Chapter 22 Then
Fall shows up and saves the day. I haven’t figured out how not to want Alex. The only solution I came up with was to see less of him, which I knew would hurt him and crush me, and then Alex would notice I’d pulled away, none of which I wanted.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to figure out an alternative. Fall busyness did it for me.
The last weekend of September, I went to bed with a belly full of chargrilled corn and sun-warm tomatoes, windows open to the breeze, my dog at my feet, then woke up the next morning, shivering at the chilly damp blowing in, Argos curled up beside me for warmth, desperate for the comfort of a hot breakfast and a hotter cup of coffee.
When I got out from beneath the covers, tugging on two pairs of socks because I had no idea where my slippers were, I saw that, after a month of playing phone tag—the game: keep missing each other, leave no voicemails—Mom had finally texted me.
Please call me when you can. I’ll be sure my phone is on ring so I don’t miss you.
Knowing I’d been avoidant long enough, I made myself a cup of coffee, found my slippers, and called Mom, who answered on the first ring and told me what the past month’s missed calls had been about… Dad needed an angioplasty.
I drove to Columbus, spent the week of my birthday getting up to speed on what I’d missed, helping around the house, cleaning and running errands, then drove back to Pittsburgh. Since then, I’ve been drowning in work as we prepare for our busiest, most profitable time of year—the holiday season.
With school back in session and Jen teaching, Alex has shifted from being a fifty-fifty custody parent to the primary daytime weekday parent, dropping off Mia and picking her up from three-day-a-week pre-K. He also started work on his third cookbook.
We’ve been lucky to manage seeing each other every two weeks, and that includes Alex stopping in with Mia for StoryTime every other Saturday.
Texting has become the backbone of our friendship—the occasional gripe about our exes or the overcast weather, but mostly, it’s talking, being close, with the perk that, because we’re not seeing each other in person, I don’t have to expend a massive amount of mental energy on not staring at Alex’s mouth and thinking about kissing him.
Alex
thumbs up, thumbs down: pumpkin
Thea
in a pie/muffin, thumbs up! Double thumbs up if there’s cream cheese frosting involved.
Alex
k… what if the pumpkin item *didn’t* include a shit ton of sugar?
like, for example, if was used to make tortellini
maybe there’s sage, garlic, brown butter, ricotta, pecorino cheese involved
hypothetically
Thea
hypothetically? that sounds like an ALL the thumbs up.
but, I can’t be *sure*. I think that’s probably something I need to eat 5 to 10 lbs of before I can tell you definitively.
Alex
Ted, that’s a lot of homemade pumpkin tortellini
Thea
you’re right, but someone has to be brave and make the necessary sacrifices for culinary greatness.
I volunteer as tribute!
Thea
Hey. So. That Gillian McAllister thriller I gave you, didn’t see it coming, but it’s a wee bit emotional, so maybe don’t read it unless you want to sob every twenty pages.
Alex
TOO LATE YOU EMOTIONAL SABOTEUR
Thea
ALEX!!!! IM SORRRYYYYY!!!
Also, “saboteur”?! Talk about an epic Scrabble word. Duly impressed!
Alex
Thank you. But I’m still mad about the book. No more pumpkin tortellini for you!
Thea
I DIDN’T KNOW, OKAY?
I was crying so hard, reading it on the bus, the driver kicked me off at the next stop, which was outside Jeni’s ice cream, so then I ate my feelings in a triple scoop of way too much rocky road and now I have a belly ache
IN SHORT I’VE PAID FOR MY CRIMES DON’T TAKE MY PUMPKIN TORTELLINI TOO
Alex
FINE.
Now stop texting me. I have the last 15% of the audiobook to finish while I knock out food prep.
Thea
so… maybe don’t try to cook while listening to that last 15%?
Unless you want the number one ingredient of whatever you’re making to be your tears
Alex
DAMMIT, TED, IT’S GOING TO GET WORSE? I’M ALREADY A MESS
Thea
How about I pick up Mia from preschool today?
Give you a bit of time to collect yourself?
And make more pumpkin tortellini?
Alex
You, my friend, are a bold woman.
Thea
is that a yes?
Alex
Yes, now LEAVE ME TO MY EMOTIONAL DEVASTATION
Alex
Mia told me at bedtime tonight, I “moosh” Thea.
Took me a minute, but I figured out she was saying, “miss”
Thea
well, now I’m crying
WHO’S THE EMOTIONAL SABOTEUR NOW
Alex
Um Mia?
Thea
sure, blame the kid.
or you could admit that this is payback for the tearjerker thriller
Alex
you DO deserve payback for putting me through that book.
but it was just an honest update
Thea
tell Mia I moosh her back?
