How to Change a Life

by Stacey Ballis

  “Not at all,” he says, heading for the kitchen and dropping them on the counter. I head to the back door, where Simca is scratching to be let in, aware that her new favorite person is on the premises. I open the door and she scrabbles inside, her stumpy little legs going every which way on the hardwood floor.

  “Hello, you glorious girl, you!” says Shawn, scooping up Simca in his arms and snuggling into her head. She yips and wiggles happily, licking his face. He gives her a loud smooch, and then drops her on the floor and reaches into his pocket to pull out a small deer antler. “Merry Christmas!” he says, handing her the treat, which she accepts daintily with a wide smile, and then trots over to her bed to have a good chew.

  “My dog is madly in love with you.”

  “Well, who could blame her? Catch that I am.”

  “Indeed,” I say, and we lean right back into another kiss. I cannot get enough of this man.

  “And a little something for her amazing mom. Merry Christmas,” he says, handing me a small box with a silver ribbon.

  “Oh, Shawn, you didn’t need to get me anything.”

  “It’s just a little something to make you think of me,” he says.

  I pull the end of the ribbon and slide it off the box. I open the box, and inside is a thin silver chain, and on the chain two silver pendants. One is the number 50 with pavé white rhinestones, and the other is the Bears logo in blue and orange rhinestones. Fifty was Mike Singletary’s number when he played, and the number on the jersey Shawn was wearing when we met. Turns out Shawn was number 50 in high school, part of why he always felt connected to Samurai Mike. I laugh.

  “It’s perfect,” I say, attaching the clasp around my neck.

  “Looks good on you.” He kisses me.

  “I have a little something for you as well,” I say, walking over to the sideboard and getting the bag I prepped earlier out of the cabinet.

  “Well, now, we are all full of surprises!” He reaches into the bag and pulls out the small box. He opens the box to reveal my gift, a heavy brass key ring with a brass figurine of a mermaid dangling off it. He laughs and throws his head back.

  “You called Lawrence,” he says.

  “So did you!” I say.

  “Guilty,” he says. “I’m pretty terrible at gifts. My ex-wife was always telling me not to bother, she would just go pick something out and put it on hold and have me go pick it up and pay for it. I really didn’t want my first present to you to be a flop.”

  I shake my head. “I’m hopeless at gifts; everyone in my family is.”

  “Well, I’m grateful, because the necklace looks very sweet on you, and I absolutely love my key ring. Thank you so much.” He kisses me.

  “Thank Lawrence!”

  “Oh, I do, believe me I do,” he says seriously.

  “Yeah, me too.” I reach for him and give him a kiss to let him know how much I love my present, and how much it means to me that he wanted so badly to get it right.

  “All right now, woman, don’t distract me. I’ve got some serious dinner to make, and all of this pawing at me is keeping me from it,” he says jokingly, and I put my hands up in surrender.

  “What can I do to help?”

  “You can pour us both a glass of wine, park your fantastic tush in that there chair, and keep me company.”

  “That I can do. Red or white?”

  “Red, please. Something perky and insouciant with a hint of rebellious fruit and a subtle funk of old fencing mask.” He fakes a snobby wine critic voice. It makes me laugh. I love that he can be goofy; I don’t have a whole lot of silly in me naturally, but I respect it in others.

  I open a bottle of Volnay and pour us each a glass.

  “To our first Christmas,” Shawn says, holding out his glass.

  “I’ll drink to that,” I say, imagining that there might be another, but barely daring to hope, to think that far ahead.

  We sip the wine, and he starts telling me about his plans with his parents at their winter place in North Carolina. His mom grew up there, so her sisters are still there with their families. There will be church on Christmas Eve and a big family get-together on Christmas Day, full of cousins and friends and amazing food. He’ll get in some golf with his dad and do some light handyman stuff around the house for them. They are there every year from the beginning of December through the end of March, always back in Chicago in time for Easter weekend. It sounds like a lot of fun.

  “Okay, now, I’m usually pretty confident in the kitchen, but I have to admit, I’m a little nervous to cook for you.”

