One Year in Coal Harbor

by Polly Horvath

  “What about steak?”

  “Steak doesn’t take any cooking skills. It’s like saying, I couldn’t be bothered. I mean, if you’re going to make steak for company, you might as well go all the way and just meet them in a field and chew on a raw cow.”

  “I know what!” said my mother, stabbing a cookbook page with her finger and looking elated. “Lamb!”

  We found lamb chops in the bottom of the freezer at the general store. They were expensive and slightly freezer burned and Mr. Barrista warned my mom that they’d been sitting there for a long time but it didn’t seem to matter to her, it was elegance ho. Besides, she said, the cost would just get lost in the general bill at the end of the month and she would economize somewhere else.

  For the next week I was very excited about the dinner even if I wasn’t mad for the menu, except for the ersatz gravy, which my mother had agreed to make as a compromise because let’s face it, serving grilled lamb is basically like serving grilled steak and requires no feats of imagination.

  Both Miss Bowzer and Uncle Jack had accepted the invitation immediately, which I took as a good sign. But when they got to our door they looked startled to see each other and then I realized I hadn’t told each the other was coming. I hadn’t done this on purpose but I might have unconsciously.

  “Ah, Miss Bowzer,” said Uncle Jack, looking very pleased after the initial surprise.

  “Oh,” said Miss Bowzer. And then she clearly couldn’t think of anything else to say and blushed right down her neck.

  I showed them in and we sat down on the couch. My dad, who had just gotten in minutes before, washed the worst of the fishy smell off his hands with lemon and then joined us.

  I was wearing my nicest sweater. Miss Bowzer wore a polka-dot dress and lipstick and looked uncomfortable without an apron on. She kept wiping her hands on her dress, realizing it wasn’t an apron and probably that her hands weren’t dirty, and then cracking her knuckles. It was not the most attractive mating display. My father kept pouring Uncle Jack scotches and giving him sympathetic looks. My mother was way perkier and more cheerful than usual. So much so that she bordered on the manic. But she hadn’t been able to get out of work as early as she had demanded and had had to run home and throw dinner together and now even though she was caught up and had things cooking, she couldn’t seem to slow down again. When Miss Bowzer saw that my mom was wearing blue jeans and no makeup she looked even more uncomfortable and overdressed. I wanted to pull her aside and tell her my mom simply hadn’t had time to glam up, even though the truth is my mom never wears makeup or fancy clothes. I thought Miss Bowzer looked really nice and someone should mention it but it was as if we’d all taken an unspoken vow not to mention the dress. This, of course, made it much worse because under normal relaxed circumstances someone would have complimented her on her good grooming. You ought to appreciate the effort, any effort people make.

  Uncle Jack alone retained his savoir faire as if he were completely at home with people who would really be better off heavily sedated. He kept everyone entertained with tales of developing land down island. And every time Miss Bowzer started to look especially uncomfortable and out of place, he leaped in and engaged her in questions or asked for her opinion on some business venture. Miss Bowzer was always happiest when offering an opinion. She was one of those people who knew exactly what she thought about any subject you’d care to proffer. So it was a comforting activity for her and for a while after, she’d look relaxed again. Miss Bowzer didn’t seem to mind Uncle Jack’s development adventures as long as the development was happening someplace else. Although I thought we might be in trouble when she said, “Just tell me who but a total skunk would want a lot of strangers coming in and gunking up the waters and chopping down the trees and clogging the roads and putting up artificial light at night when it’s no business being anything but dark, and turning the west coast of Vancouver Island into a concrete mess like Florida?”

  “You forgot annihilating the wildlife, including those skunks you mentioned,” said Uncle Jack.

