Chapter 7
Olivia
Now
Once a client asked me what my meal of choice would be to break awkward tension, and I answered a seafood boil.
Cap’t Loui on Atwells Avenue is spacious, with three rooms and string lights draped from the ceilings.
The bathroom has a classy mouthwash dispenser, and the waitstaff roll down the boil bags for guests with smiles on their faces.
But halfway into our meal, I’m hoping this isn’t the one time my icebreaker theory is proven wrong.
We’ve been tiptoeing around the conversation, talking like acquaintances who are stuck in the same place with no clear escape.
While we’re knuckles deep in our boil bags, Cap’t Loui spicy sauce dripping from gloved fingers, Veronica says, “I’m so glad you wanted to come here. ”
When I ran into her at the restaurant earlier, I asked if we could have dinner this week to catch up, and she told me that she was free after her shift ended.
“Me too. The Yelp reviewers weren’t lying about the garlic noodles,” I say.
They’re in fact phenomenal, and even with my super-sense taste buds I can’t nail down all the flavors. But I’m sure as hell gonna try to recreate them from memory.
Veronica laughs. “My friends pester the waitstaff here for the secret recipe. But I always remember my tita saying she only shared hers with intention or with her loved ones.”
At the mention of Celia, I feel warm knowing she was still sharing recipes with me despite our distance.
But I suck on a shrimp, trying to stop my brain from latching on to “my friends” like it wants to.
Veronica Rodriguez was my best friend in high school.
We’d have our schedules switched so we were in the same class.
We were the cover for me, please kind of besties, anxious to talk to each other after we’d done something wild or incredibly stupid.
When I first left Rhode Island, we promised to stay friends, but there was a Carmello-shaped wall between us.
She’s his cousin, and even though she and I were closer, it was clear she was upset with me.
Soon our phone calls became “too busy” texts, then before I knew it, we were staying in touch thanks to Facebook.
You’re one of those people who acts like no time has passed, and sometimes that’s a good thing, but sometimes it’s weird, Denise once said, and now I’m realizing what she meant.
The energy between me and Veronica isn’t sharp like it was with Carmello, but it’s careful. We’re walking on eggshells, and the Sagittarius in me can only deal for so long before…
“Fuck,” I say, when Veronica cracks a crab leg and the juice squirts me in the eye.
She’s all, “I’m sorry, so sorry,” while wiping my stinging eyeball with the cleaner side of her dirty napkin and suddenly we’re laughing and standing to hug each other again.
This time, a real one, our soiled plastic bibs rubbing together, my gloved hands accidentally brushing her hair and sending us into another fit of giggles because now there’s garlic in it and we both smell.
“So much for us staying clean,” I say when we pull back.
She shrugs. “I think maybe I missed your crazy ass, Olive.”
“I missed you too, Vero,” I say.
And just like that the seafood-boil-bag theory is proven true yet again.
***
Updates from the last decade pour out of us.
Starting, of course, with our love lives.
Veronica isn’t the only person I know who’s in an open relationship.
When you travel as a chef the way I do, you’ll hear and see a lot of different types of relationships: swingers, couples that have systems with more rules and boundaries than a sanitary kitchen as detailed by the CDC, and even bold-faced cheating.
But she is the first person who tells me straightaway she’s not sure how long she can keep it up for.
“I’m normally not the jealous type,” she says.
“Well, I’d hope not,” I joke.
But her main man has another woman and this time it bothers her, though she can’t figure out why. “She’s sweet, respectful, she even sent me chocolate strawberries the other day.”
I arch an eyebrow. “Does she have a thing for you too? Desire to make it a poly situation? Or you think she’s trying too hard?”
Veronica pulls the tail of her lobster out of its shell and triple dunks it in the boil-bag sauce.
At this rate, we’re trying to savor whatever we have left, and I’m thankful that my endo symptoms aren’t flaring up.
I can enjoy this without feeling sick. “Hm,” she says.
“I’m really not sure. And Matthew’s been regular with me.
No differences in his behavior that I can pin down.
Just a feeling. But enough about that…tell me about you. ”
“Divorced,” I say, and Veronica gasps. I haven’t made the announcement on my social media yet. Mostly because I was hoping people would forget I was married altogether.
“I knew it was fishy that you hadn’t posted him in a while.”
“I hardly posted him when things were good.”
“That was also fishy,” she says.
“Yeah, well. It’s over. And honestly, that relationship isn’t important enough to talk about, so let’s move on from it.”
Veronica looks like she wants to disagree, but she peels her last shrimp and says, “So you’re single?”
“And dating in what feels like a cesspool,” I say. “Are the guys as awful here as they are everywhere else in the world?”
“Why? Do you plan on staying long enough to find out?” she asks. “I know about the co-owner situation. Kinda weird that you’re sorta like my boss. For now.”
I shift uncomfortably after that tack-on. “Kinda weird that Carmello’s your boss,” I say. “You despised the thought of waiting on tables for Celia. Said you weren’t a people person.”
She exhales. “Yeah, well…I’m working on being better at that. And honestly, I…started helping out when my aunt got really sick, then I just never left. I like it there.”
