The Art of Undressing

by Stephanie Lehmann

  I didn’t say that out loud. But the fact that I thought it and laughed . . . It made me feel hideous, even then. I still cringe at the memory.

  I probably don’t have to mention that Emma and I had never been close. Sometimes I got this really strong wish that we could be. I’d get it in my head that we really should hang out together and get to know each other and I should really get over all this stuff between us, and it was my responsibility to make this happen because I was the older and therefore more mature one.

  But then, especially when I was actually around her, I got overcome with this stupid insecure feeling that she thought she was better than me. I was the poor relation from her father’s weird past. An aberration that should never have happened. Ridiculous I gave her so much power over me considering she was younger, but I did. Just couldn’t break the barrier.

  That night at the restaurant, with my dad, I wondered if I’d break the barrier with him. It was about three months after Leah’s death. I couldn’t help but wonder if our relationship might change because of it. And we’d get closer. Maybe he’d begin to confide in me in some way. Or at the very least, we could have some intimate conversation about how sad it was. This had not yet happened. But maybe, I thought, maybe it would happen that night.

  “I hear the chef here studied with Wolfgang Puck,” my father said.

  “Really. His frozen pizzas are surprisingly good.”

  “Wolfgang Puck is a famous chef in LA,” my father said. “You know, trendy restaurants for the stars?”

  “Right.” Did he really think I didn’t know that? “He also has a line of frozen pizzas.”

  “Oh.” My father took a sip of wine.

  Or was it that he couldn’t appreciate the irony that a famous chef known for using fresh foods sold frozen pizzas?

  “So have you had any interesting cases recently?” I asked.

  “Two sons contesting a will. The father died in a plane crash. He left all his money to the dog.”

  “That’s cruel.”

  My father shrugged. “People have their bones to pick.” He took another sip of wine. There was no pouring out of hearts, only that crisp, white Chardonnay. I ordered a chestnut fettuccine with wild boar ragu that turned out to be incredible. He got calamari. And then we shared a slice of pear almond tart with caramel sauce. God, that was good. Sure I was stuffed, but it was research. Coco was not mentioned (as usual) and neither was Leah (as usual). He picked up the check (as usual) and why was I, a grown woman, craving an invitation to live with my father? It was bad enough I was still living with my mother.

  But he did surprise me at the end of the meal. We were standing out on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant about to part ways. I saw him hesitate, and then he said, “Can I ask a favor?”

  My father needed something from me? “Sure.”

  “Maybe this is unfair to ask. But . . .”

  Anything, I was thinking. Anything at all . . .

  “Since Leah died . . .”

  He was actually bringing her up?

  “I’ve had a hard time . . .”

  He was admitting to having a hard time? Out here on the street with a hundred people walking by while we were in the middle of saying good-bye?

  “I haven’t been able to take care of her things.”

  Things. Leah’s things. “Her things.”

  “Her things. In the closets. They’re still in her closets.”

  I actually thought I saw him tear up. Or maybe a piece of dust had blown into his eyes.

  “Yes.” I nodded.

  “I was wondering if I could ask you to help me to sort through it all. Figure out what we should keep, what we should give away, what things Emma might want. I know this is unfair of me to ask . . .”

  “I’d be happy to.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course.”

  “I would do it myself. But . . .”

  I waited for him to finish. I really wanted him to say he couldn’t do it because it was too hard because he missed her like hell and could barely function without her, and you know what? Life sucked!

  “I’ve been really busy,” he said.

  “It’s totally understandable.” I looked very deliberately and compassionately into his eyes and wanted to say this was the most human he’d ever shown himself to be, but kept that to myself since it would’ve sounded critical at the very moment he was finally being at least a little bit vulnerable.

  “And Emma is still in shock, so I can’t ask her. But I think it’s time.”

  If Coco died, I don’t think I’d ever get rid of her things. They’d stay in the apartment gathering dust, and I’d stay on with them—a weirdo spinster woman hoarding her mother’s vibrators as if they were gonna be collector’s items someday.

  I wondered if Leah owned a vibrator.

  “When should I come?”

  “Call me. We’ll set up a time.” He reached into his pocket. “Let me give you a key so you’ll be able to come and go at your convenience.”

  “Okay.” I’d never had a key to his place.

  “I really appreciate this. I know it’s not an easy job.”

  He pressed a shiny Medeco in my hand. And kissed me. A drier kiss could not be planted but it was, at least, a kiss.

  “It was good seeing you,” I said.

  “You too. We’ll do it again soon. So call . . .”

  “I will.” We went off in our different directions. I was still gripping the key in my hand as I walked down Fifth Avenue. How would I tell Coco? I knew she would disapprove. But I didn’t have to tell her. I put the key in my backpack in a special little secret zippered pocket that even the stealthiest mugger would not be able to find.

  “So he’s giving you the privilege of cleaning out his wife’s shit?”

  I really tried to keep it to myself. And I was doing really well. For about an hour. She’d rented season four of Sex and the City, and we were having such fun watching it, and I was feeling so warm towards her, because we really could have a good time together, just doing nothing but eating Chinese takeout and crabbing about who Sarah Jessica should’ve ended up with, and I thought maybe she’d see that this was a good thing, a positive thing, and say something warm and encouraging and hopeful about the possibility of me having some kind of closer relationship with my father. So when the credits came on, I blurted it out. And immediately regretted it.

