Chapter Six
Six
I wonder who the first person to ever say Life goes on was.
What an asshole. Well, regardless, they’re right.
And so even though my beer-stained shirt leers at me from where it hangs on my closet door, even though Vin’s closed door leers at me from across the apartment, even though my apartment leers at me from across town, I do, in fact, sit at my desk, at work, ignoring all the leering. Because yes, life goes on.
When Vin and I first got together and combined lives, I used to bring home the bacon.
I was the head cook at one of The New School cafeterias and it was a seriously good job.
But I hated the waste. We were told to overestimate on our ordering and our prep, because it’s a private college and the worst thing management could imagine was running out of pesto penne on a Wednesday.
The result? Trash cans full of pesto penne in the alley on Thursday morning.
There are all sorts of regulations about what you can and can’t re-serve, and I’d come home every night after work with tears in my eyes over the waste.
So, when he graduated electrical school five years ago and got hired on as an electrician at Mauricio Electrics, he told me he’d bring home the bacon for a while and I quit at The New School. Now I spend about twenty-five hours a week at Harvest NYC’s office, spread across a few different days.
For an org that does such cool work, Harvest NYC is housed in a very sad office building in East Harlem.
If it weren’t for my coworkers with purple hair and big smiles and loud voices and tats and their bikes parked in their cubicles and their rescue-produce salads in the fridge, this could be any other boring old company selling business cards to other boring companies.
But it’s not! It’s a 501(c)(3) that is doing honest-to-goodness God’s work.
“Sweetie, Kitchen B is open today, if you want to do some testing,” Cherise, my boss, says with an air-kiss as she whisks past me.
“What’s going on in A?” I call after her.
“All the 101s got moved to Tuesdays!” And she’s gone, around the corner.
I peek into Kitchen A, on my way past, because I love to watch Deb, the resident nutrition educator, teach. She’s got a no-nonsense sensibility and was born to feed people. Seriously. She once put a hot dog in my mouth when I was in the middle of saying something.
Today must be the New Moms Nutrition class. There are strollers and car seats next to rows of students taking notes, and Deb is at the front burners lecturing and effortlessly flipping pancakes while she balances someone else’s baby on her hip.
Like I said, it’s God’s work.
I sneak back out to my desk. And now for the part of my job I could really take or leave: the volunteer coordinator part.
Once a week (tomorrow), I lead an orientation for any new volunteers.
It’s generally very sparsely attended (except for the first two weeks of January when everyone remembers that they do, indeed, want to go to heaven).
But today, I’m here to make the volunteer schedule.
Which is basically a game of Jenga played on an Excel sheet.
I send Jaylen to the Union Square farmer’s market on Wednesday but then have to figure out how Warren will get the produce from there to the Bronx in time for the soup kitchen to use it.
Et cetera, et cetera. I’ve never once planned a week with zero hiccups.
Everyone knows that this part of my job could very well be done by AI, but no one mentions it because I do fine enough, don’t bill for extra hours if I make a mistake, and we’re all just trying to keep bread on the table.
After I work through the schedule, I decide I need a pick-me-up and head into Kitchen B.
Which is old and shabby compared to Kitchen A, but it’s clean.
And honestly it’s better to work in the least flashy and outfitted settings possible, because the recipes we’re trying to create should be able to be replicated in anyone’s kitchen. Not a chef’s kitchen.
I like to keep my “make something from nothing” skills sharp by practicing here as well as at home.
And there are about five hundred old cookbooks here.
So once or twice a week, I use the kitchens to pad my recipe-creation skill set.
Basically, I open the Kitchen B fridge, see what we have on hand, and then search the cookbooks for ideas.
It’s like food Mad Libs: make this stromboli with (insert vine vegetable here) and a can of (insert canned vegetable here).
Because of a crate of rescued lasagna noodles (originally thrown out due to inaccurately printed labels), I’ve spent the last few weeks working on different varieties of lasagna.
I’m trying to figure out how to replace the cheese (which can be expensive) with beans (which are generally cheaper and in people’s pantries already) and have it not turn into a dried-out, tasteless mush.
