Cowboy Baby Daddy

by Claire Adams

  The door to the apartment opens and closes, and I’m smacking my forehead with both palms. The action doesn’t last more than a couple of seconds, as my hangover rises from its grave to punch me right in the prefrontal cortex. So, now I’ve gone from smacking my forehead to cradling it.

  “Are you okay?”

  The sound that comes out of me is some kind of mix between a scream, a squeak, and a sneeze.

  “I thought you were gone,” I say.

  Good move. You’re really making it better now.

  “I forgot my keys,” he says.

  He’d opened the door, remembered to grab his keys, and closed it.

  Great detective work, Leila. You’re an inspiration.

  “Ah,” I say. “I do that all the time.”

  “Really?” he asks. “I don’t think I’ve ever known you to forget your keys.”

  “Will you just grab your keys and get the hell out of here?” I ask.

  Shock adequately describes the look on his face.

  “I mean, you’ve got to be running late,” I say.

  “Right,” he says.

  With that, I just give up and turn toward my own door. I open it and close it with myself on the other side, imagining a utopian scenario when I’d just done that after spending a much more reasonable amount of time in the bathroom, not bothering to say a word or even look at him once.

  Ah, the joy of fantasy.

  * * *

  Call it masochism, call it stupidity, call it an insatiable craving for confit de canard, but I’ve been at this table in l’Iris for over an hour, and I think Mike is starting to tire of just sitting here.

  “Okay, what’s going on?”

  “What?” I ask.

  “You’ve hardly talked to me at all,” Mike says. “You just keep looking around the restaurant. Are we on a stakeout or something?”

  His expression turns serious.

  “Are you a spy?”

  “You’re an idiot.”

  “Are you a cop? If you’re a cop, you have to tell me. It’s the law.”

  “I’m not a cop and that’s not a law anywhere. Do you have any idea how many morons have walked right into a sting because they thought cops weren’t allowed to lie? How do you think they get confessions?”

  “So,” he says, “if cops can lie about being cops, then you’re saying you actually are a cop.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake…”

  He smiles.

  “Why are we really here?”

  “I told you about the confit de canard. It was delicious wasn’t it?”

  “Leila, I swear to God, you’ve got to stop calling it that,” he says. “Just call it candied duck. You’re not French.”

  “Whatever,” I tell him, dismissively waving my hand.

  “See?” he says incredulously.

  “What?” I ask, sipping my virgin tequila sunrise. Without the tequila, do I just call it a sunrise?

  “Why are we really here? It’s not for the duck.”

  “Canard,” I say, not deigning to dignify him any more by actually looking at him while I’m talking.

  “Leila.”

  “Fine,” I tell him. “I heard Dane on the phone making a date to come to this restaurant.”

  “So what?”

  “I just want to know if he’s two-timing what’s-her-name.”

  “Wrigley,” Mike says. “Why do you care?”

  “Mike,” I start.

  I don’t know where to go from there.

  “Yes?”

  “How are things at work?”

  “Skillful,” he says. “Things at work are fine. Why are we spying on your roommate?”

  “I just want to know,” I tell him. “Isn’t that enough? I’ve lived with the guy for over a month, and I really don’t know anything about him other than the fact that he’s not really a musician.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Have you ever met a musician who doesn’t subject you to their dreadful caterwauling on a daily basis?”

  “Come to think of it,” he says, smiling, “I don’t think I have.”

  “I’ve never heard him play or sing. I want to know what’s going on. He told me last night that he’s losing his job, whatever that actually is—besides, if he was making $120,000 a year as a musician, wouldn’t I have heard of him?”

  “I don’t think you’re the musical aesthete you think you are,” Mike says.

  “Whatever. Just help me keep an eye out.”

  With the wicked smile that climbs up Mike’s face, I know I’ve made a mistake asking the favor.

  “Don’t embarrass me,” I tell him.

  “From the sound of it, you don’t really need my help in that area.”

  “What are you doing?” I ask him.

  What he’s doing is holding up his spoon and using it as a crude mirror to look over his shoulder at the people behind him.

  “I’m helping you spy on your boyfriend.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” I snap.

  Mike just smiles that adolescent smile of his, and I’m starting to regret inviting him along.

  Our waiter, a man with very little patience and a thick English accent, approaches.

  “Will you be requiring anything else this evening?” he asks.

  “I have a question,” Mike says, alternating eyes as he continues to pretend like he’s doing something useful with the spoon in his hand.

  The waiter lets out a sigh. This isn’t Mike’s first question of the evening.

  “Yes?” the waiter asks.

  “Why a French restaurant?” Mike asks.

  “What do you mean, sir?”

  “Mike, leave the man alone,” I say, trying to get my oldest and dearest friend to stop being a jackass.

  “Well,” Mike starts, “you have quite the British accent.”

  “Yes, sir,” the waiter answers.

  “So, why work in a French restaurant? Aren’t there any good English restaurants in the city?”

  “Will you be requiring anything else this evening, madam?” the waiter asks, doing his best to ignore Mike’s idiocy.

