“Is that a bad thing?” Jack asked.
“No, not really,” I admitted, and finally took a step back so he could come inside. He smiled at my brother and his eyes quickly scanned the apartment.
“My mom’s just not awake yet.”
“Oh.” He glanced at the clock on the wall, noting that it was after seven.
“When does she get up?”
“I’ll go get her now,” Milo offered, wiping his hands on his jeans and stepping away from a pan.
“Oh, sorry,” I fumbled, realizing that I hadn’t introduced them. “Jack, this is my brother Milo. Milo, this my friend Jack.”
“Nice to meet you.” Milo did a little half wave/half nod combo, then darted off to get my mom.
“I think I make him nervous,” Jack told me quietly.
“Everyone makes him nervous,” I reassured him.
“Hmm.” We were standing rather awkwardly in the kitchen, although I did feel slightly better now that he was around. He had a kind of calming effect on me, but I didn’t know if that was good or bad. My mother was squawking things rather loudly at Milo, so I decided to make conversation to drown at the sound of her.
“So, are you hungry?” I gestured to the pans of some kind of Italian creation Milo had been making on the stove. “Milo’s making something delicious. He’s a really good cook.”
“Actually, I just ate.” Jack smiled sheepishly and put his hand on his stomach. “Sorry. I figured that since we were meeting so late, you’d probably already have eaten. And Mae insisted on feeding me.”
“Oh, that’s okay.” But suddenly I felt more nervous. In truth, I wasn’t that hungry and I could really care less if he ate or not. It was just that without the distraction of eating, a conversation with my mother would be much less pleasant. Then a tantalizing idea occurred to me. Maybe we could just turn this into more of a meet-and-greet kind of thing, where Jack could say hello to my mother and then just sweep me away. “So… do you wanna go someplace or something?”
“I thought I was meeting your mother.” Jack looked confused and pointed to my mother’s closed bedroom door, where Milo was still trying to convince her to put on some pants and a housecoat to see Jack. My heart went out to him, and he had more than made up for telling Mom about Jack.
“I mean, after that,” I explained. “Since you’re not eating. It would be silly to sit around here and watch them eat.”
“Aren’t you hungry?”
“I’ll live.” There were like ten million places to eat in the Cities, and this was the only one that included strained dinner conversation with my mother.
I’m sure that I could find someplace if I really had to.
“Alright,” he shrugged and leaned back against the kitchen counter.
“What did you have in mind?”
“Pretty much anything, as long as it’s not here.”
“I get it,” he nodded knowingly.
“I’m up!” Mom shouted, and a few seconds later, Milo rushed out of her room, looking rather frazzled.
“She’ll be right out,” Milo muttered. He went back over to the stove and stirred something simmering in a pan, looking relieved to be back cooking instead of with Mom.
“Do you need help with anything?” I offered.
There were freshly washed vegetables sitting in the sink, and he had two pans on the stove boiling with food, not to mention the oven was preheating for something. I started feeling guilty about him making this massive feast on my behalf, and I wasn’t even going to eat it. Well, later on tonight, I’d dig into the cold leftovers and watch cartoons, but that wasn’t the same as sitting down to his meticulously crafted meal.
“You can slice some of the vegetables if you want,” Milo glanced back at me.
“What are they for?” I pulled out the cutting board and a knife, setting them on the counter next to where Jack was leaning. Grabbing a tomato and green pepper from the sink, I repeated the question to Milo, who’d become distracted by seasoning a red sauce bubbling in a frying pan. “What am I cutting the vegetables for?”
“The salad.” He tasted the sauce, which must’ve satisfied him, because he flipped off the stove, and pulled out a cake pan. I think he was making some kind of special lasagna with all types of homemade everything, but I couldn’t be sure because when he explained things to me, he always used culinary terms that I didn’t understand. “I made a special vinaigrette.”
“Everything smells fantastic,” Jack complimented him. Milo had his back to us, but I could see his cheeks reddening a little as he laid out noodles in the pan. Maybe Milo wasn’t completely immune to Jack’s allure either.
“I have bad news though.” I lowered my voice, afraid my mother might hear me. She had yet to emerge from her bedroom, but I decided that was a good thing. Carefully slicing a tomato, I saw Milo’s shoulders tense up and he looked hesitatingly at me. “We’re not actually gonna eat here.” His face fell, but he quickly looked away, trying to hide it.
“It’s my fault really,” Jack said apologetically. As he talked, I could tell his voice was working its magic on Milo, and he relaxed a little. “I didn’t realize I was supposed to eat here, so I went ahead and ate at home. And then I made plans for us in a little bit. I’m really sorry, though. I can tell I’m missing a fantastic meal.”
“It’s fine,” Milo said, and he sounded almost like he meant it. He had finished putting his ingredients together in the pan, so he put it in the oven.
He’d already set the table, so he went over to start clearing the extra two places for Jack and me.
“Milo-” I started to turn and apologize to him further. He had this way of looking like a little boy when he was sad, and it just broke my heart.
Unfortunately, I decided to try and keep cutting the green pepper as I turned, and that wasn’t the smartest move ever. The knife sliced sharply into the index finger of my left hand, and I yelped painfully. “Damn it!”
“What?” Milo instantly stopped what he was doing and rushed over to me.
He’d spent enough time with me in the kitchen to know that I usually ended with cuts or burns after doing even the simplest tasks. “What’d you cut?”
“I just got my finger,” I winced, squeezing my fingers around it to stop the bleeding. Milo, being the smart one, grabbed a washcloth to put on it.
“Maybe you should run that under water,” Jack interjected, his voice sounding oddly stiff. Milo turned on the water, yanking my hand under it, but I looked over at Jack. He had taken a few steps away from me, and he’d gone pale. I guess the sight of blood didn’t agree with him.
“It’s not that bad.” Milo examined my finger under the water, but I kept my eyes fixed on Jack. He had looked away from me and taken another step back. The sight of the blood, even the small amount that it was, had really effected him, so I hurried to clean it up. “I’ll get you a Band-Aid.”
Milo darted off to the bathroom to retrieve a Boba Fett Band-Aid from the medicine cabinet. I left my finger running under the water, even though I think it had stopped bleeding. With my other hand, I used the washcloth to wipe off the cutting bored, pushing bloodied slices of green pepper into the sink and down the drain.
“What’s going on?” Mom always had the best timing and chose just then to come out of the bedroom. Her hair was its usually frizzy mess, but she’d managed to put on worn out jeans and an over sized sweatshirt with paint splattered all over it.
“I just cut my finger,” I explained, holding up my injured appendage. Milo came out of the bathroom and jogged over to me. As if I were a complete invalid, he started drying my finger with a paper towel before putting on the Band-Aid.
“Milo, you know better than to let her help you in the kitchen,” Mom scolded. She went over to the coffee table to grab an ash tray, then lit a cigarette as she walked back into the kitchen. Her eyes scanned over Jack quickly, but she didn’t say anything to him. Instead, she just set the ashtray on the kitchen table and sat down.
“Sorry,” Jack mumbled once my finger was sufficiently bandaged.
Whatever had gotten to him seemed to be dissipating and the color in his cheeks returned.
“I’m the one that cut my finger. There’s no reason for you to be sorry.” I looked over at him, and he smiled at me, but it wasn’t his usual cheerful grin. It looked a little forced, but he was determined to shake it off and move on.