“Everything all right?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
“You’re quiet.”
“I’m tired,” he says, and he smiles a little.
“Maybe that was too much for today, after you being sick,” I offer.
“It was a lot of walkin’,” he says, and then he chuckles. It’s a nice laugh, a comfortable laugh.
“Why don’t you go sit in the hot tub, then? Soak out the kinks?”
“Nah.”
“Why not?” I ask. “Nothing to do here but watch this, and this isn’t that exciting.”
“But goin’ outside means movin’, and I don’t wanna move,” he says. Then he smiles one of his more charming smiles and shifts in his seat.
“Do me a favor, then,” I say, and I push a cutting board across the island to him. “Slice up these carrots. About this thick,” I tell him, and lop off a carrot ‘penny’ about a quarter of an inch thick. “And no finger bits or anything. The knife is sharp, so you don’t have to work too hard.”
“You’re kidding?”
“I’m not. Now get to work,” I say, and I wink at him. “But then again, there’s that hot tub out there, just waiting for you.”
He starts to cut the carrots.
Something is not right with this boy. Later, when he’s taking his meds, I’m going to bring up the possibility that he’s unbalanced with them again. The reading I did about depression, it’s stuck in my head how strange some of these medicines can make a person. To me, it seems that this week has been one of those times when Alex’s moods have fluctuated more that usual. I’m taking into consideration that he’s been ill, too, and that may have something to do with it. But today, his behavior from the time he woke up has been all over the place.
For now, though, he seems content and intent with the carrots. Which I find a bit amusing. One, I have no right to ‘boss’ him, but I have and he doesn’t seem to mind. Two, he has no idea of how to handle a knife, and I’m going to be done with the pork cutlets I’m breading and sautéing well before he’s done with his chore. And three, Alex doesn’t even like carrots. At least not cooked.
“How are you doing there?” I ask him.
“Okay, I think. They’re not all the same size,” he says.
“Try and get them close,” I tell him, and I lean over the expanse of the island to see what he’s doing. It’s looking like a massacre. I come around and look over his shoulder. “If you don’t mind my saying this, Alex, you’re doing it wrong.”
I take the knife out of his hand.
“Hold it like this,” I show him, resting the handle in my palm. “You don’t have to clutch it, just hold it firm and put your finger here, near the back of the blade. It’s not sharp there.” I hand him back the knife and he adjusts his grip. “Good. Now bend your fingers a little on the carrot. You want to hold it in place, but you don’t want to put your finger tips in the line of fire, yeah, like that. Okay, make a cut.”
Too thick.
“You’re not going to hurt yourself. Here, like this.” And just the way that Mickie had showed him how to play that chord on the guitar I show him how to slice carrots; my hands on top of his. “Got it? Can you get the feel for it? You move the knife, not the carrot.”
“Yeah,” he says, and I lighten up on guiding him and instead let myself feel what he’s doing. He’s getting better, making more even cuts, moving his fingers back out of the way as he does it. We go through a whole carrot like that before he stops and sags back against me. It’s only then that I feel how tense he is.
“It’s only a carrot, Alex,” I joke, and I move back, give his arms a little squeeze, and get the pot I want to boil the vegetables in.
“You do it so much quicker,” he says.
“I’ve been doing it for years,” I tell him, moving back beside him and sweeping the bits and pieces of carrot into the pot. “Besides, I like to do it.”
“That’s enough?” he asks, eyeing the small heap in the pot.
“Well, how many of them are YOU going to eat?” I laugh at him and he laughs back. “I just need a portion. This is enough.”
“You want me to clean this up?” he asks.
“No, you don’t have to do that.”
“It’s okay,” he says, and he picks up the knife and the board and takes them to the sink to rinse them off. “See, I can wash somethin’ pretty quick.”
“Hey, you’re not bad in the kitchen, you’re just inexperienced. And I don’t think kitchen duty is something that really appeals to you, now, does it?”
“No, not really,” he admits as he’s scouring the small, plastic board I use to cut vegetables with.
“Which is good, because if you did, I wouldn’t have a job,” I tell him, and poke him in the ribs with my elbow.
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She could have another job around here. She could have the job of hugging me, ‘cause when I let myself lean back into her, she just did it. I don’t even think she knew that she did it, but she did. Her arms squeezed me; just a little bit around the shoulders. Enough. Enough to know that she can give a good hug. Enough to want a real one. And then there was that other squeeze, the one with her hands. That was on purpose and that was just as nice, even though I wanted to turn around and take her in my arms.
