Food Whore (19 page)

We looked at each other in the bathroom mirror, the illustrious critic and his protégée.

When we returned to the table, I touched my face every second, hoping it had magically deflated through a vent in the back of my head. I checked my reflection in the back of my spoon, but that made my face look fatter and redder. Michael Saltz stayed nearly silent the whole time, just looking at me and waiting for me to recover so I could do his work.

Hugo rushed to our table. “Oh, dear!” he said. “Are you allergic to shellfish?”

I didn't have to answer. He knew.

Hugo took a deep breath, and his face turned bright red, maybe as red as mine.

“I should have told you that there's a lobster gelée on the bottom of the custard cup.”

“Of course you should have told us!” Michael Saltz said, in the most direct voice I had ever heard him use to address a waiter.

“This is my fault entirely. I'm so sorry. It's Chef's play on ‘fruit on the bottom' yogurt. The bill will be on us, naturally,” Hugo said, though I think Michael Saltz had already assumed it would. “Please let me know if there's anything I can do to make this up to you.” He closed his eyes as he spoke. I wanted to give him a hug and tell him I was fine, that it wasn't his mistake. The onus was on me to tell them of my allergy. It was my fault I had been distracted enough to eat that custard.

“Let's go,” Michael Saltz said. “
Now.
”

I wondered if Hugo would be fired that night. Certainly by the time the review came out. Michael Saltz had the power to end his career. And to some extent, I did, too.

“That was a disgrace,” Michael Saltz grunted when we left the restaurant. The day was misty, and taxis made a slurping noise as they zipped their way over fallen leaves and across Sixty-­Eighth Street. “I would have liked you to finish the meal.”

Seriously? I couldn't believe I had thought for one second that he cared about me. He'd only taken care of me because I'd have blown his cover if he hadn't done anything. Sure, he had taken care of me. But he'd also looked put-­upon, like I was a chore. He'd never be my ally and I told myself never to think that was a possibility ever again. When it came down to it, I was just as alone as before.

“Oh, well,” I countered. “I'm terribly sorry to have inconvenienced you with my near-­death experience. You wouldn't even let me tell them that I was allergic. Why didn't
you
eat the regular menu while I got a modified one?”

“Oh, yes, I'll eat the regular menu. Me. Fuck
me
. Do you . . .” He grabbed the top of his pants and shook them around his sickly thin legs. “Do you understand that all food is cardboard to me? That these riches are nothing more than calories? Of course you wouldn't. You're young. You're healthy. What I've been through . . . what I'm going through . . .”

His mouth hung in exhaustion, and amazingly, I felt bad for him again. But was his pain genuine or a trick?

Michael Saltz shook his head, spooked. Something about the episode had hit a nerve.

“I'm free tomorrow, if you want to come back,” I finally said. I didn't have to love Michael Saltz, I just had to tolerate him. Until spring semester, I'd play by the rules. Then Helen would be mine and maybe I'd be able to return to some degree of normalcy.

“Don't bother,” he said. “Where did you say you needed to go?” He just wanted to dispose of me.

“My boyfriend is hosting a botany symposium at three.”

“Three?” Michael Saltz pulled up his sleeve and looked at his watch. “It's three ten now.”

“Shit!” I cried and touched my face. Still swollen. I looked at my reflection in a silver plaque on the side of the building. Not only had the swelling not gone down, but the cold had made my face even redder. I pushed my cheeks in with the heels of my hands, as if I could shape my face into something acceptable. I pushed and pushed, knowing I was likely making the situation worse.

Michael Saltz threw his hand up to hail a cab. “Go. He won't notice.” He wore that long, touchable cashmere coat, the double-­sided one I'd taken from him that cold night at Madison Park Tavern. It was amazing how a man sheathed in something so soft could turn so hard.

“He'll definitely notice my tomato face,” I said. “How could he not?”

“Believe me,” Michael Saltz said. “Most men don't notice things like that. Most ­people are ignorant of their senses.”

