Take A Look At Me Now

by Miranda Dickinson

  ‘No thanks. I’d better get back.’

  ‘Suit yourself. You want this wrapped to go?’

  ‘Er – yes. Please.’

  ‘Okie dokie.’

  My thoughts were all over the place. What just happened? After our brief meeting at the start of the week I’d assumed Max would become a lovely memory of San Francisco, a cheeky anecdote I could entertain Vicky with and pull out now and again when I wanted to remind myself that men other than Aidan could make my pulse race. But now I’d met him again – unwittingly reintroduced by the well-meaning Alfaros. And he was gorgeous. Funny, attentive, intelligent – and interested in me?

  Walking back along Haight Street towards Lizzie’s, clutching the box of considerable remains of my pie (which I’d now inexplicably lost all appetite for), I mentally turned the events of the past hour over and over. He was just being polite, surely. He’d simply found himself hijacked by two nonagenarian matchmakers and didn’t want to embarrass me by leaving. Which made him both considerate and a gentleman …

  … But was it my imagination or had chemistry fizzed between us as we’d spoken? Did he really mean it when he said he was pleased to see me? Or was that just wishful thinking on my part?

  Whatever the truth, I was excited. It made no sense and I wasn’t expecting it, but somehow the handsome guy from my brief meeting in Fisherman’s Wharf had strolled magnificently into my new neighbourhood diner. And invited me to his exhibition. And if that wasn’t a welcome opportunity San Francisco was offering me then I didn’t know what was.

  When I was almost at Cole Street, Aidan’s face suddenly drifted into my mind. The chemistry I always experienced when we were together hadn’t changed, but it was good to know I could feel that way with someone else, even if it was just a fleeting attraction. Aidan had always assumed I would be waiting for him whenever we broke up: well, it showed how much he knew.

  Meeting Max Rossi might be nothing more than a brief flirtation, but it had proved to me that my life had possibilities without Aidan Matthews. For now, that was all I needed to know. And that was enough to sit back and enjoy the ride …

  CHAPTER TEN

  Eat your heart out, Tony Bennett

  From: nell.sullygirl@gmail.com

  To: vickster1981@me-mail.com

  Subject: Food!

  Hey Vix

  This week I’ve discovered food trucks – and I know you would love them!

  Not far from Lizzie’s there is a street where a group of food trucks turn up and it’s like a world banquet on wheels. There’s even one dedicated to Belgian waffles. I could imagine you and Lizzie hijacking it and moving in! We went there this afternoon and the choice was so amazing I felt like I used to when Mum took me to the sweet shop at the end of our road and said I could choose anything. It took a full twenty minutes for me to decide. I went for a Vietnamese Banh Mi, which is like a sub roll stuffed with spicy pork and kimchee, a mix of fermented veg. Gorgeous!

  I’m almost at the end of my sightseeing week with Lizzie. From next Monday, I’ll be on my own during the day. I’ve already found some places I know I’m going to go back and revisit – and some I haven’t seen yet. It’s exciting and a little terrifying, but I know I can do it.

  Will let you know how I get on. Hope all is good with you, hun.

  Love ya

  Nell xxx

  From: vickster1981@me-mail.com

  To: nell.sullygirl@gmail.com

  Subject: Re: Food!

  It sounds amazing! And now I’m ravenously hungry, thank you very much.

  Is there a bloke working in the Belgian waffle truck who looks like Ryan Gosling? PLEASE tell me there is and then my personal fantasy will be complete ;o)

  I need PHOTOS, girl! Especially if RG is serving waffles. In fact, if he is, just kidnap him, fold him into that new suitcase of yours and BRING HIM HOME TO MOMMA.

  That is all.

  Vix xxx

  I didn’t tell Vicky about Max Rossi. Not yet. I would, of course, if anything happened. But I wasn’t sure I would even see him again, let alone … well, anything else. I also hadn’t told Lizzie. This had the potential to be problematic, but when I’d arrived back at her apartment yesterday I didn’t have the opportunity to say anything. My cousin quickly became too engrossed in the demolition of the remainder of the blueberry pie to hear anything other than the contented sound of her own munching. My cousin, the Nemesis of All Desserts …

  I would tell her – but for now it was actually fun to keep my conversation with Max to myself.

