Dinner at Jack's

by Rick R. Reed

  “What? I know I can make something he’ll love. It may be full of butter and cream and other bad-for-you-but-good stuff. But it’ll be irresistible.”

  “I’ll trust you on that. No, what I was talking about was the crack about the egg in the shoe. My word, I don’t think I’ve heard anybody say that since junior high.”

  “Back in the dark ages?” I quipped.

  “Shut up, you. Let’s go.” And Maisie steered me out of the diner.

  Chapter 13: Jackson’s Spicy Gnocchi

  I don’t remember the name of it, but I can see it in my mind’s eye—the pillowy gnocchi in a plain white pasta dish, glistening with olive oil and dotted with red pepper flakes. I recalled Jackson saying, after he’d eaten every bite, that he wanted to lick the bowl. It was that good. I asked our waiter for the recipe, and he grinned at me and told me he couldn’t give away Soldano family secrets. He then winked and explained the few simple ingredients that went into the dish. Armed with those, I knew I could do a pretty good recreation, even if I didn’t have exact measurements. In my world, measuring when cooking is for wusses. You eyeball and taste—that’s measuring. Baking, of course, is a whole ‘nother story, because baking is a science. Cooking is an art.

  If this didn’t rock Jackson’s world, he really had become someone else. I don’t know what Soldano’s called the dish, but I would call it (unimaginatively):

  * * * *

  Jackson’s Spicy Gnocchi

  8 oz. potato gnocchi

  1/4 cup good olive oil, more or less

  3 large garlic cloves, minced

  3 anchovy filets

  1 t red pepper flakes, more or less

  1/4 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

  1/4 cup pasta cooking water

  Salt and pepper to taste (seriously—to taste! With the salty anchovies and the red pepper, you may not need either)

  Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add plenty of salt when you first see bubbles appear.

  Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add in olive oil and allow it to get warmed up, a couple of minutes. Throw in your minced garlic and lower the heat. Allow the garlic to simmer and become aromatic, but be careful that it doesn’t begin to brown—you don’t want that bitterness. Add in the anchovy filets and cook for a couple more minutes. You should be able to break up the filets with a wooden spoon, and they should magically vanish into the garlic-flavored oil. Trust me, this will not taste fishy. Throw in your red pepper flakes.

  Add gnocchi to boiling water and cook until they rise to the surface of the water. Do not overcook! This will only take a couple of minutes. Remove from water with a strainer and set aside. Reserve 1/4 cup of the water you cooked the gnocchi in.

  At this point, you can dump the gnocchi in the pan with the seasoned olive oil. Toss pasta to coat with the oil and add your Parmesan. Toss some more, so every gnocchi is coated.

  Add in your reserved pasta water a little at a time. You want to loosen up the sauce a bit with this, make it creamier. Your eye will guide you when to stop adding water. You won’t need the whole 1/4 cup.

  Serve hot. Serves 4.

  * * * *

  I know. I know. I can hear you thinking—how can something so simple be so special? Doesn’t a “special” dish take all day and a dozen or more ingredients? And all I have to say is that sometimes it’s the marriage of the simplest things that can magically become something layered and complex, a symphony on the palate.

  I decided I would make the pasta in Jack and Maisie’s kitchen, as this was a dish best served right out of the pan. Along with it, I’d do a little arugula salad with a simple lemon and olive oil vinaigrette. For dessert, maybe some almond biscotti. Those, I’d make in advance.

  All of this, of course, was contingent on the fact that Jack would even deign to take a bite of anything I’d made. But I reasoned that, if he loved this dish once—and I was confident I had a pretty faithful re-creation—he’d love it again. His mind had changed through trauma, but somehow I doubted his palate had.

  * * * *

  The next day, I arrived at Maisie and Jack’s weighted down with everything I needed to make Jack—I guess I needed to stop thinking of him as Jackson, at least for now—a superb Italian dinner.

  Maybe it would jar his memory a bit, and I hoped the jarring would have a positive association. As I made my way to the front door, another thought came to me, and I wondered why this had never occurred to me before.

