On the Right Side of a Dream Page 10

Jess sat back on his heels and stared at me, had a funny, unreadable look on his face.

  “What? You don’t think I can do it?” I asked him, starting to get angry. I didn’t think I could do it either but I sure as hell didn’t want him to agree with me.

  “No . . . no, it ain’t that,” he said slowly. “It’s just . . . well, I didn’t know you were thinking about being a pastry chef.”

  I didn’t know that I was thinking about it either until I went to Los Angeles. And then I couldn’t think of anything else. I started remembering how Jess folded this, garnished that and, sometimes, made his own sausage. I thought about my son stir-frying a Cantonese–Italian “fusion” dish, as he called it. And watching him plate a meal so that it looked like a painting ready to be hung. I was fascinated by the way that Wendy sketched out, planned, and built her tasty creations: Measuring this and shaving off that and putting pieces together like Legos and Tinker Toys; swirling whipped cream made from scratch here and dropping a dollop of something else gooey and full of sugar and calories there; and creating the right balance of structure and lightness in pastry crusts. It was amazing. It looked like fun. It looked like art. To me, it had the same appeal that playing in the mud has for a little kid. But I am just a homegrown kind of cook, not a chef, not a gourmet, not a certified anything. But I wanted to be certified and qualified. A woman with . . . credentials.

  “It sounds good until you add in everything else,” I told Jess.

  He listened for a moment but I could tell that his mind was working.

  “A chef . . . how long is the program? A year?”

  When I told him, he whistled.

  “That’s a serious time commitment,” he said thoughtfully. He handed me a pair of elephant-sized towels. “Dry off. I’ll be right back.”

  “Well, what do you think?” I yelled after he’d been gone a few moments.

  “Sounds like the diner is going to have soufflés, flambés, petits fours, and tarts on the menu to go along with the rest of my cuisine,” he answered, and then appeared in the doorway. “Or, are you planning to ply your trade in a celebrity haven like New York City or Las Vegas? Or maybe a fancy cruise ship?”

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do with it,” I admitted. I hadn’t thought that far ahead, it was just too exhausting to think about these days. I sighed as I slipped on my robe. “I gotta get through the classes first.”

  “Aw, you can do it,” he told me. “You been accepted yet?”

  I paused.

  “I don’t know. I’m afraid to open the envelope and find out.”

  Jess gave me a look that said “You got to be kidding me!” but he didn’t say anything. Just sat me down on the bed, put my feet up on a stool, and pulled two bottles of nail polish out of his pocket.

  “Passionate Pearlized Plum or Feathered Fanny’s Fuchsia?”

  “What? What are you doing?”

  He grinned as he waved a nail file in the air like a conductor leading an orchestra.

  “I already told you. I’m going to give you a pedicure.”

  Now it was my turn to give him the you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me look.

  “Where did you learn to do a pedicure?”

  Jess threw his hair over his shoulder (with a flourish) and began to file the nail on my big toe.

  “I’m not a Philistine. In fact, the Philistines weren’t bad folks at all. I saw it on the History Channel. And, for your information, I learned all about giving spa pedicures on the Lifestyle and Leisure Channel. Picked up all the tips, from polish changes to sanding down corns.”

  He slipped on his reading glasses and turned my left foot around in his hands as if he was studying a laboratory mouse. I tried, without any luck at all, to take my foot away from him.

  “We can talk about my corns another time . . . Jess! Stop!”

  Now, he was kissing my foot—one toe at a time. I closed my eyes.

  “Feathered Fuchsia’s Fanny . . .” I murmured. “I thought you were going to give me a pedicure.” His hands weren’t anywhere near my feet now. And I had completely forgotten about cooking classes, Sedona, will bequests, temperamental ghosts, or the corns on my little toe.

  “We can talk about that another time,” he said.

  Best pedicure I ever had. And I didn’t even get my toenails painted.

  Later, much later, in the dark, when I was drifting off to sleep, I thought I heard Jess say, “Open the envelope, Juanita.”

