Rolling in the Deep

by Rebecca Rogers Maher

  She had to pick Drew up from school, and wanted to shower and change first, to prepare herself for seeing him again. Unlike me, she has a life to go back to. I’m not proud of the fact that I envy her for that.

  She showed me pictures of Drew on her phone last night, and told me stories about him. How he was born, what he was like as a baby, what kind of person he’s becoming now. She closed her eyes and described the way he smells, and God, I wanted her so much right then. Not just sexually, but all of her—the lover, the mother, the friend.

  She was open in that moment, completely. And it was beautiful.

  I’m not an idiot. I know this has something to do with my mom, with missing her. I’ve been floating out in space since she died, cut loose, and it’s not a sensation I’m used to.

  It should be freeing, in a way, to be released from my responsibility to her. But the fact is, I don’t like this kind of freedom. There’s a reason I stayed close to home for so long. I had a community in Queens—a family. In my neighborhood, at the diner, I was part of something.

  Last night, telling Holly about that life, about myself, I was part of something again. I was part of us—together. There’s no denying how good that felt.

  It’s almost time to get dressed for my night shift at the restaurant, and truthfully, I’m grateful for the distraction. I grab a quick shower and take my plain black pants and white chef’s jacket out of the closet.

  Another uniform, like the one at Cogmans, although line cooks are slightly higher on the social ladder. Inside either outfit, though, I’m an interchangeable part. Any set of hands could stack the shelves or chop the vegetables; I’m no more special than anyone else.

  Which is fine, I guess, except that it’s become true across the board, everywhere. Without Mom here, and with Tony so far away, I’m just another brown guy in one uniform or another, doing a job no one particularly wants to do.

  It’s probably why Holly affected me so much when I first met her. I walked into the break room and she looked at me—looked right at me, and saw me. I was Ray to her right from the start. The Ray my mother saw when she looked at me. My real self.

  I didn’t realize how much I missed that until it came back to me. It’s a kind of homecoming in its way.

  It’s also a hell of a lot of pressure to put on a woman.

  Especially a woman who’s already got the responsibility of a kid.

  Maybe, eventually, it will help that I see her, too, as clearly as she sees me. But right now that’s probably more of a drawback than a benefit. There’s a certain comfort to flying under the radar, particularly when you’re coming off a marriage to an abusive man.

  I’m not sure Holly would use that word to describe her ex-husband. Based on what she shared with me last night as we lay in bed together eating dinner, she wouldn’t want to see herself as any sort of victim. Personally, I see it as surviving—she coped with a bad situation, and continues to cope with it—but given any chance, people blame themselves for that kind of shit.

  It just means I need to take it slow with her. For her sake, and for mine.

  Right now all I have to worry about is getting dressed for work. I’m only partly through the six months of experience I need before I’m eligible for classes at the Culinary. Even though I might decide not to apply, I want to keep my options open and finish up the time I committed to. Still, every night the shift feels a little bit longer.

  I stand in the parking lot sometimes, in the quiet dark, and watch the patrons of Delmonico’s come and go in their tailored clothes and expensive cars. They’re people, too, and there’s no law against their enjoying good food. But they’re not my people.

  I don’t think that’s going to change now that I’m richer than they are. I’d still rather have a plate of well-made meatballs than a sous vide anything, which may become an obstacle when it’s time to start cooking like that for real, in school, rather than just assisting.

  My mind keeps going back to the idea of building a garden-based restaurant with Holly, a kind of community center built on basic, healthy food. But I can’t let it go there. I have to keep turning my attention away, forcibly.

  I shrug on a light coat and head down the outside stairs to the driveway. I’m halfway down before I see the photographer standing on the last step. A younger guy waits behind him, a cellphone to his ear.

  “Yeah, he’s here. Gotta call you back.”

  He pockets the phone and shoulders past the camera, holding out a minirecorder. “Ray! Hi! It’s Chad Winters from the Poughkeepsie Record. We met the other day, at the press conference?”

