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

minutes. The guy was big on throwing. Chicken breasts, steaks sailed through the air. A rain of shrimp, a fusillade of squash. Sauce bottles he lobbed from hand to hand and back into their holsters. Metal glinted and chimed. There was a lot of winking, especially at the teenager’s nervous mother, and a lot of spinning around to catch things left suspended. When the cooking was done, the food rocketed onto the plates, and not a morsel was spilled. The diners clapped, the chef bowed. He scraped the grill free of debris, scrubbed it, and, with a final, comically deep bow, wheeled his cart away.
    Philip had to admit that his meal was very good, fresh and unadorned. He didn’t especially want to see the floor show again, but the food he liked. When they were through eating, they left, and in a wild, impetuous gesture of magnanimity, Philip tipped nearly 20 percent. Their driver, unfortunately, had to be hunted down; they discovered him behind some shrubbery, smoking with a waitress from the Applebee’s next door. He brought them home and once again Philip tipped, though not so much this time around. Then they went inside and went to bed.
    The mattress conveyed to Philip the information that Evangeline lay awake, staring at the ceiling. She rarely said much, but tonight she had said nothing at all, not since they left the house. He glanced at her. In the light from the street, he could see that her cheeks were flushed, her forehead slightly wet. She exuded the tense stillness that came over her when she was trying to keep her breaths even, to trick her body into sleep.
    “Did you enjoy dinner?” he asked.
    “Yes,” was her immediate answer.
    “We should do that again.”
    She managed a nod.
    After a moment, and with considerable effort, Philip turned his body to face her, and snaked his hand up underneath her nightdress to cup one breast, then the other. After that he slid his fingers between her legs. She didn’t resist, but she didn’t help him out, either. It was warm and dry down there, and stayed that way. He thought perhaps he felt something, himself—some kind of faint stirring or itch? At times he experienced ghost sensations, dreams his body entertained while it slept. But maybe this was the real thing. He shoved a hopeful free hand into his pajama bottoms: no dice. Evangeline, having evidently read his mind, trained upon him a kind, pitying look. “Thank you, dear,” she said. Probably she was referring to the dinner.
    The next day, everything was back to normal. Philip returned to the half-time, halfhearted work his firm now offered him, perhaps out of pity; Evangeline returned to the office. Months passed in much the same sort of stasis they used to, with the exception that, every once in a while, Evangeline assumed an expression of squinting intensity, as though she was looking at something very small and very far away. But he didn’t ask what she was thinking of. Once, while wheeling past the recently expanded bathroom, with its widened door, chrome support hardware, and disinfected-daily bathtub stool, he heard a small surprised sound escape his wife, a kind of chirp or hoot, which reverberated on the tile like a gunshot. It was repeated seconds later, longer this time, drawn-out, a coo. When she came out a couple of minutes later, smoothing her dress with her long fingers, she didn’t look any different.
    Her birthday was approaching. Philip trolled his usual internet haunts to find something for her that might result in some kind of reaction. Kitchen supplies, he thought—she uses them daily, and not without pleasure. At least he would get to see his gift in action, see it making her infinitesimally happier. He browsed a commercial kitchen retailer, noticed the chef’s hats, remembered their night out. Typed “Hibachi” into the search box. Hit enter.
    There it was! The Oiled Birch and Stainless Steel Professional Hibachi Kitchen Island and Accessory Kit, fourteen hundred dollars plus freight