Out to Lunch (11 page)

“I’m just saying,” Gene says, heading back out of the kitchen with an armful of bottles.

“I never knew that,” Andrea says.

“By the time you came along, you were the great peacemaker. My family loved you so much, and they could see that your dad was a good father to you, and they met his family and could see they were good people. Just like you can see Wayne is good people, even if he is not the person you love most in the world.”

“Of course Wayne is good people. It’s just . . .” I don’t know how to explain. Or if I should even try.

“I know. He doesn’t fit. But your Jack didn’t fit so well either, as I recall.”

Andrea smacks her forehead.

I turn to her. “You didn’t like Jack?” News to me.

“No one liked Jack. We called him Jackass. He was a putz. And SOOOO BOOORING.”

“I thought he was a little, um . . .” Andrea stammers a bit.

“Um, dull, dim, uninteresting . . .”

“Self-involved,” Jasmin offers.

“Exactly!”

“That’s a good way to put it, Mom, self-involved. He seemed to always interrupt you when you were talking to tell about something related to himself.”

“I didn’t really notice.”

“BULLSHIT!”

“Well, you loved him, but that is the point,” Jasmin says. “To you, he was probably just telling interesting stories, sharing about himself and his life, because you loved him. To us, it looked like he only wanted to talk about himself all the time to the exclusion of you being able to speak. But that’s the whole point. Not every person we love is immediately lovable to everyone else. But that doesn’t mean we are wrong to love them. Aimee was a brilliant, wonderful woman and an amazing friend, and she loved Wayne. So I have to trust that he’s lovable, even if I don’t love him.”

“Jasmin, you rock my world, girlfriend! Can I get a WIT-NESS!”

“I’m trying.” Which I really am.

Jasmin comes over and clasps my face between her hands. She is still a strikingly beautiful woman, despite being near seventy, her olive skin practically unlined, her dark hair not unlike mine in color and texture, shot with white that sparkles instead of dulls. “I know you are,
niñita
. And I know that Aimee knew what she was doing when she made this decision. I also know that you are doing a great job of convincing everyone, especially yourself, that you are okay. I hope you know that when you stop being okay, we are all here for you. Including Wayne. Probably especially Wayne. And I hope that when that time comes, you come to all of us. And I do mean ALL.”

I flinch. Because she is so serious, and Andrea is looking at me with the goddamned head tilt, and suddenly my colon clenches and I can feel one of my attacks coming on. “I will,” I promise, moving away so that she can’t feel the clamminess that is sprouting on my face. “And now I have to use the powder room.” I force myself to smile and walk casually out of the kitchen and down the hall to the bathroom. I run the water in the sink full tilt to hopefully cover the sound of a complete and rapid intestinal evacuation, my heart beating half out of my chest, sweating like I’ve just run a four-minute mile, and clenching my teeth against the wave of nausea. It takes ten minutes for my pulse to slow, for the sweating to abate, for me to feel like I can move without being in danger of revisiting my recent Thanksgiving feast in reverse.

“It’s okay to be okay. I’m not insulted.”

It’s not that . . .

“It’s that you feel like the world expects you to be broken.”

Maybe I should be.

“What would happen?”

I don’t know.

“Maybe that’s the problem. If you knew what would happen, you could decide if it was worth it.”

Worth it to be broken?

“Worth it to miss me differently than you are doing now.”

Jasmin clearly thinks I’m going to have some sort of breakdown. So does Andrea probably, probably everyone. And who am I to argue? I’m in the bathroom sweating like a pig, being chastised by my dead best friend.

“So what if you did break down?”

I don’t want to.

“Then don’t.”

What if I can’t help it?

“Then do.”

You suck, you know that?

“Hey, I’m dead. The dead cannot suck. It’s in the handbook. For what it is worth, Wayne has not once implied you are doing it wrong.”

That’s true. He hasn’t.

“I’m not saying, I’m just saying.”

I find the air freshener and give a thorough spritz to the small room that I have violated. Flush again. Wash my hands. Pat my face down one last time, and head back out to the kitchen.

“Auntie Jenna!” I don’t have time to look at their faces to see if I was gone too long, if they are worried, because my arms are full of gangly twentysomething.

And something about Benji arriving makes my shoulders unclench. “Hello, boy. Happy thanksgiving.”

