30. Senhora Carter
senhora carter
THIS CHAPTER HAS A SOUNDTRACK
Light Work by Elmiene
julian
I'd worked through every February fourteenth of my adult life, same as any other day. It was a couples' holiday, and I didn't do couples, so I'd never given the date a second thought. Never booked a table, never ordered a flower. It came, it went, and ignoring it had never cost me a thing.
It was February eleventh, and I was sitting at a red light when a florist's van crossed in front of me, side panel done up in red hearts.
Farm fresh flowers. Valentine's Day delivery. Order now.
I clocked it the way you clock a billboard for something you don't need. Then it caught up to me. I have someone now.
I sat there with my foot on the brake, running the math on a holiday I'd never once had to think about.
It was three days away, and I had no plan.
The whole day was about to slide past me on autopilot.
I idled there thinking about what Alyssa would want, what she'd say she didn't want, where I'd even start—
A horn went off behind me. The light had turned green.
I lifted my hand in the mirror in apology, and drove.
The rest of the way to the office I thought about Alyssa, and about what would have happened if I had forgotten.
She'd downplay it. I knew that the way I'd come to know most things about her.
I'd watched her do it with everything else.
She'd brush it off with the same voice she used to wave off anything that came to her looking like more than she'd asked for.
I don't need that. It's not a big deal. You don't have to do that. Like wanting a thing and not getting it was the worse of the two outcomes, so she'd cut it off at wanting it.
She didn’t get that smooth at not wanting things by accident.
She got there by being disappointed enough times that she stopped reaching.
I didn't need her to spell it out to know that more than one February fourteenth had probably gone by with her as nobody's first thought, even when she was married.
I wasn't going to be another man who let it pass because making a fuss took work.
I got to the office before anyone and didn't open my laptop. I sat there and thought about her instead. Cataloguing every offhand thing she'd let slip in the eight months I’d known her.
I thought about one of the things she’d told me she missed about Jersey.
A restaurant she used to frequent. Bacalhau that made her cry.
Little cardamom pastéis after. The chef knew my order before I sat down.
That's the thing I actually miss, if I'm being stupid about it.
A restaurant. The simple version sat right there: fly her home, book the place she missed, give her the whole weekend in Jersey.
I thought about it for about a minute. Then I thought about what home would actually mean: her mother's table, three sisters, a houseful of people who'd have her the second she landed, every one of them needing a piece of her.
I didn't want to give her a trip with built in obligations.
I wanted to give her one night that didn't belong to a single soul but her.
So I'd bring the neighborhood to her instead.
She'd never told me the name. She'd told me about the food, the coffee, the chef who knew her. Not the name. I called the one person who'd have it.
Raschad picked up on the third ring. “What’s good, Jules.”
“There’s a restaurant Alyssa loves back in Jersey. Portuguese-Ethiopian fusion or something. What's the name of it?”
He paused, then let out a short laugh, understanding where this was headed. “The Adega. Old Marcos still runs the back.”
“Thank you.” I was already writing it down. “And don't tell Simone, I asked about it. You know she can’t hold water.”
He laughed again, “Don’t do Peach like that. And… I won’t say nothing.”
“One more thing. What are y’all doing with Zhaire and Zaria on the fourteenth?”
“She asked Aunt Lorraine to keep them overnight. Why?” He caught it and laughed again. “You're a whole menace. Go 'head, bruh.”
I hung up and texted Aunt Lorraine
Auntie, I need a favor for the 14th. Calling you after my meeting.
AUNT LORRAINE
Valentine’s Day? Whatever it is, YES. You taking that girl somewhere, aren’t you? This makes me so happy!
Okay Auntie, calm down. It’s no big deal.
Praise the Lord!
I shook my head and chuckled, as Glory buzzed in with her pad, expecting the usual Monday. I gave her something else.
“Find out where Alyssa gets her hair done, ask Simone when she gets in the office. Once you've got the place, buy a certificate for a standing appointment. A year out, whatever they offer at the top, paid in advance. If they tell you they don't do that. Get past it.”
“Done.”
“Look up a restaurant in North Jersey called The Adega. It’s Portuguese and Ethiopian food. Ask to speak to the chef, Marcos, tell him I have an urgent matter to discuss. As soon as you get him on the line, patch it through. If I’m in a meeting, pull me out.”
“Got it.”
