A Second Bite at the Apple (30 page)

I think it's safe to say that was a disaster.

Given that I had neither a plan nor any right to be there, I shouldn't be surprised. But I thought maybe if Jeremy saw me, if he knew how sorry I was and that I was falling for him, he'd give me a second chance. How could I have been so stupid?

Once the two burly gentlemen have deposited me in the lobby of the Marriott, I stumble through the lobby and out the front door, my arms still aching from their tight grips. This is the second time in eight days that I've been forcibly dragged around by enforcement agents of one kind or another, and quite frankly, I've had enough. Did they really need to create such a scene? I will concede that I was the one kicking and screaming, but still. It's a beer conference. What were they so worried about? That I'd drink all of the Weizenbock?

I massage my throbbing biceps as I wander along Market Street, heading back toward City Hall. Once again, I'm not really sure where I'm going. Back to The Rittenhouse? Where my family is probably waiting to strangle me, if they haven't already strangled each other? Uh, no thank you. Then again, could it really be worse than making an ass of myself in front of a bunch of drunk porkers in Hawaiian shirts? Tough call.

When I finally reach Rittenhouse Square, I decide to take a seat on a bench along the fringes of the park, by the cobblestone path lined by tall elm, oak, and sycamore trees, whose leaves flutter and sparkle in the late afternoon light. I close my eyes and soak up the sounds of the city, the high-pitched squeals of children playing by the giant frog sculpture and the jingle-jangle of dog tags as the pooches and their owners trot through the square. I love the way every city has its own sounds, its own cadence, a timbre that reverberates through its streets and squares like a living, breathing soundtrack. I've missed the sounds of this city, the sound of being home.

“Mind if I join you?”

I open my eyes and see Libby standing in front of me, her hands clasped in front of her.

“Sure.” I scoot over, as if to make room, although I have the whole bench to myself.

Libby brushes off the bench, smoothes her stiff cream dress, and sits beside me. We sit in silence for a few minutes before Libby breaks the calm between us.

“So . . . where have you been?” she asks.

“Off ruining more lives. My own, mostly.”

She fiddles with the edge of her skirt. “Matt and I are putting the wedding on hold. At least for a little while.”

I look up at her. “I'm sorry.”

“Don't be. Wait, I take that back. You definitely could have handled things better in there.”

I sigh. “I know.”

She twirls a long strand of hair around her finger and then starts picking at the split ends. “Why didn't you tell me Dad lost his business?”

“He didn't want you to know. At least until after the wedding.”

“But if I'd known . . .” She kicks at a small pebble. “I feel like such an ass—the special chairs, the lobster menu. I would have been happy with a picnic in the backyard.”

“Libby, come on. A picnic?”

She wrinkles her nose. “Okay, fine. That's a stretch. But I would have been okay scaling everything way back. I'm not a total diva.”

I chuckle. “Since when?”

“Since . . . I don't know.” She leans back against the bench. “God, I guess I am a diva, aren't I? No wonder Matt cheated on me.”

“Libby, don't say that—it isn't your fault.”

“It's never just one person's fault,” she says.

I think back to the betrayals in my own relationships. Did I bear some of the responsibility for Zach's duplicity? Does Jeremy bear some of the responsibility for mine?

“I guess that's true,” I say. “But cheating on someone, lying to him or her—that's the coward's way out.”

She frowns as she twists her ankle back and forth, studying her hot pink toenails. “Yeah. I know.”

“So what do you think you'll do?”

“I don't know. I can't really think about it right now. I get too upset.”

“Okay. We don't have to talk about it.”

“Matt and I were supposed to go for a drink with Mom and Dad after the tasting, but I don't think the three of them should be in the same room right now.”

“They're not his biggest fans at the moment?”

She casts a sideways glance. “That's putting it mildly.”

“So what's the plan? You heading home?”

“I think I'll stay at Mom and Dad's tonight. I need my old bed. My old room.” She rests her hand on my knee. “You're staying too, right?”

