The Boy Who Came in From the Cold (39 page)

Goya did share a tale of her childhood. Apparently, cooking and the kitchen were not the traditional domain for Basque women. Men did the cooking. They cooked for their family and wives, for friends, or happily, themselves. But on certain days, a woman was allowed, and once, when she was just a girl, her father had let her cook with him.

“I was so happy,” she recalled, real emotion filling her face. “Just to be with him in the kitchen, let alone helping him cook. I had always wanted to cook, but that wasn’t a girl thing.”

Todd sighed. “And here, my stepfather claimed that cooking isn’t a boy thing. He made such fun of me. Wanted to know why I couldn’t just make a meatloaf, if I had to be a fag.”

Gabe flinched at the word, and Todd turned to give him a silent apology.

 

“Your father is a foolish man,” Izar said, and Todd stifled a gasp.

Was that a compliment?
“
Step
father,” he corrected.
“Anyway,” she replied. “Something magical happened that day.

Everything came natural to me, and my
aita
, my father, noticed. Soon we were wordlessly dancing around each other, fingers touching spices and cutting vegetables, and feeding each other as we did so. I remember it like it was yesterday, although I am sure that the years have colored that day with more romance than might have actually been there. On the other hand, from that day forward I was always welcome in my father’s kitchen. My life had been changed forever.”

Todd smiled happily. He knew just what she meant, and when they locked eyes, he saw that she was acknowledging a shared experience. Magic.

They decided to go with Goya’s dessert. It was simply polite, and Todd had only prepared enough for two anyway. The other choice was three pieces of cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory that Gabe had gotten when he went out for wine.

The dessert was miraculous, of course. It resembled a buttery rich shortbread, and once tasted, revealed a subtle almond-flavored filling. Izar called it
g teau
Basque, a traditional Basque dessert. It was simply irresistible.

It makes my food taste like cardboard
, Todd thought.

But when they were done and had decided they were going to have coffee instead of more wine, Goya dabbed at her mouth with a napkin, leaned back in her chair, crossed her legs, and said…

“What a wonderful repast.”

Todd almost missed her words. He’d been busy noticing that Gabe was using the coffee beans from The Shepherd’s Bean. Todd saw on the brown paper bag that it was the Kenyan variety he’d tried the other day.
It’ll be the perfect ending for the meal
, he was thinking, when Goya’s words sank in.

Todd’s mouth fell open.
“It’s too bad you didn’t stand up to me,” she said, eyebrows

disappearing into her dark bangs.
“Stand up to you?” Todd asked.

She gave a very short nod. “Yes. You gave up too easily. When you were so audacious to ask me to teach you to cook. You fled like a frightened child when I refused you. It’s too bad for both of us. Who knows where you and I could have progressed by now?”

Todd’s mouth fell open again.
What? What was she saying?
“You need teaching—yes. But after this evening, had I not known already, I would never have guessed you have no teaching. The lamb was juicy and so tender I barely had to use my knife. The pistachios were a wonderful idea and suited the entrée perfectly. The tomato soup

was good. Just a dash too much salt perhaps, and maybe just a bit more coriander? But perhaps not. Close. Very close. I liked the pine nuts with the couscous and the sultanas were an excellent touch. The average customer would have called it perfect. But what could we do if we experimented together? Would you like to learn with me, Mr. Burton?”

Todd clenched his jaw to keep his mouth from falling open again. “Y-you’re serious?”

 

“Quite,” she said. “If you say yes, I think we could have quite an adventure ahead of us.”

 

“Yes,” Todd all but shouted. “Y-yes! Of course!”

 

She smiled. “Most excellent. But you would have to promise me something.”

 

“Anything,” Todd squealed.

“You must stand up to me,” she replied, eyes turning to steel. “Argue your point if you believe in what you are doing. And there is nothing more importantthan believing.”

Argue with Izar Goya? How?
But that look on her face. She meant it.

 

“Yes,” he said. “I will.”

 

“Then a new chapter of our lives is about to begin,
nire lagun berria
, my new friend.”

T
HEY retired to the living room, where Gabe already had a fire blazing. Outside it was snowing again, huge flakes, like puffs of cottonwood. No moon, but Todd knew how it would look. He’d seen it just the night before while kissing his lover in that tiny silver car.

Peter told more tales and soon had Goya talking of home, growing up in Basque country. And of marrying and coming to the United States. Of her husband’s early death, and how she’d taken the insurance money and opened her jatetxea.

Todd told them about making pancakes for his mom on Mother’s Day, but not about throwing them away. Goya loved the story and said it was proof he was thinking of the palate when he was but a child. That he had a gift for it.

“This is a marvelous young man,” Peter said. “He’s changed so just in a few days. He’s had a terrible time and somehow endured. You remind me of something,” said Peter.

“Oh?” Todd asked. More poetry? Who knew with Peter? But he couldn’t help but hold his breath in anticipation.

 

“Yes,” Peter replied. “There is a moth. It lives in the coldest of places.
Gynaephora groenlandica
, I believe.”

He believed?
Todd almost laughed. Peter didn’t “believe.” He knew exactly the right word and name.
“They live under the harshest conditions, sometimes in areas that drop to as low as minus sixty degrees Celsius. Can you imagine? And we thought it got cold here in Kansas City. It is one of the longest lived of the lepidoptera on this planet. Its caterpillar is known as the Artic Woolly Bear—I dearly love that name!—and takes somewhere between seven and fourteen years to reach its full adulthood. Amazing! Imagine. A fourteen year old caterpillar. It gets frozen solid for as long as ten or eleven months at a time. Frozen. Solid!” Peter laughed. “There are only a couple of months in the height of summer that Mother Nature allows them to defrost so they can grow. Finally, after all that time, they spin a cocoon of silk, and a few days later—only a few days!—they emerge as moths.”

Peter took a drink of his coffee before continuing.
“Think of that, Toddy. Think of your hard years, think of them as hibernation. Think of them as your frozen years, where there were only short times when you could be free and grow. Then you spun your

cocoon. You came here. And finally, you emerged as the man you are today. Transformed by so many things—chance, belief, love—into something new and glorious. Of course, you are much lovelier than the Arctic moth. It is rather plain. But not you. And somehow, I think you are ready to make a much bigger impression on this world. We will have to see if the world is ready for you, Todd Burton. I dare hope it is.”

The words stunned Todd into speechlessness. He thought he would cry. Struggled not to. Not with Goya here.

Then Peter changed the subject, as he was wont to do. He “shuffled through his memories” and told stories that had them laughing. Tales of frolicking youth, and tales of watching the next generations frolic as well.

It was a lovely evening. What company they shared. Who ate dinner with Izar Goya, after all? She was only one of Kansas City’s most famous chefs. And after all, who sat around spending an evening with Peter Wagner—who Todd was just discovering was not only wealthy, not only extremely wealthy, but actually one of the richest men in the country. Gabe thought he was in the top one hundred. What was really cool was that Peter had done it himself. He’d been born into privilege, yes, but it was his ideas, his business sense and investments, that had catapulted his family’s money to its present wealth. What blew Todd away was that most of Peter’s investments were in people. Musicians, artists, writers, people with ideas and no real venture capital to get them off the ground. Peter provided that capital. Then when those people became successful, Peter was invested in them. In dreams. And those people became connections that helped Peter help other people. Peter had once helped Izar start her restaurant. And here she was now helping Todd.
A circle. Putting money and time and resources into circulation.