Home to Big Stone Gap (19 page)

“Scotland.” I sit down, my head swimming. I remember Jack’s four-item list, including the mention of Scotland. Jack still doesn’t know I saw that list, and I haven’t been tempted to ask him about it (it’s under some business cards in his sock drawer), but here’s an opportunity to make one of his dreams come true. “When would they want to do the house trade?”

“March and April. Coming up. I hear Aberdeen is gorgeous in the spring.”

“What would I do with the Pharmacy?”

Theodore shrugs. “Eddie Carleton?”

“But Jack is starting a new job. Of course, as far as I’m concerned, Tyler Hutchinson and the Bituminous Reserves, Inc., can wait forever.”

“Does anybody like this company?” Theodore wonders aloud. “Although I thought Tyler was ingratiating and warm, for an establishment type.”

“He’s completely likable. That’s the problem. Jack has been lured in.”

“You make it sound like a cult.”

“Jack never would have agreed to any of it if he hadn’t gotten sick. He’s all about security now. He’s scared—and he wants to leave something to Etta and me. It’s crazy.”

“In Italy, we don’t worry about making money so much. And we certainly don’t worry about it after we’re dead,” Papa says as he slowly pours heavy cream over the butter and garlic in the skillet.

“We’re going with white wine with that butter sauce.” Theodore uncorks a bottle of wine.

“This is my mother’s recipe,” Papa explains. “She called it Pasta Delicato. I’m boiling orecchiette, which means small ears.”

“‘Orecchiette’ is a pretty word. But I would have preferred not to know I’ll be eating ears,” Theodore says.

“It’s the shape, Theodore. Just the shape,” I tell him. I look in the pot. Small bits of pasta tumble over one another in the water’s rolling boil.

Papa says, “My mother taught me that when you make a sauce with meat, use a pasta shape where the sauce can settle. Smooth sauce is excellent for long noodles. There was a lot of Fleeta’s ham left over, so I diced some up.”

“Big Stone Gap meets Bergamo!” Theodore says. “How do you know how much to make?”

“We’re making two pounds of pasta. So we took two cups of diced ham, and we’re sautéing it in the garlic, butter, and cream. The more I stir, the thicker the sauce.”

“Then the peas,” Giacomina reminds him.

“Drop the peas into the boiling water with the pasta before straining it.”

Theodore is taking notes. “Frozen or from the can?”

“No can. Frozen or fresh peas cook very fast—just a minute in the water. Mama taught us never put vegetables into the hot skillet with the sauce; it makes them mushy. After the pasta is drained, put the orecchiette and peas in the skillet, toss them through the sauce, and then when you serve it, add lots of grated Parmesan cheese on top. Never put cheese on pasta in the skillet. Always grate it on the dishes. Fresh. Always fresh.”

“Like the Huddle House. Always open. Always fresh,” Theodore says. “I’ll bet they don’t have orecchiette at the Huddle House.”

“Giacomina, will you toss the salad?” Papa smiles at her.

Jack comes into the kitchen. “Oh, boy. Pasta on a cold winter’s night. I love it. Ave, can you come out here for a second? Excuse us.”

“Uh-oh,” I hear Theodore say under his breath as I go.

I meet Jack in the hallway. “Is everything okay?”

“My doctor called me. He wondered if I was feeling all right. Evidently, you spoke with him today?”

“I called him.”

“Why?”

“I was worried.”

“Ave, I’m okay. I wish you’d stop calling Dr. Smiddy’s office.”

“I’m sorry. I was afraid you weren’t telling me something.”

“I never keep anything from you,” Jack reassures me. If that’s true, who the hell is Annie on his to-do list? But I can’t bring
that
up now.

“Okay.”

“Believe me.”

“I believe you,” I lie. Dr. Smiddy was a little short with me on the phone; he was perfectly professional, but he didn’t indulge my panic. He gently reassured me and then got off the phone. Fast. “Come on, honey. Theodore opened some wine.” I take Jack’s hand, and we go back into the kitchen.

“Take your seats,” Papa says from the stove. Giacomina puts on oven mitts and lifts the pasta to the sink to drain it. Papa lifts the skillet of creamy sauce off the heat and sets it on a cooled burner. We take our places as Papa pours the pasta into the sauce in the skillet, then tosses the buttery mixture and brings it to the table.

