Minus Me

by Mameve Medwed

  She asks directions from a teenager swaying from a strap of the Queens-bound 7, nose buried in To Kill a Mockingbird and oblivious to the rocking of the train and the jostling elbows of fellow passengers. She’s told to get off at Vernon/Jackson and walk over the Pulaski Bridge to Greenpoint.

  “Is Atticus Finch your favorite character?” she asks.

  He rolls his eyes. “Boo Radley.” He turns back to his book.

  Annie doesn’t get lost. She crosses the Pulaski Bridge, a name embodying the essence of the melting pot. Compared to Manhattan, the “borough” looks almost rural. The low buildings with their peeling clapboards, their chain-link fences, the sidewalk’s human scale and inviting shabbiness, provoke pangs of homesickness even without a single pine tree breaking through the asphalt or shading a tiny front yard or shedding its needles onto a grate.

  After a detour due to faltering map-reading skills, she finds the cluster of sandwich shops off Franklin Street. Mecca!

  At the first shop, a scratchy sign displays print so small she almost has to press her nose against the dented tin to read its name: Little Hanoi. A dry cleaner? A local Laundromat? She walks inside. She takes in the rickety metal tables and back-challenging stools, the tattered calendar pages of Vietnamese bicyclists and fishermen tacked to the walls.

  Behind the tiny counter, two people, squeezed together like conjoined twins, are taking orders—husband and wife? There’s a pot boiling and a griddle smoking on a two-burner hot plate. A toaster oven rests on a table next to a dorm room–size refrigerator. A tower of baguettes fills a tray. The whole place is bathed in beguiling smells, the components of which Annie can’t identify except for the general piquant deliciousness. She’s suddenly ravenous. She joins the line behind a woman in jeans and a replica of her own lamented down coat. “Excuse me,” she asks, venturing a timid tap on the woman’s shoulder.

  The woman turns around. She’s about Annie’s age, no-nonsense, glasses, not a stick of makeup, hair pulled up into a scrunchie that even Annie knows is unfashionable.

  “What’s the best sandwich?” Annie asks.

  “Your first time?”

  Annie nods.

  “But you’ve eaten a banh mi before?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  She studies Annie with are-you-from-Mars disbelief. “You don’t live nearby?” she asks.

  “Maine.”

  “Order the special,” the woman advises. “I visited Bar Harbor once. You can get better lobster rolls here in New York.”

  She orders the special. A man just paying the bill offers her his chair. The other occupants of the table are three women who are chattering exuberantly in what Annie assumes is Vietnamese, nasal consonants rising, dipping, and sounding argumentative though the women are smiling. It’s a good sign, she notes, that transplants are seeking their native cuisine on these premises.

  She pulls out her phone and photographs her plate before she samples it. As soon as she takes a bite, she’s amazed by the unfamiliar yet mouthwatering combination of flavors. Screened by her backpack, she disassembles the sandwich and examines the ingredients. The bread has been hollowed out to allow space for liver pâté, cucumber, chili peppers, jalapeños, thin slices of pork and beef, daikon, pickles, carrots. There’s a method to the layering having to do with natural proximity, eye appeal, and alternating tastes. Just like the Bunyan.

  She reconstructs the banh mi, careful to keep the right order. She and Sam can make this at Annie’s; they can experiment with downloaded recipes and add their own touches. It will be like the good old days when they were building and rebuilding the Bunyan. When they were so much in love. History can repeat itself. Why not branch out, introducing banh mis gradually to Mainers resistant to change? She assumes Sam in his shop-expanding mood will also want to expand the menu. And at the very least, he’ll appreciate her helpful “research,” and the fact that Ursula’s haute cuisine palaces have not blinded her to the street food of East Asia, or that, however distracted, she never stopped trying to improve their livelihood.

  Annie grabs a copy of the takeout menu. With the permission of the owners, she photographs the counter, the minimal cooking facilities, and the owners themselves, each hoisting two fingers in a V-for-Victory sign. “You New York Time?” the man asks.

  “I’m afraid not,” Annie says.

