Chapter 2 #3
“I’ve never done it but for the past few months, I’ve been watching videos of people making bread.
” I did that whenever I had the minutes to spare on my phone.
“I can’t do it myself because we don’t have a lot of space to cook and we don’t have things like measuring cups and bowls.
Also, the oven doesn’t work right now but at least there is an oven.
In my old place in Nevada, I only had a microwave. Have you ever watched people bake?”
His eyebrow arched up. “Me? No.”
“I feel like it’s the homiest thing you can do. I imagine the smell of fresh bread and your whole house warm…doesn’t that sound nice?”
“Yes.” He picked up his cup and looked into it, then he put it to his lips and tilted back his head. There couldn’t have been much in there, but he shook it to coax along any remaining liquid.
“One of the steps is to let the loaf rest after it comes out of the oven,” I continued. “Some people say you don’t have to do that—anyway, if you let it rest, the steam is supposed to escape and it kind of calms down, I guess.”
Nolan glanced at his cup. “I’ve lost what we’re talking about,” he said. He still didn’t sound angry, though.
“I’m explaining what happened that night, because Kolter is like the bread. He gets filled with steam and he has to release it and go back to normal.”
“That’s why you were driving around during a snowstorm,” he stated. “I understand now. You were escaping from your house because of your boyfriend’s temper.”
“Call it what you will.” I personally liked the baking comparison better. “It would be fun to live in a place with an oven that worked. I bet you have that in your house, and a washer and dryer. And a dishwasher and an icemaker in your freezer.”
“Why do you think so?”
“Because I looked up where you live. It listed the square footage and there was a picture of the outside, and it’s huge so there must be room for everything you could ever want. You gave me the address so I could take you there,” I reminded him.
“What address?” he asked and when I recited it from memory, he shook his head. “I don’t live there.”
“I remember what you said. You wanted to go home, to that house.”
“You must have noticed that I wasn’t totally in my right mind that night.
I was so cold that I couldn’t think and I’d had a few drinks.
” When he said those words, his eyes went back to his cup.
He tilted it up to his lips again and this time, he tapped the bottom with his other hand to get the last few drops.
“Was that just an address you pulled out of your ear?”
“I pulled it out of my memory,” he told me. “That was where my grandparents lived when I was a kid and I used to spend the summers with them. As soon as vacation started, I would show up here. The next day. I lived with them for a few years of high school, too.”
“I love that,” I said, smiling. “How lucky! I always wished I had grandparents. Did your grandma make crafts with you? Did you go fishing with your grandfather?”
Nolan shook his head and also smiled. Maybe it shouldn’t have been called that, though, because smiles were supposed to have been expressions of happiness and joy and his just looked bitter. “No, we certainly never did any of those things. They were both very busy.”
“Do you have brothers and sisters?”
“No,” he said again. “I do have a lot of cousins and second cousins because I come from a big family. I’m a Whitaker. We’re all over the country but there’s a large population of us in this area and another clump around Detroit, where my parents live.”
Nolan Whitaker. Whitaker. “I’ve seen that name,” I said, nodding.
“Maybe you saw it on the athletic complex. Maybe you visited the Willa Whitaker Botanical Gardens, or the Whitaker Theater downtown. There’s also the Whitaker Museum of Michigan History, the Whitaker Archive, and the Whitaker Reading Room at the public library.”
“I think I saw it on a car dealership,” I told him.
“There are a lot of businesses, too,” he agreed.
“Do you work at one of them?”
“No.” He pointed at me. “Las Vegas. Is that where you’re from?”
“A lot is coming back to you! Yes, I told you that I was born north of there.” I glanced through the restaurant window at the sun, which seemed to have sunk a lot lower.
Had we been here that long? “I don’t have my phone.
Do you know what time it is?” He checked, and it was definitely later than I’d realized.
“I have to get home,” I said. “I guess I cleared up a few things for you. You did for me, too.”
“Did I? Oh, you mean about why the ride got canceled when I was already in the car. My friend thought it would be funny.”
I had meant that, but also more. I had been curious about how he’d had a tab at the bar, Roy’s Tavern, and about why he’d been passed out in that car.
But the way he’d just poured all the liquor into his cup and drank it, and the way he was talking now without a slur or a mumble, proved to me that this was habitual.
He was very used to alcohol. “Are you safe to drive?” I wondered.
“Yes.” He stood and picked up the tray, which was mostly empty because I’d eaten everything.
“Did I answer all your questions?” I asked next. But he had walked to toss the garbage and then he went to the door. I got up too and when I approached, he held it open for me. “Thank you,” I said. I shivered a little because it felt like the temperature had dropped along with the sun.
“Where’s your coat?”
“I must have lost it.” I didn’t have my phone and Kolter couldn’t see my location, but it meant that I couldn’t see his either. I wondered if he was already at his house, waiting. I could practice my story about where I had been as I drove back there.
“Thank you for coming out with me,” Nolan said. “Thank you for saving me that night. Here, this is for you.”
He was holding something out, his palm facing down so that I couldn’t see what it was. I reached for it anyway and came away with several bills. Hundred-dollar bills. “What is this for?” I asked.
“Since I didn’t pay you that night, now I am,” he answered.
“Thank you. And thank you for the food.” I wasn’t sure what to do next so I reached out to him for a second time, not to return the money but to shake like we were ending a business meeting.
He smiled again but he seemed amused instead of angry.
