Page 23 of That's Not a Thing

Chapter Eleven

February 2017

It’s a frosty gray morning as Aaron and I walk up Broadway toward Community Kitchen, and I find myself babbling, filling him in on all the minute details of my college life. I point out the little copy center where I used to buy printer paper on the cheap, then the place where Daphne and I ate lunch together nearly every day for the first month of freshman year, then the bodega where Bina and I shared hangover-curing tuna melts on Sunday mornings.

“Not mornings,” I correct myself. “It was probably well into the afternoon by the time we meandered out of our dorm.”

“Tuna melts for a hangover?” Aaron glances at me sideways as we cross 115th Street. “Kinda nasty, no?”

“Don’t knock it till you try it.” I laugh, trying too hard to keep everything casual and light. I don’t want him to know how nervous I am, how fixated I’ve been on the idea of running into Wesley.

I made a supreme effort this morning to seem as blasé about this winter Sunday as I would be about any other. I forced myself to leave my hair alone, letting the blond strands fall haphazardly in waves around my shoulders instead of straightening them with a curling iron like I would for a night out. I threw on a solid navy long-sleeved shirt over a basic pair of skinny jeans. My makeup is subtle, only pale eye shadow and light pink gloss. It just so happens that the jeans are my favorite, best ass-hugging pair, and I know that Wesley always loved my hair wavy, but I’m not going to dwell on those facts right now.

“It’s right up there,” I say, pointing toward the church, where, again, a line of people is beginning to snake around the side of the building.

“You weren’t kidding about this being a hot ticket.” Aaron surveys the diverse crowd, people of all shapes and sizes waiting in puffer jackets and sweatshirts alongside the wrought-iron fence that encircles the old brick building. His eyes linger on a group of children dashing about, zigzagging around adults who stand restlessly, seemingly unaware of the obstacle course their impatient limbs provide. While the older people bide their time, various shades of boredom and expectation coloring their faces, the children bob and weave as though they are at a playground.

“We go this way.” I grab for Aaron’s hand, and his eyes slide away from the children. We walk in the opposite direction, toward a fireproof metal door that leads to the kitchen. When we step into the warm air, the scent of tomato sauce and beans immediately greets us, Katie Sue seems surprised to see me again, as though my visit last week had been a one-off that I was unlikely to repeat. I introduce Aaron, who seems suddenly to be all Katie Sue can see.

“Look at you”—she pokes at my ribs in a gesture of pride—“engaged to a handsome doctor,” though she pronounces it “doctah” and I’m unsure whether she’s making a joke or if Aaron has her so flustered that she’s forgotten to mind her Queens accent. She rests a hand on his arm, and I swear she wants to squeeze his bicep. “You sure know how to pick ’em.”

She says this lightly, but my eyes dart to Aaron’s, worried he will be offended by the reference, by the fact that Katie Sue has lumped him into some amorphous group with the other fiancé I once had.

Aaron’s focus is elsewhere, though, his eyes roving around the kitchen, moving from the two older women in back who are silently chopping vegetables to the heavy-set man stirring a vat of dark liquid on the stove.

“So, what’s my job, Katie Sue? Where am I most useful?” he asks just as a wiry Asian man walks into the kitchen from the gymnasium.

“Garth could use some help with setup,” she answers, gesturing toward the slender man who’s just appeared. I met Garth last week and learned only after serving soggy vegetables alongside him for two hours that he’s the new priest at this parish. “Garth, show this strapping young man what to do out there,” Katie Sue directs.

A flush creeps subtly onto Aaron’s cheeks as he seems to finally notice Katie Sue’s fawning. He sends me a look of helpless surprise before following Garth back out the door.

I pull a worn apron off the hook by the swinging door and slip it over my head, reaching behind myself to tie the straps.

“Women are going to try to steal that one from you.” Katie Sue motions with her head in the direction Aaron walked, smiling proudly, as she carries a covered aluminum tray toward the oven.

“Yeah, he’s a keeper.” I try to sound nonchalant even as I glance toward the door, wondering when Wesley might walk in, if he is even here this week.

“Wesley is teaching his class down the hall again today,” she tells me, as though I’ve spoken my thoughts aloud. She removes three bags of celery stalks from a cardboard box on the counter and pushes them in my direction. “You two have a chance to catch up last week?” She asks the question lightly, but there’s nothing light about the twisty, convoluted path Wesley and I have followed. Katie Sue always seemed to know what was going on in my head even before I met Wesley, when I was first dealing with my mom’s illness and all that detritus. She could see things that other people never detected.

“Nah,” I answer, moving over to the industrial sink to hose down the celery, pulling the stalks apart and letting the water rinse off lingering soil. “He took off pretty quickly last week. It’s fine, though. It’s been a while.”

“He’s got some stuff going on these days,” she says. “You guys should talk.” She picks up a large coffee urn and lumbers with it out toward the gymnasium, leaving me to wonder what her comments mean.

AN HOUR ANDforty-five minutes later, the food is prepped and the leftovers from Wesley’s restaurant are again waiting on the table on the other side of the room. I pull Aaron from where he has been listening to another volunteer, an older woman named Marlene, as she complains about her nursing job at Montefiore. He is giving her suggestions about how to stand up to the doctors who she seems to believe are taking advantage of her.

“What about the nurses taking advantage of kind young doctors?” I whisper as I pull him away to help me staff the lasagna station. I explain on the way over about how we aren’t supposed to give anyone seconds until everyone in the line has had their first serving.

“Except kids, right?” he asks.

I shake my head, remembering the first time I had to internalize that bit of soup kitchen procedure. Telling a malnourished six-year-old that she can’t have a second slice of bread feels almost impossible when you yourself have grown up with the luxury of a perpetually full belly.

Aaron starts to say something, but Katie Sue announces that she is opening the doors. Within seconds, Aaron and I are both busy ladling out green beans and lasagna, engaging in small talk with women and men of varying ages and nationalities as they make their way down the line.

A few minutes into the food service, I catch a certain movement by the door at the far side of the gym and I know he’s here. I glance up casually, somehow certain that I will see Wesley entering the room. When my eyes find him, the first thing I notice is that he is wearing a gray Henley shirt, and I am hit by a mystifying wave of gratitude. He still favors Henleys—something is still the same. He is carrying a black bag that looks almost like it contains a machine gun, but I know it’s a carrying case for his knives. Maybe he had been teaching knife skills in class today. As he walks farther into the gym, his eyes scan the room, as though he is looking for something. For someone. My eyes dart to Aaron, who is slicing additional rows of the enormous lasagna, and then back to Wesley. His head finally turns, and his eyes settle on me. A current of electricity passes between us, undeniable, even across the length of the gym. My breath catches, and he is all I can see as he stops walking and just looks back at me.

“Okay, hand me that spatula,” Aaron says, reaching out for it.

The spell is broken. I pass Aaron the tool, and when I look back at Wesley, he, too, is looking at Aaron. His eyes shift back to me, and he tips his chin up in a light greeting before making his way toward the kitchen.