[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
butter and cream and red meat. If I didn't put gorgonzola
or goat cheese on our salads, he probably wouldn't enjoy
them. He eats everything I make because he loves me,
and I tend to make what he likes because I love him. If I
skip the steak one evening or have rhubarb pie for
breakfast, he doesn't say anything. He's good that way.
James is good in a lot of ways. But right now James
Fitzgerald, lawyer and eco-crusader extraordinaire, is in
Indonesia. Jakarta, specifically. He has been for the past
two and a half weeks. This is the longest we've been
apart since we started living together a little over a year
ago. Three days to go and I'm doing my best not to go
insane with impatience. I work, and when I'm not
working, I cook. Then I give away everything I make.
Last weekend I baked over a dozen pies, just for the
hell of it. Rhubarb, cherry, apple, lemon meringue, key
Pour Some Sugar On It - 100
lime, and three of James' favorite, chocolate pecan. I
gave them to various neighbors (I think Mrs. Klein
wants to hire me permanently for her bridge group),
took a few to the restaurant for my coworkers to snack
on and brought one over to the house of my former
roommate, Johnny. He opened the door, took one look at
the pie and snapped, "You hate me."
"Well, you love me."
"Do you know how much time I had to spend in the
gym when we were living together, Alex? How I am
only now successfully weaning myself off of my
addiction to your damn crack food? You hate me."
I sighed. Johnny lives in a world where the only life
worth living is a dramatic one. "I'm not going to force
pie on you. I can just take it home--"
"What kind is it?" he demanded.
"Caramel apple."
"God damn you to hell," he said cheerfully, pulling
me and my pie into his foyer. He took the pie out of my
hands and looked me over. "James is away, huh?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah, I can always tell. You get this tight look
around the corners of your eyes, and you make sticky-
sweet things he wouldn't eat in a million years. Come
on. Time for pie, coffee and talk therapy." He led me
into his kitchen and I went almost four hours not
spending every minute thinking of James.
I guess I cook because it's mindless. Not to say that I
can do it without thinking, but rather that I can think
only about cooking while I do it. I do other things to
keep occupied, too: I go running, I read, I occasionally
watch TV. Nothing works like cooking, though. Even
when I'm cooking with James in mind. Like tonight, for
example.
Pour Some Sugar On It - 101
Tonight I make a meal James would love. Rich,
meaty lasagna stuffed with ricotta and mozzarella, fresh
tomatoes, onions, and spices. Fresh-baked breadsticks
with garlic butter and parmesan. A baby-spinach salad
with homemade balsamic vinaigrette dressing. A stand-
by bottle of his favorite Italian merlot. I even light a
candle. I sit down, eat some salad and a breadstick and
wrap the rest up. If I freeze the lasagna, it'll be ready for
James when he comes back, in approximately... sixty-
nine hours.
Cleaning up takes no more than a half hour. I
consider cooking something else, but I'm pretty low on
groceries now. I try the television in the living room
instead. I don't watch much TV, but my guilty pleasures
are the dancing shows. I was a dancer before I was a
chef, and I love watching beautiful people make
spectacles of themselves while learning to tango. But no
dancing tonight, not even a rerun. Other options
include... huh, I don't care. I glance over at the book I'm
halfway through, but not even the birth of the universe
can hold my attention tonight. Fine, then. Bed. At eight
o'clock at night. I'm so lame.
I don't have all that many friends. James, Johnny,
some of the people I work with, but I'm pretty much a
homebody. James is the social butterfly, although you
wouldn't guess it to look at him. He's gorgeous, but
when he wants to be forbidding he's absolutely
untouchable. Conversely, when he wants to be
welcoming you can't get enough of his presence: the
way he makes you feel, the special attention you get
from him. When James focuses on you, you feel like
you're the center of his world. Or maybe that's just how
it feels to me.
I turn off the lights, check that the door is locked and
head upstairs. Our bedroom is at the end of the hall, and
Pour Some Sugar On It - 102
it's my favorite room in the house. I know, obvious, but
not just for that. It feels so much like James in there; it's
the only room where his personality came through in the
decorating. The carpet is the color of champagne, the
walls are dark chocolate. The bedspread is the same
shade of red as the wine I sipped at earlier; the bed itself
is tall and wide. The window has thick drapes that can
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]