Текст книги "The Coincidence of Coconut Cake"

Автор книги: Amy E. Reichert

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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

• • • • •

Lou watched Al carefully. She knew a foodgasm when she saw one. He chewed slowly and carefully, eyes closed, senses open. Lou noticed how long and dark his lashes were. They created little smiles sitting on top of his cheeks, matching the one on his mouth. He had the faintest hint of scruff on his jawline, catching the cheese. Lou loved the slightly scruffy look and wondered whether Al ever let it grow beyond today’s five-o’clock shadow. She nibbled her food, not wanting to disrupt his experience with idle chatter—and she liked watching people enjoy food.

Devlin never enjoyed food like this. He ate to fuel, not to satisfy the senses. Why wouldn’t he leave her alone? She’d found a new KitchenAid mixer sitting on her kitchen counter a couple of days before, the eight-hundred-dollar copper model she’d lusted after for years. Attached was a message on one of his stupid note cards reading, “You need to hear me out.—D.” He had used his spare key to enter her apartment as if he belonged there, and now she had to have the locks rekeyed, another expense she couldn’t afford.

She was so angry at his hubris, she’d toppled the mixer into the Dumpster, then immediately crawled back in after it. If she wasn’t going to keep it, she would make sure it went to a good home. She scrubbed it with bleach and left it for her neighbors across the hall, a young couple who just had a baby. She would show them how to make baby food with it.

Lou loved watching Al savor every bite. She mentally vowed to make him an amazing meal just to see him enjoy it. Maybe her Cuban pork with black beans and cilantro rice. That was a great summer feast—complete with mojitos and mojo sauce. If he savored a burger with such fervor, she knew he’d swoon over her cooking.

Al swallowed his last bite and finished off the strawberry shake.

“Truly and unexpectedly fantastic,” he said.

“Are you converted?”

“To what?”

“To the wonders of Milwaukee.”

“Deep-fried cheese and tasty burgers do not make a city, but I will definitely eat here again. So what’s next?” Al looked around as if their next stop would appear magically out of the parking lot like a mirage.

Lou stood up, tossed the garbage into a cow trash can, and said, “Next is beer.” She started walking, expecting Al to follow. He did. Lou heard his footsteps and smiled. They walked to Lou’s battered black Honda Civic. One back window didn’t roll down anymore, the air system’s fan worked only intermittently, and the muffler had surrendered itself to a Wisconsin blizzard years ago. But it worked with minimal upkeep and started every morning, even during the deepest January freezes. Al raised one eyebrow at the large dent on the passenger side.

“I’m supposed to feel safe?”

Lou laughed. “Fear not—it happened in a parking lot. I wasn’t even around.”

Al got in, made a show of buckling himself securely, and Lou took off in search of beer and the promised fresh cheese curds.

• • • • •

When he returned to work after his adventure with Lou, Al’s hair stood in all different directions from the windy afternoon, and he carried a small plastic bag with a white label indicating weight and price per pound. “Do you eat cheese curds?” Al asked as he paused behind John’s desk chair. He held out the opened bag to John, who snatched a handful. Squeak!

“Mmmm, they’re fresh. I love ’em fresh.” A cheese crumb fell into his beard. He didn’t remove it.

“So you know about the squeak? It’s mad.”

“Yeah, I know about the squeak—only fresh curds squeak.”

“They’re so good,” Al said through the large curd he had just tossed in his mouth.

“What’s going on, and why are you so excited by squeaky cheese?”

“Because I never knew this existed.”

“Oh, wait—didn’t you ask about Northpoint Custard? You aren’t reviewing it, are you?” John squinted his eyes with suspicion.

“Yes and no.”

“Why go, then?”

“I met someone there for lunch.”

“You met someone? A girl someone? Where did you meet her? Does she have a friend?”

“I am not introducing you to any sane woman or her friend. You’d scare the hell out of them with that beard. When are you going to shave that thing?”

“I’m not. It’s who I am.”

“Ladies don’t like men with food in their beards.”

“Some do.”

“Are there websites for it?”

