Aftertaste Page 7

  Ignoring the dig at my culinary prowess, I reply just as coolly, “That’s impossible, I’m afraid. And even if it were possible, I don’t take orders from you, Nicola. You work for me, remember?”

  “Yes, well. Would you like me to call Jake so he can tell you himself?” Her tone is proprietary and condescending.

  Concealing from her the horror that particular suggestion evokes, I begin to consider the odd fact of Nicola’s presence here this morning, which cannot be explained solely by Jake’s specious case of food poisoning.

  Jake would not have told her what happened at the apartment yesterday. That would have been a mistake of gargantuan proportions and one that an experienced adulterer like Jake would never make. There’s a strange glimmer in Nicola’s eyes as she fixes me with her intense gaze, and suddenly it dawns on me that she’s worried. Worried that something happened yesterday between Jake and me, and she’s here looking for clues she thinks I will reveal. And so I smile at her, an utterly false smile, one that hints of secrets and clandestine meetings, of satisfaction.

  “Don’t disturb him,” I say casually, taking off my raincoat and depositing my bag next to her on the pastry station. “I’ll take care of it.” Without giving her a chance to respond, I set off in the direction of the walk-in. Tony is there, crouching in the corner, riffling through a basket of wild mushrooms.

  “Good morning, Tony,” I call, my voice louder than it needs to be. “Do we have any pumpkin pasta sheets left, or do we need to make some more? How are we on sage?” Tony and I have worked together long enough for him to know that this let’s-get-down-to-business tone is all for Nicola’s benefit, and he has the good grace to play along.

  “Plenty,” he says, tossing me a bunch of sage and gesturing over his shoulder to the pasta. “How about we do some fried sage leaves?” He lowers his voice. “Don’t worry. The crew will be here in a few, and we can figure out what to do about tonight. About Jake.”

  I nod, and he gives me a wink as he squeezes past me with the basket of mushrooms. Nicola is on the phone when I come out, probably with Jake, because she turns away and lowers her voice as I pass.

  I set out my supplies for the pasta and head into the office, where I write Jake a note, including a draft of my proposed winter menu and suggesting that he go ahead and place an order for the Castelli Farms pork. I also attach the meat and fish orders for the week after Thanksgiving, which need to be put in today. Normally I would leave them for him in the office, but since he won’t be in, I’ll send them home with Nicola, figuring that he can take care of them from there.

  When I see that she is off the phone, I hand her a large, brown envelope containing the orders and tell her that Jake needs to see this ASAP, and if he is not up to taking care of this, he’s to call me this afternoon. Nicola eyes me speculatively as she takes the envelope. She doesn’t stay long and leaves without saying good-bye, a fact I barely notice because by then I’m deep into the pappardelle. Tony appears a few minutes later with two espressos, into which he pours hefty shots of anisette.

  “It’s still morning, so I thought we needed the coffee to be legit. It’s not tippling if you have it in coffee, you know. Besides, you look like you need it.” He hooks the stool from the pastry station with his foot, drags it over and sits. “What was she doing here this morning?”

  “I have no idea. I thought her kind only came out at night.”

  Tony smiles as he raises his cup. “Salute!” he says, knocking his back and standing up. “I’m on for tonight, if you need me.”

  “Thanks, I might be able to stay, too, if I can get Hope to watch Chloe.”

  “Don’t worry; it won’t be a problem,” he says. I’m not really worried, but wonder if I look it, because Tony has now mentioned it twice. It is, after all, a Monday night, and Mondays are notoriously slow in the restaurant world. People have eaten out all weekend and are more inclined to eat at home on Mondays than any other night of the week.

  After eight, the lunch crew gradually filters in, and Tony and I put together a lineup for the evening. We tag an extra two for the kitchen tonight, neither of whom is thrilled at the prospect of working a double shift. Not that we are giving them a choice, especially because Tony informs me that we are booked solid, including two large corporate parties. So much for the usual slow Mondays.

  Hope returns my call at the height of the lunch rush and I can’t take it, but she leaves a message that she will be available tonight. All I need to do is get Chloe to her, which means that I will have to leave temporarily around four to pick Chloe up from day care and get her to Hope.

