Things I can’t Explain (5 page)

Dad bursts out laughing and I want to climb into the minivan's glove compartment and die. But then Mom laughs at his corny quip and my nerves about this impending dinner are momentarily overshadowed by a joyful thought:
She still thinks he's funny!
That's gotta count for something, right?

It's at this point, as I'm gleefully picturing my dad moving back into the Darling homestead, that Mom looks over her shoulder to smile at Nick in the backseat. “Oh, Nick, Clarissa's told me the name of the restaurant a million times, but I just can't think of it. It's on the tip of my tongue. I know I'll recognize it when I hear it. What's it called?”

So much for gleeful. Operation Please the Parents is about to crash and burn before it's even gotten off the ground. My brain is screaming,
Abort! Abort!
I prepare to shout out the restaurant's name before he flubs it, although I know it will seem rude and uncouple-like.

“Tamarind Tribeca, on Hudson Street,” Nick answers smoothly before I can make an idiot of myself.

My jaw drops. To my utter delight and total shock, he's dead-on!

“Yes, that's it!” Mom says, with a snap of her fingers. “Tamarind. Clarissa's favorite.”

The taxi pulls away as my dad, the former flower child, breaks into an off-key chorus of “
Hey, Mr. Tamarind Man
” that has Mom giggling again, and I feel myself relax. I turn to look at Nick and I'm not surprised to see that he has an enticing quiet smile on his face in sweet satisfaction of his epic save.

Maybe this evening won't be a complete kamikaze mission after all.

Nick offers to pay the cabdriver and I notice he gives him a pretty good tip for a guy who works at a coffee stand.

As I'm checking off “Class Act” on my mental checklist, and maybe “Good with Money,” we follow my mom and dad toward the restaurant.

“How on earth did you know?” I whisper.

“Well, for one thing,” he whispers back, “it's pretty much everyone's favorite Indian place. And for another thing…” He stops short, suddenly bashful again.

“What?” I urge. 'Cause obviously I'm dying to know what this other thing is.

Nick hangs back as the door closes behind my parents. “Well, there was this one time the delivery guy from Tamarind came by my cart. He'd just come from dropping off a lunch order and he couldn't stop talking about the hot blonde at the
Daily Post
who ordered the Lucknow boti kabab and sweet potato pudding.”

This floors me because:

A) Who knew the delivery guy thought I was hot? And B) in addition to my coffee preference, Nick also remembered my favorite Indian dish.

“Oh,” I say, kind of stupidly. But really, I'm too stunned to say anything else.

He frowns and rolls his eyes. “Then the punk made an off-color kabob reference at your expense and I wanted to clock him.”

“Clock him?” I repeat. “As in punch him?”
As in defend my honor?

Nick shrugs. “Yeah, but I figured that would be bad for business, so I oversteamed the milk for his cappuccino instead.”

Wow. Once, when Norm and I were still together, a guy grabbed my ass at Angels & Kings, a rock club downtown that went out of business a while ago. Ol' Norm couldn't seem to understand why that would upset me. I begin to thank Nick for avenging me but before I can say anything, Mom is anxiously tapping on the glass doors, waving us inside.

We're seated quickly and Dad has a silly play on words for just about every item on the menu. When he orders his full murgh angarey, he shakes his finger at the waiter and says, “And if you bring me the half, I'm going to be very ‘ang-ar-ey' with you.”

Yeesh, he really cracks himself up. When Nick and I exchange grins, it feels for a second like we've been doing it forever.

Mom's order includes about a billion adjustments to the preparation. She actually asks for the avocado chicken salad without chicken or avocado.

Then it's Nick's turn. Just as he opens his mouth to order, his cell phone rings. He checks the incoming number and throws me an apologetic look.

“I'm sorry, I've really got to take this.” He stands up and quickly ducks into a quiet corner so as not to disturb the other diners.

“Uh, that must be work,” I tell my parents.

