“Parsley,” I say, beating him to the punch again. “I grew up with farmers. And even if my mom can’t figure out how to put flavor in food, my Aunt Ruth sure can.”
“Well.” Roderick sniffs. “I guess you’re going to do just fine. See this butter? I left it out on the counter to soften.” He pokes the stick, and his finger leaves an indent. “Open that sucker up and dump it in a bowl.”
I follow this simple instruction, and then he hands me a fancy chef’s knife. “Now you’re going to learn how to get the skin off of garlic quickly.” He puts a clove of garlic on a cutting board that I’ve never seen before. It must be a new acquisition. “Smack it with the side of the knife. Go on.”
Whap. I smack the garlic, and now it’s flattened.
“Nice!” He chuckles. “Now take the skin off. That’s easy when you’ve crushed it a little.”
He’s right. I flick the skin out of the way.
“Slice it thinly, okay? Then overchop it in the other direction.”
I slice the garlic into fine slices, but then I’m stuck. “What does overchop mean?”
“Like this,” he says. He actually reaches around my body and pivots the knife, and my concentration goes haywire. I’m too focused on the heat of his chest at my side and the brush of his thumb on my hand. “Okay, a little finer,” he says.
I squint down at the garlic and give it a few clumsy chops, but my attention is still on him. He’s standing so close to me that I feel a puff of his breath when he talks. And I like it way too much.
“Good enough,” he says. “Now do another one.”
I force myself to concentrate. The minced garlic gets tossed on top of the butter, along with parsley and rosemary that I chop, too. Then Roderick hands me a wooden spoon and has me mash it all together.
“Time to preheat the oven,” he says. “Use four twenty-five. Four fifty is even better, but sometimes it makes the house too smoky. Always cook a chicken hot and fast,” he says with a chuckle. “What’s good for sex is also good for roasting chicken.”
Now my neck and face are on fire.
“Last step,” he says. “Using your hands, you’re going to shove half of that butter under the chicken skin, over the meat.”
“What about the other half,” I ask, my face still red.
“We’ll freeze it for next time.” He grabs a piece of waxed paper and plops half the butter onto it. He shapes it into a log and rolls it up before I can blink.
I get to work buttering the chicken, but I might have gotten more of it on me than on the bird.
“It’s a messy job,” he concedes.
“Not nearly as messy as gutting and plucking the chicken,” I point out.
“You’ve done that?” he yelps.
“Many times. Next time you need a chicken, give me three days’ notice, and I’ll bring you a really fresh one and show you how.”
He puts a hand on my back, and I feel the warmth through my T-shirt. “I think I’m happy to let the store handle that for me, farmer boy.” That hand disappears, but I can still feel it after it’s gone. “Last step,” he says, grabbing a cardboard container of kosher salt. “Salt and pepper the fuck out of everything. That’s a technical term. Memorize it.”
I laugh again. That’s twice in one day.
We let the bird roast for an hour. I shower and call my brother, then Roderick makes rice.
“For brown rice or basmati, try two cups of water to one of rice. That usually works.” He lifts the lid off the saucepan of rice, and a homey scent fills the air.
“That smells delicious.”
“I just threw in some turmeric and cumin.” He shrugs. “We ought to have a vegetable, too. But we’re out of pans, and we’re out of time. So maybe I’ll tackle that at your next lesson.”
“Good plan.”
He opens the oven door, and the chicken is gorgeous, like something on a magazine cover—golden brown and sizzling everywhere.
“Jesus,” I murmur.
“I know, I’m hungry, too,” he agrees. “Move your big self out of the way so I can get this.” With a dish towel in each hand—my mother gave me those from her stash—he lifts the skillet onto the stovetop. “It has to rest for five or ten minutes, then we feast.”
I can barely stand the wait. But when I finally get my first bite, it’s delicious.
“Your cooking rocks,” Roderick says, biting into a thigh. We’re standing at the counter side by side, because there’s no table.
“Don’t flatter me, it’s your recipe,” I say, nudging him with my elbow. I have that happy glow you get from eating something amazing. The garlic and butter have turned an ordinary thing extraordinary. “But what I don’t understand is this—if cooking is so easy, why do so many people do it badly?”
“I’ve always wondered the same thing,” he says, licking his fingers.
The sight of his tongue reminds me of something else, and I look away. Jesus. Even if Roderick has been good about not bringing it up, the memory is obviously still there, lurking in my psyche.
And I have no idea how to make it go away.
Roderick
November rolls on. Before the end of the month, I leave my rent check on the counter when I leave for work at five a.m. It’s money well spent. Every morning I wake up in a snug house instead of in my car. And I sleep soundly at night knowing that the door is locked and that there’s a burly farm boy somewhere in the house.
I’m a pack animal. I’m not cut out to live alone.
Also, I’m already deeply in love with Kieran’s house. The living room has a high ceiling and shiny wood floors. It has the old bones of a home that’s been standing for a century. I love the creaky built-in cabinets in the dining room we don’t use. And the ornate staircase spindles.
Little by little, we’re furnishing the place. Kieran shops at stores and online. One morning when I wake up, I find a large, creamy rug in the center of the living room. I lie down in the center of it and decide I approve.
For my part, I’ve been haunting the thrift shops in Montpelier, slowly furnishing the kitchen with my finds. I’ve bought coffee mugs with roosters on them and a shiny copper teakettle.
One Saturday I swing by a church rummage sale and hit the motherlode: egg cups, serving spoons, a two-dollar cast-iron griddle with the tags still on it. And those are just the bigger purchases.
On Monday, for the first time ever, neither Kieran nor I has a shift at the coffee shop. That’s the day that Zara and Audrey have claimed to work together. “We’ll get a chance to start the week and talk. Just the two of us,” Audrey had said.
I wake up at six thirty, though, because I’ve trained myself to be awake in the morning. I run out for groceries, because it’s time for Kieran’s next cooking lesson.
He comes downstairs at eight, wearing flannel pants, a snug-fitting waffle-weave shirt and sleep-tousled hair. As usual, I experience a rush of affection for the hot farm boy who rescued me off the streets.
I don’t gush about my gratitude, though, because it’s clear that Kieran doesn’t know what to do with praise. And my exuberance generally makes him a little uncomfortable. So I try to rein myself in whenever we’re together.