A Place at the Table: A Novel

by Susan Rebecca White

  I have long stopped believing in the ABCs of salvation. I have long stopped thinking of Jesus as my Very Best Friend. Still, through much of my life, I have been comforted by the presence of God. It wasn’t that I felt protected exactly, but rather accompanied by something holy when I should have felt most alone.

  But after Sebastian’s death, my sense of God’s presence evaporated. AIDS destroyed God for me, the same as it destroyed an entire community of those who create beauty and art, the dazzlers among us, reflecting God’s creative spark. But the dazzlers died, again and again, and the response of so many—in and out of the church—was to say that their deaths were deserved. So what were we left with? A tortured male body hanging on the cross. But not resurrection.

  Directed by the ushers, aisle by aisle members stand and approach the altar to receive communion. Again I compare this to the Baptist rite of my youth, to the stainless-steel trays passed down the aisle, tiny plastic cups of Welch’s nestled inside each indentation. Here the black priest holds an ornate silver chalice, filled, I presume, with actual wine. The usher comes to our aisle and I stand with everyone else, suddenly aching to take of the body, the blood. As I walk to the altar I allow myself this sliver of hope: that God died along with the sufferers so he could be with them fully. That one day a shoot of green might emerge.

  Because here is the truth: I want to return. I miss being a part of a church.

  It is the priest on oxygen who hands me the round wafer, which looks like a small Carr’s cracker. I almost put it in my mouth but hesitate, unsure whether I am to dip it first in the wine. The black priest, holding the chalice, motions me toward him with his eyes, a shepherd collecting a lost lamb.

  I stand before him, hungry.

  “Are you Catholic?” he asks.

  “No,” I say, noticing that he immediately looks angry.

  He plucks the wafer out of my hand as if it were a cookie stolen from the jar by a naughty child.

  He then murmurs some words over me, a blessing, I imagine, though I hear none of it. My head is roaring. I am no longer Bobby Banks, twenty-eight years old, head chef at a once-storied café that has had a second life under my influence, New York City dweller, sophisticated gay man. I am nine, watching Keisha’s shoulders jerk when Hunter calls her a nigger. I am fourteen, opening my science book in class to find an index card that reads “FAG” tucked between its pages. I am sixteen, staring at my parents in the doorway of my room as Pete, not yet aware that we have been caught, presses against me, my father’s eyes filling with grief as he is forced to recognize his own son as an abomination.

  I walk down the aisle of Our Lady of Sorrows, chastened, no bread and wine in my mouth, no Jesus working his way through me. Idiot, idiot, idiot, I think, so ashamed at having tried to partake in a ritual that is not mine. I walk past the pew where I was sitting, then keep walking, exiting the sanctuary into the empty vestibule, then pushing through the front door of the church to find myself outside once again. The cold air hits me hard.

  • • •

  Halfway down the block, I remember that I left the coffee beans and half-and-half in the church, on the pew. On instinct I turn to retrieve them, then stop. No. I will not venture back there. I will not prostrate myself before an authority that will not have me. As I turn back toward home I see Alice Stone, heading my way down Columbus, her posture as erect as a dancer’s.

  Another authority who would not have me.

  Alice wears a heavy green wool coat and a scarf wrapped around her neck. The bottom half of her slacks, a coppery red, is visible below the hem of her coat. Her hair, as always, is pulled into a high bun on top of her head, the exact same style Keisha wore as a girl, Keisha, whose image flashes through my head often, which is crazy considering I only really spent that one morning with her and then was never able to get her to play with me again, not after what Hunter said.

  Alice doesn’t seem to recognize me, at least not at first, but after a moment she smiles and lifts a gloved hand in greeting. I walk toward her briskly.

  “Well, hello,” I say. Oddly, I feel compelled to hug her, she who has distracted my thoughts from the aborted communion. But I hold back. I do not want to assume an intimacy we do not have when, in fact, we don’t know each other at all. Before Sebastian’s death I would have told you that I did know Alice, that she was prickly and imperious and rude. But now it occurs to me that I only really met her that one time and maybe she behaved the way she did because she was going through a trial of her own. Something that had nothing to do with me or the lunch I prepared.

