Seeing Me Naked

by Liza Palmer

  “I’ll call you when I know something,” he says. He pulls his keys out of his pocket and turns to find his car in the parking lot. He beeps the car unlocked, and I see the lights of the Porsche blink in the darkness. I watch him walk away as the three teeny-boppers burst from the restaurant, loud and giddy with pictures and stories to tell their friends about meeting the dreamy Rascal Page on Halloween.

  Chapter Eighteen

  You did what?”

  Rascal and I are waiting to get into Doughboys. Why are there always ten thousand people here no matter what time of day it is?

  “Will you let me finish my story?” My hair is still wet from my shower. After breakfast, I’ll head over to the farmers’ market on Little Melrose and figure out a feature for tonight.

  “How do you finish a story that starts with you thinking about quitting the job you’ve spent your whole life trying to get?” Rascal demands. This isn’t going quite as I’d planned.

  “Havisham? Mrs. Havisham?” the hostess calls.

  Rascal gets a giant smile on his face and stares at me expectantly. “You’re going to have to refer to me as Pip all morning. You know, to keep up appearances,” he whispers as I roll my eyes, raise my hand, and let the hostess know that it’s Miss Havisham, thank you very much. We follow the hostess into the main room. She seats us just under a seven-foot-long cigar mounted on the exposed brick wall. I have nightmares that the cigar will fall on me one of these days. I cautiously slide onto the bench, taking care not to detach any wires or huge-cigar picture holders.

  “I can’t believe you,” Rascal continues. He whips his napkin into his lap.

  “I’m not going to call you Pip, for crissakes,” I say.

  “Not that—the job thing,” Rascal says.

  “Will you just get over yourself already?” I say. Our waitress approaches our table warily. Rascal and I switch on our well-bred manners and politely order our breakfasts. Well, I order breakfast. Rascal orders red velvet cake.

  “It just seems like it came out of nowhere, that’s all,” he says, taking a sip of his water.

  “I guess so, but can you let me finish?” I ask.

  I’ve never really talked to my family about any of the negatives of the job at Beverly. It took so long to convince them that this was my passion that I didn’t want to hear the chorus of “I told you sos” if anything ever went the slightest bit south.

  “I’m only thinking of quitting. And I’m only thinking of it because I might have gotten a better job offer,” I say.

  “Are you going back to Lyon?” Rascal asks. The waitress brings our beverages. Rascal picks up his coffee and sips. I let my tea steep for a bit longer.

  “I might be offered my own television show here in L.A.,” I say. It’s out there, and God, it sounds fucking lame. It’s just not me. Avery gets offered television shows.

  “What the fuck are you talking about? Television? This is so—” Rascal starts.

  “Will you just—” I interrupt. Our waitress brings our orders, and we straighten up like two errant children who have been caught by their nanny.

  “Will there be anything else?” the waitress asks hesitantly.

  “Oh, no, thank you. This is perfect!” I pronounce.

  “Delightful!” Rascal adds. The waitress backs away from us.

  “This is fucking crazy. It just seems . . .” Rascal trails off, but I know what he’s not saying—what he can’t say.

  “I know. It seems beneath me,” I offer.

  “Beneath us,” Rascal adds.

  I stab at my granola. “Yes, and dating Avery Lollipophead is the height of grace and refinement.” I wipe the corners of my quickly tightening mouth.

  “You mean fucking Avery Lollipophead is the height of grace and refinement,” Rascal corrects.

  “You’re such a hypocrite,” I say quietly.

  “True,” Rascal says, cutting into his red velvet cake.

  “What?” I demand.

  “You really shouldn’t use me as a benchmark for anything except how low someone can go even with wealth, talent, and opportunity,” Rascal says.

  “You are not low,” I say, now feeling bad.

  “I allowed my name to be put on the writing credits of a movie called Skeletons in Your Closet.” Rascal pauses and then continues with the rest of the title: “The Secret Uprising.” He shakes his head.

  “Yeah, I remember that one,” I admit.

  “A high point, to be sure,” he says.

  “So why are you getting all fucked up about this?” I press.

  “Because you can do better,” he says.