“We understand, dear,” my mother assures me, adding with a proud twinkle in her eye, “An entrepreneur's job is never done.” Dad winces and I think maybe Mom's talking about herself as well. But the issue at hand is what Nick might want for dinner, because the waiter is … well, ya know … waiting, which makes all of us Darlings a bit nervous. Don't ask me why, but for some reason the Darlings fear the impatience of waiters. I mean, isn't waiting their job description?

“Clarissa, why don't you go ahead and order for Nick?” Dad suggests nervously, looking back up at the waiter as if he's worried the guy might yell at him. “You know what he wants, right?”

“Yeah, you would think,” I mumble, dropping my eyes to the menu. I settle on jhinga e aatish, otherwise known as jumbo prawns, because it's a big seller and everyone raves about it. For myself, the usual: Lucknow boti kabab and sweet potato pudding, which once inspired impure thoughts in the Tamarind delivery guy. I'm hoping Nick will notice and be inspired to have impure thoughts of his own.

When Nick returns, my father asks, with an utterly straight face, “So is everything okay in the world of skateboards? Is your company still ‘
on a roll
'?”

Oh, dang. Dad really isn't going let that one die, is he? Problem is, this isn't Norm, this is Nick, and I have no idea if he knows a half pipe from a hookah pipe.

“Actually,” I say, as Nick turns a blank face in my direction, “Nick sold his skateboard business a few months ago to pursue other things.”

“The coffee industry?” Mom asks.

“Yes, and no…” Nick unfolds his napkin and places it in his lap. “I don't actually own the coffee cart; I just run it for a friend of mine. Denny Featherstone.”

“Really?!” I blurt out. This is news to me. I always thought he owned Where Have You Bean? (shortened name trademark pending).

“Sure.” Nick gives me a slow nod. “You know that, babe.”

“Right!” I say quickly, feeling a little tingle in my fingertips, because no one has called me babe in such a soft, relaxed voice since … well, since Sam. “Of course I know that. And that reminds me, I'm going to have to give that Danny Fusterstein—”

“Denny. Featherstone,” Nick corrects.

“Right … that
Denny Featherstone
a piece of my mind about all those extra hours he has you working. In fact, I should call him and—”

“Or,” says Nick patiently, “you can wait until he gets home from his tour of duty in Afghanistan.”

“Right,” I say again, and slump a little in my chair. “Or I could do that.”

Nick gives me a wink before turning back to my folks. “The coffee thing is just to help Denny and his wife. They've got two kids. I feel like it's kind of my civic duty. You know how that is. But my interest is, I guess you'd say, the music industry.”

“You're a musician?” I ask, then shake my head fast and say in a more declarative tone, “You're a musician! Yes, you're a musician, I mean. Nick is … a musician.” Mom, Dad, Nick—everyone is looking at me like I'm nuts. I fake a little self-satisfied chuckle. “It's actually tough dating a musician,” I say, trying to recover. “I'm always tripping over the drumsticks…”

“… guitar strings…”

“Right, that's what I meant—the
guitar strings
he leaves lying around his apartment in … Riverdale?”

“Bushwick.”

“Did I say Riverdale? I meant the Riverdale-like part of Bushwick. Naturally I meant Bushwick because Bushwick is where you
live
. Riverdale is where you … get your hair cut.”

I have no clue why I've added that haircut part. Fortunately my parents are from Ohio. When it comes to NYC geography, they have no way of knowing that nobody gets their hair cut in Riverdale except maybe the Riverdalians, whoever they are—maybe Archie and Veronica? Honestly, sometimes even I'm amazed at what I say.

“Oh, I love the guitar!” my mother gushes. She looks at me and asks, “Acoustic or electric?”

“Acoustic?” I guess.

Nick nods. “And electric.”

“Electric and acoustic,” I announce. “And he's fabulous at both.”

“But I guess I'm mostly an engineer, I do a lot of mixing,” Nick added.

“Very impressive,” my father says. Although I'm not sure he quite understood anything Nick said. To be frank, I don't know much about it myself. “But with all that acoustic and electric guitar playing, and the coffee cart and mixing things, it must be difficult to find time to read Clarissa's writing.” Dad is starting to act like he's interviewing Nick for the job of being my boyfriend. I throw Nick a look as if to say he doesn't have to answer, but he does.

