Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Iris
Are we having fun? Is that what this is? The thought makes my face flush, and I realize I want him to notice it too. See how fun I am?
“I have to run to the bathroom,” Matteo says abruptly, setting his mug down on the counter and—mercifully—interrupting my thoughts. As he walks away, he calls back, “Feel free to read the paper or, you know, whatever.”
“I’m gonna go through all your stuff!” I call after him.
“Good luck finding stuff to go through,” he calls back, after disappearing on the other side of the living room.
I catch a glimpse of my own smile reflected in the glass of his microwave and quickly erase it. Because what am I doing ?
The same thing I always do.
It’s like Phase One was initiated the second I decided not to wallow over his comment about us not being friends. Or—more to the point—the second the apology meal showed up at my door.
Matteo isn’t a mean person, or even a bad guy—but boy, he wants people to think he is.
And I want to know why .
You’re doing it again, Iris. This is how it always starts.
I shake away the thought and walk into the living room, taking in the space.
I was right about his corner apartment. The windows on two sides of this open space allow in so much sunlight, I might as well be standing outside.
But the apartment is so . . . sparse. Too sparse.
I study it for a few long seconds, wondering how he can live in such a sterile environment. It’s like his grandpa took every personal item with him, left behind the basics, and Matteo didn’t bother to replace anything.
The kitchen is, not surprisingly, state-of-the-art, all clean lines and things put away, leaving lots of blank spaces.
It needs something. Something homey.
And then, it hits me.
I don’t even hesitate to think that it might not be the best idea ever. Or that he might hate it.
I just think this is brilliant as I rush out of his apartment, leaving the door open and the newspaper out on the counter.
I hurry down the hall into my space and find what I’m looking for, then rush back to his apartment just as he reappears in the living room from a bedroom that probably smells like a Christmas tree farm.
There’s a faint scent of pine or spruce or something delicious whenever he’s around, and I have to imagine this smell only intensifies in his bedroom.
Bedroom.
I shake the thoughts from opening that door.
“You left,” he says as I rush past him. “And . . . you brought the 1970’s back with you.”
I ignore him, spreading the multi-colored crocheted afghan I made this past summer on the back of his couch. “Don’t be ugly. I’m giving you a gift.” I turn and find a grimace on his face. “Consider it payment for all the food.” I draw in a breath. “It’ll make your space cozier.”
He cocks his head and points. “Cozy is not what that is.”
“It’s homemade. Homemade blankets are always cozy.” Obviously, this isn’t true. When I was a kid, my grandma made me a blanket out of the itchiest and cheapest yarn in the store. But that doesn’t support my argument, so I keep it to myself.
“It doesn’t go with anything in here,” he says.
I shoot him a look. “Anything will go with what’s in here because there’s nothing in here.”
He shoots me an annoyed look, but I ignore it.
“Oh! I made a throw pillow to go with it! Do you want me to go get it?”
“No.” And then, after a pause, he says, “Wait, did you say you made that?”
“That’s what homemade usually means.” I quirk a brow, and I see the second he remembers using that exact line on me in Winnie’s apartment. “I only use the softest yarn.” I reach out and pet the brightly colored granny squares. “It’ll be perfect for, you know, relaxing on the couch when you get home from work or if you have a date or something.”
What am I saying?
He rolls his eyes and walks into the kitchen, making a clear point of ignoring me. I glance back at the living room, aware that the afghan really does look ridiculous with his modern aesthetic. “So many hard lines in here,” I say out loud, continuing the conversation I’m having with myself in my head. “You just need to find something to soften them a little.”
He doesn’t respond. He’s leaning over the newspaper, reading.
“Oh! Yes! Let’s do it!” I rush into the kitchen and stand beside him, leaning over the counter, the same way he is, only I’m pretending I know what I’m looking for.
As if one successful bout with the magic has made me an expert.
“You’re way too excited about this,” he mutters, eyes scanning the pages. Then, with a quick glance in my direction he adds, “This is why we’re here, remember?”
“Right,” I say. “All business. All the time.”
I pause.
“And French toast some of the time.”
He gives me a healthy dose of side-eye.
I’m trying to be cautious. I’m doing my best not to be . . . me . But, per usual, I barreled in here acting like he and I are exactly what we aren’t.
Friends.
I think about what Winnie said—that the world needs my big, open heart—but maybe she doesn’t know how easy a big, open heart is to break.
I start scanning the articles, noticing immediately that this edition is different from the one about Winnie. All the articles are about different people, with whole sections of blank space. I don’t get it.
After a few minutes of searching, Matteo stands upright and refills his coffee, then leans against the counter.
I feel him watching me, so I finally meet his eyes. “You already found it?”
“Yep.”