  “What if better hasn’t worked for me? What if I want to try being happy?” I blurt before taking that split second to edit my cheesy outburst.

  “That’s patently ridiculous,” he says absently, eating his cream-cheese icing.

  “It’s not ridiculous,” I say, defeated.

  “So you’re saying, lamenting really, that you’ve been to paradise, but you’ve never been to me,” Rascal toys—and with the lyrics to a Charlene tune, no less.

  “I want to see where this goes, that’s all,” I say, toning down. I don’t have to make any decisions. This may not even pan out. I’m going to the meeting at the Biltmore. That’s it.

  Rascal slowly looks up from his cake. His face is childlike in its mischievousness. “Does Will know?” he asks.

  “No,” I answer. The blur of my workweek has dulled the sting of not hearing from Will about how his mom is doing in rehab. To keep from thinking about it, I’ve been planning my second baking lesson with Daniel Sullivan with the vigilance of someone planning a small military coup.

  “Are you going to tell Mom and Dad about all this?” Rascal asks. The threat of Dad doesn’t have to be immediate to run a chill down my spine. It’s absurd to think that a man I see so rarely has such a deep impact on my life. The mere possibility that he’d disapprove of my choices forces me to question anything and everything I do.

  “Hell, no,” I say. Rascal’s face crinkles into a wide smile. I warn, “And neither are you.” I shake my head and take a slow, deep breath. Rascal delicately sips his coffee.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I push open the door to Beverly’s kitchen with the bags of groceries I picked up cutting into my fingers. I grab my chef’s jacket and button it up. The kitchen instantly comes to life. I set out a whole chicken, along with a box of Bisquick. If Chef Canet saw the Bisquick, he’d fire me for real. In this kitchen, Bisquick is worse, far worse, than a gram of heroin.

  I’ve been so caught up in preparing today’s lesson that I haven’t allowed tomorrow’s meeting with the television people to enter my mind. I watch as the clock ticks.

  “Hello? Elisabeth?”

  A metal baking dish slips from my hand and falls loudly to the ground. I bend over quickly and pick up the dish. Just as I straighten, I see Daniel push the door open.

  “Is everything okay?” he blurts.

  “Oh, yeah, absolutely!” I say. I set the dish on the counter and just stand there. Then I walk up to Daniel and extend my hand. He takes it, and we shake hands for what feels like hours. I find myself trying to sneak glances at his eyes, as if the secret to life is imprinted there in the tiniest of writing. Back to work. Back to cooking. Back to perfectly measured doses of emotion.

  “I thought we’d make a main course. So when your parents come to town, you can cook for them,” I announce.

  “Sounds good,” Daniel says. I can’t read him. I know exactly what Will is going to say before he says it. But I can’t even tell if Daniel wants to be in the same room with me right now.

  “Let’s get you into an apron,” I say, walking over to retrieve one. I hand the apron to Daniel. He puts it on over his head. I can’t help but stand and watch. His hair is wet and almost black—no longer just the Crayola brown. The sprouts of hair are out of control today.

  I lead Daniel around the kitchen while I teach him to boil water and debone a chicken. I te
ll him chicken and dumplings is perfect to serve this time of year. Some people make chicken and dumplings with only chicken breasts, I explain, though it doesn’t taste the same. But if you’re pressed for time or watching your calories, you can. We chop potatoes, celery, and carrots. His knife hits the cutting board hard. His chunks are giant and unwieldy. Not everyone uses vegetables, I tell him. I go into the entire history of chicken and dumplings. Its origins. The different substitutions and varieties. Without the sound of his knife in the background, it would be a symphony of way too much information about food, the history of food, and silences begging to be filled. Which I happily fill with, yes, more information about food.

  “The great part of chicken and dumplings is that it’s a one-pot meal,” I say, flavoring the water with salt and pepper. I’ve been known to add garlic from time to time. I won’t do that today.

  “Why is it better to have a one-pot meal?” Daniel asks.

  “Because, it’s all in one. Easier to clean up. It’s this simple meal that people think you’ve worked all day on. Makes the house smell incredible,” I say.

