by Maddy Hunter
Nana shook her head, tsking her sympathy. “Seems to me if that young fella didn’t have bad luck, he wouldn’t have no luck at all.”
The kitchen door inched open to reveal Caroline Goodfriend looking a bit awkward as she stood in the doorway. “I don’t want to interfere with your meeting, but I’m all hooked up and ready to go if any of you want to hear the results of your ancestry searches.”
“Go ahead,” I encouraged. “Don’t keep Caroline waiting any longer than you already have.”
They maneuvered around each other like human bumper cars in their haste to be out the door first. When the room had cleared I turned back to Wally, who was still propped against the sink, looking more down-in-the-mouth than I’d ever seen him.
“I should have listened to my mother,” he philosophized in a faraway voice. “I should have married the girl next door, had a dog, two-and-a-half kids, bought a station wagon, and sold women’s shoes for the rest of my life.”
I circled my arm around his shoulder. “Aw, c’mon, it’s not that bad,” I lied, wishing I’d opted for the career in shoe sales myself. “We’ve been through worse.”
He peered at me with one eye. “When?”
The kitchen door banged open again and Nana shuffled in. “Don’t know what I was thinkin’. If that young fella is stuck in the pokey tonight, he won’t be here to cook us no meal.”
“Nope,” I admitted. “Tonight you get potluck. Wally and I will throw food into a pot, and with any luck, you’ll be able to eat it.”
Nana gave a loud suck on her uppers. “Get outta here, the two of you. I’ll do the cookin’. Won’t be much. Sandwiches maybe. But at least folks’ll get fed.”
Her pronouncement seemed to rouse Wally from his earlier stupor. “Can’t let you do that, Mrs. Sippel. We’re not going to assign guests to kitchen duty.”
“You’re not assignin’ me. I’m volunteerin’.” She scurried around the room, throwing open the doors of the kitchen’s two industrial-size refrigerators to check out the inventory before disappearing into the pantry. “Plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables stockpiled,” she announced when she reappeared. “Them fellas believed in surplus. Bread. Canned goods. You name it, they got it.”
“And there’s a massive freezer in the basement,” said Wally.
“You got any menus around here what shows what we was s’posed to be served tonight?”
“Absolutely not, Nana.” I twirled my forefinger in the air as an indication that she should turn around and march back through the door. “We appreciate your offer, but this is not your problem.”
“No offense, dear, but if we gotta eat your cookin’, it’s everyone’s problem.”
My mouth dropped open at the slur. I would have feigned indignation if it hadn’t been the truth. “I assume you’re referring to my recent rhubarb pie?” I said in a small voice.
“You bet.” She raised an eyebrow at Wally. “Worst concoction I ever ate in my life. My mouth stayed puckered for so long, the folks at the senior center thought I’d had one of them facelifts what went bad.”
“What was the problem with the pie?” he asked.
“I left out the sugar,” I confessed. “I kinda got distracted.”
“And there’s plenty in this place what can cause more distractions, so if you leave me alone, I’ll see about gettin’ some food on the table.”
No, no, no. She had more enjoyable things to do than whip up dinner for the masses. Besides which, I’d have a guilty conscience forever. Not to mention that Mom would kill me if she found out I’d let her elderly mother engage in unnecessary physical labor. Nana hadn’t cooked a full meal since Grampa Sippel had died. Her kitchen skills could be so rusty, her meal might taste even worse than my dry cereal option. And everyone would have an opinion. Would she be able to deal with the brutal aftermath? The mockery? The incivilities? The scathing review on August Lugar’s food blog?
I pinned her with my gaze, steel in my eyes, my decision unwavering. “Okay.”
She had this.
I’d nearly forgotten.
She spent most Sundays binge-watching the Food Network.
nine
“I saved the best for last,” Caroline Goodfriend announced, fairly giggling with excitement. She adjusted her reading glasses, her gaze ping-ponging between her computer and her notebook. “The name I researched was Baker, which is the surname Jackie Thum asked me to investigate. Baker is her mother’s maiden name.”
