Kitchen Chaos

by Deborah A. Levine

  Javier raises his eyebrows, and my stomach does a little flip. “Oh, man,” he sighs.

  Everyone laughs. The buzzer goes off. Our baguettes look professional—all of them. Chef passes around little dishes of butter, and we all devour our bread until we can’t possibly swallow another bite—including Frankie and her mom, whose baguettes look (and sound) more like breadsticks, and my mother, who seems to have decided that she’s a bread person, at least for today. I tear off a piece of our last loaf and offer it to Javier, who smiles and holds out his hand. When I give it to him, I’m pretty sure that at least one of my fingers touches one of his.

  CHAPTER 28

  Liza

  Tanya, our gym teacher, talks about karma. When she’s not teaching middle school kids, she’s a yoga instructor at one of those yoga studios in Manhattan that you read about celebrities going to. Tanya says she’s a student of “Eastern philosophies,” and she told us karma is basically the law of cause and effect: If you put positive stuff out into the world, you’re going to get positive stuff back. The same goes for the negative stuff. It’s probably bad karma to say this, but for the first time, I think I understand why my mom divorced my dad. Or at least I understand one of the reasons. Right now I sort of want to divorce him too.

  Yesterday, before we all said good-bye and left cooking class for the last time, Frankie, Lillian, and I told Chef Antonio that we had finally decided what we were going to make for our Immigration Museum exhibit: bagels. We all love them, they’re totally New York City and part of the whole melting-pot food tradition, and we have an amazing diorama to go along with them, thanks to Lillian’s incredible art skills. We thought Chef would think it was a great idea too, but instead, he shook his head.

  “With the right recipe, homemade bagels are delicious, chicas, but they’re very difficult to make. And they take so long—there are so many steps. Just to start, the dough needs a lot of time to rise, even more than was needed for our baguettes. When did you say this school event is happening?”

  “Monday night,” all three of us said at once. We’ve been working toward it for so long, we could probably all recite the date in our sleep.

  Chef shook his head some more. Not a good sign. “Ay, no, no, no. Bagel dough needs to rise in the refrigerator overnight. You’d have to start right now. Then tomorrow you’d still need to let the dough sit at room temperature for an hour, shape the bagels, boil them, and then bake them. But then they would be stale, day-old bagels for your big party, and that won’t be very tasty. I’m sorry, hijas, but I think it’s time to come up with a Plan B, as Javi likes to say.”

  Plan B? It took a month for us to agree on our Plan A! Frankie, Lillian, and I must have looked as depressed as I felt, because Chef Antonio suddenly went into crisis intervention mode.

  “Chins up, chicas!” he practically commanded. “Bagels are bread, right? And we just had our bread class! You’re all experts at the baguette now, why don’t you make a few of those for your presentation?”

  Everyone in the class nodded their heads and said things like, “Great idea!” and “Problem solved!” Everyone except the three of us, that is.

  “It has to be something that people think of as an ‘American’ food,” Frankie said in a really flat voice. “Everybody knows baguettes are from France.”

  Chef shrugged, ignoring her tone. “Okay, so no baguettes. But don’t worry, I’m full of ideas. Isn’t that right, Javier?”

  Javier rolled his eyes.

  Chef Antonio ignored him. “Let’s see. . . . Naan is too Indian, ciabatta’s too Italian. . . . Scones?”

  Frankie shook her head. “Too English.”

  “Es verdad,” Chef said. “This is true. Well, then, how about rolls? You could do pumpernickel rolls, hamburger rolls, sourdough rolls—”

  Lillian’s head snapped up. She didn’t look depressed anymore. “I love sourdough rolls!” she squealed in a very un-Lillian-like way. “But sourdough is from San Francisco, right? Like me.”

  Chef smiled and winked at Lillian. “Ah, well, this is the interesting thing about the history of a country of immigrants, right, niña? It’s true that sourdough—like you—arrived in New York and the rest of America from San Francisco. But your family came to California from China, right?”

  Lillian nodded.

