The Vow

Chapter 17

Annie

You don’t have to turn off your phone,” Reed says. He’s standing next to the stove, a paring knife in one hand, pomegranate in the other. At least I think it’s a pomegranate. It’s slightly mottled pink, the size of a fat orange, and has a spiky, protruding navel.

“What makes you think I was turning it off ?” I ask, and slip my phone into my purse.

“Were you?”

“Maybe.”

He holds the fruit to the cutting board, flexing his fingers to anchor it in place. “Won’t your parents worry when they can’t get ahold of you?”

I shrug like I don’t care if they do, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t buy it. It’s better than telling him the truth, that I told my parents I was going to the movies with Mo, so they won’t be expecting me to be reachable anyway. At some point, Reed’s going to start wondering why I won’t tell them about him. At some point I’m going to have to answer that question for myself.

He pulls the blade across the skin and turns the fruit, then again, and again, scoring the flesh into perfect quarters. Bloodred juice seeps from where it’s been pierced, and I stare, mesmerized, as he puts down the knife and breaks open the fruit with muscular hands. Its insides glow. Rows of seeds glisten like rubies.

“You like pomegranate?” he asks.

“Um, I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever had it. I should probably be embarrassed by that, right?”

“No. I probably didn’t see the inside of one until we moved to California and I started hanging out at my aunt’s restaurant.”

“Is that how you got interested in cooking?”

“Sort of. The menu at Burgers and Burgers wasn’t all that inspiring, but the kitchen was where I met people who love to cook. So I guess you could say that.”

I approach him from his left side, and lean over the bowl to watch. His fingers are focused, nearly mechanical as he loosens the seeds and picks them one by one from the white web of skin that separates sections. Juice has stained his hands scarlet.

“So, what are you making?” I ask.

“Nope.”

“Oh, come on. Tell me. I can smell it—is it pork? I’m starving.” I leave the counter to peer through the glass door of the oven, but he’s faster, blocking my way with his body, pomegranate hands held up in front of him.

I narrow my eyes. I may be able to squeeze past him, but probably not without staining my new top. My new white top.

He shakes his head. “Don’t even try it.”

The whole week has been brimming with this kind of bliss. Just being near Reed, telling him things, taking his teasing, listening to how deep and soft his voice gets when he is close to me—it washes everything in gold. Even watching him do menial tasks like making change and carrying buckets makes me feel like I’m sneaking something delicious.

It’s nothing like that constant anxiousness of being with Chris Dorsey, the feeling of being on show and trying to prove that I like it.

But the week has been busy too. There were only a few times that Reed and I found ourselves alone, and we were almost too surprised by it to know what to do. Until we were touching, and then we knew exactly what to do. It happened once when Flora was out back taking a cigarette break and a second time when she sent the two of us to take the garbage to the Dumpster. We never had more than a minute or two, but that was enough to relearn exactly what his lips taste like, and how his hands press on the small of my back when he wants me to come closer, and what happens to him when I accidentally sigh into his mouth.

“You don’t really want to ruin the surprise, do you?” he asks, taking a step toward me and away from the oven.

“You aren’t really going to stop me, are you?”

Reed takes a moment to consider it, then reaches out quickly, and before I can duck away, grips my upper arms. His hands are warm and strong, and I don’t even try to wiggle free, just stare at him with my mouth open in mock surprise. I think he might kiss me. He’s squeezing my arms and pulling me in, but at the moment of sinking into him and closing my eyes, the oven timer begins to buzz. It’s one of those old-fashioned dial timers that goes tztztztztztztztz and makes you desperate for it to stop. Reed grumbles something and moves me back to my spot at the counter so he can turn around and silence it.

I look down at my arms. Hot-pink juice handprints circle each biceps. “Unbelievable,” I say, because mock annoyance seems like the best route to get what I want. “Well, now I’m definitely looking in the oven.”

He turns off the timer and sighs. “Fine. Ruin the surprise, and if they look done can you pull them out?” He tosses me a hot pad and goes back to his short stretch of avocado-colored countertop to finish deseeding while I wrench open the heaviest oven door I’ve ever encountered. The hinge squeals like an injured animal.

“Wow,” I mutter.

“Yeah, welcome to the kitchen that time forgot. According to my grandma, these are the same appliances that they put in here in the seventies when they finished the apartment, so it’s kind of miraculous that they still function.”

