least intimidated.
“Or I’ll sit on you.”
He made a production of hurrying back to the kitchen for more food, mock terror on his face.
“If that’s your attempt at making fun of my weight, you should know that I’ve lost five pounds in two weeks!”
“Good,” came his voice from the kitchen. “Another sixty-five and you’ll be back to your fighting weight.”
“You know, that may have been funny fifteen years ago, but it just sounds dumb coming from a man your age.”
“I’m sixteen months older than you,” he declared with conviction, reentering the room. “Therefore I’m entitled to say anything I please.” He set another plate down across from mine and folded his lanky, six-foot-one body into a wrought-iron chair.
“Oh, be quiet and grow some facial hair.”
Trey put his hand to his face, where nothing much had ever grown below the bush of honey-blond hair that shadowed earnest eyes. “Don’t threaten my manhood, Shell. I may be thirty-six and virtually hairless, but I’m doing my part for ecology. Think of the razor blades I’m saving.”
“And razor-blade trees all over the world thank you for sparing them.”
“Not to mention shaving-cream trees.” He dug his fork into the steaming food in front of him. “And for the record—and for the thousandth time—you’re not fat. Never have been, except in your mind. So get over yourself.”
I looked around the empty tearoom. “Slow day?”
He smiled around a forkful of French cuisine. “They heard you were coming.”
I mopped up some cream sauce with a piece of baguette. “You never told me what this is.”
“Escalope de poulet à la zurichois.”
“English, please.”
“Chicken breast in cream sauce, with a zing of onion and a soupçon of herbes de Provence.”
“I’ll call it Trey’s chicken.”
“Works for me,” he said, rising from the table to open the door for an elderly customer.
I watched him at work, pleased by the enthusiasm on his face that belied the strain around his eyes.
Trey was a passionate dreamer, which meant that he usually met his goals, but at the cost of extreme physical and emotional exhaustion. He was a walking contradiction. Always had been—which I blamed on our parents. From our mom he’d gotten an innate kindness and an appreciation of art, travel, and haute cuisine. And from our dad he’d gotten the kind of drive that had made him a high school soccer star. He was the only teenager I’d ever known whose top grades were in both phys ed and home ec, and though he’d majored in sports education during a truncated college stint, his higher ambitions had found their fulfillment in L’Envie, the homey French bakery and tearoom that also served lunch, from noon to two, to a handful of devoted fans. There was only one meal offered each day, on what Trey called his “Like It or Lump It” menu, but the dishes were so tasty and unique that none of his customers complained.
It was the contrasts I found most endearing in my brother. This chef-slash-coach who had been perceived for most of his life as a sissy-slash-jock had evolved into a functional paradox of the highest caliber, a human being whose spirit and wit and aspirations and compassion far surpassed the best prognoses for a product of our family. Though the term family only vaguely applied to us.
Trey ushered his customer out of the store and returned to the table where I sat in front of an empty plate. “Still living in the pantry?” I asked.
He smiled. “It’s not a pantry, Shell.”
“You know, I’m pretty sure there are apartments for rent in town.”
“And I will look into those,” he said patiently, “just as soon as I pay off the stove and the bathroom remodel.”
“How many of your customers actually use that bathroom, Trey?”
“Not many. But those who do absolutely love the Italian tile and French art.”
My brother the aesthete. He’d slept on a cot in a tiny room at the back of the bakery for the past few months to save enough money to transform a cesspool of a bathroom into an international artistic delight. Buying an imported industrial stove, I could understand. It was the kind of investment an astute businessman would make. But a bathroom? I shook my head in despair, neither for the first nor for the last time, I was sure.
“Want more?” he asked, eyeing my empty plate.
I shook my head. “I’m holding out for a decadent dessert later.”
He observed me closely and I felt again that warm flow of recognition. We sparred a lot. We loved more. And