With Hesitant Stride - A Blog Novel - Excerpt 2

"Calm down, girlfriend. It's obvious you're attracted to him and you know as well as I do, we hadn't confirmed with Mom and Dad. Let's go home and discuss this later." *** Jimmie dragged me through the door, barely giving me time to close it behind us. I had just enough time to scoop up the mail and drop it onto the hallway table before he pulled me into the living room and onto the sofa. "So. What do you think about Rich? Isn't he a cutey? I just wish he was gay. I'd snatch him up fast enough to make your head spin." "Slow down, stud. What makes you say he's not gay? It sure seemed he was more interested in you than in me. You spent, what, about ten minutes deep into swapping stories about your past bosses saying nary a word to me." "Yes, we did, but he didn't give a single c'mon during the entire time. And he specifically made it a point to tell you he'd see you tomorrow. That despite the fact you sat like a bump on a log, not talking. And I noticed that he glanced over at you several times while we were chatting." He bounced out of the sofa. "Anyway, enough lazing around the house. I'm tired of being in this suit and I'm hungry. So we can continue this conversation after I change and rustle us up some grub." As he flounced to his room, I pondered again what it was that led Jimmie to behave so much like a drag queen at home when he was always 'oh so straight' anywhere else. I put that thought aside as I went to change into something less damageable. Jimmie loved to cook, but his rambunctious playfulness meant the food didn't always stay in the pot. "What has The Great Jimmie, Chef Extraordinaire, decided he will serve to his adoring fans?" I asked as I entered the kitchen. "Perhaps a marvelous bouillabaisse or a Caesar's salad with bacon-wrapped filet mignon? No doubt, you plan to wow us with a simple, yet decadent chocolate soufflé?" "Don't you wish! Today I'm going peasant-rustic. You have a choice of Linguini with Bolognese Sauce and a Salad of Fresh Garden Greens or you can have Tomato Bisque a la Campbell's." he said, crumbling some sausage into a pot which looked to already contain hamburger. "But I warn you that if you choose the latter, you'll have to fix it yourself. As a side note, we need to go grocery shopping; the cupboard is beginning to run to the dogs." "Dogs?" I asked. "What do you mean 'run to the dogs'?" "You know, 'Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard to give her dog a bone. But when she got there the cupboard was bare… Our cupboard is quite bare," as he spoke he pulled containers of cremini and button mushrooms to him. He dumped about half of each onto a cutting board and made quick work of roughly dicing them. He tossed them into the pot with the meat, which had begun to brown, and turned down the heat. Noticing bits of orange, green and white mixed in with the meat, I asked, "What's that green and orange stuff you added?" "Just some mirepoix." "Mereapowah?" "No. Mirepoix. M-i-r-e-p-o-i-x. It's named after the town in France where it was first noted in a recipe. Basically, you dice up, finely, two parts onion, one part celery and one part carrots and saute them in some oil or butter until they start to get soft. They add aroma to sauces, stocks and such." The entire time he was talking he kept busy stirring the mixture, checking the larger pot, scooting back to the cutting board to chop some Roma tomatoes - which he set aside. "I've got to first drain off the excess fat from the sausage and hamburger before I add in the milk and white wine; could you get out the large strainer and put it in the sink?" "Sure," I said. "There you go. Fat's okay, but I prefer to not eat food that's swimming in the stuff. Wait a minute. Did you just say 'milk'?" "Yep. As the water in it evaporates, it'll thicken without having to add cornstarch or a roux. I haven't quite mastered making a roux, and I've always felt cornstarch tastes to floury in a tomato-based sauce." He transferred the contents back into the pot and added the tomatoes, wine and milk. "Okay, this is going to have to boil for a while to get the tomatoes cooked and let the rest of the liquids reduce. That'll concentrate the flavors nicely. I should have used beef cut into small stew chunks as well as panchetta instead of sausage, but hamburger and sausage cook faster." He turned the heat down on the larger pot. "We're not ready to cook the pasta, so I'll just let this simmer while we wait." "Getting back to our discussion of Richard, what makes you think he's all that interested in me and why do you think I should be interested in him? I'll admit that I could have serious erotic fantasies about him, but we've only just met. And you did all the talking." "You did plenty of looking. He noticed, and he didn't seem all that upset