It could have been the sake, but I thought I saw a shift in her eyes.
I tried to save myself.
“Be careful. You don’t want to burn your mouth.” Her lips had turned a darker shade of pink, and I wanted to tell her how beautiful she looked but instead focused on the burdock still on my plate. The sesame seeds gave it a nutty flavor that was enhanced even more by the sake.
The alcohol was flowing through my bloodstream and I was becoming giddy. I had the feeling that she wanted to ask me something. At this point, I probably would have given her my Social Security number.
I forced myself to think clearly—as clearly as I could. “So… Julianna. You said you wanted a one-on-one. What would you like to know?”
“Oh, I just thought I’d pump information out of you.” She said it teasingly, with a little sparkle in her eyes.
The low, sensual timbre of her voice and the playful quirk of her lips sent a ripple up my spine and a crazy shot of electricity to my stomach. I took another sip of sake. “Okay. Like what? Being a woman chef? My favorite recipes?”
I asked too soon after sipping because the liquid veered over to my windpipe and I started coughing.
“Are you okay?” she asked, concern on her face.
“Fine . . . fine,” I sputtered. My eyes watered and my nose started to run as I looked up at her. She had a bemused expression on her face. “I’m so glad this amuses you,” I said jokingly.
“You’re cute when you’re nervous.”
If my face wasn’t already purple from the choking, then it had to be beet red now.
“You think I’m cute?” I managed to ask.
Before she could answer, the server came over again, placed our entrees on the table, and walked off with our empties.
My question suddenly seemed ridiculous and juvenile, and Julianna’s lack of response didn’t make me feel any better.
The sake seemed to be having an effect on her, too, because her cheeks had a ruddy glow. It only increased the hotness factor.
For the next few minutes, we ate in silence. The whooshing and crackling of food being cooked, the sizzle sound of the cook sautéing up chicken and beef, the chatter in the dining room, and the buzz of Japanese pop music became vivid and pulsating.
“So, tell me how you started out doing this,” she said after a while.
Every time someone asked me this question, I usually gave a sanitized, nutshell, all-is-well version of my journey to teaching. With Julianna, I felt like telling more.
“I had a café at one point. But I didn’t really know what I was doing. I thought I did, but I was young and I had big dreams. Some big dreams need to sit and marinate a while before they’re executed. You know, until the dreamer has more information and experience under her belt. And in the end …”
I took another bite of my ganmodoki while I debated how much I should tell her. After all, she was a total stranger. Yet, I had an urge to just blab everything, unload my burden. But I didn’t want to scare her off with all the sordid details of my not-so-illustrious track record with women, particularly the last one.
“Was it your girlfriend?”
The question startled me. Did she know that the back story was about Brenda, without me even saying a word about her? I guess I had been working under the assumption that she knew I was gay and that she was, too, but her question made me realize that I’d been taking it all for granted. I mean, she did say I was cute, but maybe she meant it in a different way. Like, you’re so cute when you pretend to be cool. God, I could be such a dumbass sometimes.
“Um, yeah.” I laughed ruefully.
Sympathy softened her features. “She left you?”
“Yeah. Found someone else.”
She looked at me, almost startled. “Oh, I’m sorry. That sucks.” And in a softer voice, “She doesn’t know what she gave up.”
I dropped my gaze to my food. “Yeah, it did suck. But that was then. This is now.”
We continued eating for a while in silence. My stomach roiled but I dared not stop eating. I didn’t want to have to say any more, because if I did, I wasn’t sure where it would end.
“Yes,” she said.
I looked up from my plate. Julianna was holding her chopsticks aloft, wakame hanging between their tips. “Yes, what?”
“Yes, I think you’re cute.”
My throat constricted and suddenly the ganmodoki was stuck on the back of my tongue.
Julianna was smiling coyly. “Look, I’m not usually so shy about stuff like this, but for some reason I seem to be a blubbering idiot around you.”
