Potato Salad

I called Dad the other day to ask him what was in Mom's potato salad. It's sort of the season for potato salad and I've been lucky enough to have a few so far. All were good, but you know how a mom recipe sometimes is the only one that will do.

I couldn't remember anything about it except that it had something crunchy in it and it was good.

So I called Dad to ask.

"Uhhhh...potatoes?"

"Yes, thanks Dad. Got that. And mayo."

"A little mustard..? Hang on, I'll see if I can find the recipe."   I hear rustling on the other end of the phone and imagine him holding mom's old recipe book. The pages were all warped and they made that really great crinkly sound when you turned them. The books smelled like memories. I'd try to identify the stains net to often used recipes. Milk? Butter? Chocolate? Tomato sauce? Possibly all of those things.

"I remember something crunchy. I swear it was radishes."

Pause from Dad. "Radishes? No." His voice says that's just an absurd thought.

"Oh! Pickles? Dill pickles?"

"Of course pickles."  Ridiculous to not include pickles.

We chat a bit more about mom's recipe but decide those ingredients, along with salt and pepper 'to taste' will do it. Then he tells me about a contest he was in.

"It was for the golf course-they were having a banquet or some shit-a contest. Whoever made the best potato salad, the owner would replicate the recipe and put it on the menu. I forgot about it until the last minute and started throwing things together that morning."

I'm smiling on my end of the phone. This is totally how I cook too.

"I used red potatoes-"

"Do people usually use another kind?" I interrupt.

"I don't know. I used what was on the counter."

"Right. Ok, so red potatoes."

"Then I threw in some shrimp, used grey poupon mustard, Best Foods mayo...only the best ingredients. Mine was the first salad finished at the contest but I didn't win. The owner couldn't let me win because to make it on a regular basis would have been too expensive. So, I came in second.  Even though everyone knew mine was the best. She had to rig the contest."

"Sounds good Dad."

He chuckles, "Yeah, well. I can get creative if I want to."

He really has made some interesting concoctions. He not only likes to get creative, he likes to tell me about the process. I think he's hoping to shock me with the ingredients. It works sometimes. Like the morning he told me he had sauerkraut and baked beans for breakfast. Or the time he made scrambled eggs with spaghetti and meat sauce. My mom had books and recipe cards, dad has ingenuity.

And me? I have both.

Up Late

Lying still a soft glow
bathes my skin
Your hands travel over my flesh
drinking me in
Reason fades with quickened breaths
I surrender
I drown
in your caress

The First Time

I wasn't always like this.

I'm wide awake in a nightgown that no one has ever seen. I bought it a few months ago in case I had a one night stand.  First time wearing it tonight and that's because it was the only thing clean.

I wasn't always someone that would contemplate one night stands in lingerie. I wasn't even someone that had sex. Not for a long time.

I was 26 the year I met him and it took a year for me to convince him to take my virginity. He didn't want to, said it would ruin our friendship and of course, that made me want him more. J1 had badly frosted hair that I'd done one night when he begged me to. After I shaved his back and rubbed his feet. I was an idiot.

He was good looking though-at least to me. I thought he was a real catch and he did too. "People tell me I look like Brad Pitt", he told me maybe three hours after I'd met him. We were in Costco and I was looking at the books, the only item in the store I could conceive anyone needing in bulk. He was on the other side of the stacks, randomly picking up books and fanning the pages. I smiled at him, "Oh. Yeah? I can totally can see that."

I couldn't see it.

A few weeks later I used my AAA card to have his dead van towed. I didn't even drive at the time-my parents wanted me to have it in case of emergencies. Evidently making a boy like me was an emergency. We hung out a few more times after that with the couple that introduced us and then it was mostly just me and him. He had his own place but he practically lived with me. Every day he'd drive over or ride his bike if the van was dead again, and we'd hang out watching movies, smoking pot and building sexual tension.

I felt it waaaay before him but that usually happens. I wanted him to kiss me first. We used to play the wrestling-but-is-it-really-wrestling? game. He knew all the places I was the most ticklish and relished in my exaggerated squeals.When he was working, he'd come over after his shift was done, caked in mud from a construction job and plop down on my couch as though he was home. He'd peel off his boots and beg me to rub his feet. And I'd do it. Pre-shower. I would do it for the moment when his head fell back and a groan rumbled up his throat. His eyes would close and a small smile would play across his lips. I would do it for that ache of touching him but never connecting.  Fucking torture.

I was waiting tables in a slice of Hell and making good tips. I was irresponsible and depressed so I bought a lot of shit. I told myself I was doing it because I liked to do nice things for people. It wasn't until nearly 10 years later I realized I bought him things because it was something nice for me. He would say thank you, sometimes hug me and be happy for a moment because of something I'd done. I was desperate for his attention.

I finally got it in the Fall of 2003.

We loaded a bowl and turned on wrestling-a night like any other. I turned to him at the commercial break, passed him the pipe. "How come you've never tried to fuck me?"  I was a little more blunt when I was smoking. He looked at me and choked on the hit he'd just inhaled.

"I don't-um..what?"

"We should totally have sex." I took back the pipe, hit the bowl and then put it on the table. I was ready. I'd been ready for years but something about that day right then, made it the right time. I wanted to have sex with him and I was going to make it happen.

"No. Lindsay, it's not a good idea. I mean, we're friends and I don't want to ruin that...Besides, you're a virgin and I don't know...it's kind of a big-"

I made him be quiet with my mouth. He started kissing me back and when I knew I had him, I stopped.

"It's ok. I promise. This is what I want. I choose you. A lot of women don't get to really choose their first. Do this with me."

And he did. And then all the magical illusions you have before you have sex for the first time are gone and your sitting on your couch in the clothes you had on an hour ago, looking at the guy you just had sex with and wondering when he's going to go home so you can call your friends and freak out.

God it's so awkward, right? And I had built this shit up in my head. I wasn't so naive to think that I it was going to be rose petal bedspreads and fireworks, but as he was leaving he said, "Um. So...thanks for the sex?" Like even he wasn't sure that's what had just happened.

It got better though. He became my teacher and I was his eager student. He  pretty much let me do anything with him and he was sweet enough to say "Are you sure you've never done that before?" once or twice. And then a routine developed and my mom got sick. I fell into the depression more and he decided he didn't know how (didn't want) to handle all of that.

I don't remember the last conversation we had very clearly, but I know I was sobbing. He was my first and those are the hardest to let go of.

Nearly a decade went by before I could hang out with him and be ok with it. We're friends now Occasionally he'll make a comment about how I've got a 'purty mouth' and I'll smile, remembering that first night on the couch. But over the years  he's become one of those people you know will always be in your life because of everything you went through together. A friend.