or worried by it, either." "I was that obvious?" Perhaps I needed to take a personal day tomorrow and let Richard have time to forget. "Yes. You were that obvious. But I'm trying to tell you, girl, he didn't seem to mind the attention. I'm thinking he's kinda feeling a little spark your way, as well." "Look, I'm just not ready for a relationship right now. It's too soon. My God, it's not even been a year since I broke up with Alan…" "And you and Alan hadn't been sleeping together for almost three months prior to that. Plus, he's the one who chose to start screwing around on you. So why are you punishing yourself for his failure?" "Don't you see? What if it was my fault? What if I didn't have what it took to keep Alan interested or I was being too bitchy or needy and I drove him away? How do I know I won't do the same to the next guy I date?" "Sweetie, we've been over this before," he turned back to the stove and stirred the pot containing the bolognese sauce, then he turned the heat up on the pasta pot. "As I told you the first time I met Alan, he was a complete jerk. I could tell he was a user the very first time we talked." Jimmie retrieved the linguini and dumped it in the larger pot, stirring it to keep it from clumping. "When you went to the little girl's room, Alan scoped out at least five other women at Harry's. I tried telling you, but you wouldn't listen." "So what if Richard's the same kind of person?" "He might be, but I didn't see him scanning the other women at Harry's tonight, and he wasn't scoping out the guys, either." He turned the heat down under the sauce. "And he looked at you at least twenty times while he was talking to me. Look, I'm not telling you to throw yourself at him. All I'm saying is you should think about taking him out to lunch, maybe do a dinner and a movie… see how it goes with him." I could tell dinner was almost ready so I started setting the table. "Yes, I can do that. I will do that. It is time for me to start meeting guys again." "That's my girl." He drained the pasta, put it in a serving bowl and poured the sauce over it. A few quick tosses and it looked as good as it smelled. I took the bowl from him and he went to the refrigerator and got out a small bowl of mixed salad greens. "But enough speculation about Richard and your sex life. I've created an Italian masterpiece you simply must try." With that we tucked into his 'peasant-rustic' dinner. Since he had gotten on this 'cooking' kick, I'd eaten more and better than I had any right to expect. Each time he tossed together one of his experiments, I thanked my lucky stars and that cooking channel on cable. "So," I said after taking several luscious bites of the meal, "you've pretty much guaranteed we're going to be cooking dinner for Thanksgiving this year. Do you have any ideas how to cook a turkey?" I was fairly sure he'd mutter something about 'needing to research it on the Internet', but he surprised me. "Yeah. I recently read about something called 'Garbage Can Turkey' and I think we can do that." "Garbage Can Turkey? That doesn't sound all that appetizing. Do they call it that because that's where most of it ends up?" "No, smarty-pants. They call it 'Garbage Can Turkey' because you're supposed to use a small galvanized garbage can as the 'oven'. I'll e-mail you the URL for the website." He got a thoughtful look. "Ummm… Since the turkey hangs upright from a rod inside the can, we can't stuff the bird. We'll have to cook the stuffing in a pan in the oven. That's okay though as I've been meaning to try one or another of the more exotic stuffings I've seen on TV." "If you can make it all work, I'm willing to experiment. You'll have to find a metal garbage can; maybe at one of the home improvement stores." We finished the meal and cleaned up while chatting about the trivial happenings of our work days. Of course, Jimmie whipped up a small bowl of popcorn for us to enjoy as we watched the latest episodes of our favorite shows. It was Wednesday which meant Jimmie got to decide the series we watched. By 10:30 I was ready to hit the sack. There's nothing like a stressful day and a tasty meal to make me sleepy. As I got ready for bed, I thought about how important Jimmie was to me and how glad I was to have him as a housemate and a friend. I'd had a rocky first couple of months after Alan and I broke up. Moving Jimmie into the other bedroom had made the transition from 'couple' to 'single' much more bearable. Which got me thinking what would happen to our friendship if I started dating Richard. He wouldn't feel threatened by the relationship, but if things got serious, either he or I would have to move out to make room for Richard. That would be hard on both of us. Unless, if things got serious, we moved into a bigger place. Pondering those questions, I dropped off to sleep.