by Pat Henshaw
I shrugged at his question, swiped at the sweat rolling from my forehead, and moved aside. “Kitchen’s downstairs.” I gestured to the steps.
He walked past me, letting his hand trail over my groin. Once I would have nearly come at the gesture. Now I ignored my dick because my mind was numb and had been for years. He might think he could reawaken my love and lust, but I was pretty fucking sure that ship had sailed and gotten lost at sea.
He peeked into the front of the house before he took his first step down.
“Nice.” The sun had started to lighten the sky in the east, and even though the dining room windows looked west, I could see the outlines of the closest trees and the early morning lights in the valley. “This is the place you always dreamed about, isn’t it, Adam?”
His husky tone as he uttered my name produced twinges. Shit. I refused to do it. I’d taken him back so many times in the city I thought I was cured once and for all. Now this—this insidious betrayal of my body when he stood near and uttered my name. Fuck. I’d slit my throat first before I’d step onto his carousel again.
Did I want him anywhere near the life I’d built from the ground up? Hell no. I’d done the phoenix act once in my life and didn’t need to do it again. Did I?
I flung myself down the stairs behind him, feeling my face fall into even more thuggish lines. Tonight’s menu had just downsized to baked chops, new potatoes, and simple veggie soup. After I got rid of my former Pretty Boy, I wouldn’t be able to cope with much more. Fortunately, tonight’s group was all friends and no posers. They’d understand, especially Stone when I told him. He’d been the one to pick me up, dust me off, site hunt, and leave me here to cook something everybody’d like to eat.
When I got to the kitchen, Jason and LJ were facing off, staring at each other.
“Little John is my sous chef,” I declared. I wanted to get it out there early in case Jason started thinking he could waltz back into his old job. He couldn’t be my partner in or out of the kitchen.
As they nodded to each other, I walked over to the small break table by the window. I gestured Jason over and turned to LJ.
“Just clean up. Then you’re done until tonight,” I told him.
He nodded, picked up his knife, and went back to work. “How could I forget his face?” he muttered. “Don’t forget the kid.”
Well, fuck. Jason and Xavier. Now my day had totally gone to shit. I’d have to call Les sometime and find out what was going on with the kid. I stared at LJ’s back, remembering when his was the body at my restaurant door. He’d told me how he needed a job and was of age even though he might look like he’d barely hit puberty.
Since Pretty Boy’d turned unreliable and I needed a sous I could trust to show up, I had taken him on. It was one of the best decisions of my life. Hiring LJ had worked out as well as he’d told me it would. He was the last guy I’d ever fire. More importantly, he was the last guy I’d ever love or fuck.
I stopped staring out of the window and turned back to Jason. “Well, what do you want?”
Jason laughed. “Ever the charmer with the golden tongue.” He gave me a wink.
Yeah, right. He had me pegged. Blunt and to the point.
“So?” I wasn’t going to budge.
“I came by to see how you were. I’m up at Tahoe, helping out Donnie Ray. He’s supposed to be catering a celebrity wedding.” Jason wasn’t bragging, just shooting the shit like we’d done when we were in the Bay Area, as if we’d been doing it all along. He waited for me to comment about him working for my replacement on the celebrity-chef circuit, but I wasn’t going there. He could tell me why he was here and then walk away as far as I was concerned.
“I also wanted to give you this.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope. When I didn’t take it, he put it on the table. “It’s for you, with a list of things you might want to do with it.”
Money. It had to be money. He’d taken enough of our cash and sold enough of our shit that he probably thought he owed me. Once upon a time, I would have agreed with him. Not anymore. I finally figured out the money was my tuition for life lessons. I barely graduated from high school, didn’t go to college, but went right into a kitchen and worked for a cook whose brother was a chef and never looked back at formal education. The money Pretty Boy had thrown away was the cash I would have spent at the Culinary Institute or some other hotshot school.
I pushed the envelope back. “Keep it. I don’t want it. You got anything else you need to say?”
“God, I miss you,” he whispered. A fond look shone across his face. I remembered this look only too well. It’d brought me to my knees often enough in the past.
“Yeah, at first I missed you too,” I said. “You’ll get over it. I did.”
