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I ignore him and go into the bathroom to get him a towel. There are a lot of pill bottles on the counter. I scan them all and bring him two that say they’re for pain, one to help him sleep and one for anxiety, just in case he needs it. Or are those for when he’s reliving being bombed? Or is that what just happened?
“Here,” I say, handing them all to him. “I wasn’t sure which you wanted.”
He opens one of the bottles with a shaking hand and swallows a pill dry while I go back for bandages and some water.
“Fortunately for you, I have tons of supplies for this sort of thing,” I call out from the bathroom. “I’m always getting cut and burnt.”
He stares at the glass of water blankly after I bring it to him and then shakes his head like he doesn’t want it.
“Nightmare?”
He looks warily at me—to see if I’m teasing him, which I’m not. At all. I sit on the edge of the bed near him with my bandage box. “What are you doing?” His tone is mildly panicked.
“I thought I’d fix your hand.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“Come on, let me see it.”
“No. Just leave me the stuff.”
Sheesh, man. “Okay.” I give him the box of supplies and then get up off the bed and start picking up pieces of broken glass. Meanwhile, Julian is doing the world’s worst job of bandaging himself. Obviously he’s a leftie.
He catches me looking at him. “Done gawking at me yet?”
The color on my face heightens, but I force myself to meet his gaze. He’s in the same sweats and Semper Fi T-shirt he had on at dinner—he must have fallen asleep in them. “Nope. Not quite yet.”
“Well, I’m not your personal sideshow.”
Interesting comment. “You know, you could be,” I say. “It’s an idea. Your over-the-top rude thing works pretty well. What you really need is an old-fashioned seltzer bottle. That way you can roll around in your wheelchair hurling insults and shooting seltzer at me.”
“Ha, ha,” he says. “Very funny.”
I move in a bit closer to inspect the pathetic bandaging job on his hand.
“What?” he asks.
“That thing isn’t even on you,” I say. “It’s falling off.”
“Did I ask for your opinion?”
“Did you think I’d need to be asked?”
“Don’t you have a hot date with the window about now?” he says.
“Do you want me to help bandage your hand or no?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer at first. “No. Now get out of...”
He stops midsentence, probably because I’ve decided to ignore his stubborn pride and not let him bleed to death. Instead, I’ve sat down and taken his hurt hand into my lap. I’m studying the cut. “This is deep. How did you hurt yourself so badly?”
“I have a knack for it.” His voice isn’t bitter, exactly. More like hollow. I glance at him, and he turns his head away.
I look back at the cut. “I think you need stitches.”
“I don’t need stitches.”
“Maybe I should wake Estella.”
“No, don’t,” he says. “Let her rest.”
Hmm, he’s concerned about Estella getting her rest? This must be a remnant of the old, pre-injury Julian—the considerate one. I take the bandages and start wrapping his hand up, but as soon as the tape is down he yanks his arm away. “You’re done.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Thank you,” he mutters. “Now get out.”
I return to the couch, leaving Mister Personality to himself.
Chapter Nine
There’s this dish I’ve been playing with in my mind for the restaurant—a beet and goat cheese Napoleon, only instead of it being just red-white-red-white, I want to make it with golden beets as well. Actually my idea is to fan the thing in a spiral like you’d fan a twisted tower and use halves of both red and gold beets so the colors swirl around. I’m planning to plate it with micro greens, a muscat orange vinaigrette dressing and candied pecans. The ingredients are fairly easy to prepare. It’s the assembly that’s difficult.
I’ve already roasted, peeled and cut the beets into little rectangles when Dad comes over to me. “The restaurant is closed. Perhaps you haven’t noticed.”
“I’ve noticed. This is for you to try.”
“Hmm.” He frowns and watches me stuff the herbed goat cheese into a pastry bag. I’ve added mascarpone to it to make it the right consistency.
“You’re making me nervous,” I say.
“Too bad.”
“But this is the hard part.”
“So?”
I sigh and take a red beet rectangle and a golden beet rectangle and align them so they’re matched up.
“We need to talk about college,” Dad says.
“Not now.” Pastry bag with a star tip. Damn, do I want the star tip or the regular one? Dad’s eyeing me. Rectangle—star tip—is that too busy? Yes. I take the cheese out of the bag and Dad’s eyebrows go up.
“We really should take a trip up there so you can see the school,” he says, “have an interview.”
“No thanks. The interview’s optional. I opt out.” I get the tip I need from the pastry department, replace it in the bag and start again.
“Keep it small,” Dad coaches.
“I am keeping it small.”
“Smaller.”
“Smaller?”
“Oui—un petit morceau.”
Okay. I line up the next pair of rectangles so they’re about twenty degrees turned to the left. They tilt on the goat cheese. “Merde.”
“Keep going.”
I add another dot of goat cheese and Dad’s right. It helps with the balance. “This isn’t going to work,” I mutter.
“It might.”
“It’ll tip.”
“Keep going. Try it.”
Okay—I add the next layer. Twenty degrees more to the left. And it starts tipping.
“With a college degree you have options.”
I’m sick of hearing this. So, I ignore it. “Maybe I should just make it a pyramid or something.”
“No, keep going,” Dad says. “It’s working.”
I add one more layer and it starts falling apart. “Damn it.”
“Tomorrow you’ll try again.”
“I can’t. I have school. You remember school—that which you are forcing me to do for four more years?”
“It’s better than making this mess.”
“It wouldn’t have been a mess if you hadn’t been bothering me.”
“You’re going up to Burlington with me.”
“If I go will you add my Napoleon to the menu?”
“No. The dish needs work.”
I grit my teeth and say nothing.
“Clean up your mess.”
“I’m not going to UVM with you.”
He looks at me and frowns. “I don’t want you to just be a chef all your life. Work so hard. Never have time for your children on evenings or weekends or holidays. You’re a woman. You’ll be a mother. Cooking is okay when you’re young, but as you get older you’ll need something with regular hours and security. You should go to the university. Work part-time as a chef while you’re up there if you want. But at least get the degree so you have a way to make something else of your life when you get older and your priorities change.”
I’ve heard this speech before. Many times, in fact. “Uh-huh.”
“What are you doing?”
“Trying again.” My fingers, I realize, are the problem. I switch to toothpicks.
“Less goat cheese as you go higher.”
“Yeah.” I use less. When I get the final layer on, I glance at Dad. He’s completely focused on my creation.
“Et voilà!” I say. “Ta-da!”
Dad smiles—and the whole thing topples over.
* * *
That Sunday morning, I decide to treat everyone to a batch of homemade muffins for breakfast. I like making them with Greek yogurt, but all we have on hand is sour cream, so I just use that. Once the muffin base is ready, I decide on adding apples to the centers and streusel to the tops of each. They’re in the oven when I see Dad come down and head outside for a morning run. He hasn’t mentioned the trip up to Burlington since the other day—fortunately. I really don’t want to have to go tour the school and do all that. I’m still planning to fill out the application. Mostly to keep him satisfied and because filling it out doesn’t seem all that difficult. Just one application, to the state school—a few essays and I’m done. Of course, I still need to figure out what I’m really going to do. I can’t just stay in town dating Luke and working at Étoile my whole life.
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