2. 2
He leaned the easy chair back and closed his eyes, and she followed her grandmother downstairs.
“Thank you for coming to see him,” her grandmother whispered as Julia gathered up her cart.
“Does anyone come to see him these days?”
Her grandmother looked somber. “You and Alison, and your parents when they can. Sometimes your Aunt Kathleen, and Holly. The others… they won’t even let their kids come over here anymore.”
Julia frowned, but only said, “I’ll be here again next week.”
“It really lifts his spirits. He feeds off it the whole week. ”
Julia hugged her goodbye. On the way home, she glanced furtively down William’s block, turning her uncle’s counsel over in her mind.
Early the following Sunday morning, Julia sat yawning in the restaurant office over the day’s inventory when the doorbell rang at the back door.
“Will you get that, dear?” her mother said without looking up from her books. “I am not getting up from here until I figure out where this extra sole is coming from.”
“Gladly,” said Julia, springing to her feet. When she flung open the back door, there stood William, bracing a dolly with a crate of fish against his side.
“Special delivery,” he said. “A load of sand dab, right off the boat this morning. My dad wanted to see if your dad was interested.”
“Normally probably so, but I warn you, we got a less than glowing review in the Chronicle this morning.”
“Oh. What did it say?”
“Well, it compared our cioppino to something from a can of Chef Boyardee, for one thing. And it said something about the restaurant being apparently past its prime, like its owner and head chef.”
“Ouch.”
“Yep. Of course, I think my dad is the only one around here who’s surprised by any of this. I remember all too well the time at school when I overheard a guy ask who I was. Someone told him that my father owns Dunphy’s, and he said, ‘I hate that place. It smells like old people in there.’”
William smiled but said nothing, so Julia led him to the office, where her father sat uncharacteristically idle at his desk, the newspaper spread out before him. It took him a few moments to notice them standing there, but when he spotted William, he dragged himself to his feet to shake his hand.
“William. How are you? I hope you had a great birthday dinner here with your family the other day.”
“We did, thanks. The food was great,” William added kindly .
Her father sank back into his seat. “William, let me ask you something. You had the cioppino the other night. What did you think of it?”
Poor William, thought Julia. He shifted his weight and glanced back at the load of sand dab he had brought with him, considering. Then, to Julia’s amazement, he looked her father in the eye and said, “I’ve had better.”
Julia watched outrage and mortification wage battle on her father’s face. William had literally stunned him to silence for a few moments, an unprecedented feat in the history of this kitchen. When he finally recovered his powers of speech, Julia’s father spluttered, “Oh really? Where?”
“My grandmother’s.”
Her father nodded, spying an opening. “We all like best what we’re used to.”
William said nothing, and Julia’s father was all too happy to move on from the subject. “Well, what can I help you with? You came here; you obviously wanted to see me about something.”
William mentioned the sand dabs, which Julia’s father inspected, managed to find fault with, and dismissed brusquely.
The restaurant was closed on Monday, but on Tuesday, William appeared again at the kitchen door, ostensibly with another special delivery for Julia’s father. But on top of the box of fish sat a round container. After Julia accepted the delivery, William turned to Julia’s father.
“I also brought you some of my grandmother’s cioppino.”
Ballsy, thought Julia. At least he had the wisdom not to do it in front of any of the kitchen staff. Her father accepted the container and gave some chilly response that Julia didn’t quite catch. After William left, Julia’s father carried the container to a trash can.
“Oh come on, Dad; we’ve got to at least try it,” Julia pleaded. “You can’t throw away his whole container, anyway. It’s probably his grandmother’s.”
“You go right ahead,” he said, thrusting the container at her. “Make sure it gets back to him.”
When lunch time rolled around, Julia poured the stew into a pot and warmed it. Everyone in the kitchen gathered around to taste. The silence and knowing looks that went around the room told Julia that it was her job to deliver the news.
“Dad, you won’t believe this. This is the worst cioppino I’ve ever tasted in my life!”
The irresistible prospect of making William eat crow lured her father to the stove. He accepted the spoon Julia handed him, tasted, and shot her a quizzical look. The laughter that burst from the staff gave away her ruse. Glowering, her father hurled the spoon into the nearest sink and stormed away.
William made sure to return later that afternoon on some trumped up business. Julia handed him back his clean container and whispered, “It was amazing.”
