Kenny glared at him. “Why not?”
“Because she told me she doesn’t want to get married again. And I would never force a woman to do something she doesn’t want to do.”
“But what if she changes her mind?”
Frank wanted to tell the boy there were too many complications that wouldn’t permit him and Justine to exist in a peaceful environment as man and wife. Not with the escalating conflict of race relations going on in the country. “I doubt if your mother is ever going to change her mind, Kenny. It’s okay with me if we just remain friends. It shouldn’t be any different with you, Frankie, and Ray. Just because you will eventually go to different schools, that doesn’t mean you can’t remain friends. You may not share the same school orclasses, but you can always get together on weekends or when school is on recess. I still have the same friends I had in high school and college.”
“You went to college?”
Throwing back his head, Frank laughed when seeing Kenny’s shocked expression. “Yes. Why did you think I hadn’t?”
Shrugging, Kenny said, “I don’t know. Where did you go?”
“I went to Rutgers University in New Brunswick to major in business. My father wanted me to go to a college here in the city, but it was the one time I defied him. I told him if I didn’t go away to college, then I wasn’t going. Meanwhile, he’d bragged to all of his friends that his son was going to be the first one in the family to go to college, and in the end to save face, he relented.”
“Why did you want to go away?”
“That’s another story you don’t need to hear.” He didn’t want to explain to Kenny that he needed to get away from his tyrannical father. “Now, I want you to do me a favor.”
“What’s that, Mr. Dee?”
“Go and apologize to your mother, and then I want you to be my assistant when I make my Bolognese sauce and white bean and sausage soup.”
“I thought Mom was going to help you.”
Frank stood up. “This time, us men are going to give her a break in the kitchen, because she’s always cooking for you.”
Kenny scrambled off the bed. “You’re right. It’s time for her men to take over the kitchen. But, can you wait for me to make my bed and pick up my clothes? Mom would have a fit if she saw my room like this.”
“Five minutes, Kenny. That’s all the time I’m giving you.” Frank would’ve begun prepping the ingredients he needed to make the sauce if he hadn’t had to play stepfather to Justine’s son.
He hadn’t expected Kenny to ask him about marrying his mother. That wasn’t even a thought when he doubted whethershe would ever permit him to make love to her. It had been more than a decade since she’d slept with a man, and she admitted that she didn’t miss what she didn’t have.
Kenny made quick time making his bed and scooping up the clothes and putting them inside a bathroom hamper. Frank followed him as they made their way to the kitchen, where Justine sat at the table, drinking coffee while flipping through a magazine.
She set down her cup and stood up. “I thought I was going to have to send out a search party for you two,” she teased, smiling.
“It’s all right, Mom,” Kenny said. “Mr. Dee and me had a man-to-man discussion about a lot of things, and I’m sorry about not talking to you.”
Justine smiled. “It’s okay, as long as you solved your problem.”
“I hope you don’t mind if Kenny and I take over your kitchen to cook today,” Frank told Justine. “I want to teach him how to make Bolognese sauce before my mother shows him how to make her gravy.”
“Italians call tomato sauce gravy,” Kenny said quickly.
“I don’t mind. So, you two do your thing,” Justine said.
Frankie rested a hand on Kenny’s shoulder. “Let’s go, chef, because it’s going to take a long time before the sauce is ready. Then, there’s still the soup.”
“How long, Mr. Dee?”
“It will take about five hours for the sauce and another hour and a half for the soup.”
“I could do a lot in five hours,” Justine said, as she emptied her cup and left it in the sink. “If anyone is looking for me, I’ll be in my room in the back.”
Waiting until she left, Frank reached into one of the shopping bags and took out two bibbed aprons, handing one to Kenny, and then putting on the other. He didn’t want to tell Justine that cooking for her was special, because it was the first time he’d cooked for a woman, other than his mother.As an adult, he lived his life adhering to a set of strict cardinal rules: he didn’t invite women to his apartment; he always used his own condoms when sleeping with women; and he never kissed them on the mouth.
However, he was willing to break those rules with Justine. If they were to share a bed, he would continue to use a condom with her, because an unplanned pregnancy would be catastrophic for both their lives. Justine had plans for her future, and those didn’t include having another child, while he doubted if he offered to marry her, she would accept his proposal. And he wondered if that was what he’d dreamt about. That she was carrying his child, and she was screaming at him to leave her alone. He closed his eyes and shook his head as if to banish the images that had continued to plague him, even after he’d awoken from the nightmare.
