by Brux, Boone
“No. His tactile sensitivity is high.” Gianna took some shaving cream and wiped it on the end of her nose, prompting a nervous giggle to escape Bowen’s mouth. “Is he still refusing to touch food at home?”
I winced. Even after five years, that was still a sore subject with me. At four years old, Bowen stopped eating finger foods like an average child, requiring his father and I spoon-feed every bite of food. And then our family imploded. Six months after receiving Bowen’s diagnosis, my husband, Trevor, moved out. Six months after that, I found myself a divorced single mother. And six months after that, Trevor stopped visiting. He’d never witnessed Bowen feeding himself with a fork and spoon, not to mention the other progress he’d made over the years.
“I got him to feed himself a Cheetoh the other night.” Swiping my hand across my tired eyes, I added, “When he realized his finger was orange, he had a meltdown.”
Gianna laughed and handed Bowen a paper towel, and he snatched it out of her hand gratefully. “Three steps forward, and two steps back, huh, Anna?”
I nodded. “Right you are.”
“Bowen, why don’t you clean your finger, and meet your mom and me in the lobby?” Gianna nodded in the direction of the door, and I followed her. Once we’d stepped into the hall, she tilted her head at me. “How are you doing? You seem tense today.”
Gianna had been working with Bowen for the past four years, and she knew our little family inside and out. My son’s Asperger’s made him a hard kid to enjoy. He was often rough without realizing it, sometimes he spoke at the top of his voice without waiting his turn, and he hurt his playmates without intending to. This was all on top of his sensory processing disorder, which made him a social oddity. Bowen’s refusal to touch anything remotely soft and obsession with stroking things that were hard, prickly, or dangerously hot made him a source of curious stares at school. This odd-man-out social status multiplied every day he ate a meal in the school lunchroom. Bowen only ate a handful of foods, most of which were different forms of crackers, but only when they were speared by a fork.
I took a deep breath and fought the tears that stung the back of my eyes. “His teacher removed him from the classroom again,” I said. “They’re saying that if he can’t relax more in class, and stop disrupting the other kids, he is going to have to go to Special Ed.”
She squeezed my shoulder. “I’m so sorry. Would you like to bring Bowen in twice a week? Maybe more sensory therapy would help. Or, we could try some swim therapy in the pool—”
“No.” I looked up at the ceiling, begging my eyes to hold the tears in. If I had a nickel for every tear shed over my son’s problems, I would’ve been driving a Rolls-Royce by now. “I can’t afford any more copayments. I’m still paying off Bowen’s compression vest.”
The last five years of my life had been a flurry of assessments, specialists, therapies, weighted blankets, and Lycra vests specially made to hug Bowen’s wiry frame underneath his clothes for more sensory input. I’d been to more than my fair share of parent-teacher conferences to discuss the peculiar clicking sound he makes in the back of his mouth, and I’d been to the emergency room eight times for burns, scratches, and cuts requiring stitches that had warranted nary a reaction from my son, who claimed that the nearly unintelligible hum of the refrigerator hurt his ears.
The door opened behind us, and Bowen appeared, his blue eyes focused somewhere around my hips. “My hands are clean,” he announced flatly, before loafing toward the lobby.
Gianna smiled wistfully. “Let me do some thinking. Surely there is something we can do to get the stimulation Bowen needs without costing you a fortune.”
Biting my lip, I thought about the meager paycheck my position as a receptionist at a dental office earned me. I worked hard to pay rent at our tiny house on the west side of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho and keep food on the table. Bowen required tactile therapy several times a week, as well as speech therapy, and it wasn’t like I had a pool of funds from which to draw.
“Thanks, I appreciate it,” I said, sighing.
We rounded the corner into the lobby, where Bowen was staring into the oversize fish tank, clicking to himself among a handful of other kids with development mental delays and physical handicaps.
“Listen, I’ll put on my thinking cap, and keep you posted,” Gianna said.
“See you next week.” I bent to speak closely to my son’s ear. “Come on, Bowen. Let’s go home to make dinner.”
