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AUTHOR: Suture
RATING: PG-13
CATEGORY: S, M/S UST, mild Scullyangst, brief
S/O in flashback
FEEDBACK: is like doorbells and sleighbells and
schnitzel with noodles.
SPOILERS: A tiny one for "Small
Potatoes." Really though, this story could take place during
any of the more light- hearted moments in seasons 5-7.
SUMMARY: Mulder, Scully, and tropical things on
a winter's day.
DISCLAIMER: I know they're not mine. I just do
this for fun.
The words slip out of me without any authorization from above.
"Let me cook you dinner, Mulder," I blurt and wish
conversations came equipped with delete buttons.
Mulder looks up from a rousing game of Minesweeper. To his
infinite credit, he has the good grace not to appear surprised or
confused. "Tonight?" he asks in a neutral tone. He seems
a little distracted, but then again, he is twenty points away from
setting a new all-time office record.
"Yes," I say just as I remember that my refrigerator
basically contains wilting lettuce, half an avocado, two oranges,
and pesto sauce. "No. Wait. Tomorrow? Eight o' clock?"
"Sure," Mulder says, tilting his chair back so he can
prop one long leg on his desk. Now I have his complete attention.
"What should I bring?" he asks as suddenly- amused eyes
gleam at me.
I resist the urge to ask him to share the joke with the entire
class. I have a dinner to cook and my reputation to uphold. In
that order.
"B.Y.O.B.," I tell him.
"O.K.D.K.," he intones solemnly. He quirks one corner
of his mouth at me in a Morse-code version of a smile and turns
back to the grave task of establishing himself as Minesweepers's
once and future king.
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Artichoke. Rutabaga. Cilantro. Monkfish.
Since my appetite packed its bags and left town like a
shiftless boyfriend in one of those paperbacks that aren't mine, I
wander through supermarkets savoring the taste and texture of
words instead. The more distinctive the word the better. Last week
I went to the little Asian grocery store around the corner and
read the produce off to myself. Bok choy. Yali pears. Choy sum.
Shiitake mushrooms. I loved the way those compact syllables sat
heavy on my tongue.
In the Safeway "ethnic foods" aisle, I decide I'm
going to go Caribbean tonight. Maybe the sharp flavors will
jump-start an appetite that's been MIA for four weeks now.
My appetite has always been a fickle, fickle thing, flitting
from yogurt with bee pollen to pepperoni pizza to pungent Thai
curries without ever settling down. Other people can rattle off a
decisive list of food likes and dislikes at a moment's notice. I
always end up sounding like a consummate politician trying to
please every known constituency. When I was five, Mom gave up on
the idea of making my favorite foods. She just told me to put in
requests when the spirit moved me.
Promiscuous tastes aren't the problem this time, however. Just
the opposite. Everything turns into sawdust the moment I put it in
my mouth. A few nights ago, I spent fifty dollars on take-out in
an abortive attempt to woo my appetite back. I violated dietary
laws and UN treaty lines with the orders I placed: sushi, Tandoori
chicken, enchiladas in a mole sauce, ribs with collard greens,
shrimp scampi, bulgogi. The neighbors must have wondered about the
parade of deliverymen who showed up at my front door. Nothing
tempted me in the slightest. I had one unagi roll, a bite of the
enchilada, and a forkful of angel hair pasta. Then I gave the rest
to the under- nourished looking grad students next door.
These days, my stomach is clenched tight like a fist and eating
is a mechanical act I have to will myself to carry out.
Eating with Mulder helps. At lunchtime, I can choke down a
salad while he deconstructs the gender politics in Men in Black
and slips me his fries. As odd as it may seem, I've eaten some of
my best meals on the fly with him. One time, on a case in San
Francisco, we ate Hawaiian drive- thru during a stakeout. Spam and
eggs never tasted so good. Maybe it's true that food is meant to
be shared and the company of good friends is the best seasoning of
all. Maybe Mulder is the missing all-purpose spice that will
restore food to its former flavor.
I fill up my shopping basket with goodies from distant lands
and head for the checkout lines. Deep-brown plantains. Coconut
milk. Yellow-red mangos. A bottle of wine. Lemons, limes, and
tangerines. For once my shopping basket doesn't scream
"Works-too-many-hours- single-woman." I'm broadcasting
decadence this gray winter evening.