  “Please don’t be. I know so many people get all weird about cooking for a professional chef, but you know me well enough to know that half the time I eat a big bowl of popcorn for dinner. Anything you make will be great.”

  “That makes me feel better. But please be sure to stop me if you see me doing something egregiously wrong! I’m secure enough to be able to take some constructive advice.”

  “Noted.”

  While I sit and sip my wine, Shawn deftly unpacks the grocery bags. There is a pair of beautiful veal chops, some potatoes, thin French green beans. A foil-wrapped loaf. Shawn opens the veal chops and seasons them well, setting them aside on a tray, then puts the potatoes into a pot of water and sets it on the stove to bring it to a boil. He deftly snaps the ends off the beans, one by one, dropping them into a colander. I marvel at his ease in my kitchen. He won’t let me help, beyond guiding him in the right direction for equipment. Simca, feeling left out and done with her new antler for the moment, paws at my ankle, and I hoist her up onto the seat next to me. She rests her chin on the countertop, watching Shawn put some heavy cream and butter into a small pan to warm.

  I reach over and peek inside the foil loaf.

  “Shawn, did you bring me a fruitcake?” Being Jewish, fruitcake has always been a punch line and never an actual food product. I’ve seen them, but never tasted one.

  “Yes, ma’am. That there is my grandma Lou’s recipe, sort of a cross between a Jamaican black cake and a southern fruitcake, and trust me, you are going to love it. It takes almost a week to make, and ever since Grandma Lou died, I’m in charge of the fruitcakes for Christmas. You’re lucky Uncle Doug is on a Christmas cruise with his new flame; that would have been his loaf.”

  “Well, then, thank you, Uncle Doug. It smells good.” There is a spicy aroma wafting up from the dark loaf, which doesn’t look anything like the ones I’ve seen with their garish green and red candied cherries.

  “It’s shockingly delicious. I swear.”

  “I trust you.”

  Shawn pulls out a small hunk of cheddar and puts it on a plate, cutting off a slice and popping it in his mouth before sliding it across to me. I cut off a sliver and slip it to Simca.

  “Woman, did you just give twelve-year-old cheddar to the dog?”

  “Yep. She has a very refined cheese palate.”

  “Good to know.”

  I cut off a slice for myself, savoring the sharpness and the little salty crystals that pop on my tongue before the cheese melts into savory creaminess.

  “So,” he says, giving the potatoes a stir and setting the oven to 400. “Let me get this straight: you are going to spend Christmas Eve at the movies?”

  “Yep. Traditional Jewish Christmas. We do it every year, either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day—movies and Chinese food.”

  “What do you see?”

  “Well, when my dad and Buddy were alive, we’d always see whatever big action blockbuster was the holiday release that year, and whatever the big kids’ movie was, the perfect double feature. Now that they’re gone, we’ll still do the kids’ movie if it doesn’t look too awful, and something chick-flicky.”

  “That must be hard, to have them both gone.” Shawn drops the chops into a heated cast-iron skillet with a sizzle.

 
“Yeah. But it’s been long enough that it is more wistful than devastating. The first couple of years were hardest, as you can imagine, but we hang in there.”

  “Wish I could have met them,” he says, flipping the now-browned chops over. He slides the pan into the oven.

  “Me too. Thank you.” It is about the sweetest thing he could say to me.

  Shawn drains the potatoes, takes the masher from the tub on the counter, and begins to slowly smash them while drizzling in the warm butter and cream mixture. When he likes what he sees, he reaches for a tub of sour cream and adds a healthy spoonful, gently folding it in.

  “You’ve got skills, Mr. Sudberry-Long.”

  “Well, the women in my family believe in men who can cook. Especially big boys like me who eat everyone out of house and home!” he says with a laugh. “My mom always said if I was going to eat more than twice what she and my dad did combined, I’d have to pull my weight in the kitchen. My brother never really mastered it, but he’s good at dishes.”

  “Will Ronald be there for Christmas?” Shawn’s brother is apparently his polar opposite, a small, slight man with no athletic prowess, but genius-level brain; he’s posted in Hong Kong at the moment, doing some sort of change management consulting for a major international corporation.

