Part 12 (1/2)

She stopped, embarra.s.sed. ”I talk too much.”

”No,” Ian replied. ”It is wonderful.” He looked at her for a long time. ”You know, I have always felt exactly the opposite. No, really”-he laughed, seeing her face-”all I ever wanted was to be certain of things. I listen to you, and it reminds me of this puppy I saw in the park the other day. He just leapt out into the lake after this ball. He never wondered if the ball would float, or if there was a bottom to the lake, or if he would have enough energy to get back to the sh.o.r.e, or his master would even be there when he got back...” Ian slowed, fl.u.s.tered. ”Not that I think you are like a dog.”

”Certainly not,” answered Antonia, amused. They continued pulling up the linoleum for a time; the fir floors were showing clearly now, the glowing oranges and yellows in the wood changing the room, making it feel warmer, more alive, a part of the world outside as well as in.

”You know, Ian,” Antonia commented, ”my father always said a person needs a reason to leave and a reason to go. But I think sometimes the reason to go is so big, it fills you so much, that you don't even think of why you are leaving, you just do.”

”And you just believe you'll make it back to sh.o.r.e?”

”With the ball.” Antonia laughed.

AFTER THE LINOLEUM DATE, as Ian preferred to think of it, he had a hard time concentrating on anything other than Antonia. Even so, it had taken him months to get up the courage to ask her to dinner. In fact, if it hadn't been for Lillian, and a vigorous poke in the ribs from Chloe, Ian might never have worked up the courage to ask Antonia to dinner at all.

But Antonia had said yes, as if perhaps she had been waiting, as if perhaps she had found his own hesitancy endearing, which only made him more nervous as the evening approached.

IAN PICKED UP the phone and dialed his mother's number. When she answered, her voice had the excited quality that Ian knew meant she was in the middle of a new painting. the phone and dialed his mother's number. When she answered, her voice had the excited quality that Ian knew meant she was in the middle of a new painting.

”I can call back,” he said quickly.

”No, I saw it was you.” His mother's voice was happy. Ian pictured a painting filled with yellows and blues.

”How are you?” she asked.

”Everything's fine. Work is fine.” He paused. ”I'm taking the cooking cla.s.s.”

”How's it going?”

”Why did you give me a cooking cla.s.s?” The words jumped from his mouth, unbidden. ”I mean, you never cooked.”

”No, not so much.” Ian could almost hear his mother smiling.

”Then why did you give it to me?”

”Well”-his mother paused, searching-”when I paint, it brings me joy. I wanted you to have that, too.”

”I'm not a painter, Mom.”

”Perhaps not, but you are a cook.”

”How did you know that?”

”Maybe it was your expression when you would taste what I made.” His mother's laugh rang across the phone lines. ”Don't worry, you really did try to be polite about it.

”So,” she continued, ”what are you going to cook for her?” ”Who?”

”The woman.”

”How do you know there's a woman?”

”Ian, I may be a visual woman, but I do have ears.” There was that smile again. ”Besides, your sister told me. What are you going to cook?”

”I'm not sure yet,” Ian hesitated.

”But you have an idea...” his mother coaxed.

”Yes,” replied Ian, and suddenly he knew. ”I was thinking beef bourguignon. Something rich and comforting. With a deep red wine to match it. She's like that. And maybe a tiramisu for dessert, all those layers of cake and whipped cream and rum and coffee. And espresso, no sugar, for contrast.”

He stopped, embarra.s.sed. He realized he sounded like someone he knew, and then realized he was talking to her.

IAN'S APARTMENT was small, the distinction between dining and kitchen table a psychological rather than physical one, and in any case only large enough for two. But Ian had bought a round white linen tablecloth and borrowed heavy silver candlesticks from his elderly neighbor downstairs who required only that Ian tell her every detail the next day, a payment Ian sincerely hoped he would be able to mortgage. He had debated for a long half hour at the florist shop over what he should buy until the exasperated store owner had simply opened the huge refrigerator full of roses and daisies and carnations and shoved him inside. was small, the distinction between dining and kitchen table a psychological rather than physical one, and in any case only large enough for two. But Ian had bought a round white linen tablecloth and borrowed heavy silver candlesticks from his elderly neighbor downstairs who required only that Ian tell her every detail the next day, a payment Ian sincerely hoped he would be able to mortgage. He had debated for a long half hour at the florist shop over what he should buy until the exasperated store owner had simply opened the huge refrigerator full of roses and daisies and carnations and shoved him inside.