  I stop cold in the middle of the stairs. “Yeah. Hi. What are you—”

  “I’m doing a story on you! Thought I’d stop by and see how things are going. I don’t know if you’ve been getting my phone calls, but—”

  “Yeah.” I pat the pocket where I’ve stashed my cell. “Haven’t really been checking my messages lately, so—”

  Chad chuckles. “Too busy for phone calls already, eh? I see how it is!”

  I narrow my eyes at him.

  The reporter closes the gap and bumps me on the shoulder with an overly friendly fist. “Aw, don’t take offense, man, I’m only kidding you. Anyway, just thought we could have a little chat, you know? I’ve got this story I’m working on, about you and that cute mom and all that money and everything—”

  “Wait. Cute…what are you talking about?” I take a step backward, up the stairs, and realize he’s got me cornered. Not by accident, I’m guessing. “You’re not staking out her house, too, are you?”

  “Staking out?” Chad laughs again, and I realize I’m beginning to develop a serious dislike for that sound. “What is this, Law and Order? No, I’m not staking out anybody’s house. I’m just trying to get an interview, so—”

  I push past him. “I don’t want to do an interview, thanks. I doubt Holly does either.”

  “Yeah?”

  He trails me down the steps, gesturing for the photographer to follow. It occurs to me he’s probably been snapping pictures this whole time.

  “What’s the deal with you and Holly, anyway?”

  I turn at my truck door, and deliberately step forward into his space. “Leave her alone. You hear me?”

  He stumbles back, and smiles. “Right. I thought so.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Oh nothing. Just wondered if there was something going on between the two of you. Obviously there is…so, you want to be the one to tell me about that, or do you want me to start speculating?”

  “I should call your boss, you asshole.”

  Chad smirks. “Go for it. Who do you think sent me out here? Anyway, don’t get all worked up. I’m not gonna print something nasty about you two. I just want a story, man. It’s a human-interest thing, you know what I mean? Two Cogmans employees hitting it rich? I mean, come on. Local boy makes good?”

  “I’m not a local boy.”

  “Well, shit, you are now!” Chad edges in closer. “Come on, Lopez. It’s just a little article in a small-time paper. Who cares? A couple questions, that’s it.”

  I look him over. I wouldn’t want to be him, having to hustle strangers for a story in a paper that stands zero chance against the Internet. Still, I have no interest in being in the newspaper, and I definitely don’t want to do or say anything that puts Holly in the spotlight any more than she already is.

  “Sorry, man.” I open the door to the truck. “I’m late for work.”

  He’s still standing there when I turn onto the road.

  —

  The next morning, I wake up in Tony’s guest bedroom. It takes me a second to realize it’s almost ten o’clock and I haven’t been woken by little-girl fingers in my nostrils the way I usually am at his house. The kids must be at their mom’s this weekend.

  Last night, after a long shift, the last place I felt like going was home. It was too quiet there, and I didn’t want to risk another run-in with Chad Winters at my
doorstep in the morning.

  When I left the restaurant, I texted Tony.

  Feel like having a visitor?

  I waited in my truck for him to respond.

  Sure. Let yourself in, though, I’m going to sleep.

  When I arrived, the house was dark and silent. I climbed right into bed and, judging by the clock, slept for eight hours straight.

  I lie here now, listening to the sound of Tony clanging around the kitchen. After a while, he comes in with a cup of coffee.

  “Hey.” I sit up in bed and throw an arm around his shoulder for a half hug as he hands me the mug. “God bless you, man.”

  “I figure nobody’s making you coffee these days.” He pulls over a ridiculous pink chair from the side of the bed and sits in it.

  “True.” I drag a hand over my face. “Nice chair.”

  Tony grins. “You wish you were man enough for a chair this cute.”

  I wrap my hands around the coffee mug and take a sip. “Good stuff, Tony. Thanks.”

  “You got it.” He leans back. “So what’s up? Why you darkening my door at two o’clock in the morning?”