He chuckled. “I hope not.” He picked up the envelope and put it down closer to me. “Please read this and figure out what you want to do. It’s not a whole lot to ask. Then you can tear it all up, okay? But maybe it will change your mind.”
He looked around the kitchen. LJ cleaning up and the tap water were the only noises for a few minutes.
“If I make a reservation, will you serve me?” Jason was now staring out the window, not looking at me.
“Sure. Next season. We’re closing here.” At least it’d give me time to readjust from seeing him again. “If you pay for your meal, you’re welcome to eat here.”
He winced. “Yeah, I can pay. I have money. Lots of money. I’m thinking about buying a home. I’m ready to settle down. You know, become an adult.” He laughed and winced again. “I help people now. I don’t ask for much.”
His sad eyes suddenly found mine. “I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry. I know there’s nothing I can do to make up for what I put you through. But I want you to know I apologize. From the bottom of my heart.”
Well, fuck. His sincerity washed over me as gently as his words. My heart bled for both of our younger selves. We’d been two naïve kids poleaxed by the city and the decadence and the freedom and our youthful sense of invulnerability. It was a wonder neither of us had ended up with serious STDs or even AIDS. We were idiots and gullible and, most of all, lucky.
“Nothing to apologize for,” I admitted. “I was as fucking boneheaded as you were. But I loved cooking more than all the rest of the temptations.”
He was shaking his head. “No, no. Animals treat each other better than I treated you. I know. I don’t ask for forgiveness. I just want you to know—”
He stopped and put his hand over his mouth as if afraid he’d blurt something out.
“Want me to know?”
“Nothing, just… I’m sorry. So sorry.”
He got up, shook himself, and headed for the steps.
“Thanks for stopping by,” I told Jason at the door after we’d scaled the stairs.
“I’ll be in touch if it’s okay.” He stood looking like he didn’t want to leave. Finally, he shook his head. “I’ll be in touch.” Then his old charming smile curled around his lips and beamed from his eyes. “I can’t wait to eat your food again.”
I CLOSED the door as he sauntered off. I didn’t see any cars other than LJ’s beat-up Karmann Ghia and my truck, so I guess he’d walked over from somewhere around here. I couldn’t imagine where. My restaurant was pretty isolated. Most of the people who came up either had reservations or were lost. I didn’t get foot traffic or drop-ins like a place in town might.
I turned away from the door and stumbled down the stairs. I was surprised to see LJ still standing in the middle of the kitchen.
“You okay, boss?” he asked softly, as if I might blow up at him if he didn’t keep it down.
“Yeah, yeah, sure. I’m fine.” I didn’t sound fine, even to myself.
“I’ll get you some coffee. Okay?” LJ looked worried.
“Naw, you go on home. I’ll be fine. Pretty Boy….” I stopped, the words drying up. He wasn’t my Pretty Boy anymore. “Jason was kind of a surprise. It’s a little early in the m
orning for, you know, ghosts. I’ll be fine. I haven’t seen him for five years. I’ll be fine. I thought he was dead. You go on home. I’ll be fine.”
LJ looked unsure, his troubled eyes saying he was pretty close to calling 9-1-1 and getting some EMTs to check my heart. Probably a good idea, but I’d never stand for it.
I made shooing motions with my hands. Slowly, quietly, LJ plucked his jacket from the wall peg and put it on. I nodded to him.
“I’m changing tonight’s menu. Something easier and simpler. Since it’s a group of our friends, I don’t think they want anything elaborate. I don’t know what I was thinking with the other menu.” Then with a mighty shove, I made the sides of my mouth swing upward. “I’ll see you later.”
LJ, Donny, Zack, and Hugh were scheduled to work. Three servers and a sous. And me, of course. The fifteen diners included Stone and Jimmy, Ben and Felicity, Connor and Patrick, Abe and Jeff, and Max and Fredi. Luke, Wyatt, Graham, and a couple of other singles. Stone, Max, Abe, Luke, Graham, and I’d gone to school together, grown up together. If I served canned tuna and frozen peas, nobody would bat an eyelash or even think about complaining. Sure, they’d razz me, but they’d let it go. We’d all sit down and eat and have a great time. I had to get my head readjusted and forget about seeing Pretty Boy—I mean, Jason. I refused to drag everyone else down memory lane with me.
