by Joey Bush
Finally, the room was complete. I allowed myself to fall to the floor, the hammer in my hands. It was almost too heavy to pick up at this point. Drew shook his head, laughing at me. “I’m going to go get some more to drink,” he called to me as he sauntered down the hallway. “And how about pizza? You like pizza?”
“You know we live in Chicago, right?” I called back, feeling sassy—feeling like my old self. The person I’d lost so long ago.
I stood up and peered out at the world, hearing Drew down the hall as he walked down the steps toward the kitchen. It was nearly nine-thirty in the evening on this work night, and I didn’t care at all. I was going with the flow. I was spirited, to the wind.
I looked at my phone for a moment, finding a message from Rhetta, the old woman who’d been at the class that day. “Great job, lady. We’re happy to have you back. You keep us young.” I bit my lip reading it.
I did a small pirouette in the window as I heard Drew come back down the hall, carrying two fresh glasses of wine. “Well, well. I think I just caught somebody dancing.”
“You saw nothing,” I answered him, teasing. I grabbed my wine glass and did a few more pirouettes, walking back toward the bedroom. “No spills,” I winked at him.
Finally we were back upstairs, splayed over his couch. The wine was flowing; our conversation was easy, subtle. We talked about everything. I told him that although I was sad to see my old dance studio go, I was very much getting used to the new one. “I don’t know when I’ll have time to really go through all the reparations that must be done. But I will,” I spoke lightly. I was so confident, talking to him. It was like I wasn’t my usual self.
The pizza guy was soon at the door. Drew rushed down the steps and grabbed the deep-dish, delivering the boy a hefty tip. He brought the pizza back with forks and knives, and we dove into the deliciousness of it—into the shining cheese, the pepperoni. Our conversation kept going, me speaking between cheese bites.
Drew spoke about how he missed New York only sometimes; that Chicago already felt like home. In many ways, he felt like himself here. I wondered, peering at him, if he had ever shown me his true self. Surely, he wasn’t a man who owned a Porsche. He wasn’t some asshole who slept with multiple women, all at the same time. Rather, he was a man with passion, with drive. He knew what he wanted, and he got it. I had to respect that about him.
I rested my head on his shoulder as we spoke, after I laid my pizza back down, half-finished; I felt my eyelids fluttering. I tried hard to stay awake, to stay with him. But I felt myself falling away. He rubbed at my shoulders, allowing me to comprehend that it was all right, that I could let go. We didn’t have to have sex, I suddenly understood, for him to want me around. We were friends. We were more than friends. What that meant, I didn’t know. I didn’t really care, either.
We fell asleep, there: he watching the second Godfather and me snoring lightly on his shoulder. (He never said anything about the snoring, I just suspected.) We woke up in the morning around four, with the television blaring, with our heads together, and we crawled back to the bed, wrapping ourselves in the blankets. We slept on another five hours, until the Chicago sunlight came coursing in through the skylight. I sighed into his chest, feeling happier than I’d been in my entire life. I felt, in a way, free.
CHAPTER FOUR
The next morning around nine I woke up, blinking wildly. I turned toward Drew, who had his shirt off, his body splayed out like a wild child’s. I rubbed his chest, kissing his muscled shoulders. “Hey, baby.”
He blinked, as well, trying to catch my gaze. He smiled and pulled himself up, wrapping his arms around me. “What do you want to do this morning?” he asked mid-yawn. “How did you sleep?”
“Good,” I murmured. I felt so grand, even with the fact that we hadn’t had sex the evening before. We’d gotten to know each other on an intimate level; we’d gotten to understand each other beyond the realms of our naked bodies.
Drew reached his hand down to the ground and found his phone. “I’m starving,” he declared, rubbing at his stomach. I turned, finding that the pizza from the previous evening had been cleared, as had the wine glasses. I wondered what sort of housecleaning elves he had around here. I wondered if they questioned who I was; if I was one of many.
