L'America (30 page)

"So it was the money you were after," he said, teasing her. He scooped her up and kissed her on the cheek. "Like a good brother," he explained, adding: "If you don't want the money, I'll quit my job."

"No, no. Don't quit your job. You're going to have to get me out of debt someday." He laughed and she laughed and their relationship was resolved and she felt happy to know that he was there (as a brother).

"Wait until he finds a girlfriend," Sylvia said to Beth over the phone all the way from California (a free call, thanks to Beth's schemes).

"That would be a relief. When are you visiting?"

"When I sell my novel. And you?"

"Once I open a restaurant and it gets a great review."

"Trapped by the poverty of youth."

"I miss you."

"He loves you."

She started having dinner parties with friends from work, with friends from college who had returned to New York after having had their post-graduation flings with other cities, with friends of Hunter's though she always (mistakenly) believed she would have nothing to say to the investment bankers, would have no idea how to talk their language. She made elaborate meals, Persian, of course. She learned the names of the dishes:
kashk-o bademjan
and
borani-e esfenaj, kukuye sabzi, run-e bareh.
She wanted her apartment to be like a culinary salon. She became extravagant, hunting down Persian caviar, beluga and sevruga, serving it with vodka and champagne (Dom Perignon supplied by Hunter, of course). For atmosphere, she would put on some Persian music and place all the food in the center of the table along with platters of fresh herbs and rose petals scattered here and there.

Indian feasts were another of her specialties. Wanting people to know the pleasures that lay beyond the familiar pilafs and curries and vindaloos, she introduced them to more authentic, exotic dishes like
idli upma
and
bhel puri, kararee bhindi,
Malabar salmon and
Gobi lahsuni
(she loved the names), to chutneys with sour pears and tomatoes and coconut. She was eager, if asked, to explain the subtle science of their spices, of cilantro and tamarind and mustard seed and cumin and coriander. Her apartment always smelled exotic. Regularly she would make nine-curry meals and ask everyone to use their fingers, explaining why. Beth relied on lessons picked up from Preveena and Nasim, supplemented by urgent calls to them at Claire. Beth and her friends would have long conversations by candlelight late into the night, talking about books and politics and local restaurant gossip: who had been reviewed, what young stars were shooting up, who was writing a cookbook, what advance she had been paid, what new food store was opening. The food people—friends from Lago primarily, kitchen help like Beth, all of whom took food seriously and wanted someday to be the chef—rarely tried to hide their jealousy of the latest young chef who was rocketing toward the culinary stratosphere and they were endlessly critical of any new restaurants even if they hadn't tried them.

"Zoo is a zoo and what a name."

"I'm more talented than that guy. I can tell you that, even at my worst."

"It's because of who he is."

"Who is he?"

"Jake McFundy's son."

"He's male. It's because he's male." Out for the evening, away from the restaurant and Cosella and silent Leo, they would all feel a certain freedom as if they owned themselves again, as if their futures really were their own. Inevitably though they'd start talking about Cosella and the latest insult she had thrown at one of them. Old stories and new stories, Beth's story of the trust fund, would come bubbling up; even off work, they weren't free of Lago.

Someone would change the subject. A relief. They'd argue about French cuisine and the techniques—clarifying butter, beating egg whites in ice, beating egg yolks in a bath of warm water—using Julia Child to support themselves or dismissing her entirely as elitist. "I don't agree with her, but elite she is not." And then she'd be described by someone who had met her, even if briefly, perhaps even just a handshake. (Secretly Beth had decided she wanted to become the Julia Child of Italian cuisine.)

They talked until there was nothing left to say and they felt glutted and a little dirty and futile. Hunter would pour glasses of Armagnac and change the subject to the theater and the ballet and the opera and the latest exhibit at the Guggenheim, none of which the foodies could afford or had much time for, but they would be relieved to no longer be fixated on the successes of others, and they would listen to the bankers talking about the arts and making comments (not mean) about the size of Beth's studio, enjoying the intimacy, the idea of slumming it.

