An Imperfection in the Kitchen Floor Page 6

  My shirt was nearly off too when my father’s voice filled the room. Reflexively, I covered myself up, as if he could see me.

  “Molly, it’s Dad. I really need to talk to you. It’s about Mom. Please call me back as soon as you can.”

  When he clicked off, I moved away from Jeremy. “You’d better go,” I said. He reluctantly put his shirt back on.

  “You going to be at Poli-Sci today at five-thirty?” he asked, turning back as he walked out the door.

  “Yes,” I sighed as I shooed him out. Our Political Science lecture actually started at five-fifteen. Despite being weeks into the class and repeated reminders of this, Jeremy always wandered in after the professor had begun.

  I grabbed the portable phone off its cradle and dialed home. Dad answered on the second ring and after exchanging pleasantries, I asked him why he’d called.

  There was a long pause on the other end.

  “Dad?”

  “Molly, it’s Mom. She wasn’t feeling great, so she went to see her oncologist, and it turns out that the cancer is back. It’s pretty aggressive, and it has spread. I think you should come home this weekend, if you can. I’ll come get you, or you can take the train, whatever works best…”

  “How aggressive, Dad? Do I really need to come home this weekend?” I interrupted, anger flashing inside me. Going home that weekend would mean I would miss Jeremy’s fraternity’s Luau party. It was going to be the first big party of the semester, and I wanted to be there. Awaiting his answer, I stomped to my closet and twirled my finger around a few of the strings of the grass skirt I had found at a party store.

  “Yes, Molly, I think you should be here as we decide what to do. Mom is scared and I’m sure she’d want you here. She asked me not to call you, but …”

  I yanked the grass skirt from the hanger and threw it into the trash can. I was sure Dad was overreacting. Mom would be fine. She had beaten this once before; why would this be any different? “Okay, fine! I’ll get a train ticket and call you with the schedule.” I jammed the phone’s OFF button.

  I skipped Poli-Sci that afternoon and pouted in my dorm room.

  ●●●

  Mom was on the couch when Dad and I arrived home from the train station that Friday evening. The house was a mess, and the air inside was still and thick with the humid fog of her illness. A metallic medicinal smell filled my nostrils when I went to sit next to her. She opened her arms for a hug and, as always, she squeezed me tightly, not letting go until after I did.

  Dad had filled me in on the details in the car, how she had refused chemo and radiation this time, how the doctors thought it wouldn’t help much anyway. We had weeks, months if we were lucky. Though I had been reluctant to come home, I could now feel the severity of the situation deep in my stomach, churning with worry. I chewed on a loose hangnail, ripping it free and drawing blood. I hollered at my father from the passenger seat, demanding he tell me why he didn’t call me earlier. They didn’t know earlier, he had said simply.

  Now he stood forlornly in the middle of the living room, his light hair greasy, my overnight bag in his hand, looking clueless as to what he should do next.

  “Go on and take that upstairs for her, Richard,” Mom said. “Then call over to Panda Garden for our dinner. I’d like some Moo Shu Pork.”

  Dad nodded and shuffled up the stairs.

  “Oh, Molly, I’m so sorry,” Mom said. The skin on her hands was translucent and I could trace the path of her veins.

  “Stop it, Mom. What are you sorry for? You didn’t choose to be sick.”

  “I’m sorry that we can’t fix it this time. I’m sorry to put you and Dad through this.”

  “Geez, Mom, stop it! What about you? Are you scared?”

  “A little. But mostly about you two. I have taken care of Dad for so long, I’m not sure he can do much himself.”

  “He’ll be fine.” I wanted to reassure her, but looking around the messy house, I started to have my doubts.

  “I was hoping to see you finish college,” she said, “See you do something you love, start a family.” Her voice caught in her throat and she closed her eyes. She paused a moment, then groaned as she sat up straighter, pushing back her long frizzy hair. It was hippie hair, unchanged, along with her wardrobe style, since her days in college spent marching for civil rights. “I loved being your mother. I want you to be sure of that,” she continued, holding my gaze. Slowly, haltingly, she continued. “Being a mother and a wife is wonderful, but I also want you know that you can do more. I never had a career, really. I wanted one, but I was so young when you were born and I stayed home with you and took care of Dad. I simply never went back to work. You can do more. I know you can.”