“Yes, Hector? Hi. Yes. Me and the lady would really love some breakfast. Yes. If you could deliver it—yes. That would be grand.” Drew nodded into the phone, playing with my hair intimately as he spoke. “Twenty minutes sounds perfect. See you then.”
I stretched my arms around his neck and kissed him on the mouth playfully, feeling the heat off his body. “Who was that?”
“Hector, of course. My head kitchen guy. He thinks the kitchen’s a mess, of course. But he’s going to prepare us something anyway. He’s Mexican, and he keeps walking around the kitchen, complaining about the grossness of it. He’s used to much better back in New York. He keeps complaining in Spanish, thinking I can’t understand. It’s hilarious.” Drew started laughing, allowing his stomach to pump up and down. I laughed with him, watching as his eyes closed. He seemed really, truly happy.
Twenty minutes later there was a knock at the door. Drew rose, allowing me to stay in my small t-shirt beneath the covers. I smiled at the young women who brought up the food. The kitchen helpers, Drew told me later. They were Hector’s daughters, in their mid-twenties, like me. “Hello,” I said. They gave me only small waves back.
The spread was immaculate. Small breakfast sausages, muffins, eggs, fruits. Mimosas had been poured, of course. I rubbed my hands together and leaned toward the platter, smelling its wonderful, savory and sweet flavors. “They really go all out, don’t they? I don’t know how you don’t weigh a thousand pounds.”
Drew patted at his stomach, grinning at me. “Just wait a few weeks. I think Hector’s trying to fatten me up. He wants me to have a wife, you see. So he can make more and more food. He says he’s bored with cooking just for me. I fired him after he said that, but he knew I was just joking. He’ll never leave me.” Drew sliced the sausage with his fork and knife and bit into it ravenously. I loved his passion, his appetite for everything.
“Okay. So. What’s on the docket for today?” I asked.
He thought for a moment. “I actually have to get to work,” he said. “Probably should swing by there around noon.”
“Ah,” I felt that familiar pang in my heart. He would take the route to my old dance studio, and yet he would see a monstrosity at the other end.
“What about you?” Drew asked, changing the subject. “You have anything special planned?”
“I might head to my new studio, actually. Start fixing things up. I’d love to have more dance classes in the studio, build up a bit more money.”
Drew nodded. His eyes seemed distracted. “You could ask my good old aunt to come help you?”
“Actually, she’s on mommy duty. Jackson’s sick.”
“Babies are always sick. This is another one of Hector’s sayings, not mine,” Drew said, taking a bite of his muffin and smiling at me.
“You aren’t into the baby thing, are you?”
“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “Are you?”
I shook my head. “I’m too young to think of it. I mean, I can hardly remember to feed my cat.”
Drew laughed. “I’d like to meet your cat, officially. He seems like a ragamuffin.”
“That he is,” I nodded. I took another bite, chewing soundlessly. I’d been a lot hungrier than I thought.
“Where’d you get him?”
“I actually got him after I dumped my college boyfriend,” I laughed.
“Ah. That asshole. The lazy one?”
My eyes widened before I remembered that I had, in fact, told Drew all about Kevin. I nodded. “Indeed. Boomer was supposed to be like—my replacement I guess.”
“Did he get the job done?”
I shrugged. “He was good company. Kept my feet warm.”
“And what more could y
ou want in a man?”
Drew brought himself up from the bed and began dressing quickly. He grabbed a black shirt and began buttoning it professionally, eyeing me. “Stay in bed as long as you want. I know you’ve had a really hard past month or so, and a lot of that’s because of me. I want you to relax as long as possible, okay? Just stay in bed. Watch some television. Maybe they’re on Godfather Part III by now, if you’re lucky.” He leaned down toward me and placed a kiss on my lips, making me feel such passion deep in me. I wanted him. I hadn’t had him in what seemed like so long.
And then, after he pulled on his pants, his tidy shiny shoes, he was gone. It all happened in an instant.
I leaned back in his cozy blankets, in his pillows, and felt like I was in a sort of igloo of comfort. I felt the compassion in his voice, even then, about what had happened the past month or so. I couldn’t care anymore. I was right where I was meant to be.