We briefly clasped hands and then his went back to his pocket, but he didn’t take out the empty flask. Now he held his phone.
“Could I get your number? Just in case,” he explained.
“Just in case?” Then I realized what he meant: just in case he needed help, he wanted to have a reliable person to depend on.
I was glad he thought that about me so I recited mine aloud but immediately added, “Don’t text me right now!
Only do it if you have an emergency.” It would have been a very bad thing if Kolter was home and saw an unknown message come up on the phone that I’d left on the couch.
“Then you won’t have my information,” he pointed out. “You might have an emergency yourself and need it.”
“You can just tell me. I won’t forget because I’m good with stuff like that,” I said.
He did recite the digits, speaking slowly and with an expression that made me sure that he didn’t have a lot of faith in my memory. “Bye, Vivi.”
He was still in the parking lot when I left and went home, driving a little too quickly because I was so anxious.
But Kolter’s car wasn’t there and I parked exactly where I had before, so he wouldn’t notice that I’d even been gone.
My phone was still on the couch and there were no new texts or missed calls from him, either.
I drew in a deep breath and nodded slightly, thinking that this had worked out ok. But it had been a silly thing to do, a dumb risk to take.
I took out the money that Nolan had just given me and admired the crisp, green and white bills.
Was this enough to fix the dryer so I could take in laundry again?
Probably, but Kolter would question how I was able to do that and he might have gotten mad that I was having strangers touch his stuff, even a repair person.
For now, I added this windfall to my secret stash of funds.
My boyfriend got home a little later and I had his dinner already finished.
It wasn’t much, because we didn’t have much and also because the stove kept turning itself off, but he seemed fine with it when I handed him a plate as he sat on the couch.
“What did you do with that Christmas tree?” he asked.
“I put it away, like you wanted.”
“No, I told you to get rid of it,” he said, but he still didn’t seem mad. “Bring it back out.”
I carefully carried it to the place it had sat before. “It does take up a lot of room,” I said.
“It won’t be there for long. Christmas is in two days,” he reminded me.
I knew that. I had been scheming for a while about his gift and that was also hidden in the coat closet: seat covers for his car, since the leather-like stuff was peeling.
“My mom says to make a pie for the dinner at her house,” he mentioned. “I like apple but she said pumpkin would be good, too.”
“I can buy one,” I said, and I watched him get miffed. He must have forgotten that the oven wasn’t working, and he didn’t know me well enough to realize that I wasn’t yet a baker. “I’m sorry. I’ll get apple for you.”
He nodded, trusting that I would look out for his interests.
“She never made a pie either,” he said and smiled at me.
I smiled back, out of relief. When he patted the spot next to his hip, I happily sat and I didn’t mind that I was on the stiff, taped part of the cushion. “What did you get for her?”
“What?” I asked. I snuggled against his arm and put my head on his shoulder.
“What did you get for my mom? For Christmas?”
“I thought that you and I would give her something together. Like, we’re a couple, so we give couple gifts,” I said. The present I’d gotten her for her birthday, with only my name on the tag, hadn’t gone over very well.
“Why would you think we’d do that?”
I had felt him stiffen, his muscles tensing, and I sat up. “I assumed it. Sorry,” I apologized.
“You know what they say about assuming. It makes you an asshole,” Kolter said. “That’s what assume means.”
“It makes an ass out of U and me—not you, not really!” I quickly added as his mouth tightened into a thin line. “That’s just the saying. I’m not calling you names.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Nothing, I don’t know why I said that. And I’ll buy your mom something nice, I’ll go early tomorrow and get it,” I said. “What about perfume?” She used that very liberally so she probably went through a lot of bottles.
“Good idea. Get two and I’ll give her one,” he directed, and I nodded. Slowly, I leaned back, but I didn’t relax this time.
He finished eating and I took up his plate, and then he told me about the problem he’d had at work, the thing that had made him so mad earlier. It was all about his boss and her terrible disrespect of him. I was aware that my role was to nod and insult the people who had wronged him, so I did.
“That woman is an idiot,” I said. “I don’t like her at all.”
“I showed her.” He laughed.
“What did you do?”
“Don’t worry about it,” he told me, but I didn’t trust the way he was smiling. It was proud and self-satisfied rather than happy and amused. There were all kinds of smiles and some of them actually felt threatening.
That night, when he was asleep, I got back up to try to fix the ornaments that had broken.
As I sat at the kitchen table with my glue, I thought about the risk I had taken by leaving with Nolan.
I also thought about him coming to find me because he didn’t remember what had happened that night when he’d been out on the road.
It must have felt so strange to have a chunk of your memory missing.
I wondered if he had gotten home all right after he’d left the hamburger place, to wherever he actually lived. I thought about his silver flask and how he’d bought me lunch/dinner. I really had been hungry, and then he’d given me that money…
I glued and reflected until the stool wobbled underneath me and I realized that it was about to give way.
I would need to un-tape the hammer from where it supported the lamp and learn to use it to fix this furniture for real.
Maybe I’d figure it out tomorrow as I went to get two bottles of perfume.
I shrugged a little and returned to bed, leaving the ornaments to dry and the problems for the morning.
My boyfriend rolled over and kicked me in his sleep and I scooted to the edge of the mattress to make more room for him.
I also curled into a ball because it wasn’t very warm in here.
And it must have gotten even colder that night because I had a dream about walking on the side of the road in the snow and the dark, lost and confused. Just like Nolan.