The Pairing, page 34
Theo steers into a secluded cove within steep, curving walls of rock and throws the anchor. There, we float, eating and taking turns drinking from the bottle.
“Fuck,” Theo moans as they chew. “Why is this, like, the best sandwich I’ve ever had?”
“I have a theory about this,” I say. “I call it the contextual sandwich.”
“Contextual sandwich?”
“Yes,” I say. “Sometimes, a perfect sandwich is not just about the sandwich itself, but about the setting. The experience of eating the sandwich. Context can elevate a great sandwich to a spiritual experience.”
“I’m following,” Theo says, nodding thoughtfully. “I think it’s that and also the onion agrodolce.”
“The onion agrodolce is everything,” I agree. “I want to make a baby with it.”
“Ooh.” Theo sits up, inspired. “Onion agrodolce, on the fly.”
“Well, I already said, I would take the onion agrodolce and make a baby.”
“Something you can eat, Kit.”
“Why not the baby? Like Saturn devouring his son.”
“Kit devouring his onion baby,” Theo imagines. “I can see the painting now.”
“Art historians hate him.”
“And they’re right to.”
“But actually…” I chew and swallow another bite, considering the question. “I think I’d keep it simple. Bake it into a nice focaccia. Let it do its sexy little thing.”
“Hm. Focaccia has lots of olive oil, right?”
“Correct.”
“Okay, I’ll take the olive oil and emulsify that with an egg white,” Theo says. “Add lemon juice, basil simple syrup, Gin Mare, bit of soda. Mediterranean gin fizz.”
I imagine a bistro table somewhere close to the sea, set with both. A pillow of focaccia with sweet-and-sour onion on a chipped saucer, a juice glass with fizz and a single, fresh basil leaf shipped in from a farm in Cinque Terre. I find that I don’t want to come up with the next dish; I want to sit here with this complementary pair.
“Do you ever think,” I ask Theo, “about how amazing it is that a drink or a plate of food can be so good separately, but if you pair them together the right way, it becomes an experience?”
“Well, yes,” Theo says with a swig of wine. “That is a sommelier’s job.”
“Huh. It is, isn’t it? You’re an experience maker.”
“Yeah, I am,” Theo says, preening slightly. I love to see it. “I think that’s what I like most about everything I do, the bus or the somm stuff or anything. I like creating an experience. I like tasting and smelling and feeling things, and listening to what’s meaningful to someone, and then trying to distill all of that into a glass.”
“What did you think of the wine pairings at that first dinner in Paris?”
“Oh, fuck. Those were inspired. The Châteauneuf-du-Pape they paired with the gigot d’agneau?” They groan at the memory. “Honestly, that might have been my favorite meal of the whole trip.”
“Really? We’ve had so many incredible ones since.”
“I know. Maybe I just have a soft spot for French food.”
“Oh, you do?” I say, smiling. “Any particular reason?”
I’m flirting, setting them up for an easy, dirty joke about how the French go down easier, but Theo says plainly, “Probably because I’m in love with you.”
We said it so many times last night, but my heart still clenches.
“What about you?” Theo asks. “What was your favorite meal of the tour?”
I think about it. “Maybe dinner at Fabrizio’s family’s restaurant in Naples. That ragù, God.”
“Ooh, that was a good one,” Theo agrees. “My favorite drink, though—that might have been the Pomerol we had at the chateau in Bordeaux.”
I smile fondly. “Oh, Florian.”
“Oh, Florian,” Theo echoes.
“Be honest—did he take it better than me?”
“Not better,” Theo says fairly. “But like a champ.”
“Maybe I’ll go back to Bordeaux one day.”
“Send me a video if you do.”
“I’ll ask him,” I say, more intrigued by the thought of Theo wanting videos from me than the idea of topping God’s perfect farmhand. “My favorite drink was the vin santo we had in Chianti, with the cantucci.”
“You would pick the only drink that came with a cookie,” Theo teases. “Favorite sight?”
“The Duomo in Florence,” I say. “Definitely. You?”
