Lovesick (4 page)

4

angel biscuits . . .

The note read simply:

Virginia understood the cryptic message, recognized George's hand—she had copied enough from the small notebook of recipes he kept to know it instantly. It had been over three months since that night in the kitchen when he had proposed the idea. He had been gone for just over three weeks, and in less than one week she was due to travel to Atlanta. She had to smile. The plan had worked—she was one of eight finalists in the Mystic White Flour Company's contest. One of eight ladies to become
The
Lady.

When Butcher had first explained it to her, she could see the logic in it, understood the possibility. “It's a recipe,” he said, holding the notebook out to her. “And I got hundreds here. I can teach you to make 'em—you don't have to cook 'em all. Make one or two. Maybe three or four tops. I can teach you that.”

“But why me?”

“You have a style,” he said. When she didn't respond, he offered, “I don't mean offense by that.”

“No,” she said. “I understand that much—they aren't looking for Auntie Lou or a mammy. They want to sell a certain image.”

“Style,” he repeated.

“This would be cheating. Is that what you are proposing to me, George?”

“It ain't cheating if the game is rigged, and this sure as hell is a closed game,” he said. “I could cook circles around any one of the Miss Anns who will enter the contest. But I'm not the . . .
image,
as you put it.”

Virginia studied him. He was a large man, not too tall, but solidly built. He had beautiful hands, kept his nails trimmed and buffed. She thought that curious about a man. He had a soft smile, but his eyes betrayed him with their sadness. She understood what he meant—even here, these women shut her out, sensed her as an outsider and treated her just. It appealed to her to have an opportunity to leapfrog over the bitches. The Blankenships would be rushing to know her, to remember her, to claim her. It would provide her status, stature, social heft. It would definitely give her an advantage.

“The Lady in the White Hat,” she said.

“Not cheating, really,” he said. “You would be the one to make the recipe. I would give you some of mine and teach you to make them. Don't worry. I would choose things that was easy.”

“I must strike you as somewhat inept,” she said. She tried to toss it off as a quip.

“No, ma'am,” he said. “That's not it. It's about keeping it simple. Think on this. I was at the picture show a couple of Saturdays ago, and the newsreel had a part about the ‘modern housewife.' Said what she wants more than anything else is convenience.” He paused for a moment to let the full effect of that settle over her, then added, “Easy is convenient.” He smiled, now fuller.

“Yes,” she said. “I suppose you have a point. What are you expecting to get from this, George? I don't imagine you are doing this for charity or for the comfort of the American housewife.”

He was unapologetic. “I want the money,” he said. “Plain as that.”

“You would be placing a great deal of trust in me.”

“I'm a lot of things,” he said. “A white woman ain't one of 'em. I need a partner.”

“And I would do all of this in return for what? Certainly you do not expect the whole sum?

“I would be happy with a split. I was thinking maybe sixty-forty. They're my recipes after all.”

“Fifty-fifty,” she said. “Like you said, I have the style.” And with that, their bargain began to take shape.

The initial phase of the contest required that she submit a short letter about herself and why she would be a suitable candidate to represent the company. Virginia knew which bits to play in her letter—made sure to mention that she was the widow of a war hero. She was proud of her DOC membership. She mentioned the work she did with the group in Fayetteville at the Residence. Butcher agreed, mentioning the VOA was a plus. The group was all about charity, but the religious part was vague and broadminded enough not to offend anyone.

They were to also include a signature recipe. For that, there had been no discussion. George had taught her to make his biscuits—his angel biscuits.

“You got two types of biscuits,” he said. “Powder or yeast. My biscuit has both, so you can mix it up and keep it cold in the icebox. Don't have to mix fresh dough in the morning. Convenient. The yeast gives it texture, the powder keeps it soft. Also, biscuits come in two styles: dropped or rolled.

“When I was a girl, we would have beaten biscuits,” she said.

“Hard tack,” he said. “We ate 'em in the army as well. Times is hard enough without the misery of a beaten biscuit.”

“I can't argue with you there,” she said.

“Now,” he continued, “I don't much care for the dropped, unless it's on a cobbler. The rolled are just more elegant. You can cut them whatever size you want.”

“A rolled biscuit,” she repeated. “I should have an assortment of biscuit cutters.”

“Yes,” he said. “Those are easy enough to come by. In a pinch, you can use the lip of a cup, but a sharper edge is better. Cuts the dough instead of pressing it out.”

She copied the recipe from his notebook. His script was straightforward, without flourish—practical. She had no difficulty in reading it. Nevertheless, he kept looking over her shoulder to make sure she had the measurements correct. “Now, my mam, she could mix and measure in her hands—had the feel for it. That's how she taught me. I can do it, too, but that takes time to learn. So I figured all these out for you. Did the measurements till you learn. Made sure they were right. You have some room to vary a bit if you're making a gravy or a stew. But not with baking. Plus, you can taste a stew. With a biscuit, you can mix it up so it looks just like it did every time before, but if you got one or two things off, you might as well bake a pie made of road apples. Taste will be about the same.”

Before they ever began to bake, he had her learn the measurements by heart. She would pour a tablespoon of salt into her palm. “Feel it. See how it looks when you cup your hand or if you have your hand held flat.” Then they would pour the salt back into a bowl and she would scoop what she imagined was the same amount. When she would get it wrong, he would chastise her: “You have to know this, Miss Virginia. Like when I was in the army. They had us put together our rifles and take 'em apart again a hundred times. So you could do it in your sleep. Then they took 'em all away from us when we left basic. It's one thing to teach a colored man to put together a gun, it's another to let him have one in his hands.”