  “No, I think that will be all,” I tell him. “I do apologize for my companion. He doesn’t get out much in proper society.”

  “I will have you know,” Mike butts in, “that I have personally attended many a silent auction where I have placed bids alongside many of New York’s cultural elite.”

  I’m starting to wonder if our food came to the table clean.

  “Yes,” the waiter says, “well. If there’s nothing else.”

  I take one more look around.

  The waiter’s going to kick us out if we don’t leave soon, and Dane is nowhere to be found.

  “Actually,” I start, “if you don’t mind, I’d like to compliment the chef. I’ve only had confit de canard like that once before in my life.”

  “Very good, madam,” the waiter says. “Perhaps your friend can fetch your coats while I take you back.”

  He glares at Mike, and I’m having a little trouble keeping a straight face. I get up from the table and lead the waiter away before someone throws a punch.

  When we get to the kitchen, the waiter asks me to wait outside. He’s not in there for five seconds before I can hear the chef yelling at him.

  The waiter comes out, saying, “The chef will see you now, but I’d make it quick.”

  I just kind of stand there for a minute.

  On the other side of the door is the most talented chef I’ve ever come across since my father died, and I really don’t know if I can deal with him screaming at me. Things have been tense enough in my life.

  Oh well, here I go.

  The room is hot, busy. People are talking over each other, somehow keeping everything straight in the process.

  It reminds me of my dad’s kitchen.

  “Will you fucking look at this? It’s supposed to be braised, not reduced to soggy shit!”

  “Dane?”

 
“What?” he shouts.

  He turns around, and once he sees me standing in his kitchen, the murderous expression falls from his face.

  “Leila,” he says. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  I don’t have a good answer for him.

  “I could ask you the same thing,” I respond.

  “I, uh…”

  “Chef?” the man standing to the left of him says.

  “What the fuck do you want, Cannon? I’m talking to someone here.”

  The man goes back to his work without another word.

  “So, you’re a chef.”

  “Yeah,” he says, “about that—”

  “Why wouldn’t you tell me that? Wait, is this the job you’re getting—”

  “Hey guys, I’m taking a break,” Dane interrupts.

  “Chef, we’re in the middle of dinner service.”

  “Shut the fuck up, Cannon,” he says, and walks over to me. “Yeah, we should probably have this conversation outside.”

  A minute later, we’re standing out back and he’s lighting up a cigarette.

  “I didn’t know you smoked,” I tell him.

  “I wasn’t trying to hide the fact that I’m a chef from you, it’s just—”

  “Just what?” I ask. “Oh, let me guess: you’ve got it in your head that if you were a professional musician, I would be that much more inclined to sleep with you?”

  “No,” he says. “It’s not that at all. It’s just that, well, people kind of treat a person differently if they know he’s a chef.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  This whole situation is surreal and only growing stranger.

  “It’s really not important,” he says. “But yeah, this is the job that I’m going to be losing.”

  “After hearing the way you talk to your people, I can see why.”

  “Oh, that’s just Cannon. He’s only ever useful if you’re flat out abusive to him. That doesn’t matter, though. Listen, I’m sorry that I—”

  “I came back to compliment you on the confit de canard,” I tell him. “Did you make that?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “I’ve been kind of dreading making that dish ever since you interrogated me about it.”

  “I didn’t interrogate—”

  “You kind of did, Leila, but that’s not the point.”

  “What is the point?” I ask. “Why are we even out here?”

  “Other than the fact that you were about to announce to the grunts that I’m getting fired?” he asks.

  “Oh, right.”

  “Yeah,” he says. “I don’t know why I lied to you—well, the truth is that I didn’t want you asking me to make you French cuisine every day. I get enough of that at work, I assure you. When I come home—”

  “Dane?”

  “I don’t know why I kept lying.”

  “Yeah, it was pretty stupid,” I tell him. “It’s not really a big deal, though.”

  He takes a drag and looks off in the distance.

  “My dad was a chef, did I tell you that?”

  “Yeah,” he says, “when you were interrogating me.”

  “I wasn’t—” I take a breath. “You’re talented,” I tell him. “I’m actually pretty impressed right now.”

  “Thanks,” he says, blowing out another drag. “I don’t smoke, by the way,” he adds. “I just figured that maybe I wouldn’t have to hold my breath when I kiss… I can’t even say it.”

  “Say what?” I ask.

  “Wrigley,” he says with a shudder.

  “Oh yeah, your bottoms-up chick.”

  And I’ve just blown my cover. Maybe he’ll let it slide.

  “You do remember what happened last night,” he says.

  Maybe not.

  “Bits and pieces,” I cover.

  For a while, nothing else happens.

  He doesn’t know what to say, but then again, neither do I.

  “So,” he says, flicking his cigarette into the back alley, “I should probably get back in there.”

  “Yeah,” I respond, “I should probably make sure Mike and the waiter haven’t gone to blows.”

  “Mike?” he asks.

  “He’s a friend,” I tell him. “I never mentioned him?”

  “No,” he says distantly.

