Stir Me Up Read online

  Things start off smoothly around five as guests start filtering in. Cooking and plating. It’s hot, but not unbearable. Dad keeps coming by to check on me.

  “Everything under control?” he asks.

  “Oui, chef,” I reply.

  “Keep an eye on her,” Dad then mutters to Luke, who nods.

  Ugh. Okay, I know he’s my boyfriend and is used to working this station. But still, Luke’s been with Dad less than a year—and now he’s my supervisor?

  Things get busier at six.

  Then at seven comes the maelstrom.

  Oh my God, what work. The ovens on either side of me are blasting heat, as is mine, three times the heat I’m used to. Sweat is literally pouring down my chest and back and arms and face. The guys are babysitting me and they’re short-tempered about it. I ruin a steak by overcooking it and get yelled at by my father when I try to go back for a drink of water—which I don’t even get before he sends me back to my station.

  Back on the line, my hands are shaking so hard the plating looks like crap and the servers frown at me. There are so many orders I can’t keep them straight, can’t remember what I’m doing with which piece of meat and Luke is taking tickets from me, taking on half my workload, and I’m blinking back tears and suddenly I feel extremely dizzy. I grab his arm. He shakes me off, annoyed, because I’ve grabbed his right arm, his cooking arm. And then he sees me and clutches me. “Go take a break.”

  “No, I’m okay.”

  “You’re about to fall over. Go take a break.”

  “No.”

  “Damn it, Cami!”

  “You watching the food or each other?” The sous-chef barks at us.

  I return to work, fighting back intense dizziness and nausea, and somehow I make it through to nine-thirty when it gets quieter and my father comes up to me. “You all right?” Dad asks. I collapse into him, black stars popping against the backs of my eyes. My ears are burning, my hands tingling, my body is wrecked. “Sorry,” I say. And I pass out.

  I come to a few minutes later in Dad’s arms. He’s carrying me into his office.

  “Put me down,” I mumble.

  “Quiet.”

  “Put me down. This is embarrassing.”

  He brings me into his office and sets me on the couch, hands me a bottled water. “Drink.”

  “No, I have to get back to my station. I’m not done yet.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “I’m fine, Dad. I just got slightly dizzy.”

  “Rest here,” he says. “Then Luke will take you home. I’d do it myself but I have some VIPs out there tonight.” He studies me and frowns. “You’re pale.”

  “I’m a screw-up.”

  “You did all right for a first time. Rest.”

  I nod and he leaves and about twenty minutes later, Luke comes in to get me. “How do you feel?”

  “Okay.”

  He wraps an arm around me like I’m an invalid. Which is humiliating. He opens his truck door for me. I slide into the passenger seat, close my eyes and say almost nothing most of the way back home. “You okay?” he asks.

  “Yeah.”

  When we get there, Luke lifts me out of the seat and then, again with his arm around me, leads me up to the house.

  “I’m fine. I can walk by myself,” I grouse.

  “I know, tough girl.”

  Estella is already there waiting for us, ushering us in and telling Luke to take me to the sofa. “What should I get her?” she asks him.

  “Orange juice,” he says. “Cheese. Peanut butter.”

  “Right.” Estella hurries off.

  I start to cry. “I sucked!”

  “You didn’t suck,” he says, wiping my tears. “You didn’t suck at all.”

  “I’m a wimp!”

  “You’re a trooper.”

  “Liar.”

  He sits down next to me. “Alone at last.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Nothing, it just seems like I never get to be with you.”

  “Can we talk about this later? I’m not feeling well.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just that...” He hesitates, touches my arm. “I don’t see you at night anymore. Not even really at lunch.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” He turns so I’m in his arms. “I just miss you.” His mouth finds mine.

  “Oops,” Estella says, surprising us. “Sorry!”

  Luke moves reluctantly away. “That’s for Cami?”

  “Yes. Here you go.” She sets down a glass of juice and a plate of cheese, peanut butter and crackers, looking a little pink with embarrassment.

  “Thanks, Estella.”

  “Of course. I’ll just leave you two.”

  She hurries off, and Luke starts handing bits of food to me. “Eat.”

  I have a little and then push the plate away, still upset at myself for screwing up. “I’m tired. I feel terrible.”

  “Okay.” He settles the blanket over me. “I’ll go and let you rest.”

  “Thanks. And thanks for driving me home.”

  “Sure.” He kisses me goodbye and then sees himself out, after which I fall asleep and eventually feel yet another blanket being laid on me.

  “You killed her,” Estella whispers.

  “She’s fine,” Dad says.

  “You work her too hard.”

  “She does it to herself.”

  “Like her old man.”

  It’s quiet and I think maybe they’ve left and it’s very quiet and I fall back asleep and then awaken to a noise. It’s the cell phone in my pocket. It’s past midnight. I ignore the phone and get up and hear another noise in Julian’s room—the television. I knock lightly on his door and peek my head in. “Hello?”

  His hand moves quickly away—from my dog. Shelby’s tail wags—and she scoots over to cuddle up to Julian for more petting. “Ach,” he says, pushing her away.

  “Were you just petting Shelby?”

