The Sisters Club (4 page)

“We don’t have crickets,” Joey said. “Or monsters.”

“And we’re used to the saggy old roof. It’s like it’s leaning down to hug us,” Alex said. “And these crooked old floors remember our footsteps.”

I didn’t want Mom to be a goofy chef on TV any more than Joey or Alex, but I could tell it meant a lot to her. So what did I do? I remembered my role as the middle sister, the glue, and I rushed in to save the day. “It’ll be great, Mom. Don’t worry. I can cook dinner. Alex and Joey will help me. Right, you guys?” Nobody answered.

“Just think,” said Alex. “You’ll be like that weird lady on the old Mary Tyler Moore reruns. The one with the corny cooking show.”

“Cooking shows don’t have to be corny anymore,” Mom said, defending herself. “They’re hip now.”

“Mom!” I told her. “It’s not even hip to
say
‘hip’!”

“Dad, you remember,” Alex continued. “The goofy lady who was always making flambé and flan and Florentine stuff. What was her name? Sue Ann?”

“Sue Ann Fondue?” Joey and I sprayed each other with laughter — and more mashed potatoes.

“Say it, don’t spray it,” said Alex, making us crack up and spray all the more.

“Sheesh,” said Mom. “This cooking thing is going to be a lot more complicated than I thought.”

I should have known the Reel Family was
in big trouble as soon as I laid eyes on the
Joy of Cooking.

It was the very next day after Martha-Stewart-formerly-known-as-Mom made her big announcement. She hauled this giant book out of the back of a cupboard we use like once a year, since you can only reach it by standing on a chair. The book was covered in dust that dated back to the
Titanic.

Mom dusted it off. She cracked open the spine.

“When did you get that?” I asked her, in between choking on one-hundred-year-old dust particles.

“It was a gift. When your dad and I got married.”

“Is it an antique?” asked Joey.

“It looks brand-new,” I said. (Minus the
Titanic
dust, that is.)

“I wonder why,” said Alex.

“Ha, ha,” said Mom, not laughing.

“I thought you were
acting,
” said Alex. “I thought you didn’t have to know how to cook.”

“Well, I should know something about it,” said Mom. “I have to get into my role, after all.”

There was no stopping her.

For seven days straight, we ate Mom’s cooking. She dished it up; we choked it down. Each night was more disgusting than the one before.

“What is this stuff, anyway?” I couldn’t help asking that first night.

“Beef tournedos,” said Mom.

“I know why they call it ‘tornado,’” Joey said. She pointed to the kitchen mess, cracking up. It did look like a disaster area.

All week, there were Quick Potato Dumplings that needed dumping and Cheese Puffs that didn’t puff. There was Chicken à la King without any king and Eggs Benedict that Benedict Arnold himself would not have eaten.

By the fifth night of cooking, Mom stared at the cheese-puff-stained cover of the cookbook. “I don’t know why they call this the
‘Joy’ of Cooking,
” said Mom. Joey and I rolled our eyes at each other. Mom looked at the author’s name on the cookbook. “Who is this Irma S. Rombauer person, anyway? She is going to hear from me.”

This is Mom’s favorite saying. Whenever she doesn’t like something, somebody is going to hear from her.

“I think Irma S. Rombauer is dead, Mom,” I said. “On account of the book being like a hundred years old.” I opened the book to a random page, looking to prove my point. “‘Potted Goose,’” I read aloud. “Did they have potted goose in colonial times, when this book was written?” I flipped some more pages. “‘Marinated Wild Birds.’”

“Marinated Wild Birds!” Alex shouted. “What kind of person would marinate wild birds? We should throw the book away this second. Before the Sierra Club arrests us.”

By the end of the week, we were getting pretty desperate — and pretty hungry.

“I know,” Joey said, trying to be helpful. “Why don’t you make something we’ve actually heard of? Like Jell-O. You make really good Jell-O.”

Joey could
live
on Jell-O. I’m surprised she doesn’t turn into the stuff.

“Ya know, one day we’re gonna wake up and there’s gonna be a jiggly mass of green stuff in your bed instead of you,” I warned. “Invasion of the Jell-O monsters.”

Joey grinned — like she thought turning into Jell-O was a good idea.