He glanced at me. His expression was still flat, but the tiniest spark of joy flashed in his eyes, making my heart jump. It took so much to warrant a tangible reaction from Bowen that when I did I always felt like throwing a party. Cooking was the one thing he and I did together that wasn’t tense or riddled with screams and whines because of the sticky mess on Bowen’s hands. When we cooked dinner together, he acted as close to an average eight-year-old as he ever did.
I grinned and winked at my son. “Okay, let’s go.”
Just as I closed my hand around his stiff fist, a blustery late September breeze blew through the open door, sending papers on the reception desk skittering across the floor, and causing several of the kids to scurry away from the icy air. As the receptionist crossed around the front of the desk to pick up the scattered paperwork, a deep, rumbling voice announced, “It’s cold as a polar bear’s tit out there.”
“Cold as a polar bear’s tit,” Bowen echoed, pulling his jacket around himself.
Frowning disapprovingly, I blew a lock of my brown bob out of my face, and looked up at the door. The guy was wearing faded jeans that hugged every one of his, ahem, assets like they were tailor-made, and a worn leather jacket that glistened from the rain. His posture was commanding and demanded respect. The man’s shoulders were back, his legs were wide apart, and a stern frown covered his face, which was partially hidden by mirrored sunglasses.
My stomach knotted around itself, and I was immediately annoyed by my physical reaction. So what if his black hair was slicked back into some sort of new millennium Elvis Presley ’do, and I could see a tattoo of a bright bluebird on the side of his neck? Who cares that a dark five o’clock shadow dusted his face and his full lips that resembled a bow? He’d just walked into a waiting room full of children, bringing the cold fall air in with him, and cursed like a truck driver with a flat tire. What an ass.
Pulling Bowen tightly against my side, I sidestepped the biker, muttering, “Excuse me.” He smelled like exhaust and rain, and as odd as it sounds, it was the sexiest aroma I’d come across in years.
He slid his glasses off as I passed and gave me an assessing once-over. “Yup.”
“Leo?” I heard Gianna’s voice from behind me, and glanced back as Bowen and I headed into the rain.
Young, straitlaced Gianna, in her starched white blouse and khakis, was scooped into a bear hug by the leather-clad man, and spun around. She was dating the bad boy? I hadn’t seen that one coming. Gianna waved at me as the glass door shut between us, her cheeks pinking as I stared. I ignored the odd stab of jealousy in my chest.
What was wrong with me? Sure, it’d been a year since my last date, but was I so desperate that I was lusting after my son’s therapist’s boyfriend? I’d purposefully kept men out of the picture over the past five years, citing that nobody could accept a single mom to a child who demanded as much care as Bowen did. And I’d been pleased with that decision. That is, until I felt that all-to-familiar loneliness set in on occasion. Maybe I needed to reconsider the online dating thing my mom was always harping on me about.
No. Forget it, I thought. The solitude of single motherhood was finally getting to me. Solitude could make a person crazy.
“Come on, Bo,” I said as we stepped onto the crackling maple leaves covering the sidewalk. “Let’s go home.”
Chapter Two
Once I’d put him Bowen to bed, then made my nightly call to my mother—who lived nearby and needed to check up on us at least once a day—our house fell silent. I preoccupied myself wit
h a book and a plate of cookies, relaxing into my typical evening.
Solitude was something I’d grown used to over the years. It didn’t bother me that I only poured one cup of coffee in the morning, or that I only bought one ticket to any movie I wanted to see that was above a Grating. It no longer mattered that one side of my bed remained unused, or that I hadn’t found a use for my sexy underwear in more years than I preferred to admit. If being single meant there was no man to cast baffled and annoyed glances at Bowen or to resent me for the time I had to invest in caring for him, then I was okay with the solitude.
When the phone rang the next evening, I startled. Grumbling to myself, I wriggled out from under my feather down comforter, and padded my way to the phone. “Hello?”
“Hi, Anna, it’s Gianna.”
I blinked a few times before replying. The only time I spoke to Gianna on the phone was when she’d needed to reschedule Bowen’s appointment, and that usually happened during working hours. It was nearing nine o’clock. “Hi. How are you? Is…everything okay?”
