Life From Scratch (20 page)

John’s phone didn’t ring until 3 p.m. the following day.

“I don’t know this number, Sash. Do you think it’s
—
”

I grabbed the phone from his hand and walked briskly across the living room.

“Hello?”

“Hi …” Her voice was small and unsure. “Is this Alex?” Though the name she gave me at my ninth birthday was on my legal documents, no one else had used it since.

“Yes. But I go by Sasha now.”

Only a crackle of static broke the silence.

I waved John out of the room. “Can I come over to the apartment?”

“Oh, no, that wouldn’t be …” she paused, then brightened, her voice picking up cadence as she thought of a more neutral meeting point: “Why don’t we go out? There’s a nice Chinese restaurant halfway between us in Cambridge.”

John offered to come with me to dinner; what’s more, he helped me pick out my outfit—an oversize blue button-down shirt, a skirt, and strappy heels. I wore my hair in a high ponytail.

When we arrived, the parking lot of the Golden Dragon was dark and mostly empty. Yellow streetlights pooled over a few scattered cars. After a quick check inside the restaurant, I realized Mom wasn’t there yet, or she’d given up waiting.

I made a beeline for John’s SUV, but he reached for my hand and pulled me firmly back onto the sidewalk.

“She’ll be here, Bean. Just wait.”

“This is ridiculous, John. She’s not coming.”

But John wasn’t listening. I followed his gaze just in time to see a small white car slip quietly into the other end of the parking lot. The driver, invisible in the darkness, made her way slowly around the lot before finally stopping in front of us. When she reached across the seat and swung the passenger-side door open, I caught a glimpse of her small, slender hand; the skin was smooth and distinctly olive, even under the garish streetlights.

The shadowy figure leaned farther toward us, and a mop of salt-and-pepper curls bounced into the light.

“Mom!”

She returned my look with an openmouthed smile. Her brown eyes shone out from behind a pair of spring-green cat-eye glasses.

“Oh, wow … Hi!” she said, “You look …”

Every time she opened her mouth to speak, her foot floated off the brake pedal and the car lurched forward. Finally John ran around to the driver’s side and escorted her to the curb. While he parked the car, Mom and I stood across from each other for the first time since I was 12, at Michael’s bedside. We didn’t hug; we simply drank each other in like two thirsty wanderers. I felt unshackled in her gaze, as though she was seeing my spirit, reading me, downloading the past several years of my life.

I took in her trim capris, her soft rose lipstick, brown cashmere sweater, short blue crocheted neck scarf, and brown leather handbag, which gleamed under the red, blinking “open” sign that hung crooked in the restaurant window behind us. I’d never seen her with lipstick on before.

“I thought you’d be wearing a babushka,” I said, shyly. Without it she almost looked like a different woman.

“A babushka? It’s been nearly a decade, Alex. You’re not the only one who’s changed.”

I considered reiterating that I preferred “Sasha,” but the thrill of seeing her suddenly made the detail feel unimportant. She glanced at my heels and plunging neckline, which suddenly felt two inches too low. The last time she’d seen me, when Michael was in the hospital, I was prepubescent. Now I was almost 20—a woman. I pulled at the back of my shirt, covering up as best I could.

Once inside, the three of us looked over our menus. Mom and I kept peering over them at each other, grinning foolishly in the dim candlelight. A slip of a waiter walked up and began to share the specials.

Mom glanced sideways, up at him and then back to me.

“Here, Alex,” she said, cutting sharply into his recitation, “I want you to have this. Can you use it?” She slid a small, silver camera across the booth to me.

I gave the waiter an apologetic smile, “We need a minute.” He retreated with a nod.

Mom sat back and announced, “I hate when they do that. A
real
waiter knows when his customers need him and when they
don’t
. Why interrupt our conversation?” She shook her head, then tapped her fingers on the camera. “I can’t figure those things out. Can you?”

Digital cameras were all the rage in 1999, but I didn’t have one. “Uh, John, will you take our picture?” I asked.

When I put my arm around my mother, she felt papery thin in my embrace. I was half a head taller than her. My thighs looked plump next to hers. The once familiar scent of eucalyptus surrounded her.

“So how have you been, Mom? I can’t believe you’re still in the same apartment.”

“Actually, I’m in transition. I’ve been living in a hotel for several weeks. My landlord wants to evict me, but I told him that after almost 20 years, he can’t do that.”

“I guess not,” I said faintly. “Speaking of transitions … Did you know I’m not staying with the Dumonts anymore?”

“Right! You’re in school.”

“It’s more than that. Things were difficult in Europe. I think they’re just tired.”

“Nonsense! They’re your parents. They love you.”

“Yeah, well, you’re my mom,” I said quietly, looking back down at the menu.

The waiter approached us but none of us looked at him, and he slunk back behind the bar without a word. John got up and followed him.

“I got the invitation you sent for your high school graduation,” Mom said brightly. “That was so nice!” She pulled the envelope out of her purse, and handed it to me, indicating the postmark. “But the ceremony was already over when you mailed it?”

