If I rarely spent time with just Joseph, I had certainly never been alone with George. I had no idea what to do. It was like being asked to dance, or really asked anything. The store was empty, and I stood in the middle of the room, twisting, reading as much as I could sound out of the enthusiastic signs that covered the walls, assuring us that every cookie was baked on the pre-mi-ses, which George and I had agreed earlier was a key factor in today’s test.
It’s better to be away from your home, he said, coming up to me. We may be able to tell different things, if you don’t know the people.
Okay, I said.
Take subject out of environment and re-test, he said, making quote fingers with his hands.
At the bins, I picked out a chocolate chip and an oatmeal. George got the same and looked at me close, under those arched eyebrows. Good, he said. You ready?
I guess, I said.
I sat myself down at a red-and-beige table.
Take your time, said George.
I bit into the chocolate chip. Slowed myself down.
By then, almost a week in, I could sort through the assault of layers a little more quickly. The chocolate chips were from a factory, so they had that same slight metallic, absent taste to them, and the butter had been pulled from cows in pens, so the richness was not as full. The eggs were tinged with a hint of far away and plastic. All of those parts hummed in the distance, and then the baker, who’d mixed the batter and formed the dough, was angry. A tight anger, in the cookie itself.
Angry? I said to George, who was up browsing the rows-white-chocolate chunk, no-sugar shortbread-chewing his own.
It’s an angry cookie? he said.
I nodded, tentative. He took another bite of his, and I could see him paying close attention, trying to taste what I did. His eyes focused in the near distance.
Man, he said, after a minute, shaking his head. Nothing.
He went to ring the bell on the counter. After a minute, a clerk wandered in from the back, a young man with short black-dyed hair and a proud arched nose, wearing a dusty red uniform.
Yeah, he said. What.
Did you bake these? asked George.
The young man, probably in his early twenties, looked down at the half still in George’s hand.
What type?
Chocolate chip, George said.
He sniffed. He looked at the clock. Yeah, he said.
George put his elbows on the counter and crossed his feet, in his khaki pants of a million pockets. I was in love with him, pretty much, by that point. I did not care that my brother had been shooting me evil-eye laser looks of hate all week. Soon, I knew, they’d get distracted by something else-by the broken sprinkler, or by the weather pattern changes, or by traffic system routes along La Brea, but for the moment I was Project Number One, and the young man in the red cookie uniform responded to George, as most people did, because George wanted something from him, wanted his unique specificity right then, with that beam of friendly focus that was so hard to resist.
We’re doing a school project, said George, leaning closer. Can I ask you a few questions?
I guess, said the guy.
What was your mood when you made this?
No mood, said the guy. I just make the cookies. In the bowl, stir, bake, done.
Do you like making them?
Nah, said the guy. I fucking hate this job.
George shifted his position at the counter. He turned around for a second to look at me directly. Sugary dust slid down my throat.
Why? George asked.
Would you want to sell cookies first thing after college? said the guy.
Probably not, said George.
I don’t even
I bit into the oatmeal. Same levels-now the oats, well dried, but not so well watered, then the raisins, half tasteless, made from parched grapes, picked by thirsty workers, then the baker, rushed. The whole cookie was so rushed, like I had to eat it fast or it would, somehow, eat me.
Oatmeal in a hurry, I said to George, a little louder.
Chocolate chip, angry, he said, turning around. What’s that, about oatmeal?
Rushed, I said.
He turned back. You make the oatmeal?
Nah, said the guy. That’s Janet.
Who’s Janet?
She works here in the mornings, the guy said. She talks a lot about traffic. He glanced over at me. She’s always running late, he said.
I could feel my face reddening. George smiled. Thank you, he said, to the guy.
George returned to me, and pulled my hair into two ponytails with his hands.
Some-one is sm-art, he sang.
I wanted to grab on to him, tie myself to his sleeve.
But I don’t want it, I said, to no one.
So what’s the project? the guy asked, casually neatening the stacks of coupons on the front counter.
I was sitting in a red chair, which had been pinned to the floor with several plastic nails. The tips of my feet just touching the floor. The table, a thick shellac over a pattern of beige dots that seemed to be trying to suggest spontaneity. I couldn’t eat any more of either cookie, so I left them crumbling on the table.
I guess you could call it a test of location, said George, reaching over to finish my leftovers. Like, where do we locate the feeling inside the cookie, he said, chewing.
The guy scrunched up his forehead, and a lock of black hair fell over his eyes.
Or, am I bonkers, I said, from my chair.
And? said the guy.
Truth was, it was hard to see George eat those cookie halves without hesitation. Without tasting even a speck of the hurry in Janet’s oatmeal, which was so rushed it was like eating the calendar of an executive, or without catching a glimpse of the punching bag tucked beside every chocolate chip. I was so jealous, already, of everyone else’s mouth. But I loved George in part because he believed me; because if I stood in a cold, plain white room and yelled FIRE, he would walk over and ask me why. It was the same thing that would make him into a very good scientist.
No, I said. Maybe not.
Wait, hang on. The guy ducked into the back, and came out with a sandwich in his hand, wrapped tightly in plastic.
Does it work with sandwiches? he asked.
I didn’t move. He handed it over. George was watching with a kind of neutral curiosity, and I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do, so I just unwrapped it and took a bite. It was a homemade ham-and-cheese-and-mustard sandwich, on white bread, with a thin piece of lettuce in the middle. Not bad, in the food part. Good ham, flat mustard from a functional factory. Ordinary bread. Tired lettuce-pickers. But in the sandwich as a whole, I tasted a kind of yelling, almost. Like the sandwich itself was yelling at me, yelling love me, love me, really loud. The guy at the counter watched me closely.
Oh, I said.
My girlfriend made it, he said.
Your girlfriend makes your sandwiches? asked George.
She likes doing it, said the guy.
I didn’t know what to say. I put the sandwich down.
What? said the guy.
