Page 72 of Stony Point Summer
“Okay,” she quietly agrees.
So Kyle gets the steaks out of the fridge again. After opening the package, he spoons the tender browned onions from the pan into a small bowl. “But you have to eat some dinner first,” Kyle is saying, adding oil to the buttery bottom of that same frying pan and dropping in the steaks now. “I bet you’ll be able to pick a cake no problem afterward.”
From her chair, Lauren is watching him. In a minute, she gets up and fills a dishpan with soapy water. After clearing away their cake plates and utensils, dropping them in that dishpan, she sets the little table for dinner. She crosses the kitchen this way for dishes. That way, for glasses and flatware. Back to the fridge for milk. Over to the table again. Opening the plastic wrap on the loaf of bread, she drops two slices in the toaster.
But she says nothing, all while Kyle stands in his cramped, too-small kitchen and cooks the steaks. He also opens a can of corn niblets, empties it into a pot, adds olive oil and sea salt and heats those. He says nothing, too.
Not until he wraps a dishtowel around the frying pan handle and brings the pan to the table. He sets the sizzling steaks on their plates, douses them with fried onions, then adds the corn. “There’s some potato salad in the fridge,” he says.
Lauren nods and gets that, along with a bottle of ketchup. She also presses the toaster lever down. When she sits again, Kyle squeezes a dollop of ketchup on her plate and pours milk in their glasses; she scoops out a spoonful of potato salad; Kyle salts his steak; she cuts hers.
And stops, then, as though she just can’t do it.
Just can’t eat this warm meal in Kyle’s little apartment over the local law office.
Can’t eat in his kitchen with the window opened; the lights dimmed; the shadows long; his work shirt hanging on the old padded chair.
Sohedoes it.
He picks up her fork, spears a piece of steak and drags it through the ketchup. After a slight pause, he raises the fork to her mouth and gets her started. When her eyes drop closed then, it’s hard to tell. Is it because she relishes the taste of the good food? Or is it to hold back stinging tears?
No one says.
Kyle doesn’t question. Doesn’t ask,What’s the matter?
Lauren only gives a small smile and takes her fork to feed herself. They eventually talk a little bit, about how one of the other steelworkers nearly fell off the scaffolding at the shipyard today. The guy got so shook up, Kyle had to finish his work for him—thus being late for the cake tasting. And while Kyle drags his folded toast through steak juice and onions on his plate, Lauren says she read a book for kiddie story time at Book Buoy. She recited the tale of a little yellow duck living on a boat on the Yangtze River.
As they eat, and talk, their voices are low. And halting. The lighting’s dull in the kitchen; the painted cabinets, faded. With the moon rising outside the open window, the hum of passing traffic drifts into the apartment. Kyle brings over the small tray of Italian cookies their consultant sent home with them. They dip some in their milk, and nibble on a few: orange-ricotta and lemon drops and amaretti topped with half a maraschino cherry. After dinner, they wash and dry the dishes. Kyle wipes down the stove while Lauren sponges off the table.
The whole time, their eyes rarely meet.
* * *
Afterward, they settle in the living room on the slipcovered couch. Kyle plumps the thin pillows before turning on a wall-mounted TV. He reaches over to an end table, too, where he’d placed several more cake samples. Putting one on a paper plate, he picks up the cake with his fingers and feeds Lauren again, right there on the couch. She holds his wrist as he raises the piece of cake to her mouth. When she tastes it, he sits close and hangs his arm across the sofa-top behind her. His fingers trace along the bare skin of her exposed shoulder. He twists some of her long, blonde hair, too.
“That piece was nice,” she says then. “Not sure about the vanilla frosting, though.”
“Here. Try this one.” Quickly he leans over and grabs another cake sample—dark chocolate with buttercream frosting. Again she holds his wrist as he leans close and guides the cake to her mouth. After she bites off a piece, he puts the rest in his mouth.
They’re quiet, letting the cake flavor roll over their tongues. Watching a ballgame on the TV. Sipping water. Setting aside their cake plates. After a while, Kyle picks up Lauren’s hand and splays it open. With his other hand, he drags a finger down one of the lines crisscrossing her palm.
“That’s your fate line,” he says. “Yours has some broken spots. See? Like it’s dashed.”
“What does that mean?”
Kyle lightly traces that one line in her skin. “It means an interruption. Those dashes mean some event will interrupt things. Bring a change.” He raises her hand to his mouth and kisses her palm. “Like our wedding, no?”
Lauren rests her head back on the couch and smiles, slightly shaking her head. “You’re being silly, with fate and all that malarkey.”
“No. Because look. I can see when that fate line of yoursfirsthad a break in it.Thatinterruption would be the time at Stony Point when we all stole Lipkin’s boat, remember? Shit, we were just kids. But our liveswereinterrupted by that event. And changed,” he says, raising his hand to her face then, leaning close and kissing her. “We started going out that night, you and me, ten years ago now. So you see?” he asks, picking up her hand again and tracing her fate line. “We’re destined, Ell. To be together.”
Sitting there on the sofa, he lifts his slippered feet to the coffee table in front of them. On the TV, the batter hits a high-flying ball. The crowd rises with hope, then quickly sits when the ball goes foul. All the while, Kyle plays with Lauren’s hand. He twists his fingers through it; kisses the back of it.
An inning later, he reaches for another cake sample. It’s more of the dark chocolate with the buttercream frosting. This time, he breaks off a piece for himself and hands Lauren the rest—setting it in her open palm, right on that line of fate.
Lauren takes a lick of the frosting, first, before putting the whole sample in her mouth. Leaning against Kyle then, she shifts and presses sideways into him while reaching an arm across his stomach. Her face rests against his shoulder, and he kisses the top of her head.
“Okay,” she whispers, her hand toying with the fabric of his T-shirt. “Okay, we’ll go with the chocolate and buttercream.”