The pretty brown-skinned girl at the checkout counter smiles
conspiratorially at me. "I'm missin' the sun today too,"
she tells me in an island lilt, bagging my items with a brisk
efficiency.
"You be sure to feed your man those mangoes slowly,"
she winks.
I count out correct change with hands that suddenly shake.
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A flash of pale cream, a hiss of oil, and the sugary-sweet
smell of plantains mingles with the sharp garlic and heavy coconut
already in the air. I'm nineteen again and back in Max's small,
dark studio apartment trying to read Walter Benjamin while Max
fries plantains in the kitchen. He's playing bossa nova as he
cooks, humming along tunelessly to the melancholy strains.
I can't concentrate. Less than an hour ago I'd learned for the
first time what lips and tongues can really do. Max is no
tentative college boy overjoyed when he "gets it right"
by accident. He knows women's bodies, knows mine almost
instinctively. I swear I can still feel a phantom heat, a humming
in my blood.
The sounds from the kitchen stop and Max is behind me.
"He who has once begun to open the fan of memory never
comes to the end of its segments." A gentle hand works itself
under my hair and begins to stroke the base of my neck.
"No image satisfies him, for he has seen that it can be
unfolded." Erudite Max who can quote every one of the writers
we're reading this semester verbatim has worked his other hand
under the hem of my shirt. He smells of smoke and oil.
"And only in its folds does the truth reside." A
tongue snakes its way into my ear. A carnal memory hits me so hard
I can taste it. "That image, that taste, that touch for whose
sake all this has been unfurled and dissected." Benjamin gets
lost somewhere in a pile of clothes and unneeded sofa cushions.
Much, much later we discover that the plantains have burnt to a
crisp. There's a trick to plantains Max tells me as we eat ice
cream naked in his kitchen instead. Regardless of what the
cookbooks say, you can only cook them over a low heat, stirring
constantly. When left to their own devices for too long, fried
plantains burn to a crisp in their own sugar.
That's a lesson for all times. Nietschze, Benjamin, Derrida, et
al, all the writers Max and I read in Introduction to Modern
European Thought, went the way of the dinosaurs in my intellectual
evolution, but I will always know how to make the perfect fried
plantains.
"Earth to Girl from Ipanema," Mulder waves a hand in
front of my face and banishes Max to the shadows. "I'm
getting a little tired of just standing here and looking pretty.
Is there anything I can do to help?"
He's looking awfully pretty as he lounges against the counter
next to me, a potent blend of sexy slouch and schoolboy jitters.
He came straight from the office, so I'm treated to the pleasures
of after-hours Mulder. No tie. Untucked dress shirt with the
sleeves rolled up. I'm torn between the urge either to throw
myself at him or snap at him to stop fidgeting.
Ever since he showed up forty-five minutes early, we've been
doing the funny, awkward dance that must be common to those who
frequent the borderlands between friendship and Something Else. I
told Mulder to use his key and let himself in because the coconut
rice had reached a critical stage, but I didn't let him hang his
coat in the hallway closet by himself. I got him a beer, but I
waved off his offer to chop the plantains.
"The shrimp's done, the rice is cooking, and the plantains
are almost done. I think we're okay."
"No vegetables Scully?" Mulder tries to juggle his
empty beer bottle, but stops himself before I have to say
anything. He knows I'm not a big fan of potential glass shards on
my kitchen floor. "I thought you were the vegetable advocate
in this outfit."
"I figured we'd live dangerously for once." I let him
steal a half-cooked plantain.
"Who are you and what have you done to the real Dana
Scully?" He moves off to poke around in the refrigerator.
"Hey Scully. None of your vegetables match," he informs
me from the depths of the vegetable bin.
I feel vaguely defensive about my large, mostly empty
refrigerator. "This from the man who owns cans of baked beans
dating back to the Bush administration. Hasn't anyone warned you
about the dangers of botulism?" When in doubt, fall back on
flippancy and the snappy one-liner.
Mulder resurfaces with an armful of green, leafy things and
starts performing some strange Mulder-ish alchemy on my motley
produce.