  Did Jack know who I was?

  Was he simply being obstinate and pretending not to remember? Did I at least look familiar? Had the pain of whatever had occurred that night after we parted wiped out our date as well? Was our sweet farewell kiss buried in the snow of his memory?

  These are questions about which I was clueless but hopeful that someday, and someday soon, the answers would be revealed. Maybe the combination of me being there and serving this dish might at least shake something loose in Jack’s memory.

  Maisie opened the door before I could get to it. She must have been watching for me. She was grinning.

  I slid around her and came into the living room. Maisie was still grinning.

  “What? Did you win the lottery or something?” I asked as I set things down on the kitchen counter.

  “What do you mean?”

  “That grin tells me something good happened. Or you’re just so happy to see me, which, of course, is totally understandable.” I hoped to hear that there was progress with Jack. Something. Anything. I’d settle for even a little improvement in his disposition.

  But why Maisie was grinning turned out to have nothing to do with her son.

  “Your father called me.”

  Maisie continued to wear the grin of an adolescent schoolgirl. It was charming and wiped years off her face. It made me grin.

  As I set out my ingredients, I said, “I didn’t know you gave him your number.”

  “Oh, he didn’t call here. He remembered I was a cashier at the track and he tracked me down there. He left a message with the receptionist to call him back.”

  “That’s great.” I began filling a pot with cold water. I set it on the stovetop and turned the heat up underneath. “Um, what did he want?”

  “Oh, don’t be stupid. He wanted to ask me out, silly.”

  “My dad?”

  Maisie shook her head. “You couldn’t see the other night there were a few sparks flying?” I swear, if Maisie didn’t stop grinning soon, her face would crack.

  “Well, I guess so…”

  “You’re hopeless. Anyway, he went to the trouble to find me and then ask me out for dinner. We’re going out tomorrow night.” Maisie shook her head. “I haven’t been on a date in years. I’m half-terrified, half-excited.” She winked. “And half-aroused.”

  I held up a hand to stop her. “Oh Lord, that I don’t need to hear.” We both laughed. Someone finding Dad attractive was a foreign concept to me—and the detached part of me realized that notion was really very unfair. I reminded myself I was a grown-up, and as such, I needed to begin seeing my father as a fellow human being and not just my parent.

  “So where are you two kids going?”

  “Oh, I think we’re gonna head up to Boardman. He mentioned a Carrabba’s he likes up there.”

  I wished my dad had a little more imagination than a chain Italian restaurant. But then I chastised myself. Besides, around these parts, the dining options were mostly all chains. So I said, “Oh, you’ll have a great time. Just don’t let him bring you home too late.” I wagged a finger at her and smiled.

  “And you’ll be here tomorrow to make Jack supper again, right?”

  “Of course. But wait—aren’t you supposed to work tomorrow night?”

  A blush rose to Maisie’s cheeks. “I’m calling in sick.”

  “You’re a wicked girl, Maisie.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I wish! The last time I called in sick was probably over five years ago. Well, I should leave you to your chefery. Is that a word
?”

  “No, but it should be.”

  Maisie left me alone in the kitchen.

  I began heating a little olive oil in a sauté pan, the start to many, many perfect recipes. As I spread my ingredients out on the counter, I found myself humming because I was hopeful. For Maisie. For Dad. For me. But especially for Jack.

  I was brought up Catholic but cast aside the chains of that particular religion a long time ago, when I realized a person like me—i.e. a big old homo—wasn’t welcome in its embrace. I was one of those insufferable people you hear going on about how they’re not religious but spiritual.

  And so now I raised my eyes to pray to whatever God was that Jack might respond a bit to me, not only so we might see if we could even begin to pick up where we left off, but more so he might become whole again.

  And yes, that last is what I really and truly prayed for.

  Chapter 14: The Taste

  “Is that guy here again?” Jack asked Maisie when she swept into his room and began straightening up. Maisie paused, then continued putting magazines that had been tossed on the floor into the cupboard portion of Jack’s nightstand.

