Kitchen Chaos (21 page)

As soon as I walk in, I stop caring about my
wardrobe. Something is wrong—terribly wrong. The house is foggy, and a horrible scorched smell assaults me as I run toward the kitchen. Dad's off on his fire training trip, so did the The Goons decide to burn the house down?

I plow through the kitchen door. It's worse than I thought. Much worse. The kitchen reeks of smoke and the oven door is wide open. Our rolls. Our precious rolls that we lovingly mixed and kneaded and baked all day yesterday. The rolls that were supposed to blow Mr. McEnroe—and, you know, everyone else—away. The rolls that Liza and Lillian entrusted to me. The rolls that were the key to my “awesomeness” are buried in an avalanche of foam, presumably from the mini fire extinguisher currently in my brother Leo's hands. Of course we have one conveniently located in the kitchen—my dad is a firefighter, after all.

For possibly the first time ever, I'm speechless. I am choking on words and screams and sobs that are
duking it out in my throat to see what comes out first. If I weren't leaning on the doorframe, I think I might collapse.

I realize that Mom, Leo, and Nicky are all looking at me. My mom, who must see the homicidal glint in my eyes as I glare at Goon Number One, rushes toward me.

“Francesca, sweetheart, it was me. It was all
my
fault. I am so, so sorry, honey. I am so sorry.”

She leads me to a chair, and I am trying to process her words. Of course it's all her fault. There's an oven involved. Why wouldn't it be?

She strokes my hair back from my face while my brothers just stare at me. I must look really scary, because neither of them is saying anything—at all. Highly unusual.

Mom kneels down next to me. “I was trying to be helpful. When Nicky and I got home, I took Dad's gnocchi out of the freezer and put the oven on. I was opening the peanut butter jar for Nicky at the
same time, so I just shoved the gnocchi on the top rack without really looking and went downstairs to do some laundry. While I was down there, I smelled the smoke and heard Nicky scream. When I got back to the kitchen, Leo had saved the day with the fire extinguisher. But, um, unfortunately, your rolls got ruined in the process.”

She looks nervously at my brother, who seems reluctant to attract my attention by moving, speaking, or even blinking.

“It was a little overkill, I know. I mean, we probably could have salvaged the rolls from the box and definitely the gnocchi. But it was quick thinking on his part, Frankie—he was doing what he thought Dad would have done. And neither of us meant to hurt anything. Or anyone.”

When I've finally cleared my throat of all the competing emotions, my voice is actually pretty much under control, given how I feel.

“And what about the ginormous sign that said
‘Keep Out'? How did you not see it? The one that said ‘On Pain of Death,' because of its precious contents? Did you think for a minute after reading it that maybe turning on the oven or blasting it with toxic foam might
not
be the thing to do?”

Nicky holds up a paper airplane. “This sign, Frankie?” he asks in a voice so small and scared that I actually almost feel bad for him. “I wanted to try the new airplane my friend Julian taught me before I forgot how to make it. So I just grabbed the first piece of paper I saw. I didn't look at what it said.” He sort of gulps. “Is this your sign?”

Of course it is. And of course he didn't read it. It wasn't covered with pictures of Greek gods or vehicles or superheroes.

Mom looks miserable. Some other time I might feel sorry for her, but this is not that time. “I should have noticed the bakery box,
bella
, but you know I'm always doing three things at once and forgetting to look both ways. And Leo was just trying to save the
day.” She smoothes my hair again. “Nobody meant to ruin your snack.”

Nicky chimes in. “Or Pop's gnocchi.”

My snack?
That did it. “Snack? Snack? Those rolls were not just a snack, they were an important part of a
group
project for
tonight
! A part of the project we worked really hard on. All day yesterday, remember? There's no way we can make more sourdough in time! You have to have a starter, and . . .” I have to stop. This must be what they call a “panic attack”—I'm having trouble catching my breath and “using my words,” as Mom likes to say to Nicky. I just want to scream and punch something—or someone.

