How Sweet It Is (7 page)
I am glad to know my grandpa was thought of so fondly, but I’m not sure I can recall
Oh, the Places You’ll Go
. I make a mental note to brush up on my Dr. Seuss and then have a fleeting thought that maybe Grandpa gave my sister and me
Green Eggs and Ham
one Christmas. As children of pig farmers, we were used to getting books, cards, and comments about pigs, ham, bacon, tenderloin, and pork chops.
When I was small, my grandparents still lived in Pennsylvania, where Dad was born. Dad moved to Georgia in his twenties after attending business school. I recall him telling me that as a child, kinfolk would comment that Edna, his mother, must have forgotten which town she was in when she had her sixth child, which was my dad. Ernest and Edna hadn’t lived in Lancaster since 1930, so why did they name my dad Lancaster? Dad was born in 1945 in the brick house where they lived in Altoona. He has always been grateful his mother didn’t name him Altoona. “Lancaster is a fine name,” he has told me over the years. “Lancaster has a solid ring to it.” Such a nice ring, in fact, that my middle name is Lancaster. Growing up in the South, I longed for a more debutante-quality name like Deena Ann, Deena Joy, Deena Marie, or even Deena Sue. But no, my dad had to provide me with a
solid name
.
The Center’s kitchen smells like a mixture of day-old popcorn and lemon-scented cleaner. The gas stove is clearly industrial, though not as large as the one at Palacio del Rey. A stab of pain jabs at my heart as I wonder what everyone at the restaurant is doing today. Do they miss me? Is the new baker as good as I was? Does she take the time to pipe perfect roses for the tops of the vanilla crème cakes? Does Anthony ask her to taste his sauces to see if they are seasoned just right?
Miriam’s voice breaks into my thoughts. “Would you like to buy the ingredients you’ll need and give us the receipts and we’ll refund you? That might be easier than one of us here shopping. We might not buy the right items.”
We stand by the kitchen’s pantry. The pantry door is ajar, so I can see stacks of white china plates and coffee cups. I consider the options and decide I’ll purchase the ingredients for the classes, because that way I can be assured I’ll be cooking with the correct products. The Center can reimburse me—if I can manage to keep track of the receipts.
Miriam asks if I can start teaching tomorrow afternoon and teach a class every weekday afternoon right after the kids get off the school bus. I start to say that I don’t really care because I’m obligated to do this as part of my grandfather’s instructions, but then I decide that would make it seem as if I don’t really want to teach. Actually, I would rather bungee jump off the Blue Ridge Parkway than teach, but I can’t let Miriam discover that. She hands me a form to fill out and asks, “You want your paycheck directly deposited or mailed to you?”
My bank is in Altanta, but I think they have a Bank of America office here, too. I make a mental note to check on that. They do have many of the other modern conveniences like Burger King, McDonalds, grocery stores, and gas stations. I tell her that direct deposit will be fine and stuff the forms into my purse.
She demonstrates how to use the dishwasher, the sink, and the disposal. I nod and thank her for showing me. I’m tempted to say that I have worked in kitchens for a long time now, that I am a graduate of a fine culinary school, but I really don’t think boasting in church is acceptable.
“The sink does drip,” she tells me as three droplets sail from the faucet. “Our plumber should be by to fix it one of these days.”
I wonder if I should recommend Jonas to her. He knows how to tighten every pipe with his swinging wrench. When he left yesterday, he told me, “All your pipes are working good” and I had to smile.
We pause by the window over the sink to watch a group of kids play basketball on a paved court. A tall man with curly blond hair that bounces as he goes for the rebound is with them. I watch him quickly reach for a pass and stretch his arms to toss the orange ball through the hoop. A short boy wearing red sneakers tries to block the pass but doesn’t succeed. Basketball and I haven’t had much experience together. I played in high school only when the gym teacher required us to do so fall semester of my freshman year. Since then, I haven’t picked up a basketball, and like creative writing, I don’t miss it.