John laughed, grabbed a few more curds before Al moved out of reach, and returned to his work. Still a little buzzed from the Sprecher Brewery tour, Al set the curds to the left of his keyboard so they wouldn’t get in the way of the mouse and sat down slowly.

He had expected they’d take the Miller Brewery tour, with its inoffensive but unremarkable lagers. Sprecher Brewery was something else entirely. Completely local and amazing variety. Even the sodas surpassed expectations. The root beer was some of the best he’d ever tasted, but the cream soda was perfection.

Sitting at his desk, alone with his squeaky cheese, Al admitted to himself that for the first time since arriving in Milwaukee, he’d had fun. Lou’s uninhibited enthusiasm for the local establishments was infectious and soothing at the same time. He hadn’t realized how tightly wound he had become. Spending time with Lou felt like putting a soothing agent on a fresh wound—the relief was instant. He couldn’t wait to see what they would do next.

• CHAPTER EIGHT •

Al walked across the white, narrow bridge and stepped into the perfect eighties-movie-version of heaven, the Quadracci Pavilion of the Milwaukee Art Museum, often called the Calatrava after the architect who designed it. White surrounded him, reflecting bright, clean sunlight off every surface. The marble floor resembled the purest vanilla ice cream sparingly swirled with the darkest, richest fudge. The walls were a matching pristine white, broken only by the asymmetrical arches leading to long, gleaming hallways and into the museum proper. Above him rose a two-story cathedral ceiling of glass¸ crosshatched by large white exterior beams that were currently spread like the wings of a bird in flight. At dusk, the wings returned to rest against the main building, but during the day they soared. The comparisons to a bird were apt; he could almost feel the wingbeat poised to happen.

From the outside, the white frame looked skeletal, but not in an eerie way. More like seeing dinosaur bones at a natural history museum. Al scanned the room looking for Lou. He didn’t see her waiting. Good. He didn’t want her to have to wait for him again like she did a couple of weeks ago at Northpoint Custard. He walked toward the lakeside windows, which came to a V overlooking a sidewalk following the rocky breakwater below—like an infinity bridge. The glass slanted up and out, allowing you to lean forward over the edge, creating the uneasy feeling of falling until you hit the glass. He could see smudges lower on the pane, evidence he wasn’t the only one drawn to this view.

A huge mobile of floating red, black, and blue dots hovered over the entrance, an homage to minimalist balance. Displayed between two stories hung a remarkable blown-glass sculpture of bold colors. It reminded Al of exploding confetti and streamers—a celebration frozen forever.

Al kept looking for Lou among the scattered visitors. Nervous energy vibrated through him, amplified by the soaring architecture, leaving him slightly breathless.

• • • • •

Lou watched Al look upward at the Calatrava’s wings, reaching toward the sun already high in the sky even though it was only ten in the morning. A smile lit her face as she watched him admire the beautiful building. She’d picked the art museum as their second excursion for two reasons: One, it provided a perfect foil to the beer and cheese. This outing didn’t involve any special food, though she had packed a basket of snacks so they could eat on the lakefront. And two, even to a highbrow like Al, the museum was gorgeous. You could always find something new to admire.

“Your first time here?” asked Lou when she stood close enough. Al’s head turned quickly to her voice and a smile flashed and disappeared. Her nerves jumped with delight.

“I’m looking for the duct tape. Isn’t that how you do things in Milwaukee?”

Lou playfully glared. “We found special white duct tape so you couldn’t see it, then covered it with Italian marble.”

Both took a long breath. Lou looked around and nodded toward the nearby Chinese exhibit. “Shall we?”

Lou led as they entered into the quiet hall. A wide, winding path led visitors past multicolored silk tapestries, elaborately carved furniture, and enameled decorations that once belonged in the Forbidden City.

“Can you imagine what it must have been like for those first people to view these items after being locked away for more than eighty years? Pretty cool, right?” Lou said.

“Quite amazing.”

Lou looked over at Al to decide whether he was serious or sarcastic. He had already wandered off to study an elaborate cloisonné. She could feel the distance as he walked farther away, a bungee cord stretching and stretching until it would fling them back together. With each step, her tension heightened, urging her to close the gap and ease the discomfort, the building panic of being alone. She couldn’t tell whether it was her lingering grief from Devlin or Al’s unexplored allure, but she wouldn’t yield to it.

