Authors: Meredith Mileti
Aftertaste (5 page)
Arthur, I'm uncharitably pleased to note, is sporting a stray kernel of cepes risotto on his Fendi tie. Despite expressing his initial doubts about the dish, he ended up ordering it, anyway, and thenâsuspicions confirmedâwas loath to share all but the tiniest taste.
We are all so full by dessert that we only order two, a tarte tatin and a cheese and fruit plate. When Arthur makes as if to summon the sommelier, Renata wrestles his arm to the table.
“Arthur, if you order another bottle of wine, I will fall into my cheese.”
“Yes, she gets sloppy when she's drunk, to that I will attest,” says Michael, a small belch escaping him.
“Are you sure? A small digestif, Michael, might be just the ticket.”
I'm feeling slightly woozy myself, which I attribute to the wine, the rich food, and the lateness of the hour. I wonder fleetingly if Arthur Cole could be trying to get me drunk. His perfectly manicured hand is now lying mere inches from my own, his fingers slightly greasy from the shellfish. For some reason, I find this small and insignificant departure from perfection endearing. For several moments I can't stop thinking about his hands, which I imagine on my body. Not that I want them to beâin fact, I'm quite sure I don't. I look over at Renata, who has taken Michael's hand and is softly running her fingers across his knuckles. This gets me thinking about Michael's hands, which disturbs me even further. What's the matter with me? I must be drunk.
Arthur doesn't join us on the way home. He lives on the Upper East Side (where else?), and we are headed to the Village. Outside the restaurant he shakes my hand. “Lovely meal. Lovely,” he says, planting a disinterested peck on my cheek. And then he's gone.
In the cab on the way home, Renata lays her head on Michael's shoulder and within seconds begins to snore. “You want to know the worst thing about foodies?” Michael asks, resting his head on the back of the cab and yawning. “I mean the diehards like Arthur Cole? They have no sense of humor. My Godâit's only food!”
Michael may be right, but that still doesn't stop me from wondering why Arthur Cole, insufferable bore, found me so unappealing that he could barely muster a decent good night. Suddenly there's a lump in my throat and a tingling behind my eyes. Why should this upset me? This date I hadn't even wanted, with a guy I didn't even like.
“At least the food was exceptional,” Michael says, and I can feel him turning to look at me. I'm not sure I trust myself to speak. “I'm sorry, Mira,” he says softly. “But at least it's over.”
“Yes, I don't think I'll be hearing from Arthur Cole.” This I manage through tightened lips.
“No, I didn't mean that. If I know Arthur, he'll probably give you a call. He can sometimes be a little slow on the uptake socially, if you know what I mean. What I meant was the date. Your first post-separation date. It's over. That's a milestone. Welcome to the rest of your life, Mira,” he says solemnly, offering me his hand. Suddenly, it's as if someone has loosened the plug in my throat, and I'm crying.
Michael pulls a wad of tissues from his pocket and hands them to me. “I know just how you feel,” he says softly, wrapping his arm around me and patting my back. I bury my face in his jacket, which smells of the evening, of shellfish, and wine, and the subtle underlying scent of tobacco. The comfort of it sucks the breath from my body. When the cab pulls up in front of my building, Michael gently disengages me.
“Good night and thank you,” I tell him, more formally than I intended, embarrassed at having sobbed for the last twenty blocks on the shoulder of my friend's husband, a man I hadn't met before tonight. “I'll send Gabriella down,” I say, offering my hand. Michael gives it a reassuring squeeze. “It will get better, I promise, Mira,” he says, gesturing to the still sleeping Renata. “Just be thankful this was only a date. At least you don't have to read his three hundred and fifty-page treatise on the germination of corn.”
chapter 6
I'm out of practice. The rich food and the wine catch up with me, and I awaken at the uncharacteristically late hour of seven thirty with a touch of a hangover. This is the first time in the almost eight months since Chloe's birth that I can remember sleeping so late. I can hear her cooing and talking in her crib, making little raspberry noises and laughing to herself. She doesn't cry, blessed child, and I hold off getting up because once she hears me she will no longer be content to lie in her crib and amuse herself. She will want me to come in and sing her morning song, which she has lately begun to imitate, mimicking the cadence of the melody with her own little coos and squeals.
