The Broken Teaglass by Emily Arsenault Page B

Saturday . I slept late. I watched a little TV. I tried not to be too disappointed that the first social encounter of my young professional life ended with the girl falling asleep.
    The contents of my refrigerator were grim—eggs, mayonnaise, and some rubbery old carrot sticks—so I at least made it to the grocery store. Once there, I was inspired by the bright plum tomatoes that were displayed on a sale table in the front of the produce section. They reminded me of this great sauce my mother used to whip up from scratch. I’d watched her make it enough times to see that it was largely improvised. Tomatoes, basil, a little wine, and then cream at the end. But the main ingredient was roasted garlic, which she’d bake as a whole bulb and then squeeze into the sizzling tomatoes. I think this sauce was an imitation of something she’d had at a restaurant once.
    Mine would be an imitation of her imitation. She’d usually put in some julienned zucchini and yellow squash, so I added that to my cart. Her sauce didn’t have any meat in it, but I figured I’d add some chicken breast just to make it a little heartier. On the way home, I stopped at a package store for a cheap bottle of wine.
    I started cooking early in the evening, tasting it every so often, adjusting the salt and the wine and the cream until the balance was just as I’d remembered. I covered it, put a giant pot of water on for the pasta, and then went to the living room to catch a little TV. One of my favorite movies was on—
The Usual Suspects
. There was about a half hour left of the movie, and I got caught up in the ending. I just wanted to see the detective drop his coffee cup at the end, and figured the pasta water could boil a few extra minutes before I put the penne in.
    The problem, I discovered upon returning to the kitchen, was that I’d turned on the wrong burner to boil. The cream in the sauce had scorched, forming a brownish crust around the edge of the pan. I poked at the sauce with a wooden spoon. It was burnt at the bottom too. I stared into the pan. The limp curls of overdone zucchini spelled something like
even food fails you
. I gripped the handle and flung the pan sideways.
    As the metal clunked against the wall, I heard a pathetic wail that must have been mine. Then I slapped the heels of my hands into my eyes. I kept them there for a moment, not yet ready to look at what I had just done. Taking a deep breath, I let my palms slide down my cheeks.
    The pan and wooden spoon were on the floor, and a clump of burnt tomato-cream-garlic sauce had slid down the wall by the oven, leaving a greasy reddish trail on the off-white wall. I threw the pan back on the stovetop. As I watched the remains of the sauce settle into the baseboard, it occurred to me that it wasn’t quite as burnt as it had appeared in the pan. A small part of it probably could have been saved.
    I didn’t feel like cleaning it up. I turned off the burners, the TV, and the lights. And went to bed.
    • • •
    I got up early on Sunday morning and drove down the block for a Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. When I returned, Jimmy was out smoking on the porch. He pointed his cigarette at the empty lawn chair beside him.
    “Take a load off, Billy boy.”
    I sat down and sipped my coffee, which was too sweet.
    “How was your date Friday?” Jimmy wanted to know.
    “Weird,” I admitted. “I guess it wasn’t really a date.”
    “Are you gonna go out with her again?”
    “It wasn’t exactly going out. I don’t know if we’ll hang out again.”
    “Wasn’t
really
a date. Wasn’t
exactly
going out. Doesn’t sound like you know what you’re doing.”
    Jimmy mashed his cigarette into the ashtray in his lap. Then he leaned over the porch railing and emptied the ashtray into the hedges.
    “Where’s Tom?” I asked.
    He lit another cigarette before answering. “His wife wants him back. For today.”
    “What does that mean?”
    Jimmy sighed. He shifted in his chair. “Don’t worry