I could feel my face getting red and hot. “You’re right. Same guy.”
Chapter Four
But even as Ms. Cadbury was teaching us the proper way to fold butter into puff pastry and the technique for making silky bearnaise sauce, I made a silent vow to myself: I would follow the rules, and then I would break them.
—Kathy Gunst, “The Epiphany That Turned Me Into a Good Baker,” The Washington Post, March 28, 2016
By noon the next day, Miss Gloria and I had done everything possible to make the little houseboat shine. I’d also been through every recipe in my files, both paper and electronic, looking for the perfect supper dish. Nathan had called early this morning to let me know he’d be picking his mother up at three PM. Did I want to ride over to the airport with him? Or meet them at my mother’s place?
Chicken that I was, I chose my mother’s place. I’d have all my troops marshaled for backup support. And I wouldn’t have to yammer all the way to the airport about how worried I was, and thereby show my new husband in full living Technicolor that I was terrified about meeting his mother.
Once we got past the initial awkward hellos, the evening should go by quickly. Nathan reported that Mrs. Bransford wanted to see the Christmas lights of Key West. So he had made a reservation for three of us on the last Conch Train that would ferry guests around the island to see the holiday displays. We’d have a cocktail and snacks at my mother’s place, then drive over to New Town to catch the train at the high school. Nathan was pretty sure he could meet us back at the houseboat for a light supper. Miss Gloria would attend all the festivities, including the train ride, and Mom, Sam, and Nathan would join us for dinner.
“What does she like to eat?” I’d asked him. “Even more important, what does she not like?”
“She’ll like anything you make,” he said. “Food isn’t that important to her.”
Which meant we were starting out light-years apart. Not only was I the food critic for Key Zest, but I came from a long line of foodies whose lifelong obsession was the next great meal. Food was love—that was our language. Obviously, she spoke some other dialect altogether. I’d already made repeat visits to both Fausto’s markets and the Restaurant Store, where I’d bought an array of unusual cheeses plus crackers, Key West’s best smoked fish dip, some pricy but delish artichoke dip, and wine and fruit. I had no idea whether Mrs. Bransford was gluten-free or sugar-free or carbohydrate-free or heaven help the chef, salt-free, so I wanted to have something for any and all possibilities.
In the end, I opted for a hominy and shrimp stew for supper that we’d tried last week, with hominy from a mail-order bean company I’d recently become enamored with. I could make the broth ahead of time and add fresh Key West pink shrimp when we got back to the houseboat. I also whipped up a recipe of cheese puffs, filling half of them with hot pepper jelly and the rest with fig jam, in case she didn’t do spicy.
I chopped onions and celery and began to sauté them in a large pot with smoked paprika and other spices, and our home soon filled with the comforting scents of something delicious. While the flavors melded, I shucked and cleaned three pounds of Key West pinks, which we could add to the hominy mixture when we got back after our tour of the lights. I was banking on Nathan’s mother enjoying food with a southern twist, coming from the outskirts of Atlanta. As Miss Gloria had pointed out earlier when I vacillated about what to cook, she’d never eaten a bad dish at my table. I was clinging to that.
“And even if Nathan’s mother hates the food, she can push it around in her bowl and exclaim about the unusual flavors. It’s never killed anyone to miss a meal. Maybe you,” she’d conceded with a giggle.
As I finished the stew and washed vegetables for a salad, I tried to concentrate on my second of three assignments for Key Zest this week: a pre-contest roundup of key lime pie from the bakeries of Key West. Palamina, though she’d never touch a bite of the stuff herself, wanted our magazine to get a jump on describing the plethora of pies across the island.