It's Sunday and an overcast one by the look of it, my favorite kind. I know few people who love rain like I do. Usually, rain makes me want to make soup and bake bread, to settle in and snuggle up. Maybe it's an adaptive response to having grown up in Pittsburgh, not a particularly sunny city. I settle back into the pillows and listen to Chloe's sweet voice and the pleasant patter of rain on the bedroom window. But there's a knot in the pit of my stomach, which at first I attribute to the hangover. It takes me a couple of minutes to realize that today is Sunday, and this afternoon Jake is coming by to see Chloe. Suddenly alert, I sit up in bed where I can see the message light on the bedside phone blinking at me. Gabriella said there had been a couple of calls, which she let the machine pick up while she was putting Chloe to sleep. I hit the Play button.
“Hi, Mira. It's Jake. Just calling to confirm my visit with Chloe.” Pause. “Remember we talked about my coming over tomorrow afternoon?” There's another awkward pause as if Jake is expecting me to answer him. I can only hope he was wondering where I would be at ten thirty on a Saturday night. “Well, I was thinking about three o'clock. I have a couple of things to do earlier in the day, but I thought after her . . . Well, I don't know if she takes a nap or anything, but, if that time isn't good, just, I don't know, call me.”
I'm still ruminating over Jake's messageâof course she takes a nap and three is prime napping timeâwhen I realize another message is still playing.
“. . . never call me. Where are you? Have you been carted off to jail againâwhich is, by the way, about the only decent excuse you'd have for not getting back to me. Your father hasn't even heard from you. You should call him, too, you know. Anyway, what are you doing for Thanksgiving? Feel like some company?? The Steelers are playing the Jets in New York next Sunday. I can get a flight out on Wednesday, and, if you can get me a ticket to the game, I'll love you forever. Call me, you little shit, okay?” The message ends with an abrupt click. Richard, I think, with a smile. In fact, the last time I'd talked to him
had
been practically from jailâit was the day of the court hearing, and I ended up crying into the phone, spilling the whole sordid story, sparing nothing. That had been over two months ago. No wonder he was miffed.
had
been practically from jailâit was the day of the court hearing, and I ended up crying into the phone, spilling the whole sordid story, sparing nothing. That had been over two months ago. No wonder he was miffed.
I've known Richard Kistler more than half my life; in fact, he likes to tell people we grew up together, although he's sixteen years my senior. I met him at an AA meeting I attended when I was fifteen years old. By the time I was a sophomore in high school, several stints in treatment hadn't been able to cure my mother of a serious drinking problem, and her condition had escalated to the point of medical emergency. The transition from the sophisticated world of Parisian haute cuisine to Pittsburgh, land of pierogies, Jello molds, and Miracle Whip dips, had been an especially difficult one for my motherâone apparently made much more so by one significant complication: me. Motherhood, she often reflected in her more lucid moments, had been her downfall, sending her careening down the road to ruin, a fifth of Seagram's neatly concealed in the diaper bag.
Our next-door neighbor, Mrs. Favish, who, along with her posse of neighborhood Jewish grandmothers, was closely monitoring the goings-on in my family, had been the one to suggest Al-Anon to me. She'd told me in her heavily accented English that, although it was not a disease common to her people, her sister's husband also fought the same demons as my mother. That was the way she liked to put it, as if alcoholism was an evil spirit, rash and unaccountable, who snuck up on you and took you unawares while you were minding your own business.
Mrs. Favish dropped me off outside the Wightman School one Tuesday night in December. She'd wanted to accompany me in, but I hadn't let her. After watching her drive away, I stood under the streetlamp smoking cigarettes purloined from my mother's purse, trying to get up the nerve to go inside. Richard found me there, shivering in my jean jacket, and, guessing where I needed to go, delivered me to the classroom on the second floor. The real alcoholics met in the basement, and there had been a light turnout for his meeting, which, apparently, was the norm during the holiday months. Many alcoholics relapse during the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year's, Richard later told me. Something about the holidays made it easier to recall, and harder to resist, all the pretty good reasons they have for drinking.
