by Evy Journey
But all the good things of my mother’s childhood ended tragically when a gunman went into the delicatessen one night, minutes before closing time, and killed her father.
*****
Not long after I sent Du Cœur my application, I was asked to come in for an interview. The next day, the sous chef called to offer me an apprenticeship, along with two others. They said one of us would be offered the job of a prep cook. Nine months later, I learned that one was me.
Why me? Because, the sous chef said, they want someone they could shape, but who had a natural knack for mixing flavors, a passion for cooking, and an acute sense of smell. He added, with a twisted smile, “and is willing to work their butts off. Laure likes your hungry look.”
Later, he told me confidentially that the owner/chef de cuisine wanted to give other women a break in the profession. Laure’s attempts to help women may have been what clinched the job for me. The other two apprentices were men, but just as passionate about cooking as I was.
But no matter. I’m in a place I never thought I’d be. I realize I’ve been luckier than most, and now my future prospects are more than I’ve dreamed of. All within three years. Who knows if sometime in a not-too-distant future, I can run my own restaurant, like Laure does? Or maybe open a food place of the sort my grandfather operated. But it will be more “fusion” than French cuisine, to reflect my own mixed heritage.
Three days after Leon and Cristi’s dinner at the restaurant, I haven’t yet called Cristi to catch up. Though I love working at this restaurant, my time is no longer my own, and socializing, except during breaks with Marcia, is next to impossible.
Tonight, I drag my aching limbs out of the restaurant, the last of the line cooks to leave. As usual, although drained of energy, I’m still wound up.
“Hey, wait up.” I hear Marcia’s voice behind me.
I stop and turn toward her. She’s pulling an envelope out of her handbag.
She says, “I almost forgot. Someone gave this to me when I was coming in today. It’s for you.”
“Me? Who was it?”
Marcia shrugs and hands me an envelope. “Don’t know. A secret admirer?”
I return her shrug, refusing her bait to gossip a little.
Before she opens the door to her car, she says, “I guess we’ll do this all over again tomorrow. Open that envelope and tell me about it later, okay? Inquiring minds want to know.”
I chuckle as I turn the key on my car, an old Nissan my father owned and gave me when I moved out to my own tiny one-room apartment. “There isn’t anthrax in it, is there?”
She laughs, shouts back. “Yeah, someone didn’t like your ahi. Throw it out, I say.”
I don’t throw it out. I shove it into my backpack and forget it. At two in the morning, all I can think of is my warm bed. But I’m too hyped-up to fall asleep right away, so I get into the shower over the tub, turn the water on as hot as I can endure, and stand still, waiting for the tension and fatigue to drain out of my muscles and my bones. Out of the shower, I dry my hair a little and crawl into bed for five hours of sleep.
In the morning, I fish for my cellphone to check messages and email. It’s all I have time for before I have to get ready to return to the restaurant. I see the unopened envelope buried in my small backpack next to the cellphone.
Those messages and emails are often my only contact with friends and relatives. I religiously start my mornings with them because I know I won’t have the time, energy, or even interest to look at them once my workday starts.
But this morning, curiosity about what’s in the envelope and who it’s from gets the better of my sense of obligation. Relatives and friends can wait. My curiosity demands to be satisfied.
Inside the envelope is a card. It’s plain white except for a golden logo at the top, below which is a phone number. The note is short, written in bold strokes with long graceful lines on the tails of letters like “y” and “f”. It’s beautiful handwriting:
Fancy a cup of coffee? Call me. Please. Laure won’t give me your phone number. Love your ahi, btw.
It’s signed “Leon.”
I can’t ignore the fluttering of excitement in my breast while I’m reading the note, and I remember the look Leon gave me three nights ago. Although he was more suave about it than most men I’ve met, I still felt like he was caressing my body with his eyes. What about Cristi, Leon?
I’m aware that the decent thing to do is ignore the card. Better still, toss it in the trashcan. He’s dating a childhood friend I was once very close to, and who I almost lost after her second boyfriend ditched her to pursue me in earnest.
But I can’t throw out Leon’s card. First, there’s the fluttering in my breast. I’m not quite sure what it means. Then there’s what the sous chef calls my “curious nature,” which he thinks is an asset, but which I sometimes wonder about. Could it work against me one of these days? After working at Du Cœur for nearly two years, the “me” raised in a marginal neighborhood is now curious about what it’s like to live with too much money, especially the kind of money Leon is supposed to have.
But what about Cristi, Gina?
What about Cristi? I tell myself she needn’t worry. I’m either too busy or too tired for anything but my work at the restaurant. How can you act on a temptation when you have no time for it?
Still, as I drive to the restaurant, the card is all I can think of. At the restaurant, I push it out of my mind as soon as I start work. You can’t keep up with the usual anxious frenzy of a high-end restaurant if your mind wanders away from what you’re doing.
At break time, Marcia reminds me again about the card as soon as we start our usual, leisurely walk around the block. “You promised to tell me who the card is from.”
I don’t remember making a promise, but I can’t think of any reason why I shouldn’t tell her what she seems eager to know. We’ve been open with each other from the beginning. This time, though, I fudge a little. “Oh, just a customer telling me he likes my tuna dish.”