“I don't know. I should probably head back to DC before I wreck any more lives.”

“Please stay? We can hang like old times.”

I snort. “Like what old times?”

“When we were younger. Before Zach came along.”

“We didn't really hang out much then either. You were always too cool for your dorky older sister.”

“That isn't true. We were just . . . different.”

“Yeah, different as in you were pretty and cool, and I wasn't.”

“First of all, that isn't true. You're totally pretty, and you're cool in that geek chic way. And how do you think I felt? I had an older sister who was an all-star student and won writing awards and landed a job at a major news network. Teachers would always say, ‘Oh, you're Sydney's sister!' and expect me to be like you. But then I'd bomb a math test, and I could tell what they were thinking: ‘Ah. She's just the dumb little sister.' ”

“You're not dumb. No one ever thought that.”

She sighs. “Whatever. The point is, I knew I couldn't be you, so I didn't try. I tried to be me. That worked out pretty well for me in high school. But now . . . I don't know.”

“What are you talking about? You have a job and tons of friends, and, until an hour or two ago, you were engaged to a successful lawyer.”

“I know. But sometimes I wonder if maybe I peaked in high school. A few high school friends and I had brunch a few weekends ago for a little reunion, and all we talked about were things that happened years ago. All I could think was, ‘Wow, is this all we have to talk about? Was that as good as it gets?' ”

“Trust me—high school is definitely
not
as good as it gets.”

“For you it wasn't. You've done all sorts of amazing things. Like the horsemeat story? The whole country is talking about it, and that's down to you.”

“Yeah, well, success has a price. Thanks to that story, I've alienated the one guy I've legitimately cared about since Zach.”

“The PR guy?”

I nod. “I'm pretty sure I destroyed any chance of making that relationship work.”

“How bad?”

“Like a grenade in a petroleum factory.”

“Sorry. That sucks.”

“Not gonna argue with you there.” I glance at Libby and picture what we must look like to an outsider. “Man, are we a couple of losers or what?”

“Speak for yourself, sister. You're the one I found sitting on a park bench like a bag lady.”

I elbow her. “Hey!”

“I'm just trying to put things in perspective.” She flashes a wry grin as she knocks her knee against mine.

We fall into a comfortable silence next to each other, our knees touching as we stare out at the square. Two little girls crawl onto the frog statue, the older one kissing it like a princess hoping it will turn into a prince, and the younger one follows suit, slobbering all over the smooth, granite amphibian. Their mother rushes up to them and wipes the younger one's mouth with a moistened tissue.

“I wish we hung out more like this,” I say. “Just you and me.”

She nods. “Me too.”

“We should do it more often.”

She nods again. “We will.”

I reach out, grab her hand, and hold it in mine. “Good,” I say. “I really hope so.”

At Libby's urging, I agree to spend the weekend at my parents' house like I'd originally planned. The two of us pile into the back of the bright orange Prius, and my mom zips out of The Rittenhouse driveway and follows my dad in his gray Ford Focus back to the suburbs.

My dad peels off to pick up some light bulbs as we pass the neighborhood hardware store, but my mom keeps driving, zipping past the houses and shops I remember from my childhood. As we turn down my old street, Stu Abbott calls. We have been e-mailing back and forth for the past week about future stories, but so far he hasn't liked any of my ideas.

“I'm meeting with my managing editor Monday, and I'd love to have something I can pitch to her,” he says. “Have you been able to come up with anything meatier? No pun intended.”

I bite my thumbnail as my mom pulls into the driveway and approaches the house I grew up in, a white brick colonial with pale green shutters and an arched overhang above the pale green door.

“You didn't like the story on homebrewing? Because I think that could make for a great multimedia piece—lots of visuals.”

He makes a snoring sound. “Boring. Is there anything we can do to further the horsemeat story? Other than the obvious follow-up stuff?”

I think back to the conversations I had with Drew and Rick the day after the story came out. “What about a piece on the farmers' market partnership that fell through? We could talk about the impact the scandal is having on some of the company's other initiatives.”

