Chapter 39
F or the first five to seven minutes of the meal, no words were spoken. All you could hear was faint music, the scraping of forks and knives across handmade ceramic, and the occasional sigh of pure delight from how good the food was.
We all had seconds, then thirds, until every platter on the wide table was empty.
Perfect creamy mac and cheese. Soft, pillowy corn bread with real bits of sweet corn and honey butter that Aya had made, per Alex’s instructions.
Coleslaw so light and tangy and acidic that we all ate piles of it, exclaiming that coleslaw had never tasted so good.
And then the fried chicken—my God, the fried chicken.
Juicy in the middle, a crunch that echoed throughout the dining room, and a spicy ketchup dipping sauce that Alex had made from scratch.
It was a feast, and Alex had put it together as if it were nothing.
“I’ll be the first to say it,” Jasper declared once his fork was finally down. “That was the best meal I’ve ever had in my life.”
“Couldn’t agree more,” Mom said. “Alex, you are a culinary genius.”
“I might need to lick the plate,” Willow said. “I need you all to look away.”
“Thank you,” Alex said, lifting his hands up and dipping his head down.
“You’re all way too kind.” When he looked over at me, it was intimate, a look of bashfulness, like the attention was too much.
My chest swooped. In that moment, it felt like Alex belonged to me, like everybody wanted this version of him, and I was the one that got it.
“Alex promised the best mac and cheese of my life,” I said. “And he delivered. A perfect meal. I’m impressed.”
Alex’s smile beamed like sunlight through clouds. “My job here is done,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “No offense to you guys, but Charlie is the only one I came here to impress.”
I shook my head, cheeks flushed, and laughed.
“Yeah, we know,” Benny shouted.
I couldn’t stop myself and framed my hands with Alex’s face and kissed him, right there, right in front of everyone. When it was over, his eyes were wide with surprise.
He whispered, “You keep doing that, I’m going to get the wrong idea about where this is going.”
I was starting to give myself the wrong idea about where this was going. Given I had been buttoned-up for so long, I had no idea why I couldn’t control myself around Alex. It was as if my heart had a mind of its own, which actually didn’t make any sense.
“Is this the kind of food you’ll be cooking at that restaurant you’re opening in Chicago?” Ravi asked.
“Unfortunately, no,” Alex said. “The place in Chicago will be a super high-end fine dining tasting menu. Like the kind you plate with tweezers. What I made tonight is the food I learned from my grandmother.”
“Do you want to open your own restaurant one day?” Aya asked. She’d been peppering Alex with questions all night. It was apparently her dream to turn her dad’s pizza counter into a more diversified restaurant experience, with a fast casual concept along with a sit-down restaurant.
Alex gave a dry laugh. “Of course,” he said, sighing heavily.
It was the first time all night I’d seen him look tired.
“I was about to open my own place, but it was the beginning of 2020. Bad luck. Worse timing. The menu was all comfort food like this. Dishes crafted around creating the most perfect bite of food, the salt, the fat, the acid, the crunch, the texture. All of it. It’s why you put crunchy breadcrumbs on soft mac and cheese, why you vary the cheese in the béchamel to give it layers of surprising tastes and combinations.
Why we love fried chicken, the crunch with the juiciness.
Even the reason you love that coleslaw—it’s got just enough acid to make it insanely craveable.
It’s incredible to me that you can take the same ingredients, and each chef will interpret them differently.
I want my own restaurant so I can share my interpretation of food, my way, but it feels like an impossible dream now.
” He looked down at his fidgeting hands.
“Sorry, long answer to a short question.” He shrugged.
“It sounds like you love food the way I love music,” Ravi said.
“Yeah, it does,” Willow said. “Like the idea that Ravi and I have the exact same chords to work with, but the way we arrange them is what creates our artistic expression—that’s fascinating to me.”
“That’s why I love acting,” Jasper added. “No actor will take on a role the same way, no matter what. The interpretation is where the art comes from.”
“Yep,” Mom said. “That’s why I hold on to my dream.
That moment when you drop into a character, when you’re not saying the lines, but the lines are coming through you.
You can tell in your food, Alex, that you are passionate about the way you create art with your ingredients. The dishes come through you.”
“That’s why I love photography,” Benny said. “It’s crazy to me that twenty photographers can take a picture of the exact same thing and it’s going to look twenty different ways. Like, that is actually magic.”
Everyone turned to Aya, because it was clear that this table had become a sharing circle.
“I mean, I feel the same way Alex does about cooking,” she said, smiling.
“My dad was always fascinated that there are a million pizza joints using practically the same base ingredients, and each one tastes different. How is that possible? On paper, it doesn’t make sense.
But the fact that every little factor can change the cooking process is endlessly interesting to me.
All we’re ever doing with creativity is making different combinations of the same base ingredients.
Writers, with the same collection of letters.
Actors, interpreting those written words based on their own experiences.
Photographers, showing us how they see the world. I love that about art.”
I was staring down at my empty plate and instantly felt everyone’s eyes on me. There was a whirring in my head, a panic, breathing short and staccato, my cheeks hot with shame.
What could I say?
That I loved nothing?
That I had no passion?
That I’m dead inside, broken?
That I think I might be incapable of love?
That I couldn’t relate to a single word any of them were saying?
Instead of speaking, I threw the chair back with a loud scrape and started clearing plates frenetically.
Thankfully, this group of good people took mercy on me and helped, busying themselves with their own conversations, and letting me wash dishes in peace. My short breathing evened out. The whirring in my head lessened.
And when Alex took the apple pie out of the oven and then pulled up next to me at the sink, my hands sudsy with soap and warm water, I leaned in when he kissed my hair instead of pushing him away.
To my relief, when we returned to the table to have dessert, the conversation had floated into easier topics and I could breathe again.