It’s too much for a child. And yet how can I screen out the awareness that my daughter is imprinting her legacy on lives with every friend she makes, every joke she laughs at, every anecdote she tells?
In many ways, I was particularly vulnerable to this kind of meanness as a child. Whereas both of my own children laugh off any comments that come their way, I took every single one to heart.
I was a scared child. Other kids could have great fun at my expense because I was so gullible. I remember a boy at a play date—though we had a different name for kids getting together then, or rather, no name for it at all—telling me that the fresh-out-of-a-package chocolate cookies his mother had served were poisoned. I spent the remainder of the time at his house sure I was going to die.
And yet this child likely had no idea of the impact his words would have. That he was leaving a legacy. So many of the things we do and experience as children leave marks, even though we live in a transitory, impermanent way then, as if our actions were sand on a beach, repeatedly washed away by the next wave.
~~~~
My sixth grade woes didn’t go away. I spent each day hiding from the fact that I no longer had friends. Another aspect of girl meanness is the sense of shame some feel, while others are able to laugh off what happens or get angry about it. The ones who feel ashamed, who take in what is being done to them as if it is their fault, tend to keep on being victims. And that is what happened to me during many of my subsequent school years.
Pushed into outsider status, I grew used to the position. I can’t say I ever embraced it—I have memories of walking into the girls room in high school and wishing everyone luck as they suited up for that day’s lacrosse game, knowing that wasn’t the right thing to say, yet still being crushed over the giggles I heard as I walked out—but I did begin to get something from it. An ability to watch and listen and learn.
Flash forward to adulthood. We do grow up and leave school behind forever, even if that’s hard to believe at the time. I had a dream of being a writer, although it’s a chicken/egg quandary whether my love of reading drove my desire to write, or the fact that I was going to become a writer triggered my love of reading. Either way, one of the few things that did garner me popularity as a child was when I was asked to tell a story aloud to my friends or write a scene for one of our plays.
But by college graduation, I was still almost completely unformed as a writer. The peripatetic wanderings of my pen relied on a handful of core preoccupations that have persisted to this day—mostly having to do with nature—but couldn’t stand up to the rigors of structure or medium or genre. I wrote about whatever was going on in my life. There are some writers who can make a career of such inward examination, but I wrote in circles with no clear sense of craft.
A more concrete career path presented itself in the form of psychotherapy, and after pursuing a graduate degree, I went to work in a rural community mental health outpost. I had never been more outside of things: I was a fly on the wall of my clients’ lives, the stranger who heard about their intimate relationships without ever playing a part. But my job also helped me see that everyone feels small and unlikeable, helpless and atrocious at times. No one is an insider always.
One day, a mother brought her little girl in to see me. The child was a blond-haired, 5-year-old cherub who had just killed the family pet.
In an instant, my life went from fairly normal to a stream of events that were like something out of a suspense novel. And just as I’d found respite in stories all those years ago in sixth grade, so did the same thing happen now. My day-to-day had become overwhelming—I was responsible for figuring out what was wrong with people in truly dire circumstances. For solace and consolation, I began reading suspense and mysteries. One day, I ceased the aimless wanderings of my pen, and sat down at a keyboard and began to type.
Much as the duckling turned into a swan, the gullibility that plagued me as a child suddenly became a benefit: It was a conduit to chilling tales. Being an outsider was also no longer a liability; it allowed me to bring characters to life, studying their traits and foibles and conflicts so I could turn them into real, fleshed-out human beings on the page.
During this time when I was realizing the tales I was always meant to pen were thrillers, stories of women facing demons inner and outer, I continued to practice as a psychotherapist.
One day, a mean girl came into my office.
She had a polished sheet of hair and gleaming blue eyes. She was depressed and needed help, and I was a paid mental health professional, not a sixth-grader, so I set aside my associations to the girls who had ostracized me, and began therapy instead. This girl revealed the countless careless cruelties she inflicted on kids less pretty and popular than she. But she also shared how unloved she felt at home compared to her little sister. The ire she turned on other kids was a translation of what she received from her father and stepmother.
As our work together progressed, I got an inkling of how even the meanest of girls harbor deep fears and insecurities and feelings of self-loathing. Suddenly, far from being an outsider, I was as inside as it was possible to go. Deep in the inner recesses of a mean girl’s motivations and mind.
My patient’s legacy turned out to be far worse than girl meanness, however.
Late one night, I was called to the ER where my patient had been brought following a car accident. She wasn’t terribly injured, although she hadn’t regained consciousness yet. When she did, she was going to learn that her little sister, who had been with her in the car, had not survived the accident.
Legacy comes in two forms: that which we leave behind, and that which leaves an impact on us. How was my patient going to live with hers?
~~~~
During the next 10 years, as my psychotherapy career gave way to an increasing drive and urgency to become a published author, one preoccupation in my stories became clear. I was writing about the meanness life harbors. About criminals and conspiracy, snatchings and searches, intruders and invasions.
But beneath these surface dangers, I was writing about the fate of the outsider. My heroines were all outsiders in their own lives.
