Delicious! (43 page)

We strolled around to the side of the house and found a gate opening onto a little porch. “I wonder if the doctor had his office here?” There was a separate entrance. “It’s certainly big enough. Patients could have come and gone without disturbing the family.”

We walked around the corner, then back again, secretly hoping Lulu would open the door, let out the cat, take out the trash. But after a few minutes of this, Dad said, “The neighbors are going to think we’re casing the joint.”

The doorbell was a set of chimes, and a voice called out, “I’m coming, I’m coming.” The footsteps coming toward the door were far too rapid for an old lady. I had a moment of doubt. Was this the right house?

But it was too late. The door was open, and a small, vigorous-looking woman in old blue jeans and a plaid shirt stood before us.

“Hello. Do I know you?”

It was Lulu. Almost exactly as I’d imagined her.

“You’re Lulu Swan,” I blurted out.

“I am.” She stood calmly at the door, unperturbed by strangers. “Or at least I used to be. I’ve been Lulu Taber for a while now.” She looked us over and said again, “Do I know you?”

I just kept staring, not quite believing we’d found her. Her face was quite round and still pretty, and she had a forthright air. She wore no makeup, but her face was almost unwrinkled and her back was very straight. The gray eyes were lively and intelligent, and her hair was thick, white, and cut off below the ears, as if she’d simply sheared it with a scissors. In her simple clothes, she looked almost boyish.

Words deserted me.

Dad stepped into the silence. “You don’t know us.” He held out his hand. “At least not yet. I’m Robert Breslin, and this is my daughter Billie. She’s been trying to find you for quite some time.”

She stood in the middle of the doorway for half a second and then stepped aside. “Come on in, then.” She opened the door wider. “I’m in the middle of baking and I can’t stop now.”

Dad put out a hand to stop her. “You’re going to let a pair of strangers walk into your house? Don’t you even want to know why we’re here?”

She turned to him. “Young man.” I looked sideways to see how Dad was taking that. He seemed pleased. “As I see it, I have three choices. I can slam the door in your face, which would be rude. I can stand here and ask for credentials, but while you’re giving them to me, my dough will dry out. Or I can trust my instincts. You don’t strike me as serial killers. So, if you don’t mind, we’ll go into the house now and I can get back to my baking. Strudel won’t wait!”

Walking briskly, she led us down a hall. I took in Early American furniture, old glass lamps with gleaming brass fixtures, hooked rugs. We entered a dining room dominated by a painting of a pumpkin patch. “I don’t usually bake in here”—she reached for the rolling pin on the
wooden table in the middle of the room—“but strudel requires a great deal of space. And this is the only round table in the house.” She began to circle the table, rolling out the dough, stretching it thinner as she walked. “You have to keep rolling until you can read right through it.” She was working with quick, efficient strokes. “I can talk while I work, though. Please sit yourselves down”—she gestured with the rolling pin—“and tell me again who you are.”

Her eyes moved from the dough to me as we repeated our names. “And now I guess you’d better tell me why you’re here.” She was matter-of-fact, as if having strangers turn up at her door was an everyday occurrence.

“I’ve been working at
Delicious!
”

“Yes?” She looked down at the dough, continuing to roll. “I thought they closed the magazine.”

“They did. But they kept me on to honor the
Delicious!
Guarantee. And one day …” I looked over at Dad, who smiled and nodded his head, urging me on. I took a breath and started again. “And one day I went up to the library and found a secret room.”

Lulu kept walking around the table, rolling out the dough. “Yes?” Her voice was polite. Distant.

“It was filled with files and letters.”

Lulu’s feet came to an abrupt halt. She carefully set the rolling pin down on the table. “Letters?” she asked softly.

“Yes,” I said. “And I found the ones you wrote to Mr. Beard during the war.”

“Oh, my.” She sat down suddenly, as if her feet had just come out from under her. “All of them?”

“I don’t know if it’s all of them. That’s one of the things I wanted to ask. But there are quite a lot.”

Lulu pushed her chair back and stood up decisively, rubbing the flour off her hands. “This is not going to be the best strudel ever made. But it will have to do; the dough’s thin enough.” With a few deft motions, she brushed the dough with melted butter, spread it with chunky poppy-seed paste, and rolled it up. Curling it into a ring, she set the
cake on a baking sheet and disappeared into the kitchen. The entire operation had taken less than a minute.