My food finally pushed past the constriction and went down. I swallowed hard. “A blubbering idiot? You? No way. On the contrary, you seem quite confident.”
She popped the wakame into her mouth, chewed, and swallowed. Then, poking at her California roll, she said, “Only when I know what I want.”
The last mouthful of ganmodoki went down my throat just in time before that, too, got wedged behind my tonsils. I was just about to speak when the music switched from indistinctive pop tones to Japanese techno music. The noise level was suddenly intolerable. I wasn’t sure if I was glad or sad that we were both finished with our food.
While the bus boy dutifully cleared the plates, the server came over again and asked us if we wanted dessert or another drink. Julianna and I looked at each other and both shook our heads. I turned to the server and said, “No, thank you. Just the check, please.” The server nodded and went away. A moment later, she returned and placed a money tray with the check on the table.
When I pulled money out of my wallet, Julianna put her hand on mine. “No, my treat.”
“No, no.”
“I invited you out to dinner and it’s on me.”
I gave her an “are you sure?” look, and she nodded emphatically. “Absolutely. My treat.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” she replied with obvious pleasure.
We made our way through the now-dense crowd in the dining room and out into the street. It was still hot, even though the sun was setting, but a cool breeze was coming in from the direction of the East River.
“It’s kind of nice out,” she said, adjusting her belt.
“Yeah, not as bad as it’s been.” I wiped the sweat that had immediately built on my forehead. “Still humid, though.”
“I hear we’re going to get a really cold winter.”
“Yeah.”
Oh, this was bad. Discussing the weather was bad. We’d already run out of things to talk about? How could this be? I tried desperately to think of something to say but everything I thought of sounded trite.
Oh, wait. Duh.
“How are you liking the class? Feel like you’re learning anything?”
She perked up. “Oh, I’m loving it. I love Moroccan food and I’ve always wanted to learn how to make it. I’m so glad I finally decided to take the class.”
“Me, too.”
She turned her face to me and I forced myself to look back at her, even though I knew that I’d be revealing a whole lot more than I wanted to.
“You’ll be able to ‘wow’ your guests at your dinner party,” I offered.
“My what?”
“Your dinner party.”
“Oh, yeah, right.”
We kept walking, reveling in the cool breeze that kicked up now and then. I could tell she was enjoying it by the way she kept turning her face up into the air. She looked so serene when she did that and I envied her that peace. I wished that I could soak some up some of that peace just from being near her. Even the silence that settled in again seemed okay. It was now a comfortable silence, which was a little strange because we didn’t really know each other. But I liked how it seemed that maybe we did.
The Empire State Building, lit up in orange and purple, came into view up ahead, which meant we were headed uptown. “You know what? Why don’t we turn here?” I steered Julianna across Fourth Avenue and back downtown, t
he direction from which we’d come.
“Where are we going?”
“West Village.”
“Okay. Any place in particular?”
“Um, let’s just see where the wind takes us.”
The sun was just lowering onto the horizon over New Jersey. Bright splashes of purple, crimson, and pink slashed the sky, holding off the dark inkiness that was steadily approaching.
I led her through the streets of Greenwich Village, down St. Mark’s Place, past the tattoo parlors, vintage clothing shops, and tiny eateries that required you to go below street level. The old brownstone buildings stopped at the huge intersection of Lafayette Street and Fourth Avenue, where St. Mark’s turned into West Eighth Street. Every inch of pavement teemed with city dwellers making the most of the dwindling summer evenings. No matter what month it was, summer always seemed to be dwindling. I mopped my forehead with the back of my hand and thought, And sometimes summer seems endless in New York City.
Strands of little white lights reflected off fences and posts, while sandwich boards declared the day’s specials. Along West Eighth Street, we stopped to peer in shoe stores and boutique windows, commenting on how when we were kids, that street was full of record stores and head shops. At Sixth Avenue, I pulled her left, then right on Waverly Place, past Gay Street, to Grove Street.