For nearly an hour now, we’d occupied the squidgy chairs in the lounge, a captive audience to Caroline’s entertaining presentation that was informative, often surprising, and, in many cases, unexpectedly humorous. Even the bloggers had set aside their computers and ear buds long enough to join us, which allowed Wally the opportunity to get them up to speed with the details surrounding Enyon’s continued incarceration, our recent theft, and the unwelcome news that until Enyon returned, all guests would have to tough it out with the same bed linens and towels.
Through Caroline’s efforts we learned that although Alice Tjarks’s family tree had first sprouted in Norway, a branch had settled in Switzerland, where they served as town criers and made quite a name for themselves as first-class yodelers. I imagined their vocal talent would have been as popular on early morning radio as Alice’s crop reports, if radio had existed back then.
Dick Teig’s family had its origins in Norway, too, and although the more daring Teigs immigrated to Iowa in the early 1800s, a less adventurous spur moved to Austria, becoming involved in philosophical studies at the University of Vienna, where their academic writings were seen to have influenced such notable scholars as Sigmund Freud. Dick was bummed to learn that his ancestors might have rubbed shoulders with the father of psychoanalysis because it shattered the fiction he’d built up to explain away one of his most obvious character flaws, which meant he’d no longer be able to blame his shallowness on a defective gene pool.
Caroline resumed her final genealogical narrative while Jackie sat beside me, leaning forward over her knees and clicking her fingernails against her teeth, breathless with anticipation.
“The name Baker has undergone many iterations in its journey through the centuries,” she began. “In Jackie’s family I found evidence of variations that include Bakewell, Bagwell, Backhouse, and Bakehouse.”
“Backhouse?” squealed Margi. “Oh my goodness. Do you suppose her relatives and mine knew each other? Maybe even worked together?” Margi had been shocked to learn that her English ancestors had toiled as nightsoil men in the neighborhoods of London during the Victorian era—hearty souls who collected human waste in their little carts and disposed of it in outlying areas until the flushable toilet made its way onto the scene. London’s first sanitation workers. Margi was over the moon, relieved that her fixation on hand sanitizer was less a crazed obsession than it was a subconscious nod to family genetics.
“Backhouse isn’t the same as outhouse or privy,” Caroline explained to Margi with a hint of amusement. “I think you might be confusing the two.”
“Of course she’s confusing them,” Jackie sputtered, aghast. “My mother’s ancestors didn’t shovel poo. I’m sure you found they were an extremely tall and highly skilled bunch—artists, craftsmen, guildsmen.” She made a panoramic sweep of her hand as if lighting up all the letters on Wheel of Fortune’s big board. “Stage actors. Playwrights. Wig makers. Famous makeup artists. Acclaimed athletes.”
“They baked bread,” said Caroline.
Jackie’s hand fell to her lap. “Excuse me?”
“Bread. They were in the business of baking bread—for a very long time, actually. In fact, during the reign of Edward IV one of your ancestors was pilloried for selling loaves of bread that were underweight. Bakery bread used to be sold by weight, so if the weight was found lacking, the baker was in violation of the law and could be fined, flogged, or pillorie
d.”
Jackie clutched her throat. “That is so inhumane.”
“Life stinks, doesn’t it?” sniped Bernice.
Bernice was disappointed because her genealogy hadn’t wowed her. It indicated that her paternal ancestors had fled Europe because they didn’t like the politics, fled the American plains because they didn’t like rampaging buffalo, fled the American West because they didn’t like dust storms and drought, and settled in Iowa because they didn’t like having to move around so much. The revelations were more than historically informative; they were proof positive that Bernice wasn’t adopted.
