Pinch of Love (9781101558638)

by Bessette, Alicia

  He gets in the driver’s seat. Behind him Ingrid puts her head down; she’s reading a book. Before he backs out his driveway, he adjusts his rearview mirror and looks right at me.

  Balls.

  I step away from the window, but he waves—a single flick of wrist, just like the other day—so I wave back.

  His truck rumbles away, and I know there won’t be any distractions for a few hours. So I transport the turntable and the milk crate of Gladys Knight and the Pips albums from the bedroom to my office, not far down the hall. I do not glance—not even once—at Nick’s oven present on the floor.

  Nick’s g.d. present.

  I set the turntable on a little chair next to skeletal Hank. Soon Gladys sings about being high on the wings of things and having a song in her heart.

  I straddle my saddle stool and tilt my drafting table toward me. The sun shines on it, making it as white as a field of snow. I sketch on fresh paper, reaching every now and then for my eraser and for different pencils, which are organized by color and stored in little bins that slope upward like prayer candles in a church.

  I draw for hours, getting up only to change the Gladys albums. At one point I ask Hank to switch the record, and I imagine him behind me, performing the task as agreeably as a butler. But when I turn around he’s of course just hanging there, slack jawed.

  Just like every other Friday, at quarter past one the mail truck parks in front of my driveway (not in it, of course, because I haven’t shoveled). My bell rings—wheezes, really, in the sharp cold.

  I let Russ in. He high-fives me with one hand, passes me my mail with the other. Ahab sniffs the envelopes, decides they’re nothing special, and curls back up on the couch.

  “Anything going out?” Russ asks.

  “Not today.”

  His face is red and his fingertips are white, and a few minutes pass before he stops shivering. I make a pot of coffee. We split a large toasted tuna-fish grinder with extra cheese, which he brought from Orbit Pizza, and a bag of potato chips.

  Russ eats without removing his fingerless gloves. He chews and talks simultaneously, listing every employee of the Wippamunk Post Office. “I like Paddy. Did you know he wears a toupee? Tammy is funny sometimes, but she thinks she’s smarter than everybody else. Steve? Can’t stand the guy. Never shuts up. Ever. Hey, this is off the subject, but did you know France got a kitten? She wants you to go over and meet it. Thing’s cute as hell, but it made me sneeze twenty-two times in a row. France counted. . . .”

  I let him do all the talking, as usual; it’s easier to listen. I don’t mention that it’s hard to be around France because she reminds me, in particular, of Nick’s last night in Wippamunk, when he went to photograph a gruesome car accident. France was at the accident scene, too, and when Nick got home he told me about the blood and shattered glass reflected in her flashlight beam. I don’t like to think about all that.

  When Russ finishes eating he unfolds a small bundle of butcher wrap and drops a hunk of roast beef into Ahab’s elevated dish. He gallops into the kitchen at the sound and swallows all the meat in about two seconds. “Compliments of the great Greeks at Orbit Pizza,” Russ says. He belches and gets up to leave. “Why do you think dogs dig me so much, Zell?”

  “Must be the wifebeater undershirts.”

  “I bet you’re right.”

  I walk him to the door. “Can I ask you something serious?” I say.

  He shifts a little and glances out the window. The sunlight catches flecks of yellow in his blue eyes and accentuates his crow’s feet. “Hit me,” he says.

  “Well, during The Trip, did Nick ever mention a present for me? I mean, a present he was maybe going to give to me when he got back?”

  “No, babe. He never mentioned it.” Russ puts a hand on the door. “Are you talking about the present in your oven?”

  I nod.

  “You mean you haven’t opened it yet?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Do you need like a crowbar or something? I can bring one over and pry it—”

  “No. I mean, I can’t open it.”

  “Oh.” He looks around the room a bit, avoiding my face. He doesn’t know what to say; I can tell.

  “Thanks for lunch,” I say.

  “You bet. Don’t forget to feed Hank.” He cuffs my shoulder like he’s my Little League coach.

  When he’s settled in the mail truck, he calls, “You okay?” just like every Friday. “Right as rain?”

  “Right as rain.”

  He grins and drives off.

  I go back upstairs. I reset Gladys. I draw.