“Yes. Everything’s fine.” She laughed lightly, and I heard a deep voice in the background. “I’m sorry it’s so late. I just had an idea that couldn’t wait until our next appointment to run by you.”
An image of the biker who’d swept her off her feet as I was leaving Bowen’s appointment the day before flashed in my mind, and I immediately quashed it. “Oh, okay. What’s up?”
“Well, see, my brother is in town for a while,” she said.
“Is that the man who hugged you at your office yesterday?” I made myself sound as casual as possible. Even feigned a yawn for posterity.
“That’s Leo, my big brother.” She sighed. “Sorry he swore in front of everyone in the waiting room. He’s a bit…”
I bit my tongue. Pompous? Cocky? Narcissistic?
“…brash,” she finished. “But he has a good heart, I promise. He’s a pastry chef. He’s worked in New York and Chicago. And just left a five-star restaurant in Seattle. Now he’s here for a while. I know that Bowen’s father isn’t in the picture anymore, and that you’re alone with him most of the time.”
Why was she telling me all of this? Was she thinking about fixing me up with her brother? And if so, did that break any sort of privacy law, since she was my son’s occupational therapist? And if it did, did I really care? I caught a glimpse of myself in the kitchen window. The hair on one side of my head was standing up. Yikes. I guess I did care.
“Well, it sounds like you’re going to have a great visit,” I told her politely, trying to smooth out the red line my pillowcase had left on my cheek with my thumb.
“Thanks. Well, that’s exactly what I wanted to talk to you about.”
Holy crap, she really was going to fix me up with her brother. I didn’t know whether to be annoyed or excited.
“You see, my brother is going to be working at the resort. Their pastry chef is out of commission for a few weeks, and Leo owes the restaurant manager a favor.”
“Um, okay?”
Gianna laughed breezily. “I’ve been racking my brain, trying to think of ways I can help Bowen, and I think I might have come up with a good idea. Bowen loves to cook with you, right?”
The wheels in my mind started to turn, and I smiled into the phone. “Yes. He loves cooking. Tonight we made enchiladas. He got refried beans all over his fingers, and didn’t mind until we were done.”
“That’s wonderful!” I heard Gianna tapping her fingers on something. “So, my idea is to get Bowen in the kitchen a couple afternoons a week before dinner service starts. Leo can work with him, teach him some fun techniques, and help him get his hands dirty. I’ve explained Bowen’s sensory issues to him, and he understands that this isn’t always going to be easy, but he’s prepared to teach him some recipes and try some easy concepts. You’ll be there to monitor, of course. But I’m hoping that it will be as good for Leo as it is for Bowen.”
Bowen was going to cook with the hot guy with the tattoo who’d sworn in front of a lobby of kids? It all seemed too far-fetched. I mean, sure, I wanted Bowen to have fun cooking, since cooking was the one thing he actually enjoyed doing—instead of Star Wars toys or Transformers, he collected cookbooks—but with this Leo guy?
“Um, I don’t know.” I bit my lip. “Does he have time? I mean, it sounds like he’s going to be pretty busy if he’s filling in for someone.”
“Well, in all honesty, Leo says he owes me a favor.” Gianna paused, and I waited for her to explain further. What kind of favor did her brother owe? But I was left wanting. “I really think this would be an amazing treat for Bowen that wouldn’t cost you a cent. Won’t you consider it?”
Bowen. My heart tugged, and I leaned against the kitchen counter, defeated. Gianna knew that my weakness was my boy. If it meant making him happy, I was going to relent, despite my reservations about her brother.
“All right. Okay,” I said finally. “He can do it.”
Gianna whooped with joy. “Oh, thank you, Anna. I’m so hopeful that he’ll love it in the kitchen.”
I couldn’t help but smile. Her enthusiasm was contagious, and it’d gotten me through many a dark day over the past few years. “Me, too.”
“So listen, how does Friday sound to you? You mentioned once that you get off work in time to pick up Bowen at school. Is that right?” She was talking so quickly, I only picked up every second or third word, and I was pretty sure I heard pots and pans clanking in the background. And the sound of her brother swearing.
