chapter was upside down. I smiled, knowing this was a very rare book indeed; the mistake was corrected after the first print run. And surely you know why I might know this; this same edition, perhaps this same volume, was once mine.
"What is it?" Nicole seemed to notice my reaction.
"I am familiar with this edition." I pointed out the mistake, but stopped just short of full disclosure. I closed the book and replaced it within its box. Dinner was probably ready to be served.
While stirring the chicken, draining the noodles and broccoli and arranging the food decoratively on a plate for my guest, I thought of the book, relishing the opportunity to page through it; though bawdy, the Graves translation is relatively sanitized compared with the original, hair-raising Latin version.
"Very pretty!" Nicole exclaimed at the plate placed before her. She refilled her glass and spread the cloth napkin on her lap, then her eyes darted back and forth across the table. "Where's your plate?" she asked finally.
A small detail. A small contingency that somehow had taken me by surprise, even though this is the inevitable question I always find myself having to answer.
"I may eat later," I answered, somewhat stretching the truth. "I have this condition. Though I relish food, I find it difficult to dine at the same time as others. Watching others eat while I try to eat can make me a bit queasy."
Nicole had just lifted a forkful of noodles soaked in sauce. Her wrist suddenly relaxed, and the noodles slid off her fork, back on to her plate. "That's pretty weird, Al. Doesn't it bother you to watch me eat?"
I smiled nobly. "Not at all. Believe me, watching you enjoy this meal gives me as much pleasure as if I ate it myself. More, even."
Satisfied, she cut into the chicken and lifted a sauce-dripping piece to her mouth. She chewed and closed her eyes in obvious pleasure. "Delicious." She washed down the first bite with a sip of wine. "Wonderful, Al. But it's too bad. There's so many nice restaurants here in town. Must make eating out impossible."
"It does, but there is always take-out, I suppose. I have, however, on occasion, taken a meal in the dark corner of a quiet restaurant."
"Well, there's a few places like that, once-trendy bistros that people forgot about because the next trendy place opened up." She cut a piece of broccoli and swirled it in the sauce. "Thisis wonderful. What is it?"
"Chicken paprika, a recipe from my homeland."
"Ah, I knew you were Hungarian. Either that or Finnish." She enjoyed another bite. "I love paprika. And this paprika is real fresh."
She enthusiastically devoured the contents of her plate while I kept her wine glass full. Nicole took her time, clearly savoring each bite, her movements surprisingly graceful considering the vulgarity of the act - vulgar from my perspective, that is.
When she had cleared her plate, I realized my great faux pas. There was no dessert! As I began to chastise myself for such a foolish oversight, my guest simply said that she usually does not care for dessert. Relieved, I cleared the table and quickly washed the dishes.
Nicole was sitting on the futon when I emerged from the kitchen, Art Pepper playing softly on the stereo, obviously carefully selected from my jazz section. Her taste impressed me.
"Thanks for dinner," Nicole said when I had joined her on the futon. She patted, then stroked my forearm softly. "It was delicious."
"Your company honors me greatly. A splendid repast is the least I can do." I pointed at the steel box. "Tell me about your father."
Nicole took a sip of wine and held the shimmering glass in front of her eyes. "My father," she began. "Like I said, he was a classics professor here at the UW. He died when I was in my early teens." Her voice trailed off.
"At least you got to know him."
"Yeah," her voice bore a slight tinge of bitterness. "People always tell me that, that I was lucky he was alive long enough for me to get to know him, for me to be able to remember him, but a lot of times I almost wish I didn't get to know him. If he died when I was just a little girl, then I wouldn't know what I was missing, not having a father. That must sound terrible."
I patted her hand gently. "No, not necessarily. You may feel that way sometimes, sometimes not. It is quite natural."