Across the Christopher Park triangle, our destination shone in neon letters: The Stonewall Inn. At the corner, I stared across at the window of the place where the gay rights movement began, and every muscle in my body felt paralyzed. I was taking her to a gay bar, like it was a date, without finding out first if she that’s what this really was. But she had been flirting with me, hadn’t she? Or had she? Hadn’t she said I was cute? Otherwise, what was all of this about? What would such a cute, exciting woman as Julianna want with me, a slowly decaying, wallowing-in-self-pity whisk jockey? Maybe she was just being friendly. Maybe she was just a flirty person. Maybe she wanted me to make her Moroccan food.
Wow, I really sucked at this.
“Are we going in there?” Julianna asked, pointing to the Stonewall.
“Uh, well, if you want. I mean….” Frozen, feeling obtuse, all my thoughts congealed into one indefinable mass.
Julianna grabbed my hand and pulled. “We can cross now. There hasn’t been a car in, like, two whole minutes.” She now led me as we passed the little triangular park. When we rounded the point of the triangle, we took a few more steps before we crossed the street. Through the open gate of the park, I could just make out the iconic sculptures of the gay male and female couples, their stark whiteness reflecting the newly shining moonlight. A haggard-looking woman, who looked to be in her sixties, wearing droopy jeans and a white T-shirt that had seen better days, stood in front of the females. She had a flower in her hand and was stooped over, gently kissing the lips of one of the statues. Was she pretending that the statue was her date? She looked lonely and sad and I felt a kick in my gut at the thought that I might be her one day: a lonely, pathetic, haggard old dyke. Alone. Kissing statues. I wanted to go over to her and gently ask her to please, for all our sakes, go to the LGBT Community Center and meet people, or join SAGE. Anything.
Instead, I found myself in front of the Stonewall with a beautiful woman. I hesitated, looking at the posters of various events taking place each night of the week. Most of them were for men but there was one with a picture of an incredibly fit woman’s abs, her hands clutching her tank top, holding it up to show the gleaming tan of her torso. Across the top were the words “Lesbo A-Go-Go” in big, bold letters. I was having second thoughts about bringing Julianna here.
Before I could say anything, she pulled me through the black wooden door. It was crowded inside, a mix of men and a few women. Neat-looking men still in their work clothes, and raunchy looking guys in mesh tanks, biker boots, and vinyl hats. The bear I’d seen in there a couple of times before gave me a little wave and I waved back, secretly cringing at all the thick, dark hair poking out of his mesh T-shirt and covering his arms. Two men in the corner downed their drinks, got up, and made their way toward the front door, kissing other men or waving “hello” along the way. I immediately pulled Julianna into the space and we grabbed the newly vacated stools.
“What’ll you have?” I asked her.
“A martini, please.”
“Gin or vodka?”
“Gin.”
“Olives or onions?”
“Olives.”
“Shaken or stirred?”
She gave me a wry little grin. “Poured.”
Taking that to mean that her preferences ended there and that I should get going, I went to the bar and returned a few minutes later with our drinks, her martini and a bottle of Dogfish Head beer for me.
“Oh,” she said after a languid sip of her drink, “I see you’re into craft beers. So am I.”
“Oh, I could’ve gotten you one,” I said, pointing in the general direction of the taps. I had half-lifted myself off my stool, ready to go back to the bar for a beer for her.
“No, no. This is fine,” she said, extending her hand, palm down.
“Sure?” I sat back down and took another sip of my beer, ready to jump back up on her word.
“Yes. It’s what I always have on a first date.”
Some Dogfish dribbled down my chin as I briefly lost control of my motor functions. I quickly pulled the bottle away from my face and wiped my chin with a cocktail napkin. “Is this a date?”
She blinked once, a deliberate, contemplative blink. “If you want it to be.”