Even though I was the only kid in my Al-Anon meeting, I kept going back faithfully, week after week. Maybe it was the sympathetic faces of the members, mostly women, sweet maternal types, careful, indulgent listenersâwho, just for the record, weren't listening to me; I was a silent fixture in the meetings, an angry kid, reeking of stale smoke and cheap Jovan musk oil. Perhaps it was the idea of having a secretâI hadn't told my parents I was going. No one knewâexcept Mrs. Favish.
Probably what kept me going was Richard. Eventually we became friends. Often when my meeting got out, Richard would be waiting for me. I soon learned he'd been attending the twice-weekly AA meetings for about a year and a half. He had gone at the insistence of his lover. Although the relationship didn't survive, by the time they were ready to throw in the towel Richard had totally quit drinking and had formed a surprisingly supportive network of friends at AA, most of them middle-aged ex-steelworkers who had, over the years, consumed a few too many Iron Cities. He claimed they put up with him because Richard's failed love affair now left one of his Steelers season tickets unused. Still, it was a pretty amazing trick for a thirty-something, gay antiques dealer with a former taste for expensive, single malt whiskey.
It was sweet of him to ask about Thanksgiving. It would be nice to have some company. I'd invited Renata and Michael, but they were going to be in Bermuda. Hope has been hinting around for an invitation, but the thought of two single, middle-aged women alone with a turkey breast had been simply too depressing to contemplate, so I hadn't picked up the bait. It would be nice to have Richard, though. He'd liven things up, and I'd invite Hope, tooâa good deed, I tell myself.
By the time I finally put Chloe down for a nap, it's already two o'clock, and I've yet to call Jake back. I reach his voice mail and leave a message for him to call me. I also call Richard, who is probably at today's Steelers game, and leave him a message as well. “Hi, it's Mira. I'm still on the streets, temporarily at least, but I'm resisting all attempts at rehabilitation. If I can't manage to graduate from anger management, they will lock me up and throw away the key. Help! We would love to see you for Thanksgiving, and yes, I promise I
will
call my father.”
will
call my father.”
But I don't, not yet at least.
It's the sort of rainy day in mid-November when the lamps need to be lit in the middle of the afternoon and you find yourself wishing you owned a cardigan. While Chloe sleeps, I change my clothes. No reason to greet Jake in a flour-covered sweat suit. I put on a blue V-necked sweater and, almost as an afterthought, loosen and brush my hair. The apartment, which I take some pains to tidy up, is suffused with a cozy, apricot glow, the rich woodsy smell of a long-simmering soup, and the heady aroma of freshly baked bread. I turn on the gas fireplace, put on a Diana Krall CD, and settle into the sofa with the Sunday
Times.
The doorbell rings a little after three, and when I open the door, Jake is standing there in the doorway, holding a small stuffed gorilla.
Times.
The doorbell rings a little after three, and when I open the door, Jake is standing there in the doorway, holding a small stuffed gorilla.
“Hi.”
“Hey,” he says, gesturing sheepishly with the gorilla and looking around me into the apartment.
“Sorry, ah, come in. Chloe's still sleeping. I tried to call you. Did you get my message?”
“Yeah, I did. You didn't say what you were calling about, and I was in the neighborhood anyway, so I just came.” There's an edge to his voice, as if he thinks I'm trying to get away with something. He takes off his windbreaker, which is slightly damp and smells of cigarette smoke. You wouldn't think it, but quite a few chefs smoke. I'd quit years ago, long before I'd even met Jake, but he still occasionally smoked, usually when he'd had a few too many. Or when he was nervous.
For reasons I can't fathom, Jake seems desperate to see Chloe. He was probably afraid that I was going to cancel on him, when actually nothing could have been farther from the truth. I
want
Jake to see Chloe.
want
Jake to see Chloe.