When she reappeared, her face had undergone a subtle change, and the easygoing woman who met us at the door had become distant, wary. “How did you find me?” It was more accusation than question.

“It was Billie.” Dad did not seem to have noticed Lulu’s changed demeanor. “She’s turned into quite the sleuth. But it was Wally who gave us your address.” At that, her face relaxed, just a little.

“Oh. Wally.” She hesitated for a moment, then made up her mind. “I’ll put the kettle on.” She went back into the kitchen.

When she returned, she had arranged her face into a tight, polite smile. She was carrying a tray with a teapot, cups, and a high-domed golden bread. “Is that Mrs. Cappuzzelli’s panettone?” I was fishing, trying to lure back the Lulu who’d written all those letters. “The one you made when Marco died?”

Lulu started, and I noticed her hands shaking as she set the tray down. “Yes.” She said it curtly. “I suppose you want the recipe.” She cut three slices and shoved a plate at each of us. Her hands had steadied. I took a bite; the bread was sweet and airy, rich with eggs and laced with lemon and dried fruit. “ ‘We still have his memory.’ ” I was remembering the letter. “That’s what Mrs. Cappuzzelli told you. And that you had each other.”

Lulu’s smile slipped; she appeared to be having a hard time controlling her face.

“I read that your daughter married one of the Cappuzzellis,” I ventured, again trying to make contact with the Lulu I thought I’d known. “Whose son was it?”

“Massimo’s son Lucas,” she said stiffly.

“That must make you happy.”

She gave me a cold stare. “Why would that make me happy?” She seemed to be hoarding her words.

“What I meant”—I was struggling now—“was that during the war you were like a member of the family. And knowing that you really had become part of her family would have pleased Mrs. C.”

“We have no way of knowing how she would have felt.” Lulu’s words were cool and clipped. “Both the Cappuzzellis had passed on by the time Frankie and Lucas married.”

Why was she making this so hard? With each passing minute, the Lulu I had known retreated a little further into the background, leaving this cool stranger in her place. I began to wonder if it would have been better if we had never found her. Maybe the Lulu of the letters no longer existed.

Desperate to bring her back, I pushed my luck. “Did you ever find out what happened to your father?”

The air in the room changed. Dad ran his fingers anxiously through his hair, looking horrified. Lulu dropped her fork, and in the silent room it clattered loudly onto the porcelain plate. “I’m sorry”—she was glaring at me now—“but I’m going to ask you to leave.”

“Oh, no, please … I’ve come so far, I’ve been looking so long, and I have so many questions.”

She watched the fork still vibrating on the plate, and I could feel her gathering her thoughts. Then she met my eyes. “I want you to go. Now. This is terribly upsetting. I don’t know you, but you seem to think you know me. And for some reason you believe I owe you something.” She hesitated for a minute, then balled her fists. “Who do you think you are, coming in here like this?” Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes flashed, and, despite her hostility, her spirit made me think of the young girl I knew. “Try to imagine how you’d feel! One fine day, without any warning, someone knocks on your door and starts asking questions, churning up a past you’d just as soon forget.”

I didn’t know what to say.

Dad did. Moving smoothly into lawyer mode, he put his teacup down on the table and stood up. “Please forgive us, Mrs. Taber.” His voice was filled with remorse. “You’re quite right, we’ve been extremely thoughtless. We’ll leave at once. But I wonder”—he stopped, glancing at me, as if asking my permission—“if we might take you to dinner? Not tonight, of course, but later, when you’ve had some time to get accustomed to the idea.”

It was the perfect thing to say. Lulu looked up at him, seeming almost apologetic. “It’s been quite a shock. You might have given me some warning. Called before coming.”

“Of course we should have,” soothed Dad. “Anyone would feel that way.” He eyed me, silently urging me to chime in.

“I’m so sorry,” I managed, trying to put myself in her place. We had come barging in. I looked straight at her, trying to mask my disappointment. I’d expected too much. “It was inconsiderate, coming in like this, throwing questions at you. It’s just that …” I couldn’t help myself. “You see, I’ve been reading your letters for months now, admiring your courage, feeling that you’d become my friend. And I do feel that I know you. Or”—I gave her a rueful smile—“I did.”

Her face relaxed. A little. Now that we’d agreed to leave, she seemed more comfortable. “I wonder if any of us ever really knows another person?” she replied, sounding wistful. In that moment I heard the voice of the Lulu of the letters. Then her voice hardened again. “I never imagined that Mr. Beard would save those letters.”