  She straightened up. “What guy?”

  “The one you wanted to cook for me.”

  “Yes, he’s in the kitchen. Cooking for you.” With a load of clothes under her arm, Maisie moved to the window to raise the blind.

  “I thought he wasn’t coming back.”

  Maisie turned toward him. To Jack, she looked younger somehow. Was she wearing some kind of new war paint on her face? Had she lost a few pounds? He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but there was something different.

  “Well, he’s back.” She sat down on the edge of his bed and, annoyingly, picked up the remote from its surface and turned the TV off. He was in the middle of an old Twilight Zone episode, one where two little kids found escape from their unhappy home life through a portal in the bottom of their swimming pool.

  Jack wished they could have afforded a pool…

  Maisie went on, ignoring his tsk noise of protest at the TV being shut off. “You should give him another chance, Jack.”

  “Why? I’m perfectly happy with whatever slop you throw my way. In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t expend a whole lot of energy these days, so your Banquet pot pies are just fine.”

  Maisie’s mouth turned down, in a little moue of disappointment, he supposed.

  “You liked his chili.”

  “I flung it against the wall!”

  “Yes, when he was here to see you. I suppose that was a dramatic statement on your part. So, bravo. But I noticed the leftovers I put in a Tupperware in the fridge were gone the next day.”

  Jack stared down at his covers. He wasn’t about to admit how damn good that chili was.

  “I was wondering something.”

  Jack blew out a sigh. “What now?”

  “If you’d do your mother a little favor.”

  “Anything for you,” Jack said, heavy on the sarcasm. He waited for Maisie to roll her eyes, but she didn’t.

  “I’m thinking it would be good for you to get out of bed to eat. There’s no real reason we have to bring you supper in bed, right? You can walk?”

  “Mom. We’ve talked about this.” Jack felt a kind of fluttery panic in his gut. Sure, he got up sometimes, but it was when Maisie was asleep or at work. Those times, he’d raid the refrigerator or sometimes even sit on the couch in the living room and watch TV or read one of the potboilers Maisie brought home, Dean Koontz or Mary Higgins Clark. He’d look out the window and maybe watch the day as it wound down into dusk, noting how the colors in the sky would change as they darkened. He even knew some of the neighbors’ comings and goings.

  But those times were always when he was alone in the house, or at the very least, when his mother was fast asleep behind her closed bedroom door.

  Those times, when he got himself out of bed, he felt less vulnerable than he would have if there’d been someone around. He didn’t know why. Alone, there was an ease, a sense of freedom.

  But to get up with his mom hanging around and that guy in the house? Jack found himself shaking his head. The idea was terrifying. Again, he didn’t really know why, but just the prospect of it caused his heart to thud uncomfortably in his chest and sweat begin to form at his hairline, in his pits, and to trickle, crawly, down his spine.

  “No way.” Jack turned the TV back on but muted it in a small concession to being courteous. “If he wants to bring me something in here, I might eat it. Or he doesn’t have to. He can just make it and leave. I’ll get it myself later.”

  “Is it him? Beau?” Maisie asked. “He’s a very nice man. Does he make you uncomfortable?”

  “Mom.” Jack rolled his eyes. “You should know by now that just about everyone makes me uncomfortable. Why are you doing this, anyway?”

  “We’ve been over this before, Jack. Bottom line is I’m a lousy cook, and I think you deserve better, once in a while.” She grinned. “Maybe.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t.”

  “I know. But don’t get me started on what I wish you wouldn’t do. We’ll be here ‘til next month.”

  “Oh, that’s nice.”

  “I’m always nice, Jack. That’s why I want to do this for you. Now, if you won’t get out of bed, will you at least, for me, be nice to Beau? Or at least not mean? Will you maybe try what he’s making?”

  He could see her thinking about what to say next. There was something in the way her eyes went far away for a few seconds.

