The Love Goddess’ Cooking School

by Melissa Senate

  After a week of my recipes, they come home with different expectations than a scotch and a newspaper. They come home kinder. Peering into the mysterious pots on the stove. Sniffing the air and smiling. And at night, they were amorous. Jacqueline confessed to me in a whisper over the barrel of apples in the general store that her husband wanted her in a way he hadn’t in two years. Was there a secret ingredient she could use on his steak or baked potato, his other favorite meal? Was it the basil?

  What could I say? I had to honestly report that I truly didn’t know. There was nothing magical about my ingredients. The recipes simply called for wishes and memories and they had come true.

  Or, more likely, the women were changing. Hoping for more. Expecting more. I tried to explain this, but Lenora said her husband insisted that “Eye-talian” cooking was full of aphrodisiacs, like oysters were, reportedly. I reminded them they didn’t use oysters in the recipes they copied down.

  During the second class, as they prepared eggplant parmigiana and linguini in clam sauce, the wishes and memories went into the pots and pans. As Lenora pounded the eggplant, she wished for another baby. I can’t fully describe the funny feeling I got as she added the “Please, Lord, let this come true.” I just know it was a funny feeling, not quite bad, yet not good either. I’m not sure what this means. Twins, perhaps?

  As she shook salt into the big pot of boiling water, Annette wished that the birthday bash she was throwing for her husband would be a huge hit and that her snooty sister-in-law would come. I find it hard to imagine the person Annette could possibly find snooty, since she and her friends are as snooty as they come.

  Nancy sliced cheese and wished her sister would move back to Maine from Florida.

  And Jacqueline slid the linguini into the pot, wishing her husband would sleep in their bed again tonight.

  Within a few weeks, everything had come true. Lenora learned she was six weeks pregnant. Nancy’s sister came for a visit and announced her husband was being transferred to the Boston office, which was as good to Nancy as if they were moving to Maine. Jacqueline’s husband bought her a black silk teddy.

  And Annette’s snooty sister-in-law did RSVP yes to Annette’s husband’s fortieth birthday party. But two days before the party, he died of a massive heart attack while jogging. His fortieth birthday was turned into a memorial service.

  I don’t know Annette well, of course, and she’s mostly unbearable and materialistic and obsessed with having what her friends and neighbors have. But now what she wants most of all is to join her husband in heaven—which is what she told me when I stopped by her house the night of the memorial, once everyone was gone. I could hear the baby crying, and when Annette didn’t answer the door, I gave the doorknob a jiggle and it opened. I found Annette sobbing on the kitchen floor, her back against the refrigerator door, containers of food on the table and counters. I let her know I was there and was going to take care of the baby, and that’s when she said she wished she were dead too, then added, “I wish I were with him. I just want to be with him.”

  I let it go at that and hurried upstairs to the baby, who I hoped had been tended to by family and friends that had come over after the funeral. The baby was wet and hungry, so I changed him and warmed a bottle and put him back down, but when he started crying again and Annette slammed her hands over her ears, I said to her, “Honey, I’m going to take the baby home with me and give you some time. You come get him when you’re ready.” She nodded and burst into tears, so I helped her upstairs to her room, where she lay down on her bed and sobbed.

  I knew all about that.

  I put the food away in the refrigerator, went through the nursery, and packed a bag for the baby, wrote a note to remind Annette that I was taking the baby home with me to care for until she was ready to come get him, and then left.

  Luciana was thrilled to have a baby in the house and helped me diaper him, even after he sprayed right on her neck. Three days later, Annette came for her baby. Something was completely gone from her eyes, that spark of jealousy and competitiveness.

  “Thank you for helping me,” Annette said, taking the baby from the bassinet I’d bought at a secondhand shop.

  “Whenever you need some time to yourself, you just bring him here,” I told her.