“Yes it was. Shavon let me exec chef the whole meal, and everything turned out awesome!”

“Congrats, kiddo. I’m sure it was delish.”

Jasmin comes up and kisses me on my cheek. “You ready for dessert?”

I smile at her, giving my best imitation of cheer. “There is always room in the dessert compartment.”

“That is what I want to hear, because I put some LOVE in this pie,” Benji says.

“Pretty sure that’s bourbon,” Andrea says.

“God, I miss pie.”

“I don’t care what it is, I’m about to eat it without you,” Gene yells from the dining room.

And we all head in the direction of sweetness.

10

B
y the time I get to the Library, the table is set, and the kitchen island where we do the cooking demos is half-full of casserole dishes and containers. Lois is poking at something in a saucepan, and Eloise is arranging what appear to be forty different types of cookies on a platter.

“Happy Thanksgiving, ladies,” I say, dropping my bag on the counter. Lois immediately turns to put out my offerings, a bag of the rolls I made yesterday, some of the cranberry sauce. Lois reaches down and offers Volnay a piece of turkey, which she takes gratefully and retires with it to her little dog bed in the corner.

I drop my coat on the rack in the corner, and go to receive my kisses from Lois and Eloise.

“Liebchen, how was your day?”

“It was lovely. Too much food and wine.”

Eloise stops arranging cookies. She hugs me with one willowy arm, and kisses the top of my head. “Happy Thanksgiving, Jenna.”

I squeeze her back. “Happy Thanksgiving, Weezy.”

Leftovers Brunches were one of the first traditions Aimee and I came up with at the Library. We were always closed the day after big holidays, which we originally thought would give everyone a day to recover from parties. But it became clear that we all just sort of wanted to be together to share the cheer, and so we started having everyone bring all their leftovers to the Library for brunch the next day, so that we could taste what everyone else made and get the stories out while they were fresh. We have them for Thanksgiving, and Easter, and they are always enormous fun. We tried doing them for Christmas, but it never seemed to work out so well, so we gave up and instead do a late-January brunch to talk about the upcoming year and for everyone to show off recipes they’ve been playing with.

The buffet already has leftover turkey, which Lois makes by first steaming it and then roasting it, and her traditional bread dumplings in rich turkey gravy. I spy Eloise’s potato gratin with prunes, and Andrea must be upstairs; I recognize the ham and sweet potatoes from last night. I can smell the unmistakable scent of brussels sprouts caramelizing in a hot oven. Eloise puts my cranberry sauce and rolls on the buffet, and returns to arranging cookies.

When we are done eating, we will decorate the store for the holidays, setting up the menorah with the orange lightbulb “flames” in the front window, and next to it, Aimee’s favorite tree, a small tabletop vintage German one made of white turkey feathers. In the far corner, Lois’s sons have already set up an eight-foot blue spruce, and Benji brought the boxes of lights and ornaments up from the basement on Wednesday. Every year Eloise has a class where kids make and decorate ornaments out of either stiff bread dough or a cinnamon paste that gets baked to rock hardness. She has them each make two, one to take home and one for our tree. It’s always fun to see kids who have been with us for the past few years come back to find their ornaments on the tree and show them off, or bring younger siblings to class to introduce them to the tradition.

The door flies open, bringing with it a wild gust of wind that ruffles my hair and raises goose bumps all over my arms.

“Do. I. Have. The. Delicious?” Benji yells to the room. “Hell to the yeah, I do!” His long arms are full of bags and boxes, and it looks as if he has decided to make the entire meal again on his own. I remember that feeling. When I was first out of culinary school, I would leave restaurants and dinner parties and holiday dinners and run to the grocery store to go home and try to recreate or improve on the favorite dishes. Even at my own parties, I’d have a flash of how to make a dish even better, and pop out of bed in the middle of the night or the wee hours of the morning to see if my vision was real.

I look at Benji unpacking casserole dishes and Tupperware containers on the buffet, and smile, thinking that he must have been up at the crack of dawn inspired and nearly feverish with the adrenaline of cooking flat out from the deepest part of your heart. No different than an artist frantically slapping the paint on the canvas, or a writer in the middle of the night typing with sparks shooting out of their fingers to get the story down. When you are possessed by food as chefs are, and the muse calls, you head to the stove.

