Getting Warmer

by Carol Snow

  twenty-two

  I should have been upset about the commotion surrounding Romeo and Jules. No, I should have been incensed. Censorship! Close-mindedness! Hypocricy!

  Dr. White told Lars to postpone rehearsals until after Friday’s meeting, though, and I was secretly elated to have all that extra time to hunt down an internship for Robert. Besides, the experience seemed to bring Lars and me closer together. He sat down with me at lunch to go over the points he planned to make in Friday’s meeting. He called me in the evenings to vent, ending each conversation with a sigh and, “Thanks for listening.”

  I called my parents to ask for advice on where to look for an internship. My mother named a few of their favorite restaurants.

  “You should try the Hacienda Resort,” my mother said. “Not too far away, and it’s just gorgeous. Spectacular at the holidays.”

  “Did you ever stay there before moving to Scottsdale? Because it would be nice if I could say you had.”

  “Are you kidding? Your father would never spring for the Hacienda. We used to stay at a condo. It was great for him, but it meant I got stuck cooking and cleaning.”

  “Okay, what about the restaurants. Do you know anyone there? Ever get chatting with the owners?”

  “No.”

  “How about the maitre d’s? Did you talk to them?”

  “Yeeeees,” she said. “We said, ‘Table for two, please.’”

  “Funny.”

  “You haven’t asked about your sister.”

  “I was about to.” There was a pause. “How’s my sister?”

  “Big. Putting on weight already. She doesn’t look pregnant yet, just—well, you know. Puffy. She’s under a lot of stress. I think it’s helping her out a lot, our being here. She says she can’t remember the last time she ate a home-cooked meal.”

  Now it was my turn to pause, picturing the endless cardboard containers with the AJ’s label, until, finally, I got the words out: “You cook for her?”

  I started with the Hacienda. After being transferred something like forty-five times, a woman with a Southern accent told me that they only take college interns. I called a couple more hotels. They also, for various reasons, were hesitant to take on a high school student.

  The restaurants were more promising. Our conversations were hurried, as they were preparing for the dinner rush, but two maitre d’s and a sous chef told me to bring Robert by the following afternoon.

  I called Robert to tell him about the interviews. “Dress nicely,” I advised.

  He was elated, already trying to decide which restaurant he preferred, the upscale Southwestern or the Pacific Rim. (The third place, a “traditional American” was way down on his list.)

  “Let’s see how you feel after meeting everyone,” I said, hoping he owned some clothing other than logo T-shirts and basketball shorts.

  The first two restaurants were a bust. The traditional American didn’t serve lunch (I should have checked earlier), and the Pacific Rim place clearly aimed to make Robert an unpaid busboy.

  “This is a mentoring experience,” I explained. “We’d need someone in the restaurant—someone at a managerial level—to take responsibility for educating Robert about the restaurant business.”

  The woman raised her eyebrows. “If he wants to learn something, he should go to school.”

  Robert was quiet as we drove to the Southwestern place. “I can make some more calls tonight if I have to,” I said, fully aware that I needed to secure a position by the next day.

  “Whatever,” he mumbled. His chinos and long-sleeved white T-shirt were starting to look rumpled.

  And then we hit gold. The Southwestern place, Aji Amarillo, was chaotic and understaffed. The food smelled wonderful.

  “When can you start?” the sous chef, Luis, asked thirty seconds after we said hello.

  “Just so we’re clear,” I said. “The purpose of the program is for Robert to learn something. Cooking techniques, management—real-world experience that will broaden him and help prepare him for a career.”

  “He’ll learn more here in a day than he could learn in a year at cooking school,” Luis boasted.

  Luis happily signed a Mentor Agreement, leaving a tiny spot of grease on the paper. “When can you start?” he asked Robert. “Can you start now?”

  Robert looked at me, pleading.

  “Robert has another job,” I explained firmly. “He’ll only be available for three hours in the afternoon. He can start Monday.”