  Chapter Eight

  * * *

  “Dear Ms. Louis,

  We are pleased to inform you of your acceptance to the Culinary Arts Chef Program of Arcadia Valley Community and Technical College . . .”

  I read the acceptance letter to Jess with a sinking feeling in my stomach.

  “Oh, no, I can’t go to school.”

  “What’s your problem, Juanita? This is a good thing,” Jess said, his forehead wrinkled in confusion at my reaction.

  “Oh, no, it isn’t,” I said, as much to myself as to him. “What do I do now?”

  Jess gave me a you-need-to-get-over-this look and continued to look over the letter.

  “According to this, you send them the money for the deposit, get your supplies, and take your carcass over there on the tenth, ready to get to work. Sounds pretty simple to me.”

  My panic had moved to another level. I was reading the textbook list.

  Textbooks! These were humongous, multipaged, heavy-looking volumes that cost a lot of money! And they weren’t just cookbooks. These were schoolbooks. To be used for people who were . . . students.

  “I just wanted to cook,” I murmured. Jess wasn’t paying much attention to me.

  “Hmm . . . looks like we’ll have to make a run to the restaurant supply store in Missoula to get you the proper chef’s gear. Impressive.” He nodded his head in approval. “Arcadia Valley. I had forgotten that they’d started a culinary arts program.”

  “I don’t know why you’re so happy about this,” I snapped at him. I felt like an idiot for opening up this can of worms. Who did I think I was? Going back to school. Fear made me start talking like a fool.

  “I’m not going,” I told Jess. “Did you see that course list? Mathematics? Business principles? Restaurant management, part one? I thought that we were just going to cook, bake a few things. Roll out pie dough, throw together éclairs or something . . .” I felt like a second grader skipping third grade to go to high school.

  Jess tried to keep his expression serious but he wasn’t any good at it. He folded up the letter and put it back in the envelope. He looked at me as if I was stupid. Maybe I was.

  “You don’t throw an éclair together, Juanita. I hate to have to tell you this, but I think you know it already. This chef thing you’re about to get into? It ain’t like whipping up a sweet potato pie or making a pot of beef stew. You will learn techniques and the science behind the simmer. This is heavy-duty, serious-ass cuisine.”

  Cuisine? I don’t want to do cuisine!

  “I just wanted to . . . bake something.” I sighed. It was going to be worse than I thought.

  “I kind of envy you,” Jess said. Now, he wasn’t paying any attention to me at all. “I remember taking this stuff in New York back before Jesus wore long robes.” He smiled so I guess his memories were good ones. All I could see ahead of me was a nightmare. “In my first baking class, we made croissants . . . mine were . . . tough. Too much yeast. Or was it too little?” He frowned as he tried to remember. I was beyond caring about this pleasant little romp down memory lane. “Measurements, design, precision . . . yeah, that’s the word, precision. There’s no pinch of this and handful of that. Pastry is all about precision.” He tapped the table with the palm of his hand to make his point.

  Precision. Wonderful.

  “I thought I was learning to be a chef, not an engineer.”

  Jess couldn’t help himself now, he just grinned.

  “Being a chef is being an engineer. You are an engineer of food.”

>   Oh, great. This is what I get for being a wild woman adventuress, I said to myself. Believing all that crap I’ve been reading. Just jumping into things, feet first, without looking. I get . . . precision.

  No one was sympathetic.

  “That’s perfect, darling!” Nina gushed over the phone. “And my cousin says she’ll sign the papers as soon as she returns from the Galápagos!”

  Things only got worse when I visited the school. I met with the program director. His name was Heinrich. He smiled and led me into an office that was just off the white and stainless-steel kitchen classroom that was so big it made our voices echo.

  “I like to meet with all the prospective students,” Heinrich said, looking at a piece of paper. Oh, oh, I thought, he’s probably reading my file and wondering how the hell I ever got into his program. “Is important to find out their motivations, likes, and dislikes.”

  My throat closed up.

  I think I told him, “I just want to cook.” And, bless his heart, I think old Heinrich understood that. In fact, our entire conversation went pretty well, I think, until . . .