She nods. “That’s nice. In the five years I’ve been in this restaurant, I only got a card like that once. As you know, Laure’s the one who gets the personal compliments since customers just post on Yelp. It’s nice, though, that she shares it with all of us.”
A few paces later, I say, “You remember who your card’s from?”
“Guy on Table 29. The first customer you served your tuna to.”
“Oh!” I can almost hear myself deflating—the ego that thought Leon found me special. The upstart who hoped her tuna dish was just the beginning of bigger things. But more than those, the dreamer who thought heaven might be within her reach.
“Yeah. He’s kinda nice that way. Did yours come from him, too?”
“Yeah,” is all I can say.
Back in the kitchen, turning sea scallops on the grill, I begin to feel relief that my card is not special. At least now I can shove it in a drawer without wondering if I’ve missed something.
I have trouble throwing things away so I’ve reserved a drawer in my closet for things I’m not quite sure what to do with. When the drawer gets full, I go through the items and throw out those which have lost either their meaning or their usefulness, like the coupons Mom taught me to collect.
Still, I can’t help asking Marcia before we part that evening, “Did you answer the card from Table 29?”
“There’s a phone number on the card so, yeah, I called to say thank you.”
“I guess I should do the same.”
“Up to you. Leon is cool. He won’t hold it against you if you don’t. He knows how stressed we get in our job.”
Maybe because of Cristi, I don’t call. Or, maybe, I’m afraid of what talking to Leon might induce me to do.
*****
A week later, on a Monday, when the restaurant is closed, someone buzzes my doorbell at ten o’clock. Barely awake, I slither my sluggish body out of bed, snatch the robe draped on the ba
ck of the one armchair I own, and drag my bare feet toward the door.
Through my peephole, I glimpse the thin, lined face of a man. A kindly face framed by gray hair. I open the door, but I can’t help feeling annoyed. Mondays are when I catch up on sleep; when I don’t turn on my alarm clock; when I sometimes choose to pass the day in my nightgown and robe.
He smiles at me, a man of about fifty with perfect white teeth against tanned, craggy skin. I can’t help wondering if his teeth are real.
He’s clutching a big bouquet of flaming red roses in his hands. “Miss Gina Lambert?”
“Yes?” I say resentfully.
His smile widens as he thrusts the bouquet at me. “For you.”
Maybe I look bewildered. Or suspicious. I know I’m scowling. He says, “Don’t worry, it’s harmless. Comes from someone you can trust.” He takes a bow, still grinning, and ambles away. The old guy has a sense of humor, and as foggy as my brain is, it’s not lost on me.
I smile as I watch him disappear on the stairs. I’m sorry I was zombified from a night of deep sleep and couldn’t thank him for the roses and his good humor. As I close the door, I smell the roses—beautiful but with little fragrance. Too bad. All roses should have that distinct scent no other flowers have. Sad how we now breed it out of them. Looks are mostly what we care about.
Think of where we’d be if we couldn’t smell food. We could be eating bad stuff and not know it.
In the kitchen, I put the bouquet in a pitcher of water. The only place where the roses can go is on my all-purpose dining table. I write, eat, drink, and prepare my meals on it.
I reach for the card that came with the roses. But even before I read the card, I get a sneaking suspicion that Leon sent them. One glance at what’s written on it tells me I’m right.
What about Cristi, Leon?
And how did you find out where I live?
I’m not listed in the phone book and no one at the restaurant would give Leon my address, I’m pretty sure of that. There’s a good reason the staff call Laure “Mother Hen.” She’s protective. She often says we’re like a fraternity or sorority where members must look out for each other. Our unspoken code of honor assumes that we don’t rat on our brothers and sisters. So the only way Leon would know where I live is to have me followed. Maybe, by that thin flower messenger. It’s really quite easy to do.
It’s spooky, though—the thought that I was being followed. Is that, in fact, stalking?
I suppose I should be flattered. Some rich guy, who most women would think themselves lucky to catch, has taken such interest in me that he’s going through the trouble of stalking me. Now, he’s sending me notes and flowers. But I’m not flattered. I’m angry. Mixed in with that anger is the stirring of fear. It’s scary being a victim—I know that from Mom’s experience, from classmates who’ve been robbed, from neighbors whose houses have been broken into.
Maybe I’m being paranoid. Or resentful. More likely, both. The rich think money gives them the freedom to do anything they want, even if it’s criminal, and money will protect them from being punished for their crimes. I’ve never felt that free or that secure. I’ve always just felt that being poor makes us easy victims.
3
Leon is making a play for me. He’s rich. I’m poor.
Why me? I can’t believe it’s my personality or my brains that attract him. True, I think I’m more interesting and brighter than most people give me credit for. But Leon doesn’t know me. We’ve only met once.
Thanks to my looks, maybe? I’m quite pretty, I’ve been told. More than one old guy has told me I look like Brigitte Bardot who I know only from pictures I once googled. I do have a French grandfather—that, I think, is all I have in common with the seductive Miss Bardot.
