Chapter 12
chapter twelve
jude
“Is that you, neighbor?”
“Yes, I’m back,” I called out, a smile already forming on my face from finding Nesto in my house.
Tomorrow I was going in front of the board to pitch them my project.
Nesto, knowing how much I’d worried over the past week, had texted me about coming over.
I said I’d leave the door open for him, and he responded by promising he’d have food ready for me when I got back.
We were still doing our “we’re just neighbors” thing. Except after that night he lost his dinner service gig, the boundaries were getting more blurred every day. There were moments I felt like I was playing with fire letting myself depend on Nesto like this, but I couldn’t walk away yet.
I distracted myself by looking around my living room as I cooled off after my run.
My house was a small colonial, which I’d decorated in a mid-century style.
There was a lot of art on the walls. Some I’d picked up while travelling, and others were prints of pieces from my favorite artists.
I never envisioned having a man in my home when I moved to Ithaca.
Back then all I wanted was space. I’d relished the freedom of picking out colors for the walls and furniture I loved without having to think about whether my family would think it was too “prissy” or get on my case about my “weird” tastes.
I looked at a print of a Maine landscape by Marsden Hartley I’d hung right above the couch.
Right across from it, and above my little mantle was my favorite piece, a large print of Kerry James Marshall’s School of Beauty, School of Culture, which I bought after seeing his show in New York City a couple of years ago.
It was a scene at an African-American beauty salon, an explosion of colors and textures.
It was busy and beautiful, and I loved it.
I was musing on how nice it was to be able to display it without having to give anyone an explanation, when Nesto called from the kitchen again, his voice brimming with humor. “Are you gonna come in and say hi? Or am I just here to make you food?”
Nesto was loud.
He didn’t walk into the room I was in to tell me something. He would just holler from wherever he was, calling out what he wanted to say.
He could have an entire conversation like that.
He’d laughed when I told him if he wanted to keep communicating while in separate rooms, we’d have to get walkie talkies. I’d asked him how his voice could stand it. He just smiled and shrugged then said, “I’m Dominican.” Which I was learning was the explanation for quite a few things.
I smiled as I walked into the kitchen and ran my hand across his back while I opened the fridge, looking for a cold drink.
I was hot and sweaty, but feeling calmer about work, and so pleased to find Nesto making himself at home. As I stood in front of the fridge chugging water I felt him walk up to me and wrap his arms around my waist. His chest against my back, strong arms tightening as he nosed my neck.
“Mmmm, hombre y sudor. My favorite.”
I leaned into him, closing my eyes. “I doubt a fragrance called ‘Sweaty Man’ would do very well in the market, but I’m glad you find my funk pleasant.”
He bit my ear before whispering, “You know I do.”
There it was again. That thrill Nesto’s touch gave me.
“Have you always been this keen on making meals for people who live by you?”
He laughed at that. “I lived in my last apartment for eight years, and I don’t think I said more than five words to anyone in that building.” His lips grazed my ear as he spoke, making me tremble. “This is all you.”
“I’m flattered.” My words came out on a gasp, and I let myself sink into him again.
In the last couple of weeks, I’d shed a lot of my usual reluctance about having people in my space, and little by little, Nesto became a constant presence in my home.
Where in the past others set my inner alarm bells blaring, his easy, undemanding ways had been met with very little resistance.
It was so simple with him, no complicated explanations or weird games, he just said what he wanted and asked if I would be up for it, too.
“I’m making a green curry with some halibut I got from my fish guy today, is that okay?”
“Sounds wonderful, thanks for cooking. You’re going to spoil me.” He shook his head with his face in my hair. He was almost a head taller than me and a lot bulkier, which he was a bit too fond of. He liked using his height to wrap himself around me.
I turned around pushing up on my toes to kiss him. He smelled like the garlic and ginger he used for the curry, and I wanted a taste of him. I bit his bottom lip and then sucked on it.
My addiction to Nesto’s mouth only got worse the more access I had to it, and I never wasted a chance to kiss him when he was close.