  “You are an instinctive cook, Madame Louis,” he said, his brown eyes serious. “A good cook, I hear, but instinctive. You will have to set that aside for a while during this course. You will have to take that head away.” Head? “All of your old formulas, they go into the dustbin.”

  “My . . . formulas?” Was this the chemistry department?

  The program director gave me a boy-have-you-got-a-lot-to-learn smile.

  “Ya. Your formulas. What you call ‘recipes,’ in this class, they are formulas.”

  I had walked into the chemistry department.

  I felt even worse when I observed the classes.

  In the first place, I am, on the outside, at least one hundred years older than most of the students, including one kid who, I’m sure, wasn’t even shaving yet. In the second place, I am at least fifty years older than the instructor. That’s not good either. Last, but absolutely not least, these folks were cooking and baking dishes that I had barely even heard of, even with Jess’s nouvelle Montana cuisine.

  “All right, people,” bellowed Chef Durphy. He loomed over the shoulder of one poor soul who was making a righteous mess of something that she was pouring into an oblong dish. He gave her a look that would melt lead, then proceeded with his lecture. “Every one of you would be fired for leaving the counters like this. Clean up after yourselves—that’s an order! Quickly now!”

  White coats flew this way and that.

  “Hot pan!” one infant warned, carrying a small, steaming saucepan toward the dish room.

  “Mind the knives,” countered another.

  With military precision, they moved this way and that as they chopped, sautéed, poured, and puréed. Mixers buzzed, saucepans sizzled, and terrines (whatever the hell they are) were gently set to rest in a whale-sized vat of hot water, then put into the ovens.

  “Whose materials are these?” Chef barked out.

  The chopping, pouring, whizzing, and sautéing continued. Only one set of eyes looked up. Guilty as hell. Chef’s brow furrowed and his face darkened. I could tell that the mark in the grade book wouldn’t be a good one. The guilty party scooped up the bowls, dirty spoons, and cutting board and scurried off to the dish room.

  “I can’t imagine any of you working in any place other than Betty’s Hot Dog Stand! This is deplorable! What’s happened here?” The terrine was dripping down the sides of the casserole dish. “Make sure it’s clean before you put it into the oven.”

  The orders, interrogation, scurrying, and scampering continued. I sneaked a quick glance at the other prospective students who were also observing the class. They were enthralled. I was petrified. I thought I had enrolled in a culinary arts program, not the U.S. Army! The kitchen was scrubbed until it was spotless and everything, from the largest mixing bowl to the tiniest paring knife, was back in its place. I felt as if I had just observed a strategic military exercise. There wasn’t any leisurely stirring of chili or calm, easy seasoning of a roast. This was like . . . well, it was like an army mission.

  Juanita Louis, home-style cook and barely-made-it-through-high-school graduate.

  Yep. I was in deep, deep trouble now.

  “He calls recipes ‘formulas!’ ” I wailed to Jess that evening. “The students move like lightning! Everything is so . . . precise! So . . . regimented. All these steps to everything: peeling, cutting, melting, sieving, adding, chopping, basting, measuring . . .”

  “I think you have them out of order.” Jess said. “After a week, you’ll get the hang of it.”

  “I need a drink,” I said, sinking deeper into the sofa cushions in his front room.

  “Juanita, you don’t drink,” Jess said matter-of-factly. “You want some tea or something?”

  “Yeah . . . tea. Throw rat poison in it, will you?” I mumbled.

  “Quit being a drama queen,” he yelled back as he moved down the hall. “I keep telling you, you can do this.”

  That’s what Wendy said. That’s what Millie would have said. What did they know?

  Dracula landed with a thump beside me and put his heavy head in my lap. I was so distracted that I didn’t pay attention to the slobber that he brought with him.

  You say a prayer, wish upon a star, cross your fingers, and rub a rabbit’s foot. And then, when your dream, your prayer comes true, you panic. Another one of God’s games? I said I had wanted credentials. Now, I was going to get them. And more.

  When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.

  I have a better saying. When God wants to punish you, he sends you every darned thing at once.

  “You need to get over that new-life nonsense, Momma,” Bertie had said. “Your life is back here—in Columbus.”

