The Seven Year Slip

“IWAN! IS THAT YOU?” a man cried from the food truck, startling us both out of our conversation. We’d somehow ended up in front of a bright yellow truck with a highly stylized logo on the side that read YO MAMA’S FAJITAS. A line curved down the sidewalk, mostly college kids and young people taking classes over the summer at the NYU campus nearby.

Iwan . . . ?

Then did that mean—

A larger man waved from the window of the food truck, and James’s face lit up at the sight of him. “Miguel!” he cried, throwing up a wave. The man abandoned his station and came out of the back of the truck. He was a burly Hispanic guy, with curly dark hair pulled into a bun, the undersides shaved, tawny-brown skin, and a smile larger than life—like you could tell he cracked some really great jokes. They hugged each other quickly—complete with a secret handshake and everything.

“Hey, hey, I thought I wouldn’t see you ’til the weekend!” Miguel greeted him. “What’s the occasion? Here to ask for a job?” He wiggled his thick black eyebrows.

“Ready to come work in my kitchen?” James volleyed back.

“In that expensive-ass new restaurant of yours? Fuck that,” Miguel replied.

James shrugged. “Worth a shot.”

Miguel glanced over to me. “And who’s this?”

“This is Lemon,” James introduced, waving me over. Lemon. Not Clementine. I guess he only used my actual name in professional settings.

I outstretched my hand, deciding not to correct him. I guess I wasn’t going to be around enough for his friends to need a full name. “Hi. It’s a pleasure.”

Miguel accepted my hand and shook it—his grip was hard and firm, and I immediately liked this guy. “Lemon, eh? Nice to meet you. How’d you end up with this guy?”

With?

I gave a start, quickly panicking. “Oh, we’re not together—we’re just—you see, I was waiting for an Uber and it never came and I was just at a cooking class and really I’m his—”

“We’ve known each other for a while,” James interjected, glancing over at me to see if it was a good save. It was. I wanted to melt into the pavement, I was so relieved. “Old acquaintances.”

“Yes, that,” I agreed, though Miguel seemed immediately suspicious, but before he could ask the hows of how we met, the other person in the food truck leaned out of the window and shouted at him: “Hey, asshole! You leave me in here all alone with this sort of line?”

To which Miguel turned back and motioned to James. “Isa! Iwan’s here!”

“Well, tell Iwan to get in line!” the woman replied, ducking back in through the window. She was a tall and muscular white woman, her honey-colored hair pulled back from her face in a ponytail, her ears armored with half a dozen earrings, her bare arms filled with so many different tattoos, they melded together in a tapestry. Then, on second thought, she ducked her head back out and added, “Iwan, if you’re here to mooch off us again, at least hand out the drinks!”

“He’s here with a date!” Miguel replied.

James gave him a betrayed look. “It’s not—”

Isa shouted, “Then he better order something—we close at ten sharp!”

Miguel’s smile grew pained. “I better go help before she plots to kill me in my sleep. Again,” he added grimly, and hurried back into the food truck, and took up the next order, and we got in line at the end. A few people glanced back to look at James, though only one or two people recognized him, pulling out their phones to check the images online next to him in real life.

James seemed absolutely oblivious to it. “That’s Miguel Ruiz and his fiancée, and better half, Isabelle Martin. We all graduated CIA together.”

“Oh?” I had a hunch as I came closer to the truck and read the menu. With a name like Yo Mama’s Fajitas, I had an inkling of what they served, but I was pleasantly surprised anyway as I skimmed down the menu. “You did it, then,” I said with a grin.

Distracted from taking his wallet out of his back pocket, he asked, “Did what?”

“You bullied your friend with the fajita recipe into opening a food truck.”

He had to think on that for a moment, but then he must have remembered, because it dawned on him and he seemed very excited as he said, “I did make you his fajitas the first night we met, didn’t I? These are infinitely better.”

“Oh, I’ve no doubt.”

“Wow, tell me how you really feel about my cooking, Lemon.”

“I think I just did.”

His mouth fell open in a scandalized expression, and I’m sure he would’ve had something very smart and snarky to say, but we came to the front of the line at that exact moment, and I was thankfully distracted by ordering a chicken fajita, and he a beef one, and two Coronas. He lingered by the food truck as Miguel and Isa prepared our order, looking so much more in his element here than in a pristine kitchen, where he was done up in a chef’s jacket, barking orders to line cooks. Here, his shirt was untucked and his hair had become a bit ruffled and droopy from the evening’s humidity, as he gave Miguel just a little bit of hell for some knife technique.

“Seriously, look at that knife,” James said, tsking. “That’s got to be the dullest thing in that kitchen—and that includes you.”

“I’ve feelings, bro.”

