22. Izzy
— ? —
Izzy
Wilson parks at the end of a dirt road two hours north of the city and refuses to tell me where we are.
He just sits there with that insufferable smile playing at the corners of his mouth while I crane my neck trying to read the faded sign by the fence.
Then I see the barn with the crooked weathervane, the one that’s been tilting east for as long as I can remember, and I stop halfway out of the car.
“You remembered this place.” It comes out smaller than I intended, and I have to clear my throat to keep it steady.
The orchard stretches out before us in the thin January sunshine, rows of bare apple trees with frost still clinging to the north side of every trunk. The grass between the rows is brown and flattened, and somewhere in the distance I can hear a tractor idling and nothing else.
“You mentioned it once, three years ago.” He squeezes my fingers and pulls me toward a row of trees. “We were stuck in traffic on the Taconic for two hours because of that overturned truck.”
He reaches out and touches a bare branch, his thumb brushing the bark.
“You pointed at an exit sign and said you spent the best autumn of your childhood out here picking apples with your grandmother. Your voice got this quality to it that I’d never heard before.”
“You could have just asked me which farm it was.”
“That would have completely ruined the surprise.” He looks down the row of frostbitten trees, months away from anything. “I wanted to see your face when you recognized the weathervane.”
He smiles, a little proud of himself.
“It took some calling around to find the right place. The weathervane was the clue that finally cracked it, I described it to seven different farms before someone said ‘oh, you mean the Morrison place.’”
“We should come back in October when there’s actually fruit.” I touch the branch beside his hand, where a bud the size of a grain of rice is already waiting. “My grandmother used to say patience was the hardest ingredient in any recipe.”
“Then we’ll come back in October.” He says it simply, like a settled fact, like of course we’ll still be doing this in nine months. “I wanted proof that I actually listen when you talk, even when I’m terrible at showing it in the moment.”
“You’re getting better at the showing part.” I lean into his side and feel his arm come around my shoulders. “The listening was never the problem, Wilson. It was the remembering to act on what you heard.”
“I’m trying to fix that.” He drops a kiss on my hair. “That’s the only promise I can make that means anything right now. That I’ll keep trying even when I fail at it.”
“You know what my grandmother would say about you?”
“That I’m hopeless in the kitchen and have no business touching her pasta recipe?”
“That too.” I grin up at him. “But also that you have good bones. She always said you could tell a man’s character by whether he showed up twice after failing the first time.”
“And the third time? The fourth?”
“By the fifth she’d probably just adopt you and put you to work in the garden.” I tug him toward the farmhouse in the distance. “Come on. I want to see if they still have that terrible hot cider that tastes like someone dissolved a whole bag of sugar in it.”
“Sounds romantic.”
“It’s disgusting and I’ve been craving it for three years.”
***
The cooking class happens in a converted warehouse in Red Hook, copper pots hanging from iron hooks over the industrial stoves.
Wilson has flour in his hair within the first ten minutes.
“Your grandmother’s recipe calls for seven eggs,” the instructor says, building a well in the center of her pile. “Most people use five or six. The extra yolks forgive a beginner’s mistakes.”
“She always used eight.” I crack another egg into the well, dough sticking to my knuckles the way it did in her kitchen. “And my grandfather would steal one before she could add it. Every time. She’d chase him with a wooden spoon.”
Wilson laughs. His dough is a disaster. “Smart man.”
“He was a menace.” I reach over and poke his dough. Too tough, completely overworked. “She adored him though.”
I wipe my hands on my apron.
“Okay, you need to stop. You’re killing it. Just leave it alone for a bit.”
“Should I let it rest or should I just give up?” He holds up his hands, covered in sticky mess. “I think it’s winning.”
“Definitely let it rest, and maybe wash your hands while you’re at it.”
He steps back from the counter and wipes his hands on his apron, the one I had to tie for him earlier because he got the strings all tangled up and somehow ended up with a bow on his hip.
“Your grandmother would have kicked me out by now, right?”
“Oh, immediately.” I roll my dough into a ball and cover it with a towel, smiling at the thought of her watching him struggle. “But she would have liked that you tried. She always said that mattered more than being good at it.”
“Yeah?” He bumps his hip against mine, and the warmth of it spreads through me. “She would have?”
“She really would have.” I lean into him a little. “She had a soft spot for hopeless cases.”
