You're Not You (38 page)

I got up quietly and tiptoed into the bathroom. I splashed my face, smoothed my hair, and brushed my teeth with my finger. I looked okay, though. I looked flushed, the circles beneath my eyes diminished.

I found a notebook in a kitchen drawer and debated what to write. I didn’t want to wake him up. Finally I wrote,
Good to see you. Thanks
. I thought about some reference to the massage, or whatever it had been,
but I didn’t know what to say about it. I didn’t even know what to call it. Finally I left the note on the table, paused, and then before I could over-think it and chicken out I added one more line. Unfortunately what came out was,
Pool this week? (Billiards.)

The first words on the lined paper looked so carefully dashed-off, and then that ridiculous billiards addendum, as if he’d think I meant a swim. He was going to tease me about this, I thought, but oh well. I realized I was smiling.

I stood near the armchair for a second, touched an experimental fingertip to his cheekbone. I had never seen Liam sleep, not even a doze. At some point, the few guys I saw sleeping had stopped seeming boyish in repose. Mark had a heavy, slightly musky scent when I leaned near him, his beard thick as wire, the shadows beneath his eyes suggesting he had not slept as soon as he had coaxed me to. Yet I liked him better for it, the faint evidence of work and worry. I anchored the note with the candle and let myself quietly out the front door.

The air felt wonderful, truly autumnal and crisp, the sun bright and the faint smell of wood smoke in the air. At first I began to walk toward my apartment. I was maybe five blocks away, and I was dying for a real breakfast. I didn’t even know the last time I’d had one. I had no food at home, no eggs, muffins, oatmeal, or fruit. I didn’t even have good coffee, for God’s sake. I was living like an animal.

So I changed my mind, and headed toward the capitol. It was too lovely not to take the long way, so I walked past the lake. The farther downtown I went, the more people were out, already on their way to the market. As I walked up King Street I saw the trucks parked along the square, the throng of people—but not too crowded yet—moving in a slow stroll around the lawns. There would be pears, and apples, and the beginnings of winter greens and root vegetables. There would be shallots and beets, pastries, cheese, handmade butter.

I decided to buy some pears. Suddenly I was craving a pear crisp. I thought I might even make one and eat it for breakfast. I could pick up some lemon and butter, oatmeal and nutmeg, on my way home.

As I passed people I peered into their baskets. They were carrying bunches of flowers, carrots with leafy tops, fingerling potatoes still shedding dirt.

I think I wanted to be hit by the smell of pastry and coffee, the closer I got. I had realized recently that I no longer wept whenever I was driving, and the loss felt terrible to me. For so long it had happened every time I got in my car, like water running over a too-full glass. It had been a comfort, in a way.

I was at the entrance to the square now. I could smell the bittersweet chocolate from the croissants, the coffee and hot cider sold from carts.

On the other side of the capitol, I remembered, there was a woman who sold tiny Seckel pears that tasted like honey. The crowd was moving past me, and I stepped into it.

I REQUIRED AN EXPEDITION
just to stock myself up on basic equipment. I had spoons, and a few cereal bowls, and of course my shallow omelet pan. I briefly wondered if I could fit a Lilliputian version of a crisp into that, like a doll’s dessert, but that didn’t seem in the spirit of the thing. I wanted to pile up fruit, press the topping down over it so it wouldn’t fall off the sides.

I dropped off my farmers’ market purchases and went back out to a kitchen supply store for bowls and a knife and hot pads. I might have found some of this at the co-op, and it would all be hand-tooled and woven by well-treated indigenous peoples, but it would also cost four times as much. Frankly, it was time to remind myself I wasn’t living on Kate’s bank account. I wasn’t sure what my next job would be, but whatever it was, it was unlikely to pay well, so I may as well be frugal.

I bought the basics, a big plastic bowl, a vegetable peeler, a glass baking dish, and oven mitts. Then I headed over to the knife section to eye the Wüsthofs. Their chef’s knife was a thing of beauty. Once I’d gotten a salesperson to let me handle it—its sleekness, its weighted, steady handle, its diamond point—there was no way I wasn’t buying it. I had saved
some
money, after all. A good cook knows where to invest.