Instead, I’m washin’ dishes. I’m. Washin’. Dishes. Not just the stuff that I was usin’, anything that’s in the sink. I gotta keep busy, ‘cause if I don’t, I’m gonna do somethin’ stupid, like just go and, and hug Shi myself. Grab her up and hug her hard.
Not good. Bad enough that I leaned into her on purpose.
Siobhan, I’m lettin’ you drive me crazy. Not crazy nuts, crazy in that good, sweet way I almost don’t remember. Woman crazy.
“Alex, stop it with the dishes,” Shi tells me.
And I kind of ignore her, put a little more elbow grease into scrubbin’ out the pan in my hands. Humming. Humming like she hums when she works. Movin’ my head a little, ‘cause she does that, too. She moves over next to me, her arm on mine, leaning forward to look me in the eye.
“Alex, are you mocking me?” she asks.
“No,” I tell her, trying to make my face very serious and shaking my head.
“Are you SURE you’re not mocking me?”
I just shake my head and keep humming.
“Because if you’re mocking me, I’ll have to mock you.”
I turn my head to look at her and raise and eyebrow.
“This would, of course, constitute me ripping my shirt off, drenching myself with the kitchen sink hose here, and fornicating with the linoleum. Personally, I’m not up for it physically, but I’ll do what I have to do.”
“Go for it, baby,” I tell her, but I’m laughin’ so hard I can barely get the words out. “Shake that bad, bad bootie and do the humpty dance with the floor.”
“On the other hand, having at your rear end with this spoon in my hand works just as well,” she says, and she whacks me with it. Hard. Hard enough to sting a little.
“Hey!”
“Don’t mock me, boy,” she warns, and she stalks back behind the stove, spoon at attention.
“That’s BACKSTREET boy to you, lady.”
“Backstreet my backside. You know what, mister man, or boy, or whatever? You just keep washing those dishes. It’ll keep you out of trouble until supper’s ready,” she says.
I turn around and stick my tongue out at her and she does the same back to me. Then we both laugh. Shi goes back to cookin’, and I go back to washin’, and it’s the best I’ve felt all day. Probably the best part of my day. Maybe like highlight of my fuckin’ week.
Except for that ‘almost’ hug.
Ya know, Tish could walk in the door any minute and hang all over Shi, hell, I’ve seen her do it. And Shi would let her. She, like, encourages it. If Tish did come in now, though, I don’t think I could watch it; I want it too much for myself. But it’s cool. Tish won’t be walkin’ through the door, she’s over at Mickie’s with Kim. And it’s just gonna be me, and Shi, and some pork, and that’s it.
Unh. If I could have just leaned back into her arms for real. If she would have kept them around me and held me. THAT would have been the best part of today. Of any day. Being held.
I haven’t been comfortable being held in so long I can barely remember the last time. Probably at the start of the affair. The start, when it was fresh and, and, I know this sounds stupid, but when it was innocent. When we would get in her car and go up into the hills, find a place to park and talk, and just hold each other. Before René let us use his place and before there was any sex, there were all these stolen moments like that all the time. Kisses. Hugs. Touching. I can still taste that woman, still feel her sometimes.
It was like a hunger then.
It’s still like that.
I guess it’s always been like that. Desperate and hungry and me wanting, wanting, and I still don’t know what it is EXACTLY that I want other than someone to fuckin’ hold me.
“Alex?” Shi’s voice drags me back to the kitchen. I have no idea how long I’ve been standin’ here with my hands in the sink not doin’ a damn thing but rubbin’ a plate with a sponge. Shi is standin’ right next to me. “Alex, are you there?”
“Hunh? Oh, yeah, sorry, what?”
“Alex, what WERE you thinking about?” she asks.
I look into her eyes, those blue-green eyes that are so clear, and somethin’ in my head snaps. Thoughts come at me fast, too fast to catch them, to fast to make them go away, and I see Shi, I see her in my arms. I see us in that car. Touching. Kissing. Then those thoughts boomerang back at me and I see things that I’ve been tryin’ hard not to. I see this woman standin’ next to me and in my mind she’s naked, all that red hair undone and she’s spread out on the bed she’s made every day for, for weeks, months, I can’t remember. Forever. She’s on the black sheets, ‘cause the black ones are my very favorite ones and I’m there, too, and I just sink down onto her, into her, and everything feels so fuckin’ RIGHT, and...
“Nothin’,” I say. I’m thinkin’ about nothin’ I can tell her.
“Supper’s ready. I think that plate’s clean enough now,” she tells me, and she takes it out of my hands. “Sit down. Eat.”
So I sit down and eat. And think. And try and stop thinking. But it doesn’t work.
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© 2003 Chandrah, Inc.
© 2003 (*> Baby Bird Productions, Inc.
