Chapter Twenty Three- What It All Was
I didn’t know how my mother would react to the news, but I had to tell her anyway. I thought she would freak out or simply be mad at me. My mother would probably be that kind of person. But she did not. She did not freak out.
After telling her that I found a boyfriend, she was happy. No, wait. She was ecstatic. And yet she ended up sobbing into the phone. She was speaking incoherently as she sobbed, and though it was really hard to understand, I picked out a few words here and there, like me, finally moving on, or something for the better. And something about Blue Cove being the right thing after all.
When she’d said that, or more like sobbed that out, I found myself stopping absently and thinking of the words. Blue Cove was the right thing after all. I thought about them because, in the end, they were true.
I ended the call when she calmed down. I already told her about Dad and Nate, two guys in my life.
“Was that Rebecca?” Aunt Isby came in from the front door. She hung her keys and took off her shoes off on the doorway.
“Uhh, yeah,” I replied.
She nodded. “What’d she say?”
I didn’t really explain much, but I told her what we talked about. She nodded and understood this. And then I realized how tired she looked. She was beautiful, yes, always, but there was something quite missing. I just wasn’t sure what it was.
“Are you okay?” I asked her.
She looked at me for a second and I could tell that something really was wrong. She had dark rings around her eyes and she looked more exhausted than she ever did. But then she answered, “Fine. Just fine.”
And when she left, I knew she wasn’t exactly in the mood for my nosy attitude so I just let her leave, wondering, behind her, what was so different.
I scarce believe my love to be so pure
As I had thought it was,
Because it doth endure
Vicissitude and season, as the grass;
Me thinks I lied all winter, when I swore
My love was infinite, if spring make it more.
John Donne’s Love Growth. I wish I wrote these words for you.
Still wishing,
Vince, That Basketball Player
I smiled. It was the seventh letter. Each was just as beautiful as another. All those seven letters I read. Four have been poems, and two were songs, one was a real letter, where he said things like one day, another person in the future would do the same thing he did, writing poems of other famous authors. But the poems would not be Shakespeare’s or Auden’s. He said they’d be mine.
I wiped some tears away. I wasn’t even sad. It was more like a fleeting feeling. Like thinking that there could have been something more, but we did not have the chance. Something like that. But I didn’t regret not having that chance. Yes, at first, I did. But little by little, I learned about some things. I was still learning.
Nate smiled at me. “Wow. He must have been a hopeless romantic.” He flashed me his smile.
We were in my room. This was his third time going in my room. We were both sitting on the floor, leaning our backs against my bed.
“He was not,” I said, quickly defensive.
“Well, no wonder you’re not over him.” He took the letter from me and scanned it once again.
“Oh, Nate,” I said, because for once, he was wrong. “I’m over him.”
“Well, if you are, why are you crying?” he challenged, but there was some gentleness and seriousness in his voice.
“Well, if I was, then why would I be here with you?”
He looked at me, right into my eyes, and my breath caught in my throat. I could hear my heart beating louder, faster. He still had this effect on me.
“Ah,” he said, voice merely above a whisper.
“Ah.”
He handed me the letter back and I put it in my drawer.
“Aren’t you even jealous that I'm piling up my dead boyfriend’s letters?” I asked him.
“No,” he replied. “Maybe a little. But no. You can have his letters or whatever, keep those as long as you keep me.”
I raised my brows, but I knew that my cheeks were starting to brighten. But I still tried to regain my composure and said, “Well, aren’t you sounding a little poetic as well?”
He smiled, all casual. “At least, I'm not blushing tomato red.”
My eyes widened. “I'm not blushing!”
“Sure, and you don’t like me,” he said.
I groaned. “Why do you keep bringing that one up?”
“Which one?” he asked me.
I stammered, fumbling for some words. Then I said, “You know. Every time you know that you’re losing to me, you always bring that up. That, uhh, I like you, and all.”
