What He's Been Missing

“Nothing,” Ian said dryly. “It’s nothing worth sharing right now.”

“Good,” Xavier jumped in, “because I’m ready for dessert.” He looked at Scarlet. “Ian told me you made strawberry pound cake?!”

“Yes,” Scarlet answered with a half smile, showing that she wasn’t sure where to set her attention.

“Girl, you may be a new bride, but you cook like it’s your diamond anniversary. This food was excellent!” Xavier was trying to shift the focus from Ian and me. He’d been stuck in the middle of one of our random fights before and probably knew the tension well enough.

The only thought I had right then was that I wasn’t sure where the tension was coming from nor what I was fighting for, but I wasn’t backing down.

Ian and I stayed in an intense stare.

“Guess I’ll get dessert,” Scarlet said, pushing back from the table to get up. She collected two of the empty dishes and went into the kitchen.

Xavier’s hands fell to his sides and he exhaled deeply to exaggerate the condition of his full stomach.

“I can’t even breathe, man,” Xavier said. “Haven’t had home cooking like that in a minute.”

“I cooked dinner last night,” I pointed out.

“Come on,” Xavier said. “Spaghetti and eggplant doesn’t exactly compare to what went down here.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Don’t be like that, Rach.” Xavier put his hand back on my knee. “I’m not saying anything was wrong with your food. It was excellent. You know you’re my favorite cook ever.”

Ian rolled his eyes.

An awkward instrumental that sounded like a little high school orchestra trapped inside a cell phone clanged through the silence at the table. It was a familiar pulsing that pulled my eyes to Xavier’s pocket between us.

Xavier tried to talk over it, saying something about getting Knicks floor tickets if he was in New York in the New Year, but the little orchestra in his phone kept playing.

“It’s probably just work,” he finally said.

“You can get it, man,” Ian said. “We’re all professionals here. We can stand to hear a little bit of your Chicago-style wheeling and dealing. Right, Rach?”

“Nah. I don’t want to interrupt your dinner. I’ll send it to voice mail,” Xavier said, reaching into his pocket.

“No, I insist,” Ian said. “Don’t miss a call on my account.” He looked at Xavier the way a father looks at his son before sending him off on some great mission that will decide for all around if he’s a man or not, and I knew that Ian was working to prove something to me or Xavier or both of us.

Xavier, of course, didn’t send the call to voice mail. He looked at the phone and put it to his ear.

“Hello? Yeah, hey, what’s up?” He struggled to sound blasé, to lace his greeting without care, but through such detachment in his voice, an actual attachment to whomever was on the other side of the call was apparent from the first syllable.

I moved my knee away from him. Nothing was fair right then.

“I’m great. I’ve been fine,” Xavier said after pausing to let the person speak. He playfully mocked interest to Ian and me to get us to smile.

Ian laughed just enough to let me know that his missile was landing.

“Just having dinner with some friends,” Xavier went on with his call.

KABOOM! Friends. I heard Ian repeat this a million times even though he hadn’t said a word.

I wondered where on the wall of gift boxes he and Scarlet had stashed the cake plate I’d sent them. I wanted it back.

“Cool, then. I’ll give you a call back later,” Xavier said. He paused a little and then closed with, “Yeah. Great.”

By the time Scarlet came back into the dining room juggling four gold-rimmed saucers with pillows of pink cake perfectly placed in the center, her first dinner party had turned into the ground situation in Hiroshima just hours after the A-bomb. I was furious. Xavier was embarrassed. Ian was awaiting an attack. All elbows were on the table.