  I let her know I’d cancel class out of respect, but Annette shook her head and said it would be a help to be among her friends. The following week the four of them were back. Annette was still as standoffish as ever with me, as though I hadn’t done her a kindness it seemed her friends hadn’t. And when it came time for her to make a wish into the gnocchi, she wished she’d find another husband who was as good a provider as Bob had been.

  Lenora smiled at Annette; it was clear Lenora had told Annette it was time to take control of her life. I would have thought Annette had a tiny heart, but when the recipe called for a happy memory, she told of her husband reading her terminally ill father the sports scores during the Super Bowl, and how she knew that despite how he seemed on the outside, he could sometimes be a caring man. It turned out that Bob, as went the American expression, was a bit of a shit.

  And so that was that for Annette’s grieving period. She now wished for a new husband who would not mind a colicky baby. Lenora spent her wishes on not miscarrying, which had happened the previous year. Nancy wished her in-laws would decide to move in with her husband’s sister in New Hampshire instead of them, and Jacqueline wished that her husband was not carrying on an affair with his secretary, which would account for the previous year’s dry spell.

  They came back week after week, becoming decent cooks of Italian-American food. And through it all, I can’t say I was ever really included in their little group, despite being privy to their most personal hopes, dreams and fears.

  Holly closed the diary and wrapped her arms around herself, unsettled by all she’d read. The women who’d taken her grandmother’s class sounded so selfish and cold, despite tragedy, infidelity, unhappiness. Or, perhaps, because of those things. Holly shivered as the wind swirled through her sweater. She thought of Juliet, grieving someone or something, alone here in Maine, where she had no family but at least one friend.

  She collected her mug and the composition book, headed inside, and picked up the phone to call Juliet, then realized she only had the number where no one called back, in Chicago. Juliet was grieving a loss. Her husband? She sounded exactly like her grandmother had described Annette—before the perky interest in finding a new husband, anyway. Why hadn’t Holly pressed Juliet on where she was staying? Now she wouldn’t be able to find her and could only hope she’d show up next Monday for the class.

  Watch over her, Nonna, will you? Holly said, her gaze on Antonio, who sat on his perch, staring out at the inky night sky and the twinkling stars.

  Six

  The next morning, as Holly checked the Bolognese sauce simmering on the stove and kept an eye on the timer for the tagliatelle, one of her favorite pastas, she realized no one had come in during the three weeks since she’d been making all the takeout foods, with wide eyes and a sly smile and asking, “What was in that sauce?” She had no idea what accounted for the amorous quality of Camilla’s food, but then again, Camilla herself was the magical ingredient.

  The Bolognese sauce had called for a wish, just a plain old wish, nothing fancy, and Holly’s thoughts turned back to Juliet with her grieving eyes and gray clothes. “I wish Juliet peace,” was what went into the sauce along with finely chopped pancetta.

  Someone rang the doorbell twenty times in a row. Holly figured it was Mia (who else would?) and there she was, her expression frantic, shivering in the morning chill in just a thin light blue hoodie and jeans.

  “Mia, honey, what’s—”

  Mia burst into tears, and Holly ushered her in, closing the door with her foot. She led her into the kitchen and sat her down in the breakfast nook, quickly making her hot chocolate, which did seem to have magical properties, at least as far as Mia was concerned.


  “He’s going to propose to that moron,” Mia wailed, flinging her head down on her arms. She lifted up her head and covered her face with her hands. “I can’t believe it. How could be? He knows how I feel about her.” Tears streamed down Mia’s face, and Holly hurried over and sat down beside her.

  “How do you know?” Holly asked, reaching out to tuck Mia’s hair behind her ears and out of her face.

  “Five minutes ago I was going into the kitchen to get some cereal, and I passed his bedroom, and he was standing by the window, with his back to me, holding an engagement ring. He was just staring at it, like he was rehearsing his proposal.” She burst into tears again and flung her head back down.

  Holly stroked Mia’s hair and got up to pour the hot chocolate into a mug, which she brought back to the table.

