HAPPY FOREVER AFTER

“You guys are living together now?” Karen asked. “It really has gotten to that point?”

“Shut up, you idiot,” Emma said laughing. “I’m just spending the night”

“Yeah sure,” Karen said. “Don’t think I didn’t see that sexy thing you put in that bag”.

The doorbell rang and Emma was glad for the interruption.

“That’s him, get the door, Karen” she said, then she added, “please, don’t”

Karen stared at her, feigning ignorance. “don’t what?” she asked.

“Just don’t” Emma repeated. “you know what I mean”.

Daniel rang the bell again. When the door swung open, his hello caught as Karen smiled at him.

“Hi, Karen,” he said.

“Hi, Daniel,” Karen replied. Come in and have a seat.”

“Thanks” he said as he sat. “Where’s Emma?” he asked.

“Oh, she’s almost ready,” Karen replied, then added. “So I gotta ask… What are your intentions for my Bestie? ”

“What?” Daniel asked.

“You heard me,” Karen said, not minding his discomfort one bit. “You know I will kill you if you hurt her right?”

“Okay, I’m all set,” Emma’s voice interrupted them and Daniel turned.

“Please excuse my friend,” Emma continued, walking toward him with a sinful sway of hips. “We normally don’t let her speak to other people unless she’s taken her Prozac.”

He smiled as he caught Karen’s surreptitious one finger salute. He got up and took Emma’s hand.

“Be good,” Karen said. “And if you can’t be good, be safe. Remember, no glove, no love.”

“Karen?” Emma said sweetly.

“Yes?”

“Remind me to kill you when I get home, okay?”

“I’ll leave you a note.” She waved all five fingers this time. “Have fun, kids.”

“Sorry about that” Emma said as they walked towards his car.

“It’s alright” Daniel replied. “She’s just looking after you, I like that. And I believed her when she said she was going to kill me. She’s a bit scary”

Emma laughed.

————–

“Mmm… Forget the bouillabaisse, listen to this” Emma flipped through a cookbook she had taken from the kitchen dresser. “Carrageen moss pudding” she read. “Take as much of the moss as will fit in your fist when almost clenched. Wash it in warm water for a few minutes, removing any grasses or other foreign bodies”.

Daniel laughed. He stood at the long table, cutting up onions as he watched Emma move around the kitchen, her curiosity imparting a new and exotic quality to the familiar. She would touch something that caught her eye, stop to comment on it. A piece of blue and white glazed pottery on the dresser, the woven seats of the chairs. She looked up to see him watching her and smiled.

He was smitten. Gone. Besotted. She had on a pair of black trousers and a short wool jumper the color of marigolds. As she leaned over, the top rode up to reveal a band of smooth skin.

He reached for another onion from the basket under the table. His head was full of her. Thoughts tumbled around, endless questions. Unable to tear his eyes away from her, he watched as she looked around the kitchen.

Emma -with great masses of black hair that escaped in tendrils from her ponytail and fell in wisps around her face. A long curl hung down the back of her neck. He stared at the onion in his hand and tried to remember what he was supposed to be doing.

Their eyes met and held. He heard the drip of water from the tap. A moment passed, and then with a self conscious little shrug, she came across to the table and pulled up a chair opposite him. Elbows propped she watched as he started on some green peppers.

“This house is so big. I’m trying to imagine your life” she said. “What do you do when you are alone? Walk around this place saying ‘I’m the king of the castle?'”

Daniel laughed. “Hardly,” he said. “I go to work, come home, eat, work in my office, go to bed… Same thing you do at your place. Although I gotta admit, it gets kinda lonely sometimes”.

He shrugged, then returned his attention to the vegetables. A moment later, unable to resist, he looked up to find her watching him. If his life had been like one of those old black and white films, Emma had changed it to technicolor. The time they spent together was electrifying and as far removed from his real life as anything he had ever seen in a cinema.

The peppers chopped, he sent a thin silver skidding in Emma’s direction.

“Starters” he said. “Or appetizers… Whichever one you call it”

“Do you often cook for women?” Emma asked.

“Hardy ever” he replied. “Do you cook for men?”.

“Hmmm… Sometimes for Tom”.

“Rich boyfriends take you out to expensive restaurants, do they?”

Emma laughed. “The only rich boyfriend I have right now is my boss,” she said.

He stared at her, and she realized what she had said. He wasn’t actually her boyfriend.

“That totally came out wrong…” she began. “I didn’t…”

He smiled. “Relax, Emma. It’s fine” he said.

He brought the knife down on a strip of pepper he had already chopped. Too vigorously. The pepper skidded off the table. He bent to pick it up, tossed it into the bin by the sink, and looked over at her. She had shifted on the chair and now sat on it backward, her arms around the back rest. She stared back at him, then drew her feet up on the chair, wrapped her arms around her knees.

She looked kinda worried. He honestly didn’t mind her calling him her boyfriend. He liked it actually. He thought.

From the refrigerator, he took out a waxed paper wrapped slab of butter and brought it over to the table. He melted the butter in the pan, added olive oil and returned to the table. He looked down at the shapes and colors of the vegetables he had chopped. Squares of green. Slivers of white. A tomato, vivid red quarters reflected in the knife’s steel blade.

He scooped the garlic in his hand, dropped it in the melted butter.

Emma drifted over to stand beside him and they stood shoulder to shoulder, the smell of butter and garlic filling the air. A wisp of smoke curled slowly upward and then suddenly she was gone and back with a handful of chopped onions. As she dropped them in the pan, fat splattered and hissed. Bits of onions flew all over the place. Her elbow in his ribs, she shoved aside and grabbed the spatula from his hand.

“God, we have chopped enough vegetables for an army and now you are standing there communing with the butter.” she said.

She started stirring the onions. “At this rate it will be midnight before I ever even see dinner”.Ccontent © exclusive by Nô/vel(D)ra/ma.Org.