  “I knew I shouldn’t have told you.”

  “What business does he have asking you to do that?”

  “I knew you’d try to turn this into something bad. For once he needs me!”

  “It’s not like he can’t afford to hire someone!”

  “Don’t you think it’s kind of a personal thing to have someone go through your things like that?”

  “So why should he ask you?”

  “I’m his daughter!”

  “But you aren’t her daughter.”

  “I think it’s nice that he asked me.”

  “Ginger, come on. Don’t let him take advantage of you, honey. Call him back and tell him you changed your mind.”

  “No!” I thought of the key safely tucked away in my backpack. “I want to do it.”

  “Fine.” She dumped the greasy remains of our chicken with broccoli into the bag it came in. “But don’t come crying to me when he disappoints you.”

  “How can he disappoint me? I’m doing him the favor.”

  “Right.”

  “I am!”

  She paused before going into the kitchen. “You think it’ll make him appreciate you more? Good luck.”

  Just because he’d never appreciated her.

  “I’m going to bed,” I said, and went into my room and shut the door.

  Fights with my mother about my father had a way of putting me in an extra special bad mood. I knew she’d never really forgiven him for getting out of the marriage and going off to college and leaving her with me. They were high school seniors at Wagner, a gigantic publi
c school on the Upper East Side, when she got pregnant. It was 1978 and she should’ve known better than to become a teen bride, if you ask me. He was ambitious, and had already been accepted into Cornell, and I know she saw him as a pretty good catch. But she’d never described it as being in love. My grandma liked to tell me she was crazy about him, but I was never sure if she just said that to make me feel better. I wasn’t sure if it made me feel better. He seemed to see her as an impediment. When he went off to school, he didn’t take us. We stayed on with her mom. In this apartment. Her dad, my grandpa, had died in Vietnam, so it was just us girls.

  My mom was always wild. She started dancing “professionally” soon after my father left for college. My grandma, Mimi, taught social studies in an elementary school, and she took care of me when my mom was working. Coco’s first job was at the Pussycat Lounge downtown. Lots of Wall Street guys went there to chill after work. It was a pretty seedy place, or so I’m told, and she danced in a bikini for all the horny drunk men who either felt like big shit because they’d just made a killing, or needed to be reminded they had big dicks because they’d just lost their life savings. But she didn’t mind. She told me she liked it. The stage was set back behind the bar, so actual contact with the customers was pretty minimal. And she loved to dance. And she loved to be admired by men. So in a way, it was Coco’s ideal job. Well. As much as it could be “ideal” because obviously it did have its downside. But I’d guess she preferred that scene to being stuck at home with me.

  When I was two, Coco left the Pussycat Lounge and became a circuit dancer, and she was really raking it in then. She traveled around from city to city as a featured performer. Her idol was Lili St. Cyr, who was famous for routines like draping herself completely with gardenias and slowly plucking them off until none were left. Coco developed her own specialized dances—one involved a bathtub and lots of bubbles.

  When my father found out what she was doing, he used that as an excuse to ask for a divorce. Or so I’ve been told. I don’t think that was the actual reason. I think it was just the excuse for what he already wanted. It’s not like I ever heard that he tried to get custody of me because she was an unfit mother or anything like that. He just wanted to get away. So she let him get away. Not that he’d ever been there.

  In any case, she was not about to quit dancing. The money was too good. And the attention. As far as she was concerned, my father could go to hell. That’s how it had been ever since.

  chapter five

  i t’s not easy rolling croissants with Chef Jean Paul breathing down your neck like a drill sergeant. “Vite! Vite! No deellydallying!” I pretended I was GI Jane at boot camp. Head down, face blank—I will roll up my dough triangles better and faster than anyone goddamn it or die trying. “The customers!” he yelled, “they are fast asleep now, but in a few hours, they will drag themselves out of bed thinking only of your croissant! Your croissant with a nice cup of hot coffee! That is all that will keep them going until they get to the pastry shop and stand in line and wait to pay for your pastry. Are you going to disappoint them? No! Your pastry must be ready! And it must be delicious! And it must be the same! Every day, exactly the same!” I was rolling as fast as I could. But a Band-Aid on my index finger (a recent onion-slicing incident) was hampering me. As he paused to look at my work, his proximity to the back of my head caused me the worst kind of anxiety. My hands started to shake. Damn. I hated that!

  “What is this?” Jean Paul picked up the croissant I had just rolled and held it out for all to see. It hung out of his hand like a limp dick. “It is an insult to the baking profession!” He threw it into the garbage.

  “Miss Levine!” he yelled at me. There was an ugly silence. “Why do you waste our time here?”

  Everyone stopped rolling and looked at me.

  “If I were you,” he said, “I would go to the office and see if you can still get a refund. Because in my opinion, you do not have what it takes!”