Lou glanced around. Painted on the wall were a variety of sayings attributed to the Qianlong emperor. One piqued her interest: “Delight is indeed born in the heart. It sometimes also depends on its surroundings.” Lou stood and stared at the words, letting them settle into her, burrow into her bones, become part of her. She would find joy again—she knew it now. She felt better here, away from everything and everyone who required something from her.

On most days, delight kept itself hidden from her, so she would go places where it frolicked—like right here, right now. Delight at the beautiful objects, delight with her sometimes stiff companion, and delight at the freedom from immediate responsibility. She would savor her delights where and when she could. Her tension melted away. With a deep, cleansing breath Lou turned to move on to the next object and bumped into Al with an “oof.”

“Sorry,” she said, the contact sending sparks down her spine.

“Quite all right; feel free to continue bumping into me. That seems to be our thing.”

“Ha! Funny English guy.”

• • • • •

Al had hoped Lou would bump into him. He stood behind her while she stared at the wall for just that reason. Intrigued by her interest, he started to ponder the quotes on the wall, too. Delight—he couldn’t remember the last time he felt delight. Maybe before Eton, when he and his parents took road trips through the English countryside, stopping in little village pubs for lunches, traipsing over hilltops to see what was on the other side, and sharing a hearty meal at the end of the day. Wait—that wasn’t quite true. During his last outing with Lou, eating a buttery, cheesy burger and tasting fried cheese curds for the first time, with the sun shining and the world humming, he had felt delight. There had been no cynicism, no pretension, just pure enjoyment. Perhaps it was more about surroundings than the emperor had envisioned.

Al put his hands on Lou’s shoulders to steady her and enjoyed the flash of warmth on his fingers and the startled look on her face. He pulled his hands away and turned to the last few items before they entered the obligatory end-of-exhibit gift shop, then went on to the regular museum. Even though he no longer touched her, his fingers retained the heat, which spread through his body. Yes, definitely more to do with the surroundings.

Al and Lou wandered into a new room, where one wall displayed simple squares of red, yellow, and blue. On another wall, a cornflower-blue plastic rectangle leaned like a giant forgotten building block. Clear and orange squares protruded from yet another wall, similar to shelves you might see in a trendy European loft.

“This room insults me,” said Al.

Lou smiled at Al’s barb.

“Not a fan of minimalism?”

“Not in the least.”

“I like its potential. You could turn it into anything. You’re only limited by your imagination.”

“Show me, don’t tell me. Art isn’t about what I can do. I know that. I want to see what the artist can do. I look at this and think the artist couldn’t be bothered to come up with anything original, so he ripped off Lego. It’s lazy.”

“So what would you create?”

Al’s eyes grew distant.

“If I were an artist, which I’m not, I’d create scenes to celebrate the simple things.”

“But you are an artist—you write, don’t you?”

Al’s stomach twisted as Lou watched him. His mind flipped through all the possible options.

“That’s freelance journalism.” He shrugged. “Not the same as museum-quality work.” He knew a lot of journalists who would smack him for saying that, rightly so.

“What do you write about?”

Al gulped and slipped a sly look onto his face.

“Are we talking work now? Because I have a few questions, too. Like when will you admit you sculpt miniatures out of cheese curds?”

“At the same time you reveal ‘freelance journalist’ is code for British dog walker to Milwaukee’s elite.”

Lou gave him a playful hip bump as she strode past him. He followed her over the parquet wood floors to the next room, where she paused to look at a painting of two vases of calla lilies. The colors and bold strokes reminded him of a Van Gogh or Matisse, but when he leaned forward he saw an unfamiliar name.

“This is the kind of painting I’d want. Bright, cheerful. It just makes me happy. It’s not making any bold statement.”

Al agreed and opened his mouth to say so when a dog started barking from Lou’s cleavage. She turned pink and reached into her shirt.

“Sorry—work.” Lou answered her phone. “What’s up?”

