The Color of Home: A Novel

by Rich Marcello

  • • •

  Day One. Six in the morning: Sassa woke in her new apartment naked. She rolled out of bed, sat on the floor in the corner, and gathered her legs into her chest. There was so much empty space. She would work on that. Dressed for work in her traditional white chef’s vest, jeans, and black Bistro Crocs, she twirled her hair for a long time as she stared out her living room window.

  First thing on her agenda: meet employees. She had mapped spending a couple of hours one-on-one with each one, listening to them talk about work, about their lives, about their dreams. In college, while volunteering in a halfway house for troubled girls one semester, she had learned that two-hour introductory meetings worked best. Much longer, and the girl, tired and exposed at that point, flamed out; shorter, and she felt misunderstood, invisible. The same approach would work with her employees.

  At the local coffee house close to the restaurant, she met Jack first, her most senior employee. “Hey, Jack. So this is meant to be a really open session. We can talk about anything that comes up and nothing is off limits.”

  “Red Sox versus the Yankees?”

  She grinned. She liked him already. “Almost nothing.”

  “Thanks for the two hours. It’s nice to have so much time.”

  “For me as well.”

  “So, have you thought about what you want to do with the restaurant?” he asked.

  “A little. I’m going to keep a lot of what Matt and Myrina did. Serving the community and cooking with local, whole, organic foods for sure. Do you have any thoughts?” She really wanted all of her employees’ input, wanted them to re-up, to feel vested in the restaurant, in her, in each other. That was how she planned to build the company.

  “Thanks for asking. I guess I’d like to change the menu more and experiment based on what’s in season any given week.”

  “Good idea. Say more.”

  “We could add specials based on availability of local produce or maybe have summer and winter menus.”

  “I like the idea of summer and winter menus. Let’s discuss that with the rest of the team. Can you help by pulling together a proposal?”

  He pushed back in his chair and sipped his coffee. The corners of his lips flashed upward. “Sure.”

  “How do you feel about a fresh juice bar?”

  “A lot of work.”

  “I know. Good margins, though. Maybe next year. What do you need from me?” she asked.

  “A chance to grow. In a few years, I’d like to start my own restaurant. The Green Angel is a stepping stone.”

  She nodded. “That sounds great. I’m willing to help in any way I can.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Do you have a family?”

  “Yes. A wife and three girls.”

  “Bring them in sometime and I’ll cook for them.”

  “One big happy family.”

  “For sure.”

  • • •

  Day Thirty: Sassa spent the morning organizing the kitchen mise en place. In Sassa’s kitchen, everything had it’s own container, it’s own spot. Chopped onions. Minced garlic. A collection of finishing salts. Different curries. Green mustard. Cabbage. Brussels sprouts. King oyster mushrooms. The French had gotten organization right. It allowed her and everyone in the kitchen to focus on the cooking later on when hungry customers were waiting for their meals.

  Using a number of prep containers, she made salad dressings and soups for the day, tasting along the way to make sure each one was perfect. Coconut soup. Spicy bean curd dressing. Coconut milk and chili dressing. Into squeeze bottles, she poured different olive oils. Squeezing was easier when in a hurry. She stacked plastic dining trays six feet high against the wall. They used them as easily swappable cutting boards, which were faster to swap out than wiping down the counter. Timing was critical at the Green Angel. A moment too long or too short made all of the difference in a dish. Next to the dining trays, she organized metal sheet trays for prepping and cooking vegetables. Whenever possible, they used the same pot or pan or metal sheet for more than one purpose. Dual use simplified clean-up and maintenance in the kitchen.

  Sassa had spent almost every minute during her first thirty days prepping, shadowing Matt, working side-by-side with her employees, building trust and respect. She’d normally arrived a few hours early each day, and at the end of the day, she made sure she was the one who closed down the restaurant. The key to a successful transfer of the business was the customer perception that everything—the food, the quality, the atmosphere, the staff—remained the same. Once she’d established credibility through sameness, she could start experimenting.

  “Hey, Matt. Just finished all of the prep for the day,” Sassa said.

  “Want to try something?”

  “Sure. What’s up?”

  “I planned a visit out to the Blue Moon Harvest Organic Farm so you could see things firsthand.”

  “I’ve been meaning to visit those guys. Thank you.”

  “It’s a cool place. You’ll like the owner.”

  “Down the road, if things go well, I’d love to buy a small farm and source the restaurant that way.” Sassa hadn’t shared her entire map with anyone. Not Matt. Not Myrina. Not Brayden. Not even Nick. While she had plenty to do to get the Green Angel where she wanted it, she hadn’t stopped there. She’d mapped much bigger. Why not her own restaurant in the country, sourced by organic meat and produce from her own farm? Why not a few restaurants up and down the coast?

  • • •

  Day Seventy. The coming out party: entering the main dining area, calm and at ease, she mingled with her customers. Hard word had been a gift. For the first time in years, she’d completely thrown herself into work. She’d committed to it, and though there were obstacles along the way, she had enough strength to overcome them. It was as if she’d re-discovered resiliency.

