Dinner at Jack's

by Rick R. Reed

  I stood for a moment, undecided whether to stay here and do as Maisie challenged or go home, where I knew I had a fairly decent selection of proteins, veggies, starches, and herbs from which to compile something. Figuring it couldn’t hurt to just check out what was in the fridge and the pantry here, I headed out to the kitchen and began rooting around.

  As I found pasta, cans of tuna, cream cheese, a bag of already shredded cheddar, which I hated—didn’t Maisie know they coated that stuff with wax to keep it from clumping?—and some frozen peas, a menu began to form in my head. It certainly wouldn’t be equal to what I’d made the night before, but it would be comforting. I usually made what I called White Trash Mac & Cheese with a box of the processed stuff. There. I said it. I’m a professional cook and I sometimes eat boxed macaroni and cheese. To which I add a handful of peas and a can of tuna. On a rainy Seattle night, when I was by myself and maybe feeling a little blue, the dish felt like home. It warmed my soul.

  I could upgrade it a little here. Make it from scratch. And hope Jack would feel the same way about it as I did. After being out in the cold and damp, I knew a big bowl of creamy pasta in front of me would be just the kind of soul-satisfying ticket I’d need.

  I set to work.

  * * * *

  Maisie had already left by the time I finished. I loaded up two bowls of mac and cheese, an iceberg lettuce salad with ranch—hey…I was going the whole hog tonight! Maybe I’d find some Little Debbie for dessert—and two cans of Diet Pepsi and headed to Jack’s room.

  I gently kicked at his closed bedroom door one, two, three times as my way of knocking. I affixed a smile to my face, believing if I was positive and upbeat, I would draw that energy to me.

  “It’s open,” Jack called out, over what sounded like an old episode of Seinfeld.

  “Yeah, but my hands are full. Can you open the door, please?” If Jack could walk around in the sleet in a light jacket with no apparent harm, he could certainly walk the four or five steps to his bedroom door. I waited, the seconds ticking by.

  I was not at all sure he would, though. I continued to wait. And wait. I blew out an annoyed breath. I was just about to set the tray down on the floor when he opened the door. He faced me, wearing a blue terry cloth robe. Underneath, he wore a dingy white T-shirt and a pair of sweats. He’d gotten comfortable fast. I stepped into his room.

  I was right that it was Seinfeld he was watching. I glanced at the screen as I moved in front of his bed. “This episode is a classic. Kramer’s coffee table book…that turns into an actual coffee table!” I snickered.

  Jack didn’t. He simply climbed back into bed. “You can put the tray on the nightstand.”

  Apparently, he hadn’t noticed I had settings for two. Or maybe he had…”Okay.” I complied. “Tonight, I’ve made for you my world-famous White Trash Mac & Cheese.”

  He eyed the food and barked out a short laugh. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously. I know it’s not haute cuisine, but I think you’ll be surprised at how good it is.”

  He continued to stare at the food. “It looks like something my mother would make.”

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  “Well, I assume that’s why you’re here. You know, to up the level of what we eat around here.”

  I found myself feeling just a tiny bit annoyed. I drew in a deep breath, trying to calm myself. I paused and remembered him as he’d once been and found myself wondering once again if I’d been mistaken, even as I knew I hadn’t. “As they say on the old TV commercials, ‘Try it! You’ll like it!’” I handed him a bowl. He didn’t fling it against the wall.

  Score!

  I picked up a bowl for myself and sat down in the recliner near Jack’s bed.

  He cut his gaze over to me. “You’re going to stay here? In the room with me?”

  “Is that okay?”

  “I’m just not used to it. I usually eat by myself.”

  “You want me to go?”

  He didn’t answer. He just raised a forkful of mac and cheese to his mouth and chewed. I did the same.

  Finally he said, “Yeah.”

  “What?”

  “I want you to go.”