“Oh, I make time,” Nick assures him. “I love to read Clarissa's articles.”

At this my heart absolutely swells. A guy who reads my writing? And
loves
it? This possibility is so awesome that it doesn't even appear on my invisible checklist because it would simply be too much to ask. But Nick is assuring my parents that he's a loyal reader of my work, and even though this evening is a total and utter fake, I'm actually touched.

“Which is your favorite of her most recent pieces?” Mom asks. Oh fug.

Here's another embarrassing confession: In order to throw my parents off the scent of my unemployment, I may have, on occasion, dashed off the odd article and e-mailed it to them. I've needed to write a few pieces for samples now and then anyway and I
may
have allowed them to believe that these pieces were actually being published in the, um,
Daily Post
.

For the first time Nick is looking like he's struggling, in a bit over his head. I wonder if he knows Morse code; then I could tap it out on his leg, which wouldn't be a bad idea. But I don't know Morse code.

“The one about … the crooked politician…?” says Nick, winging it.

“They've bumped you up to politics now?” Dad says, his eyes widening. He's thrilled at the prospect of his daughter reporting on something as important as corruption in the government.

“Actually, not
that
kind of crooked,” I say, tamping down expectations. “The last piece was about the politician who recently had her severe
scoliosis
treated by using a new primal back therapy and is now able to stand up straight and proud as she goes about her official duties as a leader in this great democratic land of ours.” I feel like “The Star-Spangled Banner” is playing somewhere. Nick smiles and puts his arm around me.

“Clarissa really has a way with the human-interest stuff, don't you think?”

Damn, he's good. My dad is nodding like crazy and Mom's practically tearing up.

“I'll send you a copy of it,” I promise.
As soon as I write it.

Finally the food arrives. Dad gets his full order of murgh angarey. My salad looks delicious although Mom's looks like somebody has already eaten all the good stuff out of it.

The waiter places Nick's jhinga e aatish in front of him and he pulls back.

“What's this?” he asks.

Since I'm the girlfriend and I'm feeling really cozy and familiar right about now, I reach over and give the tip of his nose a playful tap. “It's your favorite, silly. Jumbo prawns.”

Suddenly, Nick's face goes absolutely white.

I'm guessing I'm a little off with that “favorite dish” thing.

“What's wrong?” Janet asks. “Is something wrong with the prawns? You know, after the Gulf spill they've found eyeless shrimp in the Gulf? They don't even have eye sockets. We should just send them back.” Yuck. Now you know how my mother thinks on a regular basis.

“No, no,” sputters Nick. He gulps and turns to me. “It's just that … well, I'm a little allergic to shellfish, that's all.”

“A little?” says my dad. “How much is a little?”

“Oh, ya know…” Nick takes his napkin and carefully pushes the plate away. “Somewhere between severely and … well, fatally.”

Bad faux girlfriend!
Bad
,
bad
faux girlfriend! My parents stare at me in horror.

“Clarissa!” my mother cries. “How could you forget something like that?”

Good question.

“Well, ya see…” I stammer.

“It's a little game we play,” he explains, giving a wave of his hand, laughing. “Clarissa knows one bite of a shrimp'll pretty much kill me, so she orders it to be funny. You know, like a joke. Such a kidder.”

“I'd hate to be around for the punch line,” says Dad, and gives me a disapproving look as if I just tried to murder his new son-in-law.

“It's just how we are,” I say, taking my cue from Nick. “Clarissa and Nick, just a couple of pranksters in love.” I quickly grab his poisonous meal and swap it with my own. “The prawns were for me all along, see? The kabab is for Nick.” As I stab a plump bottom-feeder with my fork, I send up a silent prayer that he doesn't have any issues with mutton. I also take a sidelong glance at the shrimp. Thankfully, they've been pre-shelled and I presume de-eyed, if they ever had any to begin with.

The rest of the meal is mostly small talk except we get the full report on Mom's new tofu business. I kid you not. Let me explain: