The Monday Night Cooking School - By Erica Bauermeister Page 0,32

mouth, wanted to wander, and where lips couldn’t go, the mind would. Fried eggs, forgotten in the skillet, solidified into doorknobs, while Tom threw fries on the grill, lobbed steaks into the deep-fat fryer.

“Charlie, for Christ’s sake,” the dishwasher had yelled across the kitchen in exasperation, “would you give him a break before this whole place goes up in flames?”

Charlie walked back to Tom’s station. She looked at the mess on the grill.

“Dinner, my house. Tonight,” she said, then crossed the kitchen to the back door and punched out her time card. The prep cooks howled.

CHARLIE LIVED in a blue and orange cottage two houses away from the ocean. The paint had given up most of its color to the wind and sun years before; daisies and gladiolas grew with haphazard abundance, scattering petals across the gravel pathway that led to the house. When Tom arrived the front door was open, and he could see the inside of the cottage was tiny, with a futon that did daytime duty as the living room couch, and a kitchen large enough for a single slim cook.

Charlie stood at the stove, the wooden spoon in her hand. He could smell wine in the air, butter, and garlic.

“I just knew you’d be on time,” she said. The skin below her ear was warm against his lips. She smiled, and nodded toward the counter, where he saw a blue bowl overflowing with chopped melon and a set of brilliant white plates. “You can take those out to the patio.”

Tom ducked his head as he went out the back door and found himself under a trellis heavy with green vines and deep purple blossoms, the evening sunlight filtering down through the leaves. Beneath his feet was a patio made from old bricks that moved with his weight, clinking softly as he walked to the green metal table and placed the bowl and plates next to a basket of bread. He stood straight again, his head almost touching the leaves, and breathed in the pepper-sweet smell of wisteria. Everything suddenly seemed twice as quiet as he thought it ever could be.

“Wine?” asked Charlie, coming up behind him and handing him a glass. The wine was cold and clear and tasted like flowers and snow. “I love this patio. It’s why I rented the house, really.”

She returned to the kitchen and came back with a plate covered with slices of meat, thin as leaves.

“Prosciutto,” she explained to his questioning eyes. “With the melon. You’ll see.”

They sat at the tiny table, their toes touching as Charlie ladled a spoonful of dripping melon chunks onto his plate.

“Taste the melon first,” she suggested. “There’s a guy at the fruit stand who saves his best for me.” She laughed when she saw the expression on Tom’s face. “He is very, very old. And he loves his melons like children. You’re lucky—this is the time of year when they are at their best. And Angelo’s melons… well…”

Tom skewered a piece with his fork and put it in his mouth. The flavor opened like a flower across his tongue, soft and sweet. He started to talk, and then stopped, holding the taste inside as it dissolved into juice.

Charlie watched him. “Now we’ll try some prosciutto with it.” She took a piece of melon in her fingers, wrapped it with a translucent slice of pink meat, and motioned for him to open his mouth. The meat was a whisper of salt against the dense, sweet fruit. It felt like summer in a hot land, the smooth skin in the curve between Charlie’s strong thumb and index finger. The wine afterward was crisp, like coming up to the surface of water to breathe. They ate slowly, and yet more slowly, until the bowl was empty.

“Give me a minute,” Charlie said. She stood, resting her hand for a moment on Tom’s shoulder as she moved toward the kitchen. “I’ll be back.” Tom sat, listening to the sounds of Charlie moving about in the house—the clatter of a pot lid being set in the sink, a refrigerator being opened, shells rattling into a pan. Music drifted from the living room, a woman he had never heard before, in a language he didn’t know. Charlie hummed along with the music; through the open back door Tom could catch sight of a hand, the back of her heel, as she moved from sink to stove. He remembered, as if from a long way away, a time when the world was