  I sighed and stood up. I wasn’t surprised. And I certainly wasn’t hurt. His words were simple, yet they conveyed a level of hurt on his part, not mine. It was as though there was reluctance in asking me to leave, like he was compelled by forces out of his control. I could also interpret his tone as him having mixed feelings on whether I should stay. I tried to be compassionate, to think that maybe, just maybe, something forced him to push people away, even when he didn’t want to do it, even when he couldn’t understand why.

  At least that’s what I tried to cling to as I set his dinner on the nightstand, gathered up the tray with my stuff on it, and started toward the door. Maybe, I thought, I was rushing things. I had taken my cue from his willingness to go outside as a sign that things were changing. But who knew what that meant? Maybe he sleepwalked and woke up to find himself outside? Stranger things have happened.

  As I got to the threshold, he stopped me in my tracks.

  “Beau?”

  I turned, smiling. I hoped he’d changed his mind.

  We stared at one another for a full minute at least. In that exchange, something passed. I don’t know if I can rightfully or reliably call it recognition, but our eyes had some sort of communication. There was more there than just glancing at someone.

  He broke the spell as the old Jack came back. “What are you waiting for? You can go.”

  I laughed, but there was no mirth in it. “Okay.” I moved into the hallway and then set the tray down on the floor. I turned to close his bedroom door. I figured I’d finish my own dinner at the kitchen table, then go in and collect the dishes from Jack. I could put away any leftovers and load up the dishwasher before I headed home.

  “Beau?” Jack called again.

  “Yeah?” I held the door partially open and peered in at him.

  “This is good.”

  “Thanks.” I shut his door and leaned against the wall for a moment, feeling sad and deflated. With a normal person in a normal situation, I could go back into Jack’s room and confront him. I could tell him that, once upon a time, we’d had a date that had gone very, very well, far enough for me now to think of it as magical.

  But I couldn’t. I didn’t know what triggers lurked in his psyche that could cause things to get even worse. He was like a bomb in some ways—cross the wrong wires and kaboom.

  I went into the kitchen and, like Jack, turned the ancient and tiny portable Maisie had on the counter on and tuned it to Seinfeld. It was snowy but viewable.

  I took up my fork and began to eat, taking small comfort in the fact that Jack and I were under the same roof, eating the same supper, and watching the same TV show. As I ate, I remembered our date again, seeing Jack by the flickering light of the single candle on our table. His face, with its blond stubble and icy blue eyes, looked warm in the glow of the candlelight. We’d shared many moments where our eyes met across that table, and there’s truth to the statement that our eyes were doing more communicating than our mouths. I know this much is true, because every once in a while during that long-ago meal we’d have to break away from the lock we had on each another’s gazes. When we’d do that, we’d both smile, conspirators in flirtation. I recalled thinking that for sure we’d end up in bed together before the night was through. I had never been the virtuous type. And the passion in our eyes had been electric.

  How different things might have been if Jack had simply gotten in a cab that night and ridden home with me! He would have avoided whatever had happened to make him into that man in the other room, that terrified and confused soul it pained me to know I felt such pity for.

  The night would have been one for the record books, I was sure, simply based on the lust and attraction that hung in the air between us. In the morning, I would have made him breakfast, a frittata with ham, peppers, and cheese.
Earl Grey tea. Maybe even some quick biscuits…

  If he wasn’t in love with me for my bedroom prowess, he would be in love with me for my cooking.

  Sure. It could have all gone so well, if he’d only not wanted to do what he thought was the right thing and wait.

  I felt a lump form in my throat as I imagined us together the following spring, him bringing Maisie to meet me when she visited. I would cook for the two of them under entirely different circumstances. We would have already discovered we had Fawcettville in common.

  I shook my head and got up to begin rinsing off the dishes in the sink. Fate had a funny way of working, didn’t it? The smallest choices we make could have the biggest repercussions. Some might say things happened as they were supposed to. That what was going on right now was exactly as things were to unfold. And that whatever happened to Jack that night in the snow had been meant to be.

  The only question was—how do I make peace with the now and not long for what was and for what might have been? And was I wrong to hope for a future that might include a reunion with a Jack who might no longer exist?

