God In The Kitchen (17 page)

            “It’s happened before,” Abigail said. “To me…to others I know…just to women in general, you know? And you’re kind of a star, you know,” she said with a shy smile. “A lot of times people with status think they can get away with things like that.”

            Oh boy, I thought. Was what I was doing? Was that what people expected of me? I had to tell her now.

            “That woman you saw,” I said, “it’s kind of a strange story. I actually wrecked her car a while back.”

            “Wait,” Abigail paused, thinking back through our conversations. “Was that the accident you were in the day we had coffee?”

            “That’s the one,” I said pointing at her. She had a good memory. “Anyways, we continued to talk…because of insurance and all. Working out the details,” I said as I shrugged. I was being too cavalier about this. I was leaving out the part about how I fixed her car completely. “Anyways, I found out her son had never been to a concert before and I had some extra tickets…”

            “So you invited them,” Abigail said, filling in the rest of the story. “Oh Jared,” she said as she reached across the table and grabbed my hands, “how nice of you!”

            The waitress returned with our drinks and I took that opportunity to extract my hands from beneath hers. I needed to stir sweetener into the iced tea I had ordered, after all, and Abigail took the chance to open her straw.

            “You ready to order?” the waitress asked as her gum snapped between her lips.

            “I’ll just take the soup of the day,” I said, without looking at my sticky menu again.

            “That sounds fine,” Abigail said as she turned to the waitress, “I’ll have the same.” She stacked her menu on top of mine and pushed them both to the side of the table.

            The waitress wrote on her pad for a long time, snapped her gum, and disappeared, leaving the menus on the table between us.

            “So what did the boy think?” Abigail asked, anxious to get back to my heroic tale. “About the concert?”

            “Oh he liked it,” I said.

            “I bet,” she said with stars in her eyes. “I can still remember my first concert.”

            I interrupted Abigail that time, before she could get into her own first concert story. “There’s more,” I said, rushing into the sentence before I knew how it was going to end. I knew I wasn’t going to tell her about Ian’s surgery, Chloe’s lack of insurance, my lemonade stand idea or any of the other details. It wasn’t really my story to tell and I didn’t want her to think I was just trying to save the boy and nothing more.

            “Chloe and I,” I began, “Chloe is the woman you saw at the concert. Well, it started out as completely innocent. I mean,” I stumbled, “what you saw at the concert, it really was nothing, just like I said.” I was still stirring my tea though the sweetener had long since dissolved. “It’s just that, since then…I don’t know…things have become a little more…complicated.”

            Complicated had not been the right word. No woman wants to be referred to as a complication, but it was the word that had come out and now I had to deal with it.

            “What do you mean?” Abigail said, the stars in her eyes slowly dimming in their brightness. “You mean you have feelings for her now?”

            I raised my eyebrows, about to try to explain myself some more.

            “You do,” Abigail stated. “I know the rest, you don’t have to say any more. You didn’t mean for it to happen. It just happened. You don’t want to hurt me, but it’s for the best. Yadda yadda yadda.”

            How she knew where I wanted to go with the conversation next, I didn’t know, but she had the whole thing pretty much down. “I don’t think you understand,” I said, wanting to calm the fire I was now seeing stir in her eyes.

            “Oh I understand perfectly,” she said. “Don’t you worry about a thing Mr. Jones,” she said coldly, referring to me as she had when we had first met before her on air interview. “I understand and I won’t bother you anymore.”

            Abigail slid her hand away from her drink and placed it in her lap. “You like the soup so much here,” she continued, her red curls bouncing around her shoulders, “you can have two.”

            With that statement, before I could say another word, she stood from behind the booth and walked away.

            I hung my head, knowing that going after her would only make it worse. I wished what she had said were true. I wished she really did understand. I feared that she only heard the worst. I wanted someone else. But up until two days ago, that simply hadn’t been the truth. I had wanted Abigail. With all my heart. It was just that Chloe needed me so badly. What was I supposed to do?

            There were no answers. No matter what I had done I was going to feel lousy. The soup arrived shortly after and I buried myself in the burning liquid, using the spoon to drown the guilt as I felt the flavorful meal slide down my throat. I left Abigail’s bowl untouched. It grew cold as I ate. A symbol for the end of our short relationship.

            After my so-called date with Abigail, I managed to bury myself in work. Not only did I have all of my normal on-air and promotional responsibilities, but I also had to spend every extra minute on the lemonade stand. The day after the disaster at the family restaurant, I needed some reassurance from Chloe that things were on the right track. I also needed to see Ian so I could record some clips from him to play on the air. I wanted listeners to associate the lemonade stand with a real boy who had a real problem. That was what would draw them out to buy the drink.

            I talked to Chloe briefly on the phone and arranged to stop by her apartment after her shift was over for the day. She thought it would be better for me to come to them than it would be to bring Ian into the station. He would have loved seeing all of the equipment, pushing all of the buttons, and learning how things worked, but she thought all of the excitement might be more than he could handle and he would need to rest before and after my visit.

