Eddie plants a quick kiss on Grandma’s cheek. “You look gorgeous today, Miss Annie.” He pulls a bottle of Piaggia Carmignano out of a paper sack. “I brought you a little blood of Christ.”
“Sacrilege!” Grandma throws her hands to the heavens, but she smiles slyly. “You Baptists have no manners.”
“I was raised Episcopalian,” Eddie tells her.
“How’re your parents, Eddie?” Aunt Gladys asks as she comes out of the pantry, carrying three jars of homemade pick-les. My aunts are fascinated by tales of Eddie’s sprawling Georgian family, which I’m sure they picture sitting on old rocking chairs on some spacious veranda, sipping mint juleps beneath a Confederate flag.
“They’re fine, thank you. They’d like to plan a visit,” he says with his eyes on me.
I turn away quickly just as my cousin Deirdre takes my pie from Aunt Adele. “So pretty, with the crust all braided around the edges like that. You’re so talented, Lemon.” She sets it on the speckled Formica counter next to three other pies and a chocolate sheet cake.
“How much you charge for a piece of that pie at your restaurant?” Aunt Mary asks from the kitchen table, where she snaps green beans with cousin Sophie.
“Hi ya, Eddie,” Sophie says and waves a bean.
“We don’t serve it at the restaurant,” I tell Mary.
“Why not?” she asks.
“Too pedestrian,” I say with a shrug.
My grandmother looks up and notices me for the first time. “Good Lord, Ellie Manelli. What’s with the hair?”
I hate it when she uses my name instead of calling me Lemon like every one else. “You like it?” I ask sarcastically and run my fingers through the blue streaks.
“No,” she says and turns back to Eddie. “You bring me some oil?”
The first time I invited Eddie to a family dinner, he expected to find a gaggle of hot-tempered Sophia Loren look-alikes, slugging back bottles of Chianti while feasting on platters of thin-sliced prosciutto and huge bowls of fusilli simmering all day in a secret-recipe ragu. For about an hour he tossed around words like fagiola (which we call beans) and buccatino (which we call mozzarella balls) in his thick Georgian drawl until my aunts laughed at him and my grandmother asked repeatedly what the hell he was talking about. He figured out pretty quickly that despite our name and ancestry, we’re much more Brooklyn than Italian. Still, my grandmother appreciates the good stuff when it comes to Eddie’s oils.
He takes out a slender blue glass bottle with a cork. “First press,” he says. “From a little orchard in Puglia. It’s nice and sweet. Good on ripe tomatoes. And look at this.” He pulls a small flask of aged balsamic out of the bag. “I got this near Modena from a man on a mule. He said his grandfather made it in a huge vat in a barn. Of course, I assumed he was pulling my leg, but he took me there and sure enough, there was his old granddad, stirring a giant tub of vinegar. They served me some twelve-year over fresh strawberries with a little bit of powdered sugar on top.”
“Strawberries and vinegar?” my grandmother scoffs. “Sounds terrible.”
“Your mother probably ate it in the old country,” Eddie says. He loves his version of my family’s past. Stone farmhouses, orchards, goatherds walking through the hills.
“Listen to him,” says my grandmother. “The old country! They were lucky if they got tripe. They had nothing.”
“When you going back to Italy?” Aunt Joy asks Eddie.
“Mid-August is the next trip,” he says. “I wish Lemon would come with me.”
I roll my eyes and turn away. I’d love to go with him, and he knows it, but I can’t leave the restaurant now. Things have gotten nuts. We’re booked all the time, and I’m still perfecting the brunch menu. It would be wonderful, though, to abandon it all for a few weeks. Trek through small villages with Eddie, discovering little gems like this aged balsamic. Every bottle he brings back has a story.
I used to figure I was just another part of his southern-boy fascination with things Italian. A way to aggravate his mother, who keeps waiting for him to come back into the fold and increase the family fortune rather than piss it away on oil and vinegar. But Eddie is committed to his business, regardless of how little money he earns. So the least I can do is try to make his investment in Lemon pay off.
“You want a glass of wine?” Eddie asks Grandma. He takes two jelly jars from the shelves.