CHAPTER FIVE
Mid-afternoon, I crawled from the bed and got dressed. I sauntered down the steps and saw the spectacular mess we’d made the evening before with the sledgehammer. Bits of the wall had splattered all over the floor. A single man, dressed as a butler, was sweeping next to the wall. He gave me a cordial hello as I flew past him, embarrassed.
When I arrived downstairs, I smelled the most spectacular scents emanating from the kitchen. I stepped toward there, wondering if Drew had come home for lunch without telling me. But on the inside of the kitchen, there were ten or so people, all of them whirling around hot stoves and boiling pots of water. I brought my hands to my face as I realized they were cooking enough food for a king.
At the helm, a stocky Mexican man spoke to them in succinct Spanish. The people before him—some of them Mexican, others Indian, white, black, and every other nationality in between—stared up at him, unblinking. They followed his orders precisely. They slapped hundreds of broad tortillas on the table before them and began creating burritos, stacking them high in the air with beef, vegetables, and cheese. My stomach started to grumble. Why were they making a hundred burritos?
I leaned too close to the swinging door and I felt myself fall forward, into the air of the kitchen. Nobody looked toward me except Hector, the head chef. His eyebrows narrowed at me. I flipped back my blonde hair nervously, knowing I’d just walked in where I didn’t belong.
“What you doing here, Miss? We have very important operations here in the kitchen,” Hector spouted, using his stout legs to carry him toward me.
“I’m—I’m sorry—“
“You are looking for Master Thompson, no?”
“Of course not. No. I just. I know Drew left this morning—“
Hector’s eyes grew wide with the realization. “Ah-HA!” he laughed. He clapped his hand in front of his chest with authority. “I know who you is. Drew told me you’d be here. But I—I completely forgot!” He waved his hand in front of his forehead and rolled his eyes, “You must understand. This is our busiest day. Master Thompson has instructed us to make one hundred burritos for the food drive downtown. We have to make them all by three in the afternoon, and then we have to deliver them.”
I was shocked. “You’re making all of these for the food drive?”
“Oh, yes,” Hector stated, leaning back with pride. “I’ve been with Master Thompson for four years, now. He always gives back. We’ve been doing the one hundred burritos once a week for three years now. And as you know, I am excellent at doing the burritos.” He winked at me. “Although it would be much nicer in a better kitchen, like the one in New York.”
I shook my head, noting the antiquated nature of the kitchen around me. “I’ll have to try one sometime.”
Hector placed his hands over his eyes. “No. We must give you one now. HEY!” He called to the people before him, working hard with fast hands. “ONE MORE BURRITO!”
Suddenly, a man rushed forward with a burrito wrapped in foil. He handed it to me and bowed, showing me a small bald spot on the back of his head.
“Thank you,” I said to him quietly, feeling the warmth of the burrito in my hand. “Wow.” I turned toward Hector. “You do good things, Hector.”
He nodded. “We try our very hardest to do all good things.” He clapped his hands. “Now. Must get back to work. Everyone! Back to work!”
And the people hurried on from food process to food process, working ever toward their three-o-clock deadline. I slipped away from the kitchen in a hurry, ready to dive away from that chaos. I lurched into the beautiful late-October afternoon, feeling the sun on my face as I began to open my burrito. The first bite was wonderful. The tortilla was clearly homemade, and the interior rice and beans rose up with such immense, spicy flavor. I put my hand over my mouth politely, chewing, and smiling at the same time.
I passed by a park and walked toward the bench, allowing myself to do a bit of people watching. I watched as a young couple held hands, playing hooky from wherever they were meant to be. I watched as a grandmother helped her grandson out of his small carriage and held his hand as he waddled toward the playground. I took bite after bite of burrito, feeling vital, energetic. Like I could take on the world.
My phone started to ring in my pocket. I grabbed it, leaning the burrito on my leg. “Hello?” I said, trying not to make it sound like I had rice in my mouth.
“Hello? Molly? Is that you?” It was Drew. I wanted to laugh out loud.
