The Eyes and Ears of Love (20 page)

Dorothy’s eyes widen with disbelief. “What else would be good about dating a blind person?” she asks curiously.

“Uh,” he pauses to think, “I really enjoy broccoli.”

A wry smile twists her lips. “Ok! And?”

“And I can never eat it on a first or even a second date because I'm embarrassed if I get it lodged between my teeth,” he says. “Worse! I won’t find out until I brush my teeth before bed that it’s been there the whole time.”

“So, you would want to date a blind woman so you can selfishly eat broccoli and not feel foolish at the end of the night?”

“Yup, pretty much!”

Dorothy giggles while shaking her head.

“And she’ll neglect to see all the other little embarrassing moments, like tripping over something! That’s mortifying,” Bentley says. 

“And what about the woman?” She rips off another bite of pizza with her teeth.

“What about her?”

“What if she gets broccoli in her teeth or trips over something?” She looks straight forward towards Bentley’s direction with a dab of pizza sauce on her lip.

“You’ve got a little sauce on your lip.” He leans over the table to her. She breathes heavily. He smiles, “I’ll be there to protect you,” he says softly while wiping the sauce from the corner of her mouth with his napkin.

She arches her eyebrows. “Excuse me?”

He retracts from her. “The woman!” he says, flustered. “I’ll be there to protect the woman. I’ll tell her if she has broccoli in her teeth. Maybe I’ll even carry floss in my pocket. I’ll catch her if she trips, and if I don’t catch her in time, then I’ll trip myself so we can share the embarrassment.”

Her mouth lifts slightly in a wry smile.

“Let’s cook every day,” he suggests.

“Every day?”

“Yes. It doesn’t even have to be meals, we could bake desserts.”

“I don’t know. We couldn’t even cook a grilled cheese sandwich!”

“That’s because I messed it up!” He continues, “That’ll be the solution then!”

“What?”

“You do all the cooking and I’ll be your eyes.”

“You’ll be my eyes. How?”

“I’ll help you with the ingredients and the oven just until you figure it out on your own.”

Her eyes wander. “Fine,” she caves. “But just desserts.”

“Deal!” He leans over for a handshake and she startles by the touch, jerking her hand away.

“Deal,” she says.

The following evening, Bentley and Dorothy meet in the kitchen again.

“Ok, so I went to the store and bought as much random dessert stuff as I could find.

“Such as?”

Bentley taps a finger on each of the numerous ingredients scattered on the kitchen island. He says each aloud: “There’s flour, candy, fruit, sugar…”

“No, not common ingredients,” she interrupts. “Unique ingredients.”

Bentley’s heart rate picks up. “Can you give me an example? I’m kind of new to this.”

“So, let’s say I was to make Tiramisu. The unique ingredient is coffee.”

“Oh! I get it. Well,” he says slowly observing the counter. “What about buttermilk? I have that.”

“Buttermilk is plain, but very unique!”

“What could you make with it?”

“I have an idea. It’s something that would have been easy before, but maybe not so easy being blind. Buttermilk Panna Cotta.”

“Well, then, let’s get started!”

“Wait, we have to see if we have all the ingredients first,” she says. “Whipped cream?”

“Check.”

“Lemon peel?”

“A lemon? Check.”

“Vanilla, assorted berries, and unflavored gelatin?”

“Check. Check. What’s gelatin?”

She bats her eyelashes. “Jell-O,” she says patiently.

“Ah. Yes, there’s Jell-O, but not unflavored.”

“Well, it depends on the flavor if we can make it or not.”

“There’s strawberry, orange, and lemon.”

“We’ll try lemon.”

“So what’s the first step?”

“Music.”

Bentley smiles gleefully. “Music it is!” He grabs his phone from his back pocket and plugs it into the docking station by the refrigerator. Music floods the speakers.

“Frank Sinatra?” she asks with narrowed eyed.

“You don’t like it?”

She bobs her head to the beat. “I can dig it!” She smiles.

Bentley removes all the unneeded ingredients from the counter.

He stares at her, watching her. When she gets a hang of something, her face lights up with childish glee, but if she spills or cannot measure an ingredient correctly, her eyes narrow and her cheeks redden. She’ll bang on the counter with her hand to amplify her frustration. 

“Keep trying! You’ll get it!” Bentley says to encourage her.

After several attempts and massive amounts of ingredients wasted; the Buttermilk Panna Cotta is edible.

“Before you eat it, I need you to describe it to me. But I need your honesty.”

“You have my honesty.” Bentley sets the plate in front of him, observing the dessert. “Well,” he says, “its round, with a bowl-like shape. Its off-white, I think because of the lemon Jell-O.”

Dorothy nods.

“It’s plain, but with the melted berries on top and grated lemon, it looks exquisite.”

She smiles, but her manner is stiff. “How does it taste?” she asks eagerly.

Bentley pierces the fork into the dessert and takes a bite. The berries are still warm, and they melt down his throat. The sweetness of creamy buttermilk and tang of the lemon follow close behind.

“The texture is unbelievable!”

Dorothy relaxes her shoulders and smiles genuinely.

“It has so many different flavors, it’s hard to pinpoint which is better!”

“So you like it?”

“I love it!” Bentley corrects her.

The next four weeks, Bentley and Dorothy routinely spend their evenings in the kitchen. It becomes Bentley’s responsibility to go to the grocery store beforehand for necessary ingredients, making sure to get a unique ingredient each time. Dorothy decides what they’ll be having based on that ingredient. Dorothy’s responsibility is to bake all on her own with the leniency of asking Bentley questions such as,

“How am I doing so far?”