  One thing Sebastian’s death has taught me: You never know what private grief others are going through. And in any event, that difficult lunch was years ago. Many things have changed. Surely we both have changed.

  “Hello,” she says, not offering anything else, smiling enigmatically.

  “Can you believe how cold it is?”

  “Winter has indeed arrived,” she says, just as placid and calm as a yogi.

  We stand for a moment, blinking and smiling politely. Were it warmer, we might blink and smile at each other all morning, but it is too cold a day to do that for very long. “Well, I should let you get off to wherever you’re going,” I say.

  “Returning, actually. Headed back to my apartment. I was just at Fairway, buying supplies for my Christmas cooking.”

  She carries no shopping bags. She must be having her groceries delivered.

  “Which way is home?”

  “West,” she says, pointing. “Riverside Drive.”

  “Oh good. I’m headed west, too. Shall we walk together?”

  She gives me a slight smile, which I take as a yes.

  “What do you cook for the holidays?” I ask as we begin walking.

  Sebastian trained me to say “the holidays” instead of Christmas. He was always touchy around this time of year. He resented all of the goyim decorations taking over his city, because after all, he insisted, New York really belongs to the Jews.

  “Oh, everything: fruitcake, stollen, mincemeat pies, butter pecan balls, toffee, fudge, peanut brittle.”

  “Are the butter pecan balls very short and a little salty?” I ask.

  “Yes, indeed.”

  “Those are my favorite. And the mincemeat? Is it real?”

  “It’s made with meat if that’s what you’re asking. Bound with suet.”

  “How big is your kitchen?”

  “Small, but it suits me. I take everything one step at a time. Write down a plan before I get started, figure out when I’m going to prepare what, which cookie goes into the oven at which time. Already I’ve baked over two hundred butter pecan balls and five pounds of peanut brittle. And I made my fruitcakes months ago. They’re better if you let them marinate awhile in their own spices.”

  “My mother was organized like that around her cooking,” I say.

  Any major holiday—Thanksgiving, say—Mama would decide the exact time we should eat and then she would count the hours back from there, figuring out when the turkey, dressing, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, rolls, needed to go into the oven, when the lettuce leaves needed to be washed so they could serve as a base for the cranberry Jell-O salad with walnuts and cream cheese, when she needed to put ice in the glasses, two for each place setting, one for iced tea and one for water. Any detail that had to be tended to, she wrote it down on the schedule. So committed was she to this method of entertaining, she wrote an entire chapter on the art of scheduling in Gracious Servings.

  “I wouldn’t have survived a day working for that fool Augustin without my schedules.”

  “Our Gus is not big on planning, is he?” I ask.

  She presses her lips together. Shakes her head. No. She gives me a sideways smile, as if we are in on a secret together.

  • • •

  We reach the courtyard of the Belthorp. “This is where I live,” I say. It still amazes me to get to say that.

  “Ooh, I’ve always loved this buildin
g!” Alice says, and I swear she bats her eyes. Gus always insisted Alice was a coquette, and for the first time I know what he is talking about. “From the outside at least. I’ve never been inside.”

  “Do you want to come up?” I feel self-conscious asking, as if I am on a first date, but I hope she will say yes. I try to remember whether or not I washed the dishes in the sink or made the bed. “I could fix you a cup of coffee or tea. Warm you up for your walk home.”

  “I’d really like that, but I’m afraid the delivery boy will arrive before I do. I don’t have a doorman.”

  “Of course, no problem,” I say, disappointed. Imagining Alice in my apartment reminds me of how much time I spend alone there.

  “Thank you for walking with me,” she says. She leans toward me, kisses me on the cheek, her lips soft and dry. She pulls back but remains standing across from me, pressing her lips together, as if contemplating what to say.

