My kitchen is in more disarray than it's ever been. I pick up the copy of the page from Amelie's version of the notebook, shake the flour off it and read it again. The stains that looked brown or yellow on the pages look like gray or black smudges on the photocopies of Amelie's version of the notebook. 

Nonna and Amelie don't have the same handwriting. Amelie writes in round squatty letters that touch each other—it's legible, unlike her grandmother's, but the way they notate is the same: phrases and unfinished thoughts in random places require translation. Not because they are in a different language, although a lot of them are in Italian or in French, but because it could be the middle of a sentence. The one I'm looking at says 'and no air beat' next to the 'six eggs' in the ricotta pound cake recipe. 

These will take time to decipher, but I did that with the original recipes, and I have Amelie to help me with hers. She didn't object to me making copies for myself, but prefers to keep her version of the notebook open on the counter—too close to the stove with the simmering ragu. I don't see the need to have both the photocopy and the original out, but Amelie disagrees.

Disagreements are part of this Saturday afternoon. My menu for the weekly lunch with my parents and Tall did not include a dessert. Desserts usually mean baking, and baking is not a large part of my repertoire: it has a lot less room for experimentation; the chemistry of it is less forgiving, and I can't substitute things on a whim. Maybe master bakers can swing it, but I'm not one. I do agree we have made too much ricotta, but that was at Amelie's insistence.

"If we are making it, we might as well make a batch that will last the whole week," she said. "Making just enough for one dish is outrageous. It's ricotta, there's never enough of it." It's the second dish of her grandmother's we cooked together and I didn't enjoy the process. With Mo, we divided and conquered. With Am, we are doing the same thing and the mess she made of my kitchen is not. . .compatible with cooking, not my way of cooking.

"Can you please put the flour away?" I point to the open container on the edge of the counter.

"Oh, I'll need that."

"Haven't we measured all the flour we need already?"

"That was for bechamel. I need some pound cake. Will use up some of my ricotta that offends you so."

"I'm not offended. It took up an eighth of my fridge. I'l have to change this week's menu to figure out how to use it. Even if you take half of it, it'll still a lot of ricotta."

"Take some to your parents, Tall would eat some, wouldn't he? And I can drop some at Angie's. It's like cookies: there can never be too many cookies. Everyone will say yes if you offer to drop off extra cookies for them." She takes bowl out of my cabinet and measures one-third cup flower into it, then moves the open container to the other side of the counter. I look around for the lid, close it and put it away into the cabinet. "It uses two pounds of ricotta—one of the quickest ways I know to use it up." She takes the container of eggs out of the fridge and counts out six. Six. Leaving me with two eggs. The pasta I was planning to make next week will need more than two eggs. I take out my phone and add to my shopping list. 

"This is an almost foolproof recipe," says Amelie. "Where are your baking pans? Do you have one for a bundt cake?"

"Cake pans? I have a couple. I store them in the garage, because I have little use for them." A thin layer of flour is on the floor. The sugar is sprinkled over the counter and the two eggs that remain are next to the six she took out of the container, all sitting out. I take the container to put back into the fridge.

"No, leave it, we'll need them to make the pasta for the lasagna."

I had no plans of making it from scratch today. "I have the pre-made lasagna sheets all ready." I point to my side of the counter. She must've seen them. The pasta for the lasagna was supposed to come from the box.

"Nonsense. We have time. The ragu will take at least an hour to simmer down, and maybe longer. We aren't leaving until noon, that gives us two hours. The cake will be ready and will leave plenty of time for fresh pasta.

Fresh pasta dough means I need to get her the wooden rolling pin. It's also on the shelves in the garage, too long to fit into any of the drawers in the kitchen. I open the fridge and put the two eggs back in.

"Really? It's not like they're going to go bad on the counter in the twenty minutes it'll take me to deal with the cake." Amelie's nose has a smudge of flour on it. A dusting of it is over one of my black aprons that is too large on her. I had to tie the extra loop on her neck to keep it from sliding. Need to get her one in a smaller size. I get my phone out and add it to the shopping list.

"The pan?" Amelie asks.

Right. The pan and the rolling pin. The crystals of sugar stick to the bottom of my bare feet. The vacuum as well.

"Oh, and I will need your standing mixer. Where's that?" Amelie shouts at my back.

"Third bottom cabinet from the oven." I tell her and enter the garage. 