  “Okay, Mom. Okay.” I wanted her to stop talking like that, like it was the last opportunity to tell me these things. It was too much. I didn’t want it to feel this real. I wanted to be at the Luau party with the rest of my friends, none of whom were thinking about their parents or their future beyond who they might be making out with later in the evening when the spiked punch kicked in.

  “Honey…” Mom tried to continue, but I cut her off.

  “Mom, I know. I get it.”

  She sighed. “Okay.”

  Soon doorbell rang, announcing the take-out delivery man. Dad and I sat around Mom, eating right out of the containers. She picked at her dinner, not eating more than a few bites, and abandoned it altogether when Dad and I were finished. I carried her container to the fridge, but found it too full of casseroles from friends and family who had heard my mother was sick. Dad joined me in the kitchen.

  “Mom wants her cookies,” he said, pulling a package of iced oatmeal cookies out of the pantry.

  Back in the living room, Dad opened the outer cellophane and we all ate a cookie. It was silent except for our crunching. Sweet and our only source of comfort, we all helped ourselves to another.

  She didn’t eat much in the next few weeks and her strength declined rapidly. A hospice nurse came to the house each day. Dad sat by her side while I cleaned up the house and made us meals.

  I couldn’t leave them. I missed two full weeks of classes altogether before calling the dean’s office to explain to them why I would be withdrawing for the semester. I talked to my roommate, Caroline, a few times, but she didn’t know what to say and the conversations were awkward. Jeremy called, sweet and concerned, but I couldn’t talk to him either. I tried to explain the details of Mom’s diagnosis, but he asked too many questions and I was too sad and too tired to repeatedly explain. When he asked me if I thought he had left his Communications and Media textbook in my dorm room, I yelled that he should call Caroline or go over and look himself. After that, I stopped answering his calls, essentially letting him go. Someone else could take care of him; it wouldn’t be me. I needed to take care of things at home.

  The cancer took Mom overnight a few weeks before Christmas. At the funeral, the church was full of poinsettias, and our dark drive home from the cemetery twinkled with holiday lights. My limbs were heavy and numb, my eyes burned out and dry. I had no appetite, but I shuffled inside to get Dad something to eat. In the kitchen, I noticed a sliver of diagonal light along the floor. The fridge door stood slightly ajar, blocked by an abundance of prepared food people had dropped off. Getting closer, I could feel the cool air oozing out.

  Suddenly, I was furious. I slammed the refrigerator door shut and watched as it bounced slowly open again. I started hauling out the food. Snapping open a trash bag, I tossed in the tin containers, each flimsy in their fullness. I dumped out Pyrex dishes, ignoring the names and notes attached to the foil on top. Into the bag went quart containers of soup, wrapped banana breads, and bags of bagels. Frenzied, I hauled the full trash bag out to the garbage cans in the yard. The air was frozen. My breath hung in heavy clouds like a horse’s after a hard run. Tears ran down my cheeks and I felt empty.

  When I came back inside, I found Dad standing in front of the fridge, the interior light illuminating
his face.

  “Where is all the food?” he said.

  “I threw it away,” I grumbled, pushing by him.

  “Why, Molly? Lots of people made that food to show that they care about us. And Mom.”

  “I will make you something, Dad,” I said, and I started cooking.

  ●●●

  I dropped out of college and took the first job any kitchen would give me. I worked my way up through the back of the house ranks, got my own apartment when Dad married my stepmother, and eventually became the sous chef at Aubergine. Night after night, sweat dripped down my back at my station near the flat top. We sent gorgeous, upscale food out through the swinging door and used ugly, raunchy language behind it. The guys plated slices of beef tenderloin underlined with a balsamic glaze to the constant lurid chatter describing their sexual escapades from the night before. Each dish was more beautiful than the last; each storied girl more beautiful than the last. Listening to them made it easier to not think about my mom. I focused on each order, putting the finishing touches on a masterpiece meal before the plate went out the customers. It was an escape.