  “Hi. I’m the new owner, Sassa. How’s your dinner?”

  “Great. Just like it’s been since I started coming here ten years ago,” said a man from a party of two.

  “That’s good to hear. That was my goal.”

  “You’re easier to look at than Matt.”

  She grinned. “Oh, I don’t know. He has his fans.”

  “I may have to come more often.”

  “I would be honored. Thanks for your business. If you have thoughts on how I could make the restaurant better, please let me know.” She reached out and gently placed her hand on the man’s shoulder. “Have a good day.”

  Menu variety. Price. Service. Whatever. She would listen to her customers and improve based on their feedback. The Green Angel was already a great place, and she was committed to making it even more exceptional. Some sushi chefs in Tokyo spent their entire lives perfecting their craft. She would do the same. After visiting a few more tables, she made her way to a corner table where a woman seemed upset.

  “Hi. I’m the new owner, Sassa. How’s your food?”

  “Not so good,” said a young woman, about Sassa’s age, sitting at a table with an elderly woman.

  “I’m sorry to hear that. What’s wrong?”

  “It’s my first time eating here. I just didn’t like it.” Her lips flattened, and she glanced at the elderly woman. “My mom didn’t like the food either.”

  Sassa pulled up a chair and sat down. Folding her hands on the table, she asked, “Can I get you something else? I’ll take that off of your bill right away.”

  “No, you don’t need to do that. I think vegetarian food isn’t for me.”

  “Or me,” the woman’s mom said.

  The mom had dark brown skin, hardly a wrinkle on her face, and only a hint of gray in her hair, even though she had to be in her sixties.“You’re so beautiful,” Sassa said. “What do you do to your skin?”

  The mom smiled. “Not a thing.”

  “How about this? Why don’t you come back in the kitchen with me now, and I’ll spend some time with both of you learning what you like and dislike? Then I’ll whip somet
hing up. I’m hopeful you’ll both enjoy it.”

  The younger woman fiddled with her fork. “Why would you do that?”

  “Just want a chance to make it right. What’s your name?”

  “Heather.”

  “Who knows? If it goes well, Heather, we may name a dish after you.”

  Heather glanced at her mom, who nodded her head once. “That would be okay.”

  • • •

  The doorbell rang and Sassa showed Matt and Myrina into her apartment. Grateful for everything they’d done, she’d planned to send them off to Seattle with a big thank you, devoting the full day to designing the menu, shopping for ingredients, preparing dinner.

  “Wow. What a difference,” Myrina said.

  “Thanks.”

  Sassa had done well with the place. Two white sofas from a local furniture maker faced each other in the center of the room and covered an area rug, a copy of aboriginal artist Minnie Pwerle’s original painting of colorful nested circles representing women working. There was so much power in her work. Vegetarian cookbooks covered a secondhand coffee table painted in colors that highlighted the rug. The same table, the same empty chairs she first had dinner on with Nick, centered the dining room. Pictures of her family covered the wall above the table, along with a framed Portland Magazine review of the Green Angel. On the end table next to the sofa was her favorite picture of Nick. She’d snapped it one afternoon while he was playing his guitar and singing “All You Need Is Love” to her.

  “We brought you more of the ale you like, and some wine as well.”

  “I’m trying a new dish on you tonight. If it goes well, it’ll be the first change I make to the menu.”

  Matt smiled. “You can’t make any changes to my menu.”

  “Right, I forgot. Well then, I have a new dish for you tonight, and the two of you will be the only ones who ever experience it. I promise.”

  “Better.”

  Sassa poured Matt and Myrina wine. She twisted off the cap to her beer and sipped it out of the bottle. The three of them gravitated to the kitchen. The smell of Parmesan and garlic infused the air.

  “As an appetizer, I’m serving broiled artichokes with a pesto pine nut sauce.”

  “Cool.”

  “And for the main course, homemade faro pasta with wild mushrooms, asparagus, and snow peas finished in a light Parmesan sauce. “

  “Fantastic.”

  Matt and Myrina watched as Sassa finished preparing the food, then the three of them sat down to dinner. The pesto pine nut sauce went well with the artichokes. The faro pasta and parmesan sauce was light, with great texture and a nicely blended combination of flavors. Sassa had done well.

  “So, since this is our last night together, I thought I’d ask you all of life’s hard questions. Sound okay?” Sassa smiled. There was a time before Nick when she didn’t like serious questions, never mind the answers. He’d been such a big influence on her life.

  Matt poured Myrina another glass of wine, then refilled his glass. He opened another bottle of beer for Sassa and handed it to her. “Go for it.”

  “You’ve figured it out,” Sassa said.

  “Figured what out?”

  “How to be happy. How to be together and be happy. You seem like you’re still in love and you belong together.”

  “We are and we do.”

  Her body temperature rose, which for some reason always happened when she drank beer, and caused her to stretch, lengthen, like she was in the middle of a yoga pose. She was so comfortable around Matt and Myrina, like they were chosen family. “How do you know you won’t lose it?”