“Meh. Sounds fluffy.”

“It doesn't have to be.” I hold the phone between my shoulder and my ear as I follow my sister into the house, dragging my suitcase by the handle. “The financial ripple effects are huge. Like that woman, Maggie, at Broad Tree Orchards? She planted a field full of new trees, expecting the pilot program to take off. But now that it isn't, she has a bunch of fruit she can't sell, and she's screwed.”

“I told you, we have the human interest stuff covered. We need you for the juicy stuff.”

“I know. But . . .”

“But what?”

“That isn't the kind of food writer I want to be.”

“You don't want to expose the bad guys? You don't want to make a difference?”

“I do want to make a difference.” I feel my mom's and sister's eyes on me. “Just not like that.”

“Listen, that's the kind of reporter we're looking for, so if you can't deliver, then maybe you should look elsewhere. Call me if and when you come up with a serious story idea. What you've sent me so far isn't going to cut it.”

He hangs up, and I groan as I toss my phone in my bag and take a seat on one of the barstools along my parents' kitchen island.

“What was that about?” Libby asks.

“Oh, nothing, just my future livelihood.” I hold my head in my hands. “I could finally have the job I've always wanted, but it turns out it isn't what I thought it would be.”

“No?” my mom says. “What's the problem?”

“They want me to be someone I'm not.”

“Then don't be that person.”

I look up at her. “You make it sound so easy.”

“I never said it was easy. Sometimes being yourself is the hardest thing.”

I fold my arms on the counter and rest my chin on them. “Lately I can't even remember who I am.”

“You're the geek who tries to put a human face on the food system,” Libby says. “And who has an extremely limited fashion sense.”

I lift my head and glare at her.

“Sorry,” she says. “I had to. You make it too easy.”

“Libby, why don't you take Sydney's things upstairs while I talk to your sister for a second, okay?”

Libby opens her mouth, about to balk at the idea, but something about my mom's expression stops her and she relents, grabbing my suitcase and disappearing upstairs.

“All this talk about your food-writing career . . . There's something I've been meaning to talk to you about,” my mom says.

“Yeah?”

“A few months ago, when we talked on the phone, you said something that . . . well, I haven't been able to stop thinking about it.”

“Uh oh. What'd I say?”

“We were talking about Libby's wedding, and you referred to the ‘Bank of Strauss,' and when I said it was never closed you said, ‘Except if your name is Sydney and you want to pursue a career in food journalism.' ”

“Oh. Right.”

“Do you really feel that way?”

I shrug. “I mean . . . yeah. Why do you think I took such a detour with the job at
The Morning Show
?”

“Because I thought that's what you wanted.”

“Really? You thought I wanted to work with a jackass whose idea of a fun story involved crashing into a camera on skis?”

“It was one of the most popular morning shows in the country. Who wouldn't want to work on that show? We figured, when you turned down the one food-writing opportunity that came your way—”

“That was because of Zach.”

“Right. But you never really pursued another food-writing job after that, so we thought you'd lost interest.”

“I realized I could never afford it, and you guys would never help me.”

She frowns. “You never asked.”

“You never offered.”

“That's because we thought you didn't want our help.”

I sit up straight. “What would make you think that?”

“You've always been so . . . independent. Even in high school, you did your own thing, marched to your own beat, never really . . .
needed
us, the way your sister did.”

“Of course I needed you. You're my parents.”

“But not in the way Libby did.”

“Right. Because Libby has always been the favorite.”

“No,” my mom says, her tone stern. “Because she lived in Libby Land, and your father and I needed to watch over her, or God knows where she'd have ended up. We never had to worry about you. We knew you'd be fine.”

I run my hand along the edge of the counter. “Sometimes I wish you'd watched over me a little, too. Just because I was independent doesn't mean I didn't need you.”

Her shoulders slump, and she looks at me for a long while. “You don't make it easy for people to help you, Sydney. Whenever we tried, you made us feel like we were intruding. You wanted to do everything on your own.”