He licked into my mouth and groaned. As we tangled our tongues, he let his arms fall down behind me, grabbing my ass and squeezing tight.
I tried to get closer, feel more of him against me.
I was wondering how much further we could take things before dinner was done, when a timer went off somewhere. Nesto groaned and pulled back.
“I guess the rice is done,” he said, pushing our foreheads together before turning toward the stove. “Why don’t you take a shower? I’ll finish up here and walk next door to get some beer.”
I nodded, reaching up to give him another kiss. I’ll be done in ten minutes.”
“You’re going to kill me with food.” I put my spoon down after having one last bite of delicious curry and rubbed my belly. “Is there anything you can’t cook perfectly?” I asked.
He laughed at my feigned annoyance. “Lots of things. I seriously struggled with the more complicated French techniques when I was in culinary school.”
“So how did you get into cooking? I mean you’ve told me about culinary school and starting the truck, but you never said how you got interested in it.”
He finished chewing and leaned back in the chair.
“Well my mom and all my friends’ moms are amazing cooks.
They made the traditional dishes from back home all the time.
I was always around people who showed their love by feeding me.
” He smiled softly, like he was picturing those times.
“But what made me want to make food for a living was one of the schemes the GA moms came up with, to keep us off the stoop after we started high school.”
I laughed at the mention of the GA crew, which earned me a wink from Nesto.
“By the time we started high school the part of the Bronx where we lived was still pretty hot. ‘Stop and frisk’ and ‘Zero Tolerance’ were still alive and well in our part of the city. If you were black or brown, in our neighborhood, walking with a frown was enough reason to end up shoved onto the hood of a police car.” He pursed his lips at whatever he was remembering.
I felt so angry for him, but I didn’t interrupt.
I wanted to hear his story without making it about me.
“So my mom got nervous about us hanging out on the corner with nothing to do after school while she was at work. The guys and I were too old for after school or anything like that, and sports only kept us busy a couple of afternoons a week. So, the moms decided to find us jobs we could be at for a few hours every day until they got home.”
He smiled in the way I noticed he only did when talking about his mother.
“My mom was the ringleader of course, but she got Juanpa, Milo, and Patrice’s mom in on it, too. Pretty soon they were out pounding the pavement, offering us up to whoever owned a business and wanted to take on four surly punks as projects for the school year.”
“Your mom is something else.”
His eyes twinkled at that. “She really is. I ended up at Mr. Battaglia’s.
He owns a fresh pasta and ravioli shop his grandfather opened in the thirties.
It’s right on Arthur Avenue in Little Italy.
He sells to the local restaurants and specialty stores in Manhattan.
Everything is handmade and let me tell you the old man is a pain in the ass.
Meticulous about how the pasta is made. If it leaves the store with his name on it, it better be fucking perfect.
” He shook his head with a fond expression on his face.
“Mr. Battaglia taught me to be passionate about making good food the right way. He was like a father to me, more than my own ever was.” Nesto rarely talked about his father who’d never really been in his life.
“But the most important thing he taught me was to be proud of where I came from, of my roots. He always told me to hold my head up high, because I had a lot to offer this country. That people like him and I built this place.” He was leaning forward as he spoke.
His wide shoulders almost parallel with his knees, vibrating with emotion.
“He got on me about not letting the negativity I heard about Dominicans out on the street or in the news get to me. He was and still is a great mentor and friend.”
I could see the respect and admiration on his face. “Sounds like Mr. Battaglia means a lot to you.”
“He does. When not a lot of Italians would hire Dominicans, he took me in and treated me like family. Man, I loved being in that shop.” Nesto felt everything so intensely.
When he told a story, he did it with his whole body.
“I ended up working for him all through high school and most of college. He’s still in the shop, too, he’s like eighty-five, but no one can talk to him about retiring.
All the guys ended up liking their jobs, too.
In the end my mom was twenty steps ahead of us.
Like usual. Those jobs kept us off the street and out of trouble. ”
His eyes got serious for a moment then he picked up his beer and took a long sip.
“There are a lot of guys we grew up with who weren’t as lucky. And that’s my story about how I got into cooking.”