No Matter What

Chapter Seven

Seven

“Will you come over and make a dinner for me that will impress my date and make it seem like I’m an incredible cook, but also not so fancy that it’s obvious I didn’t make it? Also will you bring some bananas? I’m out of bananas.” This is Raff over the phone.

“Is this date with the handsome lady bartender?” I ask as I pack up my bag. I’m in my gray little cubicle at work. Sadly, I didn’t even have time to tinker in the kitchen today.

“No, she was a few nights ago.”

“And how was it?”

“Transcendent. She’s extremely into R.E.M. and once split a cab with Bill Murray.”

“Did you have chemistry?”

“Oh, for sure. I met God for about three straight minutes.”

“Gross. Are you going to see her again?”

“Hopefully! She rocks.”

“But this date…”

“Is with my accountant.”

“Raff! For the love of God, don’t shit where you eat.”

“Oh, come on. You only live once. And I love his tiny pants. I’d like to see what’s inside them.”

“So you need me to make you a dinner that will help you get into a man’s tiny pants.”

“Exactly.”

“French omelet it is. I’ll be there in an hour.

” It’s a rare friend that you go to the grocery store for after work, come to his house to make him a dinner you will neither eat nor take credit for, and then vacate to give him the opportunity to get laid by an ill-chosen partner. But yes, Raff is that rare friend.

Raff and I met (of course) at a karaoke bar. I mean, can you think of any better best friend origin story than him needing a duet partner for “Islands in the Stream” and me, a perfect stranger, volunteering?

Well, sorry to disappoint, because that does sound amazing, but what actually happened was that we were both waiting on drinks at the bar and he held up the menu to me and said, What do you think the odds are on these tater tots?

And I said, The odds for what? Food poisoning?

And he said, High? Bad? Like, need-an-IV sort of food poisoning or I-just-get-out-of-work-tomorrow food poisoning?

And I said, Sounds like you need to quit your job.

And he was about to say something else but then got called up to the stage, where I watched him do (it won’t surprise you) the most charismatic rendition of “Raspberry Beret” I’ve ever seen someone do, with the exception of Prince himself.

He brought the house down. I paid for the beer he’d been waiting on and by the time he got back to his barstool there were tater tots, courtesy of me, waiting for him.

Tots! he shouted. We shared them and chatted the rest of the night.

I never really believed in pheromones until I met Raff.

Because he’s tall and certainly slings a confident sexual charisma.

He’s a cocked-head, intense-eye-contact sort of guy.

He’s Hey, do you wanna dance? And then he really dances.

But I never, not once, felt a romantic attraction to him.

I met him and felt such a strong pull to him as a buddy…

and him for me, too. Never once did he put the jets on.

There are no lingering touches, there are no lingering glances, there are no what ifs.

I used to wonder about this. Why I didn’t want to date Raff.

He’s hot, I’m hot, we spent all our time together, made each other scream with laughter, we (were) young, sexually active people.

We fell asleep on couches. We even had a there’s-only-one-bed situation when we got stranded overnight on Fire Island.

But just…nada. I once told Raff that if we’d been in an arranged marriage, we would have been very happy together. In our little twin beds.

After I met Vin, I stopped wondering about this.

Vin is spread legs that press into yours while you’re sitting next to him.

Vin puts himself between you and a crowd so they jostle him and not you.

Vin steadies your elbow when your high heel slips.

I’m not, like, a destiny sort of person, but…

It was like my reactions to the two of them were inverse.

With Raff, all we did was chat and laugh.

With Vin…on our first date, I watched him slide his wallet into his back pocket after paying for the meal and something about it literally made me blush.

His hand (big fingers, veins, you get it) holding the door open for me.

He got me the last seat on the bus and then stood facing me, his belt buckle at eye level. I mean, God.

Vin is not an intense-eye-contact sort of guy, he’s an intense eyes guy.

He looked at every inch of my face on that first date.

When our gazes crossed, he’d look away. Like he didn’t want me to see his thoughts.

When we got off the bus, it was this moment when either we were going to part ways or he was going to take me the rest of the way home.