  Mia lifted her head again. “You can help me!” She picked up the mug, wrapping her hands around it. “You could come over tonight and back me up. Like, I’ll say, ‘Dad, you can’t marry that fake moron who doesn’t even like me,’ and when he says, ‘Honey, of course she likes you,’ you can say, ‘No, really she doesn’t, she made that clear when she was totally relieved there was no room for her in the class.’ And then he’ll say, ‘Come on, that’s crazy, she came in to take that course and there was no room.’ And then he’ll go into a half-hour discussion on what it means to project, which is his new word. And then you can tell him to lose the psychobabble and the bobblehead, that I’m right.” Tears filled Mia’s eyes and Holly knew she’d have to tread carefully.

  “Honey, it’s not my place to interfere in your dad’s life. I don’t even know him, really.”

  “His life? It’s my life. And you know me. I’m your apprentice. Please, Holly?”

  “Mia—”

  She looked at Holly with those teary, blueberry-colored eyes. “All he ever says is that he’d never do anything bad for me. But he’s blinded by Jodie without an e’s big boobs and miniscule skirts and high heels. There’s no way she loves him. And she hates me.”

  “I’m sure she doesn’t hate you, Mia.”

  She stood up, her lips tight. “You sound just like him.”

  Holly’s shoulders slumped. She was out of her element here.

  “Just come for dinner tonight, Holly. You don’t have to say anything if it doesn’t feel right or whatever. But should you suddenly feel like saying something, you can.”

  “And I’m there because … ?”

  Mia bit her lip, then her eyes lit up. “Because I’m your apprentice, and since you saw how little I know about the kitchen and its inner workings, you wanted to give me a lesson in my home. Like to familiarize me with how ovens work and what potato peelers are.”

  Holly raised an eyebrow.

  “Please, Holly. You don’t have to say anything if you’re not comfortable. But if my dad should say something that strikes you as completely weird, even though you don’t know him very well, you could say something like, ‘Wow, it must be really hard to propose to a woman your daughter hates.’ And that will just get the conversation started. And he won’t be able to say, ‘When you’re an adult you’ll understand,’ because he’ll be talking to an adult. You.”

  “Mia, this is not my pla—”

  “Please, Holly. Just come over to teach me how a kitchen works, what to do if a pilot light goes out or whatever. Why I shouldn’t use a fork to stir scrambled eggs in a nonstick pan. That kind of stuff. I really need to learn.”

  Holly sighed. “Oh, fine. You do need some pointers. But I can’t promise you I’ll say anything at all about your father’s love life. That’s not my business.”

  Mia beamed. “Like sixish?”

  “Like sixish.” With that, Mia raced out. Holly watched her dash across the road and down the path toward the bay.

  Talk about sticky.

  Holly had sold three tagliatellis and three quarts of Bolognese sauce and had only one returned pumpkin ravioli (too toothsome). Progress. Despite how well the class had gone, she’d been expecting the phone to ring all day with at least one of her students dropping out and demanding his or her money back, but the phone remained blessedly silent while the front door chimes happily rang. Also progress.

  When the bell jangled again, Holly covered the minestrone soup she was attempting for the third time (too flavorless, despite all the herbs, and too thin), and headed into the foyer, prepared, she realized, to chat about today’s pasta special and what was still fresh and available from the past few days. She smiled at the strikingly pretty woman with long, red hair and dark blue eyes and the most translucent skin Holly had ever seen. The woman had been in a few times when her grandmother was alive, and Holly had noticed her at the funeral.

  “Hi,” she said. “I’m Francesca Bean. Tamara’s sister.”

  Tamara’s sister? Holly studied her face, and yes, there was the same aquiline nose and the elfin chin, but otherwise they looked nothing alike. “Oh, yes, the bride to be,” Holly said. “Congratulations!”