”Choose for yourself,” she said, and he had seen them at the back, resting quietly on a shelf above the white plastic buckets of red carnations and yellow daisies. Dusty dark purple tulips, their edges touched with black. They had cost almost as much as the bottle of Cotes du Rhone resting in the bottom of his shopping bag, but he didn't care.

THE BEEF BOURGUIGNON was bubbling in the oven, the smells of meat and red wine, onions and bay leaf and thyme murmuring like travelers on a late-night train. The kitchen was damp from the heat of cooking; Ian opened the window above the sink and the scent of the basil and oregano plants on the window-sill awoke with the breeze. He stood in front of the window, the warm water and soap slipping between his fingers as he washed the pots and pans, setting them to drain in the wooden dish rack, feeling the cool air run over his damp skin. When the kitchen was clean, he pulled out miniature bottles of dark rum and Grand Marnier, then the ingredients he had found at the Italian store on the other side of town-thick white mascarpone, whipping cream, bars of bittersweet and milk and white chocolate, glossy black espres...o...b..ans, and a blue box of pale was bubbling in the oven, the smells of meat and red wine, onions and bay leaf and thyme murmuring like travelers on a late-night train. The kitchen was damp from the heat of cooking; Ian opened the window above the sink and the scent of the basil and oregano plants on the window-sill awoke with the breeze. He stood in front of the window, the warm water and soap slipping between his fingers as he washed the pots and pans, setting them to drain in the wooden dish rack, feeling the cool air run over his damp skin. When the kitchen was clean, he pulled out miniature bottles of dark rum and Grand Marnier, then the ingredients he had found at the Italian store on the other side of town-thick white mascarpone, whipping cream, bars of bittersweet and milk and white chocolate, glossy black espres...o...b..ans, and a blue box of pale savoiardi savoiardi cookies. He laid them carefully along the counter, adding a canister of sugar and four eggs, cool from the refrigerator. cookies. He laid them carefully along the counter, adding a canister of sugar and four eggs, cool from the refrigerator.

Ian looked at the a.s.sembled group in front of him. ”We're making this for her,” he told the ingredients, ”and I've never done this before, so a little help wouldn't hurt.”

He started with a thing he knew. From the cabinet next to the sink he took a small stovetop espresso pot, bought the weekend after the linoleum date with Antonia. As with making rice, the espresso pot had started out as a source of frustration, but over the weeks as he had practiced, learning the tricks and desires of the small, simple machine, the preparation of his small cup of espresso had become a ritual part of his morning, as necessary as a shower, as familiar and calming as watering the pots on his windowsill. So it was with a sense of easy affection that he filled the base with water and then ground the espres...o...b..ans. When the sound in the grinder changed from the rattling of beans to the breathy whirring of the blades, he stopped the machine and carefully spooned the grounds into the center metal container of the espresso pot, using the base of his thumb to tamp down the soft brown ma.s.s, feeling the grounds give beneath his finger like fine, warm dirt, the texture comforting, familiar.

How hard it must have been for Antonia, Ian thought, to leap across the ocean and leave all the sounds and smells, the tastes and textures she had always known. More and more recently he realized how much these very things made up his life. If he had told anyone at work about the little burst of pleasure he felt each time he opened the coffee grinder and released the smell of the grounds into his little apartment, they would laugh at him, and yet, these days, he noticed things like that. How his sense of balance was strengthened by the sight of the red walls of the Chinese restaurant below him or by the conversations the students had around the wooden prep counter in Lillian's kitchen after the cla.s.s was officially over but no one really wanted to leave.

He placed the pot on the stove and listened again, as the water heated then boiled, rising like a little, contained tornado through the grounds until the coffee gurgled into the upper chamber and the kitchen filled with the smell, riding on the steam, pure and strong, like the first shovelful of dirt after a spring rain.

More than anyone he knew, Antonia carried these things with her, in the million sweet and careful rituals that still made up her life, no matter what country she was in. He saw it in the way she cut bread, or drank wine, in the whimsical tower she had made out of the ripped-up linoleum tiles, just for the joy of it, or perhaps for the expression on his face when he returned to the big old kitchen and saw it, a friendly welcome, a moment of creativity in the middle of a hot and dirty project. Antonia made celebrations of things he had always dismissed as moments to be rushed through on the way to something more important. Being around her, he found even everyday experiences were deeper, nuanced, satisfaction and awareness slipped in between the layers of life like love notes hidden in the pages of a textbook.

