Chapter 12 Let the Flames Begin
Let the Flames Begin
Eve
It was Tuesday, finally. And despite all of Eve’s efforts to be unaffected by that fact, all she could think about was what it meant: Jamie would return soon.
The days crawled by without him, and even more so after the shitty weekend she’d had.
Leo’s last words hung over her head like an anvil, her hollowness amplified.
And the only thing that had made her feel a little less empty was Jamie.
Granted, she’d known him only a matter of days, and if someone asked her his last name, she would’ve had to make one up.
But she liked the way she felt around him.
And if he was okay with being around her, perhaps she wasn’t as fucked up as her self-doubt would have her believe.
So she could admit, at least to herself, that she looked forward to seeing him again.
After spending all afternoon waiting for the sound of Jamie’s charmingly loud truck, Eve opted to stop by his house and invite him to dinner.
Sure, it would seem eager, maybe even thirsty, showing up so soon, hat in hand, but…
much of her pride had been stamped out already anyway.
And she’d promised herself that if Jamie returned, she would stop acting like such a jackass.
Making him a meal felt like a good first step toward that resolution.
Jamie arrived at 7:00 p.m. to a three-course meal of bruschetta, beef braciole, and poached cherries.
By eight, he was telling Eve it was the best meal he’d ever had.
She wasn’t sure she believed him, but it was a compliment either way.
Eve wasn’t exactly known for her kitchen skills—that was Leo’s pursuit—but she’d mastered this one dinner, at least. Braciole, aka involtini in Italy, was made of sirloin and prosciutto, parsley and garlic, three different cheeses, and pine nuts, with homemade breadcrumbs as the filling.
It was a labor of love, standing over the stove while it cooked for two hours in a tomato sauce with red wine.
For their dessert, she’d cooked some Rainier cherries in Tempranillo and brown sugar, then topped it with a dollop of honeycomb custard.
It wasn’t as good as whatever magic Jamie served at his place, but it did the job.
“Did you go to cooking school while you were gettin’ all your other degrees?” Jamie wondered.
Eve grinned at the way he dropped his g ’s every now and then. “Definitely not. Got these recipes from a coworker.”
Jamie accepted that answer as he scraped up the last bits of cherry and brown sugar. “I think I’d pay you to make this for us every week.”
“Well, I don’t come cheap, so I hope you’re prepared if I decide to take you up on that.” Eve didn’t miss his use of us , and something within her liked that he was including her in his plans. Something else within her was terrified of it.
“I’m prepared.” He grabbed his wineglass and finished what was left of it. “So you’ve been here for almost two weeks now. How are you liking it?…Or not liking it?”
“I actually…I’m getting used to it.” She reflexively scanned her grandmother’s home.
While he was gone, it was all she had, and she was coming around to really loving her space.
“This feels more like me now,” she said, gesturing generally.
“And I’m getting more comfortable with the town. I don’t feel quite as lost.”
“So you’ve been to places other than Crockett’s?”
“Well…no.”
“Not even Food City?”
“I literally drove to Knoxville for a Whole Foods.”
Jamie laughed, presumably at how bougie she sounded, and Eve was grateful he didn’t seem to take it too seriously.
“Better than nowhere,” he said.
“Safe to say you’ll be my only entertainment for a while.”
“I’m not gonna complain about that,” he said, grinning. As she rose from the table, taking both of their emptied bowls to the sink, he added, “It’s nice talking to you without the aid of three glasses of whiskey.”
Eve’s face grew warm, and it wasn’t from alcohol this time, but sheer embarrassment. “I don’t think it was three.” She hoped it wasn’t anyway.
“Shit, was it four?”
She tried and failed to suppress a laugh. “It wasn’t my finest hour.”
Jamie joined her in the kitchen, bringing their stemware with him. “I like to think you’re getting used to me.”
Eve rolled her eyes. “You want more wine?”
He responded by pushing his glass toward her. “You’re like a puzzle I don’t have all the pieces to yet.”
She ignored his comment, along with the tingling in her cheeks, to pour his drink. She could feel his gaze flirting with her until she could no longer stand the heat, forcing her to turn away. “Come,” she instructed, taking off before he could reply.
Without protest, Jamie followed her up the staircase that led to the extra bedroom—Eve’s room.
She’d bedecked the space in mostly white, turning the old-fashioned space into her modern personal oasis, including a new queen-sized bed to replace the tiny wooden one, complete with complementing nightstands.