After the meals Beth would give each of them a finger bowl and drip rose water into their palms. She loved entertaining: loved the days of thought and preparation; loved choosing what to wear, making the meal, setting the table with all the silver and all the candles, hanging (ironed) linen towels in the bathroom, lighting dozens of votive candles, placing them here and there; loved especially the appreciation afterward. "I want to marry Beth," someone would always declare. She would not let the size of her apartment stop her from what she wanted to do most. Most of all, she loved the romance of food, especially of Persian and Indian cuisine, the deep history, the sensuous quality of the flavors and of using your hand and a piece of nan or a branch of fresh dill in lieu of a fork. But Italian was always her strength.

 

Through Hunter she heard of another illegal sublet on the Upper West Side. With two bedrooms, a living room and a dining room, this one had four times the space of the studio, and, best of all, it cost only five hundred dollars per month. Beth had grown wise to the ways of the city: with a roommate to pay the rent, she could live rent-free and not need to worry about finding another waitressing job. So she did just that and more. Instead of giving up the apartment on York Avenue she sub-sublet it, illegally, of course, for double what she paid to Georgia Lazar, and thus she was not only not paying rent, she was making enough money each month to be able to live on her Lago salary. Promptly she went to her French boutique on Madison and bought another outfit, a pleated black skirt covered with the finest white polka dots and a matching shirt. She bought a black leather jacket and a pair of shoes. She went back to the salon with the borzois and had her hair bobbed to just above her chin. She looked French. In her new apartment she hosted a Persian dinner for ten. She loved New York.

A year later she lost this apartment because the building belonged to Columbia University and she was renting it from professors who had long since left Columbia. The school had finally caught up with them. Hunter set Beth up with a realtor who adored her the instant she met her simply because of Beth's determination to attain the unrealistic: "I want to find something big and beautiful and cheap," Beth declared.

"I have just the thing but you'll never be able to afford it," the realtor responded. "Unless, of course, you can get that cute man who's in love with you to pay for it." The realtor was a large woman with thin reddish hair and a slight smile that seemed almost a smirk. She had had three husbands consecutively and from each husband she had a son. The husbands were Turkish, Israeli, and Spanish respectively. "I'm making my way west," she explained. "The next husband will be American." What she really wanted was to be a painter.

"Tell me about it?" Beth asked referring to the apartment.

The apartment was several blocks south of where she lived now, three times again as large, with windows facing south, views of the Empire State Building, views to the west of the Hudson, three bedrooms, a formal dining room, and a large living room. The rent was not much, but still beyond her budget. She calculated in her head, as she wandered from room to room, lingering at the windows to admire the view, that simply by getting two roommates and by having them pay the rent she could live rent-free again in grander style still.

"I want it," she said.

"Fifteen thousand cash in a paper bag," the realtor replied, with that knowing smirk of hers. The real estate deal involved placing all those thousands in the paper bag and handing it off to a man in a long dark leather coat on the corner of 103rd and Broadway near the one line. He, in turn, handed Beth a large envelope in which, she hoped, she would find the lease (rent stabilized) in her name and the keys. He had the longest, most delicate fingers she had ever seen on a man. His fingernails were manicured. Only reluctantly did he let go of the envelope. Then he vanished down the stairs into the subway station and she never saw him again. She had borrowed the money from Hunter (he did not advise this transaction), agreeing to pay him back each month with the money she earned off of her York Avenue apartment and from her tenants. (Eventually Hunter referred to the various tenants as "Beth's mules.") The night she got the keys she invited him over. The apartment was still empty, the late sun poured through the windows (it was summer). She plugged in a boom box, slipped in a cassette of Chopin, put on her shimmering black-tasseled thrift-store gown and waltzed from room to room until Hunter arrived with champagne. He opened all the windows and a gentle breeze rushed in from downtown. She kissed him that night. One small kiss, that was all. One small kiss that did not make her feel shocks and stabs and jabs, that did not leave her hungry. Rather the kiss, small as it was, seemed to wrap around her like water, like that gigantic Colorado sky draping the earth. "I'm sorry," she said, pushing back from him.

"For what?" he asked.

"Because I can't do this," she said.

"Why?"

She said nothing and he knew why.

"You should have come to Wall Street," he said after a bit, sweeping his arm in a grand gesture around the living room to acknowledge her accomplishment. "You don't mind risk and you understand probability. By now you'd be a multimillionaire." And he raised his glass to her.

Always, she thought of Cesare. And always his calls came, far apart, yes, but like sporadic tracer flames they lit up the darkness.