  “I thought you were asleep.”

  “Heard you come in. I would’ve gotten up but I had to head in to the shop this morning, get some things set up.”

  “You look like you’ve been up for hours.” Which doesn’t surprise me. Tony’s always been the early-riser type. Always with someplace to be.

  “Yep. So what’s up, brother? Something wrong? Why’d you want to come down?”

  I blow a long breath out, through my nose, and lean my forehead against the rim of the coffee cup.

  “Oh shit,” Tony says. “That looks serious.”

  I nod behind the coffee. “Yeah.”

  “Is it depressing you, being a multimillionaire?” He blinks at me. “Is it making you real, real sad?”

  “Cállate pendejo.”

  Tony laughs. “Sorry, man. You’re acting like kind of a baby, though.”

  “Seriously?”

  He kicks my leg, still covered in a blanket. “Seriously.”

  “I think I’m in love with Holly.”

  That shuts him up.

  It shuts me up, too, as a matter of fact. I had no idea I was going to say it, that I was thinking it, even, until it was out of my mouth.

  But as soon as it’s out, I realize it’s the truth.

  Tony leans forward, elbows on his knees. “No shit?”

  “No shit.” I nod. “I’m…I’m screwed is what I am.”

  “What, you mean, literally?” His face lights up. “You slept with her? What!” He slaps me on the shoulder. “Good going, Ray! When?”

  “What are you, a teenage girl?”

  He nods. “Yes. That’s exactly what I am. When my little brother, who never sleeps with anybody, shows up in the middle of the night and tells me he (a) had sex with an actual, living, breathing woman, and (b) is in love with that woman, then yeah, I’m a teenage girl. Details, man. Give it up. I need to hear this.”

  “You dick.” I laugh, though. Because it’s a relief to know I can tell someone about it. That I can tell Tony. I’ve missed him, I realize. Missed being able to shoot the shit like this, easily. Not over the phone, but in person. In real time.

  “Does she…” Tony begins. “You know, feel the same way?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t know. I mean, maybe? Eventually? It’s complicated.”

  “She has a kid, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So she’s probably taking it slow. I know how that is.”

  I push the blanket away and swing my legs over the side of the bed. “Why do you say that? You dating?”

  “Don’t change the subject.” Tony grabs my coffee, steals a sip, and hands it back. “One of these days, maybe. But one thing I know is that if I do start dating, nobody’s meeting my girls for a long while. Not until it’s serious. I wouldn’t want to mess with their heads like that.”

  I nod. “Yeah, I get that.”

  “And you’ve both got all the money to deal with, and that’ll be an adjustment for the kid.”

  “Right.”

  Tony kicks my foot with his sneaker. “So like you said, you’re screwed.”

  “You think?”

  “Well, she’s probably confused as hell. You shouldn’t have slept with her so soon.”

  I stand up and look for my jeans to pull them on. “It was kind of an accident.”

  Tony turns to eyeball me. “She tripped and fell on your dick? Hate when that happens.”

  “You know what I mean. They had this party for us at work, and we ended up at a hotel—”

  “Look at you!” Tony stands, too. “High-rollin’ already.”

  “Fuck you, man.”

  Leaning against the dresser, he folds his arms and stares at me for a while. Then he comes over with his hands out. “Come here, you little jerk.”

  He hugs me, and I let him.

  —

  I call in sick to work tonight for the first time since I started almost two months ago. Being a decent line cook requires a level of focus I just can’t muster at the moment.

  “I figure we can let you off the hook this once,” the owner says. “You’re not quitting on us, though, right? Haven’t changed your mind about that?”

  “No.” My voice echoes back to me a little on the speakerphone as I pull into the cemetery. “I’ll stay the full six months, like we agreed. Maybe longer if you’ll have me.”

  “I’ll give you a good rec, Ray. No worries there. Assuming you’re still applying to school?”