She practiced the measurements daily for the entire week after her first lesson, and he seemed pleased enough with her when he returned. The making of the biscuits proved more difficult. The lard had to be chilled, cubed, chilled again. It took a while for her to get the sizes correct. And then there was the cutting in. He sifted flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder into a bowl and crumbled the chilled white lard on top. “Some will want to use self-rising flour,” he said. “I don't believe in it myself. Like to add my own salt and my own baking powder.” When he spoke about the ingredients, he seemed somehow to be more alive, like each element's purpose was special to him.

Then, picking two dinner knives from the drawer, he began crisscrossing them rapidly, the gentle zing of the blades barely touching as he incorporated the lard into the flour. When he handed her the knives, he indicated she should repeat the motion.

She tried, but failed miserably at it. After a half-dozen botched attempts, Mona pulled a small pastry blender from the drawer.

“It's what I use,” she said. “It's what they will use. Stop being such a show-off.”

George relented. Virginia couldn't help but notice how he deferred to Mona in such details, acted as if he wanted to please her, win her approval. It bothered Virginia that he was twice the girl's age, but there was nothing she could do about that. Mona had been the go-between in arranging the cooking lessons. She would carry a note to the Residence with a request for a cake or a pie—usually one George had prearranged with her. George would bring the item at an appointed time and then give Virginia a lesson. Mona would sit watching, slunk into a chair, drinking coffee or nibbling at the cake or pie George had brought. An ill breeze hovered in the air between Virginia and the girl. Virginia knew that Butcher could feel it, and worked hard to include her in the conversation. Whenever he asked whether she liked it, she would shrug. “I like store bought,” she would say sometimes, and Virginia had the distinct impression it was meant just to goad him. He always took the bait.

“Phew! There isn't a store-bought pastry that can hold a candle to this, little miss. Just can't do it.”

“A cake from the store is sweeter.”

“That's because all it is, is sugar. Sugar and spit. You can't buy this in a store—unless it was a store where I sold this. Maybe you just need another slice to tell how good it is.” And he would smile at the girl, who would readily accept the pastry from him. Virginia could tell she enjoyed the attention. When Mona would relax toward him a bit, Virginia could see what attracted him. Her beauty. How hard that was for her. Mona, of course, had no concept of it, and Virginia knew that it was only in the losing of a thing that it became invaluable. She struggled now to make her appearance what it should be, but she knew she was no longer young. No longer the ingénue. Time for parts that required more skill.

Virginia had to agree with Butcher about his pies and cakes. His baking was extraordinary. Cakes seemed to melt away in her mouth. If there was frosting, it wasn't just sticky goo holding the layers together, but possessed its own delicate, complementary character. George said that a cake was like a necklace. The layers were the jewels, but the frosting was the chain. “You wouldn't tie a diamond around your neck with a piece of twine,” he said. Every detail mattered to him, was instrumental. He demanded that she adopt the same attitude. Bowl after bowl of flour and lard went into the trash. The nuggets of lard were too large, too mushy, too
something.
Virginia thought she would never get it right, but finally after many failed attempts, she mastered the technique, so the lard blended into the flour like tiny pea-sized pearls.

But even that accomplishment was short-lived, for with each foothold gained came a new challenge. Next came the wet ingredients. He showed her how to determine the correct water temperature so she could tell it was okay to crumble the fresh yeast cake into it—too hot or too cold would kill the yeast. “It's a living thing. You have to remember that. And if you notice any little specks of mold on it, toss it out—it's going off.” He showed her how to add vinegar to milk to sour it. “Buttermilk is always best, but you can't always get it. This works almost as well. And it's a good trick to have up your sleeve.” The yeast and sour milk were combined, and he stirred them into the flour just so the mixture held together. “Too much mixing and the biscuits will be tough.”

After that came the kneading. He turned the whole bowl onto the countertop, which had been dusted with flour. He took a long metal spoon from the drawer and pressed it to the back of her hand. “Feel how cool this is,” he said. “This is how you want your hand to feel. Some people have a natural coolness to them. My mam had it. I don't, so I try to cool my hands a bit before touching the dough. Want to keep it cool, keep that lard from melting from the heat of your hand.” Instinctively, she thrust her hand out toward him. She thought of how the women from the DOC would react to her holding her hand for this colored man to inspect.

“It'll do,” he said, touching his fingertips to her palm. “A little on the cool side, and you have a soft surface. No calluses.” He showed her how to knead the dough, quickly, but firmly, using only five or six quick thrusts with the base of her hand, turning the dough after each push. The dough ball was then gathered and put in a large bowl, covered in cellophane, and put into the icebox. “Let it rest for a spell,” he said. “You'd be good to roll 'em out for dinner. But you can do a double batch in the afternoon, bake the second half in the morning.”

She peeked several times at the dough resting gently in the bowls in the icebox after he left. Trying to see if there was a difference between the one she had assembled and his. He was right, she realized. All that work, and it was impossible to tell how the end result would be. There was something else, though—she was excited to know if she could do this. Wanted to succeed at it.

When he returned several days later, he brought a long wooden rolling pin and an assortment of cutters for her—smooth tin rings with handles. They did not look new. When she asked him, he said, “Real cooks have things they use for a long time. Find something they like and they keep it. These have some age on them. Can't have you showing up with something with the price tag still on it. Wouldn't look right.”

Holding the tapered wood in her hands, running her hand over its smooth surface, she was impressed by his constant attention to detail. “It's from France,” he said. “I got it in the war. It will let you feel the dough better. . . .”

“So you don't press it down,” she said.

“Yes,” he said, smiling. “You understand.”

Again, using it correctly was no small feat. After kneading the dough again briefly, he showed her how to roll the dough in consistent, steady strokes, turning the dough each time “so that it didn't get worked too much in one direction.” Then they cut the dough into circles.