The kitchen is more like a kitchenette really, just a tiny strip to the side of the main room, but it’s clean, and I almost feel like I’ve stepped into a time machine and come out in my parents’ childhood. Reed’s over-the-garage apartment has shiny shag carpet in burnt orange, a faded velvet chair in the same avocado green as the kitchenette countertops and appliances, a bookshelf with a sagging middle, and a twin bed pushed up against the far wall.

Once the oven door is open it’s hard to tell what I’m looking at. I close it and turn to Reed. “What is it?”

“Stuffed peppers. It’s Mexican, and you were right—the filling is shredded pork. That”—he points to the saucepan on the glowing far burner—“is walnut sauce to go with it, along with the pomegranate seeds. Do they look done?”

“I don’t know what stuffed peppers look like when they’re done.”

He comes back to the oven and inspects them. “Like that. It’s called chiles en nogada.”

“I don’t even know if I believe this is Mexican food,” I say. “I’m an expert on the stench of Taco Bell, and this smells nothing like it.”

“That’s an interesting area of expertise.”

“Just the smell. Mo has to have a Gordita Supreme at least every other day. But this smells . . .” I take a full breath and my head fills with the aroma, rich and warm and exotic. “Like the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten.”

He transfers the sizzling chiles to our plates. “You haven’t eaten it yet.”

“The most delicious thing I’m about to eat. You lied. You told me you only made French sauces at culinary school.”

“I think I’m being misquoted. But I learned to make this before I came back to Kentucky. One of the perks of living in California is access to authentic Mexican food.”

“You’re telling me Taco Bell isn’t authentic?”

He laughs and tosses the last deseeded pomegranate husk in the trash. “A couple of my aunt’s kitchen guys were really talented chefs back in Mexico, before they came to the States. I used to beg them to show me how to cook real food. This one poor guy was a chef in a four-star restaurant before and stuck flipping frozen patties all day at Burgers and Burgers, practically losing his mind.”

“I can imagine.”

“Plight of the artist, right? Half of those guys were illegal, but my aunt didn’t care as long as she could get away with paying them minimum wage. And they were just happy to be getting a paycheck.”

Reed drizzles the creamy walnut sauce over the peppers and scatters a handful of pomegranate seeds on each of our plates. It’s stunning, the scarlet seeds over white sauce, but I’m not even seeing the food anymore.

Illegal. My mind twists and trips over the word. My palms are instantly clammy. I know this conversation has nothing to do with Mo or me or his status or what we did. Obviously. I know that. But that whole jumble of worries that I’ve been pretending doesn’t exist comes so quickly to life that I nearly stumble over my own thoughts. I can’t even think of a response.

“I felt bad for them,” he says.

I bite my lip. He felt bad for them. That’s good. That means he’s decent, human, even compassionate, but feeling bad for illegals isn’t the same as marrying someone so they don’t get deported. It’s not the same as being okay with your girlfriend, or whatever I am, marrying one.

He puts the saucepan back on the oven and takes both plates over to the card table, where he’s put utensils, napkins, even a little cluster of wildflowers in a jelly jar. I don’t think anyone has ever put this much effort into anything for me.

I didn’t think I’d felt guilty about marrying Mo. I don’t. Uneasy, maybe, because I don’t know how illegal what we’re doing really is, but I do know that I love Mo. Nobody can prove otherwise. So if I do feel the smallest twinge of guilt, maybe it’s for not being able to tell Reed.

“You’re quiet all of a sudden.”

I take a deep breath and force the thoughts back down. “This looks amazing. Can we eat?”

He nods, takes a deep breath, and picks up his fork, but he doesn’t start. I can feel him watching me as I cut into the pepper and scoop the filling onto my fork. Of course. He’s nervous. I’ve been so self-absorbed, but this is his mural, and now I see the worry in his eyes. Maybe he’s been nervous all along and I just haven’t noticed. His gaze is fixed on my face as I chew.

I have to close my eyes as the flavors burst in my mouth—gentle heat from the pepper, salty tang of the pork, sweetness of pomegranate, the velvety-rich walnut sauce. He’s waiting, but I don’t know what to say. I love you; can I have your babies might scare him, but it’s my most sincere thought. Instead I open my eyes.

He’s waiting.

“Reed, this is art.”

He smiles. “Not too spicy for you?”

I shake my head. The fire in my mouth isn’t the kind that deadens taste buds. It’s the kind that makes all the other flavors come alive. “I’ve never tasted anything like this.”