  “You’re big into the house smelling incredible,” Daniel observes.

  “What?” I ask, caught off guard.

  “You said the same thing about those fruit things we were supposed to do last time,” he says, leaning up against the counter.

  “The tartlets?” I correct.

  “Sure,” Daniel agrees, waiting for a reply to his first comment.

  “I just like how cooking makes the house smell . . . well . . .” I’m fumbling through an explanation for something I didn’t even know I thought about.

  “Like home,” Daniel finishes.

  “Yeah, I guess it does,” I agree, embarrassed by the accidental intimacy.

  I help Daniel through the fun part: making the dumplings and dropping them into the boiling water with the chunks of chicken. It’s his job to make sure the dumplings stay completely submerged. “Dive! Dive!” Daniel says, poking at them with a long wooden spoon.

  “You don’t want to poke them too hard; they might tear and get all crumbly,” I say.

  “Oh, sorry,” Daniel says. “Dive! Dive!” he whispers.

  “You can have this for dinner for about a week. I think you’ll really like it,” I say after the dumplings are done cooking and have cooled down a bit. I go to the storage racks and pull out a variety of take-out containers and bags. The idea of bringing Daniel comfort for up to a week excites me, though thoughts of Will tug at me. I push the thoughts away, employing Will’s own philosophy of not muddying the time together with the “what if” game.

  “Okay, it seems cool enough now. Let’s get this packaged up for you,” I say, ladling out the first of the chicken and dumplings.

  “We’re not going to sit down and try it first?” Daniel asks, leaning on the counter, looking gorgeous and irresistible. Don’t do that. Please, have mercy on me.

  “Oh, Chef is really weird about people using the restaurant. He barely lets me do these classes,” I say, tightening down the top on one of the containers.

  “Then when are we going to eat it?” Daniel asks.

  “We?” I stop and look up.

  Chapter Twenty

  I grab a fairly clean tablecloth from the previous night that’s in the hamper, waiting to be laundered. I take two plates from the shelf along with two wineglasses. I motion for Daniel to follow me outside in the now dusky night.

  I flap open the tablecloth in the small grassy area between the restaurant and the office building next door. Not quite the lap of luxury. Daniel is holding the containers of chicken and dumplings stacked high in his arms. He sets them down in the center of the tablecloth as I go back in the restaurant for more supplies. I grab a bottle of wine, utensils, a corkscrew, and napkins.

  “You can help with the plating,” I say, kneeling down and dumping all of my ill-gotten booty on the tablecloth.

  “Plating?” Daniel asks, taking the bottle opener and the wine. He eases down into a seated position. It’s not the most graceful thing in the world. He looks like he’s in pain. For an athlete, he moves like an old man.

  “Yeah, you know, when you put stuff on a plate. Plating—I guess it’s one of those words that you use all the time and think everyone knows, but it’s really just you and your coworkers. I guess it’s like ‘basket’ or ‘two-pointer’ or something,” I say, setting out the plates, utensils, and napkins.

  “I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that most people know what ‘basket’ means,” Daniel says, pulling the cork from the bottle. He straightens his legs out in front of him.

  “I think you might be right . . .” I trail off. Even though it’s Sunday, people are out and about, meandering arm in arm out of other restaurants, browsing at the local newspaper stand, passing the time. I’ve never taken in the neighborhood like this. Daniel passes me a glass of wine.

  “Now, this is way better than that stuffy restaurant,” I say, sipping the wine and then trying to set it down so it doesn’t spill. I open the containers of chicken and dumplings and plate up our dinner. Now I can’t think “plate up” without smirking at my own insular vocabulary. Daniel pours himself a glass of wine and sets the bottle down on a patch of grass.

  “I restored this old farmhouse back home, and I had to eat outside for an entire month while I figured out the whole kitchen situation. I came to prefer it.” He takes a long sip.

  Of course you did. Did you wear a cowboy hat and no shirt while you chopped wood and lassoed recalcitrant horses?

  “And you’re living where now?” I ask.