Spotting him while slicing leeks, Julia’s father said cooly, “Give my compliments to your grandmother.”
“I would, but she’s dead.”
The knife slicing the leeks slipped, and Julia’s father narrowly avoided amputating his own fingertip. “You said it was your grandmother’s cioppino.”
“It’s her recipe.”
“Who made this, then?”
“I did.”
“Bullshit.”
Minutes later, William stood in the kitchen in coat and hat with Mark, the sous chef, who frowned and sniped. Mark had tried unsuccessfully for the last two years to convince Julia’s father to scrap his cioppino recipe and start anew. But Mark’s resentment cooled quickly under William’s humility. William either did not know or pretended not to know certain little tricks and seasonings that Mark obligingly filled in for him, and in short, William played the part of the grateful student. By the end of the afternoon, they had a pot of cioppino that was superior even to what William had brought in.
To his credit, Julia’s father had a respect for raw talent and gumption that superseded even his ego. “You said your grandmother taught you this?”
William nodded. “I mostly learned by watching, then doing. The whole family cooks together, when we can. ”
“And your grandmother was Italian?”
“Her parents were from Sicily.”
“What else can you do?”
“Pretty much anything my grandmother could do. Or at least three quarters of it.”
By the time William left that night, he had a new part-time job as a dishwasher at Dunphy’s. Considering it offered only the vaguest promise of leading to prep cook in the future, and that William would have to give up much of his work at the plant and on his uncle’s boat, Julia was surprised he took it at all. As he tossed his jacket in the hamper, Julia leaned up against the wall.
“I thought you said you have no hidden talents.”
“If I told everyone about them, they wouldn’t be hidden,” he replied. He smiled slightly at her, and rounded the corner to leave.
On the first day of their senior year, Julia and her cousin Holly filed into the AP Biology classroom and took seats next to each other. After Julia spread her books and notebooks on her desk, she took in the infamous Dr. Benson’s legendary classroom, chock-full of Lord of the Rings paraphernalia.
Holly poked her. “Don’t look now.”
Julia followed Holly’s gaze behind them. William leaned back in his chair with his legs stretched out, tapping his pen nervously on the desktop. He looked strangely out of place in his school uniform of khaki pants and a blue knit sweater with the school logo. When she turned, his eyes flickered up to meet hers.
She smiled, and he gave her one of his half-smiles in return. She marveled at how, in the past three months, it had not once occurred to her that she might share a class with him this year.
The instructor came in, a stark woman who introduced herself as Dr. Benson, with emphasis on the Doctor.
“Fair warning: this course will challenge you. There will be no curve. I will not hold your hand. Not all of you will pass, but those who do will go on to be doctors, engineers; in short whatever you want to be. The highest universities will come calling for you. This school, and my course, are held in the highest esteem on the West Coast.”
After a dramatic pause, during which Julia exchanged mocking self-important faces with Holly, Dr. Benson unceremoniously drilled down the syllabus.
“We waste no time here. Our first lab will be today. The laboratory is next door. I will allow you to choose your lab partners, so choose wisely. You’ll be stuck with them for the rest of the year.”
She stopped, and everyone waited for her to continue.
“That means now, by the way, so chop chop.”
Julia gathered her lab workbook and pen and filed through a door into an adjacent room. She claimed the nearest empty lab table, spread her belongings on the black table top, and turned to find herself staring not at Holly, but at a shoulder. Startled, she looked up, and up some more at William’s face.
He spread his books on the table top as if this were the most expected development in the world. Disoriented, Julia searched frantically for Holly, and finally found her directly across from her on the other side of the lab table. Holly had settled for their friend Michelle as a lab partner, and the two of them tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to stifle their snickers at Julia’s expense.
Julia’s first thought was that Holly had orchestrated this somehow, but William would have had to participate in Holly’s conspiracy, and she found that unlikely. She opened her mouth, but closed it again when she realized she had no script for rejecting him as a lab partner. There was nothing left but to accept it, at least for the day.
Resigned, she grinned up at him and said, “Ready to play with flies?”
“After handling fish guts all summer, it should be a piece of cake.”
Before she had time to think further, Dr. Benson called them all to task. While she drilled them in safety equipment and lab protocols, Julia found her attention wandering back to her unexpected lab partner.