“Ah.” He nodded, a faint smile on his face. “Why do you think?”
“Because it annoys me?” I suggested.
He shook his head. “Try again.”
“Oh, just tell me.”
He smiled. “Simply because I like hearing, and saying, it so much.”
My heart could have skyrocketed at that instant.
“I’m going,” he said.
He touched my forehead and kissed me on my cheek. The usual. With my heart beating loudly and threatening to fly out of my chest before I knew it, I just let him pull away before closing the gap between us again, and kissing him on his lips.
I pulled back first. “Come on.”
“Or I could stay longer and get another one of those,” he said.
I rolled my eyes and laughed.
“Well, there’s not much of where that came from,” I said.
“Really, now?” He looked at me for a long moment. I was pretty much squirming beneath that gaze.
“Really.”
He smiled.
And he kissed me anyway.
---
“I quit my job,” Aunt Isby said, which made everyone, from me to Eli, stare at her like he was crazy.
We were all there by chance, and when she walked in, she was actually surprised to see at all. But then she said that maybe it was good, having to say it only once. And when she did, God, did we feel so shocked.
“Why?” Lai asked.
She shrugged. “Okay. First, don’t freak. Second, I will not be reconsidering another option.”
“Okay,” Kelli said. “Spill.”
Aunt Isby sighed and her shoulders sort of sagged for a while before she started to smile. “My job was stressing me out. The head chef did not like my recipe. Says it was too American! God, what was wrong with that person?”
We still stared at her.
“But this is the main reason,” Aunt Isby said. “I’m opening up my own restaurant.”
---
Slowly, slowly, very slowly, I’m finding it in Aunt Isby again. That… flair. That was what seemed to have been missing. She always had this look which said something like she was up for anything. The whole new restaurant thing pulled it back out of her.
“The point is, it’s not about the name. It’s the quality of the food that matters,” Violet said.
Lai shook his head violently. “Do you want to eat somewhere with a bad sign? Of course not. It’s all about what the store looks like.”
“It’s both,” I said, and they all looked at me. I’d been quiet for the first part of the conversation that it seemed like they were even surprised that I’d spoken up. “Well,” I continued, “it’s what the restaurant looks like that attracts the people”—Lai grinned, saying something like Ha!—“but it’s the quality of the food that keeps them coming back for more.” Violet smirked at Lai and stuck his tongue out.
“I almost forgot that your mother owns a restaurant,” Kevin said.
I shrugged. “Well, it’s not like I talk much about it, really.”
“Wow. I didn’t even know your family owns a restaurant,” Lai said. “I mean, even I can cook better than you!”
My eyes widened, face flushed. “It’s my mother’s, so why should I even learn how to?” I crossed my arms over my chest.
A hand on my shoulder made me look up. In fact, it made all of us look up. It was Nate, who was, of course, fashionably late. “Hey, guys. What’s with the heated discussion?”
I rolled my eyes at him. “Nothing about it is heated.”
“There it is again. Why on earth are you so annoyed?” His face was neutral, but his eyes were definitely amused.
“Well, she’s just mad because I can cook better than her,” Lai answered, much to my distaste. I couldn’t help but scowl. As Nate took a seat beside me, he began chuckling softly.
“No one cooks better than Lai,” he said. Everyone laughed and Lai yelled “Hey!” but was ignored, as if by protocol. “Really. Nobody does.”
“Apparently, I do,” I said. “I can’t even go near a stove.”
Everyone stared at me.
“What?” I asked, wondering if I had dirt on my face or if I said something remotely unbelievable or whatever.
“Well, it’s not a matter of who cooks better. Lai is at least trying to learn,” Nate said, “while you didn’t try at all. Of course he’d be better than you.”
“Finally!” Lai yelled triumphantly.
“But no one ever said that he’s good,” Nate added, which pretty much made Lai’s spirits dramatically drop.
