Authors: Robin Antalek
“Just now? Well, he was a little unsteady.” She gave Sam a half smile, as if she approved of his getting his brother drunk after his wife lost a baby. “Suzie and I were sitting on the couch and she was still a little groggy from the painkiller. But when he came in they sort of fell into each other's arms so I took it as my cue to leave.”
Sam sighed and looked up at the night sky. Why did people always think you could never see any stars in the city? He could see plenty. “Well, I guess I'm going to head home then.” He really wanted to touch her. He couldn't think about anything else but touching her. He missed her so much. But he had lost his chance. Before he did anything stupid he said, “Bye, Bella.”
Bella looked surprised, but she echoed, “Bye, Sam.”
They laughed at the awkwardness of the exchange, and Sam could see in her face that she was as relieved as he was that it was over.
Michael was always
right. As summer hit the city, and with it the wedding season that demanded the need for endless trays of bite-sized food, Sam quit the catering gig, cleared out of the sublet with the few items he owned stuffed in a duffel bag, and went home. He managed to walk away with about fourteen hundred dollars in his bank account. Once again, New York had knocked him on his ass.
Marguerite and Hunt were in Italy for a month, and Sam had promised to check on the house while they were gone. He didn't think they expected that he would quit his job to bring in the mail and water the lawn, but the opportunity to have a place to be for a month with a pool and fresh air, and without the pressure of roommates or poaching endless filets of salmon, was too good to turn down.
Dozing in a lounge chair, lulled into a semiconscious state by the click of the pool filter and the soft strum of the compressor that kept the house a cool seventy-two degrees, Sam had plenty of time to consider his life. He had the vague idea that if he had his own kitchen he could do as he pleased. But Sam knew there were as many failures as restaurants, guys like him who were passable cooks but who couldn't run a business. Sam couldn't fool himself into thinking that the odd success story would be him. Which brought him to the realization that maybe he just wasn't enough of a dreamer, that somehow he had become careful to the point of being paralyzed, and that was sobering.
When Hunt and
Marguerite returned from their trip they didn't have much of a reaction upon discovering Sam had moved back into his old room. The fact that this was simply part of their expectations where he was concerned was annoying yet true. So how was Sam to be offended? As it was he was spending most of
his waking hours by the pool or at Peter Chang's house, and he kept to that routine when they returned.
Hunt looked tanned and rested from the trip. He and Marguerite brought back several outstanding cases of wine, and in the summer evenings they sat out on the patio side by side in matching lounge chairs, going through photos and enjoying a glass. Sam usually ducked out before they could offer him one. He knew they wanted to talk; he could see the concern in Hunt's face. It was just that his topics-to-avoid list was growing.
For the first time in a long time Sam had run out of ideas. But then Peter rented a house in Chatham out on the Cape for the month of August and invited anyone who was around to join him. Frankie, Peter, and Sam drove out together and met the real estate agent for the keys. She walked them through the house, pointing out the two-sided gas fireplace, sunken bathtubs, sauna, remote control skylights, gourmet kitchen, and the long table that sat twenty. Peter followed dutifully while Frankie took the steps two at a time to the second floor to get the first pick of the six bedrooms. Sam went outside to check out the view. The house sat on the curve of a bluff overlooking the ocean. It had a wraparound deck on each of the two floors. With the sliding glass doors open, the breeze pulled the white curtains horizontally until it appeared as if they were floating.
After the real estate agent left, Sam went to the store to pick up provisions. Even after spending six hours trapped in the car to get to the Cape, he appreciated the quiet, meandering drive into town: the salt-tangy breeze of the stop-and-go traffic on the narrow two-lane road, the classic New England architecture of weathered shingles and painted shutters.
The grocery store was flooded with people who, like them, had just started their rentals. Food and children perched pre
cariously in overloaded carts that reminded Sam of the Grinch's sleigh after he had looted Whoville. The only bags of charcoal left behind had been gutted. He weeded through what remained and left the grocery store with thick, bloody steaks marbled with fat, gold potatoes, greens, lemons, parsley, butter, several six-packs of locally brewed beer, coffee, milk, and cereal. At a roadside farm stand he stopped for a dozen ears of corn and a bushel of warm tomatoes to round out the meal.
