I knew it was over when he told me to get away from the grill. Well, he didn’t so much tell me as dig an elbow into my side, while gliding smoothly between me and the sizzling plate, as easily as the chunks of beef had slid onto the skewers this morning.
His hair was longer now, with silver streaks in their silky lengths, almost platinum, as if he was twenty-five again, and dyed it at home. I was sixteen, and walked out of class one day to go to chef school. I couldn’t afford the knives, so he bought them for me – hundreds of dollars worth. He must have seen something, even then, in my cooking. I couldn’t see it, myself.
Then, when I graduated, he bought the restaurant – the one we had eaten in on our first date.
“It’s your birthday”, he said. “Now, show me what you can do.” He sat in the booth and watched me move about the kitchen. I prepared oysters, nicked my hand while shucking them. I poured the wine into the sauce and into our mouths.
The business came first – always. No holidays, no hobbies, no children. Just a handful of friends that owned other small businesses – always scratching their backs, so they can scratch ours. And ten years later, all that we have is due to that restaurant.
Until last night – when I felt dizzy from the steam and the heat above the bain maries and walked out, right at 7pm. I stepped into the cool, dark of the alleyway and found him locked in conversation with the handsome customer from the window table. The talk stopped abruptly, and he turned to me.
And now, here I was, on another birthday, standing behind his not-so-pert-anymore buttocks with a very long, very sharp barbecue fork. And an audience of twenty of our closest business colleagues lined up around the edges of the lawn.
What should I do?
This was written from the prompt here and over at The Haunted Wordsmith’s site. If you don’t follow her, pop over and give it a look – lots of wonderful stories and interesting prompts to inspire creative words.