Kitchen heat, p.23
Kitchen Heat, page 23
Sam turned onto her side, clutching her stuffed octopus, and was softly snoring in seconds.
In the living room, Kassi handed Barry a pillow and a blanket. “You need to be gone by eight. Clay is coming over for breakfast.”
“I’ll be gone. Some people are responsible and work for a living. They don’t cut up vegetables in clever shapes and call it a career.”
“Whatever. Sleep in your clothes.”
He smiled and raised an eyebrow. “You sure? You used to like me out of my clothes.”
“Stop being weird. And I hate that I have to ask, but can you please give me the child support check? You’re three months behind.”
Barry pulled out his checkbook and wrote out a check for three hundred and fifty dollars. “I threw in an extra fifty,” he said, eyeing the past-due bills on the table.
“Take it off of next month’s check.” Kassi did not want to be indebted to Barry, even for just fifty dollars. “Please don’t wake either one of us in the morning, especially Sam. She needs to rest. Let yourself out.”
“Okay, but I’ll go to her if she wakes up tonight, she needs to know I stayed.” He kicked off his shoes, fluffed up the pillow and stretched out on the couch. “Can a guy get a drink in this house?”
“There’s wine in the fridge,” she said, then turned and went into her bedroom and pulled the door mostly closed but not all the way. She needed to be able to hear Sam in case something happened during the night. She played the message Clay left. Thanks for letting me know. I’ll be over in the morning. Give Sam a kiss for me. Hope you’re doing okay. Love you.
She could hear Barry poking around in the fridge, pulling out the open bottle of white and rummaging in the cupboard for a glass. He grabbed two and filled both, then nudged open Kassi’s open door a bit.
“Sure I can’t tempt you?” he asked, holding out a glass. “It’s been a long night.”
“I’m sure,” Kassi said. “Look, whatever you think is happening is not happening. Nothing has changed.”
“Fine, good night.” Barry took the wine back to the kitchen, where he drank most of both glasses before stretching out on the couch.
Kassi slipped out of her clothes and pulled on her favorite nightgown. She buried her head in the pillow and wished Clay were next to her. She was completely wrung out and it didn’t take long for her to drop off into a deep sleep.
***
Clay pulled to a stop in front of Kassi’s apartment and then jumped out of his truck. He leaned back in through the open door and grabbed the carrier tray with coffee for Kassi and hot chocolate for Sam. With his other hand, he pulled on the string attached to an over-sized balloon shaped like a unicorn. He tugged and it popped out of the cab, bouncing above him like a happy cloud as he walked toward the apartment.
Other than Barry’s tirades, this was the first time Kassi and Clay had faced something challenging together as a couple. He was eager to help Kassi and Sam get through this. They probably didn’t get home until late. He would make breakfast when they were awake and then the three of them could talk about how the day should unfold.
Like a family.
A trash truck in the back alley banged around and Clay quickly shut the door behind him to keep out the noise. The living room curtains were closed and the apartment was hushed and dark. He tiptoed down the corridor, first turning to look into Sam’s room. She was asleep, her face burrowed into the pillow. He smiled.
Clay turned to the other side of the hallway and gently pushed Kassi’s half-open bedroom door. He froze.
She was in bed with Barry. They were asleep. Barry was spooned into her.
Clay’s mind began to wildly spin as he tried to find a reason, any reason, why this wasn’t what it seemed to be.
Barry sat up. Clay exhaled. Barry yawned.
Then Barry saw Clay.
“What the hell are you doing here, hippie?” Barry snarled.
His voice jolted Kassi from sleep. She sat up. At first, she seemed disoriented, looking around with sleepy, confused eyes. She saw Clay in the doorway and started to smile but her expression changed abruptly when she looked at Barry. Her eyes widened.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Don’t you remember last night?” Barry asked.
Clay let go of the balloon and it floated to the ceiling.
“What the fuck? Get out of here!” Kassi yelled. “Clay, this is not what it looks like.”