  IN THE AFTERNOON Ingrid rings my doorbell to retrieve Meals in a Cinch with Polly Pinch. Garrett waits in the truck.

  “So,” she says when I answer. “Come up with anything? For the Desserts That Warm the Soul contest?”

  “Not yet. I mean, it’s only been twenty-four hours since my last experiment, and—”

  Garrett waves Ingrid toward the truck. “Come on, boo-boo,” he says. “Don’t make me late for class again.”

  “What about dinner?” she calls.

  “We’re stopping on the way. Let’s go. You can read your magazine.”

  She rolls her eyes. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Thanks for lending me Meals in a Cinch,” I say.

  She nods and jumps down the steps, clearing all four.

  BY LATE EVENING the cross section of my healthy artery is an eerie Martian landscape with gum pink walls. In my rendering, a small me could slip headfirst up the darkening arterial tunnel, right into the heart, which floats disembodied in the background. It’s not some two-humped cartoon Valentine heart. It looks like a real human heart. Bulbous. Gelatinous. Impossible.

  I sign my initials—RCR, for Rose-Ellen Carmichael Roy—in tight dark pencil in the bottom right corner. I spray the paper lightly with fixative and watch as it dries.

  IT’S A DARK TUESDAY AFTERNOON, and I return from the grocery store armed with flour, baking soda, and baking powder.

  Baking powder equals baking power.

  Ye Olde Home Ec Witch be g.d.’d. I’ll perk up my spirits, and I’ll win this contest.

  Gladys Knight and the Pips: check. Camouflage apron: check. Empty oven preheated: check. Ahab leaning against the legs of a kitchen stool, winking his eye-patch eye: check.

  In the big bowl I combine sugar, egg, and vanilla extract. I add butter, a handful of flour, and three envelopes of instant cocoa. I mash a banana and four mini–Milky Way bars left over from Halloween and add those. I sprinkle in some baking soda and baking power.

  Stir, stir, stir. Slap some grease on a baking sheet. Drop heavy dough in haphazard columns. Set timer.

  Ye Olde Home Ec Witch would not approve. I picture her scowling over her bifocals at me as I take a seat on the floor, close my eyes, and snap my fingers like a Pip. Soon I feel Ahab’s chin resting on my head, so I reach up and scratch his neck. I sing along: “Why don’t you—make me the woman you go home to—and not the one that’s left to cry, and die?”

  Grunting, Ahab reclines next to me and drops his head on my thigh. I open a mini–Milky Way, take a bite, and offer the rest to him. Dogs aren’t supposed to eat chocolate, but he loves it, and besides, a little won’t kill him. He chews lying on his side. He doesn’t even bother to lift his head.

  The window above the sink frames Mount Wippamunk. As I gaze at it, a Memory Smack wallops me, and I submit, let it sweep me away: high school Nick on the chairlift. He swung his left boot freely over his snowboard and belted “Welcome to the Jungle,” and my back hummed with the vibration of his voice. In the chair behind us, France—six or seven years before she would become Officer Frances—pelted the back of Nick’s head with an ice ball she formed from the chunks clinging to her safety bar. “Shut up, re-tahd!” she yelled.

  Nick turned and grinned his famous wide grin.

  I slip into another, more recent ski-themed Memory Smack: Nick and I lounged in the Mount Wippamunk base lodge in front o
f the wood-burning stove. Our sopping-wet jackets and pants hung from hooks on the wall. Rain slashed the windows. But we didn’t care about the foul weather; we got in some good runs.

  He sipped steaming cider from a Styrofoam cup. He wore a battered wool sweater—one he had since high school.

  “This is the life, right here,” he whispered. His hot hand sank into my hat-head hair. His light brown eyelashes fluttered. His breath was sleepy, whistling waves. “Someday that’ll be us,” he said. He gestured with his cup to the wooden Family of Skiers: life-size statues of a mother and father, two little kids between them, heading off to the lift line. Their faces suggested that anticipatory thrill of the first run of the season.

  “That’ll be us,” said Nick. He admired the strange, happy wooden family. “Soon we’ll get started on our family. Except we’ll have more than two. We’ll have enough kids so that our whole family can be one big soccer team.”

