10. That Peach Worth It Though #3
Underneath the water I swear I heard it. The opening chords of "Cry Together." That O'Jays record my mother used to put on late, after she thought the whole house had gone down for the night. Then we broke the surface and it was gone, as if somebody lifted the needle off the groove.
Air came back wrong. Both of us coughing salt, her forehead knocking my chin, her nails dug into the meat of my shoulder, and neither one of us stopping, because the wave had come through the middle of our orgasms and taken the choice out of our hands.
She was still going around me, hot and tight, contracting in waves of her own that had nothing to do with the Atlantic.
Drunk ain't the word for what that did to me. Drunk you can walk off. This was the top of my head coming loose while my girls peach held on to me like I was permanently attached to her now.
Then the sound went. The gulls first. Then the waves, pulling back like somebody easing a fader down. Then her breathing, which was the last thing in this world I wanted to lose and lost anyway.
Then I saw white.
Then nothing…
Then —
It was five years back…
The investors had already shaken my hand twice, which meant the meeting had gone well, which meant my father would find something wrong with it anyway.
He always did. Praise made him nervous, like it was a debt somebody was going to come collect on later, and he'd rather owe nothing to nobody, including his own son.
They filed out of the private dining room one by one, full of good wine and better numbers, talking about expansion, about the kind of future that men in tailored jackets talk about when they've decided you're worth investing in.
I stood there in my chef's coat, feeling real good.
Felt like I could carry the weight of what my grandfather prepared me for.
Then it was just me and my father in a room that suddenly felt smaller than it had a moment earlier. As always, he waited until the door clicked shut.
"You gon roll them sleeves down and cover those tattoos before the next one," he said.
"It's my restaurant."
"It's my name on the deed and I'm not fully hands off yet in this transition. Capa Dillion. My father's name before it was yours. You want five stars, you gotta look like a man that deserves five stars."
"I look like a man that earned it."
"You look like a man fresh outta county lockup playing dress up for Halloween.
" His eyes went to my neck, my hands, to the ink that climbed up out of my collar.
"Every one of these investors sees that and thinks the same thing I used to think.
Thinks trouble. This isn't juvenile lockup, Dillion.
We could probably get more money if you looked the part. "
"I'm a grown man now, I know this ain't juvie, Dad.
" I defended myself. "This is Capa Dillion.
Knew that before we had a whole building, before my balls even dropped when I was whooping ass cause everybody made fun of me for wearing a damn apron.
And it's gonna be what I want it to be, not what you need it to look like so you can sleep good at night.
It's my turn now, you on your way out, two years now we been in a transition. Back off."
"Watch your mouth in my restaurant."
"It ain't your restaurant no more." I gritted out, trying to maintain respect.
"You handed me the deed and the debt both.
You don't get to keep the say so just because you're scared of what I look like when I stop shrinking myself for people.
This who I am and I ain't changing. People love my food. "
"People love your food despite how you look, not because of it.
" He was in my space now, close enough I could count the gray hairs in his beard, close enough I could see the muscle working in his jaw like he was chewing on something he wanted to say worse than this.
"You think a scout from Michelin gives a damn how good your hands are if he can't get past what your neck says about you first?
Why would you put all these markings on your body?
I raised you better than to be this stupid. "
"You raised me in a kitchen where the only thing that mattered was whether the plate was right." My voice stayed level. "Now all of a sudden it matters what my skin says. Funny how that changed the second there was real money on the table."
"Don't you dare." His finger came up, not touching me, just close enough to mean it. "Don't you dare stand here and act like I'm ashamed of you."
"Then what is this? Me and you are best friends outside this restaurant, real father and son. But every time we step in here, you turn into somebody else. All of a sudden I’m not enough. You don’t trust me to fully step back."
"I’m tellin’ you this cause I love your hard headed ass. This is me trying to keep you from throwing away the one thing that could actually make this family's name mean something outside of Roena County! That's why I'm telling you now, before it costs you everything I bled for."