  “Yeah, I think I am. I don’t know. You guys have been really good to me either way, and I appreciate that.”

  “You got it, my friend. By the way, there was somebody over here looking for you earlier today. Some kid from the paper? Real relentless. Wanted to know where you were. I said you’d left town and to leave you alone.”

  I slow down to a crawl through the narrow cemetery roads. “Seriously? I can’t wait till all this shit blows over, man.”

  “I heard that.”

  I pull the truck over to the side. “Thanks again, Mike. And listen, if that reporter calls again, tell him to go fuck himself.”

  “Will do.”

  I hang up and put the truck in park. Then I grab a bouquet of flowers from the passenger seat and head out to Mom’s grave.

  It’s been a few months since I visited, and winter cast a bit of a pall over the grounds. The grass is still brownish and stubby with patches of dirt showing through, but here and there a crocus is starting to push its way up toward the sunlight. The headstones here are pressed close together. I’d say it’s as though the dead are huddling for warmth, except everyone knows that in the city, space is at a premium. We’re on top of one another here, cold or hot, in death as in life. Because we need to be.

  Tony’s left flowers for Mom recently—on her birthday, I’m guessing, which was about a month ago. She would have been sixty years old.

  We’d been planning a party for her, Tony and me. All the family from Mexico was going to come. Her favorite customers from the diner, her friends. We ended up spending all the money we’d saved for the party on her funeral.

  I set my new bouquet on her headstone.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  The flowers are her favorite kind—irises. She said she liked how stately they were. “A proud flower. Not ashamed of nothing.” I bought two dozen.

  “And you’re not even here to see them,” I tell her. “How do you like that?”

  I pull a rosary from my pocket—a silver one with turquoise stones. Mom gave it to me for my first communion and I wear it sometimes, under my shirt, to feel her close to me. She’d probably want me to actually pray with it, and I do try. It’s just that lately it’s hard to see the logic in God’s plan. If there even is one.

  Mom believed that everything happens for a reason. If that’s true, though, why did she have to die a few months before I won the lotte
ry? What possible purpose could that have served?

  I kneel down beside her grave. “I won a lot of money, you know. Like, a real lot. I could take you on that cruise to Alaska you were always talking about.”

  There’s a warm breeze rustling the leaves overhead, and the sky is a deep, crystal blue. I lie down on the ground and look up at the clouds.

  “You wouldn’t even need to pack anything. I could buy you everything you needed on the way, and a suitcase, too. I’d surprise you, I think. Maybe give you a call one day, say I’m coming by to take you to dinner.”

  I pause, so I can imagine her listening.

  “And then I’d show up in a limo, a really decked-out one with a bar inside. I’d fix you a little glass of wine, and we’d go straight to the airport and then to the ship and right on up into the glaciers. Have dinner with a polar bear. Buffet breakfast every morning. Swim in the pool.”

  I turn my face toward her grave. “Just like you used to talk about, Mama. That’s what I’d do if you were still alive. But you’re not, are you?”

  I cluck my tongue at her, which springs a tear loose from my eyes. “Just like you to be so fucking selfless. Can’t even let me buy you some diamonds before you die. You had to work right up until the end and leave just before you could have been a millionaire.”

  I picture her folding her arms over her dress, shaking her head at me, and that makes me cry for real. She could have fucking retired. She could have seen the world a little bit. She could have met Holly.

  “Why aren’t you here to share this with me, Mom? I mean, seriously. It’s just stupid without you here.”

  I close my eyes against the sunlight and hear a click behind my head. I sit abruptly, and see a familiar man with a camera about a dozen feet off.

  “What the—”

  Chad the reporter is behind him, fiddling with his minirecorder and a briefcase that he can’t seem to snap shut.

  “Mr. Lopez—”

  He comes toward me and I stand and charge him, pushing him hard in the chest and knocking him down.

  “What the hell is the matter with you?”

  He sits splayed on the grass, adjusting his sunglasses. The photographer continues clicking away.