Chapter 9 #2
I jerk back, but not in time to receive a second coating. Neither of them hears me curse under my breath. Or acknowledge another reach-around for a paper towel.
“You do not belong at my bedside, dear, or in the bathroom with me, or seeing to my needs all night.”
“That’s for me to decide.” Noa huffs, folding her arms and thankfully tucking the spoon behind her.
During their spat, Noa’s come closer, her arm a scant inch from mine. If I leaned sideways enough, I could kindly return the favor and stain her shirt, too.
“We can put a pin in it for now,” Ma allows.
Noa visibly relaxes, the tension around her eyes disappearing. “Thank you.”
She goes back to the stove.
I stare at Ma.
I have full confidence she’s not finished. Crossing my arms, I wait.
“Because either way, you’re still attending these cooking classes.”
There it is.
“Mrs. Stalinski.” Noa presses her hands on either side of the stove and drops her head.
“What?” Ma widens her eyes innocently. “I dislike the airing of financial discussions, but I must insist that these classes are non-refundable and booked months in advance.”
Noa lights up. “Then we can sell them. I can get you the money back.”
“That just won’t do.” Ma clucks, shaking her head. “There are distinct rules, one being that the tickets are non-distributable or shareable.”
I squint one eye at her as she continues to bat her eyelashes.
But are they really?
Noa is so distraught that I decide to be helpful, even though I’m mostly insulted that her distress is largely because of my going with her to these supposed classes. “Ma, I’m sure we can inform them about your circumstances. They can make an exception.”
“Yes!” Noa points that damned spoon in my direction again. “That!”
“I swear to God, woman,” I mutter before swiping the spoon from her and making my way to the pot she’s filled with some sort of onion and garlic mixture.
Noa’s hand goes slack, startled, but, since her argument with Ma is more important, she allows me the space to take over the stirring.
“I’m afraid not,” Ma says. “I’ve tried, and Chef Toussaint insists the tickets must remain with us.”
I look up from the pan. “Then how can I take your place?”
Ma’s lips flatline and I re-center my attention on the mixture rather than face her laser-eyed glare in my direction. “I explained my situation, and he’s willing to allow a substitute for myself.”
“Any substitute?” Noa asks behind me with way too much hope.
“Like whom?” Ma counters. “We both know Carly sets fire to butter and scares wild animals away with her leftover cooking, and anyone else you’re attempting to think up doesn’t have the space in their schedule the way my son does.”
For a moment, the only sound is the spitting coming from the pan.
Ma prompts, “His schedule’s opened all the way up, hasn’t it, Stone?”
“No,” I say. “There’s the contract I have to get through, and my free manual labor that you’ve offered Rome, as well as all the rearranging I plan to do now that I’m staying here for a while. I have to get my affairs in order in LA, get someone to watch my fish…”
“Just as I said.” Ma flaps her hand. “He’s got time.”
“I can’t,” Noa bites out. “ We can’t. If taking these classes means this much to you, I’ll go alone, but I don’t think Stone joining me would be to anyone’s benefit. You don’t cook, do you?” Noa asks me, although it sounds more like a threat.
“I don’t hate it.” I shrug.
A sliver of white shows through her lips, almost like her teeth blocked a venomous hiss, before she pastes on a sweet smile for my mother’s benefit.
“I’d love to take cooking seriously again, but I doubt having the town’s executive pariah who burns frozen waffles next to me while we cook in Falcon Haven’s latest restaurant would do me any favors. He’d be a distraction.”
“Maybe not,” Ma says. “The class sold out immediately. We get so few trendy places moving into the area. It’s not like anyone will sneak in to see him, and one couple that signed up for the class is from my cribbage club, and they know my boy well enough.”
Too well , I think with a wince. I was a little shit growing up and Ma’s friends were often the victim of my frustration outlets.
“Does he have a say in this?” I cut in, pointing to myself.
The smell of burned garlic slips under my nostrils as I say it. Noa catches it as well, muttering as she shoves me out of the way like a football defenseman and yanks the wooden spoon from my grip.
She says, “Not if you can’t cook garlic.”
The best decision would be to agree with Noa that I shouldn’t accompany her. I make smart decisions all the time.
Yet, the angry flush to her cheeks and her tangled hair—hair I want to tangle with my own hands—has me going in an entirely different direction.
“I refuse to let that blasted pan be your answer to my kitchen skills. You two have been enough of a distraction for me to have burned boiled water by now.”
Noa lifts her head, meeting my eyes for the first time since I wandered—naively—into the kitchen. “Do you even want to do this? This is a couple’s class, and we are so far away from that it’s almost laughable.”
Though her matter-of-fact assessment of our relationship status digs into long-forgotten places inside my body. “I didn’t know I was allowed an opinion on the subject.”
Ma scoffs. “Don’t be such a martyr, son. You have nothing better to do except tuck tail out of California.”
“Ma,” I say, a little offended.
“Don’t think I don’t know what you’ve been up to.
” Now it’s Ma’s turn to use a slitty-eyed glare.
“You have not been acting like the boy I raised. I’d like to think it was California influence that did this to you, but we both know it’s not.
This is a time for you to rediscover your roots and get the town back in your blood, a town you’ve rightly disgraced. ”
Noa discreetly turns down the stove and backs away.
“Noa,” I say after a beat of silence. “Would you mind?”
“No problem.” Noa doesn’t put forth any argument, sticking to edges as she leaves the room to give us privacy.
A foreign flame licks at my cheeks. I check to see if Noa really turned down the gas burners, but I know it’s not that.
This is coming from an internal place, an area of puberty and hard lessons and making dumb mistakes while growing up.
It’s a part of me only my mother could locate, grab, and yank through my throat.
“I love you, I always will,” she says. “You have my whole heart. If you truly want to prove to the public, and most of all yourself, that you are a man to be admired, you will do this for me.”
“It’s a cooking class,” I say between my teeth. It’s a low tone, non-threatening, but angry.
“I’m well aware of what it is,” Ma retorts.
“And I had every intention of attending it with Noa until recent weeks have proven to me I simply don’t have the energy for it anymore.
She deserves this, son, regardless of what she says.
An opportunity like this never comes into this town.
If Noa refuses to leave Falcon Haven, then this is it for her.
And it’s mostly for her, let me tell you, not you.
You reap the benefit of being in the middle of Falcon Haven so people can see you’re still the boy I raised, helping a girl he scandalized get on her feet. ”
Putting Noa and scandal in the same sentence turns the shame in my throat into a curdle. I talk through it, mostly because I can’t stand ruminating on our past for too long. “I’m not here to make waves, and it’s fairly obvious Noa doesn’t want me near her any more than she has to endure me.”
“She’s earned that right.” Ma straightens in her stool, lacing her fingers together.
“Whose side are you on, exactly?” I ask.
“No one’s. My own. I don’t know, possibly I’m in the mood to fix as much as I can before I go.”
My heart lurches. “Don’t talk like that.”
“While it’s tempting to play cancer card against you at this moment, I will not.
I want this to be your choice. I can bring Noa around easy enough—she has a genuine passion.
You should’ve seen the way she lit up when I told her about the classes the new French restaurant was offering to promote its opening.
I even weaseled my way in as a patient and her nurse rather than a traditional couple in love.
She’ll do it. The only question remaining is, will you? ”