Carmella Candi-

Carmella Candi *The Cooking Class* Sometimes the recipe for love needs added ingredients.

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Carmella slowly walked around the room pausing frequently to encourage or give instructions to the ten members of her Cooking for Love of Health cooking class. She had purposely gone counter clock wise so that she would end her rounds with Franklin. Shy beautiful Franklin Henderson. She could hardly remember the first day each waking moment had become overflowing with the thought of Franklin or when her every heartbeat had throbbed to the rhythm of his name. Carmella watched Franklin from the corner of her eye as she neared his station, no matter how much he tried to hide it, she would see him tremble every time she entered his presence and it intrigued and excited her.

"Franklin, if we were really cooking and you continued chopping those veggies the way you are, you wouldn't have anything to put in your pot." Carmella touched his left shoulder as she looked over his right. The fall of her hair fell across her brow and brushed the collar of his shirt. She pushed it back and hooked it behind her ear as she continued talking. "And if you don't be careful, you'll be adding a few fingertips. Okay class lets…" Carmella drifted away from his station to stand in the middle of the room.

The remainder of her sentence fading away in his mind to be replaced by the loud thump of his heartbeat.

Lookng around and subconsciously hoping no one had noticed how he was feeling, Franklin looked straight into the eyes of Bernard Wilson, the only other guy in the room. As nonchalantly as possible Franklin tried to stare him down but failed. Smirking in a knowing fashion, Bernard shook his head as if in pity before turning his attention to Carmella.

Wiping the counter surface with a fresh towel, Franklin began to clean his station. The class was almost over, it would be another week before he would see Carmella here again and he still hadn't gotten the nerves to ask her out. Setting the station in order while working out in his mind just the right scenario for asking her, he missed the end of class instructions and slowly followed the only other straggler walking out of the room. Another want to be suitor, only this guy spent most of the class openly throwing hints. Hints Carmella was able to ignore while Franklin would find himself having to restrain his every muscle from busting the guy in the head with a meat mallet. As Franklin neared the door the guy slowed to turn back around and Carmella reached out and grabbed Franklin by the sleeve of his shirt.

"Hey, Franklin can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Uh, yeah." Franklin cleared his throat. "What's up?"

"You can go ahead, Bernard."

"I thought I would walk you to your car." Bernard leaned his shoulder against the door's jab and smiled into Franklin's eyes, his amusement blatantly obvious
.

"That's okay. Franklin will walk me. Won't you Franklin? I have a few things I need to discuss with him. Go on."

Bernard slowly straightened and gave Franklin a measured look. For a moment Franklin thought the guy was going to buck up to try and fight him and he purposely switched his coat to his left arm. He wanted to poke out his chest hold out his arms and give the ‘what ya gonna do' pose, but again he restrained himself.

"Don't worry, man. I can walk her. It won't be a problem." he answered.

Standing silently the couple watched Bernard as he walked to the end of the hallway and got into the elevator. Franklin turned to Carmella.

"What did you want to talk to me about?"

"Nothing really, I just didn't want to get in the elevator with him. Last week it took almost thirty minutes to get him to let me climb into my car. That one can't take ‘no' for an answer."

"Wow, it's that bad?" He moved through the opening of the doorway when she gave him a little push.

"I know he likes you, but I can go and put a little hurt on him if you want me to.  I'm a third degree black belt." Franklin smiled. "If you think that's too violent I can hit him with a little of my Tae Bo moves." He demonstrated a sequence of punches and jabs to the open air.

Carmella laughed softly and pulled the room door shut behind them. "Naw, that's okay." She locked the door and started to walk towards the elevator. "Come on, walk with me. He's probably still down there."

Entering the elevator Carmella stood against the wall, crossed her arms and rested her back on its surface. She really wanted to spend more time with him, but hadn't gotten brazen enough to initiate the asking. Franklin stood facing the door, fiddling with his coat button and watching her in the door's reflective surface. He cleared his throat subconsciously when he saw that she was watching him.

"So Franklin, why are you taking a cooking class?"

He coughed. "Huh?"

"Why are you taking a class? You don't have a wife or girlfriends you're trying to impress do you?"

"Uhm, no."

"Then why take the class? It's not like you ever pay attention." She pushed away from the wall as the door opened on to the basement floor parking garage. "If you were acting like one of the other hundred guys who've taken the class and spent most of the evening trying to hit me up, I would think you liked me, but you say nothing." She walked out of the door, pulling his sleeve as she exited. "Come on. My car is over here."

He followed her without telling her he knew her car, had known it for weeks before he had even decided to take the cooking class. For one thing it wasn't hard to remember her car, no one else he knew drove a little red Aston Martin and for the past year they have attended the same church even though he tried to stay out of her way.

"How can you afford this car teaching people how to cut onions and celery?"

"I cut a lot of onion and celery."

"Right."

"You know, Franklin." She pushed the required tab on her key's fob and opened the car's door. Sliding into the driver's seat she placed her finger near the button that would start the car and paused. "If you want to wait until you have gone through a few more classes before you ask me out its okay. I won't tell you ‘no', but please ask before you cut your fingers off." She started the car. "I don't think it would be fun to date someone without fingers. You won't be able to use chopsticks." Carmella laughed, pulled the door from his hands and slammed it shut before driving off. At the first stoplight she pulled out her cell, pushed her ear piece in her ear and made a conference call to her two best friends. "Girl, I don't know what to say." She sighed softly after regaling her friends with the night's adventures and being questioned about the next step in her plans. "Yeah, he walked me to the car tonight. No he didn't ask me out. I've given him my phone number and many opportunities to ask me for a date. No, I don't think he's gay. I can tell by the way he's always checking me out. I believe he's just an upright person and not pushy. Maybe I'm the one being too arrogant and I'm scaring him off. I know he likes me, so tomorrow after singles night at church; I'm going to ask him to go out with me for coffee so we can talk. Yeah, he'll be there. He's always there and every other single female in the congregation will be there trying to prey on him. It's now or never. Girl I know. I…."

As soon as the light changed Carmella shifted into drive and sped through the traffic the same way her mind and conversation sped through her frustration of waiting for Franklin to ask her out.

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Check out the interviews of the characters at IN THE CHAIR: http://theinterviewedcharacter.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_25.html 

The Guys- YOU CAN LEAD A HORSE TO WATER 

The Girls: GRAB YOUR GLASS SLIPPERS