After Dinner, quite Before Breakfast

“Could I buy one of the…?” I said in my quasi-Spanish, gesturing at the pomegranates.

They lay all around, at your feet, like clumps of ruby beads spilling out of cracked skulls. Your laughter pierced the air. It reverberated somewhere deep in my chest, bubbling and pleasant. Maybe the pomegranates were more of swelled up, bashed in hearts, not unlike my own. It kept skipping beat upon beat, no doubt causing my awkward smile to become even more crooked than it was. First impressions were clearly my thing.

You sold one of them to me for five ridiculous euros, picked it yourself fresh from the branch. Our hands brushed as you handed it over. Your slim fingers were ringless back then. I know. I’ve checked. Checked again as you waved me away, away, away. I was the outsider, the newcomer, no more than one of the bashful tourists coming to your town by busfuls. And maybe I was just a wide-eyed idiot, fresh out of the clutch of my grimy city, enjoying my first free summer.

And enjoy it I did. I came back every day for four days, buying those overripen pomegranates – poor excuse for empty chit-chat. I was eating out of the palm of your hand. Not quite literally. I wished. The air was sour with the fumes of evaporating juices when you said yes to my offer of a coffee. Your answer was double as sweet with none of the acrid aftertaste.

Outside of stark greens and reds of the orchard, you were ten-fold more. The setting sun itself flickered, encased in your long hair. I kept staring ever so slightly, moments away from ogling. I always had a knack for consuming precious things.

After your black and my latte, I seduced you into a slice of luscious layered cake. Strawberry drizzle, rich cream – what was there not to like? I like to imagine that I was anything but desperate. I think that’s utterly delusional of me. I was desperate; you indulged me. And, oh my, did I like to be indulged. I know you were trying to be just polite, but it gave me all the hope I needed to fall into it all head-first.

When you handed me the spoon, the only thing I could taste was the oils of your lipstick, smudged all over. Half an hour later, cake long gone, I was enthralled by your laugh once more. You had the most picturesque mouth. Probably straight after, walking you back home, I slid my hand into yours. You indulged me once more.

Two coffee dates later, I had you all to myself at my rented kitchen, barely bigger than a phone box. I never liked the crammed space that was failing at become my true home. Perhaps, I could almost tolerate it, when my hand had to brush your hip as I passed to grab dried basil.

“Fresh would be better,” you chimed, swirling the Syrah in your glass.

Judging by the lipstick on the other, this glass was clearly mine. I didn’t complain. I half-encouraged it. My pride swelled in my chest, as if a gallon of champagne bubbles rose from within my stomach. I already altered my recipe to sidestep peanuts, but I wasn’t about to reveal all my secrets.

“It’s still gonna be the best plate of pasta you’ve ever had. Fresh basil or not,” and maybe it was.

I don’t have any other explanation for you staying the night. Or all the nights that followed after.

“I love you,” I told you, catching you just as you were stuffing another orange slice into your mouth.

“I love you too, you know,” you finally said back later that night, when we were sipping bitter merlot at the balcony, feet resting on the railing, facing the starry night. Sliced tender figs, popping grapes, Manchego triangles – that’s what I remembered after. That, and the glint in your eyes. The sharpness of your smirk.

And that smirk rarely went away. It stayed when I visited you at the orchard. It amplified, once you got the chance to sneak in through the back of the restaurant to watch me get yelled it. My Spanish improved far too slowly to grasp the chef’s anger after I’ve used ‘fresas’ instead of ‘frutas’. It was a charmful language nonetheless. I loved to let my tongue travel the three leaps to make ‘gra-na-da.’

It was devastated that the season was over without warning. Just when I was half-ready to make a sour tart, full of crunchy seeds and translucent crimson flesh. Or donuts filled with gelatinated goo, fried through to crispness. You rolled home the biggest watermelon I’ve ever seen. Consolation prize, you explained. For the next week I’ve fed you watermelon mousse, watermelon jelly and seared salmon topped with watermelon salsa. Sure made me ravenous enough to kiss you for the rest of the evening after. Sure made me bold enough to dedicate the nights to you as well and go to work beady-eyed and sleepless stupid. I savoured every second, hungry to dig in the night that followed.

One early spring evening you come home smelling of soured booze and cigarettes, then told me you were coming late from work. From work at our local school. I half-believed that pre-schoolers ran an undercover bar when you pulled me in and embraced me senseless. Your charming smirk was lopsided at best. Plastered on at worst.

You didn’t even try the chicken souffle with basil, grown fresh on our windowsill. I massaged your head as you fell asleep on me, reeking of a bodega.

After four-hundred and eleven meals we had together, I spotted you with him in a bar. It was a good girl’s ultimate nightmare – that other good girls would much prefer good men to them. And I let it go, forcing my gaze away from the oyster he fed you. And that was all after you called my attempts at preparing them disgusting.

You returned only in the guise of the night, slipped into bed and coiled me in your arms, breathing out bitter cheap alcohol breaths. Still, I let it go.

I let it go twice more and I couldn’t just let it happen again.

“I made dinner.”

Beady-eyed bass, baby potatoes, heritage tomatoes were all done and lightly scorched on the grill with luscious thick herbal sauce to tie the dish together. My tiny kitchen was in a state. I outdid myself, as always. I took your jacket, ushered you to wash your hands. I lit the flames.

“I didn’t know we have candles,” you mused, sitting down.

“We have many things you don’t know about,” I said, pouring us from the bottle of Lambrusco I was saving for later. It was far too sweet to go with seafood, but it had to be opened. I needed something sweet to mask my own bitter demeanour. It almost helped. Maybe because I had two glasses of it while cooking.

You asked me about my day.

I told you. Asked you about yours.

You said something supposedly funny happened at work

I tried my best to listen to it.

You finished the story, gesturing wildly.

“Have some food before it goes cold,” I chuckled, picking up my own knife and fork. “I made it all just for you.”

Surely not just for me, you said.

I think I said, that surely not.

It was all for you. All completely and utterly for you, Julia. Behind the sweet gulps of wine, I could barely taste the flaky fish or the tear of tomato skin. I watched as you shoved mouthful upon mouthful in.

Good appetite is the best seasoning. Well, most of the time.

Your breathed shallower. You dabbed your lips with tissue, over and over. The lipstick that remained through the day left bright smudges on it.

I regained the test of fish. It was slightly salty and fantastically soft. A shame that both of us couldn’t enjoy it equally.

Your breaths turned into sharp wheezes. Your cheeks flared up with pale rashes, crawling left and right from your lips, stupidly open. You touched your neck, tried to massage it. You gestured at me, confusion in your olive eyes growing into full panic.

“The fish is stuffed with spicy peanut paste, didn’t I say?”

You should your hand, still heaving, wheezing some more.

“I threw your epi-pens out. I took your phone from your coat. I made the best dinner, why are you not enjoying it?” I was giddy with delight; the fish was, indeed, superb.

Your perfect face cracked and shattered like the shell of crème brûlée, your eyes now as empty as the bass I fed you. The dread pushed all emotions out. You tried to grab my hands, but maybe the lack of oxygen was getting to you. Or maybe the pain. I hoped for both.

“If you live, I want your things gone by morning. If not, well,” I smirked, “then I’ll take care of it myself, fear not.”

With the last gulp of your terror, I walked out into the silent streets.

What’s next? Breakfast, I suppose.