Apron Anxiety by Alyssa Shelasky

brownstone, I have dragged a dozen huge, heavy rugs—shags, sisals, and stripes—from every store imaginable, tethered them to the straggly-gold Jeep I bought us from Craigslist, and hauled them up to our living room, where I lay down the padding, unroll the rug, and mumble to myself, “Close, but not quite—damnit.” Then I pull it all up, roll it all together, go down the stairs, into the Jeep, and straight back to the store, where they already think I’m a lunatic with some version of architectural OCD.
    The floor coverings aren’t the only thorn in my side. The entire apartment, as sun-drenched, bohemian, and beautiful as it is, is a bitch to furnish. The rooms are quirky, curvy, and easily cluttered, and the minimalist in me wants to murder the original contractor.
    “Strong as an ox,” as my mother would say, I’ve single-handedly carried a few couches up and down the stairs, too, shuffling heavy objects all day long, until the Crate & Barrel Outlet escorts me out, or my left arm dislocates, or I stub mytoe so bad that I tell an oversize credenza to kiss my ass. And then I head home to our love-pad-in-progress, with its misshaped rooms that reject
all
clean lines, and wait for Chef on whatever yellow-velvet or caramel-leather midcentury chair I’ve decided that I can actually live with that day. I’ve always needed my home to feel exactly right, but I’m being extra crazy with C Street. The furniture gives me some purpose and helps me temper a certain nervous energy that’s crept up from behind.
    My life with Chef happens between 11:00 p.m. and 8:00 a.m., except on Sundays. This isn’t much time, but if love is measured in quality not quantity, our romance is as rich as ever. The second Chef comes home, he switches from local personality to cozy homebody. Because he’s bone-tired, dinner is designated to me. And by dinner, I mean sandwiches. For three months straight, we eat sandwiches every night that we’re home. (Sometimes we have cereal.) I stock up on smoked turkey and Swiss cheese, and Chef requests foreign and porky meats like mortadella and sopressata, which I research, find, and buy. I’ve learned the difference between salumi and salami, and I know that spicy mustard is a must. Mayo makes its appearances, against my will, and sometimes Chef brings home interesting-looking chutneys, which he teaches me to slather on ciabatta, and lay with sharp cheddar. And chips. All kinds of chips. Chef has a potato chip problem.
    When I present us with the sandwiches, he’s always so appreciative that it makes me feel like the winner of
The Next Food Network Star
. He offers subtle suggestions like taking the time to really toast the bread instead of rushing the process and popping the slices out before the ding, or using fresh basil the next time I opt for Brie. I gladly process his constructive criticism and get a little better with each baguette.
    We always eat in front of the tube, in the dark, with as manybody parts entangled as possible, every ligament fitting together perfectly. We love our shows—mostly on Showtime and HBO—and we usually watch them (with breaks for fooling around, ice-cream sessions, or making tea) until three o’clock in the morning. We fall asleep feeling like two of the luckiest people in the world.
    And then the sun always rises, and our rushed, unruly mornings begin. The alarm goes off, the phones start ringing, or one of Chef’s business partners comes knocking on the door to get him somewhere that’s not with me. I turn on some music and quickly make us coffee, which he drinks in the shower. When he gets out of the shower, I turn up the volume and he
gets down
in his towel while I roar with laughter. Unlike me, Chef is an awesome dancer. We kiss, as he dresses himself in ripped Dickies and whatever T-shirt smells best; he reads his e-mails, morphing into a crackberry addict; and then he hops on our fluorescent green bike—which I secretly bought at Kmart, but he thinks