I was rattled, trying to work out how to tell him I didn’t want this to be over but also wasn’t ready to invite him into my bed yet.

I’d been talking all night to fill in the silences but now I couldn’t think of anything to say.

The silence swelled. He was flustering me by (it felt like) counting my eyelashes from two feet away.

I snapped, held two hands up, and blocked his gaze, like it was bright sun in my eyes.

“I can’t tell if this is going well!” I blurted out.

His hands gripped mine, his thumbs drawing quick circles against my palms. He lowered my hands and for just the barest of seconds, all of his fingers dipped between all of mine. And then he carefully slid his hands into his pockets. “It’s going very well,” he said.

This didn’t help the flustered thing I had going on. “Well!”

And he smiled then, the first time I ever saw it. His full, happy smile. Me being all nervous because of his proximity gave him great joy. “Can I walk you home?” he asked. “And see you tomorrow?”

And that’s Vin. He does not fill silences. But when he asks a question, it’s Can I walk you home and see you tomorrow? When he finally has something to say, it’s I thought about you today. (Second date.)

Or Cold? (Third date, after he’d just raised all my goosebumps by sliding some of my hair out from under my collar.)

Or Let me. (Fourth date, my earring got caught on my sweater.)

And then, when he couldn’t fucking take it anymore: Come here.

(Fifth date, first kiss, my apartment, him standing, hands in pockets, in my kitchen, and me with my back to the counter.

As soon as I took the first step, he closed the distance between us.

It was the sort of first kiss that ended up with me on the counter and my legs wrapped around his waist. He rested his forehead against mine.

Yeah, he’d said, like he’d finally confirmed something he’d been suspecting all along.)

Anyways, Raff.

When Vin and I got married, I felt very strongly that I was becoming both a wife and a sister. Part of me worried that things with Raff might change, now that Vin was my number one, but not much makes a dent in Raff’s self-confidence. Our relationship as in-laws only flourished.

Not exactly sure if that works in reverse. It makes me sick to think about the potential of finding out.

I push the thought from my head and concentrate on Raff handing me a glass of red, washing scallions, and watching me flip the contents of the frying pan with one hand.

“What about dessert?” he asks.

“You have some bread in the fridge. And you’re already on a breakfast theme. Toast it with butter and add some cinnamon and sugar.”

“You should charge for this,” he decides. “Make an app. When people don’t know what to cook for dinner, you FaceTime them, look in their pantries and fridges, and tell them what to make.”

“Or a cooking show,” I say. “I’d have a camera follow me around while I knock on neighbors’ doors and make something from nothing.”

“I would absolutely watch that.” He’s slicing scallions extremely slowly, his tongue poking out of his mouth.

“Anyways, I think they’re underutilizing you at work.

Only having you come up with one recipe a week?

It’s like having Superman on your payroll and just asking him to change the lightbulbs. ”

He’s been on this lately. My wasted potential. He’s certain I’m a genius. I keep trying to tell him he’s confusing genius with just being old-fashioned.

“It does,” I admit. “It does bug me that our reach, my reach, is all so limited. There are so many people who need a meal. And so much food getting dumped. Right this very second, as you’re chopping scallions. It just—yeah, I can’t think about it too hard or I spin out.”

“What about the cookbook idea?”

I wince. Oh, the cookbook idea. One drunk night last year I confessed a silly little idea I’d been playing with.

That maybe a cookbook would be a way to help people figure out how to use their pantries to put dinner on the table any night of the week.

I was trying to think of a way, any way, to do basically what Raff just described with the FaceTime idea.

How do I take all the years of accumulated recipe-ing that’s in my brain and transmit it to all the brains of all the people trying to feed other people?

Raff latched onto it with gusto because who doesn’t love someone else’s ambitious little daydream?

But then I started really thinking about it, and then I started feeling really sheepish about it. Because, what’s a cookbook without a set ingredients list? And besides, it’s not like I make up recipes, I just poach them from other, more experienced people.

“That idea is a bust,” I tell Raff. When I think of how to turn my skills into a book, let alone sell the idea to someone who would help me make it…“I’m all cook, no book.”

