The Color of Home: A Novel (17 page)

“Hi. I’m the new owner, Sassa. How’s your food?”

“Not so good,” said a young woman, about Sassa’s age, sitting at a table with an elderly woman.

“I’m sorry to hear that. What’s wrong?”

“It’s my first time eating here. I just didn’t like it.” Her lips flattened, and she glanced at the elderly woman. “My mom didn’t like the food either.”

Sassa pulled up a chair and sat down. Folding her hands on the table, she asked, “Can I get you something else? I’ll take that off of your bill right away.”

“No, you don’t need to do that. I think vegetarian food isn’t for me.”

“Or me,” the woman’s mom said.

The mom had dark brown skin, hardly a wrinkle on her face, and only a hint of gray in her hair, even though she had to be in her sixties.“You’re so beautiful,” Sassa said. “What do you do to your skin?”

The mom smiled. “Not a thing.”

“How about this? Why don’t you come back in the kitchen with me now, and I’ll spend some time with both of you learning what you like and dislike? Then I’ll whip something up. I’m hopeful you’ll both enjoy it.”

The younger woman fiddled with her fork. “Why would you do that?”

“Just want a chance to make it right. What’s your name?”

“Heather.”

“Who knows? If it goes well, Heather, we may name a dish after you.”

Heather glanced at her mom, who nodded her head once. “That would be okay.”

The doorbell rang and Sassa showed Matt and Myrina into her apartment. Grateful for everything they’d done, she’d planned to send them off to Seattle with a big thank you, devoting the full day to designing the menu, shopping for ingredients, preparing dinner.

“Wow. What a difference,” Myrina said.

“Thanks.”

Sassa had done well with the place. Two white sofas from a local furniture maker faced each other in the center of the room and covered an area rug, a copy of aboriginal artist Minnie Pwerle’s original painting of colorful nested circles representing women working. There was so much power in her work. Vegetarian cookbooks covered a secondhand coffee table painted in colors that highlighted the rug. The same table, the same empty chairs she first had dinner on with Nick, centered the dining room. Pictures of her family covered the wall above the table, along with a framed
Portland
Magazine review of the Green Angel. On the end table next to the sofa was her favorite picture of Nick. She’d snapped it one afternoon while he was playing his guitar and singing “All You Need Is Love” to her.

“We brought you more of the ale you like, and some wine as well.”

“I’m trying a new dish on you tonight. If it goes well, it’ll be the first change I make to the menu.”

Matt smiled. “You can’t make any changes to my menu.”

“Right, I forgot. Well then, I have a new dish for you tonight, and the two of you will be the only ones who ever experience it. I promise.”

“Better.”

Sassa poured Matt and Myrina wine. She twisted off the cap to her beer and sipped it out of the bottle. The three of them gravitated to the kitchen. The smell of Parmesan and garlic infused the air.

“As an appetizer, I’m serving broiled artichokes with a pesto pine nut sauce.”

“Cool.”

“And for the main course, homemade faro pasta with wild mushrooms, asparagus, and snow peas finished in a light Parmesan sauce. “

“Fantastic.”

Matt and Myrina watched as Sassa finished preparing the food, then the three of them sat down to dinner. The pesto pine nut sauce went well with the artichokes. The faro pasta and parmesan sauce was light, with great texture and a nicely blended combination of flavors. Sassa had done well.

“So, since this is our last night together, I thought I’d ask you all of life’s hard questions. Sound okay?” Sassa smiled. There was a time before Nick when she didn’t like serious questions, never mind the answers. He’d been such a big influence on her life.

Matt poured Myrina another glass of wine, then refilled his glass. He opened another bottle of beer for Sassa and handed it to her. “Go for it.”

“You’ve figured it out,” Sassa said.

“Figured what out?”

“How to be happy. How to be together and be happy. You seem like you’re still in love and you belong together.”

“We are and we do.”

Her body temperature rose, which for some reason always happened when she drank beer, and caused her to stretch, lengthen, like she was in the middle of a yoga pose. She was so comfortable around Matt and Myrina, like they were chosen family. “How do you know you won’t lose it?”

“We don’t.”

“Doesn’t that scare you?”

“The truth is, none of us knows what will happen tomorrow, never mind over the course of a full lifetime.”

What was Nick doing in New York? He would like Matt and Myrina, like her apartment, like the Green Angel. She had to get him up for a visit soon. “With Nick, I had a wonderful year, but I didn’t believe we could last for fifty more. I bolted right in the middle of the best experience of my life.”

“Then you made the right decision. You’ll know one way or the other at some point,” Matt said.

Myrina nodded. “The best relationships seem familiar from the start, but there’s a fine line between a familiar place and a stuck place.”

Sassa smiled. “I know that one.”

“The trick is living each day in a way that’s true to how you aspire to live those fifty years.”

“Not that easy.”

