Lost Art of Mixing (9781101609187) (6 page)

The farther down the trail they got, the more animated Finnegan became, as if being among such tall trees put the world in proportion and made him finally comfortable. They were heading to a waterfall, he said. It was maybe three miles in, but worth it. As they hiked, he told her stories of the animals they weren't seeing, of the rocks around them and the origin of the river. Chloe listened, sorting out fact from imagination until it didn't matter anymore, and they all ran together like the water near their feet.

“What are the trees' stories?” she asked at one point.

“Trees don't have stories,” Finnegan replied. “They just listen.”

“Do you live with your aunt?” Chloe asked.

“I did. For a while.”

“What happened to your parents?” Even as the words hit the air, Chloe wanted them back.

“Stuff.”

“I know about stuff,” she said.

After a quiet ten minutes, they rounded a bend and Chloe could hear the pounding of water, off in the distance. Had they really gone three miles, she wondered? She looked at Finnegan.

“Come on,” he said, eyes bright again, and she speeded up her pace to match his.

The water was massive, surging over the cliff edge a hundred feet above and free-falling in white sheets only to smash on the rocks below, spraying back up in clouds of precipitation. Even from a hundred yards away, Chloe could feel the change in the air, the density of its moisture. The mist reached out and caught in her curls and eyelashes, covering her face, claiming her.

“It's cold!” she exclaimed.

“There's more,” he said, grabbing her hand. He took a fork in the trail she hadn't even seen and led her down a narrow path, behind the wall of water.

She had never been anywhere like it. The black rock arched over their heads, creating a cave hidden by a curtain of hammering white water. She stood safe in the darkness, three feet from a force that could snap her bones. The sound was immense, scouring through her, leaving her as weightless as the first breathtaking plunge of a roller coaster.

“This is amazing!” she shouted to Finnegan, and felt the words fly away from her.

He smiled, searching her eyes, and then bent down and kissed her, his back curving like the black rock above them.

•   •   •

THEY STEPPED OUT
from the cave and into a world of trees and dirt and trails. The only confirmation they had been anywhere else was the warmth of Finnegan's hand holding hers. Chloe shook the water out of her curls.

“You look like a dog when you do that,” Finnegan said, laughing.

Far down the path Chloe saw a pair of hikers approaching. As they got closer, Chloe could hear the man's voice.

“Jesus, I bring you all the way here and all you do is complain about how far you have to hike. I just knew you'd be like that. Ungrateful bitch.”

Chloe let go of Finnegan's hand to pass the couple. The woman met her eye, sending her a glance of mute apology.

Why'd she let him do that to her? Chloe thought, as she left the couple behind. Why didn't the woman just push that jerk off the trail into the river?

Chloe kept going, her feet solid on the path. It had started raining again and she pulled up the hood of her coat over her hair.

“Hey, slow up,” Finnegan called to her finally. “What's going on?”

“Nothing. Look—let's just say what happened behind the waterfall stays behind the waterfall, okay?”

“What?”

“You know, I bet they were all goo-goo-eyed about each other in the beginning,” Chloe said. “I bet he gave her roses and everything.”

“Those people? Is that what we're talking about?”

“Yeah.”

“You think I'm like him?” Chloe could see the hurt in his eyes. Jake used to do that too, in the beginning. He'd say something awful and then get all sad if she was hurt. Said he didn't mean it, until he stopped bothering with even that.

“Trust me. You'll hurt me; I'll hurt you.”

Chloe started hiking again.

Finnegan lengthened his stride and caught up with her. “Okay, look, you're right.”

She stared at him, waiting.

“Somewhere along the line, I'll screw up and hurt you,” he said. “Everybody does. But that's not the point.”

“What's the point?”

“The point is if you believe I would never do it on purpose—and if I believe the same of you. That's how you deal with stuff.”

Chloe looked at him, at the water dripping off his hair, the entreaty in his eyes. He did mean it. You could tell. What would it be like to believe, the way he said?

“Okay,” she said finally. “Let's just say we're on probation.”