Benji is explaining his offerings to Lois and Eloise, who are looking at him bemusedly. “I hacked an old Crock-Pot and turned it into a sous vide machine, and did a turkey breast, and then seared the skin on the stovetop, so it is totally crispy, but the meat is BEYOND juicy. And the stuffing is a combination of homemade corn bread, homemade buttermilk biscuits, and brioche, with sage and thyme and celery and onion and shallot. And I tried the Robuchon Pommes Puree, and thought that there was no way to put
THAT
much butter into that much potato, but holy moley is it amazeballs! And I did a butternut squash soup with fried ginger and almond cake with apple compote.” All the bustle has roused Volnay, who wanders over to greet Benji, and receives a dog biscuit for her trouble from Eloise.

“Honey, breathe a little,” I say, laughing.

“It’s just . . . I . . . I mean . . . THANKSGIVING!” he says, which cracks us all up.

Andrea appears from upstairs and comes over to give me a hug.

“Nice outfit,” I whisper, looking her up and down pointedly. “Looks just as good as it looked last night.”

Andrea blushes. “Yeah, um . . .”

“Dr. Law from Cincinnati?”

Her skin burnishes even deeper, going absolutely copper. “Yup.”

“You fabulous Jezebel, you!”

“All my bitches getting LAID.”

“We didn’t . . . I mean, not really, we just had a drink, and we talked and . . .”

“You have nothing to apologize to me about, I took my lawyer to bed. More power to you.”

“Deck the halls with boys and con-doms . . . fa la la la la.”

“I actually kind of, I dunno, LIKE him?”

“Good. He seemed likable. If he sticks, maybe we can double-date!”

“Yeah, you can go for malteds after the sock hop.”

“Let’s see if I get a solo date first before we make reservations.”

“Good plan. But regardless, I think you have something extra to be thankful for!”

“Stop whispering in corners, you two, and help us get this food organized,” Lois calls out to us.

“Wait till you taste Benji’s soup,” Eloise says, a steaming mug in her hands and a proud smile on her face.

“’Cause Benji is a ge-nius,” Benji singsongs.

“Oy. Let’s go eat before these people lose their minds.” I take Andrea’s hand and we go to load up our plates.

* * *

S
o then we’re getting all the food out, and guess who comes in the door?” Benji says, working on his second enormous plate of food. Where he puts it in his scrawny body is beyond me. His metabolism is the thing on earth I covet the most. I skipped seconds yesterday and today and tried to limit desserts to just tastes, but I’ll still end the weekend four pounds heavier, and will barely get it off before Christmas puts it right back on.

“Elton John,” Andrea teases, since we heard this story last night.

Lois smacks her arm. “Who,
Schatzi
?”

“The MAYOR,” Benji says.

“Mayor McCheese?” I say, teasing.

“The Mayor of Casterbridge?” Eloise jumps in.

“Rahm freaking EM-AN-U-EL, you evil women. And you know what was really cool? It was just him and his family and the security, no press, you know? No photographers, no posing. It was like, ‘Hey! I’m your mayor. Sort of sucks that you don’t have parents, but I’ve got your back, and how is your Thanksgiving?’ He was badass. And his wife gave me her card because she wants me to send her my recipes! And he told me I made the only pecan pie he ever actually liked, and I totally didn’t even flinch when he shook my hand and I felt that weird little nubbin finger!” Benji dips his finger in gravy and puts his hand down for Volnay to lick. Spoiled dog.

Andrea and I are laughing so hard that tears are streaming, and Lois is holding her sides while her astounding bosom heaves, and Eloise chuckles behind her delicate hand.

“And was your dinner that exciting, El?” Andrea asks.

Eloise shakes her head. “Nothing special. We went to my aunt’s house in Rockford, me and my folks and my sister and her kids. My brother-in-law is still deployed, but he was able to Skype in and say hi, so that was good. We had sent a care package for him and his unit, and it arrived in time, so they all kept walking by to thank us over his shoulder, made us feel really proud. My cousins were all in for the weekend with all of their kids, so there was lots of noise and laughter, and my aunt is a great holiday cook, all the classics, so it was a nice day. And my team won the touch football, so we didn’t have to clean up, which is always nice!” For being the world’s most maternal, nurturing, supportive person on the planet, Eloise HATES cleaning. She isn’t slovenly, more just messy, leaving a wake behind her of bits from craft projects and half-read magazines, and half-drunk mugs of tea. When she cooks, she does so with wild abandon, and then faces the pile of dishes and sighs deeply, as if it is a Sisyphean task that will kill her.