“Infinitely easy or infinitely hard. It’s a choice,” Matt said.

“I can only make out the hard part.” No. That wasn’t true. Why did she just say that? Every now and then, she’d made out the easy part, but it never lasted. Though with Nick, it had been easy longer than with anyone else.

“It’s easy if you decide how you want to live, then practice every day for the rest of your life knowing there’s no such thing as perfection. When you don’t live up to the ideal you set, and you won’t, accept that it’s no big deal,” Matt said.

Perfection? True enough. Maybe her past couple of years were about learning to let go of perfection, about embracing her flaws instead of trying to hide them, about letting go of fear. But how could she know for sure? “And infinitely hard?”

“It’s hard when you don’t choose, for whatever reason. Choice is the key,” Myrina said.

Sassa marveled at a universe that apparently had given her exactly what she needed: two people choosing to work on longterm love. Nick needed to meet them. But they were moving soon. “How did you choose?”

“We decided to do all of it—work, home, personal, professional— together. We’ve made a commitment to each other to work through anything that comes up as our primary practice. Issues, big and small, come up every day. The key is to not leave them unresolved because they have a tendency to grow bigger over time.”

“It does seem to work best when you catch it right away,” Myrina said.

“Nick calls it ‘learning to stop the momentum before you spin out.’” Would Nick move to Portland if she asked him?

“That’s a fine description,” Matt said.

“Given our passion for food and our training, it seemed natural that we channel our energy into creating healthy food and serving our local community,” Myrina added.

“Local community because there’s a trend toward isolation in America. Face-to-face communication is really important to us. All real change starts there,” Matt said.

Myrina continued, “All we need to live healthy, happy, productive lives is already in us and our community.”

“And with that as our framework, we started,” Matt said.

“We take one step at a time and learn as we go,” Myrina added.

“We don’t want anything to be too static or fixed, since in our experience, that’s the cause of many problems,” Matt said.

“In a nutshell,” Myrina said, “we may make fifty years by letting the relationship take any shape it needs to for us to both thrive. We talk about it all the time, typically before either of us gets too far out of sync, but not always.”

“What about physically?”

“We try to fuck like rabbits.”

Would Nick move to Portland?

Early April reunion, After Sassa Year Two, New York City: Nick paced back and forth outside a Village restaurant chewing over what to share with Sassa. He’d bargained to be honest with her and had every intention of keeping up his end, but a hefty slice of his time with Rachel centered on tantric sex, which was off limits, or music production, which Sassa had shown little interest in. As she turned the corner and waved, he stopped pacing, buttoned the top button of his shirt, and narrowed his story. “I’ve wanted to try this place for a long time.”

“You look happy.” She kissed him lightly on the cheek.

They stepped inside the restaurant and chose a small table in the back. The Spotted Cow, an old New York Tavern with loud music, fug, and desirable messiness, hooked its customers with a female English chef co-owner who created simple, flavorful gourmet dishes within the rowdy setting. He’d chosen well.

Over the noise, he said, “So, how are you? Tell me about your year.”

“You know the big stuff. I bought the Green Angel last June. The previous owners trained me for three months. I struggled for a few months, but I loved every bit of it.”

“Yeah, there’s something about struggling.”

“I feel like I’m making a difference.”

“I’m sure you are.” He rolled the stem of the empty wine glass between his fingers. Was he making a difference? Doing what he loved? With his business, yes. Not so much with his own music. “I guess I figured out work right out of school, though I need to do more of my own music.”

“You’re right about that.”

“If I go out on a limb.”

“The trunk isn’t enough.”

“At least my bank account is healthy.”

Her head tilted and her eyes widened.

She was right; the trunk wasn’t enough.

They choreographed their food order so they could share their entrees and desserts. He ordered the most popular dish on the menu, the chargrilled burger with Roquefort cheese and shoestrings. She ordered the sheep’s milk ricotta gnudi with basil pesto. The wine, a 2007 Duckhorn Three Palms Merlot, remained one of their favorites. To finish things off, a scoop of vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce.

“So, back to the Green Angel. In a year or two, I hope to open a number of sister restaurants along the East Coast.”

“You will.”

“I hope.”

“You will.” He brushed out a wrinkle in the tablecloth. The space between their professions, between food and music, had always been a part of their relationship. Was that a good thing? Sometimes he wondered if working in the same profession would have kept them together longer. If she’d been a musician, a songwriter, maybe it would have been easier.

“The previous owners, Matt and Myrina, seem to have figured it all out. They love their work. They’re happy. They’re married and have a kid.”

“That’s reassuring.”

“Talking with them made me believe in the possibility of two people staying connected for fifty years.”

Did she really just say that? A year ago he would have given almost anything to hear those words. But now? He cut off a piece of his hamburger and put it on her plate. He munched on a few shoestrings. Reaching over, he plucked a gnudi off of her plate. “That’s a big change.”