Isa said while plating another fajita, not missing a beat, “No, you don’t. I squashed those years ago.”

“From both sides? You can both fuck off.” But he grinned at them.

James laughed, and, oh, it was charming, how easy it was. Like he fit in here, hanging out by the window of his friend’s food truck. He turned to me and asked, “Did you know that in the US, a food truck is technically classified as a restaurant? And that because it is, it’s eligible for a Michelin star?”

“No, I didn’t know,” I replied.

Miguel rolled his eyes. “You’re not gonna convince me.”

“I’ve done it once already.”

“Pfff. You’re telling me to get some random highbrow food critic to come over here, eat my food, and tell me what I already know? No, thanks. You can keep your stars.” Miguel waved his hand, and went back to his cooktop, and James rolled his eyes.

I asked, because I wasn’t quite sure myself, “How do you get a Michelin star?”

He turned to me and wiggled his fingers. “It’s a mystery. Well, not that much of a mystery, but we never know when a Michelin critic comes into our restaurants. We just know when they’re gone. Usually, they come by once every eighteen months or so if you’re on their list—unless a restaurant is in danger of losing a star, then they can make a surprise visit.”

“They sound a bit like a food mafia,” I said conspiratorially.

“You’re not wrong. To get one star, a critic has to come into a restaurant and like the food enough to award it a star. Two stars, a critic has to come four times. Three stars?” He gave a low whistle. “The hardest of all. Ten visits. Ten consecutive perfect dinners across years of work. It’s almost impossible, which is why there are only a handful of restaurants that are three-starred.” He had this conflicted look on his face, as he spun a silver ring around on his thumb. “Most chefs would kill for three stars.”

“And you?”

“I am a chef,” he replied, but there was a guarded look on his face. He motioned to the cooktop, where Miguel dipped out a bowl of steak strips, and added a handful of bell peppers and onions. “Miguel and Isa are two of the most talented people I know. They make this look easy, but their food is intricate and incredibly detailed. See the steaks? They’ve been marinating for at least four hours in a mixture of—what is it? Lime juice and . . . ?”

“Yo mama’s secret recipe,” Isa quipped.

James barked a laugh. “Right, right. The ingredients are fresh, and they change the menu based on what’s in season. They have a pumpkin fajita in the fall that just—it blows my mind.”

As he talked, I couldn’t help but join into his excitement. Like I did in the apartment. He talked too much with his hands, lacing adjectives into the air with his fingers, but it was endearing, and the other people in line couldn’t help but lean in to listen.

When he lit up, we were like moths to a flame.

I wished this had been the side of him he’d shown in that conference room, and in that cooking class—everywhere, really, that mattered.

This was the part of him I feared had disappeared, but he’d just schooled it and kept it hidden for friends who wouldn’t give up his secret.

“Why are you smiling? Did I say something funny?” he asked suddenly, dropping his hands.

“No, sorry—I just—I missed this.” And I motioned to him.

“Me boring you with food?” he asked.

I shook my head. “You being passionate about it.”

A conflicted look crossed his brows. “I’m always passionate about it.”

Why don’t you show it more often, then? I wanted to ask, but I felt that might be a little rude. Besides, seven years made him almost a stranger, so who was I to say anything, anyway? “I know, I just—I missed it. In the”—I waved my hand absently—“seven years. It was a long time.”

“Ah.” James nodded, biting in a smile that was just a little bit crooked, and the hollow part of my chest ached—the part that had been carved out by grief. It ached for something warm. For something good. For something that maybe, just maybe, could stay. A smile and a bittersweet story over lemon pie.

And I was in trouble tonight, because I smiled back.

“I think it was a little longer for me,” he said at last.

My eyes widened.

Suddenly, my phone buzzed, and I quickly tore my gaze away from him and pulled it out of my purse, expecting it to be one of my authors stranded at another airport or convention hotel. It was Fiona and Drew. Crap—I’d forgotten to text Drew and tell her that . . . what, I was out getting dinner with our prospective client?

Maybe not.

EARTH TO CLEMENTINE!!! Fiona texted, along with a slew of emojis I hoped meant that she was concerned and not about to murder me.

Are you murdered? Drew asked. Do we need to file a police report?

CLEMENTINE MIDDLE NAME WEST ARE YOU ALIVE, Fiona added. TEXT Y/N.

I really loved my friends. I also wished they wouldn’t have ruined the moment.

James asked, a little worried, “Is everything okay?”

“Oh, yeah. I just have to answer this.” Or else my friends might actually file a missing person’s report on me. “My friends. They’re a little . . .”

“Say no more,” he replied, raising his hands. “I’ve got the food. You can go find a seat for us, if you want?”