  “Is okay. Person at New York Time give four star.”

  * * *

  By the time she stops in at Meatball Magic, Annie’s perfected her culinary detective moves. She orders the special, photographs it, sifts through the delectable segments. What brilliant chef came up with the idea of serving a meatball sub in a brioche topped with mango chutney and a fried egg? The combo is a revelation. She wraps up the remaining sandwich and, back outside, hands it to a homeless person, who asks, “Got a Pinot Noir to go with that?”

  She visits more shops, talks to more proprietors. As soon as she explains her profession, describes the Bunyans, they, in a gesture of collegiality that should be an example to the Doughboys, share sandwich-making tips and foist on her samples of homemade mozzarella, fried eggplant, barbecued pork, house-roasted turkey, tuna melt, chicken parm, and cashew pesto until she needs to unbutton the top two buttons of her jeans.

  By the end of the afternoon, she’s chock-full of ideas, takeout menus, and a camera roll documenting scrumptious and unusual treats. A bonanza of new and exciting possibilities to surprise Sam.

  * * *

  She’s about to cross—or, rather, waddle—back over the Pulaski Bridge when she spies one last shop on the corner. Joe and Mary’s Café, according to Yelp, hits all top-five foodie lists.

  Nevertheless, no customers wander in or out, no chalkboards on the sidewalk list the day’s special, no plasticized clips from reviews are taped to the front door. When she peeks through the window, she sees empty tables and chairs and, in a corner, one lonely broom leaning against a wall. A man wearing a tattered shirt slumps on a stool in front of the counter. Despite a fancy cappuccino machine next to a stack of cartons, he’s gripping a takeout Styrofoam cup.

  He spots her and gestures for her to come inside.

  Annie hesitates, then pushes through the door. “Sorry,” she says, “it looks like you’re closed.”

  “You could say that.”

  “I read all the raves for Joe and Mary’s,” she explains, “so I wanted to see for myself. I—my husband and I—run a sandwich shop in Maine and are trying to broaden our menu.”

  “Good luck to you with that,” he says. “I’d offer you a cup of coffee”—he points to the cappuccino maker—“but the machine’s been sold. Just waiting around for it to be picked up.” Looking as lonely as the broom in the corner, he gestures to the seat opposite him. “I’m Joe, by the way. The Joe of Joe and Mary’s.”

  “I don’t mean to intrude.”

  “I’m glad for the company.” He rubs his bristly chin. “So, you run a shop with your husband?” he asks.

  “Yes.”

  “And that’s going okay?”

  “So far.”

  “And you work night and day together, side by side, a team totally focused on a single goal?”

  “That’s a way of putting it.”

  He frowns. “In the beginning, everything always seems so fucking great.”

  “It still is,” she insists, though she wouldn’t take an oath in a court of law.

  “Mary and I …” He holds up two fingers; he crosses them. “We were that close.”

  “And …?”

  He turns his head away. “Life can really suck.”

  Uncertain how to respond, she waits.

  “She died,” he says, his voice muffled by the cup he’s holding up to his mouth. “Cancer.”

  Annie’s hand flies up to her lung.

  “We thought we had it beat.”

  She notes the collective and now vacant we. She sees he’s only a little older than she and Sam. She observes the way his fingers are still locked in their sa
d gesture of togetherness.

  “How awful,” she says. “I’m sorry.”

  “We were high school sweethearts. Were never apart, not for one single day.”

  “I can only imagine …” She can imagine.

  For a few minutes, Annie and Joe sit in silent solidarity. She scans the dusty surfaces and the smeared windows, which must have sparkled when Mary was alive. A pink apron printed with cupcakes hangs from a hook on the back door.

  He’s the first to speak. “I know she would want me to carry on with the shop. Continue our work. In fact, she made me promise I would.” He shakes his head. “But I can’t.”

  “I understand,” she says. She herself could never run Annie’s without Sam; she’d feel she was missing some essential limb, that with each movement she was stepping into negative space; every spoon and mug and smell would bring a sharp stab of painful, unbearable memory.

