Thursday, November 13, 2003

Hot Meal

It no longer felt like a coincidence.  She only worked on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, and he was coming in every Tuesday and Thursday.  She rather appreciated his restraint; three nights a week eating at her counter sounded more to her like stalking than courting.  She liked to imagine he was courting her.  It gave her something to think about as she wiped down the steam tables.

All this sped through her head as he pushed his way through the cafe door, her mind working in a hyperdrive of anxious anticipation.  As he crossed the threshold his eyes flashed on hers as they always seemed to, stealing a peek at her where she languished in the kitchen, behind the ledge where the cashier handed back orders and she handed platters of food forward.  Maybe it wasn’t a smile after all, but it gave her leave to imagine he was there to visit her, even though it was as close as he’d ever come to exchanging pleasantries with her.

This time, though, it seemed that he was actually smiling at her, smiling broadly and brazenly.  She let her eyes graze over him.  He was solid, not too well-fed, with large hands and a deeply tanned face; his clothes looked tired but serviceable; his shoulders were big and his arms were heavily muscled.  He had regular features, straight teeth, all the small perfections she’d noticed and catalogued over the preceding weeks.  But this time, as she again repeated the litany, reminding herself of why it was his face that she so often imagined on the imaginary body that she imagined crushing her to her mattress, carrying her out of a swimming pool at night, presssing her wrists to the wall over her head - as she remembered again, looking at his face and chest, why it was his face she imagined when she imagined those things, she was sure she wasn’t imagining that he was really favoring her with a frank smile, eyes fixed on hers, chin lifted just a little in a cheerful salute… His face seemed to flush a little, his broad shoulders squared, as his eyes bored into her. 

And then the fat old owner demanded his order; he looked away and the spell was broken.  In a smooth voice, gentler and more suave than his face and bearing suggested, he ordered his usual super carnitas burrito with frijoles negros, tomatoes and onions, picante and jalepenos, queso fresco, no guac....  She knew the order by heart, though she always liked to hear him speak the words, even if only to the owner at her cash register.  She set herself to making up the order almost automatically, her hands acting as extensions of her eyes which were extensions of her mind, the ingredients leaping as if of their own accord from steambin to ladle to tortilla; she painted with them like an artist paints with oils, like a craftswoman casting a solid piece of pottery or weaving a heavy rug; she created a balanced, substantial, admirable burrito, one she could be proud of - as a cook and an artist and a craftsman.  Not as a woman.  She wasn’t overstuffing his burrito, packing it so thick that she would have to use both hands to handle it, because she got a little tremor up her inner thighs when he shone that smile at her.  It was just because she took pride in a job well done. 

She folded over the end of the tortilla, cinched the fillings tight and solid, and then folded over the ends, closed them off, rolled the burrito into a cylinder and placed it on a square of foil.  Her slender fingers rapidly wrapped the thin silver foil around the substantial girth of the dense, hot tube.  She finished the ends, crimping them, and her eyes rose again to the man for whom she was cooking.  He was looking at her, right at her, unmistakeably smiling.  She looked down at her hands resting on the broad, gleaming curve of his enormous burrito, warm and heavy and substantial under her anxious fingers.  She wanted to unwrap it, restuff it, make it again from scratch.  But there was no reason, it was perfect.  When she looked back at him he nodded slightly toward her, never breaking eye contact, his smile always relaxed and welcoming.  She still clutched the burrito she’d made for him.  Blushing and impetuous, she grinned at him suddenly, lightly kissed the end of the foil tube, and handed it over to the cashier. 

*** I’ll finish this story later. ***