Feast and Famine

by Deniz Ertem

Martine does not begin by eating hearts. That takes a while. She builds up to it. The first thing she eats under Jack’s influence is a simple dish, something she likes already. A trio of tiny lemon tarts he places between her and Isa on a gleaming white plate. He points to them, explaining that the first is plain, the second has a drop of mint extract added, and the third is made with a mix of lemon and grapefruit curd. As he talks, Martine listens without facing him. Around her, the sounds of the restaurant have intensified; she wishes they were silent so she could hear him better. The clink of glasses, the sound of the coffee machine running, a woman at the next table’s shrill, nasal voice—all of these feel like they will overwhelm her. Her blouse feels constricting, as though it’s laced too tightly against her chest. She feels a momentary flush of heat.

She realizes Jack has stopped talking, looks up. Is struck again by his features. Throughout this meal, they’ve interacted multiple times, and every time he’s taken her breath away. She had to keep from gasping when she first saw him. That feeling has not abated.

“Enjoy, ladies,” he says. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

After he is gone, she and Isa eat the tarts. They share all three of them, swallow half-moons of pastry and curd no longer than her thumb. Isa declares an immediate favorite, but Martine cannot choose. Once they have paid and left, Isa links her arms with Martine’s.

“Well,” she says. “He was gorgeous, wasn’t he?”

Martine just gives a small nod, trying to hold Jack’s face in her mind. She clings to the sound of his voice, the fall of his hair. She walks to her parked car thinking of his mouth.

* * * * *

It takes her embarrassingly little time to go back. The next week, she returns to the restaurant and sits at the same table as before. Isa is with her again. Both women eat the same things as before and a dessert that Jack recommends. Shortly after that excursion, they eat there yet again. This time, as they take their seats at their usual table, Isa gives Martine a look.

“Has some rich relative of yours died?”

“What?”

Isa laughs a little. “I mean, this isn’t exactly a casual place.” She picks up the menu and peruses it. “So I’m wondering whether you got some sort of inheritance.”

Before Martine can respond, Jack is at their side.

“Ladies.” He smiles. Martine feels her heart beat faster. “Good to see you again!”

“You too.” Isa’s voice is relaxed, while Martine is unable to speak.

“Have you decided what you’d like this evening?”

Martine breaks her reverie when she sees him looking in her direction.

“Not yet.” She clears her throat. “I think I need a few more minutes.”

Jack nods. “If you’re looking for recommendations, this—” He points to an item on the menu. Martine cannot read the words in front of her, can only think of the closeness of his hand “—is delicious. I hadn’t even heard of this before I came here, but now it’s one of my favorite dishes.”

“Then I’ll take it.” She hopes her voice is nonchalant. As Jack takes the menus, they exchange another smile.

“I see,” says Isa once he is out of earshot.

“You see what?”

“I see why we keep coming here.”

“I love having dinner with friends, is that so bad? And I like the food here.”

Isa gives another little laugh. “We both know it’s not the food. And I can’t blame you, honestly. Even if you are draining both our bank accounts.”

Because she is right: Huntsman & Homesteader is not cheap. The first time they’d been, it had been for a celebration, and their mood had been amenable to paying twenty-four dollars for a drink and forty for an entree. Now, on a weeknight, with nothing particular to celebrate, reality is creeping in.

Martine tries to keep these thoughts at bay for the time being. “I’ll pay your half.” When Isa starts to protest, she cuts her off with, “I mean it! I’m treating us tonight.”

Jack appears again. He glances down at his notebook and addresses Isa.

“Sorry to interrupt, but the chef is just wondering how you’d like your meat cooked.”

As he and Isa talk, Martine takes in his demeanor. He is friendly, casual even, bantering with them the same way he has before. Once he has finished with Isa, he turns back to Martine.

The empty water glass in front of her must strike him, because he darts to the host stand and returns with a glass bottle. As he refills, he says, “The chef’s very excited about your order.”

“Oh? Why?”

“People don’t ask for that too often. He likes cooking it.” Another grin, and he places the bottle on the table. “I’ll be back in a little bit with your meals.” After he leaves, the scent of his cologne lingers for a few moments. Martine thinks of what it would be like to wake up beside him every day, smelling that scent, something like orange and spice.

She is shocked out of her trance by Isa. “Do you even know what you ordered, or did you just get it because Jack said to?” She looks at Martine critically over her glasses. Martine admits that no, she does not know what will be placed in front of her, but that she is sure she’ll like it. And, when Jack serves her the meal, she marvels at how beautiful it looks.

A whole roast chicken sits on her plate. Around it are half a dozen sauces in nearly perfect circles, colors as varied as forest leaves in autumn. But the most remarkable thing about the chicken is the cooking.

“You can see,” Jack says, “why this is one of the dishes that makes us unique.” He gestures to the bird. “Our chef’s cooked each part of this chicken separately. You’ll see that both of the drumsticks have been fried. The breast is broiled, while the wings have been baked.” He smiles. “After disassembling it so he could cook it properly, he put it back together using special edible thread.”