  “I told him you liked Italian food, and that’s what he’s doing out there.” She got up and opened Jack’s door, which left him feeling exposed. “Can you smell that garlic?”

  “Yes. Please close the door.”

  Maisie did as Jack asked. “Could you please try? For me.”

  There was such need in her expression, such hope in her eyes. He really didn’t want to be the way he was, but something—panic, fear, anxiety, whatever you wanted to call it—made him. Those things forced him into a shell of his own making, and he wasn’t sure there was any exit. For a long time, he’d clawed at the smooth, unyielding walls of his prison but gave up after finding no openings at all.

  But he felt he needed to give Maisie something, because he realized, and certainly not for the first time, that his prison was also her own. And that wasn’t fair. The idea of walking the few steps out to the kitchen to eat were more terrifying than almost anything he could imagine, but he could try and throw her a bone. Even a tiny one…

  “I can try, Mom. But can he meet me halfway and bring it in here?”

  You would have thought he’d said something like “You’re the best mother in the whole wide world!” the way her face lit up at his small acquiescence. “Thank you! Thank you so much, Jack!”

  “Just—let’s get this over with.”

  He turned the volume back up. Maisie left the room, closing the door behind her.

  He listened for her footfalls to die away, then hopped from his bed and went into the little half bath that adjoined his room. There he filled the sink with warm water and, when it was full, shut off the taps and ducked his head under, holding his breath for as long as he could. When he reemerged into the air, he felt better. He vigorously dried his hair and face, then looked in the mirror as he got ready to brush his teeth. He knew he’d be eating soon, and something garlicky to boot, but his breath must smell like the bottom of a litter box. So brushing was a necessity.

  But he held the toothbrush poised near his mouth for several moments as he regarded himself. Jack didn’t often look in the mirror. He had, in fact, often considered smashing its silvery surface to bits so he’d never have to again. But he knew how much a violent act like that would hurt Maisie. And on a practical note, she’d just replace it anyway, using money she could scarcely afford to spare.

  The man looking back at him was a stranger. It wasn’t him. It wasn’t, anyway, the image he had of himself as he lay in his bed thr
oughout the long days and nights of his self-imposed exile and confinement. When he couldn’t see himself in a mirror, Jack’s mind went to default on what he had once looked like—his cheeks fuller, his teeth whiter, his nose missing the little hook to the left that it had now. There was no scar above his lip. No, he was the Jack or Jackson he once was, vibrant, alive, healthy, and handsome, despite being this mournful shut-in.

  But, as the old saying went, the mirror didn’t lie. And the man looking back at Jack definitely was not the fairest of them all. It made him sad. If he’d never been the kind of man who turned heads, maybe it would be easier seeing this sad-eyed wraith staring back at him. But his stringy, unwashed hair, hollow cheeks, and general sad-sack disposition weighed heavy on his heart.

  And for a moment, he felt a glimmer of something he hadn’t felt in a long, long time—a desire to change.

  He started brushing his teeth. Maybe his hair would look better pulled back into a ponytail? At least that way its dirtiness wouldn’t be quite so obvious. He considered picking up a razor and shaving off his beard, then vetoed that idea. Too extreme. Too much, too fast.

  He finished cleaning up and went back into his room. He rummaged around in his drawers and found an old pair of jeans and a Seattle Seahawks hooded sweatshirt. He slipped into these, smoothed out the covers on his bed, and hopped onto them, just in time for the bedroom door to open.

  His mother came in first. When she saw him, sitting in bed atop the covers and not beneath them and fully dressed—or at least as fully dressed as he could lay claim to these days—she bit her lower lip. It was sad, he thought, that such a tiny gesture on his part could touch her so deeply. Oddly enough, it caused a kind of nausea to rise up momentarily in his gut, followed by an urge to dash back into the bathroom and undo all he’d done.

  He didn’t understand why. And that was part of his dilemma, his curse—so little of what he did was comprehensible. He was unable to take out his own motivations and examine them.

  Maisie quickly gained back some of her composure. She smiled. “Are you ready for something good?”