“I know.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m getting there. Which brings me to our third question. Do I know where I belong?”

“Before you answer that, why don’t we finish our meal and go for a walk? It’s a beautiful night.”

“Sounds good.”

A short time later, he helped her into her coat. Opening the door for her, he followed her out of the restaurant. She’d taught him the importance of simple kind acts. Hot tea waiting for her in the morning. A warm bath drawn after a long day at the restaurant. Always holding the door for her. Building blocks of trust—that made it easier when the hard work came. They sauntered down Greenwich Street toward Canal. Street merchants peddled their merchandise, tried to lure Sassa in. “Hey, lady, you need a new Gucci bag?” Nick flashed back to Sassa haggling with a similar merchant years earlier, touched his wallet in his back pocket, smiled. As they made their way from merchant to merchant, he stockpiled courage one point at a time. Two years had passed. She’d done the same with Brayden. They still had a life-long friendship.

At an intersection, they waited for traffic to pass. The sidewalk was spotted with debris. A Starbuck’s cup. A Subway sandwich wrapper. A cigarette stub. The time had come. No sense in waiting any longer. “I met someone this year. Her name is Rachel. We’re still together. She’s a musician and a songwriter. I worked on one of her songs back in the spring and things escalated from there.”

Sassa turned to him. “Now I see why you wanted to go for a walk.”

The traffic cleared and they crossed the street. They quickened their pace through the last row of merchants. He kicked a Whopper wrapper out of the way, paused for a second as it floated to the ground.

“Do you love her?”

“I haven’t told her yet.”

“Are you looking for my approval?”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m taking it all in.” The wind picked up and gusted. She pulled her scarf up a tad to right below her bottom lip, adjusted her beret to make sure it was firmly in place, then slipped her hands back into her coat pockets.

“We haven’t moved in together.”

“Do you write songs together?”

“A few.”

She stopped at a storefront. “Look at those fake Coach bags for fifty bucks. I thought the NYPD cracked down on selling fake merchandise.” She picked up a bag and studied it, as if she’d been working with leather her entire life. Then another one. And another. “You’d rather be with Rachel now?”

“I’m with Rachel. You and I haven’t been together for two years.”

“Does that mean you know what you want long term?”

“I’ve never seen you jealous before.”

“I’m not jealous. All this time, you’ve been telling me that I’m the one. And now, when I’m ready to sign up, you’re with somebody else? What the fuck, Nick?”

“Things just happened.”

She pivoted toward him and gently cupped her hands over his shoulders. “Bullshit. Please have the dignity not to say that things with her just happened. You string together all of your pretty words about truth and honesty, and now you’re going to lie?”

“How is this different from what happened with Brayden?”

“That had ended before we met last year.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“Are you telling me that if Rachel and I were sitting on two chairs in a room and you had to pick one of us, you’d choose her?”

Where was this coming from? What was going on with her? He calmed, slowed, like he did right before a difficult guitar solo, until a wave of sadness hit him. Was love nothing more than timing? His thumb repeatedly rippled across the tips of his fingers, trying to ward off the cold. “I’m not going to answer a hypothetical. The first year we were apart, I would’ve done anything to get you back. After our one-year reunion, I started to let go. Part of me wishes that I’d never let go, but I did.”

“I want you back, Nick. That’s what I was trying to tell you in the restaurant.”

“How’s that going to work? You’re in a different state with your own business. I’m bound to the city. I’m with Rachel.”

“We’ll figure it out.”

He constructed two lists in his head. Sassa: intelligent, strong, sensitive, beautiful, home. They had history. They both came from loss. Around her, he was at peace; alone, he had ached. He deeply loved her, though the shape of his love had morphed over the past two years. Rachel. She’d struck a chord. He’d fallen in love with her, but home? For sure, a lot of fun. She introduced him to tantric sex, and he loved her personas. She shared his love of music, and she could write. She didn’t back down from anyone, and her strength had rubbed off on him. He juxtaposed the lists. Sassa inched ahead in the long run, but Rachel had the advantage in the moment. Fuck. “Things with Rachel haven’t run their course. I’m not sure where they’ll go, but I need to play them out.”

“I want to meet her. I’ll stay an extra day. Can you ask her?”

“Is that a good idea?”

“Yes. I need to meet anyone you love, just as you need to know who I love.”

“I didn’t want to meet Brayden.”

“Oh, please.”

Nick raced up the stairs to his apartment, where Rachel waited for news. He stepped into the living room, found her on the sofa riffing on her Santa Cruz. An incredible rush of desire engulfed him. She nodded, grabbed his hands, and danced him over to the kitchen table. He lifted her skirt, loosened his belt, unbuttoned his jeans. They pushed, pulled, a little deeper with words and touch and fingers and sweat. Good lyric. The entire act lasted only a few minutes. Afterward, he sprawled out on the floor next to the table. Rachel nestled against him.