They walked up the path, the air holding a quiet truce. The path was too narrow to walk side by side, but Chloe could hear the sound of Finnegan's steps on the trail behind her, steady, matching her pace. When they were almost to the car, he stopped.

“Oh, hell,” he said. “I must've put down the water bottle the last time we stopped. I'm gonna run back and get it.

“Here,” he said, throwing the car keys to her. “Hop in the car and get warm. I'll be back in a minute.”

Chloe watched as he jogged down the path, the loose and easy swing of his limbs, the way he seemed for that moment to be comfortable where he was. She watched until he was out of sight, then she went to the car and took off her sodden coat. She was about to toss it on the backseat, but reconsidered. Better to put it in the trunk, where it wouldn't get everything soaked.

She put the key into the trunk lock and the lid popped open. Inside, she saw a box full of blue notebooks. The top one said “Maridel.” Underneath she found “Hannah,” “Luanne,” “Henriette.” All the names written in the same handwriting as the “Chloe” on the notebook that Finnegan had given her.

“Well, shit,” Chloe said. “That didn't last long, now did it?” She slammed down the trunk lid and threw her wet coat across the backseat.

L
illian was a woman in love with a kitchen. It was not the love of an architect, the deep satisfaction in a layout of counters and cabinets designed to make the act of cooking feel effortless. Nor was it the love of a grown-up for the kitchen of her childhood, nostalgia soaked into every surface. Lillian's love for her kitchen was the radiant gratitude of an artist for a space where imagination moves without obstacles, the small, quiet happiness of finding a home, even if the other people in it are passing through—maybe even a bit because of that.

She had built her restaurant kitchen out of scents and tastes and textures, the clean canvas of a round white dinner plate, the firm skins of pears and the generosity of soft cheeses, the many-colored spices sitting in glass jars along the open shelves like a family portrait gallery. She belonged there.

•   •   •

LILLIAN PAUSED OUTSIDE
her restaurant kitchen doorway one morning in late February, noting the way winter temperatures could crystallize the olfactory life of a city. Even the aroma coming from the bakery down the street seemed muted, reduced to a gentle reminder of its usual fecundity. Lillian breathed in the air, filling her body with the cold, clear scent of almost-nothing.

“Okay,” she said aloud.

She opened the kitchen door and the smells came to greet her. The sensual, come-hither scent of chocolate cake. Mint, for the customer who always liked hers fresh-picked for her late-night tea. Red pepper seeds and onion skins, waiting in the compost pail that Finnegan had not, she could tell, emptied last night. Cooked boar meat from a ragout sauce that was a winter tradition, the smell striding toward her like a strong, sweaty hunter.

“Oh, hell,” she muttered, and raced, once again, for the bathroom.

•   •   •

IT WASN'T THE FLU—
that possibility had been ruled out a while ago, she thought as she sat on the bathroom floor, resting her forehead against the toilet paper roll that hung on the wall. No fever, no aches, just the roiling in her stomach set off by every smell that was brighter, or heavier, or sweeter or richer or spicier than air. Which didn't leave much.

She should have known, the night it happened. At thirty-six, she was a perfectly viable candidate for procreation and a woman in possession of a fair amount of common sense. But that night in December, everything had been different. She had come home from the restaurant, her neck cricked into a spasm by an ill-timed grab for a pot falling off a shelf. She had gotten into bed on the side that she hoped would be the least painful, grateful for the heat of Tom's body against her, and dropped into sleep.

In the middle of the night, Tom had reached for her. His passion had been so clean, unencumbered, the moment so miraculous and evanescent, that it was hard to believe it was real or anything lasting could come from it, and she had leaned into him without fully waking, letting go. By the end of the next day, she had seen him being pulled back into the ocean of his memories—and when she finally realized what their actions had created, she had no way of telling him.

This was the downside of being involved with a widower. Lillian knew how long it could take for a person to regenerate the heart, the lungs, the sensitive nerves in the fingertips that seemed to go into the ground along with someone you love. She had sensed he was still in the middle of it when he came to the restaurant kitchen door after that last night of the cooking class ten months before and asked her to go for a walk with him. But Lillian had gone anyway, convinced, as she had always been, that somehow food and love could fix anything.