  ‘Two Bacon Peanut Butter waffles?’

  ‘Yes, over here.’

  The decidedly un-Ryan-Gosling waffle truck guy handed over our order with about as much enthusiasm as I have for filing tax returns. I giggled as I handed Lizzie her waffle.

  ‘What’s amusing?’

  ‘Vicky wants that bloke to look like Ryan Gosling.’

  Lizzie grimaced. ‘Blimey. If he did I’d eat here every day. You’d better not take a photo of him. It’d break her heart.’

  Although clouds blocked the sun this afternoon, it was still warm on the outskirts of Golden Gate Park and quite a few people had ventured out onto the grass in their lunch breaks, enjoying delights from the small group of food trucks parked up under the trees on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.

  ‘Last day of our sightseeing, eh?’

  ‘I know.’ My cousin wriggled her toes in the cool grass. ‘Are you going to be alright without me, hun?’

  ‘I’ll be fine. I know which buses to take, Ced’s lectured me on all the areas I should avoid and I’m feeling really at home here. Stop worrying, Liz. This is what I came here for.’

  After we’d been defeated by crazy savoury Belgian treats we walked back through Haight and along The Panhandle park towards one of San Francisco’s most famous sights. Following Mrs Alfaro’s impassioned description of the houses she one day longed to reside in, it would have been rude not to visit The Painted Ladies – a row of historic, pastel-hued wooden houses in Alamo Square.

  ‘I wonder which one Esther Alfaro was coveting?’ I asked Lizzie as we moved through the crowds of tourists standing on the green hill focusing their cameras towards the famous buildings.

  ‘Whichever one she could, I imagine,’ Lizzie replied, pulling me alongside her and lifting her phone up to frame a photo of us together with the houses behind.

  ‘One for the tourist album,’ she grinned.

  All around Alamo Square colourful dwellings housed families and children and dogs: real life carrying on alongside the sightseeing tour buses, flashing cameras and swarms of overseas visitors. A group of Japanese tourists buzzed onto the grass beside us and posed with ‘V for Victory’ hand gestures. One of the men then grabbed his wife and waltzed her around the grass, singing a very loud, very sharp rendition of the Tony Bennett classic ‘I Left My Heart in San Francisco’ as another of his party enthusiastically filmed them on an iPad. In the past week I must have heard that song twenty times, yet this version was something new and definitely an experience. When he finished to loud applause from the tour party, he bowed at Lizzie and me.

  ‘I am Yuuto, Tony Bennett long-lost Kyoto cousin. Crooner till I die!’

  ‘One of the houses is for sale,’ Lizzie observed. ‘Fancy living in Postcard Row?’

  ‘Wow, can you imagine?’ I let myself consider the dream for a moment. ‘They look like something out of a fairytale. Mind you, I’m not sure that what’s left of my redundancy money would cover it. And I bet crowds of strangers peering into your house every day is a little annoying.’

  Lizzie giggled. ‘Can you imagine my mum living here, with her infamous random aversion to seeing into people’s windows?’

  The thought of Auntie Sue rushing around hanging thick net curtains at every window in the Alamo Square house was hilarious. My parents, in contrast, often forgot to close curtains even late at night, the house in Richmond a blazing beacon of visibility most evenings. When Auntie Sue and Uncle Dave
came to visit, Dad used to chide her for ‘twitching’ when she could see the streetlights on outside and the curtains hadn’t been closed.

  After a week of being in the city, I was surprised to find how easily I could imagine myself living in it. I could see myself jogging in its parks, visiting Annie’s for brunch at weekends, hanging out with friends at gigs, bars, book readings and exhibitions. Especially exhibitions … I couldn’t conceal my smile as Max’s face appeared in my mind. I didn’t know when or if I might bump into him again but at least I had a firm invitation to visit his exhibition in a fortnight’s time. And if the Alfaros had anything to do with it, I might even see him sooner …

  Today, however, I had more pressing things to think about. All week an idea had been brewing about how I could thank Lizzie for showing me around San Francisco, not to mention putting me up rent-free for two months. Now it was time to put my plan into action.