  “Well, sourdough wasn’t born in this country either. It was brought to northern California by bakers from France. But the French did not invent sourdough any more than the San Franciscans did. People across Europe had been using a sourdough starter to make bread for many centuries. And—how do you like this, amiga?—even the Egyptians were making sourdough way back in 1500 B.C.!”

  “Wow,” Lillian said. “You really know a lot about food.” Even Dr. Wong looked impressed.

  “That’s because I always did my homework,” Chef Antonio said, giving Javier’s shoulder a squeeze. “If you do your homework, you’ll know a lot about all sorts of things.”

  Javier cupped his hands around his mouth. “Wikipedia,” he whispered, looking at us. We all laughed—except for Chef, who just looked confused.

  “Anyway,” he said, “if you girls would like to make sourdough rolls, you have to use a special sourdough starter that takes about three days to mature.”

  Lillian frowned. “There goes that idea.”

  “And I just happen to have a jar of it in the refrigerator!”

  “Really?” Lillian clapped her hands and practically jumped up and down. “Let’s do it!” she squealed, and then looked at Frankie and me. “I mean, what do you guys think?”

  “I think it’s a great idea,” I said, looking at Frankie. “I’d rather do bagels, but it sounds like we really don’t have time. And we want to have enough time to do a great job. Okay with you, Franks?” I gave her my best puppy-dog eyes.

  Frankie looked from me to Lillian and back again. “Fine,” she said, shrugging. “Whatever.”

  Lillian started in on the clapping again. I’ve definitely never seen her so excited. Who knew sourdough rolls could make someone so happy? She must really be homesick.

  “Perfecto!” Chef exclaimed. “And since the starter is already in the refrigerator, why don’t you make the rolls right here in the studio tomorrow? I come here many Sundays anyway to do some prep work for my show, so it’s no problema.”

  And so that’s where we’re heading now, as soon as Frankie gets here to pick me up. Lillian’s mom offered to give us both a ride, but Frankie made up some excuse about errands she had to do on the way and how she needed me to help her. After six weeks of working on the project together, I really don’t know what she has against Lillian, but apparently, she still can’t get over it. She’s in a better mood about one thing: Her dad stayed up all night before he left to make some amazing Italian food. So she knows she’s bringing something impressive—and edible!—to the potluck.

  This morning started out great. I was looking forward to making the very last (and most fun) part of our project and getting to spend even more time with Chef Antonio, who seems more like a really cool . . . I don’t know . . . uncle to me now than a cute celebrity on TV. My mom seemed happy too—she was making poached eggs and asparagus for breakfast, to go with what was left of our baguettes—and even Cole was acting about as adorable as a two-year-old can with yogurt in his hair and banana all over his face.

  And then my dad called.

  He was supposed to be getting on a plane this morning and landing in New York before dark. Mom even invited him to have dinner with all of us at the apartment, instead of Dad taking Cole and me out somewhere. She even went grocery shopping on the way home from class yesterday. (I think she wants to show him that in spite of everything, she’s back to her old self in the kitchen again—at least when she has time to go to the store.) But my dad wasn’t calling from the plane. He wasn’t even at the airport.

  “I’m really sorry, pumpkin,” he told me. “I had to cancel my trip. A big meeting was just scheduled out here for tomorrow, an
d it’s just too important for me to miss.”

  More important than my big social studies project, apparently. And more important than me.

  “You understand, don’t you, Lize?”

  “Sure,” I told him. And like I said, for the first time since he moved away, I guess I do.

  “I’ll make it up to you, I promise. When you come out here, you can make some of your new recipes for me. That’ll be fun, right?”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. Loads.

  CHAPTER 29

  Frankie

  It’s almost time for the Immigration Museum—finally. I’m so nervous about tonight, I can hardly focus. Mr. Mac gave us one last period to work on our projects, but Liza, Lillian, and I are already finished, so we offered to help other groups. Or Liza and Lillian did—I’m not that generous, except when Mr. Mac asked me to move chairs and supplies around. That I did happily.

