Page 22 of The Seven Year Slip

He didn’t have a ring on, but a lot happened in seven years.

A lotcouldhappen.

My aunt’s story was raw in my memory. First rule, always take your shoes off by the door.

Second, never fall in love in this apartment.

I wasn’t all too worried about that.

He grabbed a frying pan from the rack and spun it around in his hand—almost clocking himself in the temple in the process. He tried to act like he hadn’t just almost knocked himself out as he set the pan down on the front left eye of the stove. “I didn’t ask,” he said, “but you okay with fajitas tonight? It’s my friend’s recipe.”

I pretended to be aghast, and clutched my imaginary pearls. “What, no split-pea soup for my delicate taste buds?”

“Fuck split-pea soup.” Then, quieter, he added, “That’s tomorrow night.”

8

Romance in Chocolate

The fajitas were, surprisingly,excellent.

“I’m not sure if I should be happy you’re surprised or a bit offended,” he muttered, pouring himself another glass of bourbon (which he had also used to season the strips of steak when he cooked them).

We sat at my aunt’s yellow table in the kitchen and ate some of the best fajitas I’d ever had in my life. The beef was tender—it must have been flank or skirt, so juicy it melted in my mouth, with a back-end bite of that smoky bourbon flavor. The seasoning was sweet yet spicy, just enough chili powder to offset the cayenne pepper. The bell peppers and onions were crisp, and they kept sizzling when he brought the pan over and set it in the middle of the table, along with warm tortillas, sour cream, guacamole, and hot sauce.

He told me he’d learned how to make them from his roommate at that fancy culinary school of his and that it was a special family recipe, so even if I loved it, he was sworn to secrecy.

“Someday I’ll convince him to open a restaurant—a food truck,at least,” he added defiantly, picking at the leftover bell peppers on his plate, “and he’s going to thank me.”

“Or else!” I joked. I took one last bite of fajita before I realized that I was stuffed and couldn’t eat another bit, and I pushed my plate away with a groan. “Okay, I’ve decided—if you keep cooking like that, you can stay however long you want.”

He tore off a bit of tortilla, picked up a piece of bell pepper and steak with it, and ate it. “That’s a dangerous declaration, Lemon.”

“Dangerous or genius? I’ve always wanted a live-in chef—like movie stars have. What’s it like to just...havemeals prepared for you. Hungry?” And I signaled to our imaginary server. “Please, I’d love some escargot by the waterfall on the pool deck out back.”

He snorted a laugh. “You joke, but I know someone who does that in LA,” he said. “She hates it, but the pay’s good so she stays. I couldn’t. They always want the same thing—low carb, low calorie, keto, cleanse, vegetarian,whatever—too soulless for me. Not adventurous enough.”

“So obviously you want to go work at a restaurant where you have to cook the same thing every day?”

He rolled his eyes. “ ‘The same thing every day,’ ” he echoed with air quotes, and scooted his chair closer, his eyes bright with passion. The gray was swirling, like the eye of a hurricane, so easy to get lost in, I almost felt like I could. “Lemon, firstly, the menu is seasonal, and secondly, practice makes perfect. How else do you learn how to make the perfect meal?”

That made me curious. What kind of food could make him this passionate? I wondered, leaning against the table, “What makes it perfect?”

“Imagine,” he began, his voice sweet and soft like butterscotch, “I’m eight and I travel to New York City with my mom, sister, and grandpa for the first time. While Mom took my sister around tosome of her old haunts, I went with my grandpa to a small restaurant in SoHo. He was so excited. He’d worked in a denim factory his whole life, but he always wanted to be a chef. He read food magazines religiously, cooked for friends, family—birthdays, block parties, anniversaries, Fridays, any occasion that’d let him. And as long as I can remember, he’d always wanted to go to this one restaurant. I didn’t know it then that it was world-class, with Michelin stars hung on the wall. I just knew that my grandpa loved the chef de cuisine there—Albert Gauthier—a genius of culinary sciences. I didn’t care, I was eight and getting fed, but my grandpa was so happy. He got some sort of steak tartare”—and his mouth twitched then into a tender and reminiscent smile that reached up into his eyes and made them almost glow, how happy he was—“and I got the pommes frites, and my whole life changed.”

“Pommes...?”

“French fries, Lemon. They wereFrench fries.”

I stared at him. “Your life changed because of some French fries?”

He barked a laugh, bright and golden, and said to my utter surprise, “The things you least expect usually do.”

My heart clenched for a moment, because that was something my aunt would say, too. That kind of terrible Hallmark-card platitude.

“And anyway,” he went on, sitting back in his chair, “my grandpa never had the chance to open a restaurant, but he loved cooking, and he passed that love down to me.” His voice stayed light, but he didn’t look at me as he said, “He was diagnosed with dementia last year. It’s weird watching this man I’ve always looked up to—this unstoppable force of a guy—slowly get smaller and smaller. Not physically, but just... yeah.”

I thought about the last few months with my aunt. How, inhindsight, she got smaller and smaller, too, like the world was suddenly too big. I swallowed the knot rising in my throat, and curled my fingers into fists under the table, resisting the urge to hug him, although it looked a little like he needed it. “I’m sorry.”

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