She had never stood in such close proximity to him for so long. He was well over six feet tall, and she was alarmed at the way her body responded to it .
She jumped at Dr. Benson’s sharp voice beside her. “Am I straining your attention, Miss…?”
“Dunphy,” she croaked when she had recovered her powers of speech.
“Miss Dunphy, if you find me unworthy of your attention, regular biology is just down the hall. Perhaps your lab partner has a longer attention span. Mr. …?”
William shifted his weight. “Quinn.”
“Mr. Quinn. Do you know the difference between diffusion and osmosis?”
Julia didn’t even know she had ever asked a question. Unfortunately, William didn’t make her look any better with his answer. In a low voice, he replied, “Diffusion is the movement of molecules down a concentration gradient. Osmosis is movement across a permeable membrane.”
Dr. Benson looked almost disappointed not to have tripped him up. “A selectively permeable membrane. And don’t forget the part about it moving from a region of higher concentration to a region of lower concentration. Perhaps you’ll be the brains of the outfit, Mr. Quinn.”
When Dr. Benson moved away, Holly smirked across the table at Julia. She, at least, could probably guess the true source of Julia’s distraction.
This was not going to work out. To pass Dr. Benson’s course, she needed total focus.
After lab, Julia snatched Holly by the arm and pulled her into the hallway.
“Switch lab partners with me. Tell him you can’t stand Michelle. He can have her.”
“I don’t think so. You should have seen the way he practically sprinted across the room to beat me. Besides, he’s super smart. Why wouldn’t you want him? For a lab partner, I mean.”
Julia dropped her arm, and stalked away.
On Thursday morning, William said, “I’ve been thinking, it might be helpful if we form a study group.”
Julia raised an eyebrow. “A study group?”
“For weekends, or even weekdays when we’re not working. Maybe the four of us,” he said, gesturing to Holly and Michelle as well as Julia and himself.
“Oh, I see what you’re up to! You kinky boy.” His face turned almost purple, and she laughed at him. “Good God, relax. I think it’s a good idea. Where should we do it?”
“Well, I was going to say in each other’s homes, but I’m afraid you’ll hit me over the head with some more innuendo.”
“Oh, I would find a way to do that, regardless. Holly, Michelle, did you hear that?”
Holly’s be-goggled face popped up from across the lab table. She had attempted to pin back her unruly, frizzy brown mane, but numerous wisps escaped confinement and stuck straight up, giving her the appearance of a mad scientist.
“Hear what, Jules?”
“We’re forming a study group. First meeting’s at William’s place. What day, William?”
He shifted his weight, drummed the table top with his fingertips. “I – we can do it in the library instead.”
“Oh no, I’m not missing a chance to see you in your element.”
“Okay… what about Saturday in the afternoon?”
“No go,” Holly replied drily. “Gotta work.”
“So do I, you know,” said Julia.
“Oh, yeah. And I have to work on Sunday,” he mused.
“What about today?” asked Michelle.
No one claimed any prior engagements, so Julia poked William in the arm and said, “I sure hope you cleaned house.”
That afternoon, while the others spread their books and junk food on the coffee table, Julia glanced surreptitiously around William’s house. It had basically the same floor plan as Julia’s, but someone had long ago covered over the hardwood floors with lava-orange shag carpeting. Wood-framed furniture upholstered in avocado green sagged in the living room. Dingy polyester drapes filtered mustard-yellow light from the windows. Julia snooped at the numerous family photos on the wood-paneled walls and found one of the whole family when William was about five years old. All of William’s siblings bore more of a resemblance to Ann, and therefore to the Italian side of the family, than William did.
They were already well into their review of diffusion and osmosis before the rest of his family began trickling in. Curious at the unfamiliar voices in their home, his parents peered into the living room.
“Well, hello,” said Ann, wide-eyed.
“We’re studying,” explained William.
“Fantastic,” she replied. “There’s sodas in the fridge.”
His father merely cast them all an amused sidelong glance, but said nothing. Julia couldn’t help noticing that William had inherited all of his mustachioed father’s height with none of his barrel-chested girth.
A while later, a teenage girl rounded the corner, wearing only a soccer uniform, a dark brown ponytail, and no make-up.
“What are you guys studying?” she demanded unceremoniously, and Julia’s eyes were drawn to her muscular calves.
