First Course

We break bread over puddles of infused olive oil, tearing at the pillowy insides with no regard for the rosemary tendrils baked carefully across its surface. We wash it down with briny wine. We taste everything, but feel nothing. Oysters, raw and slimy, slide down our throats, wet and sour with a vinegar mignonette. They prime our vocal cords for conversation, but the words don’t come.

Second Course

Instead of talking, we order more – this time smoked salmon sandwiched between craggy English muffins and delicate poached eggs. We stab the yolks with our sharpened knives, their yellow blood oozing over the perfect plate, no longer beautiful, but somehow now more delicious. We are so mesmerized by the color, the pooling liquid, that it keeps us from talking yet again. We came here to work things out, to somehow mend fences, but instead we just keep eating.

Third Course

And drinking too. We order more wine. This time something bubbly and sweet, and the carbonation goes right to our heads, lifting our eyes from their dreamy stupor aimed at our plates until they lock across the table. The remnants of our meal disappear, leaving only a cold marble slab between us, balancing precariously on an iron pedestal that wobbles when we rest our elbows on its surface.

There is nothing left to distract us.

“It’s been a long time,” I say.

“It has,” you say.

“I’m not really sure why we stopped seeing each other,” I say.

“We’ve known each other for a long time,” you say.

We stay silent, our eyes still trained on each other, our hands now wielding forks with four sharp prongs each. And without speaking, we meet in the middle, to stab, together, a honey lavender meringue, hardened on the outside, but still soft and sweet on the inside. It melts in our mouths, and reminds us of the honey lavender ice cream we used to order – double scoops on wrapped waffle cones – at our favorite boardwalk shop at the Jersey Shore every summer when we were kids. Salt in our hair, sand lining our bathing suits – we were immune then to time and growth and change – the very things that would drive us apart in adulthood. Instead, time stood still, and we were, simply, two little girls licking melting cones, without any expectations of where we had to go next.

So, we savor our meringue, taking slow bites and dipping each in the buttercream sauce pooled around it. We are sitting in our favorite brunch spot, but we are standing on the beach. We are 41, but we are 11.  All at the same time.