The espresso fell in a dark, silken stream into the small white bowl. Ian opened the bottles of rum and Grand Marnier, hearing the slight crack of the seal, breathing in before adding the soft brown and pale golden liquid to the espresso. The alcohol was strong and spicy; it seemed to glide effortlessly from the air into his bloodstream, from the bottle into the espresso, lingering there lazy and relaxed, two ounces of secrets waiting in the bottom of a bowl the size of his hand.

The large white eggsh.e.l.l cracked once against the side of the metal mixing bowl. Slowly, Ian slid the glistening orange yolk back and forth between the two cups of the sh.e.l.l, allowing the clear egg white to fall into the bowl below. The yolks he put in a small metal pot on the stove, spooning in sugar afterward.

And then he entered unfamiliar territory. The recipe told him to heat and beat the egg yolks and sugar until they changed color and formed ribbons, something ”partway to zabaglione”-a term Ian didn't know. Antonia would know, he was sure, but Ian wanted his tiramisu to be a surprise. He took a quick look at the clock and saw with alarm that Antonia was due in fifteen minutes. He turned the heat on low under the pot, and put his laptop on the counter, searching the Internet for ”zabaglione.” Before he could get past the impatient prompting of the search engine asking him if he wasn't actually looking for a word with another vowel or two, the egg yolks in the pot were already curdling into hard, scrambled globs that no amount of frantic whisking could save.

Ian started over. Washed out the pot, closed his laptop. This time he picked up the hand mixer and let the beaters skim lightly over the surface of the egg yolks while they heated, pulling the sugar into the liquid as it thickened, forming small waves along the edge of the pan. He watched as the mixture became denser and he held his breath in antic.i.p.ation of another catastrophe, but then as he watched, the eggs and sugar miraculously became lighter in color, a comforting yellow, the concoction falling in long, sinuous ribbons when he turned off the mixer and gently raised the beaters from the pot.

While the egg yolks cooled, he directed the beaters at the egg whites, setting the mixer on a high speed that sent small bubbles giggling to the side of the bowl, where a few became many until they were a white froth rising up and then laying down again in patterns and ridges, leaving an intricate design like the ribs of a leaf in the wake of the beaters.

Next, the mascarpone. Lighter than cream cheese and a bit sweeter, it slid into the cooled egg yolks and sugar, making cream from custard, the color of sweet, freshly churned b.u.t.ter. The heavier egg yolk and mascarpone yielded with a sigh into the egg-white foam; under his hand the mixture grew ever lighter until it seemed to lift itself and the spoon moved through it all without effort.

The whipping cream was last, becoming firmer under the influence of the beaters rather than softer, the peaks finally reaching up to meet the beaters even as he pulled them away in order to add a soft snow shower of grated white chocolate.

Satisfied, Ian set the bowl aside and reached for the savoiardi savoiardi cookies. He had had ladyfingers as a child-spongy, soft, part of a whipped chocolate freezer dessert, the oval cookies lined up vertically along the outside like debutantes in a receiving line. But the cookies. He had had ladyfingers as a child-spongy, soft, part of a whipped chocolate freezer dessert, the oval cookies lined up vertically along the outside like debutantes in a receiving line. But the savoiardi savoiardi were firm, delightfully crisp-if these were ladies, Ian thought with amus.e.m.e.nt, they were demanding respect. Ian laid them out, one after another, in a row along the bottom of a gla.s.s bowl and dipped a brush into the espresso and rum and Grand Marnier. He ran the tip of the brush smoothly along the top of the cookies, each stroke a bit longer than the last, and watched as the liquid sank deeply into their surface, like rain into desert sand. were firm, delightfully crisp-if these were ladies, Ian thought with amus.e.m.e.nt, they were demanding respect. Ian laid them out, one after another, in a row along the bottom of a gla.s.s bowl and dipped a brush into the espresso and rum and Grand Marnier. He ran the tip of the brush smoothly along the top of the cookies, each stroke a bit longer than the last, and watched as the liquid sank deeply into their surface, like rain into desert sand.

When the cookies were dense with liquid, Ian gently, carefully spooned a layer of the creamy egg-whitemascarpone across them. When they were covered, he took a sharp knife and ran it along the edge of the bar of bittersweet chocolate, hard and dense, falling in a dark, velvety dust across the creamy white surface, then the milk chocolate, curling off like wood shavings. Then he repeated the whole process again and again until the bowl was almost full, a tower of cake and cream and chocolate. Lincoln logs all grown up, Ian thought, then spread an almost impossibly soft layer of white chocolate and whipping cream across the top.