Sweetbitter(46)

“You’re going somewhere?” Had she said that? They let Simone leave the restaurant?

“Yes, it’s that time.”

“What time?”

“Little one, it’s nearly Thanksgiving. Jake and I are going home.”

Jake and I, Jake and I, Jake and I disappear.

“Jake kissed me,” I heard myself say, like a stranger was telling on me. I had been so restrained. Of course, I wanted to tell her immediately. I wanted to see if she already knew. But it was like the figs, the oysters. More than anything I wanted to accumulate moments between us—just Jake and me.

“Yes, he did.” She regarded me with a passive reception to my words. I couldn’t find any causes for the cloud of tension that had grown during the lesson, but there it was, coloring the room.

“I don’t know,” I said. Shut the fuck up, I told myself. “I don’t know what it means.”

Simone sighed. She was silent a long time looking at me. “What do you think it means?”

I shrugged. Anything I thought of to say out loud would be juvenile when it landed in front of her.

“A woman needs to be in her right mind to be kissed. I tell him that all the time. Otherwise all hell breaks loose.”

People hear what they want to hear. I heard, I tell him that all the time. All the time, all the time, Jake and I. My finger was bleeding and I put it in my mouth.

“Have a great trip, then,” I said. I gripped the rails and started down the stairs.

“Enjoy the holiday,” she replied when I was halfway down.

—

LET ME TRY to say it again: sometimes when he spoke to you he mumbled. You had to lean in to hear what he was saying. He repeated himself often. We were drinking the last quarters of open bottles of Cabernet Franc, and Jake poured them over ice cubes and it tasted like thyme and cranberries, and I said, When do you head home for Thanksgiving? And he said, Soon. I leaned in and said, When? He turned, lined me up in his sights, and said, Soon. I said, nearly falling off my stool, When? We should hang out before you go, and his arctic eyes said to me, Babe, I’ve already gone.

—

I WAS POLISHING KNIVES at the front hutch when I heard my name. It sliced me, my name that I hadn’t heard in months. Suddenly I saw the version of myself who had never come to the city, never fallen down the stairs, or said anything stupid. She was safe and as good as dead.

It was a kid I had gone to college with. I couldn’t remember his name. He was in a suit. They always wore a suit when they came in with their parents. Or at least a sports jacket and tie. My instinct was to run into the kitchen and pretend I hadn’t heard. But I thought Simone might be watching. I smiled warmly.

“You work here?” he asked, incredulous.

“Yes. Yes, I do.” I tried to see my new self. All I could see was the red and white stripes of my shirt. Why did I wear the red one, which always reminded me of Waldo and clowns? I split and watched us from the top of the stairs, I split and watched us from the ceiling, I split and watched us from halfway across the country.

“That’s so funny!” he said.

“Yeah, it’s hilarious.”

“Do you live here?”

“Not in the restaurant.”

“Ha, yeah. That’s so cool you moved here. You live in the city?”

“In Williamsburg. It’s a neighborhood. In Brooklyn.”

“Oh, I’ve heard of it. It’s like the hip spot, right?”

Not the part I live in, I thought. But I knew what I was supposed to say. “Yes. Lots of…”—the words wouldn’t come together—“artists, very…up and coming.”

“What else are you doing?”

Inevitable. Why hadn’t I practiced this situation? Was it possible that I had ferociously recited menu ingredients to myself on the subway, but had never come up with a tagline about my life? Had I completely erased the world outside these walls?

What else am I doing? I am learning about food and wine and how to taste terroir and how to pay attention.

“I’m doing this,” I said. I paused. His expectation hung on me. “And I’m working on some projects.”

“What kind of projects?”

Jesus, his curiosity was baffling. Other industry people knew when to let it go, they understood the subtext.

“Mixed-media stuff. You know, all the different mediums. Um. Fragments. The human condition. The failure of language. Love. I’m at the gathering stage right now.”

“Fascinating,” he said, smothering me with his earnestness. “This must be the perfect place to gather material.”

I wanted to say, My life is full. I chose this life because it’s a constant assault of color and taste and light and it’s raw and ugly and fast and it’s mine. And you’ll never understand. Until you live it, you don’t know.

Instead I nodded and said, “Yeah, it’s perfect.”

“Yeah…that’s great.” When he said great it sounded like sad. I steeled myself. The only way out of this was hospitality.

“Are you dining with us?”

“Yeah, I’m in the back with my dad and uncle. I was just looking for the bathroom. We’re in from Philly for the afternoon. This place is his favorite. It’s really famous, you know that?”