“You would have come?” I looked up, genuinely surprised.

“You never know,” she shrugged.

“No,” I muttered. “I guess not.”

John popped back in his seat, his smile fading when he saw our pained expressions. I shifted in my seat and tried to think of something else to say, but came up blank. A few minutes later, the waiter delivered a steaming platter of General Tso’s Chicken.

“I didn’t know what else to order,” John offered meekly. He always ordered General Tso’s.

Mom pulled two small plastic bottles out of her purse. One contained olive oil, the other apple cider vinegar. She misted the chicken with a cloud of vinegar. Sharp fumes filled the air, causing John and I to cough violently.

Mom watched us with detached amusement, then handed John the olive oil.

“This is the good stuff. First press,” she confided, “You never can tell with these places, so you have to come prepared. The vinegar will kill any germs.”

“What’s the olive oil for?” John asked.

“Flay-vah.”

“Oh,” he looked at me briefly, then obliged, drizzling a line of olive oil over the chicken.

He was the only one who ate.

Back at the car, John didn’t start the engine right away. “You look just like her, Sash.” He grinned.

“You think? My hair’s not quite as big, though …” I giggled. “I can’t believe it finally happened. I mean, it was a little intense, but …” I paused, watching as her car slipped back into the stream of taillights. “I have a mother, John. That was my
mom
.”

I’d finally looked into her eyes again, sat next to her, spoken with her, taken a photo. Heck, I even had her
phone number
.

“I know,” he said, his voice hushed.

“Do you think she’d let me stay the summer with her?” I asked, the words escaping before I had time to think them through.

“Just so long as I get to see you, too,” he said, “I’d miss my Bean if you were with her
all
summer.”

He took off his glasses and kissed me. I let myself disappear into his embrace, relaxing as his adoration washed the adrenaline away.

CHAPTER 13

Reunion and Remembr
a
nce

A
FEW WEEKS LATER
I mustered the courage to ask my mother if I could spend the summer with her. I wanted nothing more than to be around her, learn from her, be her daughter. Sure, there were lingering questions about, well, everything. But I wasn’t angry, and the questions weren’t burning—not at first. Sitting in the same room as her would be enough. I’d spent nine years wanting nothing more than
her
.

While she didn’t refuse outright, Mom insisted on emailing the Dumonts to make sure it was OK with them. I told her that in the nine months since I’d called about seeing them for Thanksgiving, Pierre had only contacted me a handful of times; the only time I
saw
him was when he took me to purchase some school clothes around Christmas. Pierre responded to her email with two simple lines: “Of course.
Sasha needs you
.”

It was as though he was thrusting me into my mother’s arms, dutifully, the same way she had thrust me into theirs when I was ten. Thinking back to the Thanksgiving phone call, I wondered if the Dumonts
hadn’t
been cutting me off. Perhaps they had been trying to help me spread my wings and find a roost with Mom.

Apparently liberated by Pierre and Patricia’s blessing, Mom rented a trendy loft in the heart of Boston’s Italian quarter, the North End, and furnished it with a kitchen table, two chairs, and a bed. She said I needed to connect with my Italian roots, so I was surprised when she told me she wouldn’t be staying there with me. She kept the apartment in Jamaica Plain, “just in case,” but given her shaky situation with the landlord, split her nights between there and a hotel. During the day, she worked as a receptionist at a high-end salon.

When I asked Mom how she could afford two rents on her salary, she stood a little taller and pronounced, “This isn’t any old apartment; this loft costs $1,800 a month.”

My jaw dropped.

“But it’s worth it!” she added. “You’ll get to be around your Italian heritage for a change.” I pressed her further, but she shrugged me off: “Just
enjoy
it, Alex.”

The small, heavy-beamed loft was rimmed with windows that opened right above a flower shop. Orange, red, and pink bouquets spilled onto the sidewalk below. I was on the fifth floor, a few blocks from the main drag, Hanover Street, and 30 yards from the harbor. From the kitchen window, I could watch men perched like lanky Italian roosters crowing at curvy, red-lipped
belle donne
who clacked along the sidewalk. On warm evenings I could smell the old men’s cigars.

I got a job within walking distance, at Faneuil Hall Marketplace, where I worked the counter at the Museum of Fine Art’s gift shop. In my free time, I roamed the North End with Mom—her idea. Every evening and on the weekends, we systematically worked our way through the best restaurants and shops—none of which were on Hanover Street.

“When lines are that long, you know the food won’t be good
and
it’ll cost too much. That variety of Italian food,” she advised, “is for the
tourists
.”

She walked me over to Polcari’s Coffee for sesame candies, to Maria’s for dollar slices of Sicilian pizza and cannoli, and to a holein-the-wall called Dino’s that only kept its door open long enough to sell out of their daily batch of fresh spinach ravioli. Their pasta was delicate, the spinach filling laced with the most tantalizing whisper of nutmeg, the sauce bright with disarming bursts of unadulterated tomatoes. Mom said it was the only pasta in Boston remotely as good as her grandmother’s.