Maybe he was right. The sear of a steak, the crumb of a piece of bread, the precision of a diced carrot—­only certain types of ­people paid attention to those things. But at the end of the day, I wasn't sure that meant a whole lot.

I hopped in the next cab and Michael Saltz gave the driver a twenty, even though I was only going a ­couple of blocks away.

“I'll need your thoughts as soon as possible, Tia.”

“Yes, of course, sir,” I said. I ran the lunch over in my head again. It may not have gone well, but thinking about my writing put me in a better mood. I thought of clever phrases I wanted to use:
Oceanic epiphany. Silken aromas.

He slammed the door so hard the cabbie cursed him as we drove away.

Traffic was terrible. I thought about getting out and walking, but my face needed time to de-­redden. When we approached Weill Auditorium, I made the driver circle the block twice to give myself even more time. I adjusted my skirt, retied the sash around my waist, and buttoned up my coat.

It took me about fifteen minutes to even find the auditorium. I ran up and down stairs, got lost in satellite wings. Finally, at 4:15, I spotted Elliott coming out of the auditorium, laughing with about ten ­people I didn't recognize. Everyone in the crowd seemed like science types, bookish and a little mischievous. But
she
stood out like anyone would've expected: a fashion designer at a botany symposium. Emerald was talking to another girl at the bottom of the ramp. She raised her hands in crazy motions and the other girl nodded and shrugged her shoulders.

What in the world was Emerald doing on the Upper East Side, going to Elliott's symposium? She never came up here. She had said as much when we'd made the trek to shop at Trina. Had she come all this way to listen to him? Had Elliott actually invited her?

After the cab pulled away, I watched Elliott in his suit looking capable and smart and happy. He carried a basket of mushrooms and handed them to a guy who patted him on the back. Another girl with a notepad and a pen asked him some questions and Elliott stopped and talked to her while she scribbled.

There was a time when I never would have missed anything as a big as Elliott's symposium. I would have altered my entire schedule for a special event like this, as he would have done for me. Why hadn't I asked Michael Saltz to reschedule?

In an alternate universe, the one I had imagined for us when we first arrived here, I'd have been standing there with him, chatting with his friends, getting to know his research deep enough that I could actually help him.

He walked toward me then and pain sliced through me. None of those things had happened. I didn't know about his job. I didn't know his friends. I didn't really have any friends myself.

I suddenly remembered my ugly swollen face and thought he might wonder what I was doing in this obviously new and expensive coat and skirt and shoes.

“Hey,” he said, seeing me finally. “There you are.” He didn't seem to notice my bogus clothes or my bloated face, and that killed me, too. Maybe he just didn't care.

“How did everything go? I'm so, so sorry I'm late. I had this thing, and it took much longer than I thought. And then I had an allergic reaction. I'm sorry. I know this is important to you, and I should have been here. Things have been crazy for me, and—­”

“Things have been crazy for me, too, Tia. Don't worry about it,” he said. He gave a small, closed-­mouth smile—­not an Elliott smile at all, but the smile of someone else. “Let's meet up later. I don't want to talk about this . . . here.” A ­couple of the senior scientists were walking up behind him, looking about ready to congratulate him. “I'll see you later,” he said, turning toward them. As he did, his body opened and he smiled a large, goofy smile, like a kid. That was the real him, not the stiff, distracted Elliott he had shown me.

I saw Emerald give him a big hug and they walked together with a bigger group down the street. They left without me. A rotten taste built up in my mouth, something worse than the vomit at Le Brittane. He looked so comfortable with her as they moved in rhythm along the sidewalk. An ugly idea popped into my brain, one so vivid I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it earlier.

What if they were secretly seeing each other when I was at class or with Michael Saltz? Was Emerald actually with Elliott every time she went out late at night? Were they laughing about me and the “pretentious” food I always ordered? The questions piled up in my head.

I sat down on a stone bench. I had been paranoid about Michael Saltz picking up on Pascal's text, and I hoped I was being paranoid now.

O
NCE
J
AKE DISMISSED
me from Madison Park Tavern, I texted Elliott, asking if I could stop by. He said sure and I rushed over.

