Free See You in Paradise by J. Robert Lennon Page A

gone to bed on the fourth, and gotten engaged on the sixth, and when, at their wedding, their families and coworkers had asked them who had proposed to whom, neither was able to come up with a definitive answer. It was the first marriage for both of them and, seventeen months after the wedding and a year after the accident, they both appeared certain that it would be the last.

    Because their first anniversary, owing to Philip’s recovery, had been inadequately observed, he decided to take Evangeline out for their year-and-a-half. He hired a driver to bring them to and from the restaurant so that she wouldn’t have to drive him, and he practiced getting in and out of the car by himself, so that she wouldn’t need to do that, either.
    The restaurant he chose was a new one in town—a Japanese hibachi steakhouse just off the highway, near the mall. Upon first glance, the place didn’t look promising, with framed posters on the walls and plastic willow branches arranged halfheartedly in vases on the chipboard tables. Six hibachi grills filled the far side of the room, arranged in groups of two and bracketed by countertops, where dining spectators were to sit. Philip and Evangeline were seated—with great fussing and wringing of hands over Philip’s wheelchair, so eager was the staff to avoid pissing off their first cripple—between a small family glumly celebrating a teenager’s birthday and a pair of college-age lovebirds with their arms wrapped around each other.
    Orders were taken, and the hibachi chef came out—a tall Asian man (though not, Philip believed, Japanese) whose hat made him appear taller still—pushing a sturdy wheeled cart of brushed aluminum. On the cart were arranged their uncooked meals, as well as a mountain of butter, squeeze bottles of various liquids, coffee-mug-sized chrome spice shakers, and a canister of utensils.
    A familiar dread came over Philip, the same one he felt whenever he was about to witness any kind of performance, whether on a stage or at his front door, behind the book of Mormon. He turned to his wife to express his feelings but was brought up short by the expression on her face: one of rapt attention and giddy anticipation. It would have taken a trained eye to detect these emotions, but a trained eye was what Philip had, and he kept his mouth shut.
    For the chef’s part, he maintained an expression of mock dignity and spoke not at all. Philip understood that women probably found him very attractive. He began his presentation by squeezing some kind of clear liquid onto the grill’s clean steel surface, then setting it on fire with a cigarette lighter. The flames shot up two feet and Philip reared back. Everyone laughed. The college girl screamed and snuggled deeper into her lover’s arms.
    Next he placed an egg on the grill where the flames had been and spun it with his thumb and middle finger. He drew a spatula from a holster on his belt—the belt was leather, with metal sheathes for his tools, giving him the air of a culinary Batman—and scooped up the spinning egg. He tossed it into the air; caught it, still spinning, on the spatula’s end; tossed it again. Finally, he lobbed it toward the college girl, then shot out a long-fingered hand without looking and plucked it from the air inches from her face.
    Her scream this time was truly earsplitting. Philip hated her, the way he had taken to hating random people since the accident: hated the scream, the lipstick, the giant breasts. He hated the boyfriend and his wounded masculine laugh, huh-huh-huh. But Evangeline—Evangeline was concentrating with all her might, her lower lip gently held captive between her teeth.
    The chef flung the egg into the air, bisected it against his spatula, flipped the shell into the trash. He scrambled the egg, spooned rice on top, spun his knife in the air—and by the time he caught it, a pile of green onions had materialized on the grill for him to chop.
    It went on like this for ten