“It doesn’t get any better than this.” Jack serves the pasta onto our plates. Papa stands by with the fresh Parmesan and the grater while Giacomina cranks the black pepper onto the pasta.

“Jack, I have something wonderful to ask you,” I say.

“I’m listening,” he answers.

“Wanna go to Scotland?”

A look of recognition crosses my husband’s face. Maybe he’s thinking of that list he made, or maybe hearing his dream realized aloud gives him a sense of wonder that he hasn’t known before. Whatever it is, in seconds, his face fills with such joy that he looks like a ten-year-old boy. Then practical Jack surfaces, and his eyes narrow and the crease between his eyebrows deepens, just like it does when he’s thinking something through or working on a difficult piece of molding in his wood shop. “How are we gonna do that?”

“I have a plan.” I reach across the table and hold his hand. “Courtesy of Mr. Tipton here.”

“I’m at the bottom of every good idea, and I don’t want anybody here to forget it,” Theodore says.

We laugh as Theodore pours the wine. Scotland in the springtime just might work.

“I’m doing chicken and dumplings for the lunch special!” Fleeta hollers from the café.

It’s my favorite dish. Fleeta must be up to something. “Are you sucking up for a reason?”

“Maybe.” Fleeta peels a paper place mat off a stack and puts it on the counter. She continues down the line, setting out a place mat for every stool. Then, working in reverse, she plunks down the silverware. “And don’t call your daddy and them. I already did. They’ll be here shortly. Ain’t nothin’ better than dumplings when it’s cold out. They stick to your insides like glue. This here is a dish that sustains.”

“What do you want?” I tease.

“I was thinking of expanding the café hours and doing dinners on weekends.”

“Here?”

“Yeah. What the hell, there’s no place to eat out that’s close. Ever since Stringer’s went under…”

Stringer’s was a delicious all-you-can-eat restaurant on the other side of town. Unfortunately, folks took the term to mean all-you-can-eat-all-week, and the place went under because more food walked out than customers walked in.

“I think it’s too much work for you,” I say.

“Well, I thought about that. I was thinking I might hire some help.”

“We don’t have a lot of extra money to do that, Fleets.”

“I know. But I’d do the cooking, and I’d just hire some kids to help with the serving and cleanup and prep. You know, like we did back when Pearl come to work for us.”

Fleeta adjusts the place mats on the counter. It’s so funny that she’s bringing up Pearl, because years ago she tried to dissuade me from hiring her. It appears that Fleeta Mullins Olinger has grown a heart filled with wisdom in the past twenty years. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing. You want to be a mentor?”

“I didn’t say that. This ain’t an act of charity, but I figger kids around here need jobs while they’s in school, and we might as well get back to that.”

“Then I think it’s a good idea,” I tell her. Fleeta’s chest puffs out as though she’s suddenly a major player on the stock exchange. There is no greater thrill for a boss than to see an employee implement a dream in the workplace. Fleeta is happy.

I throw myself into my work, taking pleasure in the knowledge that Papa, Giacomina, and Theodore extended their visit for a few extra days. It feels decadent to have them here for so long, and I’m savoring every moment.

I’m plowing through my e-mails quickly when an instant message pops up from Etta.
Ma, sending e-mail with attachment. xoxoxo E.

I wait for a few seconds, and sure enough, an e-mail appears from her.
Tell me what you think of this. xoxoxo E.
I open the attachment. It’s a sketch of a kitchen. At the bottom of the page, it says
E. Grassi.
I have to think twice before I remember that’s my Etta’s new name, Mrs. Grassi. I look over the drawing: she took her small kitchen and redesigned it, turning it into something functional and lovely.

Most of Etta’s childhood hobbies have become an area of expertise in her adulthood. She’s passionate about architecture, making her own drawings and renderings. How perfect for her to major in it! When she was a girl, she drew a map of the world on an enormous sheet of paper, marking where she had been and where she wanted to go. She studied the stars over Cracker’s Neck Holler through the seasons, and made a map of the constellations. Etta has always had a worldview. I’m not sure where it came from, as she was born in a holler and grew up in the very place her father and I were raised. I had those dreams too, and that same longing, but I let books and the worlds within them fulfill that wanderlust. My daughter looks for experience in the world itself, instead of keeping her passions bottled up inside. One of my goals was to raise her to listen to her own voice, and boy, she’s done it—sometimes not to my liking. I wouldn’t change a thing about her, though; she’s a box of surprises, usually delightful ones.

