“The thing is, Makiko,” I tell her, “I know the difference between a pregnancy you don’t want and a baby that you do.” The weight of the statue is heavy on my legs. I like it there and cradle it closer to my body. “But the point is that both of those things are terrible losses. You have every right to be sad.”
“Thank you,” she says quietly. “No one’s ever said that to me before.”
“No, thank you. You’ve been a good friend to me,” I tell her.
She smiles kindly at me, then looks down into her teacup. “So have you,” she answers.
I pick up the water baby and hold it near the window. Tiny specks of mica embedded in the stone glint in the sun. “I’m not sure what to do with this,” I say. She looks immediately apologetic, but I hurry to reassure her. “I’m really glad to have it. I just want to find a special place for her. Some place where she’ll be safe. Where I can visit her whenever I want.”
“I hope you find that place,” Makiko says.
“I will.”
Chapter
Twenty-Eight
E ddie and I stand in the foyer in Lemon’s dining room. It’s quiet except for the rumble of delivery trucks passing by on the street. My eyes roam over the empty tables, each one holding dinner plates and silverware as if waiting for happy eaters. It’s hard for me to imagine that just a few weeks ago these tables were full of people, and the air was perfumed with the aromas of daring food.
“You’re sure you want to do this?” Eddie asks me. “Nothing’s final yet.”
I try to conjure up the feelings I used to get when I walked through this door every day—optimism, excitement, enthusiasm. Now, as I stand here surveying the place, I simply feel disheartened.
“Is the landlord being a jerk about breaking the lease?” I ask as I walk by the bar. The sleek dark wood is covered in dust. Sunlight dances off the liquor bottles and teases a dead flower arrangement in Poppy’s green cut-glass vase.
“You’ll take a hit, but not too bad,” says Eddie. “He knows he can rerent the space in a nanosecond and probably get more money out of it anyway.”
I stop in the middle of the room and sigh. A deserted restaurant with no future is one of the loneliest places in the world for a chef. “Who’s taking what’s left in the pantry and the freezer?”
“City Harvest is supposed to come tomorrow,” says Eddie. He shuffles through the room with his hands shoved deep in his pockets. “But I can tell them not to.”
“Did you find an accounting firm to close the books?” I ask.
“They can come Friday.”
A menu from our last night lies abandoned on the edge of the bar. I pick it up and scan the dishes. Spicy crab cakes over guacamole, braised hanger steak with semolina dumplings and mustard greens, quail roasted with port-soaked figs. We were so ambitious. No wonder people loved us. And no wonder we were exhausted. I leave the menu where I found it and push open the kitchen door. Clean surfaces sparkle; the smell is antiseptic, more like an operating room than a busy restaurant kitchen. Eddie comes in behind me and puts his hands on my shoulders.
“You can change your mind,” he says.
I think about the long nights in this kitchen with Franny and Ernesto. Our interdependence defined Lemon and made it shine, but we’ll never get that back. Franny and I have hurt each other too badly at this point. Everything I did here reminded her of some long-held resentment over my despicable behavior in Europe. Sometimes I think I hired her to make up for that. But then I blew it again. This time, I was the one smoldering with resentment over her abandoning me when I lost the baby, and I lashed out in a way I knew would hurt her terribly.
I turn around to face Eddie. I could try to resurrect Lemon without Franny and Ernesto, but it would always pale in comparison to what it once had been, so it’s best to let it go. “I’m sure this is what I want to do,” I tell him.
“Okay,” he says. “I’ll take care of it.”
I wrap my arms around his waist. “Thank you for doing this for me.”
“Of course,” he says. “I’ll do whatever I can to make it easier.”
I let go of him. “I’m going to wait out front while you make the calls.”
I don’t stop in the dining room for one last nostalgic look around. I know how restaurant closings go. It’s too much like cleaning out a dead person’s house for me to sigh wistfully and romanticize the end. I’ve made my decision; now I need to leave so all the details can be taken care of by someone less emotionally attached than I am. I do want one last look, though.