This was hardly the time to tell her that Mr. Beard had not saved her letters. It might, however, be the moment to ask if she’d saved his. Giving me a warning look, Dad put up his hand, and before I had a chance to ask, he went rushing in. “Would you permit us to take you to dinner?” he repeated. “It would be an honor.”

“Maybe,” she said uncertainly.

“When do you think you might be ready for that?” he persisted.

“Give me a day or two.” Lulu stood up.

“Tomorrow, then?” Dad was in full lawyer mode now, pressing his advantage.

“All right.” He’d won. “Tomorrow. But let me make dinner for you.” She gave Dad a mischievous smile and said bluntly, “I know you’re going to ask a lot of fool questions, and I’d just as soon have the home advantage. How do I reach you?”

She showed us to the door, and when it had closed firmly behind us, Dad shook his head. “I blame myself.” We could hear the bolt ram home. “I should have known better than to come rushing over here.
Think how shocked you’d be if strangers showed up out of nowhere and started asking questions. And what on earth possessed you to bring up her father?”

“I knew it was a mistake the minute it was out of my mouth. I’d meant to wait, ease into it. But I couldn’t help myself: I blurted out the thing I most wanted to know.”

“Nobody ever suggested that you’d make a litigator.” He gave me a lopsided smile.

“Did you think she was hiding something?” It had seemed so strange. “All that stuff about a past she’d rather forget?”

“Don’t be silly.” Dad shook his head. “If she had something to hide, she wouldn’t have agreed to see us again. But, to tell you the truth, I don’t understand why she did agree to it.”

“Because you’re so persuasive.” I took his arm. “What now?”

Dad opened the car door. “I’m going back to the hotel to try to get some work done. And I’ve got to rearrange my schedule; staying until tomorrow wasn’t part of the plan. But let’s have dinner tonight, okay? Melba gave me the name of some restaurant near the hotel. The Greenhouse Tavern—it’s supposed to be good. I’ll make a reservation. Eight okay?”

I LEFT THE CAR
with the valet and went to my room to call Sammy. When I told him how Lulu had kicked us out, he heaved a melodramatic sigh. “How enormously distressing. I am overcome with chagrin. Had I envisioned the possibility of your operating with such an utter lack of finesse, I would have accompanied you and averted this disaster.” He sighed again. “Imagine her sentiments!”

“But, Sammy, she said we were churning up a past she’d rather forget. It was almost like there was something embarrassing in her past.”

“I imagine that there is,” he said mildly. “Any soul who has survived to the age of eighty-two with nary a secret would be extremely dull. I, for one, would have very little interest in making their acquaintance. We all have something to hide. Do not neglect to procure an excellent
wine to present upon your return. And I”—his voice became more cheerful—“shall dispatch a floral offering on your behalf.” Consoled by this happy thought, Sammy hung up.

WITH TIME TO KILL
and no one to kill it with, I turned on my laptop.

She is what? I looked at the words on the screen and slowly erased them. My sister was dead. And now Lulu might be gone as well. After all this time I’d finally found her, but I’d stupidly expected her to be thrilled that I’d found the letters, excited to meet me. What now? The article would surely never happen. I had no job. And I’d ruined whatever relationship I might have had with Mitch. What was I going to do?

I put my head down on the varnished desk, feeling empty. I must have slept, because dusk had fallen when I woke, and my neck was stiff. I glanced at the clock radio—less than an hour until I had to meet Dad. I got up, gingerly rubbing the top of my back, trying to get the blood flowing.

I went into the shower, made the water as hot as I could stand, and stood for a long time, letting it pour over me. But the water brought a memory of Mitch, and I heard his words, over and over. “You’re competing with a ghost.” I turned off the water and dressed for dinner. My neck, at least, was better.

I FOUND DAD
at the bar, nursing a glass of Scotch, and I stood for a moment, watching from a distance. He was wearing his suit, and he looked solid, safe, dependable. I was glad to have him here. But the truth was that he’d always been there, every time I’d ever needed him. When my second-grade teacher called him in to discuss what she called my “persistent
shyness,” he’d caressed the top of my head and said, “When Billie has something important to say, she says it.” Then he took me to La Super-Rica for tacos with extra salsa. As we ate them, he said, “You don’t have to be like everyone else. You’re the best you that ever was.”