  I half expected Neil Weinrich to reject the restaurant on some technicality, but he just looked the forms over and said, “Okay.”

  “Good, then.” I smiled at Neil.

  “If he lasts a week, I’ll be amazed.”

  But Neil Weinrich couldn’t bring me down, nor could the angry mob of parents that convened in the amphitheater at seven o’clock Friday evening. Lars wore khakis, a button-down blue shirt and a blue blazer. If not for his flippy blond hair, he could pass for a delegate at the Republican national convention. “Go get ’em, Tiger,” I whispered as he took the stage. As assistant director, I sat next to him in the front row.

  His speech was rousing. He started off with “the very real risks to our children:” drugs, easy access to pornography, mindless video game violence. He recited statistics about how many acts of sex and violence appear between the hours of eight and nine o’clock on network TV on any given evening. He moved on to say that “we can’t just lock our children in their rooms” but that we should give them “intellectual alternatives.” We should give them art. We should give them music. We should give them drama.

  He went on a bit more, but I stopped paying attention to what he said and started thinking about how cute he looked, all fired up like that.

  “You were brilliant,” I whispered when he took his seat next to me. He took my hand and squeezed.

  But it was for nothing. That’s how Lars looked at it, anyway. After impassioned speeches by Claudia’s mother, a member of the school board and some random guy who didn’t even have kids at Agave but apparently just liked to hear himself talk, Dr. White, wearing a black suit and a fuchsia blouse, took control of the stage.

  She had considered both sides of the argument. Theater was important. The students had worked long hours on the production; it would be wrong to tell them that the show could not go on. At the same time, parents had the right—no, the duty—to protect their children from material they deemed inappropriate. Having read the play and discussed it with the superintendent, she had determined that the students could perform it—under the condition that the offending scenes were eliminated. Further, she would institute a policy whereby any future play intended for a school production would require approval by her and the school board.

  The parents seemed placated. Lars was fuming. He didn’t say anything until we reached the parking lot, stopping in front of his Prius, which he had parked under a light. “Fucking mind police,” he growled.

  “At least they didn’t cancel the production.”

  “They might as well have. It’s not even going to make sense now.”

  “It’ll make sense. We’ll make it make sense.”

  “And what plays are we going to do after this one? What kind of stilted, soulless stuff will pass the censor board?”

  We stood in the parking lot, talking for about twenty minutes. The night air was chilly. Lars lent me his blue blazer.

  “I have a frozen pizza at home,” I said, clutching the blazer around me. “The self-rising kind. And a bottle of red wine.”

  “That sounds really good right now.”

  I got to the house before Lars, who said he’d pick up a salad on the way over. After sticking the pizza in the oven, I turned on the gas fireplace in the great room and shuffled through my CDs, finally popping in some jazz (which I’ve never particularly enjoyed but seemed sophisticated). I poured some red wine into my parents’ Riedel glasses. I considered lighting candles but decided that would be overdoing things.r />
  He brought a bag of lettuce mixed with herbs. “I forgot to get dressing. You have any?”

  He took the glass of wine I offered. I held up my glass. “To perseverance.”

  “To enlightenment,” he countered. We drank.

  We went into the great room and settled on my mother’s camelback sofa. Flames licked the ceramic logs in the beehive fireplace. “What do you think of the décor?” I asked. “I call it ‘Boston Meets Bonanza.’” (Yes, okay, so I recycle jokes.)

  “I’m really disappointed in Dr. White,” Lars said, staring into the fire.

  “I think she was worried about a lawsuit.”

  “I feel like I’ve completely compromised my artistic integrity. Which makes me a poor role model for the kids. Like, I should show them what it means to stand up for your beliefs, but instead I just sit down and take it.”

  “No,” I said. “You’re being pragmatic. If you keep fighting, the play could get canceled altogether. That’s not fair to these kids.”

  Lars turned to me and smiled gently. “You’ve been great through all this.”