“Happily,” Caroline continued, “the violation of underweight bread appeared to be a onetime offense, so your ancestors continued baking bread loaves throughout the early 1500s, when they began experimenting with other types of pastry and confections. Henry Tudor took note and issued a royal decree that their bakery should be closed and all your relatives should have their—”
“Oh, God!” Jackie agonized. She clapped her hands over her ears and pinched her eyes shut. “They should have their heads lopped off?”
“They should have their belongings sent to Hampton Court Palace,” said Caroline.
Jackie looked even more horrified. “So they could be burned at the stake?”
Caroline laughed. “So they could be installed in the kitchen as the king’s own pastry and confection cooks. Monarchs might have come and gone, but your family attained such high acclaim for their culinary innovations that they remained in the palace for generations. They were the premiere bakers for the Tudors, the Stuarts, and most of the Hanovers. In the annals of baking history, your ancestors were absolutely unparalleled.”
Jackie straightened up so quickly, I heard her spine crack. “They were famous?”
“On a grand scale,” Caroline assured.
Bernice snorted. “If they were so famous, how come no one’s ever heard of them?”
“A lot of people have heard of them,” Caroline acknowledged, “but you probably don’t run in the same circles. I bet Lance would have known who they were. I suspect culinary institutes around the world still teach some of the techniques Jackie’s ancestors perfected.”
“Imagine,” cooed Jackie, clasping her hands beneath her chin with delight. “My relatives schmoozed with Henry Tudor and Elizabeth the First and—”
“Don’t delude yourself,” Kathryn Crabbe spoke up. “Kings didn’t schmooze with the riffraff in the kitchen. Your relatives were servants of the crown; nothing more. My relatives, on the other hand, have been consorting with royalty on an equal footing for centuries.”
Caroline was quick to respond. “I think even you might agree, Kathryn, that none of us can know with any certainty who schmoozed with whom.”
“I know,” Kathryn huffed.
“Is there anything you don’t know?” challenged Spencer Blunt.
Kathryn eyed him with the same regard she might give a food stain on wash-and-wear fabric. “Perhaps we should compare academic degrees, if you dare.”
Before the dialogue could escalate into an insult-laced free-for-all, I hopped off the settee. “I’m sure everyone would like to join me in thanking Caroline for taking the time to research so many of our family histories. How about treating our genealogist to a well-deserved round of applause?” I clapped enthusiastically, gratified when the entire room filled with applause that lasted so long, I missed the cue from the kitchen until Nana marched into the dining room with a handbell in her fist, ringing it as if she were soliciting charitable donations for the iconic red kettle.
“Dinner’s ready! Come and get it. We’re doin’ this cafeteria- style on account of I’m not no waitress, so you can all file into the kitchen to pick up your food and silverware.”
The clapping stopped, but no one moved as they regarded Nana in some confusion.
“We were thinking you were going to surprise us with takeout pizza,” said Dick Teig.
“Sorry,” I apologized. “No pizza. Since Enyon is still at the police station, Nana has graciously volunteered to prepare our dinner this evening.”
Mumbling. Frowns. Arm crossing.
“Your brochure said a world-class chef would be cooking our meals in this hellhole,” grumbled Bernice.
A smile froze on my lips. “As well he would…if he weren’t so inconveniently dead.”
“So now we’re stuck eating Marion’s homestyle slop?” Bernice contorted her mouth with distaste. “You should have found a substitute. That’s your job, isn’t it? To deliver what you promised? I can tell you one thing: you’ll never convince me to eat Marion Sippel’s version of Cornish cuisine.”
“I second what she just said,” Kathryn agreed. “I didn’t pay top dollar to eat cut-rate food served cafeteria-style by a woman who doesn’t have official cooking credentials.”
Bernice raised an eyebrow at Kathryn. “You didn’t pay top dollar. You got a discount, so your opinion doesn’t count.”
“Yes it does,” snapped Kathryn.
“No it doesn’t,” countered Bernice.
“Yes it—”
Nana gave her handbell a furious ring again. “No skin off my teeth if some of you folks don’t want no supper, but if the rest of you are fixin’ to eat tonight, the line starts at the kitchen door.”