  And then Miss Bowzer remembered her manners and that she was in our house and not her restaurant and toned it down, even laughed at several of his escapades. Uncle Jack had been busy developing Coal Harbor by building seaside town houses during the period when my parents were lost at sea, but after they were rescued and he didn’t have to worry about me, he turned his attention to more lucrative ventures down island. The town houses he had built by Coal Harbor’s docks had been called a lot of nasty things by people in town, including a carbuncle on Coal Harbor’s nose, which was maybe overdoing things a bit. People did get worked up when it looked like we were going to lose what we all held so dear, namely the perfection of Coal Harbor just as it was. There are so few places that are perfect just as they are. But Uncle Jack, maybe because it’s the nature of a developer, felt every thing and every place could be improved upon and it was figuring out how and then doing it that excited him. Also seeing how much money he could make. I don’t think he wanted the money per se, he just wanted to see if he could make it. He had made and lost fortunes many times in his life and it didn’t seem to dim one iota his enthusiasm for the romance of business.

  I forgot that Uncle Jack was a lefty and sat him next to Miss Bowzer, where his cutting arm kept knocking into hers, which might have been a good thing if she’d been the sly, flirty, go-ahead-and-knock-into-me-with-your-knife-arm-you-big-lug type. But she wasn’t. She was more the I’m-going-to-try-to-ignore-the-line-of-bruises-forming-up-my-arm type. If I was less invested in their future happiness I might have found it entertaining. Well, all right, it was entertaining anyway.

  “And now,” said Uncle Jack, continuing his anecdote as he picked hopelessly at the teeny bit of meat left on his chop. Out of deference to Miss Bowzer, I guess, he wasn’t picking up the bone and gnawing on it. But he wouldn’t leave it half-eaten either and kept trying to get at the tiny stringy bit of lamb with his knife and fork, which sometimes slipped against the greasy chop and made terrible clattering noises on the plate. I saw a splatter of ersatz gravy land perilously close to Miss Bowzer’s polka-dotted dress. And of course it all resulted in yet more jabs to her arm with his elbow, all for the sake of good manners. I wanted to scream, FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE, THERE’S MORE IN THE KITCHEN. Although there wasn’t more lamb. It was expensive enough giving everyone three chops. But there was a swell dessert—floating island. I had chosen it and helped to make it myself. My mother had wanted to go with chocolate cake but we had never made floating island and I had always wanted to and it’s not the type of thing you make just for yourselves. “You ought to make something fancy so she won’t think all you know is ersatz gravy,” I said to my mother, and that, of course, sealed the deal.

  I pointed out the ersatz gravy to Miss Bowzer and reminded her that she had said she wanted to try it and she said, “Ah, um, yes,” but she didn’t seem to really be paying attention. I noticed she had poured it on her potatoes and eaten it but my sense of things was that she hadn’t tasted it at all. She was still too busy being nervous and overdressed.

  “Anyhow,” Uncle Jack wrapped up his last hilarious anecdote about development by Campbell River, “I’m done with that project.”

  Miss Bowzer didn’t respond. Just sat there in her polka-dotted dress, looking uncomfortable, her chops half finished.

  “So, Jack,” said my father. “What’s next?”

  “There’s always something next with this guy!” said my mother, through a mouthful of mashed potatoes and peas, while gesticulating wildly with her knife and fork.

  “Well, Miss Bowzer may have some suspicions,” said Uncle Jack.

  This had the effect of making Miss Bowzer suddenly look suspicious. It was actually a rather attractive look for her. It made her appear all fiery and romantic. Angry and suspicious were good looks for her and I thought this was lucky as those were the two emotions Uncle Jack seemed to inspire in her the most.

  “Why should I know anythi
ng about what you’re doing next?” she demanded.

  “Because it’s already started right across the street from you,” said Uncle Jack. “I thought by now you might have gotten normally curious and gone and at least looked in the window.”

  “Jack,” said my mother, tittering in a fake way. “I’m sure we’re all normal around here.”

  Why couldn’t everyone just be themselves? I really felt frustrated by not being able to choreograph everyone’s behavior. I liked everyone at that table and I couldn’t believe how wrong they were all getting it. I felt I should hand out scripts.

  “Are you saying I’m not normal?” Miss Bowzer asked, turning with steely eyes to Uncle Jack. Before he could answer, my father interrupted.