It occurs to me that I have to tell Liza and Lillian what happened. They're probably getting dressed right now, thinking that everything is fine, when, in fact, everything is SO. NOT. FINE. And how much will they hate me when they hear about this latest Caputo catastrophe?

I storm out to get my phone. Mom and the boys
are trying to clean up and talking to one another in hushed tones. I'm not sure I can trust my voice, so I decide to text Liza instead. All I can think of to say is one word:

DISASTER.

Then, just so she doesn't think I'm in the hospital—although that sounds like an excellent place to be right now—I send another:

ROLLS DESTROYED.

Then I send the same message to Lillian.

Liza must not have her phone nearby, but Lillian writes back immediately.

What happened?

How can I describe it in a text? I try:

Fire . . . foam . . . all gone.

My message has barely gone when she replies:

We can fix it. Can I come over?

Fix it? How? Even if I thought it were possible, it would be Liza's help I wanted, not Lillian's. But if Liza's not around, what choice do I have?

Yes,
I text back.

Then I try calling Liza. She always knows what to do in a crisis. And I need her. On what feels like the hundredth ring, she picks up her phone, all out of breath. I tell her what happened.

First she just says, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”

But then she calms down, and although she doesn't seem mad, exactly, she sounds a little, well, annoyed. She says she wasn't sure the oven was the safest place to store the roles in the first place. This is not what I need to hear right now.
Thanks, Lize. Thanks a lot.

Also, there's no way she can come over to help me and Lillian, because she's watching Cole while her mom finishes baking. She offers to call us if she comes up with any brilliant ideas, but I tell her we'll just figure something out.

When I hang up, I realize that I appreciate the fact that Lillian was instantly willing to spring into action.
At least she's on her way over, which is more than I can say for Liza.

I take a deep breath and go back into the kitchen. All three of my brothers are here now, cleaning the oven and helping Mom open all the sticky windows. We have less than two hours before we're supposed to be at school, and we have to start from scratch.

The boys take one look at me and leave the room. I guess I have that “storm cloud” look my dad sometimes talks about. My mom looks up from scooping more foam.

“Hey,
bella
. I know you're upset, but let's try to come up with a solution, okay? We can run to Mazzola's and pick up—”

“No,” I interrupt her. “We have to make something, that's the whole point. That's why we took the class and everything.” My fists are clenched; I'm still having a hard time with “using my words.”

“Frankie,” Mom says, “whether you make something from scratch or not, the class was worth it. For
lots of reasons.” She comes over and kisses the top of my head and then looks me right in the eyes. “I may not be a chef yet, but I loved hanging out with my big, brilliant girl for a few hours every week. And we made some new friends.”

That's all great, but I cannot think about mother-daughter bonding right now. And you know how when someone's trying to be nice to you while you're upset, it actually makes it harder not to cry? That is totally happening.

“Thanks,” I mumble, ducking away from my mom. “But now what do we do?”

The doorbell rings. Lillian must have flown here. I run to the front door, and she's standing there, out of breath, holding her bike. I guess she
did
pretty much fly here. I have to admit I'm happy to see her.

Back in the kitchen Mom gives Lillian a hug. I guess she's happy to see her too.

I tell Lillian exactly what happened and how everything got so messed up. She takes a long look
around the room and then turns to me with that calm, kittenlike expression of hers.

“You're right, Frankie, your text did not lie. This is a
disaster
.” On another day that might have made me mad, but somehow, right now, it was the perfect thing to say. We both laugh harder than we should, but it makes total sense.

Mom looks confused, but she's not about to question any improvement in my mood. She claps her hands like the second-grade teacher that she is and says, “Ladies, what can we do to make this right? Is there anything else from your project we can make, anything that might be easy?”

Lillian scrunches up her forehead like she's thinking hard, but I've got nothing. And I'm more than a little worried about my mom using the word “we.” I watch her shovel more foam into a garbage bag, which probably also contains the remnants of our rolls and Dad's gnocchi. To stop myself from obsessing over damage that can't be undone, I run to get our
carefully packed-up dioramas. Maybe if we look at what we've made, something will strike us. Another big idea would come in handy right about now.

