Note to Self: Tequila is a Poor Replacement for Cooking Wine

“I know why this isn’t working,” she said
in the matter-of-fact tone I had only just begun
to ignore completely.
“You’re a sop.”

“Sot,”
I corrected (the half-sober part of my mind remembering
three seconds too late that she did not like to be corrected).

“Whatever. I’m leaving.”
She waited awkwardly for my response, then left me
lying on the kitchen floor in a pool of congealing beef stew.

She had loved cooking shows, demanding that I watched them
hoping I would learn enough to cook myself:
she had cooked for her father and brother
and was sure that she, like her mother, would die young.
“You need to be able to take care of our children.”

“If we have any,”
I corrected (two seconds too slow).

“Whatever.”
But you can’t learn to cook from watching cooking shows,
I learned on her birthday. Cooking show chefs
have all the ingredients laid out beforehand, pre-chopped,
with a finished roast turkey waiting in the prop oven,

and they don’t tell you how to plan, so the meat is cold
when the vegetables are done and the rice is still steaming
but you don’t know for how long (because you used the stove timer,
the only one in the kitchen, for the vegetables).

“At least you tried,” she said that night,
her phone sandwiched between her ear and her shoulder,
ordering Chinese take-out while absentmindedly
cleaning her plate into the trashcan.

Eventually, I learned to sauté vegetables
and prepare consommé and chop carrots
without a trip to the first aid cabinet,
even to watch cooking shows without complaint,
and she left me because I learned in the process
about the liquor store down the street.

She came over to give me back my keys
eyes red and angry and glaring.
“You smell like Jack Daniels.”
“Johnny Walker,”
I corrected (one second too slow).
“Whatever.”

Two days later, I watched her favorite show alone
and I didn’t turn it off to answer when she called.
That weekend, I spent Friday night at my computer
one hand on the mouse and one on the tequila bottle
scrolling through recipes for crème brulee.

I drove over to her place on Saturday,
to pick up my clothes and drop off the desert.
“You know why this didn’t work?” I asked,
handing her the plastic container.
She opened it and didn’t answer,

so I left her there, standing in the kitchen
like a cooking show chef with a live audience, staring
at the empty prop oven where the turkey used to be.