“And flowers. Delivery to her house by seven, plenty of time before she heads to work. Then more delivered to her office early afternoon.” I stopped, because here was the part I had no instinct for. “I don't know flowers. What do people send?”
“Hmm. Depends what you're saying. Roses are the standard. Peonies if you want it to look like you tried. Ranunculus, garden roses, lisianthus if you want expensive without it shouting. Orchids if—”
“All of it.”
She looked up.
“All of those. A dozen of each. Or maybe two dozen? Too much? You choose, I trust your judgement. Oh, and the darkest tulips they can find, burgundy maybe. No red roses; everybody does red roses.” That part I'd thought about.
I sat back. This is a good plan, I thought. She's spent her life talking herself out of being made a fuss over. I wanted her surrounded by arrangements she couldn’t argue with.
Glory didn't write for a second. Then a smile broke loose, and she ducked her head and wrote it all down. “Got it all, Mr. Wade. I’m on it.” She stood, still losing the fight with her smile.
In twelve years she'd never once taken down a list like this one.
She didn't say so. She just said, “It’s gonna be a very Happy Valentine's, Mr. Wade,” enjoying herself far too much, then left before I had to answer.
Solé I handled myself. The alcove by the window, the whole back room ours for the night, space in the kitchen made for a chef who'd be coming in off a flight.
Which was the part I was still waiting on. Marcos called back at four, during a meeting, and I stepped out to take the call.
“Mr. Wade.” An older voice, with the accent worn soft by decades in the Tri-State. “My girl says a very serious man needs to speak with me.”
“Chef. Thank you for your time. I'll be quick. There's a woman from your neighborhood who left for North Carolina and never stopped missing your kitchen. Your bacalhau. Your pastéis. She raves about it to this day. Says it’s the one thing she misses about New Jersey. Said you knew her order before she sat down. Alyssa Carter, she’s a lawyer. Stunning, tall, brown skin —”
“Senhora Carter! Alyssa, yes, yes Tamika's sister, the lawyer.” The warmth came up in it, then the hesitation right behind it when I explained I wanted him to fly down.
“Mr. Wade, I'd want to. But the fourteenth…
that's my biggest night of the year. I can't close my floor and fly to Carolina, I've got a room full of reservations.”
“I know what I'm asking. Don't answer me yet.” I kept it even. “What does the Adega clear on Valentine's night, a good one? You don't have to say it out loud. Just have the number in your head.”
He paused. “I have it.”
“Whatever that is, I'll double it, and that's before your fee for the night. The flight’s mine, both ways.”
He went quiet. I've closed enough rooms to know the sound of a man doing math he didn't expect to be doing.
“My two boys run the line as good as me now,” he said, half to himself. “They could hold one night.” Then, warming: “And my wife's been after me about getting away. Maybe we make a trip of it.”
“Then let me make it worth the trip. I'll put you both up, somewhere good, five-star accommodations. First class round trip. There's wine country an hour out, golf if you play. Come the thirteenth, cook the fourteenth, stay the weekend on me.”
“For a weekend with my wife?” He laughed, full now. “You're a serious man. All right. I'll send you a list of what I’ll need. The fish especially, I'm particular about the fish. Find me a market and somebody to drive me, I'll handle the rest.”
“I’m on it.”
“Send the plane, Mr. Wade.”
I sent the plane.
I locked the rest of it down by the end of the day and said nothing to Alyssa about Valentine’s Day.
Because her not-knowing was half of it. She'd had a lifetime of bracing for the small thing, the no-thing, the day that came and went.
I wanted this one to be rolling before she could put her guard up.
alyssa
I woke up on Valentine's Day already negotiating with it.
Julian hadn't said a word about the day.
Not a clear your evening, or don't make plans.
So I told myself I wanted nothing, and went to sleep the night before having a perfectly reasonable conversation with myself about manufactured holidays and marked-up roses and how I know where I stand without a calendar telling me.
Then he called at five-forty-five in the morning, knowing that was the time I woke up when I wasn’t going with him on a run.
“Happy Valentine's Day, Gorgeous.”
The whole reasonable conversation I'd had with myself fell straight through the floor, because nobody had said that to me first thing in the morning before. My heart fluttered.
“Happy Valentine's Day, Julian” I said back, grinning from ear to ear. I hated how sugary it came out.
“Be ready tonight by eight. I'm taking you out after work.”