He hangs his coat on the hook by the door. Like he still lives here. Then, he makes for the sofa, sits down in the spot I've just vacated, and begins flipping absently through the
Times,
the gorilla in his lap.
Times,
the gorilla in his lap.
“Nice gorilla.” My voice is teasing and, if I'm not mistaken, a tad flirtatious.
I've gotten him to smile at least.
“She ought to be getting up any time now. It's late for her to be sleeping,” I tell him, even though it isn't. I don't offer to wake her, which I'm sure Jake would prefer so as not to have to sit in awkward silence in a living room that used to be his. “Want some minestra? I think I got the last spollichini of the season.”
Jake follows me into the kitchen, lured presumably by the promise of the luscious legume, and grateful, I'm sure, for something to do. He lifts the lid and gives the soup a stir, closing his eyes and allowing the steam to waft up and moisten his face.
“Buono,” he says, giving it a taste. Standing beside him I'm filled with longing, a jolt so piercing that I have to grab the counter to keep from doubling over. I can't believe he's no longer mine to touch, to hold, that we can't just take advantage of the fact that Chloe is napping and tumble into bed together. Jake looks up from the soup and meets my eye, a brief look, but I can tell he knows what I'm feeling.
“I'll have some,” he says, looking quickly away.
I reach into the cupboard behind the stove for a bowl, which I hand to Jake without looking at him. He ladles himself some soup and picks up a bottle of wine on the counter.
“Okay?” he asks.
“Sure, it's already open,” I say, handing him two glasses. While I get myself some soup, Jake pours the wine, and we eat in silence at the kitchen table where we have probably sat no less than a thousand times.
“Marvin's family is producing some really great pork,” Jake says, out of nowhere, his mouth half full. Marvin Castelli is a farmer we know in Bucks County, whose family produces some of the best goat's milk cheese in the country.
“Really?”
“Yeah. We were out there last weekend. He's just back from San Daniele. Spent three months there studying their curing methods. His prosciutto is not quite there, but give him time. The pork was good, though. No, better than good. I'm thinking of placing an order.”
The “we,” I'm sure, includes Nicola.
Jake helps himself to more wine and reaches over to refill my glass. “At some point we should talk about making some seasonal changes to the menu. The holidays are almost here.”
“Sure,” I tell him, “maybe after our meeting.”
“Meeting?”
I'm tempted to remind him none too gently about the meeting we have scheduled with our lawyers the Thursday after Thanksgiving to dispose of the remaining marital assets. It was the thinly veiled reference to Nicola that made me want to remind him that all this companionable eating together really hasn't changed the fact that we are about to be divorced.
“Oh, that meeting.” Jake takes another bite of soup and chews thoughtfully.
We stare into our empty soup bowls. Jake looks across the table at me as if he's about to say something. I'm feeling hot and muddled, and the wine has caused an unpleasant flush to spread across my neck. Suddenly, I'm confused about everything, about why Jake is here, about why I didn't tell him this was Chloe's nap time, about whether we could ever exist like this, two parents who aren't together showing up at school functions, chatting amiably over punch and cookies at the PTA Fun Fair.
I gather up the bowls and take them to the sink, glad to have my back to him. I can tell without turning around that he's standing behind me. Suddenly, Jake reaches around me and puts his hand on my arm. He is standing so close that I can feel his breath on my hair.
“I'm sorry, Mira,” he whispers, his voice so soft and low I think I've imagined it. Because he is standing so close to me, I brush against him as I turn around and suddenly we are kissing. It is strange and thrilling to be in his arms. Jake's hand cradles my head, his fingers entangled in my hair. With his other hand he grabs my arm and pulls me closer to him. His movements are rough, angry even, which I easily mistake for passion, because it's what I want. I feel the tears on my face, and I'm trembling and crying and gulping for air but all I can do is breathe in Jake, his mouth and tongue. His body is pressed close, his arm encircling my waist. It's several seconds before I realize that it's he who is crying, not me. Jake pushes me from him and I stumble, hitting the small of my back against the counter. My legs are weak, and I'm shaking. He puts both arms on the counter and hangs his head. I have never seen him cry before.
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