  “How many would that be?” I asked.

  “Nine, plus you and me makes eleven. There are eleven players on an official soccer team.”

  “Nine kids?”

  “Sure.”

  “Yeah. Right.”

  The timer dings: real time, real place. Still on the floor, I reach over and open the oven. Zell’s Banana Cocoa Milky Way Cookies form one giant gray spongy puff, like the brain of a large mammal. Some brain drips onto the floor of the oven and sizzles.

  First my Flourless Peanut Butter Treats nearly burn the house down. Then I create this quavering, inedible lump. I think of Polly Pinch on the cover of Meals in a Cinch, those teens gathered around her, happy and unified, as if about to burst into a spontaneous, harmonized version of “Peace Train.” Polly brings the whole world together with a smile and a Bundt cake, that cover seems to say.

  And I bring no one together. Least of all myself. Nick wanted me to mother his children, yet I can’t even operate an oven—or bake a single, normal cookie. A shameful loneliness carves into my chest, hollowing it out. I am the enormous lump I’ve created: a quivering, unidentifiable mess.

  “Who goes through her whole life without cooking, Captain?” I ask. “Without cooking a thing?”

  Ahab lifts his head and watches as I stand, wrap a dish towel around my hand, and grasp the heavy baking sheet. It clatters onto the stovetop.

  “How did Nick stand it?” I howl. “How did he stand me?” A single tear splashes onto the half-cooked lump. And I spill over, big hot tears everywhere—my cheeks and chin, the ends of my hair, the apron. Even the top of Ahab’s head, as he leans against my thigh.

  The doorbell wheezes: w-h-e-e-z-e.

  “Crap.” I press an apron corner to my eyes and decide to ignore the doorbell until whoever is ringing it gives up and goes away.

  W-h-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-z-e.

  Balls.

  MR. GARRETT KNOX WAITS ON THE PORCH, loosening his tie. “Am I . . . interrupting you?” he asks.

  I’m not sure what to say because technically he is.

  “Smells great,” he says.

  “Really?” I say. “Thanks a lot. I was just baking some . . . cookies.” I smooth the apron over my belly and stand a little straighter.

  He peers at me, and I wonder whether he can tell I was just bawling my eyes out over the stove. I try to smile a little.

  “You bake a lot?” he asks.

  “Oh, every now and again. Sure.”

  “No wonder my daughter likes you so much.” He laughs and reaches for my hand. “Garrett,” he says. His palm is soft, like that of a man who works at a desk. “Yeah, Ingrid sure is a fan of you.”

  “Really? Well, she seems like a great kid,” I say.

  “Thanks. She really is something else. Uh, you have . . .” He pretends to wipe the area under his left eye.

  I mirror him; chocolaty butter comes off on my fingertips. “Oh. Nice.” I force a smile. “My name’s Rose-Ellen, but I go by Zell.”

  “Zell,” he says. “Well, this is awkward.”

  “Yeah.”

  “No, I mean, what I’m about to say is awkward. Because I’m in a bit of a bind and I need to ask you a favor. A huge favor, actually.”

  Ahab comes to the door and leans against me. He eyes Garrett—that’s actually pretty sociable for a greyhound, because typically they ignore strangers.

  “Nice dog.” Garrett scratches Ahab’s head, then notices a streak of cinnamon on the nipple area of my apron and quickly looks back at my eyes, which I’m sure are puffy and bloodshot from crying.

  “So what’s up?” I ask, as Ahab licks my apron hem.

  “Well, my nanny bailed on me,” Garrett says. “She’s been watching Ingrid while I’m in Boston Tuesday nights, and all day on some Saturdays. She got a real job, apparently. Left me in the lurch. I mean, I’m happy for her. But I really don’t know what to do for child care now. And here we are, Tuesday night already, and I have to leave for class, like . . . twenty minutes ago. I’ve dragged Ingrid to class with me a couple times, but it’s just awful for her.”

  “Why don’t you send her to a friend’s house for the night?” I say, trying to sound helpful.

  “A friend’s house?” he says. “I uh . . . I guess I didn’t think of that option. That’s a really good idea. For the next time, I mean. But, well. I was wondering if you could watch her. Tonight. Like, right now.”

