I Can Cook?

I met her Monday morning. She was peering into the large glass double doors of the office building in which I worked in the Los Angeles area. My mood matched the ugliness of the grey clouds having spent the previous afternoon and evening with the guys drinking beer and watching the pathetic Chargers lose until I asked, “Can I help you?” And then she turned around and so did my mood.

Her name was Farah Cassidy. She was a new hire. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I said.

“I can’t figure out how to get in,” she said sweetly brushing a stray strand of honey blonde hair away from her face.

To which I said, “Allow me.”

By mid-morning, Cliff, my roommate, co-worker, and best friend, appeared at my cubicle. I spun away from the computer and faced him. He, we, all the men dressed in two-piece suits. If we left the cubicle we had to put on our coats. The old man liked the old days. Cliff expressed his refusal to conform by wearing ties typically with sharp jarring patterns and colors or as if created by a cartoon artist. He kept them loose around his thick neck and wore his top dress shirt button undone. Mine tended to be more of a conservative pattern and coloring with a little pizazz on the weekend. We were both clock watchers, just trying to keep our heads above water until lunch then punch out to go home and fuck off gaming for a few hours before doing it all over again.

“You see the new girl?” he said smiling and raising an eyebrow. “What’s her name?”

I shook my head. Cliff, ever since he started dating one of our coworkers, turned any conversation regarding anything into how I should get a girlfriend. Truth was she’d been in my head since meeting her. “Farah,” I replied. “Did you need something? Because I have lots of paperwork and phone calls. You still work here, right?”

He straightened up and waved a dismissive hand in my direction. “Maybe you can get a shot in at the Christmas party on Friday.”

“I hadn’t planned to go.” I spun around and unlocked my computer.

“Well don’t wait too long, the sharks are circling.”

And we were. I included myself in the pool of men who went out of their way to introduce themselves to Farah as she sat in the cafeteria reviewing corporate materials. I took the long route to the restrooms to steal a glance at her. To my joy, she gave a small wave. Of course, I stopped by to say hi and see how things were going. She had removed her business suit coat. Her shoulders and arms were pale and delicate. Gold hung around her neck, circled her wrists, and dangled from her earlobes.

“Everyone has been so nice to me,” she said.

I told her if she needed anything to let me know. She said everyone’s been saying that.

I needed to step up my game.

*

At the Christmas party, I stepped up my game. Alcohol always helps. That Friday night Farrah and I spent twenty minutes in my cubicle away from co-workers who were wishing one another Merry Christmas. She playfully teased me about the family photo on my desk, the one with my entire family at the reunion years ago. But she raised a plucked and penciled eyebrow at the image of the dubious octopoid on my mouse pad. “It’s Cthulhu,” I told her and quickly looked to switch conversational gears. Cliff warned me not to frighten her off with all the horror, sci-fi, and fantasy “shit” we watch. My confidence began to falter. “He lives at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean,” I blurted.

“The ocean,” Farah said musically. She sipped the golden bubbling wine from her clear plastic cup. She licked her lips. “I love seafood.”

And then like an idiot, I said. “I know how to cook.” And then after her face brightened, I doubled down and blurted, “I can cook seafood.” But my stupidity paid off because she said she would come by the following weekend for dinner.

*

“Holy shit!” Cliff exclaimed upon seeing the culinary operation I had underway in our small kitchen apartment for my dinner with Farrah. “Someone wants to get laid!”

He called me a loser and then left to spend the night at his girlfriend’s apartment in the city.

Our apartment, #218 on the second floor of unit two in the Bountiful Hills apartment complex in the San Francisco Bay area was not Fung Shui. More like shit flung everywhere.

We shared a common kitchen with a small counter and table with four wobbly chairs a buddy loaned me years ago and then he moved away without it. We watched TV in the adjoining living room from either Cliff’s parent's cast-off couch or the maternity rocking chair one of our co-workers had wanted to unload.

The kitchen tile and living and bedroom carpets were an unattractive light brown. The linoleum in the shared bathroom was also brown. The walls were white and the only item hanging from them which got attention was the dartboard.

The living room’s sliding glass door led out onto the small covered wooden deck. The Kennedys, cool couple, lived below us. From our second-floor balcony, we could see Mt. Diablo looming in the distance beyond the freeway. Eucalyptus trees grew in the neighborhood and their minty aroma wafted through the apartment.