“Drew! I met Hector! He’s wonderful.”
“Ah, yes. Today is the day of the one hundred burritos. Not a great day to meet him, but a good day to see him in action. He’s usually much, much more chill.”
“I loved him,” I said. “He gave me a burrito.”
“Well. You are privileged today, aren’t you?”
“Mm hmm. How are things on your end?”
“Fine, of course.” I could hear something in the background. Was that a drill? What were they doing?
“Construction?”
“Yeah. I’m covered in dust, actually. It’s pretty gross.”
I tried to find a smile but I couldn’t. I took another bite of burrito, wondering why he’d called. My face grew hot.
“Anyway. I wanted to call you because—because I want to take you out to dinner tonight. A high-end restaurant called Maggiano’s. It’s downtown, on the water.”
I looked around me at the beautiful, sunlit day. I blinked heavily, falling into his words. Did this mean he wanted to be with me? Be a couple with me? “I’d love to go. What time do you want to pick me up?”
“I’ll get out of here around five, which gives me a few hours to get myself together. I can pick you up around seven-thirty?”
“I’ll see you then,” I murmured once more. I hung up the phone and wrapped the rest of my burrito in aluminum. I tucked it into my small bag and walked out of the park, away from the running children, away from the beautiful, stunning Chicago architecture.
I ducked back into my apartment building, wondering what I would wear. I wrapped my arms around my cat, breathing an even sigh into his neck. He squirmed for a moment before resigning himself to his fate. He began licking his paw as I held him, staring into my closet.
My mother had once lent me a beautiful, black dress from her days in the 80’s. I allowed it to hang in my closet all the time because it reminded me of a different person, a woman I’d never met—but perhaps one I would have loved in a different sort of way. My mother was a blonde beauty. She’d had big dreams, big desires, but my father had trapped her in Indianapolis, and there she stayed. But when I imagined her wearing that dress, traipsing around, I felt so happy, so free. I pulled the dress up over my breasts, loving the way the tight dress hugged my curves. Luckily, I didn’t have to wear my hair the way my mother had—in a tight almost-fro. But I curled the ends, making my hair look full and brimming with vitality.
I rushed around, realizing that it was nearly seven-thirty, that he was on his way. I strapped shoes on my feet—great, black heels—and smeared make-up on my face. I grinned a
t myself in the mirror, knowing that tonight was going to be the night. I remembered all the romantic, sexual flings we’d had the past month. Tonight, it was going to be different. Tonight, it was going to mean something.
I brushed my teeth last, as Boomer started meowing. I stomped to the window and peered down, seeing the bright Porsche glowing at the entrance of the building. I grabbed my coat and flew down the steps, all the way to the first floor. I walked slowly, then, not wanting to seem too eager. I saw him on the other side of the door, looking so cool, so casual.
I met him as he opened the door for me. His jaw dropped when he saw me. “Oh my god. You look incredible.” He leaned down and kissed me on the lips, romantically. I felt it deep in my body. I longed to rough him up in the front Porsche seat.
But we both looked too good for that. I cleared my throat and kissed his cheek. “Thanks for picking me up. And, of course, for the burrito.”
“I think you mean to thank Hector, but yes. Sure.” He winked at me and we walked toward the Porsche. He opened the door for me and I slid into the front seat, staring up at the sky. The sun had already careened into the horizon, leaving the city in darkness.
Drew cranked up the engine and the speakers and took us downtown. I brought my hand over to him and held it on the manual shift. He smiled at me. “So. You liked sleeping in my bed last night, at my new place?”
“I loved it,” I said, laying my head back on the seat.
“Me too,” he whispered. He held my hand as we pushed toward the restaurant, stopping and starting all the way.
Maggiano’s was a beautiful Italian restaurant not far from the museums. It was situated just on the water, with great big windows spanning the length of the restaurant and giving a beautiful view of Lake Michigan. The host brought us in through the grand entrance, and I caught my breath with the view of the lights from the boats shining over the water. I could even see the stars.
