28
Al dente: To the tooth; the texture of cooked pasta when it’s tender but firm and chewy when bitten into.
2016
The kitchen door opened, letting in cold air and Gale already shucking his coat.
“Sorry I’m a little late.”
“You can get started on the dinner rolls.”
Regina jutted her chin toward the bagged, partially baked dinner rolls on the largest of the prep tables, her hands too busy slicing carrots to point.
“I want a milk wash on them so they get nice and brown.
There’s nothing more disgusting than pale dinner rolls.”
“I can think of a lot more disgusting things.”
Gale set down his bag, put on his apron.
No chef coats in Regina’s kitchen.
“It smells amazing in here.”
“Yankee pot roast,”
she said.
“There was a special on chuck at the C-Town.
I bought out all they had yesterday.
It’s been braising since lunch.”
“Only you can make chuck roast into something delicious.”
Regina grunted.
“Anyone can make chuck taste good with some salt and a Dutch oven.”
“But you’ve got more than that going.”
Gale gave a long sniff.
“I smell garlic, onions, rosemary.
And thyme. And—”
“Great, you know the recipe.
Can you get a move on with those rolls now?”
Despite his light, teasing manner—too light, too teasing—Gale hadn’t yet met her eyes.
His presence thrummed like the wire on an egg slicer ready to snap.
Maybe it hadn’t been a great idea, encouraging him to do the competition again.
She’d been trying to decide whether that had been for his benefit, or Queenie’s. Regina felt her more often, lately. Not insisting, but no longer pleading. Just sort of . . . there.
As always, once Gale got into his groove, the jittery thrum of him eased.
The rolls were basted and he was putting them into the oven before Regina finished slicing carrots.
“We’re roasting these, too.”
She drizzled oil over the hotel pan of carrots, gave them a good shake before sliding them across to him.
“No one likes a boiled carrot.”
A little butter, salt, and dill after they were nice and caramelized, and they’d be delicious.
It was nice, being able to be more thoughtful about the food she served.
Missing Troy—the usuals still missed his eggs—didn’t diminish the benefit of Gale’s competence in the kitchen that allowed her to think more about the food, get slightly more creative.
Like the apple crumble waiting to be assembled, according to her dinner service checklist. Everything else was done, or in the process of cooking.
“Now just the dessert,”
Regina said.
“Apples are prepped and in the walk-in.”
Gale fetched the apples, two buckets at a time.
“That’s a lot of apples,” he said.
“I think we have enough for four trays.”
“When did you peel all these?”
“Your mom did them earlier.
You should have seen her with the apple peeler.
I never saw anyone have so much fun.
She made winding a whole apple without the skin breaking into a game.”
“That’s my mom.”
Gale smiled, kind of winced.
He turned his back on Regina to dump the apples into the colander.
Regina mixed the oats, brown sugar, butter, and dried cranberries by hand.
Gale had already portioned the sliced apples into four hotel pans and was coating them with her mixture of cornstarch, cinnamon, cloves, salt, and nutmeg.
She went behind him, sprinkling a thick layer of crumble on top.
They spoke little, and only when necessary while they finished making dessert and got it into the last oven. In the short time he’d been in the kitchen, Gale had gone from overly cheery to uncomfortable to silent. That could mean only one thing.
“You’re nervous.”
She set a mug of coffee in front of him, breaking his stare into space.
“Having second thoughts?”
“Huh? What?”
“The competition.”
He rolled his eyes dramatically.
She nearly smiled.
“You don’t have to do it, you know.”
“I signed the contract.”
“Those things are breakable.”
She stirred sugar in her tea, a little milk.
“If you’re going to back out, do so sooner rather than later.”
“I’m not backing out.
I’m not really nervous.
Well, I am, but I’m excited too.
I know what to expect. I’ve . . . uh . . .”
He thumbed the handle of his coffee mug, studying it like he was trying to find a chip.
“.
.
. been doing some research.”
“Research, huh? I thought you exhausted that the first time around.”
“Ha! Not quite.”
Wild-eyed.
Almost scary.
Almost sad.
She sipped her coffee, giving him a moment.
“Is Marco making up crates for you? Is that it? I’m not going to be insulted, even if he has the creativity of a—”
“I saw all your shows.”
Thwunk.
Right between the eyes.
Coffee splashed over the top of her mug, onto her hands, the table.
“You . . . what?”
“Saw all your shows.”
Gale wiped up the coffee with his sleeve, gaze everywhere but on hers.
“Well, a lot of them.
Enough to .
. . anyway, I didn’t know they were yours. I mean, I knew as soon as I saw you, but I didn’t start watching them because it was you. Mom sent me links way before the last competition, and I never got around to watching them, then I couldn’t get them to play, but Kyle and I had nothing to do so I tried Netflix and . . .”
He finally looked at her, eyes so strained around the edges it made her heart thump.
“.
.
. there you were.”
Regina slumped back in her chair.
A dull drone buzzed up from her belly, into her ears.
It wasn’t anger.
Not even fear.
It’s just a good hiding spot that’s going to bite you in the ass one of these days.
It felt more like . . .
“I didn’t Wiki you or anything,”
Gale blurted.
“Well, Kyle did, but I made him stop.
I knew you wouldn’t want .
. . I mean . . . I figured you didn’t . . . point is, I didn’t dig into your past. I just watched the shows. I swear. I couldn’t help myself. You were . . . you are . . . I mean, big doesn’t even come close to it. I can’t believe it took me this long to . . . Regina?”
.
. . relief.
“Regina, I’m so sorry.”