  “Thanks,” I said, drawing in a sharp breath.

  The timer rang.

  “Oh! The pizza.” I popped off the couch and hurried into the kitchen. I set my glass on the counter and poured some more wine. A drop splashed on the counter.

  We ate at the kitchen table: not as romantic as outside, but a lot warmer. “You want me to light the candles?” Lars asked.

  “Sure.” I dimmed the lights slightly.

  He had a second glass of wine. He told me about his first year of teaching, how tired he had been. He told me about being a kid in Seattle. He told me about the summer he spent backpacking through Europe.

  I finished the wine.

  We went back to the great room, sat down on the couch. He winced.

  “What?” I asked.

  “My back. Probably because I’ve been so tense.”

  “Here, let me rub it.”

  He sat sideways. I rubbed his well-muscled shoulders through his blue dress shirt. Lars had looked so perfectly pressed earlier; now his shirt was covered with creases, and his khakis were rumpled. I worked down to his shoulder blades. “Mm,” he murmured. “This feels good.”

  “I’m glad.” I ran my hands down his spine and then back up again. I made fists and kneaded his lower back. Finally, I slid my hands forward, encircling his waist. I leaned against him, my front pressed against his back.

  He tensed. I sat back. He turned around, alarmed.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I guess I thought—”

  “No, I’m sorry,” he said, retreating to the corner of the couch. “I guess I was sending you the wrong signals. I just—my back hurt. But I didn’t mean to—well, I guess I thought . . . you knew.” He blinked at me. He looked so pretty in the firelight. It made his hair glow like a halo.

  My eyes widened. “Oh! No! It’s okay! Really.” I smiled. “I drank too much wine. Don’t worry about a thing. Everything’s fine.”

  As soon as he left, I called Jill. “You were right from the beginning,” I said. “Lars is a flamer.”

  twenty-three

  Robert arrived at school on Monday wearing black and white checked chef’s pants and a tired expression.

  “You ready to start your internship?” I asked.

  “Started it already.” He ran a hand over his bleary eyes. “Luis called me Saturday—said they were swamped.”

  “You worked on Saturday?”

  “And Sunday.” He smiled sleepily. “It was fun. Course, I had to work at the hospital, too, so I’m wiped.”

  When I had a break, I called the restaurant to talk to Luis. He wasn’t in yet, so I explained to the hostess that I was Robert’s academic advisor for his internship and that I had a few concerns.

  “Robert? That the guy who was in over the weekend? Real good-looking?”

  Yes, I said. That was him.

  “Real good worker,” she said. “Totally saved the bartender’s ass.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Cocktail waitress didn’t show up. That Robert kid jumped right in, started delivering drinks. Even mixed a couple.”

  I caught up with Robert near his locker. “Robert.”

  “Hey, Mrs. Q.” He smiled.

  I kept my face stern. “Alcohol. Internship. Not a good mix.”

  “Luis told you?”

  “No, some woman. I have a feeling Luis wouldn’t want me to know that he was breaking the law by having a minor serve alcohol.”

  “It’s not like I drank any.”

  “It doesn’t matter. You can’t serve if you’re under nineteen.”

  “It’s just that they were really short-handed.”

  “Robert. This cannot—cannot—happen again.”

  Later, on the phone, Luis feigned ignorance. “The kid’s under nineteen? Oh, man, no way.”

  “He’s a high school student. High school students are generally under nineteen.”

  “Oh, well, I guess you never told me.”

  “It was on his application.”

  “Oh, well, I guess I didn’t look it over too careful.”

  Luis swore Robert would no longer work the bar. I hoped he was telling the truth.

  Neil Weinrich was in the lunchroom when I walked in with my insulated lunch bag. I gave him a quick wave and hurried past before he had a chance to ask me about Robert’s internship.

  Jill and Lars were sitting at our usual table, eating out of matching Tupperware containers.