“Good.” He finally takes a bite.

We eat in silence for a minute. I don’t want to speak or blink or do anything to take away from the flood of sensations, or make him think I’m not appreciating it. I need to taste every flavor. They’re mine, created for me, and it’s odd, but I love the selfishness of it. When I look up he’s watching me again.

“You look so serious when you eat,” he says.

I smile and feel the start of a blush. “I told you I was hungry. And I’m trying to concentrate.”

“There won’t be an ingredients quiz afterward.”

“That’s good, because I wouldn’t do very well. I’m just concentrating on enjoying it.”

He takes a sip of his water. “Yeah, I’ve seen that look from you before. In the parking lot last night. And the freezer on Thursday afternoon. And I think it was the storage room on Wed—”

“Okay, enough,” I say, fully blushing now and trying to think of somewhere to steer the conversation. “So, you graduate after this next year?”

“Yeah.”

“What then?” I ask.

“I know what I don’t want to do.”

“And what’s that?”

“For starters, be on some reality-TV cooking show.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. You don’t seem like the claw-your-way-into-the-spotlight type.”

“My mom suggests it every time I talk to her, like that’s the only reason she can come up with for getting a degree in culinary arts.”

“She doesn’t see the benefits of having someone to make her food that tastes like heaven?”

Reed glances at my half-empty plate. “She’s not quite as easy to please as you.”

“So no reality TV, no being your mom’s personal chef. What does that leave?”

“Most of my classmates dream of being the head chef at some trendy, big-city restaurant. But I’ve lived in a big city before, and I kind of like the feel of a small town better. Somewhere like Elizabethtown.”

“Not so many trendy restaurants here,” I say. “Unless you count the Olive Garden.”

“Yeah, no offense to fine dining here, but I don’t want to end up at the Olive Garden, making the chicken parmigiana for the rest of my life.”

“A fate worse than death?”

“Not if you like making chicken parm. But if you think food is more than paint-by-numbers, then yeah.” Behind hair and lens, a glint of intensity burns in his eyes.

“My dad wants me to come back to California and work for him,” he continues.

“He’s a chef ?”

“No. He’s . . . I don’t really know what he is. A businessman? That might be a stretch. He invests in businesses that seem legitimate at first, but then they either tank or turn out to be scams. I can’t exactly say it to him, but I’d rather do something real.”

“Like food,” I say, and take the last bite on my plate.

“I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not.”

I shake my head, mouth too full to speak. When I can, I say, “Definitely not being sarcastic.”

He nods. “It’s a little tricky, not having their support exactly. I’m paying for my tuition, my rent, my bills, and nobody’s going to hand me my dream job when I’m done.”

“You still haven’t told me what that is.”

He pauses. “I want to have my own restaurant.” He won’t look me in the eye, but I can hear the drive in his voice, the hum of energy and talent and fearlessness.

I drag my fork through the sauce on my plate, pulling white streaks behind the tines, then turn my fork and make a crosshatch pattern. Reed takes his own fork, leans over and adds a few swirls around my design.

“You don’t gush compliments like other girls,” he says.

I open my mouth to protest, but he stops me. “No, I don’t want you to. I like that you say what you mean.”

“You sure? If you really want, I could moan after each bite and go on about how it’s the best meal I’ve ever tasted.”

“No,” he says, then stops himself. “Although now that you mention it, I would be okay with a little moaning. But I meant that you’re sincere. It was a compliment.”

“Thank you. And these other girls you cook for—is gushing compliments really the usual?”

He shrugs, and doesn’t take the bait. “There is no usual.”

That could mean he doesn’t usually cook for girls or they all react differently.

“The only girl I’ve cooked for regularly would be my last girlfriend. She turned out to be less than sincere about a lot of things.”

“Less than sincere,” I repeat. “That sounds like code for something.”

He just looks at me, the smallest hint of pain in his face. It makes me feel a little sick, the thought that someone hurt him.

“Dessert?” he asks.

I nod.

Reed pulls vanilla bean ice cream from the freezer while I clear plates. “What, no fancy homemade dessert?” I ask.

“No. Unless you feel the need to request a chocolate soufflé or something.”

“I was kidding. Ice cream is perfect.” I take the bowl he hands me and follow him to the couch. It’s an unholy shade of brownish green, but I ignore the color and settle into the corner, folding my legs beneath me and curling my toes into the worn velour.