Her vision blurred, but only around the edges.
Hadn’t she been expecting this? Since Marco? Since Lucy? Since the beginning?
She tapped his hand across the table, attempting a smile she feared, hoped, came across as her usual grimace.
“You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“I swear I’m not going to tell anyone.”
But Kyle would.
Maybe not yet, but eventually.
He was a nice guy, but the whereabouts of Queenie B was too big for him to sit on forever.
He’d tell someone, who’d tell someone, who’d tell, who’d tell, who’d tell. Reporters would show up at the soup kitchen. Paparazzi with their cameras. Old photos would be dredged up. Speculation would be made.
“I know you won’t.”
She pushed away from the table, took his full mug and hers to the sink, saying over her shoulder, “Finish the crumbles and get them into the oven.”
“Okay.”
He pushed away from the table, chair legs scraping.
“Yeah, sure.
No problem.”
Gale got to work, looking over his shoulder so often he looked like a bobblehead.
Regina stirred this, checked that.
Outwardly, calm.
Inside, she was already running. Searching for that next place to hide in. Mentally saying goodbye to her soup kitchen, its regulars. Gladys and Lucy and Marco and . . .
Gale.
Her chest squeezed, knocking the breath from her body.
“I’ll be back in a sec,”
she said, darting for the door leading up to her apartment.
In the dark of that stairwell, she pressed fingers to her eyes, fought that old monster hiding under her bed since the fire.
Quiet for a time, it now clawed the lifesaving blankets away.
Regina couldn’t catch her breath. How many times did she have to lose everything?
She hid from the monster’s gnashing teeth.
Run, it said.
Run fast.
Run now. Regina longed for the unlongable, for the oblivion that had been the only thing to ever hush the rushing, pulsing, screaming inside her. Back then. Now. Hitting her as it hadn’t in so long, she’d almost felt safe. A lesson in some things never changing. Because it all balanced on the edge of a chef’s knife.
She dropped to the bottom step so she wouldn’t go upstairs.
To the bottle of wine she kept for cooking but never opened after the rage that resulted in replacing all the marble in her apartment kitchen.
The cell phone in her back pocket jabbed.
Pulling it free, she was tapping Marco’s number before her brain could stop her flying fingers.
“Hey, what’s—”
“I need you,”
she whispered. “Now.”
“I’ll be right there.”
That was all.
Her summons.
His compliance.
No.
Her plea.
His empathy.
How long she sat in the dark, Regina couldn’t say.
Moments.
Hours.
It felt like hours battling the churning in brain and gut and heart. Nothing had changed. She told herself that, over and over. It was only that Gale knew.
Gale knew.
Gale knew.
A tidal wave crashing.
The door opened a crack, then all the way and quickly closed.
An arm slipped around her shoulders.
Any other arm, and she’d have flailed and kicked herself free of it.
Resting her head on his shoulder, she matched her breathing to his. In. Out. In. Out. Focused on the warmth of him. His arm, his presence.
“Gale knows who I am,”
she said into the dark.
“First you, then Lucy, now Gale.
And Kyle, too.
You were right. All this hiding is coming to bite me in the ass.”
She groaned, heels of her palms pressed to her eyes so she wouldn’t cry.
“I can’t do it again.
I can’t run.
I can’t hide. I can’t lose all of you.”
“Shh,”
he said, rocking her now, as if she were a little girl. “Shh.”
She hadn’t flailed and kicked herself free of him; Regina didn’t rage against his soft command either.
Leaning more heavily into him, she let herself be rocked and shushed, the motion and sound lulling the monster near enough to sleep for the muscles in her shoulders to unknot.
But it never slept.
Not completely. Even through these years of atonement and redemption, the monster born in fire who became all the worst of Queenie B kept one eye open, waiting.
“You’re not her,”
he said, so softly she couldn’t be sure he’d spoken at all.
“She’s you.”
The truth in his words trickled through her, starting in her ear, worming into her brain.
Down her throat.
Into her belly.
Tingling to fingers and toes.
Not Marco’s words.
Not Marco’s voice.
Not Marco.
Gale.
“Regina?”
Marco called.
From the kitchen.
The door flew open, letting light into that dark stairwell.
Gale smiled awkwardly back at her. His arm fell away and up he got, without a word or backward glance.
“Hey, Marco.”
He nodded in passing.
“Hey.”
Marco glanced from Gale to Regina, eyebrows raised.
Regina watched him go, her eyes adjusting to the sudden light, her heart not so much pounding as it was swelling.
A lump rose in her throat, thwarting any words that might have tried to form.
Memorizing the contours and taste of it, Regina swallowed the lump gently down.
“You okay?”
Marco helped her to her feet.
“What happened?”
In the kitchen, Gale checked the braising pot roasts as if he’d not just proved his bravest, kindest love.
Without declaration.
Without show.
A rush of panic and love and gratitude swept over her, bracing as wind blowing in off the Sound.
She closed the door behind Marco, closed them into darkness.
Thick silence muffled the simple chaos of emotion trying to come clean.
“Reg?”
“Shh.”
She nestled into him. “Shh.”
Marco’s arms came around her.
Her plea.
His empathy.
It melded with the remnants of Gale’s devotion lingering like the scent of freshly baked cookies, good and sweet, in the stairwell. Sparked by kindred chaos, cemented in food. The all. The everything. Grown into love that braved the dragon in her den.
Gale.
Marco.
And Lucy too.
What had she done in her ill-spent life to deserve any of them? Regina couldn’t guess.
She didn’t even try.