“Not everything.”

“Well, if you needed help, you certainly never asked for it.”

I glance down at the counter. “I didn't think I'd have to. You're my mom. Moms are supposed to know these things.”

“Even moms make mistakes. We're not perfect.”

“I know. I just . . . Sometimes I felt a little like the ugly duckling. Like you wished I could be more like Libby.”

“I never felt that way. Ever. You were my superstar—are my superstar.” She comes to my side of the counter and wraps her arms around me, pulling me in for a tight hug. “I'm sorry,” she says. “I never meant to give you that impression.”

“It's okay.”

She pulls away and lets out a deep sigh. “No, it's not. With you and your sister . . . I didn't always do the right thing. Libby was so needy, but sometimes a mom wants to feel needed—to feel necessary. After all the bottles and diapers and sleepless nights, to wake up one morning and realize your little babies are young women, who have their own lives and don't really need you anymore . . . It isn't easy, especially for a stay-at-home mom like me. If my daughters didn't need me, then what good was I? Did I even have a purpose? You seemed ready to fly the nest when you were fourteen. But Libby was more helpless, and looking back on it now, I probably took advantage of that.”

I gaze into my mom's eyes, which glisten in the light above the island. “I didn't mean to make you feel unnecessary. I did need you. I still do. I just never knew how to tell you that.”

She brings me in for another hug. “I hope you know how much I love you. How much your father and I both love you.”

I hug her back. “I do. I love you, too.”

Libby comes crashing down the stairs and bursts into the kitchen, interrupting with the sort of obliviousness that has become both predictable and endearing.

“Hey—sorry to break up this hugfest, but who feels like brownies? We didn't get to try any cake at the tasting, and I'm in need of chocolate.”

My mom pulls away, the scent of her perfume lingering on my shoulder. “Okay. Did you want to bake a batch?”

“Yeah.” Her eyes land on me. “The three of us. Together.”

My mom looks at Libby, then at me, and smiles. “Let's hurry, then,” she says. “It's getting late, and we don't want to waste any more time.”

 

Over the next two days, my family recrystallizes into a unit, each of us falling into variations of our former roles. Libby and I are still the children, and my parents are still the parents, but our attitudes and responsibilities have shifted. Now my mom, Libby, and I cook together, starting a new tradition with all three of us in the kitchen. While they peel and chop and truss, I season and slice and sear. We're a team—the Strauss women—and with us behind the stove, there's no telling what we can do.

On Sunday morning, my mom bursts into the kitchen as the rest of us eat breakfast, a smile plastered on her face.

“Kitchen Kapers just called,” she says. “I got the job!”

It's the happiest I've seen her in months, and although I know she'd rather not have to reenter the workforce at fifty-six years of age, she seems ready for a change.

“Congratulations!” we say in unison.

“We should celebrate tonight,” Libby says. “Something special.”

“Why don't I cook dinner?” I suggest.

My parents and Libby stare at me. I cannot tell if their expressions reveal astonishment, skepticism, interest, or all three.

“Sure,” my mom says. “What would you like to make?”

I pause. “Spaghetti carbonara.”

Libby hesitates. “You sure?”

“Yes,” I say. “I'm positive.”

That night, I whip up a dinner of spaghetti carbonara, using the same recipe Zach and I attempted all those years ago. I fry the bits of pancetta in my mom's stainless steel frying pan, filling the kitchen with the rich smell of fried pork and the pop and hiss of sputtering grease. I whip together the eggs and cheese, and when the pasta is perfectly al dente, I dump it into the pan with the pancetta, pouring the eggs on top and tossing everything together until the spaghetti glistens in a thick, creamy sauce.

My family gobbles up the silky noodles studded with flecks of salty pancetta, washing down mouthfuls with glasses of cheap champagne. At one point, as my mom slurps down a long noodle, she looks at me and winks.

“Thank you,” she says. “This is perfect.”

I twirl the velvety pasta around my fork, take a bite, and swallow it with relish. “You're right,” I say. “It is.”