And it had, for the most part. She and Tom had grown toward and into each other, filling spaces left by loss. There had been joy, plenty of it, along with healing. She knew Tom loved her—but she knew as well what it felt like to live with someone whose mind was always partly claimed by the person who wasn't there.

You should have known, Lily, she thought, as she pulled herself up from the restaurant bathroom floor and washed her face. Three was never a number that worked for you.

•   •   •

AS SHE OPENED
the bathroom door, Lillian heard someone in the kitchen. It was Monday, the restaurant closed and cooking class between sessions. Lillian had come in herself with the hope of being alone in the space and creating a truce with the aromas of her restaurant, although it was becoming clear that neither of those goals was likely to be achieved that day.

She entered the kitchen and saw Finnegan, holding the compost pail in his hands. He'd been remarkably absentminded recently. She'd noticed the way he and Chloe had been gravitating toward each other, only to bounce away a few weeks ago as if their magnetic fields had been reversed. Now they tended to circle one another in a large orbit, which was problematic in a small kitchen. Usually, Lillian could come up with something to fix the problem, but right now, all she could focus on was what was left of her breakfast.

“I'm sorry,” Finnegan said. “I forgot the compost last night. And I know how smells, I mean . . .”

Lillian looked at him.

“Well, you know . . .” He headed outside, where Lillian heard the sound of the compost bin being opened and then closed and latched.

“What did you mean, Finnegan?” she asked as he came back inside and headed toward the sink to rinse out the pail.

“I'm sorry.” He was fidgeting, Lillian realized.

“You probably don't want to talk about it yet,” Finnegan continued hurriedly. “But I just want you to know . . . I mean, if you need anything or . . .”

Lillian waited.

“The baby,” he said finally.

The word hung in the air like a Christmas ornament, gold and gleaming. She hadn't said it out loud yet; somehow it made an odd sort of sense that the first time would come from this tall, gangly young man, his eyes so earnest and full of trepidation. She let the word come toward her, round and full. She could feel the muscles in her jaw relax, a sense of possibility surround her. Finnegan smiled and turned back to the sink, pulling up the bottle of bleach from underneath and pouring some into the pail.

The smell hit her like a freight train.

•   •   •

“SO,
what are we going to do?” Finnegan asked, as she came out of the bathroom again.

She looked at Finnegan's inquiring face, then about the kitchen. She was the chef. The teacher. She didn't mind help when it came to chopping vegetables or doing dishes, but this kind was different, and she didn't quite know what to do with it.

“I'm going to the farmers' market,” she said. “You should take your day off. I'll see you later.”

She went out the kitchen door, and then turned around.

“But thank you,” she added.

•   •   •

THE VERY ACT OF PARKING
her car near the public market always relaxed Lillian's breathing. She looked at the produce stalls, a row of jewels in a case, the colors more subtle in the winter, a Pantone display consisting only of greens, without the raspberries and plums of summer, the pumpkins of autumn. But if anything, the lack of variation allowed her mind to slow and settle, to see the small differences between the almost-greens and creamy whites of a cabbage and a cauliflower, to wake up the senses that had grown lazy and satisfied with the abundance of the previous eight months. Winter was a chromatic palate-cleanser, and she had always greeted it with the pleasure of a tart lemon sorbet, served in a chilled silver bowl between courses.

She got out of the car and ran for the stalls, head down against the rain that had started to fall. If possible, she liked the market even better in the rain; it dissuaded the tourists, who tended to stay cuddled under the voluminous down comforters of their hotel rooms, leaving the market a private affair, held close under its metal roof, the precipitation providing a sound track part marimba, part moss.

Lillian had her own private routine when it came to the market. She always started by strolling along the aisles, chatting with the farmers she had come to know over the years, nodding politely to the ones she knew were not above sneaking into the Safeway before arriving if their own offerings were unattractive that day. Her eyes would wander over the displays, mentally picking up ingredients and placing them next to each other in her imagination, creating the menu for the evening, her thoughts playing happily, energized and content.