“Roman Forum is up there. But I have to give it to the Sagrada Familia.” They finish their sandwich and wrap the remains back up in the paper. “Can I tell you a secret?”
“All of them, always.”
“I think,” Theo says, “being in Sagrada Familia with you, listening to you tell me about it—that was when I started to realize I still loved you.”
The tide laps quietly against the sides of the boat, swaying us from side to side.
“It was?”
Theo nods. “Yeah.”
“An architecture lecture made you realize you loved me?”
“It was the Gaudí story, man,” Theo says, laughing. “It got me.”
“It’s romantic, isn’t it?”
“That man really loved that church.” They’ve pushed their sunglasses up into their hair, and their gaze holds mine as they pass the bottle back. “It was also just … I knew I loved you when I listened to how you talk about something you love. I don’t know if you know how beautiful it is, the way you give your whole heart to what moves you. You’re always looking for reasons to love things, and when you do, it’s never halfway. I’ve always loved that about you.”
“Theo,” I say softly. I set the bottle on the floor of the boat and take their hand. “I need to tell you something.”
“Tell me.”
I take a deep breath and say, “My nose is about to start bleeding.”
“Your—?”
“My nose, yes.”
“How— Oh, fuck, there it goes.”
They pull their hand back, grimacing as wet warmth begins trickling into the dip above my upper lip. I’d be embarrassed if we had any reasons left to be. As it is, I have to tell myself not to laugh so it doesn’t overflow into my mouth.
“Dude, are you okay?” Theo asks, handing me a paper napkin. “Does it always happen this often?”
“Before I saw you in London, it had been over a year,” I say. “But since then—twice a week? Maybe three times?”
“Why?”
I smile, a bead of warmth rolling over my lip. It’s just so ridiculous. Theo’s brows shoot up.
“Because of me? They’re—love nosebleeds?”
I nod. “Always were.”
“That’s disgusting,” Theo says, lunging forward, sliding a hand into my hair.
They swipe their tongue across my lips and push it into my mouth, and we drink in the mingled flavors of us: the acidic burn of green grapes and vinegar, a heady combination of bitter orange and lavender, coppery blood turned sweet and ripe as a pomegranate in Proserpina’s palm.
I pull them into my lap, and they push our swimsuits aside and take me right here, floating in our hidden blue cove under the Mediterranean sun. I spread my fingers to touch all of them I can reach, so that when they’re gone, I won’t have to imagine anything. I’ll only have to close my eyes and relive this, their grinding hips, the smell of summer on their skin, their body living forever in my body’s memory.
Rilke wrote, He makes a home in your familiar heart, takes root there and begins himself again.
After, we strip down to our bottoms, our chests unceremoniously bare, and jump in. I tread water while Theo swims laps around me, ripples of light sliding over them. I count their efficient strokes. They know exactly where they’re going.
* * *
At a seaside restaurant near the busiest part of Favignana—that is, one of the streets not wandered by cattle—everyone seems reluctant to finish their last dinner of the tour. Even after all these days on a bus and nights in strange beds, all the blisters from long city walks and Florentine sunburns and daily translation failures, it always seems like home could wait one more day. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to take my final sip of wine wearing shoes that stood before a Botticelli only days ago. I can’t imagine walking into my apartment and kicking them off into the pile with the rest.
Around tables laden with fresh-caught seafood, the strangers we met three weeks ago talk and laugh and feast in now-familiar ways. The honeymooners touch hands on the tablecloth. The Swedes finish all their vegetables first. Dakota and Montana photograph every dish from a dozen dynamic angles before they throw their phones down and dig in. The Calums laugh too loudly—although, tonight, they sit closer than usual. A conspicuous bruise on Blond’s neck looks about the size of a man’s mouth. When Theo catches Montana’s eye, she gives them a thumbs-up, and Theo and I raise our glasses. Montana smiles victoriously, running her fingers through Dakota’s blond hair.
Between primi and secondi, Fabrizio stands and makes a toast.