  After my cousin’s mention of it the other day, I’d decided to recreate the baked chocolate orange cheesecake that Lizzie had loved so much during our teens. First thing this morning I had snuck out to Annie’s to pick up takeaway coffee and French toast for breakfast while Lizzie was still asleep. While waiting for my order to be cooked, I’d enlisted the help of Laverne (in return for a handwritten recipe) to source all the ingredients I needed and drop them off with Rosita, the nice Mexican lady who ran the New Age shop below Lizzie’s apartment. All day when we were out, I had been secretly going over the recipe in my mind, buzzing with the thrill of surprising my cousin.

  When we returned to Lizzie’s, she headed out for an hour to meet a prospective piano student. I waited until she left before jumping into action. Dashing downstairs I collected the bag of goodies from Rosita, promising her I’d save her a slice, and returned to the apartment. It took a while to find the cake tin and utensils I needed in Lizzie’s odd kitchen cupboard organisational system (cake tin under packets of rice and noodles, mixing bowl randomly stashed in a drawer with tea towels, wooden spoon in the pocket of an apron hanging beside the refrigerator …), but when everything was together I worked as quickly as possible, keeping a constant eye on the time. I had suggested we meet at Java’s Crypt for coffee at five o’clock, which I hoped would give her surprise dessert long enough to chill in the fridge before I presented it to her.

  It felt so wonderful to be baking again and it was only when my face began to ache that I realised how broadly I’d been smiling while doing it. For as long as I could remember I had always loved baking for other people the most, the mixture of pride in my ability to create delicious food and the irresistible allure of a planned surprise giving me a huge sense of fulfilment. I loved watching other people enjoying my food. I can’t explain it any more than to say it was the time when I felt most like the person I wanted to be. Being surrounded by so much food here had made me want to cook again, bringing back that urge to create food that I’d been ignoring for the last few years.

  The cheesecake baked like a dream, putting my concerns about baking in an unfamiliar oven to rest. As a final flourish, I melted some local Ghirardelli bitter orange dark chocolate, made a piping bag out of baking parchment and drizzled thin lines across the surface of the cheesecake, before stashing it safely in the fridge to chill.

  ‘I heard about your covert baking,’ Ced grinned when I hurried into Java’s Crypt, only to find my cousin hadn’t yet arrived.

  I stared at him. ‘How did you hear?’

  ‘Laverne. She stopped by after making the drop at Rosita’s place.’ He laughed when he saw my incredulity at the speed the news had travelled. ‘We’re like a network of ninja spies here, dude. Nothing gets past The Haight-vine.’ He reached behind the ancient Victorian till (painted black, of course) and handed me a flyer. ‘On that subject – sorta – we have a band here Tuesday. Be great if you could come.’

  The advertised band appeared to be heavily made-up middle-aged men posing Gene-Simmonds-like with guitars in bad eighties’ wigs.

  ‘“Bayfinger”?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Ced nodded solemnly. ‘They’re America’s leading Hellfinger tribute band – that weird, cult English rock band from the eighties? It’s my uncle’s band. They’re pretty good – even if you don’t know the songs.’

  After that glowing recommendation, I didn’t dare refuse. ‘I’ll mention it to Lizzie. It could be fun.’ Knowing my cousin I was pretty sure she would find a really good reason to give it a miss, but I didn’t want to hurt Ced’s feelings.

  ‘Sweet. Grab a booth and I’ll bring your poison over.’

  Ah Ced, such a way with words …

  When Lizzie hurried in, profusely apologising, twenty minutes later, I could hardly contain my excitement as we drank our coffee, dying to see the look on her face when the cheesecake was revealed. By the time we walked back into her apartment I was at bursting point.

  ‘OK, I have a surprise for you,’ I blurted, incapable of keeping the secret a moment longer.

  ‘You do? Oh Nellie, you didn’t need to.’

  ‘Yes, I did. You’ve given me a fabulous first week and if it weren’t for you this whole trip would have been impossible. I just wanted to do something to thank you, so –’ I stepped to one side so that she was facing the kitchen ‘– open your fridge.’

  Casting me a look of suspicion, Lizzie walked to the large refrigerator, gingerly opening the door as if it might be booby-trapped. When the interior light illuminated her features, she let out a shriek so loud I thought the lady in the apartment below us might call 911 fearing the worst for her neighbour.