Miriam smiles. “He’s a cutie,” she says.
I assume she means the man, although the young boy with the red shoes is cute, too. He turns so that his face is visible, and I notice his large, brown eyes under straight, black hair.
The curly-haired guy’s face breaks into a smile as the boy pulls the ball from behind him and dribbles it down the paved court. The man’s smile doesn’t go to Tennessee like Jonas’s, but it looks confident, secure, self-assured—if all those things can be displayed in a smile, and seeing his, I’m certain that they can. He has all the characteristics I no longer possess. He and I may be at the same church, but we are not on the same planet.
Suddenly, into the kitchen comes a woman with hair the color of a pumpkin, skin darker than Miriam’s, and a glare that shouts of hatred. As her voice bellows across the counters, I cower behind Miriam. My fingers are knotted balls.
“Felicia, you are not to be here,” Miriam says boldly. “I will call the cops.”
“Zack told me I can see my boy.”
“Only when you have an appointment.”
“He’s my son. I can see him whenever I please.”
“That is not what the terms are.” Miriam’s eyes are cold; no sparkle from earlier remains.
“I’m not in jail anymore. I’m free. I can do whatever I want to now.”
“You will land back in jail with that attitude.”
“Where is Darren?”
“Felicia, you need to leave now.”
“Make me!”
“I’m calling the cops.” Miriam pulls a cell phone from her pocket and flips it open. She punches numbers.
But it is not a cop who steps into the kitchen right then. It is the tall basketball player, dripping with perspiration. “Felicia,” he says with strength and calmness, “you know the rules.”
“I want my boy. I just want to see my boy. Please, Zack.” The woman’s voice cracks with each word. I think she is on the verge of tears.
Zack glances at Miriam, who shrugs her shoulders. Turning to the distraught woman, he says, “Come with me,” and gently ushers her out of the kitchen as Miriam follows with halting steps.
I stand alone next to the industrial stove. The sink drips twice, pauses, and then lets out four more droplets, all of which end up in a blurry mass.
B
ack at my grandfather’s cabin, I make a dinner of fried potatoes and onions—one of the quick-and-easy recipes I’ve grown to love and will probably still be making when I’m ninety. As I smell the comforting aroma of onions sizzling in butter, I think to myself that I should have told her. While Miriam and I stood there at the church kitchen window watching Zack play basketball with the children, before Felicia’s unexpected arrival, I should have said, “Well, guys aren’t important to me now. Cute or otherwise.”
But what if she had asked why not? Would I have been able to tell her about Lucas? I still don’t want to talk about him.
I use one of my grandfather’s stainless-steel spatulas to flip over a slice of potato. I study it to see how brown it’s become. “Never tell people too much about yourself at first,” my mother always told my sister, Andrea, and me growing up. “Leave room for them to ask about you. Besides, no one really cares.” Another mixed message from my mother; those little pieces of wisdom have become part of the woven fabric of my childhood. Do this, but don’t. Mom’s advice on dating was, “Be coy around men, but don’t play games.”
If you’re not supposed to talk about yourself and you are supposed to wait for people to ask about you, and yet people don’t really care to hear about you, then how will you ever get a chance to share about yourself?
When Andrea and I hear something that doesn’t make sense, we’ll say, “Sounds like one of Mom’s expressions.”
Andrea and her way-too-handsome husband, Mark, are missionaries in Taiwan now, and she often feels she’s getting mixed messages.
“You should see some of the English translated by Chinese—totally confusing,”
she wrote in an e-mail message shortly after she and Mark arrived in Taipei.
“I think Mom’s influence is strong even in Asia.”
As I set a place for one at the wooden dining table, I decide that it is just as well that I didn’t mention anything about Lucas to Miriam.