She’d also converted one half of the angled ceiling into a wall of warm lights that made her room glow like Christmas.
She admired her own work as she guided Jamie through, but she noticed his footsteps grow more tentative as they moved farther in.
“Can I ask what we’re doing?”
Eve laughed at the unease in his question. For the first time in their short history, she felt like she was the steady one between them. “Are you nervous?”
“More like…curious.”
She boasted a self-satisfied smile as they reached the balcony, hoping the scenery would satiate his curiosity. “I just thought we could hang out here,” she said, showing off her view. Even in the darkness of dusk, those Great Smoky Mountains were stunning. “Sorry I don’t have chairs…”
“No, it’s fine.” He leaned against the railing with his glass. “This is nice.”
She smiled at the side of Jamie’s face, pleased that he agreed. She was having a bit of déjà vu as she gazed at his splendid profile, enjoying the shape of his nose and the way his dark hair curled around his ears. But this time, she detected a hint of melancholy.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Yeah…” He sighed and stood up straighter, relieving the balustrade of its duty. “Wine makes me sleepy.”
It felt like he was being evasive, but she didn’t know him well enough to push the issue. “Well. If you wanna talk, I’m here. And if you don’t wanna talk, I’m here.”
Jamie looked at her. “Is that right?”
“Don’t say it like it’s so unbelievable. I’m a good listener. When I wanna be.”
“I guess there’s still time to prove that.”
Eve smiled again, relishing in his wit. Most men didn’t have the range, but Jamie rolled with her thorny punches, and maybe even considered them a challenge. It just made her want to talk to him even more. Eager to see what he’d say next.
“It’s my mom,” Jamie announced as he swirled the contents of his glass. “Or…I don’t know. I guess it’s my ex.”
“It’s alarming that you don’t know the difference.”
He chuckled. “You’re not wrong.”
“What did she…or they…do?”
“It’s a long, sordid story. But I guess I just feel…stuck. Resenting both of them for ruining everything and still getting to be happy. I don’t know.”
Eve gazed at him pensively. It wasn’t obvious at first glance, as he seemed so at ease. But this was that hint of darkness she’d detected in him. There was a little gloom there. Probably what kept drawing her to him.
“You don’t feel like you’re happy?”
“I feel like I’m fine. My kid is amazing. I could go through my entire life the way it is now and probably be okay with it,” he said, finishing off his wine. “But I don’t know that I’d call myself happy.”
Eve automatically recalled Don Draper delivering the line What is happiness?
It’s a moment before you need more happiness .
She was a bit fascinated by the way white people—white men, especially—found it to be so elusive.
Black folks rarely got to concern themselves with their version of happy.
Didn’t ask for much beyond safety, financial stability, and family.
Black happiness was too often rooted in plain old survival.
White people seemed to define it by avoiding boredom.
“Maybe happy is overrated,” she offered.
“I don’t know about that. Maybe it’s fleeting, but…I gotta believe there’s somethin’ more. Some people reach self-actualization, right?”
“You think your ex has?”
“Probably not what Maslow had in mind. But her version of it, maybe.” He bit his bottom lip contemplatively before adding, “Maybe half the battle is just finding someone and something you like.”
Eve looked down at the balcony floor, Jamie’s comment managing to send her to Leo. It was that simple: She didn’t like him. She loved him. At some point. But if she ever really liked him, it didn’t last long; it was a wonder they lasted for as many years as they did.
“Maybe so.” She swatted a tear that appeared on her cheek, hoping Jamie hadn’t noticed.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to bring down the mood.”
“No, I asked. And I get it. When everyone around you seems okay, it’s hard not to wonder where you went wrong.”
Jamie nodded, his blue eyes focused on the black abyss in front of them. “We can move on to easier subjects.”
“Easier subjects like what?”
He looked at her then. “You got any book recommendations?”
“I should be asking you that,” Eve said, recalling his eclectic bookshelf. “I’ve only been rereading. Maya Angelou. For work.”
“Oh yeah. I saw Mom & Me & Mom on your coffee table.”
Eve met his gaze, mildly surprised that he’d noticed.
“You using that for your play?”
She shrugged. “It’s a long, sordid story.”
He grinned at her joke, though she was only about half kidding. “Well, if you feel like reading about the rise of the Islamic State, that’s what I just finished,” he said.
Eve laughed at first, but her face quickly contorted into concern when she realized he was serious.