Nora Hamilton, in Cover of Snow, has come to the small, fictional town of Wedeskyull as the wife of a local policeman. When he dies unexpectedly and violently, she will have to breach the walls of this unwelcoming place to find answers.
Liz Daniels, in Ruin Falls, is local to Wedeskyull, but she’s a stranger to her own marriage and to the husband she thinks she knows. That the most intimate of allies can turn us into outsiders in our own lives is the lesson Liz will have to learn.
And in As Night Falls, Sandy Tremont is a stranger to herself. She has kept hidden the source of her deepest pain, and in the secrecy lie the seeds of her undoing.
I was an outsider for a long time, and whenever I sit down to champion another woman’s journey, from someone who is a stranger in one way or another to someone who ultimately learns about herself, I become a bit more of an insider. In the lives of my characters and also within myself.
One bookseller to whom I owe thanks—and there are many—said that when she finishes reading one of my novels, she feels stronger.
And don’t we all need to feel that way? In my truest, most peeled away bare moments, I am still that sixth grade girl, finding solace in a shelf of books.
But I am someone else now, too. A writer who gets to lose herself in tales. A mother and wife and friend with the wisdom garnered from 10 years of treating people in need.
Sometimes I see another girl, caught in the throes of pain it will take her decades to understand. Or a mean girl, unaware of the pain she inflicts and that which may still come her way. My patient or someone like her.
She enters a room full of books. She picks one up, and finds both respite and rescue in the story.
The book she is reading is mine.
It’s my legacy.
A.E.
Didier Quémener
This night would be the
last. The debts, the mounting bills, the creditors… Soon, all of that would be nothing more than a bad memory. Antonin, feeling lost in front of the quieted stove, waited for the buyer’s arrival. Le Petit Moulin Rouge, once the jewel of Paris, was going out of business.
Despite Antonin’s efforts, fewer and fewer diners filled his tables. Even his work on new menus went unrewarded, failing to halt the freefall in the restaurant’s finances. The critics had set everything in motion. Citing a lack of originality and cuisine that was simply too “easy,” the Parisian press had taken aim at the chef and fired.
Antonin had accepted the reasons for his failure: competition, lack of loyal customers, problems keeping good help (one by one, other restaurants had seduced the best members of his brigade). Le Petit Moulin Rouge had lost its charm, and he, as the chef, had to accept full responsibility for the disaster.
Only another half hour and this whole masquerade would come to an end.
The events of the past months flashed through his mind so quickly that Antonin suddenly felt dizzy. The scent of the few meals served hours ago, the dull heat from the oven, and the idea that he soon would pass through the door for the very last time filled him with nausea and anger. Antonin grabbed a bottle of cognac and lifted it to his lips for a satisfying swig.
“At least you don’t criticize me! And you don’t ask me for money either.” His laughter pierced the silence with despair as he addressed the bottle.
Antonin wiped his mouth with a worn sleeve and walked into the dining room to await his visitors. The meeting would be brief. He had no intention of hanging around with this band of vultures for long. They would present their offer, and Antonin would sign the documents and leave—without turning back. The next day, he would certainly leave Paris as well. The fresh air of the countryside would do him good. He would take a break and eventually start anew elsewhere.
Antonin slouched in his seat and lit up. He promised himself this would be his last cigarette; this habit, too, would become part of his past.
The door squeaked open, and the chef spotted three figures slowly making their way toward him. They looked here and there, then stopped to point at something and exchanged a few words. Antonin watched the trio as he smashed his cigarette butt into an empty plate.
“Good evening, sir,” one of his visitors said. “Have you met my associate, the architect Robert—”
“Let’s not waste time.” Antonin glared at the young woman who accompanied the two men. “You have the contract?”
“Everything is right here.” The man retrieved a large envelope from his satchel. “Please have a look, then initial and sign each page.”
“Not much point in reading all of it,” Antonin snapped. “The only thing that counts is how much you’re paying.” He nodded his head in the direction of the young woman. “What’s she doing here?”
“I’m—”
“I know very well who you are!” Antonin interrupted. “You’re one of the reasons they’re here with this proposal. You’re one of the causes of my restaurant’s bankruptcy… you and your damn articles!”
The woman remained frozen, mouth open, at a loss for words. But a moment later she recovered, refusing to accept such insults.
“You’re wrong! I never wrote about Le Petit Moulin Rouge. I’m Camille and—”
“You, no, but your boss… Well, he didn’t hold back a single word.”
“True. But I no longer work for him. I quit my food critic job a few weeks ago. I’ve come here today as a consultant for my clients, nothing more.”
“It’s not like it matters at this point.” Antonin sighed as he opened the envelope and reached for the contract. The architect, who had already spread his drawings on one of the tables, was whispering with the other man.
“What’s this nonsense?” Antonin murmured as he read the last page of the contract.
“Excuse me?” said the man leading the negotiations.
“Your offer. What’s this ridiculous sum supposed to be? Dammit! Don’t you realize that the great Escoffier once cooked here? That has to mean something!”
The two men exchanged glances.