————
I wake and look at the digital clock on the bedside table. Two minutes after three. What woke me? Did I have pain in my legs, or my arms? What is that noise? I turn on my stomach and cover the back of my head with a pillow. This is a crazy thing to do because who can sleep with a pillow smothered over your head? The pillow feels heavy and stifles my neck. I can’t breathe. I toss the pillow aside. The noise is still there. Sitting up, I realize that it must be the hooting of an owl. Once, we had an owl living in our oak tree by the barn. My mother wanted to call the county extension service to come and rid us of its disturbing cries. But Daddy said the owls were in Tifton long before humans were and that we had to just let it be.
I’m wide awake now. I’ve slept through the sirens that blare throughout Atlanta, but sleeping through nature’s cries will take some getting used to. I wonder how Yolanda is doing. I miss the Peruvian delicacies she would share with me. My thoughts of arroz con pollo and leche asada are replaced with thoughts of my little apartment. My bedside table not only held an alarm clock but also a framed picture of Lucas. The thought of Lucas causes my skin to itch.
One thing I don’t do well is lie awake at night. Getting out of bed and doing something helps me when I can’t go back to sleep. After the accident, I woke at all hours, so I invested in a number of jigsaw puzzles. I sat at my kitchen table many nights while sirens blared around my neighborhood, working on finding the pieces to quiet forest scenes.
I leave my bed, pull on my bathrobe, climb down the loft stairs, and head outside onto the deck via the sliding glass door.
The night is chilly, but the fresh air feels good against my face and in my lungs. I stand with my hands on the deck railing and watch the stars glitter above me. They look so near; if I just reached out, I could gather a few hundred in my hand.
The owl continues his own concerto. Unlike the stars, he wants to remain unseen. I once wondered aloud what it would be like to listen to an orchestra play Vivaldi’s
La Stravaganza
in total darkness. No viewing of the musicians playing violins—just an audience sitting and listening to the notes in the blackness. Lucas asked me how the musicians would read their music if there was no light. I hadn’t thought of that. I suppose it would be too much to ask them to memorize it all. Lucas said it was an intriguing idea, however, and gave me that smile of his that seemed to encompass total appreciation for me.
“Ha!” I cry into the air. There is strength in the sound of my own voice. “Ha!” I repeat and hear the echo in the forest around my cabin.
I now wonder if Lucas’s smiles meant anything at all. When did he stop loving me? I once told Sally that perhaps he was trying to kill me that rainy night. She shook her head so hard her curls flung into her eyes. “Oh, Deena, no. No.”
“He was angry at me. We’d been arguing. Maybe he did want to kill me,” I said as Sally continued shaking her curls.
I don’t know why on this beautiful mountain night I have to spoil everything by thinking about Lucas, but my mind will not stray from these thoughts. Leaving Lucas and Atlanta was supposed to make me forget.
Finding out your boyfriend is secretly seeing someone else, and has been for a long time, makes your stomach feel like a bully wearing spikes just kicked it. When you’re a couple going to the movies on Friday night, when you’ve pledged your hearts to each other, and he asks someone else to dinner on Saturday, well, that burns.
It happened to me. And she’s pretty. Very. There I was picking out wedding invitations—contemplating over goldembossed or silver-lined and imagining the elegantly wrapped gifts guests would send us—and Lucas was wrapping his lips around Ella Loloby.
The nurse had just given me one of my Toradol pills when Sally and Jeannie entered the room and told me this. They asked how I was, but I could tell that was not why they were glancing at each other, avoiding my eyes, and refusing to smile. They waited to tell me until after the nurse took my temperature, checked the bandage around my forehead, and left the room.
Sally bit her lower lip. I’ve noted her habit; it’s always the right side of her bottom lip she sinks her pearly whites into. “Lucas is seeing Ella Lolly.”
“Loboly,” corrected Jeannie with certainty.
“Lobolo,” said Sally as she reached for my bandaged arm.
I moved my arm away from Sally’s hand. “What do you mean
seeing
?” I asked. My throat felt like someone was stuffing toast down it.
Sally moistened her lips, then bit her lower one. “Dating her,” she said. I could see the surge of pain in her eyes. I wanted to comfort her and tell her not to be so sad.