  “Heart’s not in it. It was Joe and Mary. You can’t slice a couple down the middle like you can a submarine sandwich.”

  “Do you have kids?”

  “Didn’t get around to it. If only …” He rubs at his eyes. “I hate having promised Mary something I can’t fulfill.”

  “I’m sure she’d understand.”

  He shrugs. “All beside the point now. Take it from me. You never know. You may be sailing along and then … wham.” He looks at Annie. Perhaps he reads something in her face, because he softens. “Apologies for being such a spoilsport.”

  She gazes around at the ghost town of the restaurant. “What will you do next?”

  “Haven’t got that far. Have to settle up the shop, clear the inventory. Hey,” he says, slightly more animated, “anything you need?”

  “Not really.”

  “Wait until I show you my combi. Cadillac of stoves. It’ll do everything—your steaming, your bread making, your crisping, your soufflés, your sous vide …”

  “Sous vide?”

  “Never mind. Your grilling, your browning, your defrosting, your chilling, your éclairs, and pizza, and roasts. Hey, you can cure your own beef, smoke meat and fish, make pâtés, add a crunchy shell, dehydrate fruits, cook all sorts of custards and eggs, create rolls and loaves and doughnuts and croissants—completely fail-safe. The only thing it won’t do is wrap your sandwiches and deliver them. What a masterpiece of German engineering.”

  “Like the ultimate driving machine?”

  “Better. Mary and I ordered it just before she died. I’ll give you a great deal.”

  “I’m not sure …”

  “You won’t go wrong. It will take over so much of the work, you can dismiss half of your employees. Mary always wanted to vacation in Maine. She’d be glad if the combi ended up there.”

  Joe escorts her into the back kitchen. “Feast your eyes on this!”

  Annie beholds a magnificent gleaming structure that looks like the brainstorm of a mad scientist. Joe points out the bells and whistles, all computerized. He presses the buttons and turns the dials. He explains the staggering multitude of functions. He hands her an encyclopedic stack of manuals. “It’s fully self-cleaning, too. At the touch of a switch.”

  Struck by what Ursula would label a coup de foudre, Annie falls in love. She runs her hand down the machine’s stainless-steel body, cool and sleek to the touch. She tweaks its handle, solid and substantial against her fingers; she pulls open the doors, which unfold gracefully on hushed ball bearings. She fondles the shelves, so many, of such infinite variety. It’s a fantasy made real. Oh, the things she—they—could do with this. As the come-hither centerpiece of the annex’s redesigned kitchen, its seductive qualities would lure more and more customers. She wants it. She has to have it. She must possess it. Also, she’d be doing a favor for a person in need.

  “How much?” she asks.

  “Remember you get a tax write-off,” he says. He shows her the original bill of sale with its shocking parade of zeros. “I was planning to put an ad in the papers tomorrow afternoon.”

  “How much?” she persists, panting with desire.

  She doesn’t bargain; she doesn’t say Let me think this over or offer up the unfeminist Let me consult Sam. Instead, she writes a check on the spot, which Joe agrees not to cash until she transfers funds from her bank account. It’s less than half the cost, he points out.

  She trusts this sad, recently widowed man, this perfect matchmaker between a woman and a kitchen appliance, a man whose last name—the ironic, kick-in-the-pants Fortunato—she only discovers as she signs over the check.

  Has she lost her mind?

  Joe promises to call a delivery company and make the arrangements for the combi’s journey to Maine. They shake hands. “I can’t believe what I just did,” he confides. “Mary would have killed me for letting it go for such a song.”

  “I can’t believe what I just did either,” Annie seconds.

  * * *

  As she comes out of the subway at 86th Street, her cell phone rings. Rachel. Another stab of guilt half a level below the first circle of hell that represents her guilt over Sam slices into her gut. She can offer up plenty of good excuses to justify avoiding her best friend. How can she confess the truth when she’s assigned Rachel a major on-the-page role in the manual’s duplicity?

  She plops herself on the nearest bench, spreads out her bags to discourage seatmates, squares her shoulders, and presses answer.

  “Will wonders never cease; it’s the elusive Annie Stevens-Strauss,” taunts Rachel.