  “I live in off-campus housing over by UCLA. It’s really nothing but a dry-walled hotbox over on Glenrock in Westwood—along with a thousand nineteen-year-olds away from home for the first time. They must have slaughtered hogs on my carpet or something, I swear. When I tried to hang up the one poster I have, I pounded right through to the next apartment.” He digs in to his dinner. He has a poster?

  “So, your apartment is slowly killing you, then?” The first honest thing I’ve said all evening.

  He smiles. “You could say that.”

  “You’ll move out soon. You’ll find a better place,” I offer, taking my first bite. It’s perfect.

  “That’s definitely my goal,” Daniel says.

  “A basket, if you will,” I say, holding up my glass. Daniel smiles and raises his glass. His face folds into itself, his eyes crinkling in, the night emphasizing the shadows on the rough contours of his face. Our glasses clink together, and we drink. And make eye contact for the first time that day. I can’t hide it anymore. I’m officially staring at him. Soaking in his deep blue eyes and smiling the stupid grin that first appeared last week.

  Daniel hesitates for the slightest of moments. My entire body softens. I lay my hand on his leg, leaning in to him. He leans in, pausing again centimeters from my lips. I smile the most private smile. Just for him. He’s so close I can feel the flutter of his eyelashes, the heat of his breath. He pulls me in to him and gently kisses me. It’s so amazing, the first kiss.

  We break from each other. There’s no sound except the traffic whizzing past every now and again. He smiles and makes a little “hm” noise. Like he’s made a decision. A quiet decision to himself. I look at him, trying to figure out what just happened. He picks up his fork. I tuck my legs underneath me tightly, holding on to my ankles, trying to stay contained. I think I’ve horribly misjudged this situation. A sharp stab of dread hits me. There’s no room for Daniel and me to get any more serious than a textbook fling. What about my schedule? What about Will? I let out a long sigh. This textbook fling is no place for a genuinely nice guy like Daniel. What have I done?

  “You know I’m never going to be able to make this again, right?” Daniel scoops up another forkful of dumplings. I let out another long sigh, taking him in. My breath quickens. I imagine myself in that instant as a person readying her home for a great storm that’s bearing down any second. Running wi
ldly through the house, slamming and locking windows, barring doors, throwing planks of wood and whatever else she can find over any possible opening, unable to keep the impending force of nature at bay.

  The night wears on. We eat. We drink. We share our stories. We both try to gloss over that time-stopping kiss. When I present two left-over miniature chocolate cakes, it’s well past ten P.M. We’ve been sitting here for hours. Our conversation has gone from what a caprese salad is to why basketball is like life, carefully tiptoeing around politics and religion. He’s talked about his family back in Kansas. I’ve talked a bit about Rascal, finally broaching the whole name situation, dancing around the literary reference and sidestepping the obvious introduction of my father’s profession. I’ve made a concerted effort to steer clear of the subject of my parents, or parent. I am loving this feeling of freedom. For once, I’m not known first as Ben Page’s daughter, and Dad has never seemed to come up specifically. Meaning, Daniel has never explicitly asked me, “So, Elisabeth, is Ben Page your father, by any chance?” Go figure.

  “Once you’ve been here a few more months, you’ll really learn to love it. Have you been down by the beach yet?” I ask, piling up the empty dishes. I kneel and stand, trying to balance everything.

  “I have, actually,” Daniel says, gathering up his own dishes and slowly lifting himself up. His movements are labored.

  “What’s going on over there? Aren’t you Mr. Athletic?” I say, still trying to balance all the dishes.

  “I blew out my knee right after college. A career-ender, actually. So much was torn and shredded that it took me months to even be able to walk again,” Daniel says, standing at last.

  “Jesus,” I say, feeling bad I brought it up. I don’t know what to say next.

  Daniel raises a single eyebrow. “Wanna see?”

  “Hell, yeah, I wanna see,” I say. Daniel lets out a bark of laughter and sets his dirty dishes back on the grass. He takes the cuff of his jeans and begins rolling it up, up, and up. Blond hair covers his tanned leg. I’m sorry, what exactly am I looking for here? Then I see it. An almost foot-long scar traveling vertically down his knee. Inch-wide stitches crossing it like railroad ties. It’s so jagged. It hurts just to look at it.