The Replacement Wife (21 page)

The others cracked up, and Angie had to struggle to keep a straight face. This was generally how it went the evenings she taught her cooking class: One of her students would make a wisecrack, and pretty soon they were all in on it, tossing good-natured insults back and forth like popcorn at a kiddie matinee. She wouldn’t have it any other way, though. She adored these kids, and in their own smart-mouthed and occasionally riotous way, they
were
making an effort. Take Raul, for instance. He was the class clown, but his home life was no laughing matter. His mom was living on the streets and his dad in Nicaragua. The one time Angie had paid him a visit, after he’d failed to show up for class two times in a row, she’d found him caring for his ailing grandmother. Seeing how sweet he was with his
abuelita
and how little they had, it had been all she could do not to cry. But they didn’t want her pity, she knew, so she stayed and cooked them dinner instead.

Before they’d been introduced to the pleasures of freshly prepared meals, her kids had known only the kind that came out of a box or can or from fast-food joints, with the exception of those, like Julio, who lived in homes where the parents still cooked the foods of their native lands. They all had one thing in common, though: They were considered “at risk.” The boys of ending up in a gang or prison and the girls, except for Tamika, a straight-A student who was looking to better herself, of getting knocked up and having to drop out of school. Even with a strong hand to guide them, some would slip between the cracks, Angie knew.
Not on my watch, though
.

She inspected the other students’ efforts, which ranged from decent to downright disastrous. They were in the cafeteria at the youth center, where several tables had been placed end to end and divided into stations with masking tape, each with its own cutting board, utensils, and hot plate. When she was done making the rounds, she called the class to attention. “Okay, not a bad start, but you’re going to have to do better than that to impress our guest.” Earlier, she’d told them about tonight’s “special guest,” due to arrive any minute, which had caused them to perk up. The only other time they’d had a guest was when Angie’s mom came—she showed them how to make spaghetti and meatballs. “Also, I want you guys to be on your best behavior. I don’t want him thinking you’re a bunch of hooligans,” she added in a sterner voice.

“Is that, like, a real word?” asked D’Enice, a generously proportioned girl who looked far more mature than her sixteen years. She resembled her mother, who’d been sixteen when she’d had D’Enice. The first time Angie had encountered the mom, she’d mistaken her for an older sister.

“Look it up. It’s in the dictionary under your name!” yelled skinny Raul.

“Yo, Miss D. This dude, he yo’
man
?” called a loud voice. She turned to see Julio smirking at her. A thickset boy with spiky brown hair and big eyes that were all innocence, he could dismantle a car faster than she could a rack of lamb, with the police record to show for it. His miscreant days had ended when he’d found Jesus, as evidenced by the gold crucifix around his neck and Jesus tattoo on his arm, but he hadn’t lost the knack for stirring up other kinds of trouble.

“Miss D got a boooyfriend,” chanted Chandra and D’Enice.

Angie felt her cheeks warm, but she kept her tone light. “If you guys would stop running your mouths and pay attention, you might actually learn something. Now, listen up, because I’m going to show you a really cool trick.” She picked up her knife and made a deep cut down the center of her neatly deboned breast, and then folded open the two halves. “See, just like opening a book.”

“That’s, like, if you actually know how to crack a book,” interjected Tamika, casting a pointed look at Daarel. She was determined to be the first in her family to go to college, a goal that wasn’t shared by her boyfriend. Lately, Daarel had been talking about dropping out of school. That is, if he didn’t flunk out first. Tamika alternated between browbeating him and tutoring him in her spare time. Recently, she’d given him an ultimatum: If he didn’t get serious about his schoolwork, she had no further use for him. Angie hadn’t given up hope on Daarel, though. He wasn’t lazy or stupid; he just needed to find something he was good at. She was encouraged by the interest he’d shown in cooking. At the end of last week’s class, when his vegetable stir-fry was deemed the best of the bunch, he’d looked as proud as if he’d gotten into Harvard.

It was hard to believe, looking at him, that he was only seventeen. Daarel, built like a Sub-Zero, with a deep rumble of a voice, could probably get into any nightclub without being carded. He’d met his match in Tamika, though. Tall and regal, with cheekbones that could cut glass and eyes a startling blue against her coffee-with-milk skin, she took no shit from anyone, least of all him. When Daarel flashed her a grin and said, “Shut yo’ mouth, bitch,” she flipped him the bird.

