Dinner at Fiorello’s (10 page)

Henry swallowed and realized he didn’t really have a clue as to what to say. He knew he had a burning desire to work in a professional kitchen, to eventually become a chef and infuse what he thought of as “magic” into his food, just like Maxine managed to. He could tell her he would work hard, learn fast, and be indispensable within a matter of days. But what job seeker didn’t claim those attributes?

This was a time when Henry wished he did possess some lawyerly powers of persuasion.

“Give me just a couple months. I’ll stay for three. That last month, I will help you in any way I can to find my replacement, but I will also work hard to train them, so you won’t even notice the transition.”

Rosalie smirked. “So then I’d have to pay, at least for a few weeks, two people instead of one? To do the same job. How does that make sense?”

Henry let out a little titter. She was right. “It doesn’t.” He half stood up. “I shouldn’t waste your time. I shouldn’t have even come here. I could have given you a call. You were clear when you said this wasn’t a summer job.” Henry stood fully and started from the office.

“Kid. Why
did
you come here?”

“Because something tells me, deep in my bones, that doing work like this is something that’s right for me.”

“Sit back down.” Rosalie gestured impatiently at the chair in front of her desk. “Talk.”

Henry took his seat again. “But it’s true. I should probably go to school in the fall. I can always go to culinary school or work in a restaurant after that. If I want. And I will.”

“Will what?”

“Want to work in a restaurant. Cook. Maybe have my own place someday.”

Rosalie said, under her breath, “God help you.”

Henry pretended he hadn’t heard. “Look. I don’t want to lie to you and say I’ll take a full-time job when I probably
will
leave in the fall. But I have a choice—I can work in my father’s law office this summer, or I can work here. I so want to work here. This is me. This is who I am. This is what I want.”

Rosalie chuckled. “You tickle me, kid.” She sighed. “Can you start tomorrow? We really need someone fast, and it’s not as easy to find good help as you might think. And hardly anyone comes in here for a job like this, wanting it so bad that it’s like winning the lottery.

“Plus so many people in this job leave quick anyway. The guy you’d be replacing, for example. He was here all of three weeks. Then he just stopped comin’.

“It’ll be fun popping your bubble. You’re gonna see fast that this is hard work, college boy. And maybe a summer here will teach you to hit the books hard in the fall and get your degree. You don’t want to spend your life in a hot kitchen. Me, I had no choice.” Rosalie shrugged. “So, even though it’s against my better judgment, I’ll give you a shot. We’ll call it a summer job.”

“You won’t be disappointed.”

“I’ve had people say that to me a thousand times, kid, and about nine hundred and ninety-nine of those times, I was. Let your actions speak for themselves.”

“Sure.” Henry nodded, a feeling of jubilation seeping into him. “I’ll be here tomorrow. What time?”

“Ten.”

Henry was tempted to tell her again she wouldn’t be disappointed but instead got up once again, smiling, to leave. He extended his hand, and Rosalie looked at it like he was offering her a frozen pizza roll. “Carmela should be in by now. Tell her you need a W-2 and a direct deposit form.”

“Will do!” Henry hurried from the room with one thought nagging at him.
Getting the job is the easy part; telling my mom and dad will be hard.
Hard? Henry wondered if he’d have a place to sleep tonight.

W
HEN
H
ENRY
got home, Maxine waited in the kitchen for him.

“What did you do?” she asked. She said it as though he had done something unforgivable and irrevocable, like killing someone.

“What do you mean?” Henry ignored her and her question. He waltzed into the kitchen and began rummaging around in the big stainless Sub-Zero. There were so many options, despite the fact that his mother hadn’t eaten since shortly after his birth and his father took many of his meals downtown in pricey restaurants. He pulled out some deli ham and Emmental cheese. From the cupboard, he got a box of water crackers and, from the bowl on the counter, grabbed a banana.

Maxine took the food from his hands. “I know you were on an interview or applying. What happened? Are you gonna take it?”

Henry took the food back. “And this affects you how?” He grabbed a plate and put the food on it.