“Yes, that’s right.” I pressed my lips together tightly. Did I really want my son hanging around with this guy? Well…he was nice to look at—really nice—but he wasn’t exactly the type to work with kids.
“Friday it is. Meet Leo at the Resort restaurant at three thirty. He’ll be waiting for you.” Gianna sounded excited, so I tried to soak up some of her enthusiasm through the phone.
“Okay, then.”
“This is going to be a good thing, Anna. Bowen will love it.”
I certainly hoped so. We said our good-byes, and I hung up the phone. The silence of my little house surrounded by the pine trees of the inland northwest filled my ears. Such a vast difference from the noisy mayhem coming from Gianna’s house. Turning off lights as I went, I meandered into Bowen’s bedroom, where he lay sleeping to the sound of a box fan running at full power. I pulled a second coverlet over his small body to offset the wind the fans created, and pressed a kiss to his forehead.
There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for my son. Even if it meant spending a few hours a week in a kitchen with a man who not only gave my stomach a flutter, but also twisted it with irritation. As I tiptoed out of the room silently, I saw my reflection in the hallway mirror and slowed to a stop.
Short, caramel brown hair cut into a 1920s style bob with bangs, and bright green eyes that once shone, but now bore circles of fatigue and stress. My body wasn’t what it was before Bowen was born, but I could still rock a hot outfit if I wanted to. Though I never did. Too busy keeping my head above water for that.
Maybe it was time to visit my hairdresser. God knew I didn’t want to walk into the kitchen at the Coeur d’Alene resort—which was home to the nicest restaurant in the Idaho panhandle—with stray gray hairs and unkempt eyebrows. Yes, I would call Stella first thing in the morning and make an appointment for an overhaul. I’d use some money out of my savings and pretty myself up a bit. I deserved it.
Besides, what if this Leo guy noticed?
Chapter Three
A clang, followed by a loud curse, came from behind the swinging door. I bristled, and Bowen hid behind my hip. A visibly rattled waiter emerged from the kitchen, wiping a bead of sweat off his brow as he came through the swinging door.
He glared at us as he passed. “Good luck.”
I ground my molars together. What had I gotten myself into? It was Friday, and I was straying from the routine—a major no-no as far as Bowen was concerned—to take him into a kitchen with
a lunatic. As much as I loved Gianna, was this really a good idea? Would this help Bo, or just teach him more choice phrases, like “cold as a polar bear’s tit”?
“Excuse me, could you tell me where I can find Leo Mancini?” I called as the waiter whisked by.
He didn’t respond. Instead, he stalked toward the restaurant exit, yanking a package of cigarettes out of his pants pocket.
“Super. Thanks a bunch,” I said, as we took a few more steps toward the kitchen.
Bowen tugged on my arm, attempting to pull me in the opposite direction. “I want to go home.”
“Come on, Bo.” I smiled down at him. “You’re going to cook. Won’t that be fun?”
Another loud crash rang on the opposite side of the door, and he shook his head. “No. I don’t want to.”
Just as I was startling to waffle, a woman with blond hair wound into a tight bun, a starched white blouse, and a tight black pencil skirt walked up to me. “Are you Anna Kirkpatrick?”
I straightened to my full height, trying unsuccessfully to mimic her sophistication. “Yes.”
“My name is Gretchen. I’m the restaurant manager.” She held out her hand to me, and I took it, expecting a firm shake, but instead received a limp-wristed wiggle. I hated that. “Chef is expecting you. Come with me.”
We followed her through the swinging door into the kitchen, and my steps immediately slowed. I’m not sure what I expected. After all, I watched my fair share of cooking shows on television, but this was nothing like the small, homey kitchens that celebrity chefs prepared their masterpieces in on TV. This was like a space station…only tenser.
Rollaway tables and countertops. Overhead racks and more ovens and gas burners than I’d ever seen in one space. Pots, pans, spoons, spatulas, and knives. Hoses hanging from coils attached to the ceiling with steam eking out of their slotted ends, and racks upon racks of gleaming equipment for slicing, dicing, mixing, blending, and storing. The most noticeable detail was that nearly every single piece was made of polished stainless steel and reflected the light pouring from the fluorescent fixtures above.