“Let’s go, Ave Maria,” Theodore says from the door of the pharmacy. “Fleeta, save me some of that banana pudding of yours. I don’t think I’ve gained enough weight since I got here.”

“Can do, Ted.”

MUTUAL PHARMACY BANANA PUDDING
Makes six servings

½
cup all-purpose flour
1 pinch salt
3 eggs (or
½
cup egg substitute)
2½
cups milk (may use skim)
1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 medium bananas, thinly sliced
36 vanilla wafers
Whipped topping (for garnish)

In a medium saucepan, combine flour and salt; gradually whisk in eggs and both kinds of milk. Cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, for 8 to 10 minutes or until pudding becomes thick and bubbly. Remove from heat and whisk in vanilla. Cool. Arrange one third of banana slices in the bottom of a two-quart dish; top with one third of the pudding mixture and 12 wafers. Repeat layers twice, arranging last 12 wafers around edge of dish. Dollop with whipped topping. Cover and chill.

I grab my purse and coat and follow him out the door. We climb into the Jeep. Theodore backs out of the parking lot. “I thought we’d take a run over to Kingsport for some shopping.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“I miss our spelunking.” Theodore steps on the gas, and we barrel out of Big Stone. “Now I go to Bergdorf’s and sift through vintage china instead of rock formations in the sand caves.”

“I haven’t been in Cudjo’s Cave since you left town.”

“I feel bad that I left you without a spelunking partner.”

“Don’t. We had a lot of fun, and now we have a lot of happy memories.”

“It was great, wasn’t it? Iva Lou and you and me.” Theodore looks at me, then judges from my expression and puts his gaze back on the road.

“Yep.”

“So what happened with you two?”

“I don’t know, exactly. We had words at her office one day, about her daughter. I didn’t think I said anything wrong—the truth is, I didn’t know what to say. And now I guess I’ll never know.”

“Don’t close the door on her. She’s the closest thing you have to family here, besides Jack.”

“I know. But she doesn’t want to be friends anymore. She’s made that clear.”

“I can’t believe you’re giving up on this so easily.”

“Maybe I’m just too old to fight.”

“I’m older than you, and I’m still fighting.”

“You’re different, Theodore. You’ll always be a fighter.”

“That’s a cop-out. What’s the real reason you won’t talk to her?”

“Maybe I don’t want to trouble her with my feelings or something. I don’t know.”

“You’re not happy without her in your life.”

“Do you think so?”

“I looked at you on Christmas Day, when we were having dinner. You looked like something important was missing. Like you’d lost your best friend.”

“One of them. I still have you.”

“What if things changed with Iva Lou?”

“Well, they always do, don’t they?”

“I mean changed as in maybe you could work through whatever it is that’s bothering you two.”

“That would be up to her.”

Instead of taking the turn for the Fort Henry Mall in Kingsport, Theodore follows the signs to Johnson City. “Where do you want to shop in Johnson City?”

“Fleeta said there were lots of new stores.”

Theodore pulls in to the parking lot at the Stir Fry Café, a quiet Asian restaurant outside Johnson City.

“Are you hungry?” I ask him.

“Yep.”

We get out of the Jeep and go into the restaurant. Theodore looks around the empty room, with set tables and booths, low lighting and paneled walls. Water flows over an indoor fountain past a green marble Buddha, who smiles at us. “Follow me, Ave.” Theodore leads me to a booth in the back of the restaurant.

“Iva Lou, here she is,” says Theodore quietly.

Iva Lou sits in a booth, perfectly coiffed in a shoulder-length bob, and her typical weekend wear, a black polyester running suit with a white turtleneck and matching sneakers. She looks up at me. “I thought,” she says, “well, we thought that we might ought have lunch. Just the two of us.”

I turn to Theodore, a million thoughts running through my head. I focus on the logistical one, since that’s the least challenging. “What will you do?” I ask him.

“I’m going to Fort Henry Mall to see a movie. I won’t be back. Iva Lou will drive you home.” Theodore bows his head and goes.

If I could kill Theodore with my bare hands, I would—how dare he do this? But my manners are too impeccable to make a scene. I stand like an ice block and watch him go out the door.