“Daddy?” Sam called.
Clay spun around, pausing for an instant at Sam’s door.
“Cooker?”
Clay didn’t say a word, he just put the hot drink cups on the dining room table next to two wine glasses and an empty bottle.
Kassi ran up behind him. She grabbed his arm, but he pulled away. She was wearing a worn, ratty nightgown, the outline of her nude body visible though the fabric.
“Clay, let me explain. This is nothing. Please, don’t go.” She reached for his arm once more and again he brushed her away. “Please, Clay. This is bullshit. He snuck in bed with me.”
“I trusted you,” Clay said, his hand on the doorknob, his voice cold. He looked over at Barry holding Sam, who was clutching the balloon string in her little fist. Barry was in boxers and no shirt.
“I’m asking you, please,” Kassi said. “Clay, don’t go. I’m begging you, begging.”
Clay wavered, fighting against the echoes of his past pulsating through his entire being. But he could only hear the cracking sounds of his life being destroyed again, and the need for motion won the moment. He opened the door and walked out.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
INT. KASSI’S APARTMENT AND LATER AT THE HIDEOUT – DAY
Old heartaches become new again.
Kassi hung up the phone. She’d called a dozen times and left four messages, but still no word from Clay. He couldn’t possibly think she slept with Barry, she thought. Could he?
“He seems a little high-strung,” Barry said. “Probably just as well.”
Kassi shot him a look cold enough to freeze hell. “Don’t talk to me,” she said. “No, I take that back. Tell me why you just blew up my life.”
“Fortune favors the bold.”
“Save me your inspirational locker room nonsense. You know that ‘us’ is never going to happen.”
“Not with that muscle-bound dope sniffing around,” Barry said. “I’m just lucky you’re such a hard sleeper.” He grinned.
“You are a self-centered child, an idiot who plays games with people’s lives, with my life. That stunt was beyond the pale and—”
Samantha walked in and they stopped talking.
Barry had agreed to take Sam to daycare. Her head bump seemed fine. It hadn’t colored up any further and she was begging to go to school. If the world were a fair place, Kassi would insist she and Sam stay home and read and color and take naps, but she needed the money. No shift, no tips. No tips, no food.
Barry made clear he couldn’t take the day off. Times like these made Kassi wish she lived closer to her mom. Or any family member, really. Or a good girlfriend.
Kassi reached down to help Sam finish getting dressed.
“Please think about our future,” Barry said. “Just consider it.”
“Stop talking about it right now. It’s confusing.”
“To me too,” he said.
She glanced over at Sam. “It’s not confusing to me.”
Kassi would not subject Sam to a discussion between her parents about the nonexistent future of their family unit. It would only get her hopes up. Kassi was done with Barry, especially after this sick little stunt, and had no idea why his interest in her was newly ignited.
It had to be jealousy, in that weird way men think women are the prizes in a chest-thumping primal game, objects to own and control. In Barry’s mind, he lost her to Clay, so suddenly he wanted her back. It didn’t hurt that his latest girlfriend probably dumped him after whatever weirdness happened at the hospital.
It wouldn’t last. His mood would switch or an inevitable disappointment or imagined slight would release the hounds of rage and send him baying into the arms of another woman.
She needed to talk to Clay. The damage Crystal inflicted on him was triggering his response. She understood that. A simple conversation was all they needed to clear up this misunderstanding. Together, they could manage all the other weirdness around them. They loved each other.
“Sam, stop wiggling and let me zipper your dress,” Kassi said.
Sam had picked out a dress normally reserved for a birthday party, a pink and black polka-dot number Kassi discovered at Goodwill with a Nordstrom’s price tag still attached. Sam wanted to dress up to add flair to her hospital story and Kassi gave in easily. Besides, Sam was growing so fast that there weren’t many months left when the dress would fit.
“Now eat,” she said, leading Sam to the kitchen table for a bowl of oatmeal. She turned to Barry. “Make yourself useful and pour your daughter some juice.”
