are pretty hard to beat.” He gives me a roguish smile.
“Makes it all worth it.”
He laughs. “But you’re right. It wasn’t fair that she made you go and not Sammie.”
I appreciate him not trying to rationalize it away like people often do.
Instead, Sammie got to backpack through Europe via an organic farming program. It was pretty painful seeing her pictures from the olive farm in Greece while I crammed for a biology test using information I forgot the actual instant class ended.
Austin sees me locked in my reverie and taps me under the table with his knee. “It’s just money, Red. It’ll come and it’ll go.”
“Easy for you to say. The guy who once got paid to drive an Aston Martin for a week.”
“That was a good week.”
“And still you never got rid of that old lemon.”
“I love that truck! Good memories in that truck.” He winks.
I die a little, again.
A girl comes over with a plastic tray. “Okay, I’ve got fish and chippies, roll, cocktail.”
“Thank you so much.”
“So can we finally talk about what happened?”
“I’m eating.”
He gives me a look. “You want to stay mad at each other.”
“It’s not my fault we’re in this mess.”
“That’s why we need to talk about it. I don’t think it’s my fault either.”
“Objectively crazy!” I nearly shout, shrilly, beer gone to my head already. I take a bite of my roll and nearly melt off my seat. The buttery brioche makes a loud crunch, pillowy and soft on the inside, the shrimp mixture flavorful but not too rich. I let out a moan.
He takes a mouthful of his golden, beer-battered fish and says, passionately, “Oh, god, yeah.”
We may as well be having sex.
When every single morsel has been enjoyed, we push our trays away and order another round of beer.
I put my elbow on the table and look out at the water. “I never do this.”
“Go on dates?”
“Ha ha,” I laugh, dryly, pretending his joke didn’t strike an actual chord in me. “No, like eat carbs and drink in the middle of the day. If I’m not at work, I’m thinking or texting or stressing about work. I’m actually surprised how little it’s coming to mind since being here.”
“Bigger stuff going on, I guess.”
Our beers arrive. “Yeah. I suppose losing your remaining parent will push some other stuff out of the way.”
We’re quiet for a minute. A few seagulls call out and a group of friends nearby erupts into laughter over a card game.
“I’m really sad she’s gone.”
My eyes lock onto his at his words. It’s the first time I’ve heard someone acknowledge it in a way that doesn’t feel like it’s for me. He’s not sorry to hear about it, sorry I lost a parent. He’s sad because he loved her too.
That’s the thing about mothers. One second, you’re off on a diatribe about all the ways she ruined your life, and the next you’re close to tears all because a boy you like is nice about her.
“I know you two had a lot of ups and downs, but she was your mom. I know it must be … I don’t know, hard doesn’t cover it.”
I nod curtly, trying to keep the emotion at bay. “Yeah. I don’t really know what to feel.”
“Can I … can I ask what happened with her?”