My mirror does tell me I have dark lush hair, creamy skin, large blue eyes, a generous mouth, and—Mom says—a straight noble nose like Gwyneth Paltrow’s. And a 5’7” body with curves in the right places. You wouldn’t call me voluptuous, though. Even so, I may invade many men’s fantasies. So my guess is, for Leon, it’s lust at first sight—that physical thing people mistake for love. Lust and a rich man’s predatory instinct.
I think beauty doesn’t get you very far. If you’re poor, an average student, with modest ambition (or none at all)—ordinary in every other way—beauty is actually a liability. I find it downright annoying to have men constantly trying to grope me. There have been many, from men with dirty hands to men with manicured fingernails. They all only want one thing. Quite humiliating.
So, I have resolved not to dwell on my looks. I’ve kept my focus on the one thing my mother knows best, which she’s passed on to me—cooking.
My mom’s mom was too young when she married. She had a bit of money after my grandfather died, but when that was all used up, she and her three kids subsisted on welfare. My mother, the oldest, worked at fast food restaurants as soon as she was old enough and before she could finish high school.
Her father’s talent (or his passion for food) must have rubbed off on Mom, though. She had spent days at her father’s delicatessen from the age of four because Grandma was the cashier and her kids went with her. Mom began helping her father as early as she could remember, fetching utensils and ingredients. By nine years old, she was helping him cook.
Maybe, it’s natural that she’s turned into a great cook. She delights in cobbling together the best possible dinner out of the everyday ingredients our family can afford. Because her mother is Chinese, her dishes are sometimes French, sometimes Chinese and many times a mix of both. And they’re always scrumptious.
Mom’s dinners have kept our family together. How can you take offense or be angry at people with whom you’ve just shared a great meal? Even as teenagers, when we preferred to hang out with friends, we ran home every evening for Mom’s dinners. We couldn’t always tell what she’d serve. But we knew it would be delicious.
For Mom, cooking is life. She keeps her family happily well fed, for sure. But maybe more than that, cooking helps her escape the grubby, grinding realities of each day, at least for the few hours she prepares her dishes and watches us eat.
Do I have the passion Mom has—one that doesn’t ask for or expect rewards? Not money, not even words of thanks or appreciation. Like Mom, I believe I inherited Grandpa‘s desire to create something that can make people feel good. That can give not only life, but meaning to it. Starting with Grandpa, that something is food. Dishes we try to bump up from the ordinary. But can I sustain that passion like Mom does?
As much as I love Mom, though, and as much in awe as I am of her cooking talent, I don’t want to end up like her. It took me a while to realize this. Lucky for me, I came to this point just in time—a point in which I chose to take care of myself, instead of having someone take care of me.
Growing up, I bought the idea of living for love and a family. It was for them that I’d cook. And for some years, I went looking for happiness with some man. Since people thought I was high on the much valued beauty scale, I assumed I ought to be destined for something extraordinary. Like bagging some rich Adonis who would shower me with all I could ask for.
But Fate didn’t quite see it that way. For one, I haven’t seen any Adonis out there. Anyway, all he is is a character in Greek mythology hatched by someone’s great imagination.
My parents are not what privileged outsiders would call “nice.” They’re not nasty, but they could seem indifferent. I admit that, except for those dinners, I believe they’ve been neglectful. Not because they care little for their children. It’s more that they neither have time nor energy to show how much they care. They’re too harassed by all the things it takes to live—menial jobs, more children than they can afford and handle, etc. They wear their stresses, their apparent lack of caring on their scowls, and when Mom is too tired, she also wears it on her tightly drawn lips.
I have wondered how much my mother has been affected by her father’s murder and the po
verty her family endured afterward. Grandma was only eighteen when she married, and when she was widowed, she had few employable skills—none, I believe, that would have earned her enough to support her children.
As I grew up, my parents couldn’t be bothered to inspire us to dream. They once told us all they asked is for their children not to get into drugs and crime; and if possible, for my sister Sabine and me to marry men who could support us in comfort. They had neither the money nor the desire to dream high for themselves, and they never expected their children to aim high, either. So, while I did quite well in English and math without working too hard, I did average work in every other class and thought myself quite ordinary, brain-wise. College—where I might have taken a more ambitious path—never occurred to me as an option. So before I turned to cooking to keep myself in reasonable comfort, I went full throttle into a quest for love, family, and a good home. One better than my parents gave me.
Right after high school, I lived for dates, going out with a string of men to find my destiny. Finally, at nineteen, I met a truly nice man at the house of Cristi’s boss. Cristi—shy and slow to make friends—asked me to go with her for “moral support” (her words). I was thrilled, thinking that at that wealthy house, I might meet “better” people and—who knows?—the extraordinary destiny due me.
Cristi is a dental assistant to a successful dentist. He’s probably not what most people would call rich but he and his family live in a gated community with homes four times the size of my family home. That I thought them wealthy, at that age, goes to show how little I knew about what it’s like to have much more money than you actually need to survive.
Anyway, I did meet someone that night at the dentist’s house. Someone who changed my life, but not in the way I had anticipated.