What's Cooking

by Gail Sattler

  Instead of sharing an intimate dinner, he’d ordered a pizza, Carolyn heated up some leftovers, and they’d sat and talked on the phone while they ate, him at work and her at home. Again, he’d been unable to give her the ring, which seemed to have become a permanent fixture in his pocket.

  He ran into the classroom to see Carolyn holding up some kind of gadget he’d seen at the cooking show, but he couldn’t remember what it was called or what it was for.

  The room suddenly went deathly quiet as he made his way to the only empty seat, which was in the exact center of the classroom—the same chair he’d sat in during the first class.

  Without making a major production out of his late arrival, Carolyn held up a tray of food for all to see. “There was a question on the registration form asking if anyone here was allergic to seafood. Before we continue, does anyone here have allergies who may not have noticed the question on the form?”

  When no one spoke up, Carolyn continued. “That’s good. We’re going to make battered shrimp, which will be dipped in various sauces. This works with many types of seafood, but shrimp is the most popular. It’s much better to use fresh shrimp, so that’s what we’re going to do.”

  She then went through a gruesome process of pulling a shrimp apart, coating it with some stuff she mixed up, then frying it until it was cooked.

  It smelled much better than it looked, and the mouth-watering aroma made Mitchell’s stomach grumble—a nasty reminder that he hadn’t had time to eat supper in his rush to get out of work and to class on time.

  Carolyn then put together something else with a fancy name he couldn’t pronounce and sent everyone to their kitchen units. As they got organized, she made the rounds to each kitchen, gave each person four shrimp, then returned to the demonstration table.

  “Okay, everyone. As a change of pace, we’re going to all do this together. Watch me, and we’ll do it step by step.”

  Mitchell picked up one shrimp by the tail and examined it. He’d never seen a whole shrimp before. It wasn’t what he’d expected. He thought shrimp were brown, but it was a grayish color.

  “Is everyone ready?”

  Several of the ladies around him nodded unenthusiastically.

  “First you break off the legs, like this.”

  He did like she said, repeating in his mind that the poor creature was already dead and didn’t feel a thing.

  “Good. Now put your thumb and pointer finger at the point where the head meets the body and pull off the head.”

  If he was hungry before, he certainly wasn’t now. His stomach contracted as he placed his fingers in the position Carolyn demonstrated.

  “That’s the worst part.” Carolyn grinned, and he hoped she couldn’t tell he felt sick. “The shell will peel right off quite easily now; just pull here and voilà!”

  Mitchell pulled, but it didn’t come out quite as easily as Carolyn’s did. He pulled again and nearly dropped it at the unpleasant slimy feel of the thing inside. Canned shrimp didn’t feel like this. He let it fall to the plate.

  Carolyn held up her shrimp. “This next step is called deveining. Does everyone see that line down the back? Take your knife, make a quick slice down the back, and sort of scrape it out, like this.”

  Mitchell’s stomach rolled. He sucked in a deep breath to stop it, but the smell of the raw seafood permeating the room only made it worse.

  “You might think this is the shrimp’s spinal cord, but it’s not. It’s just an intestine.”

  “Just” an intestine. Mitchell worked to control his breathing.

  “You don’t have to remove it, but it makes a more pleasant-looking appetizer.”

  With shaking hands, Mitchell inserted the tip of the knife and slowly ran it along the line, but the slice didn’t go as neatly as Carolyn’s. Instead, it made a jagged tear, and the shrimp started to come apart in his hands. For a moment he considered running to his car, first to get a breath of fresh air and then to bring back his needle-nose pliers to hold the shrimp steady so he could get the job done faster.

  Finally, he managed to lift the dark, threadlike vein out, but in pieces, not like Carolyn had done. As soon as he did, he laid the shrimp down and looked away. Carolyn was trying to get an overview of everyone’s progress from the central location of the demonstration table, so he concentrated on her until his stomach settled.

