Chapter 10: The Closed Door

Eleanor cooked.

She was terrible at it, and she did it anyway, in an apron over the green sweater, with her hair twisted up in a pencil.

The kitchen smelled of burnt garlic.

"It's a very simple recipe," she said, standing over a pan.

"It's smoking."

"It's supposed to smoke."

"Eleanor, I grew up in a body shop. I know what smoke means."

She laughed and turned off the burner, and we ate the chicken scraped clean of its black edges, with bread and the rest of Marion's pie.

Neither of us said much.

The housekeeper had gone home at five.

The big house ticked and settled around us, and when I carried the plates to the sink, Eleanor came up behind me and put her arms around my waist.

"I'm nervous," she said into my hair.

"You?"

"I have not been with anyone in a long time." Her voice was low. "And I have never been with a woman."

"Okay."

"That's all you're going to say?"

"I'm also nervous," I said. "I'm twenty-two and I've done this exactly twice, and neither time was good."

She turned me around by the shoulders.

"Then we are very well matched," she said, "because I intend this to be good."

She kissed me against the edge of the counter, deep and slow, with her hands framing my face.

My glasses fogged.

She took them off, folded them, and laid them on the windowsill, and then she kissed my eyelids, one and then the other.

"Come upstairs," she said.

Her bedroom was at the back of the house, with tall windows and a bed.

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