The morning started better than I could've ever hoped. After the exhausting dinner with Mo talking up a storm and laughing louder and louder with every glass of wine, we escaped when the buzz in my veins was impossible to ignore. Amelie understood the need for my midnight run and I understood she couldn't stay awake any longer when I found her curled up under the comforter in my bed with the lights still on. We understood each other last night. And we did when we woke up this morning, when I got to explore her in the comfort of my own sheets, without worries about roommates, collapsing furniture or rushing somewhere.

Memorizing her body and discovering new ways to induce the gasps ending in the sound that went straight through me, that was a morning I'd like to have every day. The cooking part might be a deal breaker. Maybe the book idea isn't such a good one. Sharing a kitchen with Mo while doing separate things was hard. And those were agreed upon things. And he isn't messy. Sharing a kitchen with Amelie is not working. She is not following any of my instructions.

Twenty push-ups. Thirty. The door into the garage opens.

"Are you coming back?" Amelie peeks in.

I jump up from my plank position. "I had to..." I point at the mat under my feet. I can't lie. EMbarrasment at her catching me fill my head. "I had to cool down. The kitchen is... you... you in the kitchen...it's just..."

She steps down, puts her hands on her hips and wiggles her eyebrows. "Too sexy for you?" She smiles.

"No." The words swarm and I let them excape out of me. "It's infuriating. The mess and the disorganization and you changing things up last minute, it's not working. I can't do it. It's too much. So I'm doing some push-ups. Exercise helps me deal with the discomfort. It's a way to let the irritation out. Cooking through your Nonna's recipes is not looking like a good idea to me anymore."

Amelie sinks down to the mat in front of the door into the kitchen. She buries her face in her hands. "I'm sorry." She says and wipes at her eyes. Shit. This is going even worse.

"Are you crying?" I walk over to her. I don't want to sit on the dirty floor, so I crouch by her, waiting for her to reply.

She shakes her head. "Not crying. Yet. I was so happy, and I bake when I'm happy. The pound cake is so easy. It's less than thirty minutes of work, I thought I could just do it. But I'm ruining your plans."

A tear slides down her face. She can not deny she is crying. I can see she is. "It's not about the pound cake. It's the change of plans you have not talked to me about." And the mess. "And the mess. The mess is very triggering too."

"I guessed that." She smiles, but more tears come down her cheeks.

"I was going to get the vacuum." I want to wipe the tears off, but I'm not sure if I should wait until she's done crying first. Their traces in the flour on her face make each tear trail extra visible. I did that. I upset her. The best thing for me when I'm upset is to rock. I accept that the only way forward is to get on the dirty floor by her. I sit on my knees in front of Amelie, wrap my arms around her and rock is side to side. Slowly and gently at first. When she sinks into me and the momentum catches us, we move closer, my thighs on the outside, hers on the inside. The pendulum of us on the threshold of the garage and the kitchen is not where I imagined us ending up when I woke up to her finger tracing my shoulder.

***

"The pound cake was a thing of beauty. Glad I don't have to decide if I liked the lasagna or the dessert more." Tall moves his walker forward before he takes his next step. The sidewalk isn't wide enough for the three of us to walk abreast, so Amelie walks next to him and I stay behind. Not only because I might need to catch him in case he falls, but also, so that no rushing pedestrian slams into him from behind.

"You'll have a couple of pieces to enjoy later." Amelie glances at me over her shoulder. "And I packed some ricotta and the leftover lasagna for you to eat at home. That should tie you over." She is back talking to Tall.

"If we ever get to my place. Ben could've driven me there."

"It is a ten-minute walk. It's something you have to do for exercise anyway." I don't see any difference between him walking around the block and him walking two blocks between these buildings.

"Yes, Sir, drill Sargent, Sir." Tall's comparison of me to an Army Sergent is not funny. Most of his jokes are not funny.

"I'm a fan of him going to the hairdresser's these days, but he looked very cute with an Army buzz. I miss that look." Amelie throws another glance back at me. She's smiling. Mike's Mom and Angie joining forces was how I agreed to try a hairdresser. And I don't go to the salon. Rosalie comes to my house. She does exactly what I ask her, cleans up and can finish the cut in twenty minutes. If she retires, like she's threatened several times, Amelie might get her wish and see my self-administered buzz cut again.

"Are you picking up the box I put together for you today or will you drop by next week?" Tall asks Amelie. Talking and walking is my favorite. There is less expectation that you have to look at the person you are having a conversation with. I can look down on the walkway and maintain a conversation and not break any social norms.