When Sam got back to the house there was another car in the driveway besides Peter's. Bella, Ted, and Suzie were on the deck with Peter and Frankie, an already empty bottle of wine in front of them and a second bottle uncorked between them. Sam wanted to ask where Michael was, if he was coming later or at all, but he didn't.
Sam and Ted had never officially met at Suzie and Michael's wedding, so Bella performed an introduction. It seemed odd, and slightly suspect to Sam, anyway, that he was the only one of Bella's “friends” who hadn't met Ted. From the way Ted kept his arm wrapped around Bella's waist, Sam thought Ted must feel the same way. As soon as Sam could, he escaped to the kitchen.
For dinner Sam grilled the corn and steaks, pulverized the parsley, lemon, garlic, and oil into a pesto that he drizzled over thin slices of meat and roasted potato, and served everything on the deck. As the sun dipped into the water the breeze slowed, but the air was cool. Unwilling to abandon the gorgeous views, Peter dragged blankets from the house and they sat huddled over their plates until there wasn't anything left.
Sam's impression of Ted from the wedding was that he was unlikable. Sam wanted him to remain unlikable to his friends. So far, Ted stared hard at his plate, concentrating on his food,
and only looked up when Bella spoke. Then he appeared overly attentive, a ghost of a smile hovering over his lips before he added a comment or reached over to whisk an errant strip of hair off her cheek. Sam, at Ted's glimpses of humanity, consoled himself with the notion that charm was a trait held by sociopaths. Especially when Ted directed a sudden stream of conversation toward Sam. They talked about the feasibility of eating locally, sustainable organic farms, and Sam's mother's award-winning goat cheese. Ted seemed enamored with the idea that Sam's mother had taken such a risk.
“When I was a kid I didn't really think of it as a risk, I thought of it as abandonment.” Sam felt the impact of his sentence as everyone got quiet. “Anyway, I guess that's old news now.”
“Hey, sorry, dude,” Ted offered. “I didn't realize it was a tough subject still.”
Sam shrugged. “A lot of shit went down that summer, that's all.” In his peripheral view he saw Suzie squirm in her seat and take a large gulp of wine. Was she worried that Sam was going to bring up her father? He looked down at his plate. She was his sister-in-law now, and he had to protect that familial bond. He could feel Bella's eyes on him, but he couldn't look at her and see disappointment yet again.
When the bottles of wine they had brought with them were almost gone, Ted stood. As he stretched and yawned he invited all of them to take a day trip the next morning to Martha's Vineyard. A college friend of his had recently moved there to work the family farm. To make amends for being such a giant prick, but all for Bella's benefit and not Ted's, Sam heard himself agreeing, and immediately regretted it. Peter and Frankie begged off, claiming they had to wait for the rest of the group to arrive the next day,
and Suzie said she just wanted to sleep on the beach. By then it was too awkward for Sam to try to get out of taking an excursion with Bella and Ted.
Sam stacked plates and carried them into the kitchen as everyone cleared the deck. He pretended not to hear Ted and Bella shuffle upstairs to a bedroom. Frankie and Peter had come inside and were bent over a chessboard in front of the fireplace. Sam went out to the deck to retrieve the last of the glasses and was surprised to see Suzie still there. She had nearly disappeared into two large blankets; her hands and a glass of red wine were all that was visible.
Suzie nodded toward the bottle on the floor by her chair. “Have one more drink with me?” Her words were soft and slurry.
Sam sat down next to her, picked up the bottle, and took a long swallow.
Suzie giggled. “Good man.”
Sam shook his head at the taste. He had been drinking beer and the wine tasted sour. “So, how are you?”
Suzie closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the blankets. “I'm sorry about that night.” She opened her eyes and squinted over at Sam. “I wasn't thinking very clearly or I would have called you.”
“Hey, come on.” He shrugged off her apology.
They sat looking out at the water without speaking for a long time. Suzie finished her wine and tucked the empty glass inside the nest of blankets. Sam wanted to go to bed. But he didn't want to leave her alone. “Where's Michael?”
“On call.”
“Too bad he couldn't come.”
“Yeah. So, how do you like Ted?”
“He seems great.”
She laughed quietly. “Liar.”
“What?”