  “Were you the one that bought that building across from The Girl on the Red Swing? The one where there’s construction going on?” Heretofore my dad had been preoccupied by figuring out exactly how much meat he could get off his chops. He was the only one who picked them up and gnawed. He’d study them as if he couldn’t believe there wasn’t something he was missing. Not at ten dollars a pound. Then he’d pick them up and go at them again. It seemed like an engrossing activity, practically a new hobby, so that only now was he waking up to the table conversation.

  “I’m the one,” said Uncle Jack proudly through a mouthful of potatoes and ersatz gravy. “New enterprise.”

  “Wow. That place has been empty for as long as I can remember. I’m surprised it’s still standing. People have been talking for years about tearing it down before it falls down. Wasn’t it an old hotel back in the day?”

  “Yep, and it’s not in such bad shape. The timbers are sound. I was getting tired of always traveling around down island on business. I thought it would be nice to open up something closer to home so I’d be home.”

  Normally Uncle Jack loved to roam. My mother used to call him old hotfoot Jack. She threw him a piercing look and then turned to Miss Bowzer.

  “My, my! Then I guess you and Jack will be neighbors!” She said this with so much enthusiasm it was as if the concept of neighbors had just been invented. By her. “Isn’t that nice? Well, this is a surprise. Jack is always such a dark horse. We never know what to expect from him from one moment to the next. He’s just FULL of surprises.” She shrieked this last, which made even my unflappable father look at her in alarm. But she was oblivious and looked around, pretending to be speaking to the table in general, but really she might as well have had a megaphone pointed at Miss Bowzer’s ear, calling out, “Eligible bachelor. Tons of fun. Catch him while you can!”

  My father picked up another already-gnawed chop and yawned. I wanted to pass my mother her better script because I wasn’t so sure that general unexpectedness was what Miss Bowzer was looking for in a mate.

  “So tell us, Jack,” my mother went on with manic beaming approval, “what is it that you’re opening?”

  “A restaurant,” said Jack.

  And then I knew the evening was over.

  Freeziolla

  Put an undrained ten-ounce package of defrosted frozen strawberries in a bowl with a can of drained crushed pineapple. Add one cup of strawberry yogurt, one quarter cup of powdered sugar and one half cup of mini marshmallows. Line an ice cube tray with foil extending a few inches over both sides. Pour the mixture in and fold the extra foil over the top. Freeze it for three hours, until solid. Lift it out of the tray. Let it stand a bit to soften so that you can cut it in triangles. (Evie says triangles look the prettiest.) Arrange each piece on a lettuce leaf and put a pineapple ring on top to garnish. You can tell people this is a salad. People in certain moods will believe anything.

  Ersatz Gravy

  Take a can of consommé and heat it with some poultry seasoning. About two tablespoons or so. Bring it to a boil and add a tablespoon or so of cornstarch which you have mixed with a quarter cup of water. Mix that in and let it cook a bit to thicken the gravy. That’s it. If people know how it’s made they will pretend not to like it but they really will.

  Floating Island

  Beat eight egg whites, three quarters of a cup of sugar and a pinch of salt until you get a meringue. Boil water and let simmer and into it drop four large glops of the meringue. These will be the islands. Poach them in the water for two minutes on one side and four on the other and then drain them on paper towels.

  Take four egg yolks and beat with a pinch of salt and one quarter cup of sugar. Scald two cups of milk and add it to the egg yolks, beating frantically so the eggs don’t cook. Place the custard in a double boiler and stir constantly until it thickens. Remove from heat and cool a bit and then add a teaspoon of vanilla and a teaspoon of lemon rind grated very, very tiny. Chill this.

  Finally, to assemble, put the sea of custard into four dessert bowls and float a meringue island in each one.

  If your parents have been stranded on an island for a year, this is a very poignant dessert. And even if they haven’t, it’s pretty good.

  What Happened to Miss Bowzer When She Was Young

  “A RESTAURANT? ARE YOU crazy?” said Miss Bowzer, no longer able to retain her polite demeanor, polka-dotted dress or no.

  “Are you upset? Why are you upset?” asked Uncle Jack, putting down his knife and fork and looking stunned. “I’m doing high end. You’re doing low end. Different markets altogether.”