  Shawn reaches across the counter with the spoon, and I taste the creamy potatoes, rich and delicious, with just the perfect amount of tartness from the sour cream. I roll my eyes in ecstasy. Shawn looks pleased with my reaction and winks at me. “Nope. He couldn’t get away. But he said he might make Easter, so you’ll meet him then.”

  “I dunno, that’s, like, four months away. What if you’re sick of me by then?” I say this in a very joking manner, but the little twist in my stomach belies my genuine fear that this might be true. Shawn and I are still in the early flush of exciting newness of our relationship, but we haven’t had any serious discussions, not about the important stuff like money or religion or family. We haven’t ever spent more than seventeen contiguous hours together. Neither of us has farted in front of the other. There are many, many milestones to get through to even see if this thing could be the real deal in some serious way.

  But I want it. Deep down, as much as I have been trying to keep my heart in the moment, my head keeps taking flights of fancy into the future. You’d think that after Bernard blew up my heart all those years ago that the scars would be so old and faded that everything would be almost as strong as if nothing happened. But it doesn’t feel that way. Everything that Shawn makes me feel, every layer of me that he peels away, it puts pressure on those ancient fault lines, and if I’m not cautious, if I don’t tread very lightly, then the potential for Shawn to hurt me, maybe even more than Bernard did, is very real. I love Shawn, if I’m honest with myself, but I’m not ready to give him that power, to let him in that deeply.

  Shawn looks up at me and directly into my eyes. “Let me be very clear about something, my darling girl. I could never get sick of you. Now, we are both grown-ass people, we know that in romance, there are a million things that can mean we won’t be a forever love match. But we are friends, and I don’t believe you could ever do anything that would hurt me in ways that would make me want to not still have you in my life as friends if it turns out we shouldn’t be lovers. And I know for sure that I have no intention of ever hurting you in a way that would make you cut me out of your life.”

  He says this very matter-of-factly. “Look at you, all mature and stuff.” I’m still keeping my voice light, but the simplicity of the statement, that he likes me as a friend in an important enough way to believe that even if we break up we would still be in each other’s lives, this makes my stomach relax. I don’t have that many friends, and other than Lawrence, who sort of doesn’t count, no real guy friends. It’s nice to think that if we don’t make it romantically, I won’t lose him entirely. And any woman is set at ease when the new man in her life tells her very sincerely that he isn’t going to hurt her.

  Shawn shrugs, chopping chives deftly. “I’m a hopeful romantic, but also a realist. We’re off to a perfectly grand start. If I were a betting man, I’d bet on us. But you and I have both been here before; we know that it doesn’t always stay that way. Eventually you are going to find out about my many flaws, and some of them might not be the kinds of things you can overlook. I’m going to put my trust in both of us to be adults, and if something comes up that is a deal breaker for either of us, then we’ll talk about it intelligently. If it means we can’t be together, we’ll agree to stay pals. Because, to be sure, Eloise Kahn, I really like having you in my life, even if someday you can’t be in my bed. Deal?” He sticks out his pinky like an old-school playground promise. I take it in mine and we shake. Then he puts down the knife, wipes his hands on a towel, and walks around the island to where I’m sitting.

  “Many flaws, huh?” I say as he pulls me off of the bar stool and into his arms.

  “I’m for sure not going to tell you about those until I’ve put you in a very forgiving mood.” And he leans in and kisses me so hard and so long that any fears I have are just a little bit of noise in another room, faint and far away and really not scary at all. His hands hold my head to his, the kiss as precise and perfect as any we’ve ever kissed, and my hands slide around his back, feeling his strong muscles tighten as his arms move down to hold me firmly against the length of his body. He pulls away, and kisses my forehead gently. “But first, I’m gonna feed you!” This makes me giggle, and he rumples Simca’s fur and sneaks her another crumb of cheese before going back to his side of the island to finish making me dinner.

  Everything is delicious.

  And fruitcake may be my new favorite breakfast.