  “You all look like you’re doing fine. Now do the other three. And when you’re done, we’ll heat up the frying pans, dip the shrimp in the batter, cook them for four minutes, and then you can all do the next project without me.”

  He struggled through disemboweling the other three shrimp, but with each one, the process became slightly less revolting. By the time he began to cook them, the aroma made his appetite return, and he could hardly wait to eat them.

  As they reached the point halfway through the second project, his stomach was grumbling so loudly that Lorraine and Sarah were giggling, and Mrs. Finkleman felt so sorry for him that she snuck him one of her shrimp to eat before Carolyn gave them permission.

  When that permission came, not only was he the first one finished eating, but he’d managed to mooch an extra shrimp from Lorraine and Sarah, as well.

  As usual, he loitered when class was over until he was the last person out.

  “I’m sorry I was late, Carolyn.”

  She hesitated for only a second, then continued packing up her area. “It’s okay, Mitchell. I understand if you had to work late.”

  “Yeah, I did. I also haven’t had supper, and I was wondering if you’d like to go grab a burger or something. The things we made today were good but not enough to constitute a real meal.”

  “I really can’t, Mitchell. Believe it or not, I have a bunch of reports and tests to mark. Even the home ec department has to do them. I wish I could, but not today. How about tomorrow?”

  His heart soared to think that she had suggested an alternate day, but just as quickly, his heart sank. “I can’t. Our major competitor served strike notice today. That’s why I had to work so late. Businesses can’t afford to have their stuff tied up in a labor dispute, so a lot of people shifted over to us, and we weren’t prepared. It will take a few more days before we’ve adjusted, and by then I’m sure the dispute will be settled and it will be back to normal. The way it looks, it’s going to be like this all week.”

  “Then I guess I won’t see you until the weekend.”

  “Yeah. It looks that way.”

  Mitchell raised his hand to his pocket. It was going to be a long week.

  ❧

  Carolyn shut off the vacuum cleaner and ran to the door. She didn’t have to wait a second time to confirm that she was hearing correctly. In a way, she was almost expecting Mitchell. She didn’t want to admit it, even to herself, but she hadn’t seen him since the last cooking class, and she’d missed him.

  She turned the lock and flung the door open. “Mi—Hank? What are you doing here?”

  Hank stood before her with his raincoat open. Beneath it he wore his usual dark suit and matching tie, which she thought odd for a Saturday afternoon. In his hand was a bouquet of red roses.

  “May I come in?”

  She stood aside and ran her fingers through her hair to straighten it and smoothed the folds out of her sweatshirt. “Certainly.”

  Hank walked past her with the flowers, then waited for her to close the door behind him, which she thought rather strange. If it were Mitchell, he would have given her the flowers, tried to kiss her, and he would have closed the door behind himself. She envisioned Mitchell’s impish smile, but as she blinked, Hank’s solemn face came into focus.

  He cleared his throat. “I brought these for you.” He held out the roses.

  Hesitantly, she accepted the bouquet. The only time Hank had given her flowers had been a corsage at last year’s Christmas banquet because she had sung a solo. Other than that, the only time he had given her anything was at Christmas and on her birthday. Her feet didn’t move as sh
e stared down at the flowers, wondering what the occasion was to warrant them.

  He straightened his tie. “I’ve been giving this a lot of thought lately, and I’m asking if you’ll marry me. I didn’t buy you a ring because I thought you might want to pick one out for yourself.”

  The roses trembled as her hands started shaking. Perhaps she had strange expectations, but she had always thought a proposal was accompanied by words of love and affection, followed by a hug or a tender touch, even a kiss. It should have been a moment to be remembered fondly for the rest of a person’s life. The suit and the flowers seemed so prepared, even calculated, and not very romantic, despite the proposal.

  “I can see I’ve caught you off guard, and I can’t blame you. Would you like to think about it for a few days?”