Lou wandered slowly into the next room as she listened on her phone. Al tried to give her a bit of extra space but could still hear the conversation. He knew eavesdropping was rude, but he wanted to know how she spent her time away from him.

“Did you call Joe?”

Pause.

“Tell him if he can get in today, I’ll pay an extra ten percent, fifteen if he can finish by two.”

Pause.

“I know. Get the file ready to go to Kinko’s if he can’t do it.”

Pause.

“None?” Lou rubbed her forehead with her free hand.

Pause.

“I’ll think of something.”

Pause.

“Okay.” Lou stopped and Al noticed her looking at him. She blushed. He loved her blushes, how they started at her cheeks and spread outward until even her ears had turned pink.

“Good. More later. Bye.”

Al smiled, able to fill in the last part of the conversation. Lou shoved the phone back into her bra and caught up with him. He stood in front of a large white canvas with four black stenciled letters on it. F and O were on top, O and L were on the bottom.

“Sorry. Work. Never a dull moment,” Lou said.

“Everything okay?”

Lou chewed her lip. “I got an awful review, and it’s making things difficult. And the freaking copier broke at the worst possible time.” She looked up at the canvas and smiled. “There’s another painting I wouldn’t mind having. A reminder.”

“Sorry to hear that and I quite agree.” Al nodded.

Questions about Lou piled up in his head. Where did she work? Was her manager’s bad review really that bad? Why choose a barking-dog ringtone? Why did she keep her phone down her shirt and could he help answer it? For the first time in a long time, he found he wanted to know the answers to these questions and many more. He wanted to know her better, and he certainly wanted to make her laugh, or at least smile. Lou’s smile dimmed the sunlight. These questions inched toward the tip of his tongue.

“Remember when we first met?”

“Yeah?”

Lou looked curious about where his question was headed.

“Where were you taking that coconut cake?”

A frown line appeared on Lou’s forehead. Al wanted to take the question back.

“Never mind. Not my business.”

“No, it’s okay.” Lou held up a hand. “It was for my fiancé at the time. I meant to surprise him, but he surprised me by having an unexpected female guest. Ergo, no more fiancé.”

“Ouch. I’m sorry.”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“It’s for the best. In retrospect, I think I was part of a business plan rather than the love of his life.” Lou studied the map on a nearby wall. “There’s one more thing you need to see; then let’s grab a snack outside.” She walked through another room to the very end of the hall, where a huge black cube stood. A dark curtain at the top of a few steps marked the entrance. A docent pointed to a basket of blue footies to wear over their shoes. After slipping the footies on, they walked up the steps and slipped around the curtain. Lou confidently stepped into the center of the room, but Al paused. Lou appeared to float among a billion stars. He looked down as he stepped forward. Even though he knew there was a solid surface, and could even see scuff marks on the plexiglass, his body kept waiting to fall into the ether. He stood in the middle of the small, dark room, inches from Lou. They were alone in space, together.

All six sides gave the illusion of endless stars. He looked up and down, enjoying the freaky sensation of being firmly planted on the ground while floating in the universe. Amazing how the mind could play tricks. Al set his hand on Lou’s shoulder to get her attention.

“Absolutely brilliant,” he said. When his hand touched her shoulder, Lou gave a little shudder and sucked in her breath. His stomach did a little flip at feeling her react to him. Or did she? Perhaps he just surprised her? Yes, that was it—just another trick of the mind. Lou stepped toward the door and Al let his hand return to his side.

“Ready for some snacks? I brought goodies.” And she turned and left the Infinity Chamber, almost as if she was eager to return to daylight. Al followed her back out, hungry for something.

• • • • •

Lou pulled the blanket and Sendik’s plastic bag from her trunk and walked to where Al sat on the grass. Her skin still zinged from his touch in the Infinity Chamber. It was exactly a month ago that she walked in on Devlin, so it didn’t seem quite right to already have the zings with someone new, but she couldn’t deny them. Al sat with his back to her, staring out over the gray waters of Lake Michigan, squinting into the sunlight. Seagulls swooped overhead, hoping for a spare scrap of bread or discarded lunch. She tossed the blanket to Al, breaking his reverie.

