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Tue | June 06, 2006

Steak and Eggs over Easy

One night Josh made dinner-- steak and eggs over easy with rice and black beans. While he cooked, I sat in his bed and tried to write a story about someone whose friend is about to commit suicide but she doesn't know it. His roommate Cory came over and sat in the rocking armchair, which he called the lazy boy. We chatted for a bit, but I wanted to write. I kept my eyes mostly on the laptop screen. At a lull in the conversation I put the blanket over my head and made a tent with my head holding up the blanket. At first I kept one end open but when Cory didn't keep talking, I put the blanket completely over me and the laptop.

Just after I started getting into it, Josh came and lifted a flap of the blanket. "Hey," he said. The steak smelled delicious. He put the plate on the desk by his bed.

I kept typing though, until Josh said, "are you going to eat?" I got up, took the plate to the kitchen table, and started eating. Cory was well into his meal and Josh was still cooking his own. It was impossible for us all to sit at the table because there were only two seats.

"Mmm, this is good," I said after awhile.

"I can cook all sorts of foods," Josh said. He and Cory argued over whether steak and eggs over easy is an ethnic food. Josh said that the way he cooked it, with rice and black beans, made it Mexican style. I had nothing to say in either direction because I had never had steak and eggs over easy before. They argued strangely-- they used harsh words, but said them calmly.

"You're completely wrong."

"What do you know about it."

"I know a lot more than you do."

"You're an idiot."

Cory finished eating and got up, and Josh sat down. Cory hung out while Josh and I ate.

"I was ignoring Cory earlier," I said to Josh, in case Cory was offended that I hadn't really talked to him earlier. "I wanted to work on my story. I didn't want to talk to anyone."

"It's okay," Cory said.

The truth was that I hadn't even wanted to come over. I had come on the condition that I was going to work on my story, and Josh had promised not to distract me. I guessed that he hadn't told Cory, and so I tried to explain it then.

We fought often about whether I would come over. Ideally he would have liked me to come over every other day, or every couple of days. I would have liked to come over once a week, occasionally twice, and to stay in touch through phone calls. At that point we had been going out for only a few weeks. He didn't like to talk on the phone and didn't think anything of suddenly hanging out with someone all the time just after meeting them a couple of weeks ago.

I didn't want to drop everything because I was going out with him. I had Kaplan and Josh and writing, but a lot of the time these things seemed to take away from each other, to be mutually exclusive-- to come in the wrong order. It should have been writing and Josh and Kaplan, but it was always the other way around.

For weeks after it's over I wonder if things could have been different. I replay and rewrite the scenes in my head and think how that might have changed things.

I am under the tent and he brings me the plate. "Thank you," I say, and go to the table.

"This is good," I say, after just one bite. I get up, go to him and kiss him on the neck. Back at the table, Cory and I eat for awhile, and make small talk. At a pause in the conversation, I say to no one in particular, but ostensibly to Cory, "Josh is so wonderful."

Josh hears and Cory is surprised. "He's so cute. He cooks, and cuddles," and I turn towards Josh, since I'm mostly talking for him, "cooks and cuddles and makes love."

Cory finishes eating and leaves the table, and Josh sits down in his place. From Cory's point of view there is a conflict of interest between himself and me- I crowd him out. I should have talked to him just a little more when he came over and tried to hang out. Later I will rewind the scene even further back and think of what I could have done at that point. But now at the table Josh sits down and after dinner I help with the dishes. Before all of this, I should have offered to help him cook. He wouldn't accept it because it's his special meal, but the point is I offer.

I think of this revision to the scene. I am under the tent. "Do you want help?" I ask, walking over to the kitchen. "No," he says, "do your thing." "Okay," I say. I arrange the blanket over my head and work on my story until he brings me the plate and I rehearse the part of the scene that starts there again. I replay it all together in my head, thinking of all the things I could have done differently.

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