  One slow Saturday night, Corey was one of those customers.

  Halfway through the dinner service, a waiter pushed through the door to the kitchen and called, “Chef, the couple at table 16 wants to see you!”

  Girard, my overweight and grouchy French boss, just grunted, a sign that he had no intention of dealing with customers that night. As he headed out back for a cigarette, he raised his hairy forearm and pointed at me and then at the dining room. I would have to go see table 16 and take the credit or the criticism. I did most of the work on the line anyway, so it was my praise or criticism to receive.

  Removing my soiled apron and tossing it in the laundry pile by the back door, I washed my hands and pushed through the swinging door that separated the kitchen from the dining room. Once through, I was expected to be polite and courteous, leaving all the bawdy behavior of the kitchen on the inside of that door. I approached table 16 with a smile. An attractive couple sat there, each finishing their plate of Steak Frites.

  “Good evening. Thanks for coming to Aubergine,” I said, suddenly aware of how handsome the man sitting there was. He was about my age, though much older than his female companion. His brown hair was side swept and long enough so that he had bangs and a short up-flip at the back of his neck. He wore a crisp white Oxford shirt, open at the neck, the sleeves cuffed halfway up his forearms.

  “We wanted to tell you how good this is!” trilled his young female companion. She was cute, with a bob of blond curls. I always kept my hair long and pulled back tight at work. I was intimidated by women who had the confidence to don short tresses. “When I was studying in Paris,” she tittered, “I ate steak like this every night. I don’t usually allow myself the calories now, of course, but this was worth the extra three miles I’ll have to run tomorrow.”

  “Thank you. I am glad you enjoyed it,” I said, my hands clasped behind my back. The man said nothing. He just stared at me, making me self-conscious of the sweat on my brow, the lingering hard-to-wash-off smell of the twenty-five flounders I had filleted that afternoon. Both scents certainly mingled and surrounded me like a toxic cloud. His companion babbled on about IM Pei and Notre Dame, and while I was nodding and half listening, he caught my eye and smirked just slightly.

  Afterward, back in the kitchen, I wasn’t even sure I had actually seen him do it, his cute, thin lips turning up at the right corner for a fraction of a second. Business picked-up, orders came in, and I forgot about him. I finished up that night’s service, cleaned up my station, and packed up my knife bag. Through the streets of Georgetown, crowded that time of night with college students ready for an evening at the bars, I made my way home.

  Later in the week, after the kitchen closed, I wearily pushed through the swinging doors and walked through the dark, empty dining room to the bar. On the way, I unbuttoned the top two buttons of my white chef coat, revealing a sweaty t-shirt underneath. Not expecting any customers to still be there, I hollered out, “Gin and tonic please, Garrett.”

  I flopped down on a bar stool, exhaled long and slow, shaking off the tension that built up in my shoulders during the evening rush. When I looked up, I saw the handsome customer from the week earlier. He was seated near the middle of the short bar. His arms were up on it and bent in a semi-circle surrounding his wine glass, an empty plate in front of him. He was watching me. I would find this quiet observation to be a hallmark of his, getting the measure of other people and letting them begin any conversation. In another man, this might seem odd, but there was no threat in his stare, no leering interest, just a comfortable waiting.

  “Oh, hello,” I said. “I didn’t realize anyone was still here. Thought it was just me and Garrett.” My head swiveled around to find my co-worker. “Where is Garrett?”

  “He went in search of the 1998 Louis Latour I wanted,” he replied, not initiating any further, turning back to his still-full wine glass.

  Struggling for conversation to fill the empty and quiet space, I continued, “You were in here earlier this week, weren’t you?” He nodded. “Did you eat again tonight?” I asked.

  “Yes, at the bar. I had the mussels. They were good, but a bit too briny.” There was that smirk again, though harder to see because I could only see his profile.

  Jerk. “Oh yeah? I assure you they were fresh. I received them myself from the purveyor just this morning.” He shrugged and we sat in silence for a while longer, both looking at the mirrored back wall of the bar lined with liquor bottles, waiting for Garrett. Finally, Garrett appeared, wine bottle in hand.