“Please,” Sam said.
“What?” Kassi asked.
“Please make yourself useful. You forgot to say please.”
Kassi smiled for the first time that morning.
“I think we can be a family again,” Barry said. “We should be a family again.”
Kassi knew Sam was listening intently even though she acted like she wasn’t. She closed her eyes and thought about what to say, choosing her words carefully.
“You, me and Sam will always be a family, but we will never live together under the same roof again.”
“I like it better with two homes,” Sam said.
Barry stopped pouring apple juice. Kassi stopped cutting the cheddar cheese with ketchup sandwich she had prepared for Sam’s lunch and looked at her curiously.
“More ice cream for me.”
“Smarty pants,” Kassi said.
Barry looked stunned and she could sense the anger starting to spread like black mold across his emotions. He would probably say terrible things to Sam about Kassi once he was alone with her later in the car, how she had destroyed their family. She had no control over that. She needed to get to work. She needed to see Clay.
Kassi slid the sandwich into a plastic bag, slipped in a surprise package of Oreos along with four apple slices and a juice box, and latched Sam’s unicorn lunchbox. Kissing Sam goodbye outside, she told her she’d see her later that afternoon, refused the offer of a ride from Barry to work—what would Clay think if Barry dropped her off—and got to the bus stop just as it was pulling up.
At the restaurant, she was disappointed Clay wasn’t waiting for her in the dining room. He wasn’t on the schedule today, but she knew he’d come in at some point later, after the rush died down. During set-up for lunch, Ione asked if she was okay, wondering why she was so subdued. Kassi brushed it off.
As she was filling water glasses on a four-top, she spilled water from the pitcher onto the teenage boy in the group. Kassi then took the family’s food order, turned too fast and a coffee cup and a water glass slid off her tray onto the floor, shattering. Ione was by her side in seconds, calling for the busboy to sweep up.
“Dessert is on us today,” Ione said cheerfully to the mother, after checking to be sure no eyes were punctured by the flying shards. “How about we move you all to a new spot, I’ve got a great booth right by the window.”
“Also, get them a new waitress,” Ione hissed into Kassi’s ear as she shuffled the four-top out. “Get your act together or clock out and go home.”
Throughout the rest of the lunch shift, Kassi kept looking at the door, expecting Clay to come in, to tell her he was sorry for leaving, to let her explain. He had to know she would never do anything to hurt him.
She was not Crystal.
But why wasn’t he here?
She wondered if she could have done anything differently in the moment to keep Clay from leaving. Scream at Barry? Tearfully beg Clay to stay? She did that, sort of. Should she have been more emphatic?
Back in the kitchen as she was hauling a bus tub full of bowls swimming in an inch of watered-down pale pink Hungarian mushroom soup, she pulled Roz aside. “I’m on the long shift today. Any chance you can cover for me?”
“No sorry. I’m …” A shadow of disappointment darkened Kassi’s face. “You know what, sure,” Roz said.
Kassi hugged her, surprising them both.
“You seem a little off today. Is everything okay?”
“Sam took a tumble yesterday and I’d like to bring her home from daycare early.”
“Poor thing, you and Sam. She’s okay, right?”
Kassi nodded, fighting back unexpected tears. “And something happened with Clay. I’m all twisted up.”
“I’m sorry. He does that. Go fix things.”
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Kassi cashed in her tips—not a great day, but not awful, almost thirty-five dollars—finished her side work, clocked out, all while avoiding Ione, and caught the bus to Clay’s house.
At his door, she knocked, waited, and knocked again. No answer.
“Clay?”
She put her ear to the door. No noise from inside. Maybe he was sleeping. She looked through the window on the porch. Inside, she could make out the couch and coffee table. Maybe he was hiding. Stop being paranoid, she thought. He was simply not home.
It was a long shot, but she decided to head to The Hideout, his favorite bar. Clay typically wasn’t a day drinker, but she didn’t know what else to do.