“It’s not! At least do one for your friends and family. Like a Christmas gift kind of thing. I’m sick of calling you every time I need to cook a decent meal. I want to feed myself for once.”

“This is what YouTube is for.”

“This is what a best friend is for.”

“Are you wearing that for your date?” I ask him, to distract him, and it works.

“This? Yeah? Why? It’s bad?” It’s a Mister Rogers sweater, but he cut off the sleeves midbiceps.

He’s wearing it open-face with no shirt underneath.

And cutoff jean shorts that go down past his knees.

He’s got a hairy chest and a shaggy cut down over his eyes.

He can’t really grow a beard but his mustache is currently flourishing.

“You know what?” I decide after careful perusal. “He’s probably going to rip his tiny pants off the moment he sees you.”

Raff pats his bare belly. “That’s what I was going for.”

When I finish cooking, I clean. When I finish cleaning, I clean a little more. I’m just checking the expiration dates on his condiments shelf when a big, heavy arm gets draped over my shoulder. “Darling, are we bored?”

“Bored? No, no.” Scared of returning to my sad, cold house where no one loves me? Yes, yes.

His eyes narrow at whatever he reads in my expression. “Should I cancel with Stan? I’m canceling.”

“No! Don’t cancel! I’m leaving.” I bop his phone out of his hands and jam it back into his pocket, maybe a little aggressively.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Something akin to fear crosses his expression. If there’s one thing I’ve learned this last year, it’s that Raff really needs me (and Vin) to be okay. If we’re okay, then he’s okay.

“I’m fine. I’m really fine. I’m gonna go home and crash.”

“Okay…” He’s still suspicious. Following me to the door.

“Probably I’ll watch Golden Girls,” I say, trying to throw him off the scent of my existential depression.

This does the trick. His face eases. If I’m watching Golden Girls, then nothing bad is going to happen to me. I kiss his cheek at the door, wish him well on his date, and jet toward home.

I’m grumpy, tired, a little torn open and I’m not totally sure why. A bus pulls up to the curb half a block in front of me and I know it doesn’t make sense, but running to catch it actually sounds way more tiring than just walking the twenty blocks home.

I hope Raff’s date is filling him up with joy. I hope they’re laughing a lot. I hope they’re happy and fed. I hope they have amazing sex and then get Raff’s quarterly taxes filed.

God, I’m raw.

Next to me, a car performs an ill-advised and poorly timed left turn and oncoming traffic slams on its brakes.

The braking sound just shreds me. The long, angry horns just end me.

Obscenities are flung out open car windows while my heart races.

I’m covering my mouth with both hands. By the time I get home, I’m like a balloon that’s had pins dragged across the surface all day long.

One more thing and I’m just going to pop.

I stop at my front door and press my forehead there while I fumble out my keys. Dinner. Oh, yeah. I still have to make dinner.

When the door swings open, tears fill my eyes, instantly blurring what I’ve gotten a half-second glance at.

Because there’s a full dinner sitting on my kitchen table.

A simple chicken and rice. I can see where Vin’s already taken his portion.

His bedroom door is open, so I know he’s not home, but there’s a note next to the chicken.

Raff told me you’re helping him make dinner for his date.

Marcia sent chicken and rice home with me today.

—V

Marcia is married to his boss, Esteban. About three times a year she sends Vin home with a meal for us. I, of course, reciprocate. And it really couldn’t have come at a better time. Because Marcia is a boss in the kitchen. Seriously. Some people just have it. And she has it.

I quickly wash up and then make myself a plate, thanking the universe and digging in. I really, really needed someone to make a meal for me tonight.

But…

I chew, swallow, and then take another bite.

This is…kind of bland. And kind of tough.

A little zip goes down my spine as I rise slowly from my chair and survey my kitchen.

I don’t see any of Marcia’s normal glass Tupperware out.

And…there are dishes drying in the rack that I didn’t use.

I walk slowly toward my oven, like I’m in a horror movie and the bad guy is about to jump out and make me fight for my life.

There’s a high, tingly, trembly feeling in my chest.

I reach out an open palm. A question. An open request of the universe. Tell me. And I press my palm to the oven door.

It’s still warm.