  “Found it! Hi, Molly. I see you have met Corey,” Garrett said, putting the wine bottle down in front of Corey and picking up his rag to start wiping down the bar.

  “Actually, not officially yet,” I said, turning to face him head-on. “I’m Molly.” I leaned over toward him and extended my hand.

  “Corey,” he said simply, and after we shook hands, he returned his focus to Garrett, who poured me a gin and tonic as he chatted away with Corey.

  I listened intermittently, sipping my drink, trying to relax and unwind from my shift, surreptitiously stealing glances at Corey. Though he never engaged me in conversation, sometimes he would look at me and smile. His teeth were slightly crooked, tilted back almost, and he was cuter for the imperfection. After his second glass of wine, he paid Garrett and pushed his stool out. I expected a nod of goodbye, but instead, he walked the short distance over to my stool.

  “Want to go get a drink somewhere? Garrett is ready to close up. Says he’s meeting someone soon,” he said.

  I was surprised at the invitation, and overly conscious of my sweat-slicked hair, hounds-tooth baggy pants, and post-work perfume of garlic and fish guts. I took a deep breath while Corey waited, and decided that, yes, I would go get a drink with him, despite my appearance. I pushed down all the insecurity threatening to float to the top, grabbed my bag, and, with a wave and a shrug, left Garrett to close the restaurant.

  ●●●

  We walked down M Street toward Foggy Bottom and stopped into a tiny piano lounge with old stained-glass windows and a copper bar. A nattily suited singer crooned at the piano. Corey led me to a small table toward the back. When our bored-looking waitress arrived, she took our drink orders, and slowly walked away. Corey and I sat facing each other. Dean Martin’s “You’re Nobody ‘Til Somebody Loves You” pounded on the piano.

  “So…” I began fruitlessly, lost completely on how to get to know someone. I hadn’t dated since Jeremy.

  “You know, your food is amazing,” Corey said, leaning back in his chair.

  “Thanks. Do you come in often?” I asked. Besides with dates, I thought, but didn’t say.

  “Sometimes,” he replied vaguely, shrugging. “It’s a good place to take a… a…” he trailed off.

  “A date?”

  “Yes, but tonight I came back to see you,” Corey said, looking
up and straight at me.

  Suddenly uncomfortable and fidgety, I joked, “Oh yeah? Even though the mussels were briny?”

  “I do like how you pair them with Gorgonzola. It makes it an interesting dish,” he said, ignoring my jab. “I know about food. My aunt used to run a delicatessen up in Pennsylvania. Nothing as fancy as Aubergine, of course; no mussels on her menu. I could eat them every day.”

  “Me too.”

  “The girls I bring in never order the mussels, though,” he said with a shrug. “They seem to like your salads. What is it about girls and salads?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not really a salad girl,” I said. Corey raised his eyebrows. I continued, “Oh, don’t get me wrong. I love a good salad, but it has to have bacon, or a soft-boiled egg, or both.”

  “Okay, so tell me what you would order at Aubergine,” Corey said, his eyes bright with mischief even in the low light of the bar. He was hard to figure out. Was he interested in me or did he just ask me here to find out what the sous chef considered the best menu item? Either way, he was pretty cute, if arrogant, so I figured I’d play along.

  The waitress dropped off our drinks, saying nothing and sloshing some over the side of my glass upon impact with the table. I picked up my gin and tonic and took a long sip. Corey held his glass, swirled his red wine around in aeration, and waited for my answer.

  “To start, I’d order the escargot…”

  Corey interrupted, suddenly intrigued. “Snails, huh?”

  “Definitely. We make them with lots of garlic and morel mushrooms, and they are divine. Of course, I’d make my date—presumably you—try them too, so that we both had dragon breath and he wouldn’t mind kissing me goodnight, should he be given permission,” I said, stabbing the lime in my drink. “Then, for the main course, I would order the Steak Tartar…”

  “A bold choice, raw meat. Not what I’d expect,” he said.

  “I love raw beef. Especially the way we make it, mixed with a single golden egg yolk, minced onions, and the bright pop of capers. And I’d need lots of bread to spread it on.”