“I get that,” I say. “It’s a great atmosphere.
And I was only there for a bit today, but it somehow still has her energy.
” Veronica nods, but there’s this look on her face that tells me she might ask why I wasn’t at the funeral.
I avert my eyes and clear my throat. “To answer your question, I’m sure your cousin is praying I sign my shares over to him and book a flight tomorrow, but I honestly don’t know how long I’ll be here. Just depends on what happens, I guess.”
“I see,” she says. “So are you going to jump in and start cooking with Carmello, then?”
I can’t tell if she’s being sarcastic. “That’s the plan,” I say.
A small smile forms on her face. “You’re still as impulsive as I remember.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“It’s a you thing,” she says right before the waitress walks over and gives us our funnel fries. They’re crunchy, drizzled with chocolate, and topped with ice cream. Delicious. Mid-bite, Vero eyes me. “Did it give you butterflies to see Carmello again?”
I feel a flush creep over my chest, wondering how to answer. “There were some feelings in my stomach, but I don’t think they were butterflies,” I say.
“Gas?”
“Possibly.”
She laughs and takes a shrimp tail from our tin trash bucket, throws it at me. “Liar.”
“Hey!” I flick her with funnel fry ice cream and our waitress walks over to put our check on the table between us, an amused look on her face. Yeah, this place is great.
“You don’t have to deny that you’re still attracted to him. Not to me anyway.”
The stubble along his jaw comes back to me.
That short, bitable beard. The way he stared with those nearly black irises.
The tattoos running down his neck and hiding under his shirt, peeking out from under the sleeve several inches below his wrist: giving me a sense of no skin left untouched on his right arm.
The fabric pulled tight from his muscles, his biceps bulging through when he stood from his seat.
I’m not sure I’ve ever found clothed forearms so sexy.
“I won’t deny attraction,” I say finally. “I’d sound dumb. I have eyes.”
Vero sighs. “Do you think my crazy aunt is playing matchmaker from the grave?”
This question feels ripped from my brain and catches me off guard. When I choke on a chewed funnel fry, Veronica pushes my glass of water in front of me, watches closely while I take a sip. Once I’m half-collected, I say, “Do you think that’s what’s happening here?”
“Does it matter either way?” she says.
It matters, but I won’t push her for an answer. I take one more funnel fry, not wanting to overdo it and risk the pain of being bloated later because of fried foods. “You used to think I was silly for believing in signs,” I say. “But that’s still me, and I can’t help wondering…”
“I don’t think you’re silly,” she cuts in. “But he was a mess when you left, Olive. Zeke and I spent entirely too long trying to put him back together.”
I want to ask how her brother is doing, but if this is how she feels, I can’t imagine how Ezekiel feels about me.
“I didn’t know it would hurt Carmello like it did,” I say, and consider telling her about the day I decided to leave.
But I don’t think defending myself will ease the worry on her face, so I leave it there.
“I’m not going to tell you what to do with Mello,” she says, “you’re both grown, but maybe tell him what your plan is before you get sick of small-city living and leave again?”
“What if I never get sick of it?” I say. “What if I decide to stay forever?”
Even saying the words out loud makes me slightly uncomfortable. I shift in my seat, unsure of myself and what the hell I’m actually doing here while I wait for her to respond.
After a moment, she shrugs and says, “Then I’m quitting. How weird would it be if you were really my boss?”
“Is it not weird that Carmello is?”
“Yeah, but I can clap back at him when he’s being annoying,” she says.
“What if I said you could clap back at me when it makes sense?”
She considers with a small laugh, but her tone is serious when she says, “Maybe we should quit talking in hypotheticals. We both know the entire scenario is too far-fetched.”
I chew my lip. Carmello isn’t the only one I’ve hurt here. “Vero,” I say, reaching across the table and covering her hand with mine. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was leaving before I did. I realize that I never said the words back then. I hope you’ll forgive me for that too.”
“We were kids, Olive,” she says. “I already have. But…I still feel like I know you. And if you came to see if my cousin is the one who got away, good luck finding out. That man guards his heart like a fortress now.”
A second passes, maybe six. “So…he’s single?” I say.
Vero shakes her head at me, but I think maybe I can see the smile hiding. “Yeah, Olive. He’s single. But you do know he’s a dad, right?
“Is he still caught up with the mother of his son?” I ask. “Something messy?”
Celia didn’t tell me much about Carmello over the years, but she did share the news that she’d be a grandma.
That was years ago, but I still remember how tight it made my chest hearing that Carmello was having a baby, how sure I was that it was the push I needed to move on.
Some of the other updates involved Celia’s grandson, Theodore.
My Teddy Bear, she called him. Then last year, after I told Celia I got married, she mentioned meeting Teddy’s potential stepfather and how good of a guy he was, giving me confirmation that Carmello wasn’t with Teddy’s mother, but it’s been a while now.
“No,” Vero says. “Carmello is far from messy. He’s not with Daniela at all. But he’s a good man, Olive. A good father.”
I smile, but I feel some tension between us. “I wouldn’t expect any less of him,” I say.
She shifts her eyes away from me, takes a sip of her soda, then changes the subject.