THANK YOU .
Gloria answered with a smile and wiped a bit of mist from the corners of her eyes. “It’s nothing, Lumi. I’m just glad you’re okay, honey.”
Lumi nodded and gave Gloria’s hand a quick squeeze.
Gloria’s eyes alighted on the aloe plant, the boxes of Rice Chex, and the smoothie cup, but if she thought anything of it, she didn’t mention it to Lumi.
To her surprise, Lumi’s stomach started rumbling about an hour after Gloria left. The Rice Chex pinged against the glass of the blender as she filled it to the one-cup line and poured in a stream of water, followed by a handful of powdered milk. The mixture had been helping her feed herself without tasting, but this time a wave of nausea rankled her belly. Ugh, what am I doing? she thought. Gloria’s eggplant parmesan had to be a better move.
Julien had a point: it was unclear which one was more depressing, her meal or her reading material. She shoved the blender into the fridge to be dealt with later and chucked the will-writing guide into the trash. For however long she would be home, she would need things around that gave her something to look forward to.
She retrieved the plate that Gloria had made for her and, ever so slowly, peeled back the bandages that went over her lips. The first forkful of eggplant parmesan felt strange and textured after so many days drinking smoothies and eating mush. As she took a second forkful, she felt something like butterflies caressing her chest and expanding it at the same time. Gloria had prayed for her as she cooked this meal. To feel it in her cooking made her grateful all over again for Gloria’s visit.
She looked forward to seeing Gloria again soon, and Julien would be back tomorrow too.
But there was something else that wanted to be let out, to be seen by her—something she had been thinking about since that night. She sat down on the couch with her seashell-print notepad in hand, pen in other, motionless for a long time.
Then, as if self-directed, her hand began to sketch. The burned skin tugged as she gripped the pen, but she didn’t stop, just pressed a little lighter. Lines became squares, one, two, three, until they no longer fit on the small notepad. She got a bigger one and started all over. There would be a vegetable station, meat station, fish station, and separate refrigerators. There would be a wooden stand holding circular baskets full of plantains, yuca, and West Indies squash. And it would be in Inwood.
She lit a short, stubby candle for intention and retrieved a pack of colored pencils from her desk. One by one, she colored in the burgundy of the gleaming wine bottles, the tawny orange of the squash, the glittering silver of the fish scales. She stared at her drawing. Lumi leaned back into the couch, resting the eraser end of the silvery-gray pencil against her lip. She could do a bakery window to start, like she had wanted to at Caraluna. She could do a set menu, like at DAX. As much as she liked inventing one every day, what she had observed was that diners wanted to know what to expect. She would need a marketing plan. Word of mouth wasn’t enough for a restaurateur who wanted to reach past her neighborhood to bring people to it.
Social media wasn’t her thing, and she didn’t have any personal accounts, but she would have to make some for her new place. And then she would need a way to get her food in front of people. Oh! There was that summer event at Lincoln Center she had considered doing two years ago when she first opened Caraluna.
That would give her a table, a platform, and a way to meet people and connect, all while they sampled her new offerings. LINCOLN CENTER, she scribbled around the margins of the drawing. And—she never imagined she’d be saying this—she might even consider doing some French-Dominican fusion. Just not bouillabaisse. Never bouillabaisse.
LUMI’S RICE CHEX SMOOTHIE
1 cup Rice Chex cereal
2/3 cup powdered milk
1 cup water
Preparation instructions: Don’t.
33
Julien
Julien bounded up the steps of the walk-up building, buzzing with energy. It was nearly sunset, and he was right on time, just like he had promised the day before. He was keeping his word. He couldn’t wait to see her. As he climbed the steps it occurred to him that below the burns on her chest the rest of her body had been unaffected. He could probably make love to her if they were very careful . . . She was still hurting, though, and he knew that. He knew it was probably the last thing on her mind.
He took it as a good sign that it was on his mind, though. It meant things were slowly going back to the way they were before. For the past week, he could think of little else except how well she had been healing. Gloria and Ruben had been left in charge of the kitchen, as he had not been able to focus or contain himself there for more than five minutes.
He stood in front of her door and raised his hand to ring the bell. He pressed down the shiny black button and waited. There was no answer. He rang again and again. Julien frowned. It was the same time as the day before. She had to be home.
What if she had decided again that she didn’t want to see him? He groaned under his breath. The least she could do, then, was slip a note under the door.
“Lumi?” he called, loud enough for her to hear if she was in fact in the living room. There was only silence. He rang again. That was strange. Knowing her, she would have gotten annoyed with all this ringing by now and would have at least put a note under the door telling him to shut up.
His stomach lurched in a sickening twist as a new thought came to mind. What if she couldn’t hear him? His chest grew cold as he recalled the moment he had found her, unconscious on the kitchen floor. What if she had passed out? He began pounding on the creaky purple wooden door. Lumi had painted it purple herself, because the rest of the doors on her floor looked like they hadn’t been painted since the building was constructed in 1898.
There still was no answer. His heart racing, he banged on the door louder, faster, harder.
“I swear to God, I will break this door down,” he said, and just when he raised his fist to punch the door once more, it retreated from its frame, and his own momentum sent him stumbling into the apartment.
Lumi’s look of consternation was clearly visible through the strips of gauze that circled her eyes. “Are you trying to get my neighbors to call the cops?” she asked. “Or were you just going to break down the door? I mean, seriously—What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
Julien cracked a wide smile, regaining his composure and his breath. Even with the bandages, she was adorable to him when she was irritated.
“You’re talking,” he gasped, oblivious to everything else she had said.
She was standing in front of him with a towel tightly wrapped around her body, though her arms, shoulders, and legs were dry.
“I’m sorry,” he said sheepishly, leading himself to the couch and taking a seat. He continued to hold her gaze. “It’s just that . . . when you didn’t answer, I imagined the worst.”
She still looked annoyed, but he could see the edges of her face relaxing. She padded lightly to the couch and sat facing him.
Her skin looked a little brighter than the previous day, and she moved with more bounce in her step. He couldn’t help but think that the aloe and his tender care had helped. He inhaled deeply, his breathing mostly back to normal by then. Reaching for her unburned hand, he looked into her eyes.