I’ve yet to succeed. I make it in these tiny casserole dishes and choke it down for lunch.
Which is exactly what I do today. Someday we’ll get to the end of this enormous store of lasagna noodles.
Grandma Vittoria would kick my ass if she ever heard I was making lasagna with beans and no cheese.
I’m crouched down, watching my latest attempt bubble through the oven window, when my cell rings in my back pocket.
I’ve still got my eye on the lasagna and it’s Raff’s ringtone, so I answer without looking. “Yello.”
“Hey.”
But it’s not Raff’s voice. It’s Vin.
And then I remember that I changed Vin’s ringtone to match Raff’s back when Raff was living with us, so that it was more like “call from home.” Only it’s clearly been a very long time since Vin called me because I didn’t even remember that. He’s usually more of a one-word texter.
“Roz? You there?”
“Oh. Yeah. Hi. What’s up?”
“I just…you’re not home.”
I blink. “Are you home?” It’s a Tuesday afternoon. Vin usually works a very reliable eight-to-five workday.
“Yeah. Are you…”
“I’m at Harvest. I’m working today.”
“Right. Okay.”
I get that we haven’t really run into each other in a few days and he’s checking to make sure I’m still alive, but it’s been so long since we’ve talked on the phone…“Did you need something?”
There’s a long pause and then, “Do we have Advil anywhere? There’s no more in the bathroom cabinet, but I don’t want to go buy more if we have some someplace else.”
I stand up so fast a spatula overbalances out of a mostly empty can of white beans and they splatter over the counter and floor. I turn away from them and plug the ear that isn’t on the phone. “Are you hurt?”
Everything in my body has gone tight. I feel like I can see spaces in between atoms. Being an electrician can be so fucking dangerous.
What if he’s gotten an electrical burn? Or worse, what if he was electrocuted?
He could have gone into cardiac arrest. He should be at the hospital, not home—The scar on Vin’s back flashes in my mind.
“No, no.” He hears it in my voice, the scattershot panic. “Not hurt. I have a fever. I’m just sick.”
Better than graphically injured in an accident but—when I’ve got this many panic chemicals in my bloodstream—not by much. “What are your symptoms?”
He doesn’t shake me off, thank God. He survived this last year along with me. He knows how it feels to need all the medical information and need it now.
“Sore throat, headache. Fever of 102.5. I just need Advil and sleep. I promise.”
“There’s Advil in the inside pocket of the blue backpack hanging on my closet door. I’ll be there in forty-five minutes.”
“Roz, I’ll be—” But either he’s heard the steel in my voice, or he’s very tired, because instead of arguing, he just softens. “Okay. Don’t rush. Be safe.”
I do rush. Because I’m picturing him passed out on the floor, Advil spilled everywhere like the beans I’m cleaning up at warp speed. The oven dings, I burn myself on the dish and grit my teeth.
But the kitchen is cleaned and polished in record time. I grab my bag and rush out the door, texting Cherise to eat the lasagna and give me her honest opinion, and then I’m skidding onto the train and headed toward my husband.
When I slam through our front door, he’s standing in front of the open fridge, filling a glass of orange juice. He looks wilted and pale, big blue smudges under his eyes.
“Did you take the medicine? How long ago? What dose?” I drop my bag and race to him, think better of it, and quickly wash my hands, wincing when the water touches my fresh burn.
“What happened to your hand?” he demands, reaching for it.
But I’m reaching for his face, feeling for his temperature.
“I’m fine,” he says. “I’m feeling better. Show me your hand.”
I’m not satisfied, reaching to feel his cheeks and neck. He’s grabbing at my hand, trying to see it. I yank back and knock the glass of orange juice. It smashes against the floor like a firework.
I scream and jump backwards, because the shards of glass that have slingshotted across the kitchen floor are not from a juice glass, they’re the plate glass front window of a café, and I’m on my back on a blue tiled floor, there’s a truck wheel spinning idly a few feet above my head, and people are screaming.
Vin’s full weight is laid out over the top of me and he’s not moving.
My vision is in massive, lengthy blinks, and I don’t think I’ll ever breathe again.
