It took nearly two years before I could have a conversation with Juan and not be insulted in some way. If I was with Jeff when we met, he would talk just to him, man to man, as though I wasn’t right there with them. If I was alone, or with someone he didn’t know, he would make slightly off-color remarks. He was like that, always having to throw in some sort of dig or crude comment, as though it was a necessary part of conversation to belittle you or make you feel uncomfortable. I came to realize that was just his machismo talking, his shtick. The first time I called him on his attitude he said I was a stuck up bitch. I pointed out that a stuck up bitch wouldn’t continue to say hi in the parking lot and ask how school was going.
***
I had stuff piled everywhere in an attempt to find the copy of my college transcripts I knew I had brought with me to Texas. The gentle knock on the door told me it wasn’t Jeff outside. I debated just being quiet, pretending I wasn’t home. Unexpected knocks on the door were rarely a good thing, especially after dark. As I stood debating, the person knocked again and said my name.
“Hey, Sharon, you home?” It was Juan.
Opening the door I found him standing with a sheath of papers and a pencil.
“You eat fancy cheese. Can you help me with my homework?”
***
Juan was in his late fifties, living off a small Army pension and whatever he could earn doing odd jobs for our landlord. Recently he had been diagnosed with adult-onset diabetes. He saw me in the parking lot and offered me a bunch of dried pasta and canned tomatoes.
“You want these? I’m diabetic now, can’t have the pasta.”
“I’ll take the pasta for Jeff,” I said. “But you can still eat tomatoes can’t you?” He looked at me like I had two heads.
“What’s the point of tomatoes if you can’t have pasta? Just take them.” He filled my arms up and walked back to this apartment as I juggled the armful upstairs.
***
“I need to know about cheese,” he said, surveying my mess and then turning back to me.
“Your place is a mess. You’re a librarian. You should be more organized.”
“Funny,” I replied. “So, what do you need to know about cheese?”
He looked around for a place to sit but there wasn’t a flat surface anywhere that didn’t have a pile on it. I shifted things up the bed and offered him a seat.
“It’s this assignment for school,” he said, handing me the papers he had in his hand. School was the community college where he was enrolled in a culinary arts program. His goal was to find a job working in a school kitchen where he would have benefits and the summers off.
“I have to taste four different cheeses then evaluate them according to that list. I have to find out the ingredients, what kind of milk is used, stuff like that. I went to HEB to the deli and they printed out the labels for me for some different cheeses but they wouldn’t give me samples. They said I’d have to buy some. I don’t have any money til I get paid at the end of the week and the project is due tomorrow. I can make stuff up about cheddar but that’s it.”
I looked at the assignment and handed the papers back to him.
“Well, I don’t know what it is about me that suggests I’d have more than Velveeta in the fridge but you’re in luck.”
Walking the ten steps it took to get from one end of the apartment to the other, I opened the refrigerator and started moving things around. I came up with a parmesan rind, some feta crumbles and the end of a roll of goat cheese from the farmers’ market. There was even a little wedge of Stilton with apricots, an indulgence I’d bought when I was missing my English fiancé and most of which I had eaten while watching episodes of Dr. Who as consolation.
I put a taste of each cheese on a plate and walked back to the bed.
“There you are, sir. Parmesan, feta, local goat cheese and Stilton, which is a type of bleu cheese.” I handed him the plate which he surveyed critically.
“But how do I find out information about them? I don’t got a computer. I use the ones at school.” It was clear the search for the transcripts was going to have to wait a bit longer.
“I guess we’ll just have to look them up on my computer,” I said, quite aware that as a librarian I wasn’t going to be let off the hook with this research.
“You do the taste test and fill out your sheets and I’ll find information on them for you.”
“That will work,” he said. “Tell me the names again.”
As he sampled and I searched, I watched him out of the corner of my eye. The parmesan and feta went down without reaction. He paused at the goat cheese, not too crazy about the cracked pepper on the outside it seemed. The look on his face when he sampled the Stilton nearly made me burst out laughing. Bleu cheese is not for everyone.
By the time I had printed out everything from fat content to storage tips, the plate was empty. Juan handed it to me as I handed him the paperwork.
“I knew you’d have cheese.”
***
I saw him in the parking lot a week later. He was pushing leaves around with a blower and shut it off as I approached.
“How did the project turn out?” I asked. He nodded his head.
“Good. I got an A on it. I needed it to bring up my grade.”
“That’s great,” I said. He smiled.
“You shouldn’t eat so much cheese though. It’s making your pants too tight.”
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