“God forbid you wash a dish,
Mausi
,” Lois says, giving her arm a pinch. Lois loves cleaning up. Eloise is an endless source of fabulous cleaning-up opportunities for Lois, who teases her good-naturedly about it, and adores every pot she can scrub spotless and every surface she can clear and organize.

“And how was yours, Lois?” Benji asks around a mouthful of stuffing.

“Ack,
gut
. My daughters-in-law, you know . . .” she shrugs her rounded shoulders resignedly. “They are such sweet girls, good mothers, kind to me . . .”

“And such bad cooks!” we all say in unison, the refrain of every Leftovers Brunch in our history.

“Tell us,” Benji says, all of us relishing the litany and details of failed dishes.

“Well, Gina, you know, she is Italian, so she brings sausages in peppers, which smells like feet. And she takes the beautiful sausages that Kurt makes at the butcher shop and cooks them until they are like hard little rocks. Ellie, she is afraid of getting fat, so she makes cheesecake with no-fat Greek yogurt and Egg Beaters and fake sugar that tastes mostly of petrol. Lisa wanted to do stuffing, and it was so dry that you could barely choke it down. I had to make a second batch of gravy in the middle of dinner because everyone was trying to soak it so that it didn’t kill us.”

“But you made that beautiful turkey, and those dumplings are like pillows,” Andrea says.

“And your famous German potato salad,” Eloise says.

“And all of those desserts from the bakery,” I say, dreaming of crispy, sweet pastries, oozing custard and homemade jam and dolloped with whipped cream.

“A good meal in spite of the girls.” Lois beams, knowing that we all really mean our compliments. “Now. I clean up while you start the tree.” None of us argue, she loves to do it, and we are in divide and conquer mode.

Benji and Eloise untangle the lights and get them strung on the tree, while Andrea and I set up the menorah and Aimee’s tree in the window. Aimee always liked the feathers lit with pink fairy lights, and dangled with vintage silver mercury glass balls. We just leave it decorated year to year, so all we have to do is plug it in. The menorah is a kitschy silver plastic number with nine orange lightbulbs that you screw in as the nights go by. Since Chanukah is still a couple of weeks off, we just light the center Shamash light until the holiday arrives. A couple of garlands around the base of the window, and stacks of cookbooks tied with ribbons and topped with whisks go around the bases.

We are just heading back to help get the ornaments on the tree, when there is a knock at the door.

Wayne and Noah are grinning and making nearly identical faces in the window, and I go to let them in.

“Happy Thanksgiving!” Wayne says, throwing his arms wide and smacking Noah right in the forehead. “Oh, hey, sorry little man.” He ruffles Noah’s hair. Noah cracks up.

“Dad, you are such a klutz. Try not to concuss me. Hey Jenna.”

Noah is a roly-poly kid, all cheeks and poochy tummy and little round butt sticking out. But this is just Wayne’s genetics peeking through; he’s a pretty good athlete, a fast runner, good soccer player, and my guess is that when he hits puberty, he’ll shoot up like a beanpole and lose the baby fat. I’m wishing a total Jerry O’Connell for him. His hair is light brown with a hint of strawberry, and has a major cowlick right over his left eyebrow that always makes him look as if he has had a recent surprise. Bright blue eyes, freckles on his nose, smart as a whip, and about the most easygoing kid you can imagine. I reach out to give him a hug.

“Hey kiddo, how’s it going?”

“He’s still working on that ark,” Wayne says, making the crazy sign with his finger next to his temple. “Talks to God.” Wayne never gets tired of the Noah jokes. I have no idea why Noah doesn’t tell him to shut up already, but I guess after ten years of it, he just lets it slide.

“Yup. Anyone seen a pair of aardvarks around here anywhere?” Noah asks. He drops his coat on a chair, and goes to give Volnay a cuddle. Aimee and I always said that when it came to kids, Noah was like winning the lottery.