“Am I measuring correctly?”

“Is the oven preheated?”

Dorothy is slow with her prepping routine, but Bentley doesn’t mind. Her perfectionism is part of what makes her interesting. Two hours in the kitchen can easily double if something goes slightly unplanned, such as, a deflated soufflé, over-torching of the crème brulee shell, or not beating the meringue long enough. The failure devastates her, but when she gets it right, it conquers all her failures.

Bentley cannot help to enjoy her clutch onto him. He loves feeling needed by her. When he saw her in the kitchen at the university, she was almost like a professional at baking, she didn’t need any help. But now he helps her, he’s helping to strengthen her at something she loves doing. He feels like, he’ll always be a part of her life because of this chapter in hers that they conquered together.

***

A few weeks later, Dorothy sits on the edge of her bed waiting for Bentley to return from the grocery store. At the sound of the front door opening, her pulse rises. Aurora guides her to the kitchen. 

“What’s in store for us today?” she asks, entering the kitchen. She impatiently waits for his response. “Well?”

“Uh I, I’m thinking, a turtle brownie with a cream cheese swirl?” he stutters.

“Very nice!”

She hears him place the bag of groceries on the counter, the rustling of plastic indicating that he’s taking each ingredient out. Then the swivel bar stool squeaks, alerting her that he has taken a seat behind the island counter.

“So will I be answering questions?” Bentley surmises.

“No. I am ready to do this all on my own!” She smiles.

“Bravo!”

“If I wanted your flattery, Bentley, I would have asked for it!” She can’t help showing her amusement with a twitch of her mouth.

She lifts each ingredient to her nose one at a time, testing her ability to identify them. Suddenly, Bentley laughs.

“What’s so funny?”

She hears the swivel chair squeak again, and then his light touch on her nose. He touches her waist with the other hand. Dorothy’s spine tingles, reacting to his touch.

“Just a little flour,” he says in a low tone before sitting back down.

“Should I add more flour?” she asks.

“Hey! No questions. So,” he begins a conversation. “What do you think about starting college this fall?”

“I don’t think I’m ready. Plus I don’t even know what my major would be.”

“I’d imagine it would be culinary arts, right?”

“I know you think I have showed so much progress in the kitchen, and I may have made some of the best food you have ever tried, but…”

“
The
best food I have ever tried,” he corrects her.

She smiles. “But, it takes me twice as long as the average chef. Who is going to hire a blind chef? College would just be a waste of money.”

“I think you have what it takes to be one of the best chefs in the world.” He clears his throat. “
The
best chef in the world!” he corrects himself. “You have something unique.”

“And what’s that?”

“Passion.”

Just like my dad, his cooking was the definition of passion,
she thinks. “But, a lot of people have passion in what they do. You’re the same way. You love working here at the Garden.”

“You’re right, I do love working here, but it doesn’t show in every move I make like it does in you. You have the power to make people happy just by them watching you cook and bake. Tasting your food is only a bonus.”

“That’s nice of you to say.”

“I’m not being nice, I’m just being honest. People would pay to watch you cook and bake. I know I would.”

She smiles, sucking a dollop of cream cheese off her finger. “Thank you,” she says finally.

After two hours of conversation pass, the brownies are baked, cooled, and ready to eat. Dorothy stands next to Bentley, wringing her hands, anxiously waiting for his feedback. She can hear him chew each bite.

“Well?”

“Well, the chocolate is rich and dark, but the cream cheese really balances the chocolate with a creamy sweet layer! Definitely, your best dessert thus far!”  

She grins from ear to ear, feeling herself blush.

Dorothy grabs a brownie off the plate and savors the first bite. She feels a crumb on the side of her mouth, but she leaves it there. Like clockwork, she can feel his breath sweep closer to her face. He takes his finger and swipes the crumb into her mouth. She keeps her eyes facing in his direction. Even without being able to see, it is his touch that adds chemistry between them. His touch makes her skin tingle every time. She doesn’t feel his breath anymore.

I want him to touch me again,
she thinks.

***

Later that evening, Bentley escorts Dorothy and Aurora up into the rooftop garden where therapy will take place tonight. The sun is already down and the moon is lighting up the group circle. Bentley covers Dorothy with his jacket.

“Do you want me to tell you what the garden looks like?” Bentley asks.

Dorothy nods, encasing herself deeper in his coat. “Sure!”

“Right now, you’re sitting on a deck made from cherry oak. To your left, there are huge flower beds with tulips and a variety of roses—every color you can think of: red, yellow, pink, salmon, and my personal favorite, white. Directly in front of you is a huge circular gazebo with benches inside. In the center of the gazebo is a fountain.”

“Does the fountain have lights?”

“Dozens!”

She pauses. The corners of her mouth rise. “That sounds beautiful.”

“Hey!” he shrieks. “I wanted to remind you!”

“Remind me of what?”

“I have a surprise for you tomorrow!”

Her eyes widen. “A new ingredient?”

“Well, no, a big surprise. An unbelievably big surprise!”

“What is it?”

“Just be ready at two in the afternoon.”

“And then dessert later on?”

“Yes, and then dessert later on!”

People begin filling up the roof. Behind two people, a familiar overly teased hairstyle stands out, moving closer to him. He then sees his mother’s face as everyone in the group takes a seat.  

“Mom what are you doing here?” he asks, puzzled.

“Not to worry, I’m not staying long, I just thought it would be nice to bring some chocolate chip cookies for the group! Well, and to make sure you’re still coming over for dinner tonight?”