At home, I set my purchases on my two square feet of counter space and looked them over with satisfaction. The pears were beautiful, speckled and blushing, leaves still clinging to a few of their stems. They smelled of honey and of their own tough, herbal-scented skins. I’d gotten a block of sweet butter too, and a little bag of black walnuts. I hadn’t had them since last winter. They were expensive—Kate had
told me once it was because they were murder to shell—but they tasted intensely nutty when they were roasted. On my second trip I’d gotten some oats and brown sugar for the top. I also bought—this was the one secret I recalled Kate telling me—a little bag of small-pearled tapioca. Unlike flour, it thickened the pears without making them gluey.

I washed and dried everything, then set my ingredients and equipment out in front of me. The counter space was so tiny I had to use the top of the half-size fridge. I didn’t have a recipe, except what I recalled of making it at Kate’s direction. And there wasn’t one in my only cookbook, so I couldn’t consult that. I had always just asked her.

I ended up doing it by guesswork and memory. I used a coffee cup to measure flour and then just dumped in oats and sugar and pinches of spice, rubbing in cubes of butter with my fingertips until the mixture felt crumbly and silky with fat. I peeled pears, sliced them off the core, and left them in big chunks. I tossed the fruit with a little tapioca and sugar and lemon zest.

My hands were slick and sweet with pear juice and lemon and sugar. I put the dish in the oven and then looked around my apartment while it cooked. It was pretty much a mess. I walked around, followed by the fizzing sound of my carpet, picking things up and setting them in what I arbitrarily deemed the right place—I had never really settled when I moved in. Finally I opened the blinds all the way and sat down on my couch. My apartment began to smell of pears and lemon and browning butter.

I had looked around for Evan at the market. Though he had never come with us, back when I took Kate each week, I knew they used to go together. It was my guess that he had stopped going with her at first because it gave him time to be alone, then, later, time to be with someone. After they separated, he probably didn’t want to run into us. But I had always remembered seeing him at the little Wednesday market, buying a piece of fruit. This morning as I had strolled around trying samples of goat cheese and honey, I kept glancing about, expecting to see his thin blond hair fanned by the wind, the flash of his glasses in the sun.

I checked on the crisp. Bubbles rose through the syrupy glaze around the fruit and the top was brown. I took it out and brought it
back to the coffee table. Steam rose off the crust. I had a plate and fork and a square of paper towel for a napkin, and for a satisfying moment I thought I might eat the whole thing myself, plate after plate.

“BEC,” EVAN SAID. HE
leaned against the door frame and gazed at me. His mouth curved into a bit of a smile, a pass at one. “Come in.”

“I brought you a crisp,” I said. “A housewarming thing, I guess.”

“That’s sweet of you,” Evan said, taking it from me. “Still the chef. We’ll have it tonight.”

Lisa had told me, the day I went to see her, what street he was on now. Maybe she was hoping I’d go see him too. Today I had driven slowly down the street, the crisp sitting on the passenger seat, until I saw Evan’s car in a driveway.

I followed him into the house, looking around. It was nice enough, a little dark. I didn’t see any Kate-like touches. No bright paint, no bookcases. It was just a house.

He led me up a couple steps and into a kitchen. There was a newspaper spread out on the table, the smell of coffee in the air. Through the window I could see Cynthia, kneeling in a garden. Her hair was shorter than I’d been imagining it. She wasn’t as slim as I recalled either, but rounded and voluptuous.

“Have a seat,” Evan said. He set a cup of coffee before me. Traces of cream still spun in its center.

“Pretty good memory,” I said. Evan sipped his coffee and looked at me.

I wasn’t sure what I had thought he might do, welcome me with smiles like an old friend, or tell me to get off his property. Maybe my intentions would have showed, if I had a better idea of what they were. The crisp was just an excuse. It wasn’t even Evan’s favorite; he preferred something more elegant: a sunburst of sliced peaches in barely sweet almond custard, baked inside a tart, crème fraiche rather than whipped cream. It was Kate who’d loved the generous chaos of crisps and cobblers, who was charmed by old American dessert names like buckles and slumps. Before me on my coffee table the crisp had steamed away, smelling gorgeous, and I couldn’t believe I wasn’t going to eat it. I decided I’d make the next one perfect and make this one a
good excuse to see Evan and get it over with. I wasn’t going to dart around town like a squirrel, afraid of seeing him any time I went somewhere pleasant. And I certainly wasn’t going to stop going to the market.

