“Didn’t mean to,” he replies. He walks toward me. “What are you making?” He stares into my bowl.
“Loaded baked potato salad,” I say with a flourish and a chef’s kiss motion of my hand.
“Seriously?” A smile breaks across his face. “That’s my favorite.”
“I know.” I try not to grin, but I fail miserably. Heat creeps up my cheeks. “I remember.” It’s a recipe I found in a magazine right after we got married. It took me a few tries to get it right, but when I did, it became Eli’s favorite food. I made it at least once a week and he always ate every bite. Essentially, it’s just potato salad with cheese, green onions, bacon, and sour cream added to it, but Eli loved it. I hope he still does. “I do still remember some of your favorites,” I add quietly.
He points to the bowl. “So this is for me?” he asks, and he looks so boyishly charming that I can’t help but feel sorry about the way our marriage has gone. We could have done such a better job. He reaches toward the bowl like he’s going to stick his finger in it, but I gently rap his knuckles with the spoon.
“This is not just for you,” I tell him. “Katie and Jake invited us for dinner tonight.”
“Oh,” he says, and I can see him deflate. “So I have to share…”
I walk over to the fridge and take out a bowl of the same salad I just finished making. “Well, fortunately this one is for you.” I set it on the counter and say, “Ta-da!”
He grins. “You made one just for me?”
Back when I used to make this all the time, I always made Eli his own bowl of it to have at home if I was making one to take somewhere.
“I can’t remember the last time you made this, Bess,” he says as he stares at the bowl. Then he reaches into it and scoops some out using only two fingers instead of a spoon. He lifts it to his mouth and takes a bite. His face goes slack with pleasure and his eyes fall closed. “It’s just as good as you used to make it, if not better. Did you do something different?”
“No,” I reply. “It’s just been a long time since I’ve made it. I might have forgotten how.”
He talks around his full mouth. “You didn’t forget. It’s amazing.” I laugh at him as he takes another scoop of it. “You want some?” he asks as he holds his fingers out to me.
“Off your dirty fingers?” I retort. “No, thank you very much.”
“My fingers aren’t dirty,” he protests.
“Yeah, right,” I reply, and I take his hand in mine and lift it up to study it. His fingers close around mine and he steps so close that he’s almost touching me. Almost, but not quite. I sniff his fingers. “Have you been fishing?” I scrunch my face up in what I assume will look like a comical disgusted expression.
“Yes, but I washed my hands after we cleaned the fish.” He sniffs his fingers. “I still smell fishy,” he admits with a grimace. “But I swear my hands are clean.” He goes to the drawer and comes back with a spoon, and he pulls a barstool up to the counter so he can eat right out of the bowl. “This is amazing,” he says again, his mouth full.
“I’m glad you like it.”
“I like seeing you cooking again,” he tells me. But then he looks almost like he wants to take it back. “You used to cook all the time.”
“I used to do a lot of things that I don’t do anymore,” I admit. I point my finger at him. “And I’m not promising that I’m going to go back to being the person I once was. I don’t even know if that person exists anymore. But I do want to be a little more awake from now on.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “What’s that mean?”
“I don’t know how to explain it.” I can’t explain it to myself, so I know I can’t explain it to him. “But I kind of feel like…like I’ve been sleepwalking through my life, and I want to make a conscious effort to change that.”
“Okay, Bess,” he says, and he grins at me.
I pick up a damp towel that I’ve been using to wipe my hands and throw it at his face. He catches it and lays it on the counter next to him, and then he digs back into the bowl.
“You’re not going to want dinner,” I warn.
He glances at his watch. “What time are we going up to the big house?”
“Katie said six o’clock.”
“Do I have time to shower?” He looks at his watch again. “Are you almost done with that?” He points to the second bowl of potato salad I’m still working on.
“Almost. Why?”
He reaches over and turns the music up loud again, and then he kisses my cheek, lingering just a beat too long, grins at me, winks, and goes to shower.
My heart thuds in my chest as I watch him walk away.
When I met Eli, he was a lanky boy of sixteen. It seemed like his arms and legs were too long for his body, and he tended to trip over his own size fourteen shoes way back then. Through the years he has grown into his body to the point where women notice him in the street. He’s tall, still thin but not skinny, and the pepper at his dark temples has been replaced with salt. He doesn’t have that lock of hair that used to fall in front of his eyes anymore, mainly because his hair is thinning. But to me…
God, to me he is still the most handsome man I’ve ever met. I watch him walk away, his gait full of confidence where once it was hurried and unsure. He’s not the same boy I knew way back then, but at the same time he is.
I’m not the same person either and that is the part that scares me the most. I haven’t liked who I am for quite some time. Can I really expect Eli to like me?
I finish the potato salad, top it with some cling wrap, and turn the music down just as Eli walks back into the kitchen. He’s wearing a pair of khaki shorts and a t-shirt, and my eyes roam up and down his body. I can still remember the lines of his torso, and the mole just below his left nipple.
“Stop it,” he says crisply.
“Stop what?”
“You’re undressing me with your eyes,” he says, a fake warning in his gaze. He makes a vee with his fingers and points to his eyes. “My eyes are up here!” He pretends to pout, which makes me bark out a laugh. “What?” he asks. “What’s so funny?” He stalks toward me and pulls me against him, his fingers digging gently into my sides as he tickles me. I laugh and squirm to get out of his grip. “You think this is funny, huh?” He tickles me until I go slack in his arms, and then he just holds me.
I look up into his handsome face and smile.
“I like you,” he whispers, his voice no more substantial than a wispy cloud in the sky, and just as intangible.
I cough to clear my throat. “I like you too.”
He kisses the tip of my nose. “Are you ready to go?”
“Yes.” I pass the bowl to him and slide into my flip-flops. “I’m ready.” He reaches for another beer, opens it with the opener on the side of the counter, and we start walking up to Jake and Katie’s together.
“Hey, what did your boss say?” he suddenly asks.
I smile. “He said I should take all the time I need to get my family stuff in order.”