  “No.”

  “Because usually that’s what she does after you pet her.”

  “I wasn’t petting her, I was trying to get her away from me.”

  “Uh-huh.” I hide a smile.

  “I was. Why would I want to pet that thing?”

  Shelby’s kind of aggressive about the love when she wants to be. She’s moving in on his lap now, which means over his half leg. “No,” he says. “Uh-uh...” He pushes her more firmly away. “Can’t you get her out of here?”

  “No, I’m having far too much fun watching you pet her.”

  “I am NOT petting her! She’s a drooling, snoring snotball.”

  I decide I’ve tormented him enough and lift Shelby and place her on the floor for him. She goes off to sleep in the corner of the room. “What are you watching?”

  “An old one, War of the Worlds.” He glances at his hand-knitted quilt and then pulls it over his legs. It’s a patchwork pattern with lots of colors.

  “You got that in the hospital?” I ask, nodding at the quilt.

  “Yeah, some women gave it to me in Germany.”

  “Can I watch with you?”

  Julian shrugs. I don’t want to sit on the bed with him, so I sit in his wheelchair. He looks oddly at me.

  “Do you mind me sitting here?”

  “Don’t wreck it.”

  I glance at him and don’t know whether to be exasperated or sympathetic. “I’m not going to wreck it.”

  He looks at me and frowns a little. “What happened to you tonight?”

  “I passed out at work.”

  His eyes seem concerned. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine physically. I’m just...” My gaze catches his. He still looks concerned for me. “Like the first girl on the hot line maybe ever. And what do I do? Do I rise up and meet the challenge smartly by resting and eating beforehand and having water nearby? No. I tough it out like an idiot and fall flat on my face.”

  He doesn’t respond right away. “Were you being careless?”


  “No. I did it on purpose.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I was—” I think of what Luke said to me and hesitate. “I was out to prove something, I guess.”

  “I understand that,” Julian says. His face grows distant. “You wanted to show everyone just how tough you really are. What you’re made of. So you make it as hard a test as you possibly can for yourself. And you feel like if you can just get through it, gut it out, you’ll have accomplished something significant. You’ll be somebody. But no. In the end you realize you were just kidding yourself. You’re nothing special. And you probably should have just stayed in school.”

  Holy crap. I stare at him. He won’t look at me. “You can still go to school.”

  He turns his attention back to the movie. But now he’s all I can think about. Finally, I force myself to stop wondering about the ghosts of his past and watch the film. “What are those pod things?”

  “That’s where they keep the people they catch. They drink their blood.”

  “Um, goodbye.” I start to get up out of my seat.

  Now he gives me a look—of scorn. “Oh come on. Don’t be a total wimp.”

  “I am a total wimp. As tonight proves.”

  “It’s all right. They all die in the end.”

  I sit back down. “Thanks for wrecking it for me.”

  “You were ready to leave!”

  “I might have stayed. You just ruined the ending.”

  “Hey, you ruined the middle,” he says with a hint of a smile. “You made me miss the last half hour with your whining about your dumb fainting spell.”

  I hide a smile of my own. “So rewind it.”

  “You’re staying?”

  I nod. “I want to see how the people kill them.”

  “The people don’t kill them, our airborne viruses do.”

  Wait. “What? What kind of horror film is this?”

  “Don’t you know about the radio show they had on way back when and Orson Welles or somebody did the broadcast and it sounded so real everyone thought it was actually happening?”

  “No, I didn’t know that,” I say, a bit amazed. “That’s kind of hilarious.”

  He cocks an eyebrow at me. “It’s really famous.”

  “The viruses get them?”

  Julian shifts on the bed, fixes his pillows a little. “Sure. Humans have been here for so long we’re immune to many of them. Thanks to millions of years of evolution, our bodies can fight them off. But the aliens, not so much.”

  I touch the edge of his blanket a little. “Great. A horror film written by my biology teacher.”

  “I thought you were in anatomy this year.”

  “I am.”

  He bends his left arm so it’s up behind his head. The posture’s normal and relaxed but it also makes me uncomfortably aware of him, his muscular arm and open chest. “How’s that going for you?”

  “Terribly.”

  “Need some help?” He grins. “Like with any certain parts in particular?”

  I tug a pillow out from behind his head and hit him with it. “Perv.”

  His arm comes down, and he hunches up. “Hey, watch it. I’m wounded here.”

  “Whiner.” I pull another pillow out from behind him and hit him with it. Then he hurls a pillow back at me, much harder than I threw mine. “Hey!” I have the pillow, but I’m still afraid to throw it too hard, so I keep it and hit him in the shoulders with it. He winces like maybe he’s in pain. “Are you all right?”

  He snatches the pillow from me. “Ha!”

  “Give me that.”

  “No chance.”

  I start wrestling it away from him, being careful of his legs; he’s tugging and I’m tugging; then suddenly his hands cradle my arms, and I see his eyes close. My breath catches. Not knowing what else to do, I take the pillow uncertainly away, claiming my prize.

  “I have a question.”

  “Sure, go ahead,” he says, shutting off the movie.

  “Why did you join the Marines?”

