“Sure,” he grunts, not looking at me, and continues placing the potatoes in the pot.
Once I’m cleaned and ready to go, I head back into the kitchen, where Levi is setting up the other ingredients.
“I’m here to help,” I announce, joining him at the counter.
“You know you don’t have to. This was meant to be an apology dinner. It’s not quite the same if you do it.”
“No, I want to. Consider it a fair trade by teaching me. I need to learn how to cook.”
“What can you make now?”
“I’m fantastic at cereal. I can whip up a mean peanut butter and jelly sandwich too.”
“Impressive,” he smiles. Good lord, this man should smile more. As a purely objective observer, he’s got the stoic, brooding thing down pat, but this takes it to another level. “Well, this probably isn’t the meal to start with. It’s not exactly for beginners, but we’ll see how you do.”
He directs me to peel the potatoes that have been cooling in a bowl while he flours a large wooden cutting board.
“I thought you were supposed to peel potatoes before you boil them.”
“Keeping the skin on while they boil keeps them from absorbing too much water. You want them to stay relatively dry so the dough doesn’t become too wet,” he says casually.
I stare at him for a second. “That was like some real chef knowledge you just dropped there.”
His lips twitch but he doesn’t acknowledge me.
I pick up the peeler and get to work. “I feel like I’m on a cooking show with my own Italian chef.”
“Half Italian. Just my mom is, not my dad.”
“That could be the name of your show. The Half Italian.”
He lets out a bark of laughter, a surprised look on his face. “My mom would get a kick out of that.” He smiles to himself and glances over at me, looking the most at ease around me I’ve seen yet. “You’re, uh, not quite what I expected, Sam.”
“Samantha,” I blurt out, deciding just now I don’t want to be Sam anymore. The trailer trash girl that no one took seriously. The girl that never quite rid herself of the nickname Smelly Sam from elementary school when my clothes always reeked of marijuana and cigarettes. The girl that had to depend on her mom for things she wasn’t willing to provide, both physically and emotionally. “I want to be Samantha now. A new name for a new start.”
“Okay, Samantha,” he says, his voice soft with understanding. He takes the potatoes I’ve peeled and starts grating them. “So this is a new start? You never told us why you needed a place so sudden.”
I freeze. Do I continue to be evasive or lay it all out on the line? I don’t want him to see me as the old Sam, but I also don’t want to start out my new life with secrets. I take a deep breath and let it out, taking a chance. “My mom’s boyfriend stole two thousand dollars from me and then kicked me out after I graduated.”
He goes still, turning to face me. “What the fuck?” The outrage on his face surprises me, considering we barely know each other. “Did you try to get it back?”
I go back to peeling potatoes, suddenly nervous now that I have his attention. “No. I’m sure it’s long gone.”
“Did you go to the police?”
“He said if I did, he would tell them it was rent I owed him.”
“Rent? Jesus, you were still in school.”
“Well, to him I was a free loader. Never mind that I went to school all day and then worked all evening. I never ate his food, was hardly there but to sleep, and even then it was just on the couch.” I can feel myself getting worked up again and calmly inhale and exhale, trying to let go of the negativity. “Sorry. I just want to be done with it. He’s not worth any more of my mental energy. Him or my mom.”
“You don’t get along with her?”
“No,” I say flatly, leaving it at that. No need to reveal everything tonight.
He goes back to grating, looking pensive. After a few minutes of us working in silence he says, “I one hundred percent understand not getting the police involved. Just wanting to be done with something.”
Well, if that’s not an enigmatic statement. “What do you have going on that would involve the police?”
He looks over at me grimly. “What our pow-wow’s about tonight.”
“LEVI, YOU DID IT AGAIN,” Audrey mumbles through a mouthful of gnocchi. “It’s fucking fantastic.”
“Endorsement for my show,” he whispers to me.
I cover my mouth to hide my smile, grabbing another serving myself. It really is delicious. And the crazy thing is that I helped make it too. I’ve never made a meal in my life. The trailers my mom and I have stayed in never really had a full kitchen to begin with, plus they were usually disgustingly gross.
I’m surprised at how relaxed Levi is after what he and Audrey told me about Marisol stealing his work. I can understand now his frustration hearing me play their music in my room, especially after the fight he had with his brother.
Was it wrong of him to yell at me? Of course. But he apologized and I’m over it.
He showed me emails in his sent folder to himself of snippets of lyrics, some from years back, that were word for word the lyrics from Velvet Swan’s songs. He said he’d gotten in the habit of sending himself an email every time a phrase came to him, something he wanted to use in a song, that way he wouldn’t lose it. Then he would transcribe it into his journal along with the arrangement later.
I feel sick knowing the words and songs that have meant so much to me the last year were stolen from him without his knowledge. And Velvet Swan is just getting away with it. I admit, I had idolized Marisol. I’d identified with her, thought of her as a serious artist who wrote the most soul-baring ballads and kickass anthems.
But now I had to attribute that all to... Levi. I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it. The man I’d cooked dinner with, done laundry with, shared a bathroom with for God’s sake, was the brain behind my favorite music?
The weird thing was, I didn’t immediately start fangirling. I had thought of Marisol and the band on celebrity level terms, but Levi was just... Levi. The guy who made amazing Italian food, who gave me money to wash my laundry, who neatly hung his towels in our bathroom. My roommate. A real person, not some larger than life figure. I can’t say it doesn’t make me see him in a new light, though.
“So, is there anything you can’t do?”
His brow furrows. “What do you mean?”
“You write hit music, you cook delicious meals, you keep the apartment clean,” I tick off on my fingers. “I’m just wondering what the downside is.”
Audrey cackles. “You want faults? I can tell you all about them.”
He grimaces, rubbing the back of his neck. “God only knows what’ll come out of your mouth,” he mutters.
“He’s stubborn, always thinks he’s right-”
“That’s because I usually am,” he interjects, a small smile playing over his lips.
“He interrupts,” she says pointedly, eyes sparkling with amusement. “You can’t speak to him in the morning before he’s had his fancy coffee.”