  “What, no mystery meat?” I asked Lars, peering at his farfalle pasta salad. There were chunks of chicken, some herbs, cherry tomatoes and black olives.

  “Jill made me lunch,” he said.

  “What? You never made me lunch.”

  “You never asked,” she said, spearing a bowtie pasta. “Don’t get used to it,” she warned Lars. “I just had extra, and I wanted to get rid of it before it went bad.”

  I settled myself into a molded plastic chair and opened my lunch bag, pulling out an orange, a plastic bag of crackers, a hunk of cheddar cheese and a child-size water bottle. “I’m avoiding Neil Weinrich,” I announced.

  “Why?” Lars asked, twisting open a bottle of iced tea. “He’s kind of hot.”

  “Eew,” Jill and I said in unison.

  “Just kidding.” Lars rolled his eyes and tossed his blond hair. I couldn’t believe I had ever thought he might like girls. “But have you seen Raoul? The new student teacher—I think he’s in science. Yummy.” He took a giant swig of the iced tea and screwed the cap back on.

  The next morning, I called Robert’s cell phone when I got to my classroom, five minutes before the first bell. “I just wanted to check on your internship. Are you at school yet?”

  “Yes.” I heard a car horn in the background.

  “Then why are there car sounds?”

  “I’m in the parking lot.”

  “How was the internship?”

  He was silent for a moment. “Very educating. I got educated about how to rinse glasses and scrape plates.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Dishwasher called in sick. And they were, like, totally short-handed.”

  At lunch this time, I lingered by Neil Weinrich long enough for him to ask about Robert’s internship.

  “So far, so good!” I chirped. “Of course, it’s still early.” Then I ever-so-casually asked if there had ever been a time when an internship didn’t work out.

  “We check out our business partners as closely as possible,” Neil Weinrich said. “But there will always be times when a business mentor does not fulfill his”—here he paused to look me in the eye—“or her—part of the bargain. We normally allow a month-long orientation phase, during which students can switch internships, if necessary. The orientation phase is over in a week, however, so if your student requires a switch, it would have to be done pronto.”

  When I sat down, Lars was just biting into a square piece of cafeteria pizza. “I
think you’re too hard on Neil,” he said after swallowing. “About his looks, I mean. Check out his shoulders. I bet you anything he works out.”

  I waited until I got home to make the call. It’s not like I hadn’t thought about calling Jonathan from the beginning. And I suppose I was glad to have any excuse to talk to him, even if my heart felt like it would burst. I used my parent’s phone rather than my cell so my name wouldn’t come up on caller ID.

  He knew it was me, anyway.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi.” I took a deep breath. I had rehearsed my speech. “I’m not calling about you and me because I accept that you cannot forgive me.” I didn’t really accept it, but it sounded mature. “I am calling to see if you might be able to help someone out. A young man, a student. He has a learning disability and reads at a fifth-grade level.” Actually, this was progress. When we started, Robert was reading just slightly better than an average third grader. “I told you about him, actually. He’s the one who froze up in the play audition.”

  “I thought you made up the play.”

  “No!” I felt oddly hurt, like, Don’t you believe anything I say? “The play was real. It just wasn’t at the . . . um, it was at school.”

  I explained my predicament: Robert would benefit greatly from an internship, but I hadn’t found him anything suitable, and time was running out. With all of Jonathan’s industry contacts, he could surely find a place for Robert. “I’m not asking you to do this for me,” I ended grandly, “I’m asking you to do it for a very deserving young man.”

  He was quiet for a moment. Then, softly: “I’m sorry. I can’t help you.”

  “Oh. Okay.” I was disappointed but not really surprised. It was time to say good-bye. I didn’t want to. “How’s Krista feeling?”

  He paused a little too long. “Fine.”

  “My sister’s really big and really nauseous. That’s what my mother said, anyway. My parents went out to her place in Rhode Island. To help out. So I’ve got the house to myself again.”