  “We don’t.”

  “Doesn’t that scare you?”

  “The truth is, none of us knows what will happen tomorrow, never mind over the course of a full lifetime.”

  What was Nick doing in New York? He would like Matt and Myrina, like her apartment, like the Green Angel. She had to get him up for a visit soon. “With Nick, I had a wonderful year, but I didn’t believe we could last for fifty more. I bolted right in the middle of the best experience of my life.”

  “Then you made the right decision. You’ll know one way or the other at some point,” Matt said.

  Myrina nodded. “The best relationships seem familiar from the start, but there’s a fine line between a familiar place and a stuck place.”

  Sassa smiled. “I know that one.”

  “The trick is living each day in a way that’s true to how you aspire to live those fifty years.”

  “Not that easy.”

  “Infinitely easy or infinitely hard. It’s a choice,” Matt said.

  “I can only make out the hard part.” No. That wasn’t true. Why did she just say that? Every now and then, she’d made out the easy part, but it never lasted. Though with Nick, it had been easy longer than with anyone else.

  “It’s easy if you decide how you want to live, then practice every day for the rest of your life knowing there’s no such thing as perfection. When you don’t live up to the ideal you set, and you won’t, accept that it’s no big deal,” Matt said.

  Perfection? True enough. Maybe her past couple of years were about learning to let go of perfection, about embracing her flaws instead of trying to hide them, about letting go of fear. But how could she know for sure? “And infinitely hard?”

  “It’s hard when you don’t choose, for whatever reason. Choice is the key,” Myrina said.

  Sassa marveled at a universe that apparently had given her exactly what she needed: two people choosing to work on longterm love. Nick needed to meet them. But they were moving soon. “How did you choose?”

  “We decided to do all of it—work, home, personal, professional— together. We’ve made a commitment to each other to work through anything that comes up as our primary practice. Issues, big and small, come up every day. The key is to not leave them unresolved because they have a tendency to grow bigger over time.”

  “It does seem to work best when you catch it right away,” Myrina said.

  “Nick calls it ‘learning to stop the momentum before you spin out.’” Would Nick move to Portland if she asked him?

  “That’s a fine description,” Matt said.

  “Given our passion for food and our training, it seemed natural that we channel our energy into creating healthy food and serving our local community,” Myrina added.

  “Local community because there’s a trend toward isolation in America. Face-to-face communication is really important to us. All real change starts there,” Matt said.

  Myrina continued, “All we need to live healthy, happy, productive lives is already in us and our community.”

  “And with that as our framework, we started,” Matt said.

  “We take one step at a time and learn as we go,” Myrina added.

  “We don’t want anything to be too static or fixed, since in our experience, that’s the cause of many problems,” Matt said.

  “In a nutshell,” Myrina said, “we may make fifty years by letting the relationship take any shape it needs to for us to both thrive. We talk about it all the time, typically before either of us gets too far out of sync, but not always.”

  “What about physically?”

  “We try to fuck like rabbits.”

  Would Nick move to Portland?

  CHAPTER 13

  Early April reunion, After Sassa Year Two, New York City: Nick paced back and forth outside a Village restaurant chewing over what to share with Sassa. He’d bargained to be honest with her and had every intention of keeping up his end, but a hefty slice of his time with Rachel centered on tantric sex, which was off limits, or music production, which Sassa had shown little interest in. As she turned the corner and waved, he stopped pacing, buttoned the top button of his shirt, and narrowed his story. “I’ve wanted to try this place for a long time.”

  “You look happy.” She kissed him lightly on the cheek.

  They stepped inside the restaurant and chose a small table in the
back. The Spotted Cow, an old New York Tavern with loud music, fug, and desirable messiness, hooked its customers with a female English chef co-owner who created simple, flavorful gourmet dishes within the rowdy setting. He’d chosen well.

  Over the noise, he said, “So, how are you? Tell me about your year.”

  “You know the big stuff. I bought the Green Angel last June. The previous owners trained me for three months. I struggled for a few months, but I loved every bit of it.”

  “Yeah, there’s something about struggling.”

  “I feel like I’m making a difference.”

  “I’m sure you are.” He rolled the stem of the empty wine glass between his fingers. Was he making a difference? Doing what he loved? With his business, yes. Not so much with his own music. “I guess I figured out work right out of school, though I need to do more of my own music.”

  “You’re right about that.”

  “If I go out on a limb.”

  “The trunk isn’t enough.”

  “At least my bank account is healthy.”

  Her head tilted and her eyes widened.

  She was right; the trunk wasn’t enough.

  They choreographed their food order so they could share their entrees and desserts. He ordered the most popular dish on the menu, the chargrilled burger with Roquefort cheese and shoestrings. She ordered the sheep’s milk ricotta gnudi with basil pesto. The wine, a 2007 Duckhorn Three Palms Merlot, remained one of their favorites. To finish things off, a scoop of vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce.