Page 6 of Blood Orange Christmas
“It’s still there,” she says.
“What is.”
“Your heart.”
“People like to argue.”
“They’re looking in the wrong place,” she says, and only when she sees me breathe does she ease her hand away.
I turn off the tap, pat her wrist with a clean towel, and check the skin. It’s already settling. She wants to pull away. I don’t let her until I see the color ease. I let go, step back, and the room falls into place again. She drops the next round of calamari with better timing. I take three steps back like it’s nothing, and the phone I abandoned starts ringing again as if the segment of time between rings never happened.
She plates the dish, sends it out, and then looks at me without moving. I pour water, set the glass near her elbow. She drinks. We go on.
I tell myself I’ll leave after dinner. I don’t. She makes pasta, and I watch the way she works dough with the heel of her hand. She cuts even ribbons and lays them down like she respects them. I recognize the habit. It’s how I place weapons back in their drawers. Respect the tool or it will leave a mark.
When she brings me a taste of the ragu on a wooden spoon, I don’t plan on closing my eyes. It happens anyway. The sauce lands soft, then deep. It tastes like someone took a hard day and made it carry something better.
“Don’t change a thing,” I say, and my voice gives me away.
She nods and slips back into work. I stand where I am and feel the heat of the stove across the island like a hand between my shoulder blades.
By the end of the week, I know her tells. She hums when she’s calm. She chews the inside of her cheek when she’s retracing a step. She wipes the corner of a plate with her thumb when she thinks no one’s looking. And when the kitchen door is open after service, she’s not ready for the day to let go of her.
I’m not good at after. I’m built for before and during. After is for men who sleep without a light on. Still, I walk back to the kitchen just before midnight and find her on the small couch in the staff room, curled under a thin blanket that belongs to the house, eyes closed, mouth soft, fingers still stained with lemon. I go as far as the door. She’s breathing slowly. I take my coat off without thinking and set it on the chair within reach. The blanket looks like it won’t do much. I trade it for one folded in the linen closet and lay it over her, careful not to wake her. She makes a small sound, something content and tired, and turns her face into the pillow. I leave the door half open and walk out before I decide to stay.
The next night, she’s sharper. She doesn’t ask about the blanket or the coat. She sets up like always, cooks like always, but there’s a new line to her mouth when she tastes the sauce. She knows I was there. She doesn’t know why. I don’t either.
I try to convince myself this is an arrangement that will end when my calendar tells it to end. The house says otherwise. Staff lower their voices when she’s near. Luca adds her name to a list of people who get waved through the back gate without a call. Bianchi asks if she needs a new knife stone. These are small shifts, but I’ve built a life on small shifts turning into outcomes. I should send her away. I should tell her the contract ends on Friday and the car will be ready at noon.
I don’t.
She makes the lemon cake on a night when I’m wound tight enough to snap. The scent hits early, even before the syrup goes on. She lifts the loaf out of the pan, brushes it with lemon syrup, and I feel my jaw unclench for the first time since morning. She cuts an end piece, the one that belongs to the cook, and I catch it before she can eat it standing up.
“That one’s yours,” she says.
“I know,” I say, and put it back in her hand. I take the second piece. The crumb is fine, the peel thin and soft enough to disappear on the tongue. I finish the slice without pausing. She watches my mouth. I watch her watching and don’t pretend I don’t like it.
“What do you want next?” she asks, voice light.
“Polenta,” I say, surprising both of us. “With mushrooms. The way you made it the other night.”
She nods and starts the pan. Oil, garlic, a hit of heat. Mushrooms sweat, then brown. She salts when the sound tells her to. I stand too close again, and she lets me.
“Why do you stay?” I ask, and it’s not the most careful thing I’ve said.
She looks up from the pan, not offended. “You didn’t ask me to leave.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the truth.” She tilts the pan, lets the mushrooms catch a little more color. “I’m learning your kitchen. It’s polite to finish what you start.”
“You’re not afraid of me.”
“I am,” she says and flicks her eyes to mine. “Just not in the way you think.”
“What way is that?”
“The useful way,” she says. “The kind that keeps me sharp.”