“How about Tuna Noodle Casserole?” I suggested. “It’s easy. Everybody knows how to make Tuna Noodle Casserole. You can’t go wrong. Look. It says right here in the
No-Joy of Cooking,
page 529. ‘Excellent Emergency Dish.’”

“This
is
an emergency,” said Mom.

“And if anything goes wrong, I can always put out the fire,” Dad called from the hallway. “I played a firefighter back in summer stock one year, remember?”

“Very funny,” Mom said. “I’m going to do this, and it’s not going to burn. Do you think maybe something’s wrong with our oven?”

“As in
Never Been Used
?” I asked.

“Oh, I see. A whole family of comedians,” said Mom. “Too bad they didn’t ask me to do stand-up.”

That night, Mom minced and whipped and greased and poured and sprinkled and sifted until she had herself one Foolproof Emergency Tuna Noodle Casserole.

“This is good noodle casserole,” Alex said, trying to sound encouraging. “Do you think they make noodle casserole on hip TV shows?”

“Not without tuna. I didn’t get any tuna in mine,” said Joey. I kicked her under the table. “Hey, Stevie kicked me.”

“Girls,” said Dad.

“I forgot the tuna?” wailed Mom. “I forgot the tuna, didn’t I? You can’t have Tuna Noodle Casserole without the tuna!”

“It’s fine,” said Dad. “Yum.” For an actor, he wasn’t very convincing.

Mom ran to call one of her sisters long-distance. Like she always does when things are looking worse than hopeless.

“I think I lost five pounds this week,” Alex whispered to me.

“I miss potatoes from a box,” I said.

“I miss Mom,” said Joey.

I could not face eating cold pizza or leftover
Chinese takeout for dinner one more time. Ever since Mom had gone back to work, we had not eaten together as a family — not once. Alex had caught Play Fever and was practicing for her
Beauty and the Beast
audition nonstop. She’d even stopped coming to Sisters Club Meetings! And Dad was busy building props for
Beauty
and directing a play next door at the Raven almost every evening.

The closest we could get to being a family was Joey and me eating soggy cornflakes for dinner while we watched Mom on TV. The first time Joey saw Fondue Sue, her eyes almost popped out — like some alien in a striped apron had taken over our mom. She had (matching) little dishes full of chopped-diced-minced things and powdery things, like magic potions that she tossed and flung, stirred, sautéed, and coddled.

“But Mom can’t even crack an egg,” said Joey.

“She can on TV,” I said.

Joey looked down at her dismal cornflakes, which now looked more like papier-mâché. “Those stuffed, wrapped thingies actually look good!” Joey said, leaning into the television.

I decided it was time for me to step in and make an RFD — Real Family Dinner?
Reel
Family Dinner! I mean, how hard could it be to cook? But I wasn’t about to do it all by myself.

First I tried to convince Alex. I even told her it was an Emergency SCM. In the past, that meant to drop everything and meet in Alex’s room in two seconds.

She didn’t even look up — she just mumbled she’d be downstairs in a few minutes (more like one hour!).
After
practicing her lines for her
Beauty and the Beast
audition, which she did like a million and one times a day.

Then I went to find Joey on Planet Jell-O (under the piano). She’d been living there all week, eating (what else?) lime Jell-O. It’s all I’ve seen her eat since Mom became Fondue Sue (besides the before-mentioned papier-mâché cornflakes).

“Do you think the pioneers ate Jell-O?” she asked me.

“No. The pioneers were smart. They knew that if you ate too much lime Jell-O, your face and hands would turn green, and your ears would jiggle and fall off.”

“Would not!”

“Would, too! What are you doing under there, anyway?

“I had to get inside my covered wagon because it was raining so hard.”

“Well, it stopped raining now. Come help me chop wood to start a cooking fire.”

“But the wood’s all wet. It won’t light.”

“C’mon, Joey! It’s Family Dinner! Mom would not want us moping around feeling all sorry for ourselves.”

Joey stuck her lip out.

“Stick that lip out any farther, and a chicken’ll come lay an egg on it.”

She pulled the lip in. I guess she did not want chickens roosting on her face.

“Don’t be stubborn. If I told you it’s for homework, would you help?”

“Maybe.”

“It’s for homework.”

“What kind of homework?”

“Science homework. Pretend we have to save something endangered.”

“Like what?”