"Ben, you OK to carry it back?" Amelie half turns my way and doesn't turn back expecting my answer.

"Sure." I say.

Tall pauses. "Give me a second to catch my breath."

Carrying it the two blocks back to the parking garage will take me a tenth of the time it will take Tall to get to his place. Before the fall, it would have been half the time.

"Do you need to sit down?" asks Amelie.

"You'd think so, but that would involve getting up. I'd much rather avoid that." His breaths are labored between the words. I don't like it. I don't like how little progress he's made in his recovery. The doctors declared he was well enough to live on his own. I disagreed, but they did not listen to me. Although Tall has a support system and we will bring him groceries, take him to his appointments and make him walk the two blocks instead of sitting in his chair, he's not in good enough shape to live on his own. Not that anyone listened to me.

"I've been walking to the University from my new place and it's surprising how much better I'm feeling with all those daily walks," says Amelie. "I'll have to buy a car eventually but walking is so underrated. I'll be back on Wednesday to take you for a walk and bring you dinner. It's my only free afternoon. I can pick up the box then."

"Are you coming as well, young man?" Tall asks me.

"I will let you know. I'm not sure about my work schedule next week, because Monday Jaimie and I are going to talk." About my future with the company. The company I worked for seven years. The only company I've ever worked for. That job was the reason I could move out of my parents' place.

***

The office building is one of the maybe ten in my life I spent the most time in. I remember the details of every building but the more time I spent there, the more I memorize the colors, the placement of decor, the approximate or exact (when I measured) height of the ceiling, if there are stairs, and the size of rooms and hallways in steps. The counting makes the pacing an even more useful tool. At the company's headquarters, I have not paced the hallway leading to Jaimie's office before. Nerves happen at work, but not with Jaimie. It's the clients and the co-workers who I don't know that have the power to rile me up. The light wood floor boards are the width of my shoe. Each plank is a foot long, and there are two that creak when I put my weight on them. Three steps from the wall to Jaimie's door is the short side, and the four steps along the glass of the windows is the long one. The Pythagorean theorem is correct. It takes me five steps to cross the diagonal of the room, which is what I stick to.

"Ben?" Jaimie opens the door and I follow her in. She is not going back behind her table but sits down on one of the two armchairs by a small coffee table. "Would you mind sitting down as well?" She points her chin to the other chair. I would much rather say that I do mind and continue to pace, but what she said is not an actual question. It's a figure of speech and one I learned to follow as an instruction.

"You've been an analyst with us for seven years," Jaimie says. I know that. "And we've never received a complaint about your work from the clients." I know that too. "You deliver by the deadline. You do additional research and go above and beyond the minimum requirements. Your communication with clients has improved." Jaimie takes a sip of something out of a red mug with white flowers. Probably tea. Like me, Jaimie is not a coffee drinker. "I know you have been focusing on your cooking channel more and more and this might not be part of your plan, but I'd like to promote you to a senior analyst position." Promotion is not what I was expecting out of this conversation. I didn't give any reason for her to fire me, but after the latest request for time off, she did not sound that enthusiastic about my channel. I wait for her to continue. She taps the side of her mug with her index finger. "'Oritalus' requested to work with you exclusively, and that means you will need to focus on their accounts and spend more time at the office and interact directly with them. You'll also have to go to their office in town and travel to their other locations to meet with them. It comes with a ten percent raise and your target bonus will increase to fifteen percent." She stops talking and returns to her cup.

It's my turn to say something or to ask her questions. The routine I have works. I like the way things are. The yearly increases were not significant, but the channel is bringing in more money than my salary. And that was before the episode with Mo. With that increase, I'll have a bigger raise than the ten percent here and the bonus. And her proposal will take time away from the channel. Travel is not a deal breaker, but it's even more time away from home, away from the chance to record new content. I see no benefit in accepting her offer.

"You don't have to give me the answer now," she says. "But I need it by Monday."

"Will I lose my job if I don't accept the promotion?"

"No." Jaimie set her mug on the table and leans forward in her chair. "Not at all, I didn't mean to give you that impression. You can keep your current position if the promotion isn't something you are interested in."

"Thank you," I say and head out for the door. The only logical choice for me is to keep everything as is at work.

3.14.21

How do you think it's going between Am and Ben?

Are there any parts that you think I should cut? (this is a long chapter)

What do you think Ben's answer to Jaimie's offer will be?

Thank you for reading and I look forward to your votes and comments. They make me smile and are better than chocolate, and that says a lot. I love chocolate.