For dessert tonight, I planned to serve the first wave of pie samples I’d collected from the Moondog Cafe, Blue Heaven restaurant, and Old Town Bakery (voted best key lime pie in the Keys by New Times.) These had all been presented at the library event yesterday, but I wanted to try them myself before the amateurs attending the contest started clogging my mind with their opinions. I’d also snagged a few coconut macaroons from Cole’s Peace, in case Mrs. Bransford despised key lime pie. (Seemed impossible to me, but if I didn’t plan for this, I was superstitious enough to be sure it would happen.) And a key lime napoleon from the newest sensation, Au Citron Vert, which David Sloan had ejected from the judging yesterday. The place had dominated Yelp and OpenTable and TripAdvisor reviews since it opened in November. A recent full-page article in the Key West Citizen had irritated other local bakeries to no end with its declaration that Claudette Parker’s key lime napoleon had rendered key lime pie obsolete. And yesterday afternoon, I’d seen the rancor in the food community in person. I couldn’t help chuckling as a vision of David Sloan’s pie-covered face came to mind.
Miss Gloria watched my preparations, staying well out of my way. She hunkered on the couch with the cats, who also seemed to sense something big in the works.
“You realize she’s going to love you no matter what you serve her, right?” she asked, after I’d finished furiously chopping green onions and pimentos for the cheese spread I’d bring to my mother’s place.
“I don’t exactly realize that,” I said. “Why would she? She loved the first wife. And from what I can tell, Trudy and I are not anything alike. But I certainly remember seeing my husband hanging all over her when she came down here to reclaim him—”
“Which she failed at, am I right? Because correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t he marry you about a month ago?”
Of course he had, but plenty of supposedly happily married people still had regrets about the loss of their first true love. “Even after knowing him for three years, I’ve never managed to squeeze much out of Nathan on the subject of his first wife and whether it was her who chucked him out or him her. But it happened not long after their home invasion, that’s for sure. I got the idea he pretty much freaked out and wanted to lock her up for safekeeping. And maybe she dumped him and then panicked and wanted him back? He’ll never say. It’s so complicated, and who knows what side Mrs. Bransford was on.”
Miss Gloria chuckled and said again, “But Nathan’s not married to his ex. He divorced her several years ago, and then he chose you. His mother will love you because Nathan loves you. Even if you have a rocky introduction, she’ll understand that after she’s been here a while.”
“So you admit that this visit is going to be rocky,” I said, pouncing on the scariest part of her calming explanation.
Miss Gloria rolled her eyes. “She’ll see that you are funny and quirky and warm and loyal, even if you are nutty as a fruitcake sometimes. And she’ll see that because you’re a loving person with a good sense of humor, you have more friends than you could count on fingers and toes.” She stroked Sparky, her black cat, who had curled up on her lap. “And she’d be a fool not to be one of them.”
Now it felt as if she’d pressed the off button on my neurotically spinning mind. “You’re the best,” I said, crossing the room to give her a hug.
When I’d finished the dinner preparations, I packed up my cocktail snacks and we walked up the dock to the parking lot. I still couldn’t help seeing the things I thought Mrs. Bransford would notice on her first visit to our neighborhood and our lives: the disaster that was our future home in progress, the boat toward the end of the walk that was tented for termites and posted with a prominent sign declaring Danger! Hazardous Poisons!, the trash that stunk to high heaven accumulating near the laundry room for garbage pickup tomorrow.
Miss Gloria said, “By the time we get back here, it will be dark, and all the fairy lights will be shimmering up and down the dock. And you know how magical that makes this pla
ce. And then she’ll smell the luscious stew you’re making, and she will fall in love with the possibilities of Houseboat Row. The same way you did when you first arrived, and me before that.”
I felt myself tear up with the love I got from this little old lady. I settled all the food on the floor behind the front seats and gave her another big hug.
“And even if she doesn’t love me, Nathan does and that’s what matters, right?”
“Right,” she said, climbing into the passenger seat and fastening her lap belt. “Didn’t I already say that?”