  He shrugs. “I come from a long line of military men.”

  “Do you ever see your father?”

  Julian shakes his head no. “He died when I was two. In Somalia.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

  “It’s okay, I was too young to understand that one.” He pauses. “My mom, on the other hand...”

  I am quiet, afraid to ask him about it. “The last time I saw my mom, I was eight years old,” I offer instead. “She kissed me good-night, same as always and then walked out the door.”

  Julian looks intently at me. “I was nine.”

  My cell beeps again. I don’t pick up the phone or even glance at it. I don’t even know why it’s still in my pocket.

  Julian hears it, and his eyes waver. I’m thinking about him losing his mother and wondering how she died. I imagine the funeral, a nine-year-old boy blown apart by grief. And then I think of my dad, how crushed he was when Mom left. L’amour est difficile... Dad said that morning. Love is difficult. Tears well in my eyes as I recall the tears that were in his.

  “Well, I see I haven’t lost my touch with girls,” Julian says with a wry smile.

  I laugh a little and then reach into the night table and take out a variety pack of single squares of German chocolates. “Here, doctor’s orders.”

  “You keep a stash of those things in my night table?”

  “Ahem. My night table.”

  Julian’s smile fades. He watches s me thoughtfully. “You miss your bed. Your room.” A statement, not a question.

  I do. There’s no doubt. The alcove sucks. But...

  “I’m glad you’re here,” I say. His eyes look different; they seem to have turned warm, dark and full all of a sudden.

  “You have school in the morning?”

  I nod, a little confused, not by what he’s saying, but by what I’m seeing—and feeling—or maybe it’s nothing.

  “You should get some sleep.”

  “So should you,” I say. “What do you have against sleep anyway?”

  “It doesn’t agree with me. Take your bed back for the night.”

  Tempting. “No, Julian. The alcove is fine.”

  “You hate it up there and I’d probably be more comfortable on the chair in the sunroom.”

  “Let’s just both stay here awhile.” I climb onto the bed, the other side of the bed, and sit cross-legged on top of the covers with my chocolates. “So,” I say, trying not to think about the fact that—in a way—I’m sharing a bed with him, “close your eyes and tell me which one I’m giving you.”

  “Is this like a test?”

  “Yes. Close your eyes and open your mouth.”

  He does. He closes his eyes and opens his mouth. I hesitate, then force myself to feed him the damned thing.

  “Hazelnut,” he says, chewing it.

  “Yes, very good.”

  “Your turn. Close your eyes.”

  “Well, I already know it’s not hazelnut.”

  “Close them.”

  I do.

  “And open your mouth.”

  I do this, too—a little—and he puts a square of chocolate in. His fingers just barely graze my bottom lip. I open my eyes and catch him studying me intently.

  “Extra dark,” I say, “the 85 percent.”

  “Not the 72?”

  “Nope.” Such complicated brown-green eyes.

  “I’m giving you your bed back for the night.”

  “No, Julian. I’m fine upstairs.”

  “I insist. Just go hide in there so I can transfer into the wheelchair without you watching,” he says, nodding toward the bathroom.

  Hmm... I go in, find a new unwrapped toothbrush in a drawer and brush my teeth.

  “Can I come out?” I ask.

  “Yes,” he says. He’s in his chair now.

  “I stole your new toothbrush.”

  “That’s okay. It was a freebie from the dentist.”

 
I slip off my socks and toss them to the floor.

  “All set?”

  “Yes.”

  He shuts off the light.

  “Thank you for being so chivalrous.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “And thanks for the fun night.”

  “Sure,” he says, kind of gruffly. “Get some sleep.”

  He leaves, I peel off my bra and pants and then close my eyes and rest on the same pillow he used such a short time ago.

  * * *

  I’m up early the next morning, in his bed, my old bed. The sheets are blue now and the comforter is a blue plaid. I snuggle deeper into the covers, not wanting to get up and go to school but knowing I have to. All of my stuff is upstairs. I need a shower. Of course, there is a shower right here, and I even have a bathrobe I could use that’s still in the closet. It’s an old one, but it’d be a lot better using that and staying here than using the French tub I’ve been making do with since Julian moved in.

  French women, at least on French television, sit naked at the end of these tubs and make an erotic display of washing themselves with the shower-head attachment. I just sit in there and hose down. It’s not that big a deal to me. But suddenly, the idea of a real American-style shower sounds too good to pass up. I sneak into the bathroom, close the door and lock it. Then I turn on the water.

  There’s a plastic seat and a metal bar Estella had installed for him. Julian’s shampoo and body wash are in here now. I open them up and smell them. They’re kind of like men’s cologne. I can’t recall him smelling like this after a shower. Does he use these things? I look to the upper shelf and then see a bar of regular soap. My guess is that this is what he really uses. I use the soap also, and the little bottle of pink shampoo that’s hidden in the corner of the lower shelf.

  Julian uses baking soda toothpaste. Don’t ask me why this makes me smile, it just does. He has so many pills up on the counter, though. This and his razor and a black hairbrush. I use his brush on my hair and then come out to find him in the room, in his wheelchair. He’s looking at me kind of curiously.