As I stand on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant and shade my eyes from the glare off the front window, I hear the door open to the apartment building next to the restaurant. I almost don’t want to look, but of course I do, and I see Franny. She’s backing out the door, her crazy red curls flashing in the sun. I have a chance to duck away, turn and run, cross the street and hightail it out of there before she sees me, but I stand my ground and wait.
She doesn’t notice me as she turns away from the restaurant and heads down the street, preoccupied with stowing her keys inside her shoulder bag. I consider letting her go, taking it as a sign that we’re not meant to hash out our differences or reconcile this time. But then she turns around abruptly, as if she’s forgotten something. She startles when she sees me standing on the sidewalk watching her.
“Oh,” she says and jumps. Her body is pensive, guarded. “What are you doing here?”
I point to the restaurant. “Taking care of a few things.”
“You opening again?” she asks.
“No,” I say.
We stand ten feet apart on the sidewalk, uncertain whether we’re going to have a conversation or just a quick exchange. Then the bell above the door at Lemon jingles, and Eddie steps out onto the walk. He stops when he sees Franny and me facing each other warily.
Franny’s eyes cut to Eddie. If she’s still angry with me, then this is her chance to get me back by launching into every sordid detail of my ill-timed kiss with Ernesto. For a moment I regret not confessing everything to Eddie before she has a chance to make it sound like I was screwing her boyfriend on the bar. But Franny’s face softens when she sees Eddie, and she waves to him.
He greets her with a friendly peck on the cheek. “I haven’t seen you forever,” he says as if we’re simply running into a dear old friend. “You look good. You’re tan.”
“I went to Ecuador with Ernesto,” Franny says proudly and cuts her eyes toward me.
“I hear the fruit there is amazing,” says Eddie. “And the coffee. Was it outrageous?” He’s a master at disarming awkward situations with idle chitchat about food.
“Yeah,” says Franny. “But the best thing was the fish! Ernesto and his brothers caught fresh stuff every day. At night we wrapped the fish in banana leaves and cooked it over open fires on the beach.”
“Sounds great,” says Eddie, then the three of us stand in an uncomfortable silence. “Well, it’s great to see you, Franny,” Eddie says. “Tell Ernesto that we said hi.” He turns back to me. “I have to make one more call and check the doors, then we’re all set.”
After Eddie goes back in the restaurant, Franny digs her keys out of her bag again. She walks toward the apartment building and says over her shoulder, “I heard you were closing, but I didn’t believe it. It’s not like you to give up just because you lost two cooks.”
I could be cheesy and tell her that I lost a lot more than that, but I don’t. “I’m sick of this place,” I say. “It was too much work. No fun anymore.”
“And the management was crappy,” she adds as she unlocks the door.
“Yeah, well, some of the staff was a real pain in the ass,” I say, immediately pissed off at her again.
She turns around and scowls at me before she pushes open the door and disappears into the foyer. I watch her jog up the stairs, and part of me thinks, Good riddance. I could leave now, and I know that someday Franny and I will run into one another at a resta
urant. We’ll be perfectly civil. Have an insipid conversation to catch up on the broad strokes of our lives, and that will be that. Until we see each other a few years later and do the same thing over again. She’ll be one of those people that I see and think, I used to be really good friends with her, what happened?
But that’s not what I want. That’s what the old stupid, immature Lemon would have done. After everything I’ve been through recently, I’m tired of letting things go in my life without the proper kinds of good-byes.
The door to the apartment building has made a wide arc and is slowly closing again. I take two quick steps and catch it before it latches. Inside, I hear Franny’s fast footsteps a few landings up, and I begin to climb.
It’s strange to be back inside my old building. It hasn’t been that long since I was in here, but so much has happened to me that I feel like I’m revisiting a part of my distant past. I was a different person when I lived here. One with a promising restaurant, a vague commitment to my boyfriend, a baby growing inside of me, and little regard for anyone else. None of those things are true anymore.