“Guys, show some respect,” Angie scolded. She knew there was no real malice in it, but still . . .

“Yes, Miss D,” they chorused in unison.

Smart-asses,
she thought affectionately. “Okay, now we sear this puppy to lock in the juices and get a nice brown crust.” She drizzled oil into the skillet on her hot plate. “You want to get the oil plenty hot, and remember to stay out of the way when it starts to sizzle. You don’t want to get burned.” She was interrupted when someone’s cell phone erupted, to the tone of Cee Lo Green’s “Forget You.” Chandra retrieved the offending item from her purse, scowling at the screen.

“It’s Ronald,” she muttered.

Her friend D’Enice observed indignantly, “Guess he not gettin’ enough from that ho Marisol.” The week before, Chandra’s boyfriend, Ronald, had cheated on her with another girl in their class, and they’d broken up over it. Now it seemed he was trying to get back with Chandra.

Chandra, a skinny girl with crooked teeth and hair cut in an asymmetrical wedge, soaked up the sympathy when Tre’Shawn looped an arm around her shoulders and said, “That fat-ass bitch got nothin’ on you.”

Big and muscular, Tre’Shawn could match Daarel pound for pound, but he was more teddy bear than testosterone-driven. A few weeks ago, he’d shown up for class with a bunch of slightly wilted flowers. After thrusting them into Angie’s hand, he’d muttered in an embarrassed voice that they were from his parents’ deli and would’ve been thrown out otherwise, then had scowled at her as if daring her to make something of it. She’d appreciated the gesture nonetheless.

“Yeah, but us fat-ass bitches know how to strut our stuff,” said D’Enice, waggling her own considerable behind.

Everyone cracked up, and once again Angie had to restrain herself to keep from joining in. She constantly toed the line between friend and authority figure. Though with these kids, you always knew where you stood. There might be a concealed weapon or two, but nothing else was hidden. Here, in the neighborhood known as Bed-Stuy, a world away from the safe, civilized one she’d go home to, just over the bridge but on the other side of the rainbow, life was lived out loud.

Just then, the door to the cafeteria swung open. Eight pairs of eyes—nine including Angie’s—fixed on the tall, dark-haired man who walked in. Edward, wearing jeans and a navy blazer over an open-collared white shirt as crisp as an envelope containing an invitation to some exclusive event, paused and looked around, his amber eyes crinkling in a smile as he took in the circle of openly staring faces. In a voice that resonated in the hush that had fallen, broken only by the sizzling in Angie’s skillet, he said, “Something sure smells good, so I must be in the right place.”

“Come on in, the party’s just getting started,” Angie called to him. Her heart was racing, and she felt short of breath all of a sudden. “Guys, this is Dr. Constantin,” she introduced him, gratified to see that the kids were on their best behavior. If anything, they were too polite, shy almost. They hadn’t been that way with Angie’s mom—no one could be shy with Loretta—but Edward, with his princely bearing, was like a movie star appearing in their midst. He was so friendly and low-key, though, he soon had them clustered around him, peppering him with questions.

“Do you, like, cut people open and stuff?” Raul wanted to know.

“I’m not that kind of doctor,” Edward told him. “And I’m happy to report a patient has never been lost on my watch.” He looked down at the mangled chicken breast on Raul’s cutting board, and shook his head sorrowfully. “Which is more than I can say for that poor fellow.”

The remark was met with guffaws and some good-natured jostling of Raul. D’Enice wanted to know if the hospital Edward worked at was like the one on
Grey’s Anatomy,
where everyone was always “hooking up.” Edward laughed and told her, no, it wasn’t as steamy as all that.

Listening to him, Angie noticed that the temperature in the room seemed to have gone up, and a moment later, she caught a whiff of something burning. With a quick downward glance, she saw it wasn’t her imagination—her skillet was smoking. She grabbed a dishtowel and wrapped it around the handle, snatching the skillet off the hot plate, while the class looked on in amusement as if they knew what had had her so distracted.