  “The one and only,” Annie replies.

  “Megan reported you had a cold. You sound just fine. I hear honking. Is it fair to assume you’re off the sickbed and on the town?”

  “Yes, I’m out and about. What’s new with you?”

  “I called to tell you to come home.”

  “Ha. That’s getting to be a bit of a refrain.”

  “For good reason. Last week, I ran into Ed Duvall and he looked like hell. It seems his wife went to Boston to visit her mother, met up with an old flame, and returned wearing a fur coat with divorce papers peeking out of its pocket. You should have seen Sam’s face when he heard this.”

  “Sam knows he has nothing to worry about. I’ll be back on Friday. I’ve already changed my ticket.”

  “Make it sooner.”

  Annie straightens up. “Is there an emergency?”

  “Let’s just say, trouble in paradise.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “It’s the new hire. Twenties, a real looker, a single mother with an adorable little girl she brings to the shop. Megan reports some flirting going on there.”

  “Not on Sam’s part …”

  “Don’t be so sure. Megan is really concerned.”

  Annie grabs the edge of the bench. “But …”

  “But, indeed. Megan says she’s a terrible employee. Muddles the orders, calculates the change wrong, is late most of the time. She’s surprised Sam hasn’t let her go.”

  “Maybe he will.”

  “Yeah, right. So far, she keeps screwing up and he keeps her on. Fishy? You need to nip this in the bud.”

  “Sam would never …”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Rachel repeats. “I haven’t seen that much of him.”

  “You haven’t?”

  “Not since I bought the refrigerator. He’s bowling and taking some class at the college to help him design the annex. He seems to have renewed ties with that lawyer who did the paperwork for the sale of the shop.”

  “All of which I wanted for him.”

  “Some of which,” Rachel amends. “Granted, in certain ways, your leaving has had its benefits. He’s demonstrated impressive personal growth.”

  “Now you’re sounding shrinky.”

  Rachel ignores this. “People change. Even Sam. Hang on a minute,” she yells to someone talking in the distance. She turns back to Annie. “Don’t take any chances. Just come home.”

  Maybe it’s time to confess to Rachel about the fertility doctor. To explain that
her trip to New York isn’t a sybaritic orgy of self-indulgence. Rachel, after all, has been privy to her failed pregnancies and lost babies. “I’ll come home,” she begins, “as soon as I keep a doctor’s appointment scheduled for next week.”

  “Aha,” Rachel says, “so Ursula has convinced you to get rid of that bump on your nose?”

  “What?”

  “She asked me once if I thought you’d be upset if she suggested a bit of rhinoplasty. I said of course you’d be upset. A lot of my career, as you know, involves working through body issues. I counseled Ursula that it would be folly to suggest there’s a problem when you have never noticed one.”

  “Until now, thank you very much.” Annie moves her finger to her nose and tests the bridge. “Sam loves my nose,” she protests.

  But Rachel isn’t listening. The background voices grow louder now. “Forgive the distraction,” Rachel cuts in. “Megan’s here with her boyfriend. Of whom, by the way, I fully approve. And believe it or not, I have a date later. With someone I met online. Not the usual loser. I’ll clue you in. That is, if I ever see you again.”

  “Rachel!”

  “Coming,’” she yells to Megan. Then, “Is any of this getting through to you? Annie. Just cancel your appointment and book the next plane.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  She needs to go home.

  Back in Ursula’s apartment and relieved to find it empty—Ursula having posted an off to Bergdorf’s note near the telephone—Annie looks up train, plane, and bus schedules. She could fly the shuttle to Boston and catch a Greyhound to Passamaquoddy; she could take a train to Brunswick, hop on a bus, then find a taxi. She could rent a car for the eight-hour-plus drive from New York. Could she manage such a trip on her own only two weeks post-surgery? The daily flight to Bangor is filled; the one to Portland doesn’t get her far enough north. What a nuisance to live in a place with neither airport nor train station, its residents stranded like those remote tribes anthropologists spend years in the bush studying. Somehow she’ll get there.