  She nearly choked. Obviously, another grand misconception of hers was that the day a man asked her to marry him, she would have been overjoyed, filled with excitement and visions of a happy future together. She should want to scream a big yes and throw herself into his arms.

  She didn’t know what to say, but one thing she did know. She couldn’t marry Hank. Not when she was in love with Mitchell.

  As the thought hit home, Carolyn felt the color drain from her face.

  “Carolyn, are you okay? You don’t look well.”

  He was right. She didn’t feel very well at all. She was in love but with the wrong man.

  But even if she wasn’t in love with Mitchell, she couldn’t marry Hank. She’d always thought marriage was a fulfillment of love and commitment. If Hank truly loved her, she should have been able to tell by now. She suspected that if men had a biological clock, Hank’s was ticking. His proposal had nothing to do with love. She wanted to get married, too, but she wasn’t desperate enough to be trapped in a loveless marriage. She would rather live alone.

  Carolyn cleared her throat to get her voice to work properly. “I’m sorry, Hank, but I can’t marry you. I don’t need time to think about it. I like you very much as a friend, but I don’t think it would work.”

  He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Well. I see. To tell the truth, even though we haven’t exactly had a hearts and flowers relationship, I thought we were compatible enough to get married and raise a family. After all, neither of us is getting any younger.”

  Carolyn felt sick. Compatible. She wondered if she was supposed to be flattered. The roses, which she had always thought were the flowers of love, felt like a sham in her hands. She didn’t love him, nor did he love her. But yet, Hank possessed everything she’d ever wanted in a man. He was mature, carried himself with class and dignity, was a marvelous host, and had a wonderful career as an accountant for a large corporation. He chose his leisure activities with great care—golf for fitness and the theater or gallery for something educational. Often his choices had involved business contacts, which allowed her to meet his peers in a social environment.

  Hank’s biggest shortcoming was his attendance at church and Bible study meetings. And come to think of it, in all they discussed, they never seemed to talk about God’s Word, not even the Sunday sermon topics. She didn’t even know his favorite Bible verse. She didn’t know if he had a favorite verse. The more she thought about it, while she knew he was a believer, she didn’t know exactly how important God was in Hank’s life.

  She couldn’t love a man who didn’t love God first.

  She was in love with Mitchell Farris. How could her Mr. Right be so very Mr. Wrong?

  “I think you’d better leave. And take these with you.” She stood and held out the flowers, but he didn’t accept them.

  Hank’s face hardened, and his lips tightened into a scowl. “Go ahead and turn me down now, but before long you’ll be begging my forgiveness. If you’re lucky, I’ll consider you again. Just wait. When you’re closer to forty, you’ll see that life is passing you by. By then it will be too late. I’ll be married to someone else.”

  Her mouth dropped open then snapped shut. “Get out,” she ground out between her teeth. She thrust the flowers back into his hand, but he dropped them to the floor and stomped out, slamming the door behind him. As she stood transfixed in one spot, his car started then roared off into the distance.

  Carolyn continued to stare at the closed door long after the sound of Hank’s car had disappeared, stunned that he had asked for her hand in marriage not on the basis of love, but because he considered them—at least her—almost past their prime marriage years. She wasn’t twenty-four years old anymore, but neither was she too old to desire a marriage based on mutual love and children conceived and raised in that love.

  Rather than being sorry that she would never see Hank again, she was glad he was gone.

  Her gaze drifted to the roses lying in a jumbled pile in the middle of the hardwood floor. Many of the velvety petals had fallen off and a broken leaf lay to the side, the heady rose scent made stronger by their disarray. Slowly, she counted a dozen roses, the flowers of love, lying at her feet as a wretched testimonial of the state of her love life. A man she didn’t love had just proposed marriage, and the man she did love was completely wrong for her. Her throat tightened, and her chin started to quiver uncontrollably.

  Tears welled up, and she couldn’t hold them back.