“Edible thread?” asks Isa.

“Yes. It’s a material he’s developed, and he’s very secretive about the recipe.” A pause, then he adds, “But it’s entirely safe to eat! He just uses that to connect all the pieces back together again.” He grins a little.

“Like Dr. Frankenstein,” Martine says. She does not know where this statement comes from, but it has the effect of making Jack laugh.

“Exactly. Though this is probably much better tasting than the monster,” he says.

“I’ll let you know,” Martine says. Jack gives another grin and retreats.

Every part of the chicken—every scrap she eats—is perfect. Not too salty nor too bland, not too thick nor too thin. All six of the sauces are fantastic, one after the other. One delivers a hit of cayenne, another the delicate taste of lemon. One has chopped herbs in it, and parsley blossoms on her tongue.

Martine eats as much as she can, passes the rest to Isa, and sits back in her chair. Isa, cutting into the little meat that remains, nods approvingly. “This is really good,” she says, and Martine gives her a triumphant look.

When Jack arrives, he looks impressed. “I’m guessing you liked it?” he asks, and Martine says, “Yeah, y’know, it was okay.”

He gives a laugh at her comment and clears their plates. From his pocket, he fishes out a pad of paper and his pen, regards them with an expectant look.

“Will you be having dessert?”

* * * * *

Isa is not with her this time. She had protested when Martine invited her again, a few weeks later, to another dinner at Huntsman & Homesteader.

“I have a mortgage to pay, Martine,” she’d said. “I have bills. And if I need to be careful with money, god knows you do too.”

Martine had said, “I’ll pay again,” but Isa had cut her off.

“No. I’m not letting you do that.” She’d taken Martine’s hand and held it gently. “Is this because you’re in lust with Jack?”

“What makes you think that?”

Isa had raised an eyebrow. “Literally the evidence of my own two eyes.” She’d paused, then said, “Is this the whole I’ve-never-had-a-relationship-even-though-I’m-27 thing of yours?”

“It’s the I’m-very-lonely-and-he’s-hot thing of mine.”

Isa, with a sigh, had said, “You don’t even know him.”

“We’ve talked a lot.”

“He serves you dinner and makes a witty comment, and you smile at him like he’s the funniest man on planet earth.”

“He is funny.”

“Martine. He recommends his favorites and you eat them up because you want him to like you.”

With that, the conversation had devolved into an argument, and Martine had left Isa’s apartment with tears in her eyes.

And now, she is here again. The same table as all the other nights, trying to enjoy herself, ignoring the very obvious absence of Isa and the very rapid dwindling of her bank account. She has thought about this day for weeks. She has been planning her outfit carefully, done her makeup with more skill and patience than usual. It’s a busy night, and Jack has already passed by her on his way to other tables. One of those times, he leaned in and said, “I’ll be with you in two seconds.”

While she waits, she thinks of him. She runs through his features in her mind’s eye. Already, she has almost memorized them. She thinks of them every night as she goes to sleep, clutching a pillow to her chest in her empty apartment. She dreams about his smile.

Jack comes over, notepad and pen already out.

“Sorry. It’s busier than usual tonight.” He taps the pen on his notepad as if releasing nervous energy. “What can I get you?”

“What do you like?” she asks. “The chicken you told me about was great, is there anything else on the menu you’re a fan of?”

Jack nods. “I like this one a lot,” he says, starting to point at it, but Martine flips the menu over.

“Don’t you want to know what it is?”

“I trust you.”

“Are you sure?” Jack raises an eyebrow. “That dish isn’t for everyone.”

“I want it to be a surprise.”

He smiles as he writes it down. “Very brave of you. Any drinks?”

She asks for an iced tea, and he jots it down. Once he is done writing, he tucks the pen back into his pocket. “I’ll put in your meal and get you that drink,” he says.

When he returns with the glass and the straw, he gestures to the empty chair across the table.

“Your friend not here tonight?”

“No, she couldn’t make it unfortunately.”

“How do you two know each other? From work?”

“Oh no, we don’t work together. We’re friends from college. She got a marketing job straight out of undergrad, and I’m doing graduate work in literature.” Martine takes a sip and smiles. “She’s the one who’s actually making money.”

Jack nods. He leans in close and says, “But I think a literature graduate program sounds more fun.” They smile, then he pulls back.

“I’ll be back with your food in a bit.”

The color of his eyes will be the death of her, she thinks.

* * * * *

It is a heart. An actual heart, fleshy and large, previously belonging to a cow, on her plate. A garnish of a sharp red sauce encircles it, clearly meant to look like blood.

Martine is unsure how to start. She picks up her fork and pokes it gingerly into the aorta. It squelches under the metal tines, and she winces.

Jack has come back around again to this section, and he approaches her.

“Everything okay?” He puts a hand on the back of her chair. “You haven’t started your meal.”

“I brought this upon myself, didn’t I?”

Jack grins. “You wanted to be surprised. I did ask you if you were sure.”