I look to my side and there’s Raffi, facing away from me on the blue tile, his forearm cracked into a horrific angle.
There’s a man unconscious beyond him; I can see bone where his cheek is supposed to be.
I’m back in my kitchen now, ripping away from Vin’s strong hands on my shoulders and standing over the kitchen sink. I’m sobbing, but there are no tears. I’m dizzy and nauseated. Gripping the cabinet, I sink down to the floor slowly, my fingers bearing all my weight because my legs simply can’t.
I take long, deep breaths because everyone is always talking about taking deep breaths when you’re panicking, but I don’t even feel like they make it into my lungs. It’s like trying to breathe through packed cotton.
Time passes and when I finally open my eyes, I see that Vin has taken up a mirrored position, seated on the floor, against the counter opposite me. He’s watching me.
The orange juice is a sharp, treacherous ocean between us.
“Roz…” Vin pulls up his knees and rests his arms there, his head hanging down.
“Roz, this is so fucked-up.”
It hurts, but he’s not wrong. “I’m assuming other people can drop glasses without having a meltdown.”
“No.” He’s shaking his head. “Not just you. That was me…I mean…This…I think…this is like…PTSD from the accident.”
I’m taken aback.
Vin grew up pretty old-school. Work hard, get married, have kids, bury your parents, retire, die. No muss, no fuss. When he was a teenager and his mother found a nudie mag in the back of his closet, she rolled it up and walloped him with it. He’s not exactly a psychology-terms sort of guy.
“I—” I shrug. “I guess I don’t know.”
“Because I don’t think this”—he gestures to us on the floor—“is normal. For spilled juice and a low-grade fever and a burn that just needs some ointment.”
“Yeah.” I have to agree. There’s an elastic band of pain around my head, tightening and loosening in rhythm.
We’re silent for a long, long time. I’m about to stand up and insist that he go to bed, but then…
“Are you taking some sort of class?”
I freeze.
Art classes aren’t exactly illegal or illicit, but I still feel like he’s caught me doing something bad.
“I saw the art stuff in your backpack. When I got the Advil.”
“Right. Yeah. Friday nights.” I glance at him, and he’s nodding.
“I get it. Anything to get out of the house.” He stands up and I think I’m about to watch him leave. But he walks to the hall closet and gets the mop. “To get away from—”
He gestures to the broken glass, but then his hand just keeps on going, gesturing to our house as a whole. To—oh, God—our life together, I assume.
Anything to get away, he said. I get it, he said.
Anything.
The panic chemicals have started to freeze over. They’re not racing and hot anymore, they’re sluggish and pulsing with ache. I stand up on cold feet and try to take the mop from him.
“You should sleep.”
He looks like he’s about to protest, so I tug the mop away.
“Seriously, Vin. It’ll make me feel better if you sleep.”
Well, he can’t argue with that. And he doesn’t. He nods, goes to the couch, and collapses. I can tell from his breaths that he’s asleep in less than a minute.
I clean the mess quietly, cautiously.
Don’t rush, he’d said to me on the phone. Be safe.
But ever since the accident I feel like my entire life is on the rush setting. I don’t remember the last time I walked to the train. I jog the whole city. I’m late for work and bursting into Daniel’s art class halfway through.
I’m always rushing. Except…
As soon as I finish cleaning the mess, I tiptoe to my room and grab my supplies out of my backpack. Thank goodness he’s still sleeping when I get back.
I barely take my eyes off him while I draw him.
I’ve haphazardly chosen a blue colored pencil because I didn’t want to dig through my pencil bag and wake him.
It takes twenty minutes for me to get every element down on paper, the tip of his head all the way down to his socked toes.
The drawing is terrible. He’s arched and looks like he’s flying off the couch.
His mouth is in the wrong place, his hands are laughable.
His chest too big, his legs too short. It doesn’t look like Vin at all. But…
I’m not rushing.
It really, really doesn’t look like Vin. So I decide to give the drawing a caption, for clarity. Vin sleeping, I write, and then, after a moment of thought, add one word.
Safe.