I let the first spoonful melt in my mouth, contemplating the idea of ordering whatever dessert I want and actually having someone do my bidding. “Wait, would you seriously be making me, say, a cheesecake right now if I asked for one?”

“I’d have to run to Kroger for cream cheese and graham cracker crumbs. And you’d have to wait an hour for it to bake, and then another hour for it to set up.”

“But I’d be eating my own cheesecake,” I say.

“At midnight. Yeah.”

I take another bite of ice cream. “With you.”

He laughs. “I would hope so. Are we still talking hypothetically here, or should I be on my way to the store?”

“Hypothetically. I’ve got to be home by eleven.” I glance over my shoulder at the microwave clock. “Sorry.”

“Why do you always apologize for that?”

The question catches me off guard. “Because I know it’s annoying. And not normal. And I used to go out with a guy who hated it.”

Reed shrugs. “It’s not like you can do anything about your parents.”

Now would be the time to tell him. I’ve always known that Lena would have to make her way into us, Reed and me. It would be natural to do it now, and he’d understand my parents and their craziness, and maybe why I really work at Mr. Twister.

Or maybe I’d be instantly transformed into the tragic younger sister.

I take a huge bite of ice cream.

“So, how’s the mural?”

I pound my forehead with my fist and gasp. “Brain freeze.”

“You okay?”

“Give me a minute.”

I take a few deep breaths and wait for the pain to release me. But first I feel his hand on the back of my head, squeezing the base of my neck. It lifts.

“Better?”

“Yeah.” I fight the urge to shudder. He’s rubbing slow circles on both sides of my neck, and I could melt if I let myself. “The mural is good. I’m knee-deep in coral, but it’s coming.”

“Done before I leave?”

“Before you leave?” The words are out of my mouth, full of confusion, before I remember that I’m not supposed to be surprised by this thing that I already know. I’ve been letting myself fall, pretending there isn’t an endpoint. Fall. School.

“Before I go back to Nashville in August,” he says. He’s still kneading my neck, and the muscle feels like it’s sighing beneath his fingers.

“Hopefully,” I say. But I don’t feel the least bit hopeful now. “Maybe not, though.”

“I may have to come back up and see it over Labor Day weekend.”

I give him a skeptical glance. He’s not really going to drive three hours to visit a high school girl with an iron curfew.

“You don’t believe me? Nashville’s not that far. Not too far to drive to see my girlfriend.”

“Your girlfriend.”

He stops rubbing, but keeps his hand on the back of my neck.

“Is that what I am?” I ask.

“I don’t know. Is that what you want to be?”

“I don’t know. Is that what you want me to be?”

He smiles. “You’re not making this easy.”

“Just answer the question.”

“Of course that’s what I want you to be.”

“Good.” I feel warm. My skin, from feet to hands to cheeks, is turning pink, but I’m not embarrassed.

“Besides,” he adds, “we’ve made out in your room, the freezer, the parking lot, the break room. If you’re not my girlfriend, that means—”

“You’re a man slut,” I break in.

“Exactly what I was going to say. And I’d hate to get a name like that in place as small as Elizabethtown.”

He leans back and looks at me. Something about the set of his mouth and the way his eyes narrow when he does that, I feel like he’s seeing right through me. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“Your friend Mo—is he gay?”

“No.”

“Oh.” He scratches the back of his neck, where the hair looks so soft and shiny I want to reach out and rub it between my fingers. “So did you guys used to go out?”

“No. He’s like my brother.”

“Yeah, you said that before. I just thought maybe he was like your gay brother.”

“Mo is definitely not gay. Or if he is, he has both of us pretty well fooled, because he’s been genuinely lusting after the same girl for years.”

“But you guys haven’t hooked up, not even once?”

I make a face. “Not even once? No. And I don’t hook up just once with people.”

“That’s not what I meant. Remember, I’m the man slut.”

“Right.” I put my empty bowl on the faux-wood coffee table and search for words to clear the muddiness. “He’s . . . he’s Mo.”

“I believe you when you say you’re just not attracted to him. There are plenty of girls I’m not ever going to be into that way. But . . .”

“But what?” I push. I’m not nearly as stupid as I must sound to Reed, but I’ve heard this explanation before. It’s lame. Mo being male can’t be the reason we can’t be just friends.

“But he’s a guy.”

“Yeah. Like you. And you just said you weren’t attracted to every female in the world.”