  The final bell just rang, and all of the seventh graders are setting up in the social studies corridor, with several rooms devoted to all our projects and the hallway between them taken over for the potluck. Liza, Lillian, and I already dragged a table to the prime corner spot we’d staked out in one of the rooms, so we’ve done all we can do for now. All of our work is ready to go at my house, just a few blocks from school. No way we’re leaving it here, unattended, before the event starts. Who knows what damage could be done?

  Liza, Lillian, and I walk out together. There’s time to go home, change if we want (I thought we should wear costumes from the immigrant groups whose foods we’re highlighting, but Liza and Lillian voted me down), pick up our parents, and meet back here at six thirty.

  Then we’re going to rock the house.

  Liza blows those little hairs out of her eyes and reviews the plan again. “Okay. If all goes well, my mom should already be home whipping up her pecan pie. She promised to leave early to make it fresh. Lillian, all you have to do is get here, and I’m sure your mom has made some kind of amazing Chinese feast, right? And, Franks, you’re going to bring the dioramas and the sourdough rolls—you sure you can handle all that by yourself?”

  I nod. I like a girl who wants to synchronize watches and confirm battle plans.

  “Yep,” I assure her. “All the pieces are just where we left them yesterday. Boxed up under the stairs. And I put that giant bakery box full of our rolls in a place where no one’s going to bother them and Rocco can’t reach them, even if he tries: the oven. Perfect, right? My dad’s away, so no one’s going to use it, and they won’t get smashed or eaten, either. I made a huge, impossible-to-miss sign and taped it to the oven door: ‘Keep Out on Pain of Death.’ Even The Goons won’t miss that. All I have to do is defrost the homemade gnocchi that Dad made before he left, pack up the granny cart with the stuff, and wheel it all over here.”

  We’ve come to the block where Liza goes one way to get the bus, Lillian goes another way to hop on the train, and I walk one last block home. If it were just Liza and me, we would do this goofy fist-bump-handshake routine that we made up in third grade. It ends with a musical “holla,” and we always do it for luck. But there’s no way we’re teaching it to Lillian, so we just sort of stand around awkwardly for a minute and then wave good-bye.

  “See you back at school!” I shout. And they both give me a thumbs-up as they walk away—almost in unison, so I decide their double thumbs-up means good luck.

  I’m contemplating what to wear tonight as I push open the front door. We have gazillions of Italia T-shirts around the house in every color and size. I could wear one of those with my denim skirt, tights, and boots. Or would Liza and Lillian say that was violating the no-costumes rule?

  As soon as I walk in, I stop caring about my wardrobe. Something is wrong—terribly wrong. The house is foggy, and a horrible scorched smell assaults me as I run toward the kitchen. Dad’s off on his fire training trip, so did the The Goons decide to burn the house down?

  I plow through the kitchen door. It’s worse than I thought. Much worse. The kitchen reeks of smoke and the oven door is wide open. Our rolls. Our precious rolls that we lovingly mixed and kneaded and baked all day yesterday. The rolls that were supposed to blow Mr. McEnroe—and, you know, everyone else—away. The rolls that Liza and Lillian entrusted to me. The rolls that were the key to my “awesomeness” are buried in an avalanche of foam, presumably from the mini fire extinguisher currently in my brother Leo’s hands. Of course we have one conveniently located in the kitchen—my dad is a firefighter, after all.

  For possibly the first time ever, I’m speechless. I am choking on words and screams and sobs that are duking it out in my throat to see what comes out first. If I weren’t leaning on the doorframe, I think I might collapse.

  I realize that Mom, Leo, and Nicky are all looking at me. My mom, who must see the homicidal glint in my eyes as I glare at Goon Number One, rushes toward me.

  “Francesca, sweetheart, it was me. It was all my fault. I am so, so sorry, honey. I am so sorry.”

  She leads me to a chair, and I am trying to process her words. Of course it’s all her fault. There’s an oven involved. Why wouldn’t it be?

  She strokes my hair back from my face while my brothers just stare at me. I must look really scary, because neither of them is saying anything—at all. Highly unusual.