  • • •

  I’d like to propose a toast!” Gio says, standing at the head of the table. “To a wonderful Christmas for all of our friends and family. Thank you for celebrating with us! And to all of the chefs, especially my beautiful wife!” There are cries of “cin cin” and “hear hear” and plenty of clinking of glassware. Gio looks a million miles away from where I sit next to Teresa at the opposite end of the table. We’ve moved all of the living room furniture out to the garage in order to set up this massive long table that starts in their dining room and goes all the way out through their sunroom. There are thirty people here at the grown-up table, and at least fifteen “kids” in the kitchen.

  The feast is family-style, of course. Every six-person section of the table has its own set of identical dishes: garlicky roasted chicken with potatoes, a platter of fat sausages and peppers, rigatoni with a spicy meat sauce, linguine al olio, braised broccoli rabe, and shrimp scampi. This is on top of the endless parade of appetizers that everyone has been wolfing down all afternoon: antipasto platters piled with cheeses and charcuterie, fried arancini, hot spinach and artichoke dip, meatball sliders. I can’t begin to know how anyone will touch the insane dessert buffet . . . I counted twelve different types of cookies, freshly stuffed cannoli, zeppole, pizzelles, a huge vat of tiramisu, and my favorite, Teresa’s mom’s lobster tails, sort of a crispy, zillion-layered pastry cone filled with chocolate custard and whipped cream.

  I got here bright and early to help out, right after I dropped off a big vat of macaroni and cheese and a chocolate sheet cake with pecans, both from Mrs. O’Connor’s recipes, to Glenn. He was very grateful for my providing his potluck offerings; his family told him it wouldn’t be Christmas without those dishes, and he is still pretty hopeless in the kitchen. We sat over coffee and a couple of muffins and I promised that as long as he needed me to, I would make those recipes for him every Christmas, and we held hands and he told me some fun Christmas stories from his life with Helene and I told him some about my dad and we both cried a little bit. I invited him to come to dinner with Mom and Aunt Claire New Year’s Day and he readily agreed.

  Teresa is finally out of the boot, but still can’t stand or walk for very long stretches. Th
e boys set up the tables and chairs, and I dressed them with Teresa’s red tablecloths and green napkins and gold holly napkin rings. The plates and flatware are all plastic—it would be way too many dishes—but the glassware is real, rented from a local company, which will pick them up dirty tomorrow, so we don’t have to worry about cleaning. Small centerpieces of mini rosemary bushes trimmed to look like Christmas trees and decorated with bits of tinsel are perfuming the whole room with a wonderful piney aroma, and all the aunts and sisters and sisters-in-law will get to take them home as parting gifts.

  Everyone started arriving at about two this afternoon, laden with platters and bowls and cooler bags full of food, and the house became a riot of children laughing and stories being told in Italian and English, and copious eating and drinking. I had seventeen versions of the same conversation about where I had gone, and how special it was for me to be back in Teresa’s life. I heard all about the accomplishments of all of the cousins, from dance recitals to Brownie badges to sporting triumphs to fabulously successful summer lemonade stands. And of course, being the trained chef in a room full of passionate home cooks, I was asked for opinions on every dish, seasoning, flavors, and, of course, whose was better than the others. Taking a cue from Teresa, who is very good at family diplomacy, I would wink at each sister or sister-in-law or aunt and say, “Now, you know I can’t claim favorites, but you also know what’s what.” Giving each woman the complete confidence that I had just admitted that she was absolutely the best cook in the room without getting myself in trouble.

  Mostly, I’m in awe of the dynamic of such a fabulous large and loving blended family. Teresa’s mom laughing in the corner with Gio’s mom, all the aunts taking turns attending to Gio’s birdlike grandmother, ninety-five and a white-haired pistol, holding court in the corner and eating like a starved buffalo. The barely controlled chaos, the gentle ribbing, the constant hugging and kissing and ballbusting, and the enormity of the love in this house. I watch the little kids crawl into whatever adult lap is nearest for a snuggle, and it makes me think of Geneva and her affection for me, how nothing feels better than wee arms around your neck, or the feathery kiss of tiny lips on your cheek. The way they all have that kid smell. And my heart breaks wide open and all I can think is that it would be so nice to have family like this, big and brash and present.