“For nine years now, I do this tour,” Fabrizio says, holding his glass of prosecco aloft. “Since I was twenty-five years old. If I am honest, sometimes I cannot wait for this dinner. Sometimes the people are not so good, and the weather much worse, and I wish to be home soon as I can. And sometimes, this dinner breaks my heart, because the people are so kind, and the sky is so blue, and the wind is so warm, and the love in my heart for food and wine and history shines back to me from all of you, and I do not want to say goodbye. Tonight, amici, my heart is broken.”
People sigh. My own heart aches. Beneath the table, Theo reaches for my hand.
“Grazie mille ragazzi,” Fabrizio says with shimmering eyes, “thank you for coming along with me. I hope you will remember me well. Salute!”
“Salute!” the room calls back, and we drink to our dear, delicious, devastating Fabrizio.
* * *
Before the end of dinner, we sneak away to the smallest, emptiest beach we can find nearby. We stand before the setting sun and take out the whiskey, like we always said we would. Theo has another day and a half on their own before they fly home, but I leave first thing in the morning, so this is our last chance. Funnily enough, though, Theo has a layover in Paris.
As we drink, Theo asks, “Which city was your favorite?”
I consider my answer for a long time.
Finally, I admit, “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Saint-Jean-de-Luz.”
“I was going to say that one too,” Theo says. “All the others I felt like I was visiting, but Saint-Jean-de-Luz felt like a home, you know? Or—I guess Paris is home to you, so maybe not.”
“No, I know what you mean,” I say. “There was something about it, a sort of…”
“Peace,” they finish for me.
I nod, letting the tide wash up to my ankles. Theo passes me the whiskey, and I savor its burn.
“I think these might have been the most important three weeks of my life,” Theo says. “There were so many things I didn’t even know I was capable of until I was doing them. And I never would’ve known if I hadn’t come. And now, when I look at my life back home, I feel like I can see actually see it clearly from here.”
“I know what you mean about clarity,” I say. “You know I’ve been trying to read A Room with a View for two years now?”
Theo shakes their head. “Really? You?”
“I know. It’s been like that with so many things. Baking for myself, or making up recipes, or painting, or drawing. I just haven’t had it in me. I packed that book and all those sketchbooks because I was hoping that something here would bring it out. And now I feel like … like I’m starting to come back to life. Like I’m a plant and someone finally remembered to water me.”
After a long moment of thought, Theo says, “You used to get this look on your face when you were baking—this smile, like you were exactly where you were supposed to be.”
I consider this, the differences between now and then, when I was baking my own recipes in my own kitchen. I think I could feel that way again, under the right conditions.
“I might need a new job,” I confess. Theo laughs quietly, and so do I. “What about you? What’ll you do when you get home?”
“I think,” Theo says, tipping their chin up with a declarative air, “I will try to figure out what the one thing I want to do is, and then really commit to that thing.”
“That sounds like a good plan.”
“And I think maybe, maybe, I will talk to Sloane about the money. And maybe I could even move out of the Valley, to somewhere new,” they say. “I don’t know. There’s so much world out here.”
“There is,” I agree.
“Most of all,” they say, “I want us to stay friends.”
God, I didn’t realize how badly I needed to hear them say that until they did. I touch their cheek with my fingertips, swimming in the clear-water blues and greens of their eyes.
“I want that too,” I say. “I don’t want you to ever not be in my life.”
“Good,” they say fiercely. “And I’ll come visit you.”
I raise my eyebrows, teasing. “Will you?”
“I will.” They put their arms around my waist. “And you’ll come visit me, and there could be … benefits.”
“Benefits,” I repeat. “I’ll always want your benefits.”
Theo laughs.
When we finish the whiskey, I take my unsent letter and roll it up as tightly as I can, then push it through the bottle’s opening and screw on the cap.
Theo hooks their chin over my shoulder, pressing their cheek against the side of my neck. I imagine us in five, fifteen, thirty years. Best friends an ocean apart, reappearing once every couple of years to burn the bedroom down, then slipping back to our own lives. Always orbiting each other, never fully out of reach.