"You ain’t bleed for this." I stepped into the space he'd left when his finger dropped.
"Grandpa bled for this. You just kept the lights on and told me every day since I was six years old that I was one bad decision away from not being shit.
And I'm damn sure not gonna spend the rest of my life covering myself up so you can pretend I’m not who I always been. "
"You think them tattoos make you a man," he said. "They just make you easy to remember. And not for the reasons you want."
I didn't answer that. Some things you let sit in a room and rot on their own, you don't need to add nothing to them.
I walked out.
Wasn't no point arguing with that old school mentality. My father was sixty eight years old and had never once changed his mind about a thing because somebody explained it to him better. Least of all his son. Least of all about what I chose to do with myself outside that kitchen.
I was tired of the conversation, and I could still see the way he'd looked at me the day I stepped off that plane from Milan with ink on me that hadn't been there when he put me on it.
He'd sent me over there to better myself.
Far as he was concerned, I came back looking like the exact thing he'd spent my whole childhood sitting me down to talk me out of becoming.
The doors swung shut behind me hard enough to rattle the little window in the top of them, and I kept walking, past the pass, past the line still breaking down from service, out the back door.
Aurelia was standing out there for some reason. She took one look at my face and walked over, and put her hand flat against my chest, right over the two dragons that ran down from my collarbone, the ones my father hated most.
"Walk with me," she said.
"Ru, I'm not in the mood to—"
"I didn't ask if you were in the mood." She was already turning, already walking toward the tree line at the edge of the lot where the streetlight didn't reach. "I said walk with me."
I went. I always went, when it was her doing the asking.
"When Raymond told me you were having an investment meeting and your father was in there, I had a feeling you'd need a walk after." She smirked,
I looked at her for a second longer than I meant to. My best friend, she'd anticipated exactly what I'd need before I knew I needed it, same as she always did since we became close two years prior.
"Your daddy loves you, you know that right?" She bumped her shoulder into arm, gentle, the way you'd nudge something fragile back into place. "He's just old school. Sees tattoos as something other than art."
I scrubbed my hand down my face, felt the day's stubble catch against my palm.
"Shit is annoying. Thirty one years old and it's like he still sees me as a kid getting in trouble, when I haven't been in trouble in years.
Been over 10 years since County, since he sat me down and shipped me off to Europe.
I'm dedicated to this restaurant, Ru. Came home, back to the states so three generations could be in that kitchen when I could have stayed on the other side of the world.
Been doing the work every single day since.
He tells everybody he's retired but he's still in the mix, like he doesn't trust me with it.
Like I ain't been in every part of this business my whole damn life. "
She put her arm through mine and pulled me a step closer.
"He misses Grandpa real bad." Her voice dropped. "I think he's scared he's gonna mess this up without him here to catch it. His Daddy is in these walls, Dilly Duck."
I willed back the tears that wanted to fall.
We'd lost my grandfather six months back, and the hole he left didn't get smaller with time the way people promised it would.
It just got quieter, which was its own kind of cruel, because quiet meant you had room to actually feel the whole shape of it every single morning before you'd even opened your eyes all the way.
I knew my father was drowning in it worse than me, knew that was half the reason he'd decided to finally stop showing up so damn much at my mother's insistence, even though some other part of him wasn't ready to let go of the wheel just yet.
Knew it and still couldn't make myself forgive him for taking it out on me.
"I know he does, Ru." My voice came out rougher than I wanted it to. "I miss him too."
"Me too." She squeezed my arm, and for a second neither one of us said anything, just stood there in the parking lot.
She looked up at me, and there wasn't a single ounce of judgment in it, just that patient way she'd always had of holding both sides of a thing at once.
"Your dad's going through a lot of transition.
I know he can be a hard ass. But give him some grace? "
I looked down at her and smiled.
"My mother put you up to this?"