“Miss D, you don’t watch out, you gon get
burned,
” teased Jermaine. At fifteen, he was the youngest of the bunch and small for his age, but he aped the sass and swagger of the older kids.

All too true,
thought Angie, casting a surreptitious glance at Edward out of the corner of her eye. She needed to watch out in more ways than one. When he came over and asked if there was anything he could do to help, she tossed him an apron along with a challenge. “Okay, Big Shot. Time to put your money where your mouth is and show us some of those knife skills.”

He grinned and went to work deboning a chicken breast while she supervised the students as they butterflied and then pan-seared their earlier efforts, with varying degrees of success. Finally, when they were ready to go into the oven, she placed all the breasts on a baking sheet, each one speared with a different colored toothpick to mark its ownership. While they finished cooking, she demonstrated the making of the sauce. She stirred white wine and broth into the combined chicken juices, and when the liquids were reduced by half, threw in a few pats of butter along with some salt and pepper and a handful of chopped herbs. She’d chosen easy side dishes—pan-fried potatoes and sautéed snow peas—which the kids would have no difficulty mastering. When everything was ready and the table cleared, they sat down to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

Tonight, though, the kids seemed more interested in their guest than in the food. Tamika quizzed Edward about colleges, which ones he thought had the best premed programs, and the boys wanted to know what it was like to dissect a cadaver. D’Enice and Chandra teased him about his knife skills, which were less impressive when it came to deboning than, one would hope, in making surgical cuts. When the time came, they seemed sorry to see him go. It was the most excitement they’d had since Raul had set a dishtowel on fire, triggering the smoke alarms and thus summoning a crew of firefighters.

Together, Edward and Angie walked to the subway after seeing the kids off. “Thanks for coming. It meant a lot to them,” she said as they strolled along the sidewalk.
And to me,
she added silently.

“My pleasure,” he said. “I don’t remember when I last had so much fun.” He wasn’t just being polite, she could tell; he sounded as if he meant it. The knowledge warmed her.

“You’re a natural. You had them eating out of your hand.”

“They’re good kids.”

“Though not always so well behaved,” she said. “Don’t get me wrong—I adore them, but there are times I could happily wring their necks. They remind me of the thugs I used to work with when I was a line cook, so they should do okay if they decide to go into my profession.” Her tone turned serious. “They don’t have it easy, though. Most of them come from broken homes and Tre’Shawn’s and Daarel’s dads are doing time. It’s a wonder none are in gangs or on drugs or have kids of their own. So far,” she was careful to add. “I always say a little prayer each time that they’ll show up.”

They turned the corner onto Bedford Avenue, and Angie took note of the brownstones lining the block on either side, most in various stages of disrepair. The neighborhood was slowly becoming gentrified; everywhere she looked she saw evidence of it—scaffolding erected around a building, a trendy shop or restaurant sprinkled here and there among the tired-looking storefronts—but it still wasn’t entirely safe to walk the streets alone after dark. Usually one of the bigger boys, Tre’Shawn or Daarel, escorted her to the subway station.

“You’re making a difference, that’s what matters,” Edward said.

Angie hoped so, but she knew there was a fine line between doing good and being a do-gooder. Her kids might be at a disadvantage in some ways, but they had a lot to offer; she got as much from them as she gave. Also, she was no saint, far from it. Her acute awareness of the man walking alongside her—make that
married
man—was testament to that fact; it was an effort to keep her hand from “accidentally” brushing up against his. “I just wish I could do more,” she replied. “I only have them a couple of hours each week.”

“Have you thought about doing it full-time? Teaching, I mean.”

“What, and trade working insane hours just to break even for a steady job with benefits? Besides, what do you think finances this little operation? The center is barely hanging on, and with the economy in the toilet, donations are hard to come by. I pay for supplies out of my own pocket, and it doesn’t come cheap.” Some of the parents were out of work, she explained, so she always made extra to send home with the kids. “I’ll never be rich, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Money isn’t everything,” he agreed.

“No, but according to my mom, you haven’t made it, either, until you have a ring on your finger and have produced at least one child, so I guess I come up short on both counts.”

“There’s still time for that,” he said, smiling.