“Sassa wants to meet you.”

“She wants to size up her competition.”

“There’s no competition. Are you sure that meeting her is a good idea?”

Rachel ran her finger up and down the inside of his thigh a few times, then slid her hand under his T-shirt. “What did you tell her about me?”

“I told her about what you do, what you look like, you know—all of the surface info. I told her I was happy with you. And I mentioned one other thing.”

“Cut with the suspense, Nick, and just say it.”

There was a time when he was sure Sassa would be his last love. But there was no denying it, he’d fallen for Rachel. How did that happen? “I told her that I’m in love with you.”

“I know.”

“You know?”

“Of course I do. And you know I’m in love with you.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“Oh. I didn’t realize that you were in love with me.”

“Yes, you did. That caged, unaware brain of yours got in the way, that’s all.”

“You’re so romantic.”

“Thank you for telling her,” she whispered. “I guess I’m locked and loaded now.”

Nick and Rachel banded together the following day for brunch at Sassa’s midtown hotel. Nick spotted Sassa in the lobby. She wore an old, flowered, blue and tan Lou Lou skirt and a gold sleeveless top that he’d bought for her on a whim when they still lived together. She’d pulled her hair back into a ponytail. She towered over Rachel in three-inch pumps. Just beautiful. He had to look away. Did Rachel notice?

“You look great, Rachel,” he whispered before they reached Sassa.

“I know.”

Rachel had outdone herself playing dress-up. The night before, she had died her hair jet black. In the morning she styled it to look as wild as possible with special gel she saved for more-is-better occasions. To match her hair, she applied black lipstick, black eye shadow, and black nail polish. She dressed in brown leather pants and a sleeveless brown leather vest, which exposed the tattoos on her arm. High-laced black military boots, which gave her back the two inches of height she rarely displayed during her time with Nick, finished the persona. She walked up to Sassa like she was holding her Grammy. Or his.

“Hi, I’m Sassa.” Sassa extended her hand.

“Hey. Rachel.” Rachel tapped her fist against Sassa’s palm.

“I reserved us a table. Ready to go in?”

“Okey dokey.”

The three of them settled in at their table and ordered drinks. Nick gleaned a hint of the perfume Sassa had worn every day when they were together. He fidgeted with a spoon for a bit; his fingers had a mind of their own. Why was he so nervous? He had no idea where the conversation would go, and it scared him.

“Thanks for meeting me in person. Nick’s my closest friend, so naturally I wanted to meet you.”

“Yeah, you were high on my list too.”

“I guess this might be awkward, but it doesn’t have to be. We can talk openly and honestly.”

“That’s all I do.”

“Good. Why don’t we order first?”

Sassa ordered a bowl of oatmeal with fresh blueberries and a cup of tea. Rachel ordered bacon, eggs, and toast, with an extra side of bacon, and a triple shot of black espresso. Nick ordered French toast covered with fresh fruit and whipped cream, and a cappuccino.

“So, I love Nick and always will. I want him in my life for as long as he wants to be there,” Sassa said. “A person’s lucky if she has a few close friends around her at the end, and I know I want Nick with me when that time comes.”

“I hope that’s not for a long time.” Nick smiled.

“Me too.” Sassa smiled back at him.

Rachel tapped her glass with her knife. “Okay, I’ll jump. I love Nick, too. I’m happiest when we string together our minutes and try to stay present in each one. That’s enough. I’ve never used ‘fifty’ and ‘years’ in the same sentence until now.”

“I guess I’m trying to figure out long-term stuff,” Sassa said.

“There is no long term. Just now,” Rachel said.

Sassa nodded.

Why did Sassa just lie? That wasn’t like her, Nick thought. Had she changed her view on fifty years? From just a day ago? He shifted his weight from one side to the other and tapped his feet on the ground.

“Toward the end of my year with Nick, I decided I needed to figure some things out. I let him go.”

“Wrapped in a bow.” Rachel reached over and brushed the back of his hair.

Normally, Nick loved it when Rachel touched his hair. It was part of a lengthy tantric massage technique that they often practiced. But in front of Sassa, he was relieved when she stopped after a few strokes.

“I came to New York with the intention of getting Nick back. When he told me that wasn’t going to happen, I asked to meet you.”

“I know why you came back.”

“How do you know?”

“I had a feeling the other day. I’d told Nick before he met you.”

“She did.”

A waiter interrupted them to refill their water. There was something about the three of them together that Nick couldn’t put his finger on. What was it? Glasses refilled, the waiter moved to the next table.

“Anyway, I didn’t sleep well last night. After a few restless hours, I realized that I would never intentionally push love out of Nick’s life. So, as long as he loves you, as long as he wants to be with you, I’ll be a fan.”