I pause on the fifth landing outside my old door, which is ajar. I put my hand on it and stop. This is probably a bad idea. Ernesto could be home. Clearly Franny is in a hurry to get somewhere, and she doesn’t want to talk to me. But I’m not willing to leave. I push the door open a bit. “Franny?” I call quietly and step inside.
The apartment is immaculate. They’ve painted the walls rich jewel tones. Ruby in the kitchen, gold in the living room, and plum in the hall toward the bedroom. Little wooden figurines of farm animals dance around the fruit bowl in the center of the kitchen table, and a gorgeous Ecuadorian tapestry covers my old ratty couch. Everything has a place, and it even smells good in here.
As I’m gawking at the transformation, Franny strides into the living room and stops short. “How’d you get in here?” she demands. “Did you keep keys to this place?”
“The door was open,” I quickly explain and back up against the kitchen table. “I wanted to talk to you.”
“About what, Lemon?” She throws her bag onto the counter and opens it. “What’s there for us to talk about?”
“The reason why were not talking,” I offer.
She shoves her wallet into her bag and cinches it closed again. “I know the reason we’re not talking,” she says.
“So do I, but maybe we should talk about it.”
“What?” she asks, confused. “That makes no sense.”
“I just mean, maybe we should talk about what happened.”
She drapes her bag over her shoulder. “You were a jerk. That’s what happened.”
“Yeah, that’s true,” I admit. “But so were you.”
She starts to protest, but then she stops. She fidgets with her bag, and we look past one another.
“Look,” I say. I pick up a green pig with yellow polka dots from the table. I concentrate on it instead of looking at Franny, but I make myself talk. “I came up here to tell you that I’m sorry for how things ended with us. I regret how I behaved. I mean, specifically, I’m sorry that I kissed your boyfriend. I mean Ernesto. It was a very stupid and thoughtless thing to do. Especially after how I acted in Europe. With Herr Fink. That was terrible. I don’t know if I ever told you how sorry I am about that. But I am. Sorry, I mean.”
I realize that my apology is terribly jumbled and incoherent. Like someone just learning how to atone, which isn’t far from the truth.
“I don’t give a shit that you kissed Ernesto,” Franny says. “It meant nothing to him, and it was just a way for you to get under my skin.”
“No.” I shake my head and squeeze the little pig in my hand. “It was more than that for me. I was really hurting, Franny. Ernesto was the first person to truly console me. I shouldn’t have kissed him, but it wasn’t just to spite you. It was a way to comfort myself.”
“See!” Franny says and throws up her hands. “That’s just like you. So selfish. No thought to how your actions would affect anyone else.”
“You’re right,” I admit. “It was selfish. And I’m sorry.” My words stop Franny. She probably never expected to hear me apologize. Frankly, I’m a bit surprised myself by how easily I’m owning up to my mistakes. I’m not done, though. “I’m sorry that I hurt your feelings. Again. But you weren’t exactly there for me, Franny. At the worst time in my life, you never called, you never asked how I was, you never asked me what I needed. I felt totally alone.”
Franny closes her eyes and bows her head. After a few moments, she says, “I just didn’t know what to say. I kept trying to call you, but I was afraid I would make it worse. The only thing I could think to do for you was to keep the restaurant going.” She looks up at me. Her eyes are red. “I threw myself into it. Then it was like you didn’t even appreciate it. You showed up at work one day, yelling at me for moving in with Ernesto.”
I remember all the fury I had toward Franny that day. The hurt festering below my skin. “I never cared that you moved in with Ernesto,” I tell her. “I was just afraid that I’d already lost your friendship.” Then I shake my head. “God, we’ve made such a mess of things.”
“We should’ve never worked together,” says Franny.
“Or lived together,” I add.
“Or tried to date the same guy.”
When she says this, I laugh and quickly cover my mouth. I look at her to apologize, but she’s got a grin on her face, too. “Yeah,” I say. “That’s hard on friendship.”
“I’m sorry, Lemon,” Franny says. “I should’ve been there for you.”