“Yeah, why not,” she says. “Jesus died for me too, you know.”
“Mother!” says Gladys. My grandmother shrugs indifferently and laughs at her own blasphemy.
“You’re getting lots of good press lately,” Deirdre says to me. “I read that New York Times article with your recipe for pound cake.”
“They named her one of five new chefs to watch,” Eddie says as he uncorks the wine. “Called her ‘Luscious Lemon.’ The guy couldn’t stop gushing about the pound cake.”
“What’s so special about your pound cake?” Grandma asks.
“Nothing really,” I say, because next to my grandmother, everything I do in the kitchen is all poofy nonsense.
“She uses bergamot preserves in the batter,” says Eddie. “Then she tops it with an Earl Grey–infused crème anglaise and blueberry coulis. It’s definitely luscious. Just like her.” He reaches over and wraps his arm around my waist. I elbow him in the ribs.
“It’s mostly Makiko’s recipe,” I say.
“I read the review you got in the Post a few weeks ago,” Aunt Joy says to me. “How do you cook a beef cheek anyway? I didn’t even know cows had cheeks.”
Aunt Adele’s grandson Jessie snickers from the stool by the stove. “Butt cheeks,” he says.
“Hey, Jessie, you watch your mouth.” Adele shakes a finger in her grandson’s face. “Get outta here. Go play with your cousins.” Jessie slips off the stool and scurries out of the room. “I swear Billy teaches that child no manners.”
“Billy was always such a nice boy,” Gladys says.
“He was not,” says Sophie. “Lemon, you remember what a jackass Billy could be?”
“He just put up a good front for the adults.” I open the refrigerator to see what’s planned for brunch.
“Billy was all right,” says Grandma. “That kind of orneriness skips a generation. Jessie is just like Adele.”
“I wasn’t that bad,” Adele says. The rest of the room bursts into laughter. “Oh, get out of here.” Adele snaps a dishtowel at her sisters. “You all were just as bad as I was.”
“You were all juvenile delinquents, from what I hear,” I say.
“Your mother was the worst,” says Joy. The rest of my aunts gaze at me wistfully as they nod in agreement. I hate that look.
“So what kind of pie is it anyway?” Grandma asks me as she puts the last cabbage roll into a casserole dish and wipes her hands on her stained apron.
“Strawberry rhubarb.”
“I haven’t had a good rhubarb pie in a long time,” says Grandma. “Mine stopped growing out back years ago.”
“It used to grow right up the side of the building,” I tell Eddie. “When we were kids, we’d dare each other to pull if off and take a bite.”
“Whoever could eat the biggest piece without spitting it out was the winner,” Sophie adds.
“Y’all must’ve been real bored,” says Eddie.
“Like you and your brother were discovering brain surgery down in the swamp,” I say.
“Your aunt Natalia used to have rhubarb in her backyard, but of course she wouldn’t let anyone at it,” says Joy.
“How do you know what grew in Natalia’s yard?” I ask.
“My girlfriend Ferdie’s place looked out into Natalia’s yard. I saw the rhubarb,” Joy explains.
“You asked her for some?” I ask.
“Yeah. Thought I’d make a nice pie for Ma. Natalia wasn’t using it, but she said no.”
“Maybe she was going to use it,” I point out.
Joy, Adele, Gladys, and Mary all snort and scoff.
“A Manelli girl?” Adele says.
“Cooking?” Joy adds.
After my parents died, my mother’s sisters and my father’s sisters began a petty war of insults and digs across the neighborhood streets. The Manellis never forgave Grandmother Calabria for taking custody of me, and so they took issue with every decision she made. If she sent me to Catholic school, they thought public was better. If she didn’t force me to take piano lessons, she was spoiling me. If I showed up at church in pants instead of a skirt, she was negligent. Of course, all my cousins would get in on it, too. The Calabrias fighting the Manellis. Leaving me in the middle, feeling like all the discord was my fault.
“Where’d you get your rhubarb, Lemon?” Grandma slips the cabbage rolls into the oven.
“Farmer’s market in the city.”
“How much’d you pay?” Adele asks.