The table is relatively clutter-free, so I spread out all our stuff: the dioramas, the papier-mâché food, the reports and illustrations mounted on poster boards. My mom stops trying to come up with a solution to the disaster (that she was partially responsible for) and takes a good look at our project. “You girls did all that? It's amazing!”

I catch Lillian's eye and we smile. Then Mom asks, “I hate to be dense, but what's the pink thing with the waffle-y base?”

I sigh, not really in the mood to explain. “That's our ice-cream cone, can't you tell? Ice cream was brought to America by a bunch of different immigrant groups—”

Lillian stops my mini-lecture and grabs the papier-mâché cone and practically dances around the room. “That's it! That's what we can do!”

“Huh?” Mom and I both say together.

Lillian is so excited, she squeaks. “We can make the ice-cream cone! I mean, we can buy ice cream and take it in a cooler full of ice—do you guys have a cooler? And who doesn't love waffle cones, right? They may not be exactly like the ones you get at an ice-cream parlor, but we can run out and buy a bunch of boxes of frozen waffles, defrost them, try to flatten them out a bit somehow with a rolling pin or something, maybe fold them into a cone shape to hold a scoop of ice cream?”

That's brilliant.
Totally
brilliant. I can tell my mom thinks so too. “Actually, Lillian, we don't have to buy the waffles,” she says. “I'm married to a master waffle maker and we have a waffle iron right here.”

Uh-oh, just when I was finally seeing some light at the end of this disastrous tunnel . . . “Um, Mom? Dad is the master waffle maker.
Dad.
And he's not here, remember?”

She puts her hand on my shoulder and leans in
to my scowling face. “Have a little faith, Francesca. I'm going to make the waffles. How about you believe in me, just like I believe in you? Besides”—she winks—“I have a secret weapon this time: you two!”

I look at her for a minute. She raises her eyebrows as if to say,
Well?
Finally, I shrug and throw up my hands. What else can I do? It's a plan. The only plan we have.

She and Lillian start bustling around the kitchen, cracking eggs, sifting flour, plugging in the waffle iron. They seem to really want me to go out and get tons of ice cream, so Mom yells for one of The Goons to help me and the other to come finish cleaning the kitchen. And the amazing thing is that they do. No complaining, no wisecracks, they just do it.

Joey, Nicky, and I take Mom's wallet and run to the grocery store, picking out a bunch of different ice creams and loads of ice. We decide to get flavors like French vanilla and dulce de leche that were invented in other countries—or at least sound like
they were. By the time we get home, the kitchen is a waffle factory. Leo has basically removed all evidence of the Catastrophe, and my mom and Lillian are churning out doughy, golden waffles in perfect harmony. While they're still warm from the iron, Lillian artfully folds the waffles and ties them with string in a perfect little bow. Good thing Nicky keeps a giant ball of string around!

Leo found a bunch of large sneaker boxes somewhere that he's lined with wax paper to hold the waffle cones (hopefully, the only sneakers in these boxes were brand new!). My mom, who is covered in flour and still has a little foam in her hair, is more pleased with herself than I've ever seen her look in a kitchen. Only a few of the waffles burned around the edges, and Lillian and I just scrape those bites off. Nobody will ever know.

As for the traditional Italian dish that we're supposed to bring to the potluck, Mom and Lillian are all over that, too. There's always a ton of pasta in our
pantry, and Mom has assigned Joey the job of boiling the noodles, which reduces the possibility of injuries. Who knew my brothers were actually this capable? Even Nicky is helping. He found some jars of my dad's famous marinara sauce in the cabinet, so we'll just dump that on the pasta and top it with some fresh basil leaves from the plant Dad always has growing on the windowsill. As Chef Antonio would say,
bueno, bueno.

Watching Lillian quietly skipping around our kitchen, making little jokes with my brothers, having fun cooking with my mother, and maintaining her cool when I absolutely lost mine, I realize something about her that I probably should have known a long time ago: She's a true friend. She came to my rescue when I was never that nice to her, when I never even wanted her around. But here she is. And, if I haven't completely scared her away, I hope she'll stick around.