The three of us arrive at my house, yet only two of us are helpful about bringing in groceries. Shallots is kind of a bust with those short legs and all, but he’s forgiven, even as he struts into my house and lazily curls up under the coffee table in the living room.
We unload groceries, and when I get to cooking, Danny is super intuitive and understanding about being quiet and letting me focus on my recipe. He watches me grate red and white onions and carrots through the food processor, and then I sauté the ground beef before I add in the rest of the ingredients. The recipe asks for a bunch of nutmeg, which I find suspect, but I decide to trust the reviews that I’ve scoured.
When the sauce is finally on the stovetop and simmering, pouring two big glasses of red wine seems to make sense. So, I do that and nudge us into the living room. Danny and I drop onto the couch.
“Fuck, cooking is stressful,” I say with a laugh. “But it’s also not, if that makes sense at all. I so want to get this shit down. I do.”
“I think you’ve got this, Callie. You’re a natural.”
“I think I don’t, and I’m not,” I say as I roll my eyes. “But I guess I’m trying. And I’m sorry that it’s already past seven, and this sauce is supposed to cook for an hour and a half or more. I wasn’t paying attention. You’re probably starving and exhausted and—”
Danny cuts me off, “And happy to be here.”
We sit quietly for a while.
“My dad and my grandmother both cooked, especially around the holidays. So much baking, roasted turkeys, thousands of side dishes. Totally glorious food. And ironically, you know what’s always turned me off from cooking? Holidays.”
“Why?” he asks softly.
“Because after my dad died, holidays always felt like an opportunity to tease me. We’d be gathered around a table, and at some point, it’d become a thing to make fun of me. Little jabs here and there, you know? Passive-aggressive shit. Comments about my lame job, not going to college, living at home. Roasting me. Pretending it was all in good fun, but roasting anyone is never all that funny. Then, lots of talk about Erica and her successes…”
His arm pulls me in. “I’m with you. Holidays usually suck for me too. My mom’s schedule is always so crazy and unpredictable, so I end up at friends’ houses for some holidays.” He takes a minute. “Well, most holidays.”
Neither of us says anything. And the silence seems to last forever.
“Want to see something fun?” I finally ask.
When Danny nods, I snag my iPad from the coffee table and show him a link. “A live feed of the polar bears at the San Diego Zoo.” It’s hard to contain my love for this site.
“Polar bears? What? I’m so into this!”
The way he focuses on the feed and begins asking me questions is crazy cute. He wants to know about these three bears and how they arrived at this zoo. It’s maybe weird how much I know about them, but he seems into it.
I tell him how a mother polar bear had been tagged for research reasons and her collar sent off an alarm one day. When the team reached her, they found that she’d been shot and killed. Her cubs would have died had they not been rescued. The third is also an orphan, but they don’t know what happened to her parents.
“So, I watch them every day. I love when they roll around in a snowbank, swim in the pool, and munch on bunches of carrots and shit. There’s nothing cuter. The San Diego Zoo also has more live cameras. Apes and hippos, but I haven’t investigated those yet because I’m already so obsessed with these polar bears.”
“I can see why.”
Danny is mesmerized, and we sit wordlessly for a long time until I reluctantly pull myself away to sauté chopped poblanos and garlic and toss them into the sauce before I hit it with a touch of heavy cream. After I boil up spaghetti and serve us both at the table, topping our bowls with a bit of Parmesan, Danny’s nodding and smiling, and after he takes one bite, he tells me that I’ve done well.
He can barely look up as he eats. “This is a winner. For sure.”
After I try a small taste, I agree, “It’s not bad, right?”
“Not bad? It’s damn fantastic! You are on fire!”
“I’m sure that won’t last. I’ve got to fuck up something soon.” One of us has to be realistic.
“And so what?Sowhat? You’re taking on something new. Who cares if you screw up now and again? You’re doing more than most of us. Hell, I usually live off of prepackaged burritos and mac and cheese. This? The way you’ve been feeding me? Shit, it’s all new and fantastic. I’m tasting stuff I never even knew existed.” He finds the bottle of wine and refills our glasses. “Cheers to killing it. Absolutely killing it. And making me like wine.”
“Right? It’s my new drink.”
“I’m now into all of this.” He swirls his fork around and looks at me. “All of this.”
I manage to hold his eye contact for more than a fraction of a second before turning away. “I didn’t, uh, I didn’t realize how hungry I was.” Then, I pause, and something hits me. “How hungry I’ve been for months. Years. Jesus, I’ve been living off of microgreens and shit for so long that I forgot how toreallyeat.”
He laughs. “Whatever California diet you’ve been on sounds horrible, but it explains why you’re such a tiny thing. You can afford to indulge in all your new cooking, so enjoy it.”