Her message delivered, she marched back toward the kitchen. Kathryn folded her arms beneath her bosom, smug in her dissention. “I’m planning to boycott the event. Should any of you decide to join me, you’re certainly welcome to sit here with—”
The lounge emptied in five seconds flat, with Bernice sprinting to the front of the pack to be first in line.
I had to hand it to her, if there had been any fast-talking politicians among her immigrant ancestors—the kind who said one thing to your face but did another behind your back—she would have done them proud.
“Look at them,” Kathryn mocked. “Lemmings. Lining up for a meal that has all the earmarks of tasting even worse than the one last night.”
The meal was magnificent.
Nana had raided the pantry and refrigerator until she’d found the perfect ingredients to concoct a Marion Sippel original—an open-faced sandwich on sourdough bread with turkey, green apple, fig jam, and melted brie cheese. So many people requested a second serving that Nana ended up slaving away in the kitchen until she announced that there wasn’t any more fuel in the little gizmo she was using to melt the cheese.
“If we pick up more fuel on our way back from St. Michael’s Mount, will you cook the same thing tomorrow night?” pleaded Dick Teig.
We were still seated around the dining table, feeling fat and happy.
“What about breakfast?” asked Margi. “Do you take requests? Because my favorite is pancakes with fresh strawberries, brown sugar, chocolate chips, a sprinkle of confectioner’s sugar, and lots of low-cal whipped cream.” She smiled benignly. “Have to watch those calories.”
I pushed my chair away from the table and stood up. “I hate to disrupt your breakfast plans, but Nana isn’t our official cook.”
“Well, she should be,” declared Lucille. “Marion can cook rings around that Lance fella.”
“All those in favor of making Marion our official cook, say aye,” instructed Osmond.
The response came in a collectively shouted “aye,” which prompted Dick Stolee to explain, “The only reason I’m voting is because being hungry gives me indigestion. But I still think the system’s rigged.”
“That settles it, then,” enthused Dick Teig. “Marion’s our new cook. So what have you whipped up for dessert?”
“I didn’t have no time to whip up no fancy dessert, so you’re gettin’ storebought ice cream.”
“With chocolate sauce, sprinkles, whipped cream, and maraschino cherries?” asked Margi.
“With a bowl and a spoon,” said Nana.
“I’ll dish it out.” Wally hopped out of his chair. “And I’m volunteering for clean-up, so as of now your duties have ended, Marion. Here. You can have my seat.”
“I hope you’re not planning to serve ice cream every night,” crabbed Bernice. “You’re really pushing the envelope with the lactose-intolerant set.”
“Nana is not our official cook,” I reiterated.
“Yes she is,” corrected Dick Teig. “We voted on it.”
“Contrary to the results of your vote,” I clarified, “she’s a guest on this tour, not an employee.”
“But the vote was unanimous,” said Margi, puzzled.
Lucille looked apoplectic. “If you discount our vote on the small things, what’ll stop you from taking it to the next level? Birth certificates to prove we were born. Photo IDs to prove we’re not impersonating each other. Shortened time periods for shouting out our vote. You might as well ship us off to a third-world country.”
“Or Wisconsin,” said Tilly.
“We don’t need to ship no one off to Wisconsin,” said Nana as she removed her apron and took a seat at the table. “I don’t mind feedin’ you folks until that Enyon fella comes back, but I’m not caterin’ to no picky eaters. You eat what I put in front of you, no bellyachin’, else every one of you can hightail it into the kitchen and fix your own grub.”
A dozen pairs of unblinking eyes riveted on Bernice.
“What?” Bernice barked.
“Did you hear what Marion said?” questioned Grace. “No complaining. From anyone.”
Dick Teig made a gun of his forefinger and aimed it at her. “If my wife has to walk into that kitchen and cook my meal, I’m gonna be one unhappy camper because Marion’s cooking is a helluva lot better than Helen’s, so you better keep your negative comments to yourself.”