  While I’m gone, Jake calls in to leave a few instructions. Tony takes the message, which includes the fascinating tidbit that Nicola won’t be in either, as she is also feeling unwell. Tony and I scramble around for a few minutes looking for someone to fill in out front and decide that we can do with one less in the kitchen and send Ellen home to change. This latest wrinkle is a nuisance because Ellen, while a competent prep cook, hasn’t worked the front before, and it is particularly important to make a good impression on the corporate parties.

  Stuff like this happens all the time in restaurants. People get sick or don’t show up. You get used to working shorthanded. Successful chefs go with the flow, learn to improvise, but not before taking out their frustrations on the staff, the line cooks, prep cooks, bus boys—anyone who has the misfortune to be in their paths. Most cooks I know have foul tempers, and I’m no exception. Most outbursts that happen during service can be forgiven. You can apologize later, and you do. And if you’re on the receiving end, you get so used to being yelled at that pretty soon you don’t hear it. I’ve been there, too.

  Tonight the kitchen is so busy I hardly have time to breathe. My body is in constant motion, and I can feel it in my muscles as I reach up to pluck another head of garlic off the braid above the stove. I inspect every plate as it leaves the kitchen, making alterations in garnish, while continuing to cook and plate orders myself. When three orders of sea bass are overcooked and have to be chucked, I break my rhythm long enough to yell at the poor line cook, whose name I don’t even know but who is responsible for ruining fifty dollars worth of fish. I don’t stop until my throat hurts and she’s crying, although she tries not to let me see.

  By eleven thirty we’re winding down. I ask one of the sous-chefs to put together a tray of biscotti and some limoncello for the members of the remaining corporate party, who are still lingering over coffee. They’ve ordered several bottles of expensive wine, in addition to appetizers and desserts, so the biscotti and digestif are a small, but important, gesture. I put on a fresh tunic and take them out myself. Making personal appearances is also part of the job, though one I’ve never relished. I’ve been on my feet for sixteen hours straight, and I can barely stand. So, I sit and schmooze for a few minutes, answer questions about what they’ve eaten and enjoyed, and, by the time they leave, Ellen informs me that they’ve taken an available date in early December for their office Christmas party.

  It’s well after midnight by the time the cooking staff has cleared away their stations and prepped for the next day. Tony pours some house wine for everyone, while Ellen, an apron over her elegant, black dress, serves leftover pasta from a big serving bowl. We sit around the table eating, drinking, and relaxing for the first time all evening, enjoying the camaraderie that follows the sharing of difficult experiences. Around this table, we are equals. I make a point of sitting next to Kristin, the young woman whose name I’ve learned from Tony. She avoids meeting my eye at first, and I know she’s still embarrassed about the fish and angry at me for humiliating her in front of everyone. But we’ve had a good night, and the loss of the fish is no big deal. I tell her so, and thank her for all her hard work. I mean it, and she knows it. She gives me a shy smile before she leaves, and I know that she will come back tomorrow, that I haven’t managed to kill the spirit that has motivated her to believe she could be a professional chef, though she seems hardly old eno
ugh to be out of high school.

  I slip my feet out of my clogs and pour myself another glass of wine. I’ve long missed Chloe’s bedtime, and Hope doesn’t expect me until at least one. Besides, I’m so tired I can barely move. Tony moves over to the spot Kristin has just vacated. He unties his apron and uses it to wipe his meticulously shaved head, which glistens with sweat that drips in ripples down his smooth brown face, before tossing it in the general direction of the laundry bin. Helping himself to some more of the pasta, Tony offers, “We had a good night, eh?”

  “I think so. It felt like a good night. I don’t think I stopped moving—I must have plated over two hundred dinners. This makes lunch look like a breeze.”

  “You worked both, remember?”

  “As did you,” I tell him, raising my glass in salute.

  “It felt good having you back for dinner. There’s a, I don’t know, a different feel to the kitchen.”

  “That’s for sure,” I snort. “Just ask Kristin.”

  “Who?” Tony asks with a puzzled look, apparently having already forgotten her name.

  “The girl with the fish.”