Elliott opened the door and I hardly recognized the place. He had gotten more plants and a desk. The wreath had been replaced with a bouquet of flowers, the type of bouquet you'd give your girlfriend or maybe one you'd receive from a would-­be girlfriend trying to woo you. I willed myself not to think that way. That'd get us nowhere.

“Hey,” he said as we awkwardly hugged.

He stared at some distant place in the hall. “So, why did you get to the symposium so late?” His voice sounded hollow and hoarse, devoid of warmth.

“I was tied up with something else. I'm really sorry. The day just crept up on me,” I said, pleading. “Can I . . . can I come in?”

He paused for a second, like he was thinking, like he'd actually consider not letting his own girlfriend in his apartment. “Sure,” he said finally, then he sat in his desk chair. “Come on in. So you were caught up with . . . something else. Like, work? A paper?”

“Like . . . an event. It was for work. A last-­minute thing for the restaurant.”

“Oh. I guess I didn't give you much notice. I'm not sure I told you about it in advance,” he said, again in that flattened voice that was freaking me out. So I hadn't forgotten about the event. Not that his omission made me feel any better. In fact, it made me feel worse.

“It's just . . . it's just that I never got the chance, you know?” Now his volume was rising and an edge sharpened in his voice. “You . . . you're not around.” He talked to the wall. “You're always running away.”

I thought about taking him by the shoulders and saying,
Hey! I haven't been great—­in more ways than I'll ever be able to admit to you—­but I love you. And you're my Elliott. And I don't want to lose you.
But something in his posture told me that if I said that, he wouldn't hear it. Elliott was a scientist. He needed proof and all I had were words.

So I had to find the facts. “When have I been running away?” I asked.

He exhaled sharply and the sweet face I knew turned sour, offended. “Running into your apartment. Out of your apartment. Running out on our phone conversations,” he said, rubbing his forehead. “Or like that time you high-­tailed it out of here and immediately jumped on your phone. Once you thought you were in the clear, you called someone back. Who was it?”

For the first time that night, he looked me straight in the eye as he said those last three words.

Who. Was. It.

I knew he'd only accept one answer—­the truth. But I couldn't do it.

“Who was . . . who?” I asked in my best confused voice.

“Don't patronize me, please, Tia.” He went back to staring at the wall.

“Elliott . . .”

“Why are you keeping this from me?” He sounded defeated, tired. Old. He had been spending nights in the lab. Did I ever ask him how he was holding up? Did he ever tell me? We had never been like this, ever. Before we were a ­couple, we were friends. Now we were barely acquaintances.

“And every time I touch you,” he continued, “you cringe somehow. You're shrinking away from me.”

“Elliott . . . I . . .” But I wasn't sure what I could say.

“Tell me something.” He closed his eyes, a full pressing of the lids. A wet, tear-­licked seam. “Do you still love me?”

I made myself hold his gaze when his eyes opened.

I did what Elliott wanted me to. I looked at the facts.

I thought about how hurt I'd been when he'd pushed aside that Bakushan dumpling. How he hadn't opposed Emerald's suit idea. The way he'd looked at me hungrily in her clothes, a new me that wasn't the Tia he had fallen in love with. I thought about his face when I'd told him I didn't get the Helen Lansky internship, that blankness. His swift dismissal of the Tellicherry review even though he'd never read it. I remembered that I'd never really believed he would be into it anyway. It had been a long shot asking him to eat with me there.

It was a long shot to ask him to be interested. It was a long shot to think he could understand everything that was happening, and that's why I was withdrawing. That's why I was running away.

What would I do if I lost him? We had been through so much together. College had formed us, and we'd thought we would come to New York and continue growing together, become the ­people we were meant to be. I looked at Elliott's end table. He must have paid three hundred dollars for it and he had been so proud. Now three plants had spilled their soil on it. A water stain peeked from underneath a wide unruly vine. So much for our big New York plans. You could plan and plan, but ultimately, life takes over. Choices get made.