Tender at the Bone (31 page)

Rick liked the spaghetti. The next week we tackled brownies.

“Melt these two squares of chocolate over boiling water,” I instructed, handing the double boiler to the Superstar. She looked baffled.

“Put water in the bottom pot and the chocolate in the top,” I said irritably. “Put the top pot inside the bottom one and put it on the heat.”

I should have known better; she, of course, put the water and the chocolate in the same pot. We tried again.

“See,” I said, bringing the water to boil in the bottom and melting
the chocolate on top of it, “it keeps the chocolate from scorching.”

“From what?”

“From burning and smelling very, very bad.” I took the melted chocolate off the fire.

“Now we’re going to cream the butter.”

“I didn’t know you could make cream out of butter,” she said.

I sighed. “It’s just a word that means you stir until it’s soft.”

“Why do they call it cream then?”

“It’s got to be an act,” said Doug. “Part of her Superstar persona. Or else somebody told her men like dumb women.”

I had never measured ingredients for pastry before, but I did so now, meticulously noting down how much flour, butter, Crisco, and ice water I was using. It didn’t help; the first crust the Superstar made was so tough that she wailed, “I can’t feed this to Rick.” I suddenly remembered that Doug’s grandmother had given me an old recipe she said was foolproof. I threw the leaden one into the garbage and got out a clean bowl.

“Put four cups of flour, one tablespoon of sugar, and two teaspoons of salt into that bowl,” I said to the Superstar. She worked slowly, tongue between her teeth, leveling off each ingredient with a knife.

“Now stir them with a fork,” I commanded. She did, laboriously.

I handed her the Crisco and another measuring cup. “Measure three quarters of a cup of that white stuff.”

“Ooh,” she said, “it’s disgusting.” I showed her, again, how to cut the shortening into the flour with a pastry cutter until it was the size of peas.

I handed her another measuring cup and told her to fill it with a half cup of water. “Now add 1 tablespoon of white vinegar,” I said, handing her the bottle, “and an egg.” She broke the egg in. “Stir
them together and add them to the flour and shortening mixture. Now stir it all together with the fork.”

“Look!” she cried, “it’s all coming together.”

“That’s what it’s
supposed
to do,” I said, tearing up waxed paper and laying it on the counter. “Divide it into five balls and wrap each one in this.”

So far, so good. I put them in the refrigerator to rest for half an hour as she droned on about Rick and what a wonderful lover he was.

Foolproof indeed. The Superstar thumped on the pastry as she rolled it out but the crust was flaky and fine.

“Next week,” I promised, “lemon meringue pie.”

“Next week,” she promised, “I’ll try to get Andy to come look at Pat’s costumes.”

None of us were optimistic but we scrubbed the loft. Pat worked around the clock trying to finish a group of costumes while I worried about what to feed The Great Man. Mr. Bergamini suggested suckling pig.

“You can’t go wrong with a suckling pig,” he said, stuffing an apple into his own mouth to demonstrate.

“Too expensive,” I said. “Besides, what if he’s vegetarian?”

“Ah,” he said disgustedly, “you don’t want to go giving him a bunch of salad.”

In the end I chose a complicated pasta wrapped up in pastry that took two days to make. I was still rolling the minuscule meat balls that went into the dish when the doorbell rang. We all ran hopefully to the window but the Superstar was hugging the building and we couldn’t see if anyone was with her.

We listened to the footsteps on the stairs. “It only sounds like one person,” I said.

“Maybe Andy walks softly,” said Pat. The door burst open. The Superstar breezed blithely in, threw off her silver satin coat, and
removed the first of twenty-five bangle bracelets. “Ready for lemon meringue,” she trilled happily. She was alone.

“Isn’t Andy coming?” I asked.

“Oh no,” she said blithely, “he’s out of town. Where do I begin?”

Pat clumped to her end of the loft. From sixty feet away I could hear her grinding her teeth. The Superstar did not notice the heaviness in the air; she was very intent on separating the eggs.

The lessons went surprisingly well.

For all of us.

“So tell me,” said Mr. Izzy T the next day, “how did the boyfriend like the pie?” He put a kettle of water on the hot plate for tea. He spooned cherry preserves into two tall glasses, poured in the tea, and handed me a glass. Then he sat down among the bolts of cloth and watched me expectantly.

“The pie was perfect,” I said. “But it didn’t quite work out the way she wanted.”

He nodded encouragingly.

“I think she thought she would hand it to him and he would ask her to marry him.”

“But he didn’t,” said Mr. Izzy T, as if he already knew the ending.

“When she went to his loft and rang the bell he looked out, saw her and told her to come back later. She told him she had something for him, so he lowered a basket on a rope. She put it in, he pulled it up, leaned out, said the pie was beautiful but she still couldn’t come up. He had a visitor.”

“What goes around comes around,” said Mr. Izzy T with the proper degree of indignation. “She didn’t keep her end of the bargain.”

And then, with the diffidence of a child, he reached under the counter. He extracted a puffy red velvet square tied with string and offered it to me.

“Here doll,” he said, “I do.”

BERKELEY

Life in New York would have been good. If not for Mom.

“I know it’s not my business,” she kept saying, “but I think you might want to reconsider living with Pat.” At first I thought she was concerned about how our unconventional living arrangement looked to her friends, and I could understand that. It was bad enough that we were living on the Bowery, but a newly married couple sharing a loft with another woman was worse. What would people think?

Later I realized it wasn’t the arrangement that troubled her; she was merely jealous. She would have liked to live with us herself. My brother and his wife were living abroad, but I was in New York and she wanted my total attention.

And so she insinuated herself into our lives. She called constantly. Her voice followed me everywhere: when I was working, when I was on vacation, when I was at home. It was the opposite of my adolescence. She insisted on spending birthdays and holidays with us, and if we went away without her she had a tantrum. Even when it was her idea.

The Christmas of 1972 she actually suggested that we visit Milton in Italy. “The airfares are so low,” she said, “it would be a crime not to take advantage of them.” But once our plans were set she took to her bed, wailing that she was being abandoned. “What use is there in having a family,” she raged, “if all they ever do is leave?” Dad came to the loft and begged us not to go. I felt suffocated.

Literally. I began to panic on the subway. When the trains came whooshing into the station I clutched the columns to keep from throwing myself onto the tracks. I was relieved when the doors were safely closed, but only momentarily; then I began to be afraid I would start screaming and be unable to stop. I couldn’t stand bridges or tunnels and I started having headaches so severe I couldn’t leave the house. It was unbearable.

“It’s your mother,” said Pat, “she’s making you crazy.”

Doug agreed. “We have to get out of New York,” he said. “We have to go as far away as we can.”

“Move quickly,” said Pat. “I don’t like the idea, but you really have to go. Before it’s too late.”

I knew they were right. I turned to Doug and said, “You’re going to have to tell my father.”

“I know,” he replied.

Dad looked unutterably sad. He sighed deeply and took a breath. Finally he said, “You’re right. But I can’t tell you how lonely it’s going to be when you’re gone.”

I imagined what his life was going to be like without us; Mom was going to be furious and she would take it out on him. “Was she always like this?” I asked.

Dad studied his shoes. “You know,” he said, “I really can’t remember. She couldn’t have been, could she?”