“It’s like a word search.” I groan and go back to scanning the newspaper. “I was never good at those.” I move over to the other side of the counter and plop myself back down on the stool while Matteo sets his mug on the island and checks on the bread. He pulls a pan from a nearby cupboard then proceeds to put so much butter in it that my arteries clog just watching .
He must sense me judging because he stops moving and looks at me.
I laugh and look away. “That is so much butter.”
“Trust me.”
“It’s a good thing you don’t want to be friends with me because my waistline can’t handle eating so much of your food.”
He quirks a brow. “Your waistline is just fine.”
Heat rushes to my face.
“Wait. I didn’t . . .” His face flushes.
I try to play it off by saying, “Oh, I know, no big deal . . .” But my inner teenager is back. He noticed my waistline?
I inadvertently stand up a little straighter and try to nonchalantly fluff my hair. What else has he noticed? The words on the page in front of me go out of focus as I struggle to concentrate. And this feeling—this gooey, ridiculous, buzzy feeling—is exactly what I’ve been hoping to avoid.
Never mind that seeing him shirtless this morning just about gave me a cardiac episode.
He moves the butter around the black pan, watching it closely. “Does that mean you don’t want breakfast?”
“Heck, no,” I say. “I cracked the eggs. I have to see how it turns out.”
“Just checking.” He picks up one of the slices of bread, and it sizzles when he sets it in the hot griddle. While I can’t be sure, I think he’s trying not to smile.
I want to ask him why he seems to resist enjoying himself. It’s obvious in the way he eats, the way he cooks, that there is passion there. He has to enjoy it on some level.
“None of these articles are about the same person,” I say after a few minutes of scanning the words on the pages. “The newspaper with Winnie was all about Winnie.”
“Yeah, they’re not usually that obvious.” He’s got his back to me now. “I think that one was more like the shallow end of the pool. This one’s a bit more toward the deep end.”
I go back to the newspaper. “How am I supposed to figure this out?”
Now, he turns and leans against the counter, twirling a spatula. “Giving up so soon?”
“No.” I turn the page, and Matteo gives me a pointed look. He found whatever he was looking for on the first page. This is probably the only clue he’s going to give me.
“How am I supposed to concentrate when it smells like that in here?” I ask, stomach growling.
“Refer back to my earlier comment about patience.” He taps the newspaper. “No breakfast until you figure this out. And you’re going to want to eat it before it gets cold.”
I huff out a sigh. “Fine.”
He gets quiet while I go back to searching, and I do my best to ignore the slight sizzling of the bread and just how badly my mouth is watering at the smell. And then, I see it.
A short blip of text, the only thing not written in past tense.
“Aha! I found it!” I say, triumphantly. “Serve it up, Chef.”
“Read it out loud,” Matteo says, and while he would probably never admit it, he almost sounds . . . excited?
He plates the food as I read aloud:
Joy is a joy, and she needs something new.
Her life became flat when her three became two.
Her confidence is wafer-thin paper maché
So, if someone could chordially invite her today
(For her balance in life is no work and all play)
A blessing is long overdue.
Look for something noteworthy .
I frown. “That’s weird. It reads like a riddle. Plus ‘cordially’ is misspelled.”
“First thing you need to know about the newspaper,” he explains, “is that every issue is a little different than the last one.”
He points at it.
The rest of the articles, all the words, slowly disappear, leaving only this rhyming blurb.
“So, step one: figure out who the newspaper is talking about—my guess is, someone named Joy.” He picks up the two plates and walks them over to the table. “Do you want something else to drink?”
I spin around on the stool and watch him. “Why do you pretend like you’re a jerk?”
He ignores me. “Orange juice? Water?”
“Ooh. Orange juice, please.” I stand and walk over to the table. “I’m serious. I don’t get it. If you were really the awful person you want people to believe you are, you would’ve kicked me out when you first opened the door.” I laugh. “And you definitely would not have made me breakfast.”
“I was just saving myself time.” He pulls orange juice out of the refrigerator. “I don’t know you well—but I do know you wouldn’t have left me alone.”
I pretend to think about this, then shrug. “Fair.”
“And this isn’t an act.” He hands me a glass. “I’m very careful about who I let into my life.”
I want to ask him why. Instead, I say, “Oh, I’m not.”
His eyebrows shoot up as he sits, almost like he’s surprised I’m admitting this.
“I should be, but I’m not,” I say as I start cutting my French toast.
He frowns. “Why should you be? I mean, you said before you like people,” he says.
I stop cutting. “Because . . . reasons. ”
“Oh, yeah, well, that clears it up,” he muses.
Because New Iris is trying to be better about volunteering too much personal information. New Iris doesn’t want to get close to someone— again— only to have them leave. And so far, New Iris has done a decent job. A solid C+.
