An Exclusive Dining Experience

Part 4: Glimpsed in Candlelight

I'm not surprised when Tiffany holds up the blindfold and gives me a ductile smile. "You two are getting close, aren't you?" she asks in her Jersey accent. "So what do the two of you talk about in there, huh? Come on. I promise I won't tell your mother." She totally would.

I give her a small laugh as I take the blindfold from her. "Food and books, mostly," I tell her while I fit it in place. "You know, job stuff."

"Come on. You can give me one juicy detail," she begs.

"There's honestly nothing juicy to tell. I come, I eat, I fill out a survey. Simple as that."

"Yeah, well, when you fill out the one today, be sure to say more about Tony than that he's 'professional.' I know that office you work in gives you plenty more adjectives than that."

With the blindfold securely in place, Tiffany guides me into the back room. I can hear Antonio working already, metal spatula clicking against the grill. Several pots bubble to my right. I'm seated and the door behind me closes. I briefly wonder what she and the rest of his coworkers, including my mother, think of all this. I wouldn't stop coming if they disapproved, but part of me is still curious.

"I'm glad you came," he says warmly.

"I'm glad you invited me," I say. "Tony."

He gives a mockingly anguished groan. "Oh, don't you start calling me that too," he says with a small laugh. "It's bad enough that the entire staff has started calling me that. It's not professional at all."

"Alright, Antonio it is," I say with a chuckle. "You're starting to spoil me, you know. I made fried mushrooms and kept comparing them to the ones you made. Either you're going to have to keep cooking for me or I'm going to need to start paying for cooking lessons."

He laughs. "We've sort of developed a once a week pattern. We could keep it up if you want."

My smile softens. "I'd like that." I scratch my forehead through the scarf. "Blindfolded cooking lessons could get very interesting." I expected him to laugh, but he doesn't. The sound of metal on metal stops.

"Ok." He exhales slowly. "You can take it off."

I sit up a little straighter. "Are you sure?" I ask. He sounds scared. "If you aren't comfortable with it then I can wait."

"I want to peek," he says. "I want to know the invisible, transforming thing, even if I don't end up liking the answer."

I give him a reassuring smile. He'd taken the time to read East of the Sun, West of the Moon. Maybe he'd read Cupid and Psyche too. "I promise I won't turn out to be a troll."

"And I won't make you wait a year. Go ahead and take it off."

His voice is so gentle that I don't feel hesitant anymore. I slide my thumbs under the scarf and close my eyes as I lift it off my head. I lay it across my lap before blinking down at it.

There's more than just the vent hood light flitting across my hands. There are several live flames somewhere in front of me. Slowly, when my eyes have adjusted to the dim lighting, past the flickering candles and the countertop and the cooking range and the trays of freshly cooked food. I continue to lift my eyes until I'm looking at his face.

There's his tawny skin, his sweeping black hair, his full face, his dark eyes, and something more. Across his right cheek, his eyebrow, and his forehead his skin is red and lumpy. It changes the shape of his eyebrow, causing it to sink low over his eye by half an inch. It picks up again across his left cheekbone. I find myself wondering if it trails around under his hairline.

Because I'm looking at it I don't realize at first that he's holding his breath. I exhale for him and lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees and my chin on the back of my hands. "Well, I won't pretend like it's not there if that's what you were expecting," I say. I glance over it once more before meeting his eye. "So give me the practiced speech. The one you're tired of having to repeat."

He finally starts breathing again and gives a nervous smile. "It's called phymatous rosacea. It's usually all over the face and the deformity in the nose, but I'm weird and it likes my forehead instead. I've had it since I was a kid. It won't go away without expensive and painful laser surgeries but it won't get any worse either. Some days it's redder than others, but it's generally like this. No, it's not cancer and no it's not contagious.

"I prefer cooking where most people can't see me because when they do they always look at me and my food like I'm going to infect them with something." He looks at one of the candles, turning the blotchier side of his face away from me. "I cooked for a senator's daughter once. She liked my food so much she asked to thank me in person. She literally puked when I came out of the kitchen."

I pick up something off the tray in front of me, some sort of bruschetta, and pop it into my mouth. "What a shallow hussie."

He gives a small laugh as I swallow. "Yeah. I thought something similar at the time." He turns back to face me slowly, his eyes hold a swath of emotion too deep for me to understand. "And you?"

"Ok."

"Ok?"

" It's there. It's a part of you. I'm ok with that."

He closes his eyes and smiles down at the grill. "I was hoping you would say that. Thank you."

"Thank you for trusting me." I keep my eyes on his face and my wide smile seems to calm him.

"What?" he asks, giving a small laugh.

"Does this mean that I get to keep the blindfold off from now on?" I ask. "I like getting to see your face."

He shakes his head. "Now I just feel ridiculous. I should have let you take it off weeks ago."

"It was worth the wait. The important thing is that you're comfortable with it," I say. "And second question," I point to the bruschetta, "what did I just eat? Because wow."

We talk and laugh and eat for the next couple of hours. Despite me being able to see where the food is he still insists on feeding me a few items and I get him to let me give him some of his own cooking in return. We probably would have stayed there if Sidhe hadn't popped his head out of the kitchen saying that it was time for the next reservation. "Are we still on for next week?" he asks.

I nod. "Definitely."