Page 68 of Unwritten Rules
“It’ll be worth it.” She hands the book to Eugenio, who opens it and begins to leaf through it, fingers skimming the recipes.
“Where should I start?” he asks.
She ushers him back to the table with a set of sticky notes to amend various recipes where the cookbook authors didn’t know what they were doing, jotting down where to add a packet of onion soup mix or a few tablespoons of grape jelly to brisket.
“Grape jelly?” he asks Zach, when Zach’s mother has gone into the other room for something.
“It’s good. Or maybe it just reminds me of good memories.”
“Then I’ll try to make it for you.” Eugenio says it low and then glances around before sliding his hand over Zach’s, the brush of their fingers together as damning as if they were kissing should Zach’s mother walk back in.
“Stop.” But Zach doesn’t withdraw his hand.
“She seems nice.”
“Yeah, well, you had fourths, so you’re on her good side for now.”
“For the record, you don’t look thin to me.” Eugenio gives him a look, one as warm as the incandescent light bulbs buzzing above them, one that he should not be giving Zach, not standing close to him, breathing the same breath.
Zach moves away, interjecting space between them, in time for his mother to return. She has another recipe with her, this one a set of notes in her looping handwriting. She tucks it into the cookbook. “That one you should save for when you have someone to make it for.”
Later, upstairs, Eugenio does a slow circuit around the perimeter of Zach’s childhood bedroom, which his parents have turned into a home office-slash-guest bedroom. The bed is new. Zach sent money for a mattress, a bedframe, a check and then another when they didn’t cash the first one. He sits on it, watching Eugenio examine the artifacts from his childhood, the pictures from Little League tournaments and his bar mitzvah. The ones his parents added: aerial photos of the Elephants Coliseum and the new Federals stadium sitting on the banks of the Anacostia River.
“What’s this?” Eugenio points to one of the frames.
“It’s a ketubah. It’s like a marriage contract.” And Zach tries to remember vaguely what it says, or what they learned about them in Hebrew school, and remembers only the boiling feeling when they were discussed that he couldn’t get married, so didn’t need to know about them. He pulls out his phone, which connects to his parents’ sluggish Wi-Fi, searching for an explainer and then skimming it. “It’s vowing to support and to take care of one another. And, um, other obligations.”
Eugenio raises an eyebrow at that.
“The termconjugal relationscomes up a lot in this article.” And Zach he can feel the color up on his cheeks, Eugenio looking at him in slight disbelief.
“It’s probably good it’s in Hebrew.”
“Technically, I think that’s Aramaic.”
Eugenio comes over to where Zach is sitting on the edge of the bed, standing between his thighs and leaning to kiss him, but stopping when Zach glances at the door. It’s shut, the lock turned, but the house is old enough that every creaking floorboard feels like an incrimination. “We don’t have to.” Though Eugenio trails a hand across Zach’s arm, lingering at the swell of Zach’s biceps.
“I want to.” And Zach wonders what it would be like to pull Eugenio down, to bury themselves in each other for a while. If the bed frame squeaks or if the mattress would protest, or if Eugenio, who is often loud, can be quiet. If he’ll stay with Zach, after, and sneak back to the other guest room in the middle of the night like he does on road trips. If one of Zach’s parents would encounter him, getting up to get a glass of water or checking to see if they closed all the windows in the dining room. “I want to,” Zach says, again, “but we probably shouldn’t.”
“It’s hard for you being here.”
And Zach nods, swallowing around a lump in his throat. “You know, you go home, and you revert back to how you were growing up?”
“Yeah, though mostly my parents just want to talk about whatever book it is they’re reading, so that’s easier.”
“Tomorrow’s going to be rough,” Zach says. “Just everyone here, my mom’s gonna declare the house a mess even though she’s been cleaning for a week, and we’ll be running around. And I probably should have warned you about all of this so you could spend some time getting in an actual vacation.”
“Hey.” Eugenio moves to lie next to Zach, close enough that the mattress dips in the middle, the frame beginning to complain about their combined weight. “C’mere.” He settles on the side of the bed closer to the wall, Zach next to him, body stiff and then relaxing when Eugenio starts petting his hand through Zach’s hair.
“I found a couple places in Cambria, for when the season’s over,” Eugenio says. “It’s down the coast from Oakland. Supposed to be nice there all year round. If you still wanted to go to the beach.” And he kisses Zach, at his forehead, at his hairline, by the curve of his ear.
It makes Zach miss Oakland and the privacy afforded by three thousand miles, the world spun down to only the two of them. He imagines Eugenio at a beach house, at restaurants, eager to tell Zach about wine pairings, as if Zach didn’t grow up on kosher wine and so his main metric is drinkable. All of which is too much to say, here, in the waystation of his childhood bedroom. So he says only, “I’d like that. Thank you.”
Eugenio kisses his hair again before starting to get up. “I should probably go sleep in the other room.”
“Will you stay?” It feels like almost too much, like Zach’s asking for something he doesn’t know how to put into words.
“Of course I’ll stay.” He kisses Zach again, wrapping an arm around him like he does when they’re in close-packed restaurant booths.