The problem is, I want to tell him everything I’m thinking.
“If I tell you, it’ll be a giant overshare.” I feel like the forewarning makes it okay. Also, I’m a slow learner. A part of me knows this isn’t the way to get someone to open up. A part of me knows this is how I run people off.
He douses his plate with syrup, and I take that as permission to do the same. “Okay.”
“Okay, I should still tell you, or okay I shouldn’t?” I ask, taking the syrup. Because these new rules I’ve made for myself are getting more and more difficult to interpret. What I know I should do is in direct conflict with what I want to do.
He shrugs. “It looks like you need to talk about whatever you need to talk about, so . . .”
To me, that’s permission.
“I think sharing too much turns people off,” I say. “I mean, that’s my guess. I have this problem with telling people my whole life’s story when they really didn’t want to hear it. I think I do it hoping they’ll share back?” I pause because sharing about my oversharing is still an overshare. “They usually don’t. They usually avoid me like the plague.” My laugh is a little self-deprecating.
I mindlessly cut my French toast. “I’m one of those people who doesn’t really like a ‘get to know each other period.’ I dive in. Headfirst. No life vest. I want to be best friends with everyone from the jump, and I want everyone to like me. It’s like a sickness.” I spear a piece with my fork but don’t eat it, and then say, “So when I moved here, I decided to actively not be that way. ”
“To actively not be yourself,” he says.
I laugh. “I mean, let’s be real, I’m a lot . . .” Too much , but I don’t say so. I glance up and find him frowning at me.
“So, someone told you that you’re ‘a lot,’ and you believed them?” He nods at my fork. “Taste it.”
His question hangs in the air as I lift the bite to my lips. Before I eat it, he holds up a hand to stop me from moving.
“Slowly,” he says, eyes dipping to my mouth. “Taste every flavor.”
I do as he says, chewing slowly, savoring every bite, trying to discern each flavor I watched him put into the liquid before soaking the bread, and for a fleeting moment, I understand why he eats so slowly.
I can safely say that I’ve never in life tasted something like this. I quickly stab another piece, but he catches my eye, and I resist the urge to snarf.
The textures, the sweetness, the crispiness of the outside with the velvety custard inside . . . it’s amazing.
And it’s just bread.
“I lied before. This would be my final meal,” I say, after I’ve swallowed the bite.
He smiles. “Good?”
I shake my head in culinary disbelief. “How in the world have I been missing this?”
He flips the towel over his shoulder and starts in on his own. “Good.”
“And yes, to answer your question. Someone told me I was a lot. Well, not just ‘someone’—several people. More than several. When you’re a lot, you’re a lot.” I look at him. “I’m a lot.”
He arranges another perfect bite on his fork. “So, how’s it working out for you—this plan to become a totally different person? ”
“Eh, fair-to-middling,” I joke, knowing I’m not exactly succeeding right now.
I take a drink. “I’m just, you know, holding back a little so I don’t scare people off.”
He looks at me, confused. “If you’re scaring people off, Iris, then they aren’t the right people.”
I force myself not to look away for what feels like a full three hours, and then finally, I glance down at my plate. Because he’s right. They’re never the right people. But also—why does he make this sound so simple?
I glance up. “Is that why you don’t pretend? I mean, you’re really embracing this salty attitude.”
“No.” He gives his head a little shake. “I don’t pretend because I don’t care what people think.”
I laugh. “What’s that like?”
“It’s brilliant.” He smirks. “You should try it sometime.”
My eating has devolved into devouring again, and I have to physically remind myself to slow down. “I can’t relate.” I shrug. “I want to be loved.” A mental facepalm. “And I didn’t really mean to say that out loud.”
Good grief.
He makes a face, but I can’t quite read it. It almost looks like understanding.
“I think we are who we are. You can’t change your personality.” He shrugs. “And you shouldn’t try. Don’t make yourself smaller because you’ve been surrounding yourself with idiots.”
“That’s nice coming from someone who doesn’t even want to be my friend.” I smirk so he knows I’m joking, but I’m joking because I don’t know what to do with his kindness.
“Yeah, about that . . .”
I set down my fork, paying attention with my whole body.
“I was a little quick. I’m not used to”—he points to me—“someone who’s a lot.” He smirks. “Would it make you happy if I said we could be . . . friends?” He says this in his most annoyed tone, like this really is a giant inconvenience, and yet, I hear the tease in his voice, and that is what I latch onto.
A smile crawls across my face. “Yes.”
“Fine,” he says. “But only because I’m genuinely afraid to let you feed yourself anymore.”
I pump my fist. “Woo! I knew I’d wear you down.”
He shakes his head. “And I take it back. Not friends, sorry. Too weird.”
I look at him, mocking shock.
He looks back.
And we laugh.