  He grimaces at me and waves his hand as if swatting a fly. I suspect he’s thinking I’ve gone soft. Maybe I have.

  I want to ask him what he meant by his remark about the kitchen’s having a different feel, but I’m suddenly too tired, exhausted by the realization that I will have to be back here in a mere seven hours. And that Chloe will be up in about four hours.

  “Mira, go home. We’re okay here for tonight. I’ll hang around and wait for the cleanup crew to finish, and then I’ll lock up.”

  I don’t argue with him, and as I stand up I put my hand on his shoulder and give it a squeeze. “Thanks, Tony, are you sure?” He makes that fly-swatting gesture again, and I can tell my small suggestion of intimacy has embarrassed him.

  The night is cold, but I walk home with my coat open. The heat in the kitchen was intense, and the cold air feels good on my flushed skin. For the first time today I have a moment to think about Jake’s not showing up tonight. Jake hasn’t missed a day at the restaurant since we opened, and I know he is not in bed with food poisoning or the flu or anything remotely medical. Something happened to him yesterday. I wasn’t exactly sure what, but it’s something Jake isn’t ready to let me see.

  chapter 8

  Last week, when I dropped Chloe off at day care, her teacher handed me a flyer announcing the Christopher Street Kids Annual Thanksgiving Luncheon. On the flyer there was a space in the middle of the page where someone had filled in Chloe’s name, followed by “has volunteered to bring,” and then another space, where she has handwritten three dozen corn muffins, individually wrapped! This morning when I arrive at the day care, I find a printed reminder about the party, along with the news written in very small type at the bottom of the flyer, which I’d missed the first time, that the center will be closing early tomorrow, directly following the luncheon.

  Standing next to me at the row of cubbies where we stow our children’s things is Isaac’s mother, Laura, whose reminder flyer I glimpse just before she shoves it into her briefcase. Isaac, who stands by his mother’s side discreetly picking his nose while his mother unloads his backpack, has apparently volunteered to bring in two bags of miniature marshmallows, reminding me that it’s probably not too early to talk with Chloe about volunteering her mother for school activities, as Isaac’s mother clearly already has done.

  I wonder how I’ll even be able to make it to the lunch, and whether, at eight months, Chloe is old enough to miss my being there. Everyone eats out the day before Thanksgiving, and we are booked solid for both lunch and dinner, so there’s no question I’ll have to work all day. In addition to shopping and cooking for Thanksgiving dinner, it now seems I’ll have to deal with baking and wrapping three dozen corn muffins and finding someone to watch Chloe on Wednesday afternoon. Life, I reflect morosely, would be infinitely simpler if I weren’t a professional chef. I could take the afternoon off like all the other corporate moms, don my construction paper Indian headdress, and take my rightful place at the Thanksgiving table. More important, I could buy the muffins. No busy corporate executive mother can be expected to bake muffins. But everybody at day care knows I cook for a living and will probably be expecting muffins in the shape of ears of corn, warm and buttery, wrapped in colored cellophane and tied with raffia. I’m instantly depressed at the thought of delivering a case of individually wrapped Otis Spunkmeyers and allowing Chloe to sit unaccompanied at her first Thanksgiving feast. It reeks, not only of bad mothering, but of bad cooking as well.

  As soon as I get to Grappa I call my father. I haven’t heard back from him about Thanksgiving, which is unusual. When Richard called me back to let me know that he was still planning on coming, even though I hadn’t been able to scare up a ticket to the Steelers-Jets game, he mentioned that my dad hadn’t returned his call either—stranger still. Although it would be impossible to get a flight out now, the drive isn’t too bad. Even though it’s only a little after seven in the morning, I get my father’s machine. Since when does my father leave for work before seven? I also try him at the university, but he isn’t there either. I leave messages at his home and office, all the while trying to fight the rising panic at the idea that something terrible has happened. He could be lying dead in the bathroom, felled by a dropped bar of soap. He is getting older. Maybe he shouldn’t be living alone. Around nine, I finally reach his secretary, who tells me that he just got in and has gone straight to a meeting. Well, at least he isn’t dead. I tell her to have him call me when he breaks free.

