Mebel:“Ah. Why they don’t want you to go to culinary school?”
Bruce:“They’re both doctors, they wanted me to be a doctor, simple as that.”
Mebel:“Oh, no. You cannot make it as doctor. You have terrible bedside manner.”
Bruce:“Thanks, Mebel. Very helpful, as always.”
Mebel:“But you are a very good cook. I see your cooking in class, you always get good marks. I remember the daughter sauces class? Your bordelaise and Mornay sauces were perfect.”
Bruce:“Thanks, Mebel.”
Mebel:“Is not so easy, making these sauces. I never use to think cooking is complicated until I start this course, and now I see is actually very difficult. You should ask your parents to come visit you at the school, then maybe they will see how hard you are working.”
Bruce:“They won’t wanna come. But I appreciate the thought.”
On a different occasion, Mebel finds Adam pacing in the hallway outside his room, obviously upset at something. When she asks him what’s wrong, he tells her, “I think my boyfriend’s about to break up with me.”
Mebel is, for a moment, taken aback by the revelation that Adam has a boyfriend. She has heard of homosexuality, but in her culture, it isn’t something that most people would be comfortable talking about openly. But when she looks at Adam, it seems silly to care about such things, when she cares about him like he’s a nephew to her.
“Why do you think he is going to break up?” she says finally.
“Lately when I text him, it takes him ages to reply. He’ll tell me he’s busy or tired or whatever. He used to reply right away, and we used to FaceTime each other every night but the last three, four nights he’s told me he’s too tired.”
“Where is he? Can you see him on weekend?”
“Nah, he’s in Manchester Uni, it’s too far away. We have to wait until the holidays.” Adam wraps his arms around his body, and the act makes him look so young that Mebel’s heart clenches painfully.
“You come into my room now,” she says, and leads him inside, where she makes him sit at the foot of her bed while she boils the kettle for him. As she starts making tea for him, she tries to think of the right thing to say. From what it sounds like, Adam’s boyfriend is distancing himself, probably because he’s met someone else, and why wouldn’t he? A young man at university, chances are he would meet other people.
“We were high school sweethearts, you know,” Adam says forlornly. “Together for three years now. We were voted Most Likely to Get Married.”
Mebel smiles at him. The kettle boils and she pours it out into two mugs, adds a splash of milk and some sugar, and hands it to him. “He sounds like a nice boy. Like you.”
“What if he does dump me?” Adam looks at her with wide, scared eyes.
“Well, then you will cry. It feels like the world ending, and tomorrow is scary and big, and you feel like your life is…no meaning.”
“Mebel!” Adam cries. “That’s not making me feel any better.”
“But it will pass,” Mebel says. “Every day will be easier to live through, and then one day you wake up and you go on your day and then you realize, ‘Oh! Is three in the afternoon and I haven’t thought of him!’ And then next day maybe you think about him at four o’clock, and so on. And one day you don’t even think about him at all.”
“But that sounds like really hard work,” Adam moans.
“If I can move on after my husband of forty years leave me for younger woman, I think you can move on from a three-year relationship, yes?”
Adam rolls his eyes. “Okay, you can’t use that as your trump card every time you want to make a point.”
“Why not? I think I earn it already.”
“Technically, you haven’t moved on, because aren’t you here at culinary school because you wanna, like, cook him a really good meal and win him back?” Adam raises his eyebrows at her.
Mebel searches her mind for a good retort, but now, of all times, her mind is choosing to remain silent. Finally, she says, “You don’t talk back to your elders, so disrespectful.”
They sip their teas in silence for a while, then Mebel says, “The problem for me is if I am not Henk’s wife, I don’t know who I am.”
Adam tilts his head to one side. “Aww, Mebs! That is the saddest thing I have ever heard. Now I can’t even be sad anymore because your thing is so much sadder.”
“Good, I am glad I make you feel better.”