  I suppose everyone asked questions like these at one time or another. It was the human condition, pretty much, in a nutshell. But the sad truth is—all we have is now.

  I let out a shaky breath that I supposed I could label a laugh. I headed toward Jack’s room to see if he was finished. I didn’t knock this time but simply opened the door slowly, so he’d have a chance to object if he wanted or needed to.

  He lay on the bed, fast asleep. The light from the TV flickered over him. I stopped, holding my breath, and took him in. For the first time, with his features relaxed, I saw the man I’d gone out with in Seattle, the man I’d fallen for that night. I neared the bed, feeling a bit like a creep, a stalker, but I couldn’t stop myself. He was on his side, his lips slightly parted. There was such calmness and innocence in that face that it deeply touched my heart.

  I reached out to feel his cheek. I very lightly stroked his beard. My touch was akin to a whisper. He murmured, and I snatched back my hand, praying he wouldn’t wake. I stepped away from the bed. In a low voice, I said, “You promised we’d see each other again. And I guess you haven’t broken that.”

  Jack rolled over in bed and began snoring.

  Romantic.

  I gathered up his plates. I was pleased to see he’d eaten every bite.

  The way to a man’s heart…

  Chapter 18: In Which Jack Remembers, Sort Of

  Jack waited until he heard the sound of the front door closing before he allowed himself to hop from the bed and peer between the slats of the mini-blinds at his window. He watched as Beau loaded a couple of reusable grocery bags into the hatch of his tiny yellow car. Night had fallen, and Beau was little more than a shadow in the pale illumination of the overhead light down the street a ways.

  I look back for just a second and see him through the thin veil of snow that’s begun falling at the top of the hill, watching my descent. Should I wave? No. I turn back, watching my step as I continue downward. I want things between us to move slowly. This one is special.

  He wasn’t sure where that memory had come from. But there was something mesmerizing about Beau. Jack found he couldn’t stop staring at him. Yes, of course he was beautiful, and even simply accepting this revelation into his tortured psyche caused more than discomfort to rise up within him. It made him feel slightly ill.

  Why?

  But in spite of the paradox of wanting to stare at Beau and needing to look away from him, there was something more there.

  Memory.

  In a way, Jack had had this thought since the very first time Beau arrived at their house. There was something vaguely familiar about him. It was like when Jack had seen an actor from a TV show in a different program, as a different character. The context made it difficult to place the actor. But yet he knew. Where have I see this person before?

  It was the same the first time Jack saw Beau.

  He realized that, while he’d shut out any conscious thought on placing Beau in a context he’d remember, his subconscious, as it tended to do, continued to pick at the puzzle until it unraveled it.

  His subconscious, Jack believed, had just sent him at least a partial answer to the riddle.

  He knew Beau from Seattle. From Jack’s former life, one that now seemed like a dream, a life that had happened to someone else. All along, he thought the connection must have been forged here in Fawcettville, perhaps when they were both in school.

  But no, it was Seattle, and Jack was sure of it. He couldn’t remember how he knew Beau, and he ran through all the usual questions, wondering if it was from work, or from the gay bars on Capitol Hill, or maybe from the Saturday morning hiking group Jack had once belonged to. Had Beau lived in the same apartment building in Belltown?

  None of these seemed likely answers. But the more he pressed his memory for something definitive, the more elusive and confounding his memory became. It was like his mind had a mind of its own, and that mind was willful, obstinate—teasing.

  He returned to his bed and shut the TV off. He leaned back into the pillows and closed his eyes. He deepened his breathing and forced it to slow down. He hoped these techniques would relax him and open the floodgates of memory.

  It seemed important to Jack to remember Beau. There was something they’d shared. Once upon a time.

  And his memory did begin to cooperate. In a way.

  Jack allowed his mind to drift a bit, to free associate.