Over the years, she had watched the children who came to her restaurant, noting the ones who sat with gadgets in their hands as they waited for their meals to arrive. She was always a little frustrated by their mental disconnection from their surroundings, but one time she had asked a particularly intent young boy what he was doing, and he showed her a series of shapes tumbling down the screen, orange and green and blue and red, rectangles and squares and ones that looked like straight-edged hats—the boy manipulating them into place, fitting them together so they formed a smooth, even line at the bottom. And she had nodded, understanding the satisfaction in making several different things into one.

While Lillian's childhood friends had had favorite objects—a doll constantly clutched against a prepubescent chest; a plastic horse, caught in mid-stride—Lillian had always been soothed by food. Not the eating of it, although a spoonful of custard could almost always be counted on to set her world to rights. But she had realized early on that it wasn't simply the taste of the custard or the cool curve of a spoon slipping across her tongue, it was the creation of the dish that spoke to her—the careful warming of the milk and the beating of the eggs, the dark mystery of nutmeg, the pouring of the liquid into small, round ramekins that she would set in a shallow bath of water in the oven, the watching as all the parts came together and turned from liquid to solid, gentled white and then just slightly gold.

It was easy for her to combine ingredients and make something new, or to be the teacher placing two students next to each other and watching their flavors bloom in proximity. But in her own life, “we”—that word Finnegan had used with seemingly so little effort back in the kitchen—was a concept laden with complications. There had been a “we” in Lillian's childhood, but she had been, as often as not, circling, not part of, the word—watching her mother reading, always reading, avoiding the fact of the husband who had left when Lillian turned four, a man whose absence was more palpable than the hard wooden chairs in the kitchen, and certainly more so than the books in her mother's hands.

Perhaps that had been one of the things that had drawn her to Tom, Lillian thought as she traveled the aisles of the produce market. She remembered that first walk with him, how at times it had reminded her of when she used to walk home from elementary school with her friends Elizabeth and Mary, the way someone would always have to linger behind or walk ahead in order for them all to fit on the sidewalk, creating a wavering line of three. Lillian had always chosen to fall back, watching the others in front of her. You learned a lot in that position, she'd found, even with Tom.

So, at the end of that first walk with Tom, she'd sent him away, but a month later, when she saw him sitting at a table in her restaurant, she had felt herself pulled across the room. She had thought it was by the essence of him or the desire in his eyes, but now she wondered if what had been so alluring was merely the intimacy of familiarity, a sense of being the first responder to an accident where she already had the necessary skills.

•   •   •

THE PUBLIC MARKET
was quieter on Mondays, particularly rainy ones, and Lillian took her time wandering through the stalls. Acres of spice-covered almonds, blackberry and lavender honey, chocolate-covered cherries, their young saleswoman reaching forward with samples, her low-cut shirt selling more than fruit. The seafood shop, crabs lined up like a medieval armory, fish swimming through a sea of ice. Her ultimate goal was at the end of the aisle—a produce stand staffed by an elderly man who, some people joked, had been at the market since its beginning a hundred years before. George's offerings were the definition of freshness, corn kernels pillowing out of their husks, Japanese eggplant arranged like deep purple parentheses. The tourists didn't like him, because he yelled when they touched the shiny objects he so tantalizingly displayed, but the restaurant owners knew to come to him for the items he kept behind the counter.

“Cooking class tonight?” he asked her as she approached.

“No,” she said, “we're between sessions. I just missed your handsome face.”

George laughed. His body was crabbed and twisted as old tree roots and the sight of him made Lillian suddenly want to cry with affection. Hormones, she chided herself, stifling the urge.

“I have something for you,” he said, and reached under the counter, pulling out three neat white ovals tipped with the palest of green, a lesson in self-containment in contrast with the blowsy red- and green-leaf lettuce, the sturdiness of the kale and chard arranged across his shelves.