  I offer to sell my soul to Tony in exchange for an hour during lunch service on Wednesday so that I can deliver the muffins and attend the day care party. While kneading the pasta dough I make a mental list of all the things I still need for Thanksgiving dinner. Richard has promised to make the stuffing, which he insists has to be made with Pepperidge Farm stuffing mix, because that is how his mother made it and if he doesn’t eat it on Thanksgiving he will die. Hope is making “ambrosia,” a concoction involving Cool Whip, sweetened coconut, and canned fruit. It’s her mother’s recipe, and apparently another holiday essential. I try not to cringe, particularly since she has volunteered to watch Chloe tomorrow afternoon so that I can finish up at work and do some last-minute grocery shopping. In addition to the free-range bird that I have reserved at the Union Square Farmers Market, I add a few other necessities to the list: fresh Brussels sprouts, red and white pearl onions that I will serve creamed, and chestnuts for roasting, as that is what my mother used to serve on Thanksgiving.

  Several hours and thirty-six muffins later, when I’m giving Chloe her bath, my dad calls back. Since we are both in the bathtub, I let the machine pick up, but as soon as I hear his voice, I wrap Chloe in a towel and we sprint, dripping, into the living room to pick up the phone.

  “Dad—I’m here,” I say, picking up the receiver, causing the answering machine to emit a high-pitched squeal. “Chloe was just in the bath,” I tell him, reaching over to turn off the machine.

  “Oh, okay. I’ll call you ba—”

  “No, no, it’s okay. Hey, listen, I’ve been trying to reach you. Where were you this morning?”

  My father doesn’t say anything for a moment, and when he speaks his voice sounds unusually clear and crisp, as if he is taking special pains to enunciate each syllable. “I had a breakfast appointment, and I left the house early this morning,” he replies.

  “Well, I talked to Richard earlier, and he’s arriving on the six fifteen flight tomorrow evening. I’ve been trying to call you to see if you’d like to come out for Thanksgiving too. You know, see Chloe. Spend some time?”

  There is a long pause. I wonder if he’s forgotten about the invitation. That wouldn’t be surprising. My father has always been a bit absentminded. It also fit with the picture I was beginning to develop that my father, at the ripe old age of sixty-four, was suffering the earliest signs of dementia.<
br />
  “You know, Thanksgiving?”

  “Oh, Thanksgiving! Well, Mira, I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it, honey. I’m having dinner with some friends.”

  Friends? Friends are where you go when your children couldn’t have you over. Doesn’t he know that any self-respecting father drops whatever he is doing to be with his daughter and granddaughter? And besides, since when does my father have friends?

  “Oh,” is all I can think of to say.

  “That, and I also have to work on Friday. A big grant proposal is due in Washington on Monday. No rest for the weary,” he says with a chuckle. “You know,” he continues, nonplussed, “I think I’m getting too old for this nonsense. I have a good mind to retire,” he says with a laugh, and we both know that nothing could be further from the truth. Suddenly my father is talking about RFPs and government contracts and his voice is chipper and peppy, which doesn’t exactly fit with my picture of a partially demented senior citizen.

  “Sounds like you’ve been busy. Are you sure everything is okay, Dad?”

  He hesitates before continuing. “Well, I have a bit of bad news, actually. You remember Debbie Silverman?”

  I’d gone to high school with Debbie’s brother, Ronnie, and Debbie had been a few years ahead of me in school.

  “Her husband—an orthopedic surgeon, I think—died unexpectedly. A heart attack at forty-eight. Dropped dead right in the operating room. Well, anyway, I don’t mean to upset you, but I thought you should know. You might want to send her a card.”

  “Thanks, Dad, I will. Poor Debbie.”

  But what I really want to say is, “What about me?”

  One of the many differences between being divorced and being widowed is that when you are a widow, everyone sympathizes with you. You get condolence cards by the bushel; people send you flowers and make you casseroles. But, if you’ve been jilted, and particularly when you have been spurned in favor of another woman, the underlying assumption is that you are somehow lacking. It makes me wonder, if Jake died now, would I be entitled to call myself a widow? And to all the rights and privileges thereof?