I could love that ongoing, extant Theo again. There’s so much romance in that, so much beauty in learning how much my heart can endure. Sometimes I think the only way to keep something forever is to lose it and let it haunt you.
I reel my arm back, ready to throw our letter in a bottle to sea, but at the last moment, Theo stops me.
“I want to keep it,” they say. “Maybe I’ll want to read it, one day when I love you less.”
PARIS (AGAIN)PAIRS WELL WITH:
Tarte tatin aux pêches, espresso from the second-best café in Bastille
It feels like there must be such a tremendous distance between Palermo and home, between where Theo is and where Theo isn’t, but the flight only takes two and a half hours. I close my eyes to Ravel in my headphones, and when I open them, I’m once again arriving in Paris alone. This time, I’m here because we chose it. That has to count for something.
At home, everything is how I left it. The embroidered pillows on the sofa, the shelves of my and Thierry’s books. Maxine has washed and changed the bedsheets, even spritzed them with the lavender oil I keep beside the bed. The plants in the windows are happy and verdant, their leaves plump and shiny in the early afternoon light. The detailed list of plant care instructions I left on the chalkboard by the kitchen has been erased and replaced with a stick-figure drawing of Maxine and me riding a giant strawberry.
The first thing I do, once I’ve unpacked and showered and applied all the nice skincare products I couldn’t pack, is go to the market. I pick up the basics to ready my kitchen for everyday use again—eggs, butter, milk, ripe tomatoes on the vine, a fresh loaf of peasant bread, paper cartons of berries, lemons, heavy cream—and then carefully select the ingredients for a tarte tatin. Summer will end soon, and in a few months autumn will bring quinces; today, I choose peaches.
I haven’t made a tarte tatin since pâtisserie school, and it turns out I’ve forgotten how tricky they can be. A quarter of the peaches stick to the pan. Not my best work, but if I’m being honest, Guillaume isn’t the best fuck. Both will do in a pinch.
It’s a twelve-minute bike ride from my apartment to Guillaume’s, and I spend it reflecting on what exactly I’ve been doing with him. I like him, but I like a lot of people. He’s sweet, and he manages the best café in Bastille, and last month he physically mailed me a poem, which means he’s probably at least a little in love with me. I never asked him to be, and I’ve never suggested it would be a good idea. But I do bring him a tart every so often, which Maxine says is “evil, misleading boyfriend behavior.” I haven’t been trying to mislead him. It’s just that the way he smiles every time is so lovely.
He gives me that smile when he answers the door to me and my tart, which makes me feel even guiltier that I’m here to break things off.
I know, the same as I’ve known since I was nine years old in the desert, that I’ll always love Theo. But I can’t keep doing what I’ve been doing with that love. It doesn’t feel fair to go on burying it in other people, showing them all the flowers Theo has frescoed over my heart without telling them I’ve already put someone else’s statue in the fountain at its center. Guillaume is the first on the list. Tomorrow I’ll call Delphine, and Luis, and Eva, and Antoine, and—maybe I should write this down later.
Guillaume takes it reasonably well, but he lets me know in no uncertain terms that I will not be getting my plate back. Fair.
When I get home, I do the next thing on my housekeeping list: I call my dad. He answers as if we last spoke a few days ago, which doesn’t surprise me. He’s not in Rome, but he is currently writing in residence at the Ace Hotel in Manhattan, even though his apartment is only six blocks over. He’s been translating a German vampire novel for fun in his spare time. I tell him about the tour, about the food and the paintings and the sea, but not about Theo. The closest we get to addressing our last conversation is a vague mention he makes of wanting to visit Paris and “leave work at home this time.”
“I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be living here,” I tell him. “I’ve been thinking about making some changes.”
On the other end of the line, he’s quiet for long enough that I think he must not have been paying attention. My suspicions seem confirmed when he says, “Did I mention my editor is leaving? I had dinner with him last week.”
