The Monday Night Cooking School - By Erica Bauermeister Page 0,62

as if a warm bath was something you could to turn on any faucet to find. Perhaps, he thought, for her it was. Listening to her, Ian realized that he had spent his life in search of exactly what she had stepped out of. He was going to tell her this, but he stopped. Her face was changing expressions like sun moving over water, and he realized that more than telling her what he thought, he wanted to hear what she would say, wanted to watch her hands move in the air like sparrows.

“I remember,” she said, “getting off the plane in New York. All those big American voices banging into each other. I had never heard so many. I thought I knew English, but I couldn’t understand—the words would fly by and sometimes one would hit me and I would try to hold on to it. But they were very, very fast.” She shook her head ruefully. “I felt so stupid.”

“You are not stupid,” Ian said emphatically.

“No,” she responded, her eyes clear. “I am not. But you see, in the end, I think it is good to not know things sometimes.”

“Why?”

“It makes everything… a possibility, if you don’t know the answer.” She paused. “I am sounding brave. I am not—I was scared. And it makes you tired, not knowing things. When I got here, I drank half-and-half for three weeks. I thought, Americans are so rich, maybe their milk is, too.” She laughed.

“How is it now?” Ian asked.

“Better. I buy milk now.” She smiled. “I am joking. But it is better. Every year I am here, I see more things that are familiar. I know that Americans carve pumpkins for Halloween, or send each other Christmas cards, or cook those big turkeys…” Her nose crinkled.

“You know what is best?” Antonia asked. Ian shook his head. “The cooking class. All those people, they all want to see something in a different way, like I did, but we are together.”

She stopped, embarrassed. “I talk too much.”

“No,” Ian replied. “It is wonderful.” He looked at her for a long time. “You know, I have always felt exactly the opposite. No, really”—he laughed, seeing her face—“all I ever wanted was to be certain of things. I listen to you, and it reminds me of this puppy I saw in the park the other day. He just leapt out into the lake after this ball. He never wondered if the ball would float, or if there was a bottom to the lake, or if he would have enough energy to get back to the shore, or his master would even be there when he got back…” Ian slowed, flustered. “Not that I think you are like a dog.”

“Certainly not,” answered Antonia, amused. They continued pulling up the linoleum for a time; the fir floors were showing clearly now, the glowing oranges and yellows in the wood changing the room, making it feel warmer, more alive, a part of the world outside as well as in.

“You know, Ian,” Antonia commented, “my father always said a person needs a reason to leave and a reason to go. But I think sometimes the reason to go is so big, it fills you so much, that you don’t even think of why you are leaving, you just do.”

“And you just believe you’ll make it back to shore?”

“With the ball.” Antonia laughed.

AFTER THE LINOLEUM DATE, as Ian preferred to think of it, he had a hard time concentrating on anything other than Antonia. Even so, it had taken him months to get up the courage to ask her to dinner. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Lillian, and a vigorous poke in the ribs from Chloe, Ian might never have worked up the courage to ask Antonia to dinner at all.

But Antonia had said yes, as if perhaps she had been waiting, as if perhaps she had found his own hesitancy endearing, which only made him more nervous as the evening approached.

IAN PICKED UP the phone and dialed his mother’s number. When she answered, her voice had the excited quality that Ian knew meant she was in the middle of a new painting.

“I can call back,” he said quickly.

“No, I saw it was you.” His mother’s voice was happy. Ian pictured a painting filled with yellows and blues.

“How are you?” she asked.

“Everything’s fine. Work is fine.” He paused. “I’m taking the cooking class.”

“How’s it going?”

“Why did you give me a cooking class?” The words jumped from his mouth,