            I had been in their tiny little apartment and I knew it was small enough that voices within it did not echo against the walls. It should be easy to get good audio with the right equipment.

            After I took care of a few odds and ends once my shift was over, I packed up the portable recorder. I charged the batteries for a full hour and tested the mini-disc that I inserted with my own voice. I always hated the standard “testing 1, 2, 3” so I improvised. “Hey, this is me testing how I sound on this and so on and so forth,” I said, getting a good level on the UV meter to ensure that my voice would come through. I played the audio back, shaking my head. I was such a dork.

            By the time I was ready to go, I had a list of questions in mind for Ian. I didn’t want to push him too far or upset him in any way, but the listeners would enjoy hearing his small little voice and picturing what he might look like and how they could help the cute little boy survive his hardships.

            I traveled the now well known path between the station and the Summerfield Apartments in a matter of minutes and slung the bag that held the recorder over my shoulder with ease. Technology had grown so much, even in the past few years. We used to have to take huge devices with us when we had to record something on location. Now, the recorder was no larger than a notebook and weighed less than a laptop. I wondered what technology would bring in the next few years, but as I entered the upstairs hallway, my thoughts came to a halt.

            This was where I had seen the blonde man with the ponytail who had Ian’s eyes. I had not yet had a chance to talk to Chloe about him and I wasn’t sure I even wanted to know the answers to the questions I had. But after I had turned Abigail away in such a cavalier manner, I also felt I deserved to know where I stood with Chloe.

            Last I heard, she hadn’t seen or heard from her husband in a year. Was there a chance he would come back into her life? Did she hold any hope for their relationship? Was she going to file for divorce? If she hedged or looked uncertain about any of the questions I had, technically, I would be dating a married woman. I wasn’t sure I was okay with that.

            I knocked on the door for apartment 3G with my questions floating through the air, but everything disappeared when the door opened and I saw no one at eye level. My eyes slid down the door and met the ocean blue eyes of the little boy, Ian.

            “Music man!” he said as he threw himself at my knees. I considered it a term of endearment and patted his thin little back with my free hand.

            “How you doing, Ian?” I said as I bent at the knees to get on his level.

            “The potty is a zero,” Ian said and I laughed.

            “That’s what I hear,” I replied, shaking my head. The kid was certainly observant.

            Ian turned and ran back into the apartment, leaving the door open so I assumed it was okay for me to come in. I stood in the small entryway of the apartment, waiting to see Chloe. She came from the back hallway shortly after Ian disappeared, both of her hands behind her finishing her long braid and securing it with a rubber band.

            “I see you met the greeting squad,” she said as Ian attached himself to her leg.

            “The potty is a zero,” I said in the same matter of fact voice Ian had used on me.

            Chloe laughed, “Don’t I know it.”

            Our eyes met across the short distance and Chloe winked. I could see the pure joy in her eyes and a newfound sense of hope. I certainly couldn’t bring up my questions in front of Ian and even if he hadn’t been in the room, I didn’t know if I’d want to spoil the moment and erase the happiness from her face. She looked like a woman who had been given a new lease on life and though I was the one who had helped give that to her, I felt as if I had no right to steal it away at that moment.

            “Where do we want to do this?” she asked, glancing from the kitchen table to the tattered sofa and then to me.

            “Wherever Ian is comfortable. The recorder I brought is pretty good so he can even play as long as he isn’t doing anything too loud.”

            Chloe nodded and gestured to the couch, “In here, then,” she said and we moved around the couch and situated ourselves on the worn cushions. Ian sat on the floor at our feet where the small wooden train track sat with the chipped painted train that I had seen last time I had visited. It looked as if it had been bought at a flea market or craft show instead of a regular store. Wherever it had been purchased, it was obviously well loved.

            Ian began running the train around the track and chugging and whistling like a train. I got out the recorder, but continued to watch him out of the corner of my eye. He looked like any other little boy his age, except for his thin frame and pale complexion. He was just a little boy like any other little boy.

            “That’s the recorder?” Chloe asked, looking surprised at the small device I pulled out of my bag.

            “Amazing, huh?” I said, moving it closer to her so she could see all of the buttons. “It will sound as if he’s in the studio. The recording capability is really high in quality.”

            Chloe raised her eyebrows in interest and then turned to Ian. “Are you ready to answer a few questions for Jared?” she asked.

            “Who’s Jared?” Ian replied, not looking up from his train.

            Chloe shook her head, “You know who Jared is,” she said, looking at me and touching Ian’s soft hair gently. “He’s the man who took us to the concert. You just let him into our house.”

            “Oh,” Ian said, looking at me and giving me a big, toothy grin, “you mean the MUSIC man.”

            “Is that what he’s called?” Chloe asked, grinning at me with a question in her eye.

            “Hey, I’ve been called a lot worse,” I said to her. “Music man it is.”