I ignore her and pull a covered dish out of the overstuffed fridge. “What’s this?”
“What’s it look like?” says Grandma. “It’s cucumber salad.”
“Who else is coming?” I pick a slippery cucumber out of the bowl and pop it into my mouth. Vinegar and sugar sting my tongue. Bile creeps up the back of my throat, and I swallow hard.
“I don’t know.” Grandma plunges her hands into soapy dishwater and starts washing pots. “The usual, I guess. Your cousins Tom, Anthony, Sam, Cindy, Angela, Amy, Joe.”
“Amy has to work,” says Aunt Mary.
“You invite Rick and the baby then?” Grandma asks.
“Yeah, sure,” says Mary. “He’ll probably stop by.”
“Is Aunt Livinia coming up?” I ask. My grandmother’s one remaining sister has lived in the basement apartment here since I was thirteen. In the past few years, she’s retreated farther and farther into her little dark hovel downstairs. I rarely see her now.
“She hasn’t been up here for almost a month,” says Grandma.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“She’s old.”
“Let me do that.” Eddie rolls up his sleeves and bumps my grandmother out of the way.
“Such a gentleman,” Grandma says as she dries her hands. “When’re you going to marry my granddaughter?”
I glance up at the old owl clock tick-tocking above the sink. “That only took three and a half minutes,” I mutter.
“Just as soon as she’ll have me,” Eddie says with a wink.
My aunts all look at me eagerly. I stick my head inside the refrigerator again. I learned early on that the best defense against my aunts’ constant prying is to ignore them.
“You know your cousin Cindy just got engaged,” Aunt Gladys says.
“Is she pregnant?” asks Mary.
“Just because both your girls were bursting the seams of their wedding dresses…,” Gladys says to Mary.
Sophie laughs. “Who wasn’t pregnant when they got married in this family?”
“Anyone ever heard of birth control?” I ask from inside the fridge.
“Not pope-sanctioned,” Joy jokes.
“And we’re such good Catholics,” Mary adds.
“Well, she’s not pregnant,” says Gladys. Then she giggles and adds, “At least not yet.”
“Give her till the honeymoon,” Mary says, and they all crack up.
Except for me. I’ve always found their constant joking about the fertility of the Calabria clan annoying. As if the only thing a woman in our family is capable of doing is having babies, and like that’s such an accomplishment.
“You’re the only one left, Lemon,” says Joy.
I pull out a platter of red peppers, tomatoes, prosciutto, and mozzarella. The smell of the cheese turns my stomach, and I shove it back in. I never thought I’d see the day when I was sick of food, sick of cooking, sick of tasting. All this hoopla over the restaurant is beginning to wear me down. Eddie’s pointed out repeatedly that I probably need a break and more help, but I can’t afford those things yet. I have to keep going until we’re running smoothly and turning a profit; then I’ll think about hiring more staff and taking some time off.
“I heard from Trina,” Aunt Adele suddenly announces, which stops the room dead. Even I come out from the fridge. Trina’s the youngest of the grandchildren after me. She was a surprise, a miracle baby by all their estimations, but she’s been a constant source of heartache for Aunt Adele, and yet she remains doted on and adored.
“When?” Aunt Mary asks.
“Yesterday,” says Adele.
“You didn’t tell us,” Joy gripes.
“I’m telling you now,” says Adele.
Everyone waits, no one moving.
“She’s coming home,” Adele says, and her eyes fill with tears. My aunts smile at her, misty-eyed and soft, then they’re laughing like hyenas, throwing their arms around Adele, and patting her on the back.
I’m not so sure this is good news. Trina has been out in Seattle, finding herself, for the past two years. An endeavor that landed her in detox twice before her twenty-first birthday.
“Maybe Lemon could give her a job,” Gladys says.
I let that comment pass. “What time do you think we’ll eat?” I ask my grandmother. My eyes are heavy, and I’m exhausted. Every day in the late morning I feel this way. A few days I’ve even slipped off into the storage room and had a quick nap on top of the flour sacks.
Grandma adds salt to the noodle pot. “Why? You got somewhere you need to be?”