“Here. Can you spread that out?”

“Putting me to work now?”

“There are no free rides here. You need to earn your goodies.”

Al stood and snapped the blanket open, letting it parachute over the grass. They both climbed on, and Al watched as Lou started pulling goodies from the basket.

“And what are the delicious morsels?”

“Nothing fancy.”

Lou unwrapped a four-year-old cheddar and set it on a small cutting board with a knife. She pulled out a blue wine bottle and handed it to Al along with two plastic cups.

“Will you do the honors?” she asked.

Al looked down at the bottle and raised an eyebrow when he saw it was a cider, corked like champagne.

“I haven’t seen cider in a bottle like this since I was in France. You’ve got me excited now.”

He twisted off the metal wire and popped out the cork as Lou finished cutting crisp red apples, her fingers deftly slicing the fruit into even pieces. She pulled a crusty boule of bread from the bag and a roll of something wrapped in wax paper.

“What’s that?” Al said, pointing at the unknown item.

“That’s my favorite. It’s hand-rolled butter from a local dairy. I could eat it with a spoon.” Lou unrolled the butter and tore off a hunk of bread. Rather than use a knife, she scraped the bread across the butter and handed it to Al. He set aside the cider and took a bite.

“Wow,” Al said, still chewing. “That’s bloody amazing. There is a tang that’s brilliant with the creaminess. And on the chewy bread. Fantastic.”

He scooped more butter onto the end he hadn’t bitten. Lou smiled. She hadn’t been wrong about Al’s tastes. He knew how to enjoy good food. He handed her a cup of cider and she sipped. This was her favorite cider, too. The bubbles popped with appley bursts, not too sweet, not too dry. She broke off a chunk of cheddar and let it sit on her tongue, mingling with the aftertaste. As she bit, she felt the small cheese crystals crunching as the cider mellowed its bite, a surprisingly good pairing. She might be able to use that at the restaurant. Her musings were interrupted by Al.

“Tuppence for your thoughts?”

Lou sipped her cider to ready them.

“Work.”

“Ahhh. Imagining your next diorama of taxidermied rodents?”

Lou chuckled into her red plastic cup.

“So, what about your family? Do you see them much now that you’re here?” Lou finally asked.

“Not really. My parents still live in Windsor. Dad teaches at the school there.”

“Any brothers or sisters?”

“One brother. Ridiculously successful and charming. I hate him.”

“I can tell that’s not true.”

“No, it isn’t. But I’ll always be the little brother in his shadow.” Al sipped his cider as Lou fit a family into what she knew about him. “What about your family?” he asked.

Lou sucked in her breath and studied Al to decide whether she was ready to share.

“It’s just me. My parents died in a huge car crash several years ago. No siblings.”

“I’m so sorry.” He set down his cup and touched her arm. Lou wanted to close her eyes and lean into him, but not on a pity touch.

“Thank you. It’s been a few years, and I have amazing friends who help fill the gap. I even know an elderly couple who’ve almost adopted me.”

Al squeezed her elbow and they returned to snacking in silence. They both watched the clouds skitter across the lake.

“I really know how to ruin the mood, don’t I?” Al said as he laughed at himself. Lou laughed with him and grabbed his hand. She thought his eyes widened, but the moment was gone in a blink. Was he seeing someone?

“You did no such thing.” Lou studied her hands. “So, you know about my tragic love life. Any bungled romances in your past?”

“Bungled—good word.” Al paused. “There was just one. I thought she was my soul mate until she tried to shag my brother. Her name was Portia—that should have been a clue.”

“Harsh.” Lou scrunched her face as if she’d just sucked a lemon. “Someone really named—”

“When can I see you again?” Al interrupted, then turned his eyes toward the lake and pulled his hand back to grab an apple slice. “I mean, this is fun. It’s nice having you show me what I’m missing, talking to someone about bungled love lives.”

Lou watched him, realizing she had wasted so much time on Devlin when she could have found someone who wanted to spend time with her, enjoyed what she wanted to do. Al had it wrong—he was showing her.