How funny we are

“Beef strudel, or Damavarian curry?” Curry asked me shortly after that, surveying the available leftovers Nan had stored in the cold box. “And yes, obligatory, ha-ha.”

I was torn, since I’d never tasted anything called curry before. “I don’t exactly know what curry is,” I admitted. “If we have strudel tonight will we get to try curry another time?”

“It's a little akin to stew, but with southern seasonings. Nan and I both like to make it. So yes. I have to think you will have many chances to get tired of eating curry.” Curry lit the stove fire and put the strudel on to warm over. “Want another toddy while we wait?”

“Kind of,” I said.

“That’s all the excuse I need,” he said, and took a different bottle of whiskey down. It turned out a whiskey toddy was properly made with citrus peel, and whiskey, and honey, and stick cinnamon. The ones Curry had made us were not proper, he explained with a touch of apology, as they lacked the citrus peel. Neither he nor Nan had been to the green market that week and they had no fresh lemons.

“I’m only going to say this once, probably ever,” I told him in reply, “because it makes me sound like such a ridiculous rube, but I don’t have enough experience with proper things to know the difference. So your apologies for these terrible toddies with no lemon are really lost on me because I thought the thing you gave me before was pretty fancy. So—stop and ask yourself, have you shown me this thing before, and if not, do they probably have this at an orphan asylum, and if no, you probably can just trust I’ll enjoy the bad version of the thing that your superior palate knows to look down on.”

We exchanged a little smile, and he handed me my refilled glass to sip on while the strudel warmed up. In this fashion, we finished another drink and then ate a companionable supper together in the kitchen, before retiring to the front room settee.

“This is what Nan or my mum always did, when I felt low,” he said, taking a seat on one end of the settee and putting a throw pillow across his lap. “This is for either your head or your feet, depending on your preference.”

Stifling the shyness I seemed always to feel when people were kind to me, I accepted his offer and curled up on my side, with my head on the pillow. Curry settled his arm around my shoulders and said, “Nan asked me last week, does Fossy like meringue?”

I had never heard of this. “What’s that?”

He considered. “It’s made from just the whites of eggs, whipped up. Like, sort of a cross between whipped cream and marshmallow?”

“It’s sweet?”

“Not overly sweet itself. But usually it’s a topping for something sweet, to balance things out.”

“You can tell Nan I will try most things and I usually like them all right to at least finish them. I don’t think I ever tried something I couldn’t make myself finish. Well, except tripe,” I amended quickly. “I tried it a couple times and it didn’t agree with me too much. If you don’t give me tripe or tinned grapes I can make due with most anything.”

“Nan is very impressed, by the way,” Curry said, “with how picky you aren’t.”

“But it’s easy not to be picky about her cooking. I’m not joking—that strudel, even warmed over, was probably one of the best things I ever tasted. If she ever makes it again when I have a regular appetite I’ll eat her flat broke.”

He smiled and squeezed my shoulder. “I’ll tell her.”

Somewhere in another of the rowhouses someone was playing a bouzouki, and we lapsed into a pleasant silence for a little while listening to that, during which I warred with myself whether to spoil this by talking more about my feelings surrounding this awful day, and finally decided against dwelling on upsetting things for now.

“Are you tired?” Curry asked after a while, and I realized I’d been half-drowsing.

“Dunno,” I said, even though I couldn’t remember the last time I was so exhausted. I wasn’t very eager for when it was time to put the lights out and go to bed in my usual place, by myself.

“Tell me to fuck off if this sounds inappropriate, or just stupid,” Curry said. “But if you don't think you want to sleep alone, we could split my bed down the middle with some extra linens.” He shrugged uncertainly. “Or, if you want the spare room I could sit with you till you fall asleep.”

I shrugged back, trying not to sound inordinately eager to take him up on that offer. “Your room might be… nice. Nan won’t disapprove?”

He shook his head. “She doesn’t think like that. And I trust you to respect our partnership. If you trust me too, then I trust us. I mean, maybe we don't advertise it to others. But.”

I was so tired of this somber mood that had dominated us all evening, and how it was robbing us of our usual carelessly jokey good humor with each other. “You’re about the most trustworthy person I ever met,” I said, then added, “but it really helps that you’re also about the ugliest bastard anybody ever saw. I can't see myself tempted at all.” Curry was actually so handsome-looking that when we went about in uniform sometimes people turned to look at him in the street.

There was a little pause, during which I wondered if I’d taken the joke too far, and then he replied, “I know I’m not the sexy bit of halfling meat you’d normally chase after, but that’s a bit on the hurtful side, don’t you think?”

This made us both giggle.

“I'm a rotten shag, anyhow,” I told him. “Last guy I was with, lost interest for some reason. Left real suddenly. Neither of us got to finish.”

Curry let out a half-horrified sputter of laughter. “Maybe I’ve changed my mind about sharing a bed with you,” he said.

“It’s grand. I’ll wear a diaper,” I told him, with an exaggerated generosity that made Curry laugh so hard it brought tears to his eyes.

“Something I really like about us,” he said, mouth stretched wide into his now familiar, goofy grin, “is how funny we are.”

I twisted to look up at him. “Me too.” On sudden impulse, I held my hand up, pinky extended. “Just so you know. I don’t think I have ever liked another person as much as I like you,” I said, offering him my little finger. “I think you’re literally my favorite person who has ever lived.”

Curry cut me an almost shy smile in reply, then hooked his pinky around mine. “Me too. I never met anybody else who felt so much like they could read my mind.”

“Speaking of reading minds, how did you figure I was afraid to sleep on my own tonight?” I asked when we had finished our open-ended, nonspecific pinky-promise.

He shrugged. “I just did my best to imagine how I would feel if things were reversed, and what you might do that would comfort me.”