She touched his face. “If you did, I’ll miss you. Who will I talk to in this house? I mean, after your dad kicks your ass to the curb.”

She was joking, but the gravity of what she said made Henry immediately lose his appetite. He plopped down hard on one of the stools set alongside their kitchen island. He put his face in his hands for a moment. Then he looked up at Maxine and said, “I did. I took the job.” He let out a short burst of near hysterical laughter.

The words didn’t seem real. Maxine stared at him, her mouth open.

“You might want to stuff a banana in that gaping hole,” Henry said.

“Shut up. You did
not
!” Maxine gave his shoulder a little push.

She was right. It was unlike Henry to do anything rebellious. He was the good kid, always home on time, never a problem at school, didn’t do drugs or drink excessively. Sex? Well, he thought briefly of Kade and surmised that was a whole ’nother ball game.

Out of the blue—and maybe to change the subject or to just go along with the rise of this wave of giddy hysteria he was experiencing—he spit out, “Oh yeah, and I’m gay.”

Maxine let out a burst of laughter. “Yeah, right. You’re like my buddy Patrick who, when he went to come out to
his
mom and dad, told them he had a brain tumor first. Then said he was only kidding, he was just gay. They still weren’t relieved.”

“I’m serious. I’m a pole smoker.”

“Oh, shut up.” Maxine sat down next to him and idly pulled off a piece of the ham Henry had piled on a plate. She chewed thoughtfully. “
Really?
Usually I have pretty good gaydar.”

“Really.” Henry looked into Maxine’s eyes, trying to gauge what he saw there. He wasn’t quite sure he could confirm
what
he saw, but he was sure of what he
didn’t
: judgment, disappointment.

Maxine broke off a piece of cheese and popped it in her mouth. “How long?”

“How long have I been gay? Since birth. That’s how it works.”

“I know that,” Maxine said. “I just meant how long have you—”

“Been sexually active? We are not going there.”

Maxine shook her head, and Henry was surprised to see a blush of crimson rise to her cheeks.

“That’s not what I meant either. I just meant, how long have you known? Um, since you realized.”

“Oh God, looking back, I can see things from when I was a little kid. I would think of them as friendships, but the intense attraction I had for some of the older boys at school, that made me feel all fluttery in my gut, told me that, even then, I liked boys. I just didn’t recognize lust for what it was. Not then. And of course, there was that whole Bette Midler phase when I was twelve.” He shrugged. “I guess I sort of accepted—and there’s a big difference between knowing and accepting—around my sophomore year of high school.”

“Did something happen then?”

Henry grinned. “I saw Maroon 5 perform on a TV special. Adam Levine.” Henry closed his eyes for a moment, enraptured. “There was no doubt, no kidding myself anymore. I liked the boys.”

The two shared the food Henry had brought out. The nice thing about this moment was how comfortable their silence was. Without saying anything at all, Maxine was reassuring. His being gay was no big deal.

After a while, he said, “I have to tell Mom and Dad.”

“That you’re gay?” Maxine gasped.

“Well, I—” Henry was caught off guard. That hadn’t been what he had meant at all. He was simply talking about taking the job in Rogers Park. But the idea caught him up short. Should he just make a clean breast of it and tell them everything? The pairing—the new job and his sexual orientation—were not such, pardon the expression, odd bedfellows. They were both core to who he was, and both were alien to his father and mother.

Maybe it was time they knew who their son and only child was.

The idea filled Henry with terror. “I don’t know,” he said at last, staring out the window and knowing he was refusing to meet Maxine’s intense gaze. “I guess I’ll play it by ear.”

H
ENRY
WAITED
until after nine o’clock to talk to his parents. He was in his bedroom, with only the flickering illumination of a candle on his nightstand to see by. Darkness pressed against his bedroom windows like something palpable, like a thing that had a life force of its own. It was almost creepy.

Henry had hoped that by lying still on his bed, on the cool, crisp linens, with only candlelight, he might kind of meditate and thus calm himself.

