Wild Awake

cluttered radio temple below. There’s a stack of cookbooks on the counter with titles like Lo-Carb Italian Cooking and, disturbingly, The Zero-Calorie Solution . I page through them while Skunk puts on a kettle of water for coffee and gets out the ingredients for an omelet. Between reading recipes for celery salad and low-carb meat-balls, I pace around the kitchen, taking in the stacks of clean dishes and bowls, matching white mugs with square handles, sets of espresso cups and saucers. There’s some sort of work schedule taped to a cupboard door.
    “What does your aunt do?”
    Skunk puts a carton of eggs on the counter and turns back to the fridge to rummage around in the vegetable drawer.
    “She’s a nurse,” he says over his shoulder.
    “What about your uncle?”
    “Auto parts manager.”
    “When do they get home from work?”
    “Six.”
    “I should probably go before then. I really do need to practice.”
    Skunk snorts. I plant my hands on my hips. “What are you laughing at?”
    “You sound just like my aunt.”
    “Why? Does she play piano?”
    “No, she’s on a diet. I’m going to lose sixteen pounds. No, twenty pounds .”
    “You’re such a jerk! I only have to do eight hours if I leave right now. I can do them before bed.”
    “Is piano your job or something? Are you going to get fired if you miss a day?”
    “It’s called discipline, fool. I’ll have you know I’ve been playing piano since I was a kid, and I take it very seriously.”
    “What about your band?” says Skunk. “I bet you don’t play synth for eight hours a day.”
    “That’s different.”
    “Why?”
    “Nobody needs me to be in a band.”
    “And they need you to play piano?”
    I scowl at Skunk, piqued. “This had better be the best freaking omelet I’ve ever had.”
    He drops his hands on my shoulders and steers me to a chair at the kitchen table. “Consider this an intervention.”
    He pours me a big mug of coffee to drink, then goes back to the fridge and takes out arugula, goat cheese, wild mushrooms, and fresh herbs. While he’s cooking, a fat orange cat comes out of the living room and slinks around my legs, meowing plaintively.
    “That’s Gingerly,” says Skunk. “Don’t feed her, she’s a mooch.”
    Skunk reaches into a cupboard, takes out sea salt, and shakes some into the omelet. I’m so hungry I squirm in my chair. “Is that food almost ready?”
    “Good things take time.”
    “The smell’s driving me crazy.”
    “You’re already crazy.”
    “Oh no, I’m not. Not yet. Okay, now I am.”
    And for the last three minutes before the omelet’s ready I’m fluttering around the kitchen in my socks, light as a moth and practically translucent with hunger, saying, “When-when-when-when-when?” and spinning around with the affronted cat in my arms. Skunk lifts the cast-iron pan off the stove with an oven mitt, and when he puts it down on a hot pad on the kitchen table, I rush up with the cat in my arms and almost kiss him I’m so hungry, but stop just short and stand there, panting slightly, my head dizzy from spinning, our faces just inches apart.
    I’m conscious of Skunk’s height, of his bigness. He’s like a brontosaurus or a bison or a bulldozer, some strong, solid word. He still smells like something that’s been out grazing in the sun, even though it’s been raining since last night. There’s a fleck of rosemary stuck to his forehead. A smudge of bicycle grease on his wrist. I feel a flutter of fear, then a wingbeat of certainty.
    “I want to kiss you,” I say, “but I seem to be holding this cat.”
    Skunk lifts his hand and touches it to the side of my face. His fingers are warm from carrying the hot skillet to the table. He regards me very seriously, and for a moment I wonder if he’s about to tell me we should Focus on Bicycle Repair. Instead he just looks at me for a very long time.
    “You’re beautiful,” says Skunk, “and completely batshit.”
    Then, cat be damned, I do kiss him. I’m either swooning or having a hypoglycemic meltdown, take your pick, because I’m starving and in love with Skunk and because nobody’s ever said anything like that to me before. Halfway through the kiss, the cat twists out of my arms, drops to its feet on the floor, and streaks away. I step in and close the space between our bodies and we kiss, Skunk and I, like all the bicycles in the world are gliding down a long, steep, swooping, tree-mad hill.
    Somehow we eat our afternoon