The rest of the way down the island on Southard, I concentrated on navigating Miss Gloria’s oversized old car along the narrow, one-way street lined with a bike path and many parked cars, toward the Truman Annex at the bottom of the island. We stopped at the light on Duval and watched cup-carrying tourists stream by, tattooed with their sunburn of the day. The light changed to green and the rush of humanity continued, as if the traffic laws meant nothing in this town.
“I honestly don’t know how many more people they can cram into this island,” I said. “I would never suggest that anyone come to visit during this week. It feels a little bit like the Titanic right before that big tub sank.” Which I knew was overdramatic, but still …
We whisked by the Green Parrot and the Courthouse Deli, both packed to the point of people spilling out on the sidewalks, and drove through the gates of my mother’s community. I parked the car in the small space behind her home, and we went inside. Even though Sam and my mother were catering a cocktail party this afternoon, the house was in impeccable shape. They’d left enough lights on to make it look cheerful and welcoming, and arranged a bouquet of bright tropical flowers on the table inside the door. I set the groceries on the big granite counter island in the middle of the kitchen and began to arrange snacks on the pretty plates my mother had left out.
Finally we heard the familiar sound of Nathan’s SUV cruiser pulling into the drive. My heart clenched with a surge of anxiety. Greet her inside? Greet her outside? Hugs? Handshakes? My overworked brain kicked into high gear and swirled with the possibilities.
Miss Gloria gave me a friendly push from behind. “Let’s go show her a warm Key West welcome.”
Nathan was already out of the car, extracting two suitcases from the back of his vehicle. He hurried around to open the passenger’s side door. His mother stepped out. She was beautiful: tall and slender, with broad shoulders for a woman, just like his, and wavy salt-and-pepper hair without one strand misplaced. And the same stunning gray-green eyes as my husband.
I hurried toward her with my hands out. “Mrs. Bransford, I am so thrilled to meet you. Thank you for reproducing my incredible husband.”
What an idiotic thing to say. I could feel my face pulsing with heat and wished I could magically drop through a trapdoor into the coral underneath the tropical vegetation. “That was so awkward. What I meant was, we are so happy you’re here.”
We exchanged a stiff hug-pat, and over her shoulder I could see Nathan smirking.
“It’s kind of your mother to put me up,” Mrs. Bransford said. “I suppose I hadn’t really thought this visit through. I assumed you and Nathan had a guest room. And if not, that you could rent me a room. Then he explained the houseboat limitations and how there’s not an empty hotel bed on the island.”
“Not a problem,” I said, gesturing for her to follow me into my mother’s home. “She adores having houseguests, especially VIPs.”
Nathan came along behind with her luggage, and he gave me a quick peck on the lips on his way upstairs to the spare bedroom.
“Are you hungry? Thirsty? Maybe you’d like to clean up after your trip?”
Oh gosh, what a rude thing to say, suggesting that she needed mopping up as if she were a toddler. Nathan trotted back down the stairs as I was explaining the night’s plan to his mother.
“I need to finish up a few things at the station,” he said apologetically. He glanced from me to his mother. “Hopefully I will be able to join you after the train tour for supper. Text me when you are almost back to the boat?”
“Will do,” I said, smiling cheerfully, although I’d really hoped he would stay for a bit to oil our first interactions. I carried the tray of hors d’oeuvres out to the porch, and Miss Gloria followed with a bottle of sparkling water and one of white wine.
Food and wine would have to do the lubrication job instead.
Chapter Five
The stainless steel kettle reminds me of Claire: polished to a gleam on the outside, boiling within.
—Ann Mah, Kitchen Chinese
After we had exhausted all our chitchat subjects—the weather, mostly, and my mother-in-law’s flight—Miss Gloria launched into a rundown of the details of my wedding.
“It might have been the most touching ceremony I’ve ever witnessed,” she said. “Perfect clear night and beautiful music and food and flowers. And we were all so relieved that Nathan was alive and out of the hospital—you could feel the love between those two and amongst all our friends and relations. It was like someone threw the coziest, fuzziest blanket in the world over our pier and tucked us in.”