Reason #103 Mulder Keeps Unfolding Like a Flower: the man
improvises amazing salads. He takes a sad collection of slightly
limp greens, overripe avocados, bruised tomatoes, and a can of
artichokes and transforms them into a culinary delight.
"You've been holding out on me," I tell him as he
presents me with the fruit of his labors.
"Holding out on you? Never," he mumbles around a
piping- hot mouthful of stolen plantain.
"I'd always assumed your cooking skills were on par with
your navigational skills."
"You wound me to the quick Scully." He tries to steal
a plump, garlicky shrimp.
I rap him on the knuckles with a spatula before he can get to
the shrimp. "If you `sample' anymore of the food, you're
going to spend the rest of the evening watching me eat."
"You know I like to watch." His words are sly
innuendo, but his voice suddenly goes tender, shattering our
carefully constructed playfulness.
I can't meet his eyes, so I busy myself with pouring the
coconut rice into a blue bowl. This isn't part of our agreement.
We're like two Kabuki actors, Mulder and I. We approach each other
with stiff, measured steps and offer `til-death-do-us-part loyalty
and sacrifice, relying on the elaborate carapace of our costumes
and choreography to keep us from touching too much.
Mulder turns away from me. "I'll set the table," he
offers and I let him because I can't stand to hear the
disappointment in his voice.
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I've forgotten that, at the right moment, eating good food is
like a less-naked version of sex.
Sprawled on the floor of my living room with half-full plates
propped on our stomachs, we're caught up in the sheer physicality
of a well-cooked meal. Mulder's eyes go liquid as he swallows
another bite. His cheeks are slightly flushed and his mouth gleams
oil-slick. Moist, rumpled, and sensual, he looks like the
centerfold for some incredibly highbrow porn magazine for food
fetishists.
My body is thrumming from a mixture of nutrients and sensory
overload. The three glasses of sangria I've had can't be entirely
responsible for the way my blood sings. Astrud Gilberto murmurs
plaintive, seductive nothings in the background and I want to do
nothing more than lie here and play a desultory round of armchair
Jeopardy with Mulder.
"Who is Heisenberg?" Mulder says. Ronald the preening
actor gets it wrong and Mulder takes another sip of his sangria.
We decided to add some new rules to armchair Jeopardy. Everytime
either of us gets a question right that the contestants miss we
have to take a drink. The three contestants tonight have earned a
grand total of $4000 and Mulder has gone through a third of the
pitcher on his own. He's still surprisingly lucid.
"What is the Aeneid?" I jump in before Debbie the
lawyer rings in. She guesses, "The Odyssey." I salute
Mulder with my wine glass and sip. Onscreen, Alex Trebek looks
increasingly morose.
"Where'd you learn to cook like this?" The sad
Jeopardy contestants are gone. Ronald won with $2500. Mulder and I
both get Final Jeopardy right. Actors and Actresses. This actor
died before Giant wrapped shooting. "Who is James Dean?"
"That's a state secret Mulder," I'm a little alarmed
to hear myself slurring my "s's."
"Oh, but vee haf vays of making you talk Fraulein,"
Mulder puts his empty plate down, props himself up on one elbow,
and pokes me in the shin with his foot.
To forestall any further attempts at bad German accents, I
relent. "From an old college boyfriend. Max. He liked to read
Rilke and cook Caribbean food." It's funny how easy it is to
condense old lovers into a one-sentence long description.
"A poet and a cook. He sounds like a keeper." Mulder
watches me with a tipsy version of his intense interrogation
stare. Somedays, when he unleashes that still, intent look, I have
a hard time focusing on the actual suspect being interrogated.
It's impossible to look away from those knowing, pinning eyes.
Right now, though, I'm not so sure I like being the focus of
all of this attention.
I shrug and deflect. "Every nineteen year old should be in
a relationship with at least one suave, slightly older
lover."
"Are you trying to seduce me Mrs. Robinson?" Like the
dexterous, fleet-footed Fred Astaire of dinner banter that he is,
Mulder moves the conversation to safer, more impersonal territory.
He's still watching and assessing though. Maybe he suspects I'm a
female Eddie van Blundht or an Eddie van Blundht who's experienced
a sexual epiphany. I try to suppress a snicker with minimal
success.