  She sank to her knees in the middle of the living room floor and, surrounded by the broken flowers, covered her face with her hands and gave in to sobs that racked her entire body.

  The doorbell rang, but she didn’t answer it. She couldn’t allow anyone to see her like this.

  Mitchell’s voice drifted through the door. “Carolyn? I know you’re in there. Your car is in the driveway.”

  She didn’t answer. She couldn’t have spoken a word if she wanted to.

  He knocked again. “Carolyn? Are you all right?”

  When she still didn’t answer, the doorknob rattled, then turned. The door slowly creaked open.

  “Carolyn? The door was. . .” His voice drifted into silence.

  Before she knew what was happening, she was pulled to her feet and locked solidly in a tight embrace, pressed against Mitchell from head to foot.

  “What’s wrong?” he murmured into her hair.

  “It was Hank. He. . .” She couldn’t finish.

  His hands grasped her shoulders, and he pushed her away so he could look into her eyes. She turned her head so she didn’t have to face him.

  Mitchell’s voice dropped to a low murmur, yet at the same time, it was very stern. “Did he hurt you?”

  She shook her head, unable to stop the increased flow of tears or control the tremor in her voice. “N–no, n–nothing like that. H–he asked me to m–marry him.”

  In the blink of an eye, she was pressed into his chest again, but this time, instead of holding her by the shoulders, one of his large hands cupped the back of her head, gently pressing her cheek into his chest, the other hand pressed into the small of her back, and his chin rested on the top of her head.

  With her ear pressed into the center of his chest, his voice sounded gruff and rumbly, and she could hear the rapid hammering of his heart. “And you said?”

  She could barely choke the words out. “I said no. He didn’t take it well.”

  His grip tightened, and he furthered the embrace by pushing his entire face into her hair. “Praise God. He’s not right for you.”

  She shook her head, with her face still pressed into his chest, without answering.

  He held her without speaking while she gained control, then released her when her sobs quieted. Carolyn excused herself to splash some cold water on her face and blow her nose.

  She didn’t want him to see her like this, but she also didn’t want him to leave. Since no amount of makeup would erase the evidence of what happened, Carolyn stiffened her posture and entered the living room, where Mitchell was waiting for her. Instead of sitting on the couch, she found him standing with his back to her, studying her needlepoint. She didn’t know if he really was that interested in it, but s
he appreciated him knowing she felt awkward about what she looked like. She also appreciated that the flowers were gone.

  She sniffled one last time and sat on the couch. “What are you doing here? I wasn’t expecting you.” She purposely neglected mentioning that even though she wasn’t expecting him, she had spent the earlier part of the day hoping he would show up.

  “I had a few errands to do, and now that I’m done, I thought maybe we could spend the rest of the day together.”

  “I think I’ll just stay home. Thanks for the thought, though.”

  He turned around but kept his distance. “I think it would be a good idea for you to get away for a while. It’s Saturday afternoon. Why don’t we go to a matinee? We can pick some weepy chick flick, and everyone will think you’ve been crying over the movie.”

  “A chick flick?”

  “You know what I mean. One of those gushy movies where all the women sit there and cry through the movie, giving the guys a chance to put their arms around them and be macho.”

  Except for the putting his arms around her implication, it sounded perfect. For a while, she could get lost in the sad story of someone else’s life and forget about the mess of her own life. She forced herself to smile. “I think that’s a great idea.”

  “Good. While you were. . .uh, busy, I looked through the paper and found one. We have just enough time to get there if we hurry.”

  Mitchell yakked nonstop all the way to the theater, for which she was grateful. True to his plan, when the plot of the movie started getting weepy, he slipped his arm around her shoulders, which again started the flow of tears, allowing her the release she needed to get everything out of her system.

  The whole time she cried, Mitchell merely sat there with his arm around her, every once in a while handing her another napkin to wipe her eyes and blow her nose. At the end of the movie, they remained seated until almost everyone left, then they slowly shuffled out.