“You did.” She gives a chuckle and takes the knife in her hand. “I’m going to do it.”

The first taste is awful. It’s rubbery, and tastes metallic, but Martine tells herself to choke it down. Jack leaves her after the third bite or so, but she keeps chewing until she can’t bear it anymore. When he returns, he looks even more impressed than he did with the chicken.

“Wow.” He lets out a huff of breath. “And how was it?”

I never want to eat anything like that again, her brain says. Her mouth says, “It was interesting! Definitely not like anything I’ve ever had before.”

“Good interesting or bad?”

“Good.” If she says it enough times, she’ll believe it. “I see why you like it.”

The smile that undoes her every time. “Not many people do.”

That night, back home, Martine brushes her teeth for longer than ever before, but the taste of the heart still lingers on her tongue.

* * * * *

Now, she is well and truly ensnared. Thoughts of Jack wind around her every waking moment. During her classes, she zones out, thinking of the way he smiles. In the library, when she is supposed to be researching attitudes about nature in 19th century London, she brings the memory of his voice to her mind.

In all honesty, this embarrasses her. She knows that fantasizing this much about someone she knows so little can’t be healthy. She knows that the chances of ever getting with him are negligible. She hates that she is so taken by his looks. But all of this knowledge does not stop her feeling the way she does.

Why would he like you? a voice in her head asks. She tries not to listen to it, but can’t help feeling that there is something wrong with her. In college, she’d barely been on dates. She thinks back to Alex, the boy from her freshman history class she’d fallen in love with. They kept ending up in the same classes and a friendship had developed, culminating in the first semester of their senior year. In early October, on a still-warm day, they’d gone to Central Park. On a picnic blanket in the grass, they’d drunk coffee and talked and watched the city around them, but when she’d asked him to kiss her at the end of it he’d shaken his head. He’d told her that he had only ever seen her as a friend. This—the failure of years of pining for him, coupled with a few other failed crushes—had convinced Martine that she was fundamentally unlovable. It is a view she still holds today.

Martine spends hours in front of her mirror. Jack is so beautiful, and she doesn’t think she can match up to him, but that doesn’t stop her from trying. She scrutinizes every pore on her face and every hair on her head. She tries on makeup looks she painstakingly copies from Google images, bursting into tears if a single eyelash is imperfect.

Her graduate stipend, already meager when rent and utilities and everything else is deducted, is no match for her obsession. She visits Huntsman & Homesteader once every month, then every two weeks, then eventually starts going on a weekly basis. Every time, she tells Jack to give her something he likes. In that way, she tastes food she’s never had before. Early on, she likes some of it. Later, however, as her visits grow in frequency, she finds herself disliking or even hating the food.

A sheep’s kidney on a sunflower head. A chicken liver which has been marinated in pomegranate vinaigrette. Salad with leaves she can’t recognize but which taste unpleasantly bitter and acidic in her mouth. The eyes of a goat, and the brain of a cow. Every night, she eats a witch’s brew and tells Jack that she loves it. Every night, she rinses her mouth a dozen times, sweeps the toothbrush across her teeth over and over.

She starts to hate him too. At night, instead of longing for him beside her, she wonders what it would be like to toss a glass of water on him. She fantasizes about jamming a fork into his hand when he serves her a meal she hates, thinks of flicking the table knife across his throat. Then, morning comes, and she sees a happy couple walk down the street or hears her neighbor and her husband’s laughter through the walls, and she is drawn to Jack again.

The final time, she dresses in her best outfit yet. She puts on her trickiest makeup look, mastering it on the first try. She trades the usual banter with him, the routine they’ve perfected by now. I want it to be a surprise.

The dish that comes out is unassuming. A tiny blob of some unidentifiable substance. No sauce, just apples sliced and coated in cinnamon.

“The venom pouch,” Jack says. Martine has been so busy trying to figure out what this is that she’s almost forgotten he’s here. “There’s a spider in the Amazon that’s usually harmless. Sometimes, though, one of them has a mutation which makes them produce a deadly poison.” He nods towards the dish. “They have this organ which scientists aren’t sure of the purpose of, but when the spiders turn poisonous, it becomes the venom pouch.” He pulls a fork out of his apron pocket and places it on the table.

“But this is safe, right?”

He shrugs. “Our chef thinks it’s interesting to make diners roll the dice like that. People say that the organ, in the harmless spiders, tastes incredible. But you can’t tell which spiders are deadly beforehand.”

Jack’s hand is on the back of her chair again. Martine grips the fork he’s put down, but does not pick it up yet. She could drive it into his hand right now. She could turn and stab him in the belly.

“You don’t have to eat it,” Jack says, and those thoughts fade. His voice is soothing and calms her. Again, she thinks of his lips. She remembers his eyes again.

Martine picks up the fork.

BIO: Deniz Ertem is a scientist and a lifelong creative writer. Her fiction has appeared in Sooth Swarm Journal, and she has also published journalistic pieces online while serving as the deputy Science and Technology Editor of the University Times at Trinity College Dublin. She is currently writing her debut novel.