“But he’s a guy and you’re you,” he continues. “I mean, I’m trying not to sound creepy here, but I can pretty much guarantee that any straight guy who spends any amount of time with you is not going to be thinking about you like you’re his sister.”

I sigh. “That is creepy.”

“But true. Sorry.”

I’m not sure how to respond, so I don’t. Grass wallpaper the shade of creamed honey covers all four of Reed’s walls, and the effect transports me. I’m in a wheat field. Not so different from the whirlpool of my mural at all. But from my wheat field I can still hear Reed, and what he’s saying is wrong. It’s sort of a compliment, but it’s wrong. Mo doesn’t think of me that way. Reed just doesn’t know him, doesn’t know us.

“I’m not trying to make you mad,” he says.

“I’m not mad.”

“I’m just being honest. At first I thought you were talking about him all the time so I’d know you weren’t interested.”

“What? Really?”

“Yeah, but then I started to think you were interested,” Reed says, “and you were still talking about him, so I just assumed he was gay. No, assumed is the wrong word. Hoped?”

“Is it that big of a deal?” I ask, feeling that same frustrated, desperate feeling I have every time this conversation happens.

“Having a straight guy as a best friend? I guess not.” He reaches out and traces the pomegranate stains on my arm. “Don’t be upset. I just don’t understand your dynamic or whatever, but I . . .” He trails off and pulls his hand away. “I should probably be totally honest with you.”

I turn to face him, bracing for pain. Nothing good has ever followed that phrase.

“I came here this summer to sort of get away from things. To work. To help my grandma. Definitely not to get into something with someone.”

“Oh.” I’m watching his face, but he’s staring a hole in the wall behind me. I can’t think of anything else to say.

“My last girlfriend cheated on me, and it was sort of recent.” He pauses, but not long enough for me to speak. “It’s why I tried not to notice you at first.”

The way he wouldn’t look at me, that slight annoyance at having to show me things, those details seem so far away now, I’d forgotten I’d even had to forget them. “But . . .”

“But then Rachel and Clara and the other girls were just too much. Too flirty and annoying.”

I picture the college girls with their cigarettes and cleavage, telling stories about getting wasted with some professor—I’d seen so little of them after the first week or two. They worked the days I had off. Come to think of it, the baby shower was the first time in a while that I’d seen any of them.

“So I had Soup change the schedule so I could work with you and Flora instead. And then I was seeing you every day, and you’re so different from anyone else, I couldn’t not . . . notice you. And want to be with you.”

He looks embarrassed, and I want to reach out and stroke his prickly cheek because I’ve never felt so flattered.

“So I’m trying not to be weird or possessive, and I know I probably came across that way just then. I didn’t used to be that kind of guy, the jealous type, I guess, but it’s hard not to assume the worst now. Anyway, I’m sorry. Being friends with Mo makes you happy. I don’t want you and Mo to be anything different than what you are.”

I’ve eaten too much. I didn’t realize it until this moment, but the spice is pressing up into my throat, burning.

What we are. Husband and wife.

The mashed-up chiles and pork and creamy walnut sauce roll around inside of me, pushing me closer to nausea, and I have the sudden horrific thought that I might be vomiting the perfect meal into that Ice-Age single-basin sink.

I remember to breathe, and it helps. I’m not going to throw up, and I’m not ashamed of what I did. Marrying Mo was the right thing to do. Loyalty. That’s real. Friendship and love. Those are the things people live and die for. They’re more real than borders and passports and lame laws will ever be. I did it for Mo.

Reed’s staring at me. I need to say something, but I can’t think of the words to reassure him. His eyes are that faultless chocolate brown, and it’s easier just to get lost in them. But he’s waiting.

“I’m so sorry,” I say softly.

He shrugs, looking uncomfortable. “I don’t want you to be sorry. You didn’t do anything wrong, and I’m okay. It’s okay now.”

I nod and look away because it doesn’t seem like he wants me watching him. His embarrassment is sitting between us on the couch now.

“Mo and I really are just friends.”

He doesn’t hear the way the words catch in my throat, the muscles constricting over them in a sudden panicky spasm. He takes their meaning at face value, my smile as proof that I won’t hurt him. I’m trustworthy.

And I feel a little better because he feels better. Maybe I should tell him the truth or break it off or just leave, but I don’t. None of those things is the right thing either. I’m pretty sure there no longer is a right thing, if there ever was.

There’s only what feels right. I don’t stop him as he lifts me from my corner of the couch and pulls me onto his lap.