  There’s some more awkward silence; as if we didn’t have enough of that in our recent relationship.

  “Well, I should—”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  He opens the door and holds it for me.

  “Thanks,” I say. “By the way…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Seriously, the food tonight was excellent.”

  “Thanks,” he says. “I do my best.”

  “Yeah, well…”

  I don’t finish the sentence. I just walk away.

  When I find Mike, he’s standing at the door, making faces every time our waiter turns his direction. For such a good friend and genuine guy, Mike is kind of an idiot sometimes.

  “Ready to go?” he asks as I approach.

  “Yep,” I answer.

  I debate whether to tell him about Dane, but decide against it. That sick, tingling sensation I had permeating my body last night is back, and this time, I can’t just blame it on the alcohol.

  Chapter Ten

  That Sinking Feeling

  Dane

  So, it’s been a couple of weeks since Leila found out what I really do. Our conversation behind the restaurant was innocuous enough, but it was the last real conversation that we’ve had.

  Now, I’ll come into the room, we’ll say “Hey,” to each other, and that’s about it.

  She’s avoiding me, although I can’t imagine why.

  In the grand scheme of things, my not telling her about my real job is an annoyance, and I can see how it would be somewhat disrespectful, but it’s really not that big a deal. It’s not like we’re close friends or anything.

  Then again, I’m starting to get the feeling that it’s something else entirely that’s bothering her.

  The good news is that I haven’t been fired yet. The bad news is that Jim’s been avoiding me, too.

  Oh well.

  Right now, I’m sitting in the parking lot of Yankee Stadium, receiving a nice, relaxing blowjob from Wrigley. I made a joke to her that we were at the wrong field, but she didn’t get it.

  At this point, I don’t know if I could really go back to normal sex.

  It’s something I fought at first, right up until we got up to the roof of her building. Now, I’m just as much an exhibitionist as she is. Well, I guess that’s not entirely true. I still don’t like actually getting caught.

  It happens more than you’d think.

  I come, and within five flat seconds, Wrigley is asking, “What time’s the game?”

  “I think it already started,” I answer. “Then again, the cheering crowd might have just been a psychosomatic thing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She’s a demon in the sack, but she has a real problem with nuance. Given our present location, I was tempted to ask her for a handjob, but I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t have gotten that, either.

  “Never mind,” I tell her.

  I might feel like I was using her if she didn’t make it so abundantly clear on such a frequent basis that the moment feelings are exchanged, she’s changing her phone number and moving to a different apartment.

  “Take me to dinner,” she tells me.

  “Where do you want to go?”

  “I heard about this French place called l’Iris—”

  “Don’t eat there,” I interrupt. “It’s fucking filthy.”

  “How would you know?” she asks, poking me in the ribs.

  “I’m the chef there,” I tell her. “Seriously, you have no idea what they do in the kitchen when I’m not around.”

  Hey, at least I’m over my fear of telling women what I do.

  “I didn’t know you’re a chef,” she says.

  “Y
eah, actually I—”

  “Where would you like to eat, then?” she interrupts.

  Apparently, women aren’t nearly as crazy when it comes to the whole chef thing as I thought.

  “I really don’t care,” I tell her.

  “You really don’t have tickets to the game?” she asks. “You’re such a cheap fuck.”

  “Do you mean that figuratively or literally?” I ask.

  It’s strange, but I think I’m actually becoming a one-woman man. It’s even stranger that the one woman I’ve decided to keep coming back to is so vehemently opposed to us forming a relationship with any kind of attachment other than pure lust.

  Dinner, it seems, doesn’t count as nonsexual.

  “Both,” she answers casually.

  “We can go to the game if you want,” I tell her.

  I bought the tickets on a whim last night. I really wouldn’t mind something a bit more serious, but I wanted to get the sex part out of the way before we got into the stadium. Otherwise, there’s no doubt in my mind that she would spend the whole game trying to figure out a way for us to do it in the stands and not get arrested.

  Come to think of it, I don’t know that she would have a problem getting arrested while having sex. Knowing her, it’d probably just be that much more of a turn-on.

  “No,” she says, “that’s okay. I’m a Mets fan anyway.”

  The horror.

  “I think they’re playing the Mets, actually.”

  “Dane, I should be honest with you.”

  It’s that exact phrase, said that exact way, that gives honesty such a bad rap.

  “I hate baseball. I said I was a Mets fan because I had no idea the two were playing and I really just wanted to get out of it. I’m actually kind of relieved you just wanted to stop here for a quick one. We really don’t have to go to the game.”

  “Ah,” I say.

  I turn the car on and put it in reverse. As we pull out of the stadium, I’m just wishing I hadn’t spent the money on the tickets.

  “So,” Wrigley says, “have you talked to your roommate?”

  “About what?” I ask.

  “You know,” she says. “Things are getting kind of stale, you know, with your unwillingness to be my bitch.”

  I can’t believe this is how she really talks.

  “I’m not following,” I tell her.

  “Have you had the conversation? Is she down for a three-way, or am I just flicking the bean to the complete wrong thing here?”