Alex
Will do
Thea
And Alex, honest update,
I moosh you, too
Alex
And I moosh you, Ted.
Lots.
By the time we’re trudging through November, life isn’t any slower, but there’s still a faint glow from our gentle summer, warm in my heart, as if what Alex and I have figured out, the ways we’ve managed to connect through the busy autumn, are like two hands cupped around that flame, keeping it alive.
For the first time in six weeks, I’m sitting in Alex’s kitchen.
Instead of summer sunshine, we’re lit by dim recessed lighting as we sit down to play after-dinner cards.
Alex’s threadbare T-shirt has been swapped out for a faded, butter-soft hoodie, one of its drawstrings clenched between his teeth.
The living room fireplace pops and hisses as it burns, echoing summertime’s woodsmoke-grill scent, wisps of charred hickory curling through the air.
I stare at Alex, whose hair is longer, indecisive curl-waves falling onto his forehead, around his ears, brushing the top of his hoodie. His five-o’clock shadow scruff has grown into a beard. He looks different. But he feels the same. Comfort. Playfulness. Warmth.
His socked feet drag along mine beneath the table, no steady pattern or rhythm to their movement, just touching. Touching to touch. I don’t even think he knows he’s doing it.
I’m an affectionate guy.
I remind myself, this is a quality of Alex, not of our relationship—our friendship.
It’s not special just to us. I have to remind myself of these things, not just because I want to kiss him, but because when I look at him now, especially given how much less I’ve seen him the past few months, it happens again.
I think and feel what I thought and felt that first time at Luna’s.
I love him.
I’m too raw from my divorce, too jaded by what happened, to worry that this love is anything close to the romantic kind.
But it’s a kind of love, and it just might scare me more than it would if it was romantic.
Because it’s different. Because I can’t put my finger on why that is.
Because it feels like something that’s seen and seeped through more of my honest, messy self than any love before.
If Alex picks up on my mental spiral, he doesn’t show it. He’s relaxed, slouched in his chair, chewing on his hoodie string, eyes on his cards. “Ted,” he says, “how’s your timer?”
I peer down at my phone, grateful to have somewhere else to tell my eyes to look. I have to stop staring at him. “Two minutes left.”
He nods. “And what’s up next?”
“Pull the crèmes out of the fridge. Sprinkle with a light layer of brown sugar.” I smile devilishly. “Then I get to torch them.”
Alex bites back a grin. “Slightly concerned about how fire-happy you are.”
“It makes me feel so powerful, wielding fire!”
“Yeah, maybe we’ll torch the crèmes outside,” he muses, turning over the top card in the kitty.
“Pass,” I tell him when I see what he turned up.
He turns it over, too. Before he might call trump, I say, “Alex?”
“Hmm?” His eyes are on his cards, rearranging them.
“Why did you say yes when I asked to learn to make crème br?lée?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“You don’t think I need to learn other things first?”
“You have learned other things,” he says.
“I helped you make wedding soup,” I point out. “And asked you to show me how to make homemade pasta. Then tonight, I asked to learn how to make crème br?lée. I’ve been a chaos demon, and you haven’t held me back.”
He peers up at me. “Did you want me to hold you back?”
“No,” I tell him. “Unless… you think holding me back would have been better for me, for teaching me how to cook.”
Alex sets down his cards. “Before Mia, I would’ve told you that you had to learn other things first. I would have walked you through what they teach at culinary school, in that same order, by increasing degrees of difficulty and skill.
I would have been an uncompromising, exacting hard-ass who made you do the same thing over and over until you perfected it, before I let you move on. ”
I hear regret in his words. It makes my heart ache.
“But then I had a kid,” he says, “and I stepped away from the restaurant. And I started raising someone who learned best when she was personally invested, when she had a relationship to what she was learning, when she could be curious and explore. When she didn’t feel like what mattered most was pursuing a perfect outcome but instead figuring it out along the way.
Because that brought her joy. Even though it wasn’t how I was taught to learn or how I’d taught others, she learned everything she needed to.
You were invested in helping me make soup, then learning how to make homemade pasta and crème br?lée.
I could tell you were excited about them. That’s why we started there.”
“So what you’re saying is, I have a childlike disposition?” I tease.
“I’m saying,” he tells me, “you have joy, Ted. And the last thing I’d ever want to do is dim that. I’ve done enough dimming for one lifetime.”
Alex tears his gaze away, back down on his cards. “Your timer’s about to go off. Sugar’s on the counter.”
I push up from my chair, then circle the table. “Cards abreast!” I warn him.