  “I have always wanted to apologize for being such a pill the day that you cooked lunch for me at the café. I acted terribly. I was jealous, I think, of your talent. Jealous of the attention you were getting. I knew you would become the face of Café Andres, at least for the next generation, and I just let my competitive streak get the best of me. All of my life, I’ve been bad with transitions, with letting go of the past and moving on to the next thing. It didn’t help that I was in between jobs. It didn’t help that I was in between relationships, either, and sorting through the messier parts of my life. But that doesn’t excuse the fact that I acted like a bitter old woman, and I just want you to know I regret it.”

  “Thank you for saying that. And surely I was prematurely arrogant, so I can understand why you bristled.”

  “I heard about the death of your friend, your partner. I am so sorry.”

  I nod, unable to say anything without starting to cry, which I don’t want to do. She kisses me once more on the cheek, before turning to leave.

  I walk into the courtyard, passing the empty fountain, passing old candy bar wrappers and soda cans the landlords won’t ever clean up because to do so would encourage the tenants with rent control to stay. I am not going to be able to hold on to this place as long as Sebastian did. I find the building’s constant state of disarray depressing. And though it was only a moment ago that I felt such a connection to Alice, a cavernous loneliness spreads through my chest, loneliness accompanied by shame. I picture the priest snatching the wafer from my hands, and it makes me shake with embarrassment.

  “Bobby! Bobby Banks!”

  I turn toward the sound of my name, and there is Alice, waving from across the street. “Why don’t you come to my apartment? Help me with my baking?”

  “I would, but I’ve got to . . .” My words taper off. What do I have to do? Nothing. There is nothing I have to do.

  “Let me just get a cup of coffee in me and warm up a little. Then I’ll head over. What’s your address?”

  She yells out the building number, and I, committing it to memory, wave good-bye and return to Sebastian’s empty apartment, noticing, for the millionth time, how quiet it is when I walk through the door.

  As soon as I step into my own kitchen, I remember I have no coffee, having left the beans on the pew of Our Lady of Sorrows. So I fix myself a cup of hot tea instead. Drink it with milk and a little honey, bring it with me into the bathroom, where I study myself in the mirror above the sink. I have been doing this a lot lately, studying my reflection, grooming myself, playing with my curls, rubbing my hands on my facial stubble, trimming the few long hairs that poke out of my nose. Each time I do this I think of the monkeys from Meemaw’s nature shows, picking lice off their beloved.

  I am no one’s beloved but my own.

  Same as with Dahlia, grief has painted me with its strange, somber beauty. My dark curly hair, which I now wear short, is beginning to show a few strands of silver. The lines around my eyes are more deeply set. Most startling, my actual eye color has changed, turning so dark it is hard to distinguish the pupil from the iris. I look intense. Weary. And yet, forgive my vanity, handsome. Strange that sissy little Bobby Banks would grow into a handsome man. Though not to be unexpected, I suppose, given how good-looking Daddy always was. I am leaner than I have been in years, with broad shoulders and a cut abdomen. I have an enviable body. The irony, of course, is that I’m not trying for it. Vanity is not my motivator. Escape is. My morning runs and evening sessions at the gym are the only times I can evade thoughts of Sebastian. At the gym I put on my headphones, hit the “play” button on my Walkman, and jump on the stationary bike, pedaling so fast it is as if I’m being chased, pedaling fast enough to stop my thinking. After an hour or so, shirt wet with sweat, I lift weights until my muscles wear out, until I simply cannot lift another thing.

  • • •

  Everything about Alice’s building, one of many grand old apartment buildings that grace Riverside Drive, is round instead of angular, including its curved bay windows, which echo the serpentine street below. As I look for her apartment number on the call box outside the building’s entryway, a woman in a full-length fox coat rushes out of the building. I hold the door open for her, then walk in myself. There are a few dust bunnies in the corners of the lobby, but otherwise things appear to be fairly orderly. Classic. The floors are laid with black and white tiles, and the brass mailboxes are the old-fashioned kind that open with a key.

  Not wanting to arrive at Alice’s empty-handed, I brought with me an unopened bottle of Nielsen-Massey vanilla extract and a half-full fifth of Jack Daniel’s, left over from a Kentucky Derby party we threw years ago, back when Sebastian was well enough to host such things. Back when Sebastian was well.