  Mom kneels down next to me. “I was trying to be helpful. When Nicky and I got home, I took Dad’s gnocchi out of the freezer and put the oven on. I was opening the peanut butter jar for Nicky at the same time, so I just shoved the gnocchi on the top rack without really looking and went downstairs to do some laundry. While I was down there, I smelled the smoke and heard Nicky scream. When I got back to the kitchen, Leo had saved the day with the fire extinguisher. But, um, unfortunately, your rolls got ruined in the process.”

  She looks nervously at my brother, who seems reluctant to attract my attention by moving, speaking, or even blinking.

  “It was a little overkill, I know. I mean, we probably could have salvaged the rolls from the box and definitely the gnocchi. But it was quick thinking on his part, Frankie—he was doing what he thought Dad would have done. And neither of us meant to hurt anything. Or anyone.”

  When I’ve finally cleared my throat of all the competing emotions, my voice is actually pretty much under control, given how I feel.

  “And what about the ginormous sign that said ‘Keep Out’? How did you not see it? The one that said ‘On Pain of Death,’ because of its precious contents? Did you think for a minute after reading it that maybe turning on the oven or blasting it with toxic foam might not be the thing to do?”

  Nicky holds up a paper airplane. “This sign, Frankie?” he asks in a voice so small and scared that I actually almost feel bad for him. “I wanted to try the new airplane my friend Julian taught me before I forgot how to make it. So I just grabbed the first piece of paper I saw. I didn’t look at what it said.” He sort of gulps. “Is this your sign?”

  Of course it is. And of course he didn’t read it. It wasn’t covered with pictures of Greek gods or vehicles or superheroes.

  Mom looks miserable. Some other time I might feel sorry for her, but this is not that time. “I should have noticed the bakery box, bella, but you know I’m always doing three things at once and forgetting to look both ways. And Leo was just trying to save the day.” She smoothes my hair again. “Nobody meant to ruin your snack.”

  Nicky chimes in. “Or Pop’s gnocchi.”

  My snack? That did it. “Snack? Snack? Those rolls were not just a snack, they were an important part of a group project for tonight! A part of the project we worked really hard on. All day yesterday, remember? There’s no way we can make more sourdough in time! You have to have a starter, and . . .” I have to stop. This must be what they call a “panic attack”—I’m having trouble catching my breath and “using my words,” as Mom likes to say to Nicky. I just want to scream and punch something—or someone.

  It occurs to me that I have to tell Liza and Lillian what happened. Th
ey’re probably getting dressed right now, thinking that everything is fine, when, in fact, everything is SO. NOT. FINE. And how much will they hate me when they hear about this latest Caputo catastrophe?

  I storm out to get my phone. Mom and the boys are trying to clean up and talking to one another in hushed tones. I’m not sure I can trust my voice, so I decide to text Liza instead. All I can think of to say is one word:

  DISASTER.

  Then, just so she doesn’t think I’m in the hospital—although that sounds like an excellent place to be right now—I send another:

  ROLLS DESTROYED.

  Then I send the same message to Lillian.

  Liza must not have her phone nearby, but Lillian writes back immediately.

  What happened?

  How can I describe it in a text? I try:

  Fire . . . foam . . . all gone.

  My message has barely gone when she replies:

  We can fix it. Can I come over?

  Fix it? How? Even if I thought it were possible, it would be Liza’s help I wanted, not Lillian’s. But if Liza’s not around, what choice do I have?

  Yes, I text back.

  Then I try calling Liza. She always knows what to do in a crisis. And I need her. On what feels like the hundredth ring, she picks up her phone, all out of breath. I tell her what happened.

  First she just says, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”

  But then she calms down, and although she doesn’t seem mad, exactly, she sounds a little, well, annoyed. She says she wasn’t sure the oven was the safest place to store the roles in the first place. This is not what I need to hear right now. Thanks, Lize. Thanks a lot.

  Also, there’s no way she can come over to help me and Lillian, because she’s watching Cole while her mom finishes baking. She offers to call us if she comes up with any brilliant ideas, but I tell her we’ll just figure something out.