“Diffusion and osmosis,” said Michelle.
“Better you than me.” The girl stole a handful of potato chips from their stash and left the room without even introducing herself.
“Bye, Kelly,” William shouted after her. To the rest of them, he explained, “That’s my sister.”
“Where does she go to school?” asked Julia. She knew she had never seen her at Holy Cross.
“Lincoln,” replied William. “She could have gotten an athletic scholarship to Holy Cross, but her grades weren’t good enough.”
But Julia was no longer listening, because halfway through his speech an aberrant figure had exploded into the living room. This figure sported black hair sculpted into a faux-hawk, multiple facial piercings, and colorful tattoos that crawled up like vines from under the collar of his leather jacket to strangle his neck.
He reminded Julia somehow of an incubus.
“Holy shit,” the incubus blurted with a grin, lighting a cigarette and leering impishly at all three girls.
“Mike,” William chided. “Be a gentleman.”
It seemed impossible that Mike and William could have sprung from the same genetic material, until Mike proclaimed, “Righteous, little brother. ”
“Well, I think we’ve established one fact for certain,” said Julia when Mike had disappeared around the corner. “This is an unusual occurrence in the Quinn household.”
“Studying of any kind is unusual in the Quinn household,” replied William.
“I wasn’t talking about studying,” Julia teased him, and felt her stomach flutter at the way his face reddened.
Holly rolled her eyes and observed, “I think we’ve done enough damage for one day.” Shoving her books into her bags, she added, “I have to get to the library and start figuring out this project for history class. Do you have any ideas what you’re going to do it on, Julia?”
“I think I’ll try prostitution.”
“What the heck are you talking about?” Michelle demanded.
“It’s a major research project due by the end of this semester,” explained Holly. “We have to research an occupation or industry of historical significance to San Francisco. The premise being that these industries are rapidly fading into the history books.”
“Well, that rules out prostitution, then,” Michelle pointed out. “Alive and well.”
“Damn. That would have made for some interesting research,” said Julia. While she waited for everyone to finish gathering up their stuff and file toward the front door, she found her attention wandering back to the old family photo on the wall. She had met two of William’s siblings, but as she gazed at the photo, she blurted, “Oh, you have another brother?”
From the look on William’s face, she realized she had said something very wrong. But William only replied, “Yes.”
Seized with embarrassment, Julia turned back to the photo and tried to gloss over whatever mistake she had made by saying, “You were blond!”
Holly came to the rescue. “Isn’t it a drag how blond hair always darkens when you get older? Except Alison’s. That’s totally real, of course.”
Julia tugged the copper hair beneath her knit beret. “I would like to state for the record that I came out of the womb this way. I swore I was going to dye it as soon as my parents would let me. But once I got old enough to do that, I realized I kind of liked being different.”
“You would,” said Michelle, unleashing a hiss of carbonation from another bottle of soda.
As they passed the kitchen, Ann called out, “Will, we’re eating soon.”
“I’ll be back,” he said.
Once outside the house, Holly and Michelle went one way toward the bus stop, while Julia headed toward her house, pulling her jacket tighter against the fog and the chill. When William didn’t turn back, Julia realized that he was going to walk with her. Typically, he could find nothing to say.
“I’m sorry,” Julia said after a moment.
“For what?”
“About your brother. Whatever it is.”
“Jimmy’s in prison. He was a mechanic, like Mike and everyone else on my dad’s side of the family. But boosting cars was more of his thing.”
“Well, there’s one in every family.”
“There’s a convicted felon in your family, too?”
“Probably. There’s bound to be one in there somewhere, between my dad’s prolific Irish family and all the Okies on my mom’s side. Nevertheless, point taken. Perhaps I should have said there’s a black sheep in every family.”
They lapsed into silence for a while, until Julia blurted, “I can’t stand the suspense anymore. I have to know, how did you get to be the academic genius of the family?”
“I’m not a genius.”
“Modesty noted. Now answer the question.”
William considered. “I was never much good at any of the things my family liked. I’m no mechanic. I’m not great at sports. And I was never any good at making friends, so I had plenty of time for reading and studying.”
“I didn’t make friends because of all my reading and studying. At least at Holy Cross, everyone is a nerd.”
“My grandmother supported me,” William said. “She found out about the scholarship to Holy Cross. ”