For Hominy and the new husband, there isn’t always much to say. There are days of utter silence. There are days when Hominy cuts a yellow fruit in bed and the juice collects under her oval nails, and the new husband sits in the kitchen turning the pages of the newspaper with his gloved hands. Those days they don’t speak at all. Other days the couch/bed is filled with sand. Hominy and the new husband came from the beach, they fucked on the beach, with people around them they had sex in the sand and then they brought it home with them. Sometimes Hominy and the new husband sleep through the night like children.

They play dominos, and Hominy likes to watch the way his hands shift the pieces around.

When the new husband returns he doesn’t say hello to Hominy, not when he opens the front door, and not when he goes into the bathroom. Not when he shaves his chest, or when he bathes, or when he uses a towel to dry underneath his arms, not when he steps over twenty-seven oranges and not when Hominy strips down to nothing.

1   which Hominy refuses to do in this moment of narration

2   which Hominy refuses to do in this moment of narration

PASTA, FAGIOLI + COZZE

The mussels are forced open, or they are made to open. With an instrument or with fingers they are cleaned, they are knocked together, they are rinsed. The black and brown and purple mollusks are thrown in the pan, they move around like rocks, the knob is turned to the right, clicking, and the fire heats underneath, the mussels are covered with a copper lid and some of them are stubborn, the ones that refuse are discarded, but the ones that open are discarded too, some of them, for their smell and for other unsatisfactory details, they will be tossed into plastic, the suitable ones are left to cool. And the shells are emptied, the orange cores are set aside, the sea water is set aside. In the meantime the cannellini beans are sautéed, in a tall pot the garlic cloves, the olive oil, parsley, red pepper, maybe an onion, maybe celery or pancetta (though I put neither) and not a carrot, never a carrot, and the hot water standing by, but it shouldn’t be abused, the fagioli should not be made too watery, and when the boil sets in the pasta is stirred in,1 always for less than the allotted time, and when it’s all over the mussels are folded in with a flick of raw oil, more parsley, but the carrots, the carrots no.

1   Preferably tubetti, tubettini, broken spaghetti, or a mixture with similar cooking times, or even a pacchero.

540i