“We did not take this offer lightly,” the negotiator said, his voice icy. “A considerable amount of work is necessary to renovate this restaurant and restore its reputation. Escoffier or not, this is our final offer. It is non-negotiable. And by the way, no one has ever been able to confirm whether the great Monsieur Escoffier really did grace this restaurant with his presence. It would have been a century and a half ago anyway. In any case, today’s customer simply doesn’t care about legends.”
A frigid silence overtook the room. Camille, eyes widened, didn’t move. Antonin felt torn between ripping up the contract, kicking this rapacious troupe out of his restaurant—as it was still “his” restaurant—or accepting the gloomy reality of his profit and loss statement and signing the damn papers.
“Here.” He tossed the contract at Camille. “Look at it! Do your consultant work and tell me if this amount of cash makes you laugh.”
“I don’t think…”
“Go ahead,” he continued. “Don’t be shy. Tell me if Le Petit Moulin Rouge is as worthless as they say.”
After studying the papers, Camille placed them on the drawings between the two men.
“It’s not extremely generous, that’s true,” she said a bit awkwardly. “Considering the location and in an effort to—”
The negotiator held the document and a pen out to Antonin once again, stopping Camille midsentence.
“Take it or leave it. It’s as simple as that. We’re not here for a pity party. We’re here for business.”
Antonin was more than tempted to seek out one of his best cooking knives. But practicality winning out over emotion, he accepted the paper and pen.
“Wait.” Camille snatched the contract from his hand and turned to the clients. “In spite of what all of you might think, I have a word in this. I’m not the one who is ready to pay for sixty percent of this project, but my father is. And I’m sure he wouldn’t appreciate this manner of conducting business. I don’t think you would like me to tell him about this miserable offer, or your methods, now would you, gentlemen?”
Camille glared at the two men, who remained silent.
“Here is what we are going to do,” she continued. “My strengths are in the world of taste. His,” she said, nodding at Antonin, “are in the world of cooking. And yours? Yours are to produce a fair offer. Antonin, go to the kitchen. You have one hour to present an original menu to us. As I said, this deal is primarily financed by my father, so I will be the only judge of what you present, and I will decide whether we purchase Le Petit Moulin Rouge—or not.”
Despite the seriousness of the situation, a faint smile tugged at Antonin’s lips. She had stepped out of the shadows to reveal herself as firm, spunky and fair. He liked that.
“I can create a menu without going into the kitchen. I need ten minutes and a piece of paper.”
“I don’t think you understand,” Camille said. “You have one hour to serve us… and surprise us. The clock is already ticking so don’t waste a minute.”
As if reinvigorated by the challenge, Antonin rushed into the kitchen, but as he stood before the cutting board, he shook his head.
“She’s crazy, and I’m an idiot for having agreed to follow her orders,” he muttered. “What kind of a mess are you getting yourself into again, Antonin?”
Shaky from the mix of fatigue, alcohol and stress, Antonin swayed as he crossed the floor and bumped into a table, which in turn bumped into the wall.
“Ah, add that to the bill!” He scowled as he looked at the tile that had fallen from the wall and the hole it had left behind.
Slowly, he approached and rubbed the crumbling plaster. But instead of smoothing out the spot, his handiwork resulted in more plaster falling and exposing… handwriting. Antonin squinted and read:
Juice from half a lemon… shredded horseradish…
> It was impossible to read the rest. In a frenzy, Antonin grabbed a ladle and used the handle as a lever to remove the other tiles. Then he vigorously scrubbed a dishcloth over the plaster to free the rest of the hidden recipe.
Juice from half a lemon, white sauce (vol-au-vent ris de veau A.E.)…
1 tablespoon shredded horseradish with mustard (lobster Thermidor A.E.)…
Infuse peaches 10 minutes verbena syrup (Melba A.E.)...
“Incredible!” It was true. Auguste Escoffier had cooked in this kitchen! And these words were written by his hand on this wall. They were his notes, key ingredients to perfect his recipes.
There wasn’t a second to lose. Antonin raced to the garde-manger, hoping he would find what he needed to create the great chef’s menu. Moments later, he returned to the dining room brandishing a small chalkboard with his menu scrawled across it.
“Just give me an hour and a half, maybe even less… OK? And here’s the menu.”
Vol-au-vent ris de veau with forestière sauce
Lobster Thermidor with boulangères potatoes
Peach Melba
With a burst of joyful laughter, he disappeared behind the kitchen door. His unlikely guests found themselves more intrigued by Antonin’s behavior than by his menu, which in their opinion, didn’t seem extraordinarily original.
A whirlwind of activity resuscitated the kitchen with pots and plans clattering, the stove hissing and cabinet doors clacking. Antonin carefully followed each recipe. As Auguste Escoffier advised, the chef would add the juice of half a lemon in his forestière sauce before assembling the dish, he would include the shredded horseradish with mustard along with the béchamel sauce for his lobster Thermidor, and finally, he would let his peaches infuse in the verbena syrup before presenting his dessert.
It was as if a budding internal force drove Antonin, bringing not only his kitchen, but him, back to life. Nearly an hour had passed, and his appetizer was ready.
Legacy- an Anthology Page 18