  There were a lot of reasons that Bertie felt this would be “the best thing” for me. But the main reason was because she wanted me to take care of Teishia. She left me a phone message about this and then we played phone tag for a while. Well, I played phone tag. Bertie called me back after I’d left her five messages.

  “Hey, Ma,” she said in a crisp voice. “When are you coming? Lee and I can pick you up at the airport.” Lee was her new boyfriend.

  “Bertie, didn’t you get my message?” Messages, I should have said.

  “Yeah,” was her one-word response.

  OK. Was I crazy? Or was she?

  “Bertie, I left you a message, several as a matter of fact. I have a lot of responsibilities, things going on here.” Already, I was making excuses to her for having a life of my own. I felt my world tilting sideways with me hanging on by my fingernails.

  “Oh,” was the next one-word response. Like I’d just told her it was raining and to bring an umbrella. “Well, you need to be here before the twentieth of May, ’cause me and T . . .” She hadn’t heard a word I’d said.

  “The twentieth!” I squealed. “That’s in six weeks! You think that I’m just gonna show up there on the twentieth? And stay for how long, Bertie?”

  She sighed as loudly as a person can.

  “I don’t know, Momma. For a couple months anyway.”

  I don’t usually get headaches but my head felt as if it was being pounded by a sledgehammer.

  “Momma, I told you that I was gonna need you to take T for me.” Bertie spoke slowly and sounded out every syllable as if she was talking to somebody stupid. “I told you that. You know I got a break coming up and I’m working two jobs. Now are you gonna take T for me, or not?”

  Now, it was my turn to sigh.

  Teishia is a normal, active little kid, full of laughter and chatter. She likes puppets and she likes to play in the dirt and crumple up newspaper because the sound makes her giggle. But, you see, Teishia ain’t the problem.

  Bertie is.

  Now it’s time for me to decide if Bertie is my problem—or not.

  They call them “flashbacks.” I have these waking nightmares once in a while but one re
ally stays with me. I break out in a cold sweat because the sound of a little kid’s voice or a baby crying will bring back the memory—sounds, smells, worry, everything.

  Teishia was a year old, maybe a little more, maybe less. I was working at the hospital, three to eleven. Came home late one Friday night because I missed the last bus and had to call a cab. Bertie damn near knocked me down as I walked in the door. She was right in my face, dressed up, hair done, perfume, even had the purse in her hand. She was ready to go. It was twelve-thirty at night. She greeted me . . . no, “greet” is not the right word. She met me at the door with the attitude of somebody who has just been robbed of something—her valuable time.

  “It’s about time you got here! I was s’posed to be outa here an hour ago!”

  This was the first time I’d heard that I was babysitting.

  “Where you goin’?” I asked. I had to push by her to get inside the apartment.

  Bertie sighed loudly and rolled her eyes. Her girlfriend, whose name I have forgotten—they’ve all blurred together—rolled her eyes, too. Both of the girls snickered.

  “Out,” she said bluntly, pushing by me. She brought her arm around with a wide sweep and pointedly looked at her watch. Correction, my watch that she’d borrowed from me a while ago and had not returned. “And I’m late. See you later.”

  It seems hard to believe now that I let her talk to me like that, treat me like that, but you can’t undo what’s past. You either rewind it or do something about it. Back then, I just took what she dished out and yelled after her, “T asleep?” At twelve-thirty, the answer should have been obvious, but with Bertie, you never knew. Sometimes, I came in from work at night and that baby was still in her play-clothes, wide awake.

  “Yeah, she’s in the playpen,” Bertie yelled back from the second flight of stairs. Her voice echoed off the dirty lime green–colored walls. The girls chattered on their way down the stairs and I heard their laughter, then the heavy outside door to the building slammed and there was silence.

  I closed the door, clicked off the TV, and looked at T. She was sleeping, which was amazing considering how loud the TV had been and how much noise Bertie and her friend had been making. My heart sank when I noticed that the baby was still wearing her day clothes complete with a bib that had food stains on it. I’d have to nominate my daughter for the Mother of the Year Award before someone else did.