  I fumed silently. It was the third week of the semester. How could he know what I could or couldn’t do? Everyone around the table was looking at me with pity—even the second-career wimps who’d never set foot in a restaurant kitchen—and I knew I would never live it down. Even if I stayed in the program, they would all know Jean Paul thought I was no good.

  I should just quit. Ditch this torture chamber. Remove myself from the room, the school, the sight of all these people forever, but then Jean Paul yelled at everyone, “What are you staring at? Get back to work!” And everyone looked back down at the tabletop and continued rolling dough like nothing had happened. No. Make that with more efficiency, since they didn’t want Jean Paul to say the same things to them. “The dough sits out too long,” he yelled, “it will get too soft!” He looked at me. I was still standing there trying to figure out what the protocol would be for quitting, how much of a refund I could get, and what I was going to do for the rest of my life, when he yelled, “Get me the bones I have roasting in the oven. And the vegetables we will need for the mirepoix. When we are done with these, we will make a brown stock!”

  I took the opportunity to collect myself in the walk-in while I gathered some onions, leeks, celery, and carrots, put them on a sheet pan, and brought them to Jean Paul. I was missing his lesson on stocks, catching only a few comments as I came and left.

  “From your stock, you will create those five mother sauces,” Jean Paul said as he distributed the vegetables around the table to be coarsely chopped. “Your mother sauces are the key to all the sauces you will ever make. So! The three basic elements to the stock include the flavor base, the aromatics, and the liquid, water. Occasionally,” he went on, “there is a fourth element . . .”

  But I missed that as I went to retrieve the huge, ten-ton roasting pan filled with bones from the oven. I noticed Tom looking at me with sympathy as I slid the pan onto the table in front of Jean Paul.

  “The stock is perhaps the most important thing you will make! It is like raising a child. Oui? You must be patient so that you will end up with the best flavor possible!” And then, with barely a pause, he said to me with an accusing tone, “Tomato paste?” I went to the storeroom, got a large tin, then opened it with the temperamental can opener that was mounted on one of the counters. When I got back he received it without comment. I took my place at the table. He was saying the bubbles should be “simmering at a smile,” not “belly laughing at a boil.” I imagined everyone at the table was getting a really good chuckle out of my humiliation.

  Ian and I were supposed to meet after school for coffee at this place on Fifty-seventh Street. When I got there, it was packed. He wasn’t there. No surprise. I took my place in line. There were six people ahead of me. As I heard the counter person bellow, “Next guest in line!” I descended into one of my “one day I am going to move out of New York” trains of thought.

  A girl behind the counter steamed some milk. I bet people who order cappuccinos when there’s a big line have no problem taking their sweet time coming to orgasm. Or maybe they do, and they’re taking it out on the rest of us. As the line barely moved, I had plenty of time to consider where in the world I would choose to live. The Midwest sounded good. Someplace where nice people lived. I could open a bakery café on Main Street. It didn’t matter which Main Street. Any one would do.

  Finally. First in line! This could very well be the high point of my day. I stood tall, ready to order. One of the girls behind the counter was talking to the other about hair extensions. When she finally asked what I wanted, it was as if she was doing me a big favor. I asked for my iced coffee in a pleasant way. She got it for me, and I gave her the three dollars and fifty-five cents, and she yelled, “Next customer!”

  Why can’t counter people in New York City say “Thank you”? It’s such a simple thing. Counter people around the world are saying “Thank you” after every transaction, but not in New York. They slam the register shut. “Next!” You don’t matter. “Next!” And then you have to decide whether to say “T
hank you,” because that’s your way, but it becomes a hostile gesture—I mean they’re the ones who are supposed to be thanking you for the business, right? But you tell yourself, hey, I recognize the fact that she’s underpaid and overworked so maybe it would be nice of me to go the extra mile and say “Thank you” to her, just as a show of support to help her get through the day. And then maybe she’ll say “Thank you” back. So you say “Thank you!” And she says, “Next!”

  I prayed for an empty table. A piece of luck! Someone was just leaving. I nabbed it. She’d even left a couple magazines. One was a Cosmo. There was an article on how to give a blow job. Coco always liked to say, if you want to keep your man, just give him a blow job now and then.

  My cell phone rang. Ian. “Ginger?”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t think I’m going to make it.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  Come to think of it, I hadn’t given him a blow job in two months. Or was it three?

  “I’m really sorry,” he said. “I just can’t get away from the computer right now. I’m in the middle of this song . . .”

  After we hung up, I looked out the window at a woman pulling a screaming child down the street. Maybe a blow job would solve all our problems.

  Right.

  I tossed aside Cosmo and opened the Travel & Leisure. “50 Spa Resorts That Will Make You Happy.” They were missing the subtitle: “That You’ll Never Get To.” Well, at least I had my table. My table made me happy. I took a sip of coffee and was reasonably content for about five minutes. Then a really happy couple sat down at that table next to me.

  Yes, they were a young and happy couple in love, sharing a piece of carrot cake with a little rosette of cream cheese frosting on top, and they were kissing and cuddling and soon enough they were making out and couldn’t keep their hands off each other, and let me just say, I hate public displays of affection. They always make me feel weird. Maybe because Ian and I had a problem with private displays of affection.