Which I thought was the sweetest description ever, but my mother-in-law barely reacted.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to be there,” Mrs. Bransford said. She took a tiny sip of sparkling water and a nibble of celery. I had recommended that she load it up with either pimento cheese or smoked fish dip, but she’d done neither. “I’d like to hear more about the rescue before the wedding and his recovery from gunshot injuries. He doesn’t tell me much, as he knows I worry.”
“Sounds familiar,” I said, with a grin. At last something we had in common. But before I could begin to report the details of all that, the phone alert I’d set sounded with the warning that we needed to leave for the tour of holiday lights. I collected the dishes and glasses from the porch, carried them to the kitchen, and quickly stowed away the food.
We drove out to the high school on Flagler, Miss Gloria pointing out sites of interest along the way, though not the ones I would have chosen.
“There’s Bobby’s Monkey Bar, voted best karaoke in Key West this year, and that’s Better Than Sex restaurant, which serves only desserts and fancy drinks. They get a lot of traction because of their name.” She giggled. “And here’s the Salvation Army thrift shop. They are loaded with great bargains,” she announced, as if we knew it well, as if we’d shopped for all our household furnishings there. Not that that wouldn’t have been perfectly fine, and even contributed to saving the planet by recycling stuff—but Nathan’s mother didn’t seem like the kind of person to browse in thrift stores.
I parked, and we got out of the car. I locked the doors behind us. The Conch Train, which took passengers on tours of the island, consisted of four bright yellow and red cars outfitted with bench seats pulled by a jeep disguised as the engine of a train. We snagged the last three seats on the last car, the red caboose. Mercifully, we’d be facing out toward the road behind us, which put a tiny amount of space between us and the other train riders.
As the conductor welcomed passengers over a crackly audio system and distributed blankets for our journey in case we felt a chill, I considered how things were going so far. Mrs. Bransford had been pleasant but cool. There was nothing I could put my finger on as evidence that she disliked me on sight, other than the fact that aside from the celery stalk, she’d nibbled on only one piece of the mildest cheese in my display. I knew I needed to give this relationship time. Lots of time.
All the cars were strung with blinking holiday lights, and Christmas music began to pipe out of speakers right above our heads. The rest of the customers, many wearing Santa hats or fuzzy antlers, appeared extremely well lubricated, some already warbling “Grandma got run over by a reindeer” in full voice. The train driver, dressed in an elf hat with a string of lights around his neck, explained that we should all keep our feet and hands inside the ropes strung across the door to each seat. T
hen a tinny rendition of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” began to blare over the PA system, and the visitors in front of us cheered and sang along.
“You have very enthusiastic tourists in this town,” Mrs. Bransford said.
“You haven’t seen the half of it,” Miss Gloria shouted over the music. “Since you’ll be here for New Year’s, you’ll get the whole picture.”
I flinched at the mention of New Year’s—Nathan hadn’t told me how long his mother was planning to stay, and honestly, three to four days under this kind of strain felt a bit like a life sentence. Not that she was terrible; it was just that I felt so tense in her presence, afraid I’d do or say the exact wrong thing that would alienate her and convince her I was too dizzy to be married to her precious Nathan for life.
“Though you are definitely enduring the worst Christmas songs ever written,” Miss Gloria was saying. “We should have warned you in case you were allergic.”
The train lurched across Flagler Street and into a small New Town neighborhood that tourists seldom saw. We drove by small concrete block houses decked out with lights of all colors, blow-up Christmas figures from The Grinch, Charlie Brown, The Polar Express. We saw fake-snow machines, homeowners having cocktails in lawn chairs and enjoying our enjoyment, and finally the first-place home, which we’d heard through the grapevine belonged to our brand-new mayor. She and her wife had decorated the front of the house as the North Pole, with enough lights to power every home on the Keys all the way up to Miami.
The Key Lime Crime Page 3