Evan just kept watching me, his expression unreadable.

“I don’t have a good reason to see you,” I admitted. “I just thought I might . . .” I stopped. “I saw Lisa the other day.”

He nodded. “Yes,” he said slowly. “I heard. You seem to be making the rounds, apparently.”

I stared at him. My face felt numb. You imagine these moments, but most people don’t just lay it down for you like this. If I’d been less stunned I might have respected him for cutting to the chase.

Evan sat back and regarded me. His expression wasn’t very neutral anymore, just hard and still. I was about to cave in and apologize—for a second I felt the onset of a tremble in my lips—but his face stopped me. Instead of saying anything I just looked back at him and waited.

I had never heard one thing from him after Kate died. Not one letter, or a questioning phone call asking for me instead of sending a message through my mother, or any of the things I would have done. He had never asked me what happened. I kept telling people the same thing, that I had woken up too late, that I’d gotten up to silence but had just missed the noise that roused me, maybe the last sound she’d made, and found her. It was what she had told me to say. But if Evan had asked I would have told him. When he didn’t call, I assumed he’d believed the same thing everyone else did, that I’d simply found her too late. Looking at him now it was clear to me he knew what had happened.

“Well,” I said slowly, “I seem to have to make my rounds. Since no one will call me.” I took a sip from my coffee mug and set it down. “But then, I’m used to jumping into your shoes for you anyway. You should pay me for this, too.”

Evan took off his glasses and wiped them with the hem of his sweater. Deep red welts were on either side of his nose.

“That was snide of me,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“Well, I’m not,” I said. “I meant it.” My doubt had vanished—I had done exactly what she’d asked me to because none of them had done it for her, and now I had to go begging for contact, handing out desserts just to get someone to talk to me about it.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” he said. “You seem to think I went skipping off, when in fact she made me go. I wanted to work things out.”

“Yeah, she could tell. We could all tell how much you cared while you were out on dates.”

“You were there a lot,” he conceded, “but not every second. And you don’t know everything. Don’t talk to me as if you do.”

I smiled at him. “Fuck you, Evan. I know a lot more than I ever asked to.”

He shook his head and got up from the table. “No offense, Bec,” he said, then shook his head and gave a mirthless laugh. His back was to me as he poured coffee. “You were wonderful to Kate. But she was my wife. You were the employee. A good friend to her too, but I don’t have to answer to you.”

He turned around, but he didn’t come back to the table. He crossed his arms and regarded me from the counter. “And I’ll tell you something else,” he said. “I would not have let her do what she did. That’s what
I
know. I would never have let that happen, not the way you did.”

I thought of Kate’s face, her mouth stretched wide for air, her eyes bulging with the strain. Of course he wouldn’t have done what I did. I had barely been able to do it. Evan would have taken one look at her and called the ambulance. There were times I still saw myself lifting her hand, the skin cold and dry, placing the button on the floor away from my foot, away from any impulsive or accidental contact. I remembered it as the slowest moment of my life, the most silent and determined. I knew there had been noise, her attempts at breathing, my voice, but in my memory the room was always hushed and empty as Kate and I looked at each other.

I sat there and cupped my hands around the coffee cup. I felt pure rage at her then, at her willingness to bring me into this and leave me
with it. I was as furious with her as I used to be with Evan on her behalf, when I had hated him for being outside the body of illness, just for having the luxury of his options, that ability to walk away.

“I know you wouldn’t have,” I said. “So did she. Why else was I there?”

L
E CHAMPIGNON LOOKED ALMOST
modest in the daytime. Sunlight streamed into the windows at the front of the dining room. The chairs were haphazardly shoved into a corner, and the tables were bare except for blank cloths. I was sitting at the empty bar, waiting.

The woman who came out of the kitchen, Anna, was shorter than I was, broad and sturdy in her whites. She didn’t have on a chef’s hat as I had expected. She wore a baseball cap with a Muskie on it. We shook hands, hers rough and damp, though she’d wiped it on the towel that hung off her belt. She smelled of onion. From the kitchen floated a rich, meaty fragrance. Anna saw me sniff and gave me a brief smile, saying, “Beef bones. For demi-glace.”