I shrug. She shrugs back. Neither Franny nor I is the type to fall upon each other, professing our undying friendship now. But what we’ve got is a start, and I’ll take it. I put the pig on the kitchen table between a rooster and a frog. “These are nice,” I say and touch each one lightly.
“We brought them back from Ecuador.”
“Did you meet his family?” I ask without looking at her.
“Yeah,” she says uncertainly. “But his mother hated me.”
“Who could hate you?” I gently tease.
She grins a little again. “It’s shocking, I know.”
I take a small step closer to Franny, as if I’m inching my way toward a skittish animal. “Is Ernesto okay?” I ask.
She nods. “He’s good. He got a consulting gig with a hotel chain. He’ll travel around the country setting up their restaurant and bar menus. It’s only for a year, but it pays a lot, so he’s happy.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?” she asks.
“Do you have a job?” My heart pounds as I ask her. If she doesn’t have a job yet, she might blame me, and we’ll be right back where we started a few minutes ago.
“I got a gig at a new Mediterranean place on the Lower East Side,” she says proudly. “Head chef.”
I smile at her fully. “That’s great, Franny. You totally deserve it.”
“Yeah,” she says. “I do.” She readjusts her bag across her back, then she says, “I have to go to work now, Lemon. I’m already running late.”
“Okay,” I say and open the door. “This place looks great, by the way. Better than when I lived here.”
Franny follows me into the hall. “We love it,” she says.
“I’m glad you guys are happy.”
We walk down the stairs single file, me in front. I want to turn around and look at Franny’s face. I want to know that this isn’t the last time I’ll see her, because the thought of not having her and Ernesto in my life anymore makes me very sad.
“Hey, did you know Mona got a job at Coyote Ugly?” Franny asks.
“Oh, my God!” I look at her over my shoulder, and I laugh. “That’s perfect. All she’ll have to do is let drunk guys slurp tequila out of her belly button.”
“Maybe you should’ve made that a specialty at Lemon.”
“That would’ve gone over well with the foodies. Do you know what Lyla and Ki
rsten are doing?”
“Lyla got a gig touring with an off-Broadway production, and Kirsten’s teaching dance at some private school in Brooklyn.”
“What about Manuel?”
“He’s fine,” Franny says. “I hired him as a line cook at my restaurant. He’s awesome. Just like Ernesto on the grill.”
“Tell him that I said hi.”
We reach the bottom of the stairs, and I push open the door. Eddie stands on the sidewalk, looking down the street, bewildered. “Hey,” I call out to him. “Here I am.”
“Oh,” he says when he sees me coming out with Franny. “I wondered where you went.”
“Sorry,” I say. I’m getting good at the apology thing. “We were upstairs talking.”
“You heading out?” Eddie asks Franny.
She nods as she locks the door. “I’m a working woman.”
“We should all have a beer sometime,” says Eddie.
Franny turns to us. “I’d like that,” she says. “I really would.” Then she starts down the street. “Come by the restaurant sometime if you have a chance,” she yells over her shoulder. “I’ll cook you up something good.”
I wave to her as she walks away. “We will,” I call after her. “We’ll come.”
Chapter
Twenty-Nine
C losing Lemon and making things a little better with Franny has unleashed a mad desire in me to cook again. I spend the next five days re-creating nearly every dish Aunt Poppy ever taught me to make. By Friday, Eddie and I are both sick of gorging ourselves on the heavy, garlicky dishes of my past, and I wake up with a hankering to bake something light.
After Eddie leaves for the day, I take my daily jaunt through the local markets and find the most beautiful crate of perfect organic lemons. I cart two dozen home and spend my morning juicing, zesting, and thickening. Rolling out flaky crusts. Whipping pearly white meringue into stiff peaks. I build two pies with tall waves of meringue over the bright yellow filling and bask in the sweet smell of burning sugar and baking lemons. When the pies are cool and I’m freshly showered, I carefully wrap one pie and head over to my grandmother’s house.
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