“Thought I might lie down for a while,” I say.
This stops my aunts yammering about Trina.
“You sick?” Adele asks.
“She’s working too hard,” says Gladys.
“It’s all those late nights,” Joy adds.
“You have to take time off,” Mary warns. “Or you’ll burn out.”
Eddie looks at me carefully.
“I’m fine,” I say. “Just tired.”
“Go in my room,” says Grandma. “Turn on the air conditioner if you want. I’ll get you up when everything’s ready.”
Eddie walks me to the hall. “You okay?” he asks with his hand on the small of my back.
“God, I’m fine,” I snap at him. “I want a little nap, and everyone acts like I’m on my deathbed.” As soon as this comes out, I realize how bitchy it sounds, and I wonder what my problem is. “I’m just tired,” I say more kindly. “Will you be okay down here by yourself?”
Eddie laughs. “Of course,” he says and kisses my cheek. I know it’s true. My family adores Eddie. “Enjoy your nap,” he tells me as I lug my tired body up the stairs.
Nearly everything in Carroll Gardens has changed since I was a kid, except for my family. When my cousins and I were growing up, everyone and everything on the streets was the same—Italian. The bakery, the shoe store, Leopoldi’s Hardware, Dr. Cornelio the dentist, the Catholic church. Virgin Mary statues graced the front of nearly every building. Old men sat on metal folding chairs in their undershirts outside the social clubs where they played cards in the afternoon. Women yelled at kids from apartment-building windows.
Now most of the Italian families, including all of my Manelli relations, have sold their brownstones for a small fortune and moved to the Jersey suburbs or Florida. Carroll Gardens has become a hip Brooklyn neighborhood full of young couples, trendy bars, and overpriced knickknack shops. But the Calabrias never change. My four aunts still live within five blocks of one another. I think they see it as a personal triumph that they’re still here, especially when the Manellis jumped ship. I mark it up to the hideous stubbornness that runs in my family.
I draw the shades in Grandma’s room but leave a window open and the air conditioner off so I can smell the mock orange scent floating up from the garden, which settles my stomach a little. As I lie down, fuzzy chenille pom-poms on the ancient light blue bedspread push into my skin, but I’m too tired to care. Sleep these days overwhelms me. Pulls me under like anesthesia. One second I’m awake, the next I’m dreaming. Each time I wake up, I’m groggy and queasy, a
s though the sleep wasn’t enough and my body wants more. Begs me to close my eyes again. On my grandmother’s bed, I fall into a heavy, almost drunken sleep, and immediately I’m dreaming my old dream of the train.
The train is fancy, not like the dingy Amtrak cars of my childhood, with their worn orange seats and graffiti everywhere. The conductors wear white gloves and little hats. They walk through the aisles of red velvet seats, smiling at the passengers. There is a dining car with tablecloths and candles where my parents sit and drink wine from pretty glasses and laugh with their heads tossed back as prairies pass by outside the windows. They are glamorous. More Myrna Loy and William Powell than Norma and Giovanni from Brooklyn. And it’s clear, they are deliriously happy on that train.
The scene switches to outside. The train is big and black and powerful. It speeds through the dark night, whistle blowing lonely and forlorn. Charging ahead like a blind bull. Smoke pours out of its stack, and the whistle screams. Up ahead is a bridge spanning a deep ravine over a tiny river that looks like a small blue thread winding through minuscule trees below. I’m there. Standing on the bridge, waving my arms frantically, trying to get that train to stop.
The conductor sees me. His mouth is a big black O, his eyes round and white. I’m small and in the way. He pulls the brake, but it’s too late. The train is coming too fast. It hits a bump. The front wheels jump, and the engine smashes through the side of the bridge. Smoke trails behind it as it plummets. Then the coal car plunges over the edge. A small man with a shovel flies away. Passenger cars, one by one, go over. Faces appear in the windows. Hands press against the glass. These are the ghoulish faces of long-lost children, grainy, black and white, staring icily ahead. The children scream, and I wake up, heart pounding, palms sweating, the chenille spread wadded in my fingers.
Luscious Lemon Page 3