  “Thanks. In fact, my wedding is why I’m here. I’m getting married in six months, March twenty-first, the first day of spring, at the Blue Crab Cove Inn. And I’m in the process of arranging for a caterer. I was wondering if Camilla’s Cucinotta would like to prepare a tasting menu for my fiancé and me and our testers, aka our mothers who are footing the bill and insist on agreeing to the band, food, and photographer.”

  Holly’s mouth dropped open and she quickly shut it, reminding herself that appearing stunned that anyone, let alone someone planning a wedding lavish enough to be held at the Blue Crab Cove, which was one of the ritziest bed-and-breakfasts in southern Maine and accounted for most of the summer tourists, was not how to score this job.

  “I’m honored, Francesca,” Holly said. “But since I saw you at my grandmother’s funeral, I know you’re aware she’s passed on. I’m doing all the cooking for Camilla’s Cucinotta.”

  “I know. My sister told me all about you and the class last night. She said she had a blast and loved everything you all made.”

  Thank you, Tamara.

  “Your grandmother is the reason I’m marrying the guy of my dreams,” Francesca said. “I would have hired her to cater the wedding whether my mother or future mother-in-law approved or not, but now that she has passed, they raised a huge fuss at our wedding-agenda breakfast this morning when I said I’d like to give you a chance to cater. They insisted you prepare a tasting menu for their approval or they won’t pay, and to be honest, both my fiancé and I are in grad school and totally broke, so I kinda need to bow before them when it won’t kill me.”

  “I totally understand,” Holly said. “And I’m really touched that you’re giving me this opportunity. I can’t tell you what that means to me.”

  “Well, I can’t tell you what your grandmother meant to me. To me and Jack.”

  Holly smiled. “Your sister said my grandmother’s fortune brought you two together?”

  Francesca’s face lit up. “Can you believe that one twenty-five-dollar fortune changed both our lives? I was deciding between two doctoral programs, one here at Bowdoin and one in California, and my mother was driving me nuts to choose Bowdoin, which made me want to choose California, and I had no idea what to do, so I went to Camilla.”

  As Holly made a pot of Earl Grey tea and led Francesca over to the breakfast nook, Francesca told Holly the story of how she’d sat in this very chair and listened to Camilla tell her to take her paints and her easel—and Francesca hadn’t even mentioned to Camilla that she painted—every day for one week by the pier, and that she would meet the man she would marry by that pier, paintbrush in hand. And that would help her choose her program, in Maine or California.

  “And she was right,” Francesca said, sipping her tea. “The fourth day, I was backing up to check my painting from a distance and a very cute guy came up to look at the painting and he said it was a beautiful depiction of the Blue Crab Island bridge, and if the painting was for sale when I was done, he’d buy it in a heart
beat. While we were talking, I totally forgot about your grandmother’s prediction. I was so caught up in talking to him, about Blue Crab Island, about Maine, and he said something like, ‘Maine is a part of who you are, and it really shows in your work,’ and I realized I did want to do my program here in Maine, that I was only thinking of leaving to escape my overbearing mother. But cute Jack helped with that because I suddenly had a date every night of the week.”

  Holly smiled. “That’s a great story.”

  “I don’t know if your grandmother was right or if fate just works that way or what would have happened if I’d gone to California. I just know I met the man of my dreams and I’m marrying him in March. I’ll bet you’ve gotten some great advice from your grandmother.”

  Holly smiled. She had gotten great advice her entire life from Camilla. But she hadn’t always listened.

  “So you see why I have to give Camilla’s Cucinotta a chance, even if Camilla herself won’t be doing the cooking? This is her place. I can feel her in here, I think.” She glanced over at Antonio lying in a spool of sunlight in his cat bed. “That cat was here when she told me to spend my lunch hours at the pier for one week. And that cat will be here when you create the tasting menu.”

  “Are you saying you think Antonio has special powers?” Holly asked with a grin.

  Francesca laughed. “No. Just that he belonged to the Love Goddess. And now he belongs to you. All this belongs to you. I assume you wouldn’t be here, making the pastas of the day and teaching the cooking class, if you weren’t serious about cooking.”