Ek Raat

Dinners at Erik and Allyson’s place are always an event. Their smiles and their complicity involve me and always make me feel at home. Always cheerful and smiling, she welcomes you into the house with her warm embrace. And how much imagination she has in preparing tasty pasta and fragrant roasts.

Erik’s conversations are always very engaging, fascinating and often funny. Traveling often for work, he has many anecdotes to tell about the place that hosted him for weeks. On his return, Allyson, who knows our friendship very well, usually welcomes him with a dinner for three.

Our friendship has lasted for twenty years since Erik and I went to elementary school. Allyson the redhead, so we called her for the color of her rebellious hair, we met her in high school and we both fell in love with her blue eyes and her sunny character, we both wooed her with our eyes, but Allyson only saw the dark eyes of Erik. She noticed me only months later when he introduced her to me. They were hand in hand and looked at each other with a tenderness that lasted and matured over the years.

Tonight is one of those many evenings, tonight I'll see Erik again. Before buzzing the intercom, I look at his car, his suitcases are still there. A cold shiver runs down my spine even though it's late June. The sweet scent of the rose garden of their garden cannot hide and cover the burnt smell coming from the back of their house, the sweet and salty aromas of the exquisite dinners that Allyson used to prepare are just a distant memory. These are signs that should give me a wake-up call, but I rang the intercom the same. Erik comes to meet me to welcome me, but his eyes are full of anger and disappointment, while he greets me with a cold and tired tone, I catch a glimpse of Allyson in the bathroom with the door ajar. She is rinsing her face. I don't even have the courage to open my mouth except to say "Welcome back Erik". I hurry to go to the kitchen to put the bottle of white wine in the cooler. The half burnt, half cut roast is still on the cutting board. The pasta alla bolognese is still on the fire, I remove it before it sticks. Allyson with her pale face and her eyes red from her tears enters at that moment. She looks at me and in a second I understand everything.

I would love to leave but I can't, I don't even have the courage to ask her how she is, and maybe I don't even have time since Erik comes into the kitchen inviting us to sit. Erik and I are sitting facing each other. For the whole dinner, if that can be called dinner, we don't say a word. Every bite of pasta without salt and overcooked, is a brick, a thousand thoughts run through my head. I have to finish that pasta at the cost of feeling sick all night. Erik and Allyson, on the other hand, do not touch food. While she serves the roast, Allyson trembles and has goosebumps, she tries to hide her crying, but the pain is too strong. The burnt and cold roast is the coup de grace to my stomach, but food is certainly not my concern. I've never seen them like this and they certainly have never seen me like this. Allyson is too embarrassed to notice it, Erik on the other hand probably now knows how many freckles I have on my face, he didn't take his eyes off me for a moment.

We are at the dessert, when Erik breaks the silence.

“Among everyone, it really had to be him" he tells her, looking into her eyes with a tone full of anger and bitterness. Her blue eyes fill with tears. She then goes back to look at me but I can not bear that look full of sadness and disappointment and I lower my eyes. "On my bed how could you!".

I hear him get up, take the keys and go out slamming the door. Only then, with my face streaked with tears, I do have the courage to look at Allyson again who is looking at the floor. I get up to go to comfort her but she stops me with one hand without looking up.

"Please go home"

It took only one night, a "mistake" perhaps the most beautiful and exciting of my life but still a mistake, to ruin our splendid friendship and a very happy marriage.

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