  ‘Cheesecake! Oh Nellie! Oh – cheesecake!’ She hugged me with all her might and jumped around the kitchen with me, turning the small area into a mosh-pit of dessert-related dancing. When she eventually calmed down enough to take a slice, the delight on her face was exactly how I’d hoped it would be. I felt on top of the world. I still had it: I could still make people smile with my food.

  Several large slices later, Lizzie collapsed beside me on the sofa. ‘It’s perfect, Nell! This is perfect! We are going to have the best time while you’re here.’

  Feeling fulfilled and utterly at peace with the world, I beamed back. ‘I already am.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  A spoonful of sugar

  My dreams that night were filled with images of food I had enjoyed making in the past, culinary possibilities I could perhaps revisit in Lizzie’s compact kitchen. The baking bug was magnificently back and in my slumber I revelled in its re-emergence in my life. After the best night’s sleep in months, I woke refreshed and energised by the experience.

  ‘I have a confession to make,’ my cousin said as I joined her in the living room. ‘I sneaked to the fridge in the middle of the night to have another slice of that phenomenal cheesecake.’

  I pretended to be shocked by this sheepish early morning revelation. ‘Lizzie Sullivan, what are you like?’

  ‘It was just too good to resist. You don’t know how long my fridge has been crying out for awesome homemade desserts to nestle in it! Actually, it got me thinking.’ She handed me a plate of buttered toast and we sat at the dining table together. ‘How would you fancy doing some baking with the kids at my after-school club? They’re excited to meet you and I know they’d love to learn some of your recipes.’

  It was a great idea and I marvelled again at the opportunities San Francisco was offering me. ‘We could bake Stained Glass Biscuits,’ I suggested, remembering summer holiday baking days with Lizzie, Auntie Sue and my mum – flour-covered, messy and giggling in Sue’s large farmhouse kitchen by the sea.

  Delighted, Lizzie clapped her hands. ‘Yes! Blimey, it’s been years since I had one of those!’

  ‘That’s a plan then. When’s the club?’

  ‘This afternoon. We usually do Wednesdays but there was a school Baking Bee this week so we’re doing a one-off Friday special.’

  ‘OK. I’ll start making a list of ingredients and you need to tell me how many kids you think are lik
ely to want to bake. Then we’d better do some shopping.’

  After breakfast we headed out in search of ingredients, choosing fruit-flavoured Life Saver candies to create the coloured sugar glass. Shopping for ingredients made me remember how much I’d missed dreaming up recipes. When I had first moved into the house-share in Woodford I had baked almost every weekend – my new housemates enamoured with the cakes, cookies and pies I baked even if they weren’t as bothered about me. Then, when Aidan and I were together, my baking had moved to his house on Sunday mornings, rising early to make sweet pastries while he was still sleeping. I wondered what he would make of me now, the once sensible girl he had known (who never did anything without copious amounts of planning first) being replaced by someone who was daring to be different. Part of me wondered if he would like the change, although when I found myself thinking this, I quickly pushed it away. Right now I was doing this for me, and nobody else.

  Back at Lizzie’s apartment we measured the ingredients for each child, separating the boiled sweets into piles of single colours and smashing them up (something that hadn’t lost any of its fun factor in the many years since we’d last done it). Then we bagged everything up ready for the after-school session, caught the Muni bus to Mission and walked one block to the school.

  Sacred Heart Elementary looked more like a college building than a primary school, although Lizzie assured me it was one of the smaller schools in the area. Parents were waiting outside as we approached and several greeted Lizzie like old friends.

  ‘It’s a real community school,’ Lizzie explained as we walked up the paved path to the smooth stone steps at its entrance. ‘They encourage the parents to get involved and there are always fundraisers going on during the year. Out of all the schools I work with in San Francisco this is my favourite.’

  Entering the building, we walked down a long, tiled corridor with doors leading to classrooms on both sides. Banks of dark grey lockers lined the walls, covered in stickers, hand-drawn name signs and pictures. The space smelled slightly of disinfectant and the corridor echoed with the muted chatter of small voices from behind the classroom doors.