3
JIMMY CALLED about thirty minutes later. I was still sitting and staring out into the awakening valley. I didn’t even know he and Stone got up this early. I guess maybe Jimmy being a barista who served the before-work crowd meant he kept early hours.
“Hey, Adam!” His cheery voice rubbed me the wrong way, but I gutted up and didn’t let it rile me. “How’s it going? I heard you had an early morning visitor.”
“Fine. What’s up with you?” LJ must have called them because Stone was my emergency contact. Was this an emergency? Hell, yeah.
“I got some dark Jamaican in last night and thought maybe I’d roast it and bring it along tonight so we could all try it. What do you think?”
“I dunno. What is it?” I couldn’t talk about my morning. I was too numb.
“Well, it’s pretty smooth. Kinda like the dessert wine of coffees. Want to try it? I’d like to get everyone’s reaction if it’s okay with you. See if we want to stock it here at the downtown Penny’s.”
The new Penny’s coffee shop had opened a few months ago in Old Town Stone Acres in an abandoned bank building. Some of my diners had told me it was the go-to place late at night if you didn’t want to have a drink at Stonewall Saloon, but wanted to keep your night out alive for a few extra hours. I wouldn’t know because I hadn’t taken the time to visit it when I was anywhere near town. Usually I was in and out of the super giant grocery warehouse to get staples, and then I’d scurry back to my Bistro. I didn’t do dates. Not anymore.
Hook up with a customer? Sometimes. But no dates.
“Yeah, sure, whatever.” I hoped I sounded more enthusiastic than I felt. How was I ever going to be able to cook tonight? Maybe I should call everyone and cancel. But I needed people around me. I really needed them.
“Okay, see you in a few.”
Jimmy hung up, and it took me a little while to process what he’d said. He’d see me in a few… minutes? Hours? Huh? What?
I sat there, my mind going back to talking with Jason this morning. It was this morning, wasn’t it? He had been here, hadn’t he? Or was I burnt out from the summer and hallucinating? Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me.
I thought about the first time Jason spoke to me, when we were in junior high school. I’d been watching him for years, since kindergarten, probably. He was the most beautiful person I’d ever seen. But I was also a bruiser even in elementary school. Too big, too clumsy, too shy. So I watched him and watched over him every chance I got.
I’d had a couple of heart-to-hearts about Jason with Tommy Thompson and his gang of grade-school thugs. They were the kind of boys who gave guys who looked like me a bad name. They hit and harassed anyone smaller and male, particularly anyone good-looking. Especially blond-haired blue-eyed willowy-slender Jason. They tried to mess up Pretty Boy once. Afterward, I messed them up—taking on all four of them at once—and told them he was off-limits. He was mine. End of discussion.
Then I just watched and made sure they understood what I’d meant. If I saw him wearing a Band-Aid or limping or looking a little green around the gills, I paid a visit to Tommy and made sure he was wearing the same kind of Band-Aid or bruise the next day. I didn’t do anything big. Nothing lethal. Just little reminders that Pretty Boy was to stay pretty and if Tommy and his group had any problem, to take it up with me.
Anyway, I’d been watching Jason for years without speaking to him. Then one day when I rounded the corner to my locker in junior high, he was standing there in front of it. I was stunned to a stop.
We stared at each other. He shook, clenching his hands over and over. His shaggy blond hair made him look like a boy band member. After a few seconds, with a big sigh, he straightened up, his eyes solid with resolution.
“Hi, I’m Jason.” He’d stuck his hand out for a shake.
I couldn’t think. I was the biggest lunkhead in the school, and he wanted to shake my hand. Unlike Abe, whom everyone crowded around for protection, all the kids ran from me. I looked at Jason’s hand, his eyes, then back at his hand. His eyes switched to fear, and his hand started to tremble.
I grabbed it, at first too hard, but after a half second, I relaxed and shook it.
“I’m Adam.”
Our hands dropped, and he swallowed.