Our comfortable bedrooms were identical in design and similarly furnished. Closet, dresser, double bed, and gaming computer at a desk. One game chair and three monitors. I had a menacing Cthulhu figurine on my dresser beside a green glowing essence dispenser misting cinnamon vapors to dispel any funk. A few items Cliff determined too geeky had been stored in the sliding paneled closet. But the horror movie posters stayed up.

I spent the morning cleaning and the afternoon shopping. Mom made painfully sure we knew how to handle mop, sponge, spray bottle, and vacuum. The apartment sparkled and smelled chemically disinfected. At Whole Foods I spent one hundred and fifty dollars. Cliff laughed. “You should have gone out to dinner. It’d been cheaper.”

I found the music from the 70s and 80s punk rock group The Cars particularly perfect for setting a nice atmosphere with their up-and-down music about the ups and downs of love. I played “Since You’re Gone” and got to work.

I got the recipe from the internet. The picture looked simple enough. An iron skillet filled with sizzling shrimp in a slight light brown broth and sprinkled with green and red seasonings beside a platter of yellow rice. I’d never cooked anything this elaborate in my life. Food was from restaurants, take out or the patio BBQ.

My pattern was to ask someone out and then for whatever reason we moved on. “It’s because no girl wants to watch horror movies,” Cliff had said. But I keep hoping and trying.

*

She arrived. The butterflies were going nuts. She giggled, laughed, and bounced into the apartment where I closed the door and took her coat. She wore an eye-snaring, heart-stopping bright floral dress and smelled wonderful. I gave her a tour of the apartment.

“OH, there’s that guy,” she said pointing at Cthulhu. “You’re room’s interesting.” I wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing. 

We enjoyed a glass of wine while I finished preparing dinner. She had a million questions, which was a good sign, right? 

I followed the recipe or at least I thought I had. We opened a second bottle of wine, and I may not have paid as much attention to it as I thought. I was not a fan of shrimp. Up until then my only one experience with it had been as a disgusting cup of shrimp cocktail set before me at dinner at a friend’s house one night ages ago. It had been cold, rubbery, and crunchy. I saw no reason to try it again until Farrah said she liked seafood.

You get one chance to make a first impression. I wanted to make this one count. I had set out a white tablecloth, green placemats, and proper shining silverware. I think it impressed her. When dinner was ready and served along with garlic bread, and salad, I made a toast. “Bon Appetite.”

“It smells delicious,” she said.

We dug in. When I bit into the crustacean’s crunchy shell and tasted a mushiness, I knew that something had gone horribly wrong.

“Did you devein these?” she asked, speaking through a mouthful of unchewed food.

“De-what?” I felt my face grow warm as she then I spit our food into our napkins. Perhaps I had not followed the recipe as well as I thought I had. I profusely apologized to her, to which she gracefully told me not to worry about it. She suggested ordering pizza.

We cleaned up, finished that bottle of wine with the pizza while watching a movie. “Oh, I don’t like horror movies,” she said when I suggested watching my go-to pic when introducing horror to someone who says they don’t like it. Even after politely pointing out its awards and the money it made, she preferred to watch something funny.

The movie ended and she had to go. I walked her to her car. I didn’t go in for the kiss. I chickened out. I think if not for the shrimp incident my chances may have been better.

“I had a really wonderful time tonight,” she said and drove off.

The opportunity to say, “Next time let’s go to a restaurant,” came and went and I headed back into the apartment to watch a horror movie and wondered if I wanted a next time. 

*

“How was the date?” Cliff asked the next day when he returned to the apartment. “Details!” He made exaggerated hand gestures as if holding large round objects on his chest.

I thought about Farrah. The way she smelled. And then about shrimp. She didn’t like horror movies either. To switch gears, I asked how his girlfriend was. I listened to him explain what happened. They broke up. He Showed up and he’d been the one who had been surprised. He said he was fine. It’s best not to pester a friend about their problems unless they are struggling. I think Cliff and I will be fine.

We agreed it would be best to avoid dating people where we both worked. “Dude!” Cliff said enthusiastically. “Next weekend you, me the bars. Yeah?”

I told him he’d been right. “I should have taken Farrah out to dinner.” We laughed, drank beer, watched sports, gamed, went to bed, and then got up to do it all over again.