Suzie put her fingers to her lips like she was about to tell a secret. She shook her head.
Sam felt a rush of fatigue that made the back of his head hum. He could close his eyes and be dead right here, or find a bed now. “I think I'm going to turn in. Did you drop your stuff in a room?”
“I'm all set, Sammy. Don't worry about me.” Suzie extricated a hand from the pile of blankets and waved her fingers. “I'm going to sit here a while longer, stare at the churning sea, and ponder the enormity of the cruel universe.” She gave him half a smile before she turned away to face the water. She was either dismissing him or saving him.
Sam hesitated. “You know, for the record, I think Ted's a dick.”
Suzie smiled. “There's my boy.”
“I'm not your boy,” Sam said, irritated. “Don't say that.”
“Iâm sorry. I didn't mean anything by it. I was just waiting for the real Sam to appear.”
“I don't know what the fuck you're getting at, Suzie.” Sam had never been this annoyed with her. But it occurred to him in that moment that maybe he didn't like Suzie all of the time.
Ted's friends had
fifty-five acres in Edgartown on Martha's Vineyard where they planted a variety of crops, including corn, beans, squash, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, beets, lettuce, spinach, and potatoes, along with a culinary herb garden and berries, peaches, and plums. On the farm was a tremendous post-and-beam barn, inside which was a kitchen where they produced seasonal dishes and baked goods for sale as well as eggs and freshly slaughtered beef and lamb from the farm in Chilmark that another son ran on family-owned land. The owners, Brian and Lori, had raised four
kids on the farm, and all of them had their hands in the family business in some capacity. Zeke, the son that Ted knew, had gone to school for aquaculture, which in Sam's limited understanding of Ted's rambling explanation had something to do with irrigation systems.
Out behind the barn an extension of the kitchen opened to the outdoors, where there was a roasting pit, grills, and, beneath an arbor crosshatched with vines, a long table made of planks of reclaimed wood resting on sawhorses, surrounded by stumps that could accommodate at least thirty people. The view over neatly plowed fields and shimmering expanses of green was stunning.
Lori insisted they stay for lunch. Sam devoured a zucchini and tomato pie, arugula and kale with lemon dill dressing, a delicate quiche threaded with scallions, and a peach tart. Everything they ate was from farm to table, and while Sam savored the flavors, he also ate ravenously, as if he couldn't get enough. After lunch, while Ted went off on a tractor with Zeke, and Bella sat at the table with Lori, Sam invited himself into the kitchen. Brian told him they had recently doubled the size because they were considering adding special-event dinners to their currently all-takeout menu; that part of the business was thriving, and the demand was only growing.
Sam fell in love in that kitchen. The surfaces were gleaming lengths of professional stainless, as were the walk-ins and ovens, but the walls were still the rough barn board. Overhead, notched beams crisscrossed the ceiling. Industrial-sized fans spun in lazy circles from those beams. What sealed the deal for Sam were the windows above the sinks, an expanse of glass that looked out onto a generous swath of the fields and beyond. The windows at the catering kitchen had looked out on a brick-walled alley.
The chefs, two women in their early twenties, showed Sam
around. One was going into her final year at Boston College and had spent the last four summers working there, and the other was new to the farm this year. She had tagged along with a boyfriend who planted and tended crops, but Sam recognized her starry-eyed look as his own as she talked about the farm. They allowed him to skim through the recipe notebooks, all the evidence of trial-and-error dishes recorded in each chef's hand. Because of the seasonal work, a lot of the chefs had used the farm kitchen as a launching pad to other kitchens, yet a few returned, their handwriting showing up in six-month cycles in the lined notebook pages.
Sam went back outside. Bella was sitting at the table alone. When she saw him she grinned. “You love this, don't you?”
Sam sat on a stump across from her and rested his elbows on the table, inexplicably remembering that last morning in her college apartment. They had taken a long, hot shower together and then he'd made breakfast. Sam remembered condensation on the naked windows, a spray of cinnamon toast, coffee, Bella sitting across from him at the table, the curled wisps of wet hair leaving damp circles on her shoulders, her smile. He realized as he looked at her now that in the time they had been apart he had mastered so many more ways to fail her. “It's a lot more than I expected,” Sam admitted, not giving Ted any extra credit.