“Sure, thanks.” And I quickly left the food truck, which was perhaps for the best because I was getting way too warm standing beside him, and he was looking much too handsome, and that was the kind of line I was not going to cross. I headed for the stone benches in front of the Washington Square Arch, and sat there to wait.

Fiona followed that up with, Okay maybe don’t text. IF YOU’RE THE MURDERER WE’RE COMING AFTER YOU BUDDY.

Drew added, YEAH GET FUCKED.

YOU TELL ’EM BABE

Both of you need to calm down, I finally texted, glancing over at the food truck. Miguel was saying something to James, who looked bashful, rubbing the back of his neck. I wanted to commit that image to memory, put it in a frame in my head, the streetlights bright against his hair, the shadows across his face in blues and purples. I, not for the first time tonight, felt my fingers twitch with the thought of painting him in vivid colors, to capture the moment. To make it last forever.

Immediately, Fiona texted, HOLY CRAP SHE’S ALIVE. BABE SHE’S ALIVE.

HALLALUJUAH, Drew added.

Then again, *HALLILUJIAH

Then, **HALLALUDSHGAKJA

A smile broke out across my lips. Drew aren’t you supposed to be an editor? I asked.

Drew sent a frowning face.

Fiona said, Clearly she never had to pirate Rufus Wainwright off Limewire.

I think I just aged ten years reading that text, I replied, then told them I was out getting dinner with a friend I’d met on the sidewalk—not quite a lie, I figured—and put my phone away as James came over with our food, two Coronas under his arm. I took the beers as he sat down, and he popped them open on the side of the benches.

“To good food,” he said, handing me mine.

“And good company,” I replied, and we clinked the bottlenecks together, and I made do with painting this summer evening in my head. The night a mix of midnight-blue and purple haze, flecks of pearl, and loud, bright pinks that only I could see, metaphors for how I felt.

The night was warm, and the beer was cold, and the company was, in fact, quite perfect. People strolled under the arch, laughing with each other, and the park made the sky look so wide I could almost see the stars. We chatted as we ate. He asked about my job, and I asked him about his. The new restaurant he was opening took up a good majority of his time, so his sous chef at the Olive Branch was doing a lot of the heavy lifting, and he felt bad about it.

“Was that the chef I met last week?” I asked, recalling the sous who told me to leave the kitchen.

“Iona Samuels,” he replied with a nod. “One of the best chefs I have. She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s going to be the head chef at the Branch once I leave. I can’t imagine the restaurant in better hands.”

“Is it bittersweet? Leaving a place you’ve been for the last seven years?”

He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Somewhat, but it’s good for my brand, and my career.” It was nice seeing his life pan out exactly the way he wanted it to. It didn’t matter what I thought about his glossy life.

I was in so little of it, after all.

“I’ve worked so much,” he went on, “I really can’t stop now. Don’t really want to.”

“You’ve built something amazing. I bet your grandpa’s proud.”

He hesitated, and took another long swig of beer. “He passed, actually.”

It felt like the wind got punched out of me. “Oh—oh, I’m so sorry.”

He shook his head. “It’s okay, really. It’s been almost seven years now. He passed right after—” He stopped himself, and said instead, “A few days after I got my own apartment.”

So after he left my aunt’s place. After the summer. So soon, though, after he got his job. His grandpa didn’t even get to see him become the chef he was today. It was unfair, really. I wasn’t sure how to comfort him—or even if he wanted comfort. It had been seven years, after all . . . and he seemed to be able to talk about his grandpa a lot better than I could about my aunt. In the end, I just said, “Look at all you’ve done. You’re about to open up your own restaurant. You’ve made him proud.”

“I have,” he agreed, though there wasn’t ego in his voice. There was just . . . a tiredness? Yeah—he sounded tired. “And I’ve given up a lot to be here. Relationships, friendships, other career opportunities . . . only way to go is up.”

I took one last bite of chicken fajita, studying him in the streetlights. “Do you regret it?”

“If I said I did,” he replied, looking thoughtful, “would that be a disservice to the past me who dreamed of getting here? Probably.” But then a slow smile spread across his lips, honeyed and coy. “Though it’s a good thing I don’t. But . . .” He hesitated. “I do regret not being there. For you,” he added. “When your aunt passed. I regret that.”

A knot formed in my throat. I looked away. Anywhere else. “It’s fine,” I said shortly. “I’m fine.”

“No,” he mumbled, studying my face, and I knew it looked a little lost, a little broken, “you aren’t.”

“Why didn’t you come find me, then?” I asked abruptly. “Over the last seven years?”

His face pinched, he set down his plate on the bench beside him and started to clean his hands. I imagined he was thinking about how best to break it to me that he didn’t care to, that if he wanted to he could have, but he just planted a hand between us, leaned on it as he came in close, and whispered, “Would you have believed me, Lemon?”