  “LOW end?” squawked Miss Bowzer.

  “I don’t mean that in a bad way. I just mean cheap, well, more affordable meals.”

  “Cheap food?” said Miss Bowzer.

  It amazed me that Uncle Jack, who was the most clever and tactful person I knew, seemed to lose all these skills the second he came in contact with Miss Bowzer. It never failed.

  My mother got the floating islands on the table very quickly after that. The one she slung on the table in front of my father practically skidded into his lap. You would think that would take everyone’s mind off of things—the anticipation of custard on his pants—but Miss Bowzer, who had been turning what looked to me a dangerous shade of red, didn’t seem to notice and excused herself to go to the bathroom. When she returned it was as if she had Krazy Glued her lips together in there, because she hardly said a word the rest of the night. Ten minutes after her last sip of coffee she thanked my mother for her fine meal and hospitality and left.

  I was deflated. You know exactly how bad a time someone has had by how soon after dinner they leave and how formal they are about it. Jack stayed on long enough to help us clear the table and wash the dishes. He and my parents talked about other things and never mentioned the restaurant once. I think my mother was afraid that if she did, she would hit him over the head with whatever pan was handiest. When he finally left I went up to bed. As I climbed the stairs I heard my father’s voice below saying cheerily, “Well, that was a pleasant evening.”

  I didn’t see much of Miss Bowzer after that. I was a little embarrassed that it was my family that had upset her with its version of The Dating Game. I knew Uncle Jack hadn’t intended his restaurant announcement to mean and-by-the-way-I’m-putting-you-out-of-business-pass-the-salt, but that’s what it must have sounded like to her.

  I didn’t see Uncle Jack much after that, either, because he was very busy getting his restaurant built.

  “She’ll see,” he explained to me one day when I ran into him on the street. “She’s an excellent chef but she doesn’t understand the first thing about business. My business will be, if anything, good for her business.”

  I didn’t see how this would be so. I followed him back to his restaurant on the pretext of helping him carry his purchases but really so that he could explain his reasoning to me. Then I, in turn, could explain it to Miss Bowzer.

  “Listen, people get tired of the same old thing. They’ll come to my restaurant for special occasions and Miss Bowzer’s for everyday fare. Choice just makes eating out all the more enticing. There was a study, Primrose, that said people eat more when they have more choices. If it’s just two things in the frid
ge they won’t eat so much. If there’s twenty things, they’ll graze from taste to taste. We’re just giving people more choices, which will inspire more grazing.”

  “But she has a lot of stuff on her menu already. People already have choices,” I argued. Then a chunk of ceiling fell right in front of us and Uncle Jack moved me over a few feet and started up the stairs to see “what the heck they were doing up there.”

  “Maybe you’d better go, Primrose,” he called down, sounding all distracted, so I left.

  If this was the way they were going to court, each waiting for the other to make a move, both being proud and independent, they would never connect. I couldn’t arrange another dinner. That would be too obvious, but there must be some way I could help them along.

  I took a bike ride out Jackson Road. Jackson Road is a good thinking road. There is nothing but treed mountains until you come to Miss Clarice’s farm and B and B. There is a stillness there you don’t find other places. It’s the quality of the stillness. It’s like the stillness is thicker and there’s more in it, the way ersatz gravy is just consommé until the cornstarch goes in and then it has what chefs call viscosity. When I am there I can feel my thoughts expand until they feel full of viscosity themselves, so that before I’d even ridden the length of the road, I had a plan.

  I biked furiously back to the library and got out a Julia Child cookbook. My mother had some tapes of Julia Child’s old cooking shows and I knew she was considered a gourmet. I ran my finger down the table of contents until I had what I needed and then I headed back to The Girl on the Red Swing.

  I came in through the alley kitchen door.

  It seemed to me that Miss Bowzer, who is a furious chopper anyway, was chopping with special ferocity.

  “I was just visiting Uncle Jack.”

  “Feh,” said Miss Bowzer, and chopped even harder.