***

At Carnegie Hall with Hunter one night, there to watch some friends of his from Germany play in a quartet, she became smitten with a small violinist named Hans, and he with her, much to Hunter's disappointment. Beth's infatuation would lead Hunter to a romance of his own that would become quite serious. The girl's name was Dina, and she was a model for Bloomingdale's, who, with her long legs, wore miniskirts easily. Beth would lie in bed at night, imagining them out on the town, spending all of Hunter's money, Dina unappreciative of his exotic excursions to thrift stores and Persian rug marts. At least, though, Beth felt freed from guilt.

Beth and Hans met after the performance, stayed out all night, walked through Central Park to her apartment at dawn just as the joggers and the businessmen were starting the day. In her kitchen she undressed him. On the side of his jaw where the violin pressed into it, a tough leathery patch had formed. She touched it. It was black and ugly like an enormous mole. He was her size. She did not need to look up to him, rather she could look straight into him. She began to kiss the leather patch, the back of his neck, each eye. She loved that he was her size. She kissed his collarbone, his nipples, his belly button. At his penis she lingered for a while until he lifted her to him and undressed her, throwing off her cute French clothes, pushing back her cute French bob. And they spent the day in this way in her new apartment, her roommates safely at work. They did this whenever he flew in from Germany, in his hotel above Carnegie Hall, in a taxi, in the park. Sometimes he would lie her naked on the bed and play Mozart for her on his violin until she could bear patience no longer. From Germany he wrote her long desperate love letters that made her laugh. She loved being admired, she loved that men were attracted to her. It made her want more men, many men.

Men appeared from everywhere. She dated all the time. She never slept. She went out with a Brazilian architect who liked to eat tongue and get her stoned and fuck her on his architectural drawings and on the children's furniture he had designed. Through him she met a woman who made a lot of money in Hollywood because she had the unique ability to mimic weird sounds. She could crow like a rooster, howl like a siren, purr like a cat, growl like a hyena. Beth had a fast and delightful affair with that woman's husband, who was elated that she didn't mimic the sounds of beasts upon climaxing. All these men drifted across her life, gliding by as if on a conveyor belt before disappearing. She dated other people's boyfriends; she dated other married men. They took her to fancy restaurants; they picked her up late after work. They offered her fine wines, some drugs, gave her pretty presents, invited her on trips to faraway places they happened to be visiting on business. She had an affair with a man twice her age who had three children, the oldest of whom was only three years younger than she. Her involvement with all of the men was never emotional. She did not care when they left or she left. They were fun, that was all. She enjoyed being adept at letting go.

 

With the help of Cosella, who now knew all about Beth's life at Claire, her dead mother, and her Italian love affair, and who as a result had adopted Beth as a sort of daughter, Beth started a small catering company, catering parties for Leo and Cosella at their Fifth Avenue apartment. Leo, when not at work, never wanted to cook. For them, for their parties, Beth liked to cook anything but Italian. She was not afraid to try other cuisines, but often she made her elaborate Indian meals and Persian feasts, encouraging Leo and Cosella to encourage their friends to eat with their fingers. Their friends were important people and it gave Beth a thrill to feed them: politicians, actors, singers, famous writers, a jazz musician or two. (She even cooked for Bill Clinton—before he ran for president.) Beth had either heard of Leo and Cosella's friends or knew that if she hadn't heard of them she should have, simply by the way Cosella said their names. These dinners led to other dinners and before long Beth was able, with the consent and goodwill of Cosella, to quit her job at Lago. By this time she was sous-chef in pastry and this was as far as she would ever get at Lago. She knew it; Cosella knew it. The higher positions would never be vacated, so Cosella gave her a chance in another way. It was the elaborate displays Beth created, the exquisite details, that people loved—those finger bowls and the rose water, the barberries (which they had not known to have existed) and the ambrosial rice noodle sorbet. Beth would always emerge from the kitchen at the end of the meal to drip the rose water on the guests' palms herself, radiant in some splendid outfit with a clean white apron tied around her waist and her hair pulled back with a bandeau or up in the smallest chignon. Cosella would stand at the head of the table, raise her glass to Beth, and make a toast, ask Beth to take a bow. All the famous guests would clap.