I regarded her for a moment, wondering how I should reply. Then I decided that I thought too much. I’ve always thought too much. So I just said, “Yes.”
“Good.” Although she said this good-naturedly, there was a serious undertone to it. I think this was when she decided to take no prisoners.
I took a long, thirsty gulp of my beer and stared at the table tent, advertising the daily drink specials. God, what was I supposed to talk about now?
Thankfully, she already had it worked out.
“So, you were telling me about your ex, your café, and how you ended up teaching at The New York Culinary Institute.”
I thought about her statement for a moment, wondering how far I should go with my answer. Should I just say that I wanted a job that kept semi-normal hours, and leave it at that? Or should I explain that the café kept me away for many hours and sucked money like a sponge and eventually drove Brenda into the arms of another woman? Should I tell her that my business—once my dream—had sucked me dry?
What the hell. The box had been opened. “The café drained me. Physically, emotionally, and financially. And it didn’t do any favors for my relationship. So I shut it down and started teaching. I survived. The relationship didn’t.” A chord of insecurity sounded in me then. Was I saying too much? I decided to switch topics. “Tell me about yourself. I know you’re into yoga, but what else?”
“Well, to pay the bills, I’m working in a natural foods store.” She smiled shyly. “But what I really am is a filmmaker.”
“No kidding? What kinds of films do you make?”
“Mostly documentaries. I’m doing my very first—on my own, that is—out of film school on the gay movement from the perspective of immigrants.”
“Wow. How interesting. I’ve never thought about that.” I took a swig of my beer, glad to be off the subject of me. “When is it going to be ready to be seen? And where? I promise, I’ll be in the front row.”
“It may be a while,” she replied with a sigh. “I don’t have the money to continue the project right now. I’m barely making enough to live on at the store. I’ve applied for grants but, so far, nothing’s come through yet.”
“Oh, bummer.”
She was just about to say something else when I felt my phone buzz in my pocket, and I jumped slightly for the second time that evening. I took it out and looked at it, and apologetically looked at Julianna, who busied herself with her dr
ink while I looked at the ID.
I didn’t recognize the number but then remembered that Brit was supposed to call me. I didn’t really want to leave Julianna, but I was hoping that this would be a job I could take. I really needed the money.
“Hello?” I closed off one ear with a finger and repeated myself. “Hello? Hold on a second.” I got off the stool and press the phone to my leg. “Um, you know what? This might be in reference to a possible job. I’m sorry, but I really should take it.”
“That’s okay. Go ahead.”
“Okay.” I again looked at her apologetically. “I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll be here,” Julianna said, winking. My entire head tingled in response.
“Hang on,” I said into the phone and I stepped out. The change from the air-conditioned bar to the hot street was a shock. The breeze had died down and now the air was still and heavy. The sidewalk was crowded with people coming and going to and from the plethora of restaurants, clubs, pubs, and all-night markets in Greenwich Village. Seventh Avenue hosted a nonstop stream of cars heading farther downtown, or to the bridges and tunnels to head out of the smoldering city for a long weekend.
I put the phone to my ear. “Hello?” Between the people talking and laughing and the sounds of motors and horns honking, I found it almost as difficult to hear outside as I had inside.
“Hi, it’s Brit. From class.”
Yep. Pelvis Woman. “Hi.”
“Have I caught you at a bad time?”
“Well, I’m out right now, so I’m having a hard time hearing you.”
A couple of guys walked by, hand-in-hand. As they passed, one of them let out a lungful of smoke right in front of my face and it hovered in the air. I waved my hand through the haze to dispel it.
“I’ll make it quick,” Brit said. “I wanted to ask you about doing a private party for me. I saw on your bio that you do stuff like that, and I really, really need someone. It’s kind of short notice, but I was hoping you could do it.”
How short? Well, whatever. A gig was a gig. “Okay, sure, we can talk about that. Listen, why don’t you stay after class tomorrow and we can go over the details.”
Add Spice to Taste Page 5