“Uh, look. I just have one thing to say. I know you’ve been watching me, like, forever. I just…. Look, please don’t hurt me.”
Then he turned and raced away down the hall.
Hurt him? Hurt him? What? Damn. Fuck. Hurt him? Shit, no.
How could he think I’d be the one to hurt him? What? I didn’t get it.
Someone pounding on my restaurant’s front door yanked me from my memories. I was on autopilot as I walked up the stairs and flung open the door.
“What?” I recoiled as the light from the sunrise hit my eyes and blinded me. “What do you want?”
Stone pushed me back into the shade of the foyer.
“Jimmy said you didn’t sound so good on the phone.” Stone wrapped his arms around me.
“Stone,” I gulped, tears finally falling. “Stone, it was Jason. It was Pretty Boy. He isn’t dead. I didn’t leave him to die. He made it. He made it.”
Like two gnarly sequoias, Stone and I were planted in the doorway, he holding me, me clutching him. Sobs racked my body, making us both totter and shake. Like before, he was my lifeline, and I hung on with all my strength.
Then I saw a hand rubbing Stone’s back and looked at Jimmy behind him, supporting him.
“Maybe we should go inside and shut the door,” Jimmy murmured.
“Yeah. Give us a sec,” Stone answered.
I knew I should step back, but my feet weren’t moving. I took a couple of deep breaths. I could do this. I could at least get down to the kitchen. Slowly, gently, I felt Stone push away. He turned me around toward the stairs.
As I walked, then stepped down, I could hear the rustle of paper bags and the door shut. The lock snapped into place.
While Stone led me to the break table, I continued to blubber about how good Jason looked.
“You wouldn’t believe it.” I was stunned into repeating myself. I had no other words. “He’s perfect, just perfect.”
Stone kept up a litany of “Shhhh” and “It’s okay” until we were seated.
“What’d he want?” Stone asked. “Did he want anything? Or was he here just to say hello?”
I looked down at the table and saw the envelope. I pushed it toward Stone.
“He gave me this. Told me I had to make a decision.”
Before Stone could say anything, Jimmy set a cup of coffee down in front
of me.
“Here. Drink this.”
“What is it?” It smelled a little like jasmine but had a darker belly.
“Something to help calm you.” He turned back to the kitchen and the bags he’d put on the work counter. I hadn’t even heard him take anything out of them or turn on any hot water.
I took a sip after Stone pushed the mug closer and lifted one of his eyebrows. As I thought, it was a jasmine-like coffee with a kick.
“What’s this? What’s in it?” I asked. It wasn’t bad. I felt better, more like myself. I grabbed a couple of tissues and mopped up from my crying jag.
“Does it matter?” Jimmy answered, setting a plate with a huge cinnamon roll in front of me. He’d cut it up into bite-sized pieces. He put a stack of paper napkins next to the plate. “Eat up. Connor dropped the pastry off earlier this morning.”
As Jimmy served Stone coffee and sat down with a mug of his own, I relaxed. The panic had receded. I’d seen Jason. I’d touched him again and lived. I hadn’t killed him in San Francisco after all.
I remembered the last day. We had nothing but a bed and chest of drawers in our bedroom in the Mission District. He’d sold or bartered everything else for parties and his user friends. I’d given up trying to talk him out of his habit. He couldn’t look me in the face nor stop twitching and moving. I didn’t know what to do. The Narcotics Anonymous support group had convinced me there was nothing I could do. Professionally, I was at the top of my game—ran a top-rated kitchen, had written two best-selling cookbooks, and was the star of a cooking show.
But I couldn’t buy anything or move us into a better place because everything I bought was fodder for Jason’s parties and his friends. They would end up trashing the nice places where we’d lived the times he’d decided to clean up and suffered life-threatening side effects. I’d hired doctors, therapists, shrinks, you name it, but Pretty Boy ended up jacking all of us.
I’d been at the bottom of the barrel. The tabloids loved reporting on my turbulent private life, and their stories of my “heroic” actions trying to save my best friend pumped up my popularity. I was the Thug with the Heart of Gold. I had to get out of the cycle. I was killing the only person I’d ever loved with my golden heart.