"Are you laughing at me Scully?" His voice is the
low, intimate rumble of late-night, nightmare-prompted phone
calls.
"I'm laughing with you Mul-ler," I'm definitely
losing my ability to enunciate properly.
Mercurial as ever, Mulder steers the conversation into still
and deep waters. "This was lovely," he says, gesturing
at the assortment of bowls, plates, and glasses scattered wantonly
across the floor. A tsunami of emotion sideswipes me as we finally
lock eyes.
"Anytime," I tell him. Mulder's eyes go soft and
wide.
There's a long stretch of silence before he pulls himself into
a sitting position. He's wearing his "Let's-go-
look-at-crop-circles-in-Idaho" expression. "Hey Scully,
do you have any summer clothes lying around?"
I'm so surprised I can only manage a stunned, "Huh?"
Mulder gathers plates and bowls and heads towards the kitchen.
"There's only one way to end this evening."
"With you playing dress-up in my summer clothes?"
Sometimes it's hard for me to be gracious after I think I've made
a fool of myself.
"I figured we'd save that for another day." He comes
back into the living room to collect more dishes. "When I was
little, my mom always let us play summertime once every winter.
When the weather got too cold and depressing, we'd turn the
thermostat up to eighty for a night, run around in summer clothes,
drink lemonade. You know you want to Scully."
I hope I've had enough sangria that the sight of Mulder
channeling Will Smith and singing "Summer, summer, summer
time" in a falsetto will magically erase itself from my mind.
"Only if you promise to stick to Elvis impressions from
here on out."
"Go put on some summer clothes Scully. I'll clear the
dishes."
As I head towards the bedroom, Mulder breaks into a truly
terrible Billie Holiday impression: "Summer-tahhhm a-a-a- -nd
the liv-in' is eeaa-sy."
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Now is the winter of my discontent made glorious summer by
Mulder family tradition.
Sitting in the middle of my living room in grubby shorts and a
Naked Coed Alien Lacrosse T-shirt courtesy of the Lone Gunmen, I
sip lemonade and eat a grape Popsicle from the box of Popsicles
that mysteriously materialized in my freezer. A pile of mango
peels and cores lies between Mulder and me. I didn't feed him
slices of mango like the girl at the checkout counter suggested I
should. I'm too wedded to subtext for that. But, I couldn't help
watching him as he sucked every scrap of mango from the pit. Freud
would have had a field day.
I'm drowsy and warm and sated. The apartment feels like a
sauna. In a gesture of pure extravagance, I cracked open a window
so that a little of the sharp, cold air could temper the heavy
warmth. Mulder lolls on his back, eyes closed, wearing his
unbuttoned dress shirt, undershirt, and a pair of running-shorts
that somehow ended up in my dresser. Maybe we should open an
X-Files on laundry with a migratory impulse.
I can picture a young Mulder, limbs akimbo, finally still and
quiet in the simulated heat of a winter night. Samantha would be
nearby playing jump rope because it's summer and that's what
little girls do in the summer. Mrs. Mulder sits in a rocking chair
and pretends to be an announcer for the Red Sox because summer
isn't summer without baseball. "He's rounding third. He's
headed for home." For one night, the three of them inhabit a
brief and shimmering cocoon of unconditional love. I stretch my
legs out and pretend to bask in the sun. We're two kids in a
primordial sandbox tonight. Some post-modern version of Adam and
Eve before the fall-all glorious, blazing erotic innocence. I curl
up on my side inches away from Mulder. I don't need fig leaves in
this temporary Eden.
An arm curls itself around my waist loosely. There's no demand
in Mulder's touch. He's issuing a promissory note that I can
collect on anytime. He curls himself around me, an elegant
quotation mark in search of his mismatched mate. He whispers
something and it takes me a moment to make it out. "O love,
be fed with apples while you may."
I fall asleep secure in the knowledge that I have.
Author's Notes:
Just a few citation issues that walk the thin
line between homage and plagiarism:
1) The lines about the "fan of memory"
come from Berlin Chronicle by Walter Benjamin.
2) The line "O love, be fed with apples while you may"
is from a poem by Robert Graves by way of A. S. Byatt's
Possession.
3) The idea of summering in winter comes from Pages for You
by Sylvia Brownrigg. |