She was a chatterbox once she got going. She went to St. Mary’s Academy, like a good Catholic Irish girl; got really good grades; was a cheerleader. He asked if she had a boyfriend and she blushed red, giggling, “No.”
Then the rush came, and Knight didn’t have time to talk to her. Alyson actually got smart and moved out of the kitchen and disappeared.
It died down around two, and Knight sat down for a break when she came back. She stood at his table, shifting from foot to foot. He motioned with his hand for her to sit across from him in the booth.
“So wha’ d’y’ know ’bout cooking?”
“I can’t cook. I can’t boil water. I burned the pan.”
“‘Kay, we’ll start wi’ that.”
He had decided to teach her something simple, spaghetti and sauce. He showed her how to boil water, how to feed the spaghetti into the boiling water, and how to taste it until it was to her liking (she liked it mushy, not to Knight’s taste).
He found that she was afraid of the stove, and flinched whenever the flame turned on. She let him handle the pot, stir everything, while she watched from a respectable distance. When he called her over to taste the spaghetti, she seemed to drag herself forward to the stove to taste it, and then retreated quickly.
He didn’t bother making the sauce.
The next day, Alyson came back, and she wore a low-cut shirt that teased. Before cooking, he put the apron on her, and she pouted. “You don’ wanna get burned,” he said. They tried spaghetti again, this time he had her stand at the stove. He stood close to her, and she started to shiver even with him there.
“It ain’ gonna hurt you.”
“Mama showed me the stove was hot.” She rubbed the palm of her left hand with her thumb.
Knight remembered what Paulie said, and a few things clicked in his mind. “Y’r safe here,” he said.
She turned her head to look at him. Her eyes were green in the light. Her face was mere inches from his own. She moved her head up, and he moved his head back, barely staving himself off from getting a kiss.
He stepped back. “None o’ tha’ now. Y’r Paulie’s niece.”
She looked down, then looked at the stove. She picked up the wooden spoon and stirred the spaghetti.
From that point, she avoided touching him, and he felt badly about it. Again, at the rush, she went out and disappeared.
She didn’t come back in the afternoon.