And then there was that simple thing in my mind, going off, or more like starting to move again. I could almost see it in my mind, almost picture it, almost grab it. Same with Aunt Isby, who wanted to open up this restaurant. That “flair” I was talking about was slowly coming back again. She would be, I knew for sure, ready to face anything head on.
Likewise, my mind started to move. And I knew I had to say it, otherwise I wouldn’t get another chance.
“I’d like to learn how to cook, then,” I said out loud.
Now, everyone really stared at me. And not like the last time, but like they couldn’t believe it was me right now.
“Really?” Kelli asked me.
I nodded. “Really.”
“Wow,” Violet said. “Suddenly, it’s like you have this… flair or something around you.”
The corners of my lips twitched up to a smile.
If they could see it too, then I was ready to face something head on.
“If you want to learn how to cook, you need to learn from the master,” Nate said.
“And that’s Aunt Isby?” I asked him.
He seemed to have considered it, and I was surprised because I thought he was already talking about her. “Well, technically, yeah,” he said, taking a jar of peanut butter from the shelf. We were out shopping, just the two of us, for some groceries. “But if we’re talking about somebody other than her, that would be me.”
I looked at him. “Don’t kid around.”
He shrugged. “I am not kidding around.”
“Yes, you are,” I said.
He smiled. “Ah, well, no, I’m not.”
“I don’t believe it. There is no way you can actually be called the master, let alone know how to cook,” I said.
With that, he laughed. “Hello? My mother was, like, some sort of recipe Buddha or something. One second she’d be knitting something, and the next you’ll find her in the kitchen, cooking something. She doesn’t even make recipes once she thinks about them. When the idea pops into her head, she’ll just be in the kitchen tossing everything in her mind together.”
He took some choco dip as well.
“And the thing is, it always smelled so great.”
I still just looked at him.
“I learned to cook from her,” he said. “I was watching her all the time. So I was sort of in charge with the written recipes. I write while she cooks, and then I’ll try it one time.”
My face must have registered a blank expression. I couldn’t believe it. Was I the only one who couldn’t actually cook something decent? Even my boyfriend could cook better than me.
“Okay, fine then. Teach me,” I said.
“Sure. My place.”
I froze. “Y-your place?”
“Yeah, why not?” He shrugged.
“I—I never even met your mom. I don’t think she’ll like me.”
He laughed. “Trust me. She likes everyone, except me. I was always a pain in the ass for her. You know? Like something she would have preferred to disown, but was still kept.”
“That’s impossible. Everybody likes you.”
“Not everyone,” he replied, examining some pack of chocolate chip cookies. “You didn’t like me.”
“At first,” I said.
He smiled, then, and looked right at me, pack of cookies still in his hand. “And now you claim you do.”
I groaned. “Here you are, bringing this up again!”
“What can I do?” He lifted a shoulder and threw the cookies on the push cart as well, adding it to the pile of stuff he bought.
“Can’t you just get over it?” I pleaded.
“Can’t.” He cocked his head to the side, hair falling across his forehead.
I was struck, again, by how he looked when he did that. I looked away. “You better,” I said, willing my voice to stay firmer. Gosh, why now?
He laughed.
“Didn’t you ever have a girlfriend before?”
“Nope. You’re the first one,” he said.
That made me feel all awkward. This was not my first time. We both knew that. But I was shocked when I heard that this was his. Ours was his.
“Don’t think about it,” Nate said. He lifted his hands from the push cart and put them on my shoulders. Firm and steady. That was Nate. Always had been him. “I… I want this,” he said. “I want all of it.”
He didn’t release me straightaway. I think it’s because he wanted me to believe in him. I sucked in a deep breath and said, “Me too.”
Now, he released me. “I’m glad.”
What he didn’t know was the fact that, more than anyone else, even more than him, no one could have been happier than I was.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s pay and leave. I think I might want to go to the beach.”
I smiled. “Yeah. Come on. Let’s call the rest.”
“Great,” he said.
And it was. I realized, then, that it all was.