  I want to say, You’re kidding me, right? I want to tell him about the me of just a few moments ago, when I sobbed into my failed dessert. Is it my moral obligation to inform Garrett that I’m so depressed as to be unfit to look after a child, even for a night?

  Again I try to smile, but I’m sure I look just plain fearful.

  Garrett stares at me. His mouth is grim, his eyes sincere. “I’m begging you. We just moved here from the other side of town. And it’s been really hectic. I’m sorry to bother you. I am. But I’m begging, here.”

  Babysitting? At thirty-four years old? Well, maybe that’s my widow style. My awesome widow style.

  I shrug and say, “I guess so?”

  “Oh, you’re a lifesaver. Listen, Ingrid’ll come right over to your house. She’s on her way, actually. She’ll do her homework, no problem. We already had dinner, so you don’t have to worry about that either. And then she’ll watch TV.”

  “What’s okay for her to watch?”

  “She only watches one show.” He smirks. “I’ll be home late. Like, late. How about you just let her fall asleep on your couch, and I’ll scoop her up when I get home? She’ll fall asleep anywhere, that one.”

  “I usually go to bed around ten thirty,” I say.

  “Shoot. Really? I’ll be much later than that.”

  “I don’t leave my door unlocked at night.” Not a lie. Nick never locked the door; a lot of Munkers don’t. But I do because I’m a widow.

  Garrett bites his lower lip. “No, no. Of course not.”

  Ingrid comes out of their house. She drops her backpack over the porch railing and climbs over. “Well?” she says. “What’s the plan?”

  He glances at his watch. “I was thinking you’d be much more comfortable in your own house. Gosh, I hate imposing on people like this. Do you mind babysitting at our house?”

  “Hold on?” I say. “Just a second.”

  I duck inside. Nick’s Guns N’ Roses key chain hangs on a little set of hooks just inside the door. I squeeze the cold keys and hold them to my lips.

  Back on the porch, Ingrid hugs Garrett, and he strokes her head.

  “Look,” he says when he notices me standing there. “Never mind. I’m sorry to have bothered you. I’ll take Ingrid with me to school tonight. So don’t worry about it.”

  I hand him the keys. “Let yourself in when you get back.”

  “Yessss.” Ingrid snatches her backpack and brushes past me; Ahab follows.

  Garrett eyes the keys. “Are you sure?”

  “It’ll be fine.”

  “Guns N’ Roses, huh?”

  “ ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine,’” I say, smi
ling.

  He laughs through his nose at the reference and slides the keys into the pocket of his wool dress coat. “Oh,” he says, extracting a little green box. “I almost forgot to give you this.”

  “What is it?” I take the box; it’s labeled AUTO-INJECTOR.

  “You shouldn’t need it. But just in case.” He turns and skips down the porch steps.

  “Hey,” I yell. “Garrett, I’m not qualified to give a kid an injection.”

  “Just keep her out of the peanut butter. She knows what she needs to stay away from. She’s an old pro. And she’s really a good kid, Zell.”

  He tosses his briefcase and coat on the passenger seat of his truck and gets in.

  “But?” I shout.

  “She likes you.” He slams the door, salutes me, and rounds the corner.

  I find Ingrid in the kitchen. She’s studying my now-deflated dessert. “What’s going on there?” she asks.

  “Oh, nothing,” I say. “Just trying to come up with something for the Warm the Soul contest.”

  “Does this have peanuts in it?” she asks, about to dip a finger. “Or peanut butter?”

  “No. But it does have Milky Ways in it.”

  “Ooh. Better not risk it.” She takes a step back. “Well, it looks weird, but I bet it doesn’t taste half-bad.”

  I nod my thanks as she climbs on a stool and stacks her workbooks on the counter.

  “Gonna do your homework?” I ask.

  “Yep.” She chews her lip and scratches out a few math problems. I can’t remember the last time I babysat. Middle school, probably, when the Pierce twins down the street were six or seven. Now, as Ingrid makes herself at home in my kitchen, I feel an odd sense of displacement, as if I’m the one who’s never been here before.

  After a minute or so, she looks up. “You don’t have to watch me, you know.”