  Once inside the elevator, I push the button to take me to the fourth floor. On the third, a much older man steps on, wearing a porkpie hat and a striped, skinny tie.

  “This is going up,” I say.

  “I know that, sonny. Believe me, I know.”

  We stand side by side, each facing the doors, until they open to let me out on Alice’s floor. As I step off, the man winks and says, “Lots of nice coeds in this building, sonny. Lots.” I wonder if he is going to meet one, possibly in the penthouse. I intend to smile but probably make more of a grimace, and then the elevator doors close and he is gone. I find Alice’s door. I can hear music coming from inside her apartment. Nina Simone, whose albums Sebastian introduced me to. (What did Sebastian not introduce me to?) I turn the doorknob and, finding it unlocked, let myself in.

  “Hello?” I call, but no one answers.

  How can I describe the interior of Alice’s apartment as anything but an oasis? I’ll start with the smell, which is of oranges, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves, reminding me of the Tang tea my mother used to prepare and distribute to our neighbors for Christmas. And then there is the light. Alice’s living room faces Riverside Drive, and as this is the last residential street before the park and then the river, there are no neighboring buildings blocking the western light from filtering through the windows, landing in wavy patterns on the wood floors, playing against the patchwork quilt Alice has hung, as if it were a painting, on the ochre wall. “Lilac Wine” plays on the turntable in the living room, the scratch and hiss of the record adding to the sexy sultriness of Nina Simone’s voice.

  I take a peek into Alice’s kitchen, which, though it is only a galley space, looks as if Julia Child designed it. Cabinets are mounted on the left half of the back wall, and on the right is a white pegboard, hung with a full set of cast-iron skillets, from small to large, the outline of each drawn on it, clearly marking where each piece of cooking equipment belongs. There is a metal rack mounted on the ceiling as well, from which hang copper pots. A bumpy strand of garlic hangs from a nail behind the gas stove. The white countertops are remarkably uncluttered for such a small space. There are no gadgets, no microwave, no toaster, no dirty dishes piled by the sink.

  Alice emerges from a back room, rubbing lotion into her hands as she walks toward the kitchen, still u
naware of my presence. She has changed and is now wearing high-waisted denim pants and a long-sleeved batik print T-shirt, all pinks and blues. She is not wearing a bra, and her breasts move gently beneath her shirt, like slow rolling waves. It occurs to me that even though she is now in her sixties, Alice has the breasts of a thirtysomething woman.

  “Miss Alice?”

  She looks up, startled, but then smiles. “Lord, you spooked me. I didn’t hear you ring.”

  “Someone was coming out when I arrived.”

  “Well, welcome. May I get you something to drink? Tea? Irish coffee? A hot buttered rum?”

  “You know, as many times as I’ve heard mention of that drink, I’ve never actually tasted a hot buttered rum.”

  “Let me fix you one, then.”

  It takes her several minutes to prepare. While she fusses with the drink, I further explore her environs, looking at the art on the walls, the framed pictures on the bookshelves and the mantelpiece. Her photographs are impressive. There is Truman Capote, looking straight into the camera, palms outstretched, as if asking for alms. There is Gus Andres when he was a young man, dandyish and dashing, sporting a handlebar mustache, the expression on his face vague and a little sad. There is James Baldwin, his eyes bugging in the picture, not smiling at all. There are several ancient-looking photos, black and white, with perforated edges. One is of a large black family, the men in overalls, the women in loose white dresses, all staring at the camera with a collective look of determination, seeming to say, “We matter.”

  I recognize Alice in the picture, her posture straight and lovely even as a young girl. Beside her is a boy who looks much like her, only a good six inches taller and with a lighter complexion, noticeable even in the grainy black-and-white print. A chicken perches on his shoulder. The bird’s presence does not affect the somber disposition of the family, as if there is nothing unusual about having a chicken be part of a family portrait. And perhaps it was natural for that bird to be part of the family portrait, because there is another framed picture of the boy, alone except for the chicken, perched on the same shoulder as before. This picture must have been taken during the winter, for there is snow both on the ground and on the branches of the tree in the background.