No such luck. He might as well have been playing Lady Gaga at top volume on his Bluetooth speaker and running one of the porn sites he watched on one of its longest and most hard-core clips.

He wasn’t calm. He wasn’t serene. He wasn’t at peace with his decision.

But tomorrow he would need to get up and, wonder of wonders, go to work. How was that for a novel concept? Tomorrow was Friday, and even if he could slip out of the house unnoticed and spend at least eight hours away with no questions asked, he’d still have to face his dad come Monday morning, when he would roust his son from bed to go to work downtown with him on the Metra train.

Henry got up and pulled on a T-shirt to pair with the mesh athletic shorts he had on. He padded into his en suite bath to splash some water on his face and to take a look at himself in the mirror.

Are you sure you want to do this? Didn’t you learn something in school this past year about the path of least resistance? The path of least resistance would be to put all this crap out of your head and follow in Dad’s footsteps. You know that.

And yet the thought of
not
starting work at Fiorello’s the next day really did make his gut churn. He was sick with loss at the very prospect.

You have to do it.

Henry breathed in deeply, trying to ignore that his breath was quivering, and left his room.

His parents sat in what they called the great room, a large, airy addition his father had added to the back of their brick colonial when Henry was in junior high. Floor to ceiling windows looked out on Lake Michigan, but right now that view opened onto a vast expanse of darkness. Across from his parents, who were seated at opposite ends of a wraparound suede sofa, an HD television was mounted on the wall. From the voices and sentimental music, Henry could tell they had
Grey’s Anatomy
on, although neither of them was looking at the screen.

His mother, in a loose-fitting tunic top and yoga pants, was staring at her iPad screen and occasionally typing something on its keypad. She wore a secret smile, and Henry couldn’t help but walk quietly behind the couch to peer over her shoulder. She was texting someone. Henry would have to lean in really close to see who.

His father had the
Wall Street Journal
open and held it in front of his face like a shield. Henry had told him he could read the newspaper online, on an iPad, but his father insisted he liked things old school.

Henry felt like a shadow, a ghost in the room, because neither of his parents looked up or gave any indication they were aware of his presence. Henry cleared his throat.

His mother shut the cover on her iPad quickly, and Henry might even say guiltily. She looked up at him with her amazing baby blue eyes, and Henry was struck once more by how young she looked. Especially now, with her face flushed.

His father made lots of noise with the newspaper as he clumsily folded it and set it in his lap. There was a glass of Scotch on the table next to him, and he took a swig. “Didn’t even hear you come in, sport. What’s the good word?”

Henry wanted to blurt out “Queer. How’s that for a word? Good?” But instead he just took a seat opposite his parents on what they called the “pony” chair, an ultramodern piece that brought together dappled horsehide, chrome, and leather. It wasn’t comfortable in the least, but it made a statement.

Kind of like this house
, Henry thought.

Henry cleared his throat again and then gave his mom and dad what he was sure was a grin of the sheepish variety. He composed his face into a more serious mien. “Do you guys have a few minutes? There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

His mom smiled. “Of course, Henry. You don’t have to ask.”

Henry reached out and snatched the remote off the glass-topped coffee table. “You mind if I turn this off?”

“Suit yourself,” his dad said. “We weren’t really watching anyway.”

Once the TV was dark, the silence rose up, even louder than the drama of the television soap opera. It was like a fourth presence in the room. Henry might have guessed, if he could predict the future, that he would have been a nervous wreck at this very moment. He’d have the whole bit—sweaty palms, pounding heart, a sense of escalating terror.

But something inside must have taken over, because Henry felt just the opposite. He was almost numb. He looked first at his mother and then his father and then began speaking to a point just above their heads.

“I wanted to talk to you both about a decision I’ve made.”

His father leaned forward. Henry noticed he took up his glass of Scotch again and held it in one beefy fist, as though for security. He looked over to his wife.

“Does any good ever follow a statement like that?” he wondered. “It’s as bad as ‘we need to talk.’” He chuckled, but it was grim.