  And he saw himself in his old apartment in Belltown. He’d been so proud of that place when he first signed the lease! It was tiny, little more than a studio really, but brand new with quartz counters, cork flooring, subway tile in the bathroom, and—best of all—a view of the Space Needle from his floor-to-ceiling windows. He smiled a little as he recalled the view at night and how the towers of the city lit up, sparkling, magical.

  It had been his first home as an adult.

  He could see himself there now, in the bathroom, lathering up as he stood under a hot spray from the rain showerhead. He’d been getting ready for a date, but not just any date. This would be with someone special.

  The thought, the obvious thought, of course, was that the date was with Beau. That was the logical conclusion. But Jack felt no certainty. He couldn’t put any faith behind the idea because there was just no proof of it in his head.

  Yet even now, lying here upon sheets he knew needed washing, he could recall the feeling he’d had that night that seemed so distant.

  Anticipation.

  Yearning.

  Excitement.

  In his mind’s eye, he watched himself shave, spritz on a favorite cologne, Terre d’Hermes. Why could he remember a detail like that but still be uncertain who he was getting ready for?

  He saw himself dress, in a pair of jeans and a soft old blue Oxford button-down shirt he left untucked. The pale blue, he recalled, accentuated the color of his eyes, the blond of his hair. He knew he looked good.

  Jack turned onto his side, staring with frustration at his empty nightstand. With every fiber of his being, he wanted to know what the excitement and the preparation was all about, but he simply couldn’t remember.

  He watched himself sit down at the little glass-topped desk in a nook by his old bed and open up his laptop.

  And then everything, or almost everything, tumbled into place.

  Jack sat up. Maybe, he told himself, he didn’t want to remember any more. He looked over at his closet. On the top shelf was his old laptop. He hadn’t used it since he’d moved back to Fawcettville, feeling like it was a relic from someone else’s life.

  But tonight, just like he knew he was getting ready for a date that night so long ago, he knew, with a certainty he couldn’t question, that there were answers on that laptop.

  He got up from the bed. The closet door squeaked when he opened it. He grabbed down the computer and set it on the bed, and then he groped around on the shelf, fe
eling for the power cord. At last, behind a pile of his old sweaters, his hand landed on the cord.

  Do I really want to do this? Isn’t it better to just leave things alone? With clarity might come insight, yes, but it also might bring terror, hurt, pain, and upset. It might bring back something I can’t bear to revisit.

  He sat down on the bed with the laptop and plugged it into the wall outlet. He’d come this far and didn’t think he could stop if he tried. It almost felt like a force outside himself was propelling him forward.

  He powered up the laptop, staring at the blank screen, hoping/not hoping it would come to life. He told himself it had been idle too long, that it had simply died lying there on the closet shelf for the last several years.

  The computer, connected as it was to electricity, behaved as it should. It was not sluggish. A human being would need a little time to ease into wakefulness, to clear the cobwebs out and begin functioning again after a long slumber. But not a computer.

  His old home screen greeted him. There was the wallpaper, a sunrise or sunset—he couldn’t be sure—shot in the Cascade Mountains. There was snow on the pines, and the sky was alive with brilliant shades of violet, blue, and magenta. He remembered having loved the photo, but when he asked himself if he had taken it, he couldn’t recall.

  And there, lined up at the bottom, were his most frequently used applications. There was the little blue globe with the orange fox curled around it—his Firefox browser.

  He clicked on it, some sort of mental muscle memory guiding him. He knew what would come up first was his Gmail. Jack smiled. Perhaps technology would prevent him from treading into nightmare territory, linking him to memories too horrible to contemplate.

  But the brain, ever fickle and unpredictable, betrayed any hope Jack had for oblivion.

  Like a duck to water, as soon as he fingered the flat black keys of the board, his screen name—JackStraw85—came back to him. So did his password—Corky1990—which had been the dog, a black-and-white beagle, he’d had as a boy.

  With only a slight hesitation, Jack keyed in the information, believing these long-ago names and passwords couldn’t possibly work. The fine folks at Google would have removed his account long ago, right?