It was a short walk to the bar. Clay had taken her there a few times, and she liked the hole-in-the-wall atmosphere almost as much as he did. She had even gone there once on her own. She felt safe there. Melinda made sure she was left alone.
The world would be a happier place if all bartenders were women.
Kassi opened the door and felt a surge of relief. Clay was at the bar.
He didn’t see her come in. He had a shot of whiskey and a beer in front of him, along with what looked like an uneaten burrito. Melinda walked by with a tray of drinks for a table in the back. “Oh, thank god,” she said to Kassi. “He’s had a few, but he doesn’t seem too drunk.”
“How long has he been here?”
“He was waiting when we opened.”
Kassi walked up behind him and wrapped her arms around his back. He flinched and then froze. She unwound her arms and slid onto the bar stool next to him. He kept his eyes forward.
“Clay, I’m so sorry. I can’t believe Barry did that.”
He didn’t answer, just downed his shot and took a sip of beer. Mel brought over a drink for Kassi.
“I seem to remember you like gin and tonics,” Mel said. “This is a double and it’s on the house. Clay, you’d do well to slow down.”
Clay ignored her too. Mel walked over to a new customer on the other end of the bar.
“Why aren’t you saying anything?” Kassi asked.
“What exactly do you want me to say?” His voice vibrated with anger.
“Anything,” she said, pressing down her instinctive panic reaction to the signs of a coming rage that she associated with Barry, but now was emanating from Clay.
She steadied herself, and put her hand on his thigh. This was Clay. Not Barry. He turned to face her and then pushed her hand away.
“How could you?” he said, his voice now rising to a full-on shout.
“Don’t yell at me,” she said quietly.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, his voice still elevated. “Am I supposed to smile and say I loved seeing you in bed with your ex-husband? He sure didn’t seem very ex to me, lying next to you in his goddamn underwear.”
“You think I slept with Barry?” She was incredulous. “Like I would do that to you? Or to me?”
“I saw you in bed together.”
“Clay, inside voice,” Mel said.
If he heard her, he didn’t let it show. Kassi watched, horrified, as the repressed anger from the years of pain Crystal inflicted spilled out of him like rain through an overloaded downspout.
“I helped you with your goddamned screenplay, babysat your kid, made you both dinner, and what do you do? You cheat on me with a man who abused you.”
Kassi worked hard to keep her voice calm. “I know that must have been a shock, what you saw. It was a shock to me to wake up with him in my bed—”
Clay didn’t let her finish. “So, he just tripped and fell, then all his clothes came off and he landed in your bed? You expect me to believe that?”
“Yes, I expect you to believe that because that’s what happened. He wanted you to find us, he set it all up. You know Sam hurt her head, and she asked him to spend the night—”
“She did, or you did?” He was calmer now but his tone was cruelly sarcastic.
“You need to be careful here,” Kassi said, her heart rate accelerating.
“There were empty wine glasses. Two of them. It was my goddamn wine.”
“I did not sleep with him. I would never do that to us.”
“I was a fool to think you’d leave him. The first chance you got, you hopped back in the sack with him. You were using me all along. People warned me but I refused to believe them. Fuck this.” He spat the last two words out viciously, and loudly.
The hardness in his voice hit her in the face as if he had struck her. She nodded, slowly and then picked up her drink.
“Yeah, fuck this. And fuck you for thinking so poorly of me.”
Kassi threw the gin and tonic in his face and left without another word, slamming the door behind her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
INT. ROSE AND THORN RESTAURANT – DAY
Could this day get any worse? (Spoiler alert: Yes, and how.)
Kassi tossed a plate of pasta into the window where it landed with a clank and clatter.
“Gilroy, can you please tell Clay that table six who asked for their pasta without onions would actually like it to have no onions in it?”
Gilroy looked at her, then at Clay who hadn’t turned around. “I mean, he’s right here, but sure. Clay, Kassi said that—”