He brushes the flour from my cheek, his fingers trailing down to my chin and staying there for a moment.
“I’ll keep making terrible pasta with you until I finally get it right.” He says it quietly, like he means more than the pasta.
“You’re not doing that bad.” I smile up at him and rest my hand on his chest. “Okay, the dough was pretty bad. But you’re here, and that’s the part that matters.”
“You really think so?” He’s looking at me like he’s not sure he believes it yet.
“I really think so.” I lean up and kiss him, tasting the wine the instructor poured for us earlier. “Just keep showing up. That’s all I’m asking.”
“I can do that.” His arm slides around my waist and pulls me closer. “I’m staying right here, Izzy.”
“Good, because I’m going to make you practice this recipe until you stop murdering the dough.” I rest my head against his shoulder and feel him laugh, the sound rumbling through his chest.
“That sounds like a threat.”
“It’s a cooking lesson. Gran would have called it love.”
***
The rare books room is empty on a Tuesday morning. Dust drifts through the golden light from the tall arched windows, and I make a mental note to come back with my sketchbook someday.
“I used to come here every week before we got married.” I run my fingers along the spine of a first edition Bront?, the leather cracked and soft from a century of being loved.
“Sometimes twice if the weather gave me an excuse to hide indoors. I’d spend hours in here, just me and the books and the quiet.
I didn’t need anything from anyone when I was sitting in that chair by the window. ”
“What made you stop coming?” Wilson keeps his voice low, his shoulder brushing mine as we move along the shelves. He’s watching me carefully, like he’s trying to memorize every word.
“Life got busy. You got busy.” I pull a volume halfway out and push it back in, not really seeing the title. “I got tired of sitting alone in the apartment waiting for you, and after a while it was easier to just stop doing the things that reminded me how lonely I was.”
He stops walking.
“I’m sorry.” His voice catches a little, and I can see the muscle in his jaw working. “I didn’t even notice, did I?”
“No, you didn’t.” I slide the book back into place and keep walking, but he stays where he is for a moment before catching up.
“Izzy.” He reaches for my hand, and when I give it to him, he holds it like it might break. “Thank you for showing me this. For letting me in.”
“That’s why I wanted to bring you here today.” I squeeze his fingers. “This room used to be just mine, and now you know about it. Now you know where I go when I need to disappear for a little while.”
He pulls me closer until we’re standing shoulder to shoulder in front of the glass case, our reflections faint and overlapping in the dim surface. He doesn’t let go of my hand.
“What else did you give up?” His voice is quiet, almost afraid of the answer. “What other places are there that I never knew about?”
“There’s a lot, Wilson.” I look at our reflection instead of at him. “Some of it’s harder to talk about than the rest.”
“I want to hear all of it.” He turns to face me, and his face is raw, desperate and hopeful at the same time. “I want to know everything I missed. Everything I should have been paying attention to.”
He lifts my hand and kisses my knuckles, slow and deliberate, his lips warm against my skin.
“I want to help you get it back, Izzy. All of it.” He looks at me and has to blink. “Just tell me where to start.”
“You’re making a lot of promises for a man who still can’t make pasta.”
“The pasta is a work in progress.” He grins at me. “The promises are solid.”
We walk down Orchard Street, and everything looks different in winter. Christmas lights still hang from the fire escapes even though it’s January, and the sidewalks are mostly empty.
“The dry cleaner is still here.” Wilson points at the faded awning, the plastic lettering peeling at the corners. “I used to drop off my one good shirt every Sunday night so I’d have something presentable for Monday meetings.”
“And the office?”
“It’s a nail salon now.” He tilts his head up toward the second floor windows, and I follow his gaze. “That window on the left was my desk. I used to stare out at the street when I was supposed to be working and think about how I was going to take over the world someday.”
“Very humble of you.”
“I was young and stupid.” He grins and takes my hand. “Come on, there’s something else I want to show you.”
The deli on the corner hasn’t changed at all. Same cracked linoleum, same ancient cash register that probably hasn’t worked right since the nineties. A man behind the counter looks up when the bell jingles, and his whole face breaks into a smile.
“Wilson Carter.” He comes around the counter and pulls Wilson into a hug that looks like it might crack ribs. “Where the hell have you been? I thought you forgot about us down here.”