THE PRESIDENT IS COMING TO LUNCH

by Nan

  “Everybody’s a gourmet. You want it or you don’t want it?”

  Sonny reached into his pocket for some neatly folded bills. “It’s lousy.”

  “The whole world is lousy.” The man took the money without counting it.

  Sonny opened the meat locker. He wrapped two large steaks and put them into an empty flower box.

  “You got some sweet racket,” the man said taking the box. “Steaks. Lamb chops. Everything!” He hesitated. “Ain’t you afraid you’ll get caught?”

  Sonny shrugged. “Don’t worry. I blame it on the dishwasher.”

  * * *

  Tessa, the checkroom girl, nuzzled against Mohammed Eli’s dark brown chest. She brushed a wisp of long blond hair from her face while staring at the printing press on the kitchen table. “Oh, Eli!” she exclaimed. “You misspelled apartheid again.”

  “Let me see.”

  “You illiterate nigger,” she said, pinching his behind. “You don’t deserve to be oppressed.”

  Eli shoved her away as he leaned over the table. His bloodshot eyes nearly matched the red ink on the leaflets. “A . . . p . . . a . . .”

  “Don’t worry. I can still take them to school. No one at Columbia can spell either.”

  “No,” he said. “I shall do them over. I shall do them all over. They must be correct.”

  Tessa groaned loudly. Eli was so much like her father. She knew Daddy would love Eli once he got to know him. But there was no common meeting ground between the Brooklyn headquarters of the Black Liberty Congress and the house on Azalea Drive where she had grown up.

  “. . . r . . . t . . . h . . .”

  “To tell the truth, Eli darling, I don’t feel like going to school today.” Mohammed Eli struck her hard across the face. Tessa took hold of his hand, kissed it, and whispered, “Think of it, tar baby. If I stayed home, you could beat me all day.” She smiled. “If I didn’t go to work, you could beat me all night.”

  He grabbed her wrist. “Did you get fired?”

  Tessa screamed in pain. “There are other things I can do. I can march in the rally. I can pick pockets in the crowd. We’ll get along somehow. Oh, Eli, if I have to I can dig for turnips on Ocean Parkway!”

  He tightened his grip. “Did you get fired?”

  “No,” she sobbed. Eli let go and she slid to the floor, hugging his legs. “It’s so demeaning to leave the honesty and purpose of this house and enter a shrine to decadence where socially unconscious sybarites drink carbonated grape juice and laugh as they eat unborn fish eggs. I mean it, Eli. It makes Pompeii look like Philadelphia. For God’s sake, don’t send me back to all that luxury and happiness.”

  Eli opened the refrigerator and took out a ream of paper. “You make more money than any of my wives.”

  “But at what price to my soul?” Tessa stood up and brushed away the tears. “Eli, look at me. I am a Romanov begging to be shot. An entire Gang of One just waiting to be executed. The Little Match Girl praying for snow. But all you want, you Mali chauvinist pig, is someone who does windows!” She took a deep breath and cleared her throat. Her tone became sharp. “Let’s face it, Eli. You don’t have to be Wayne Dyer to know this relationship isn’t doing too much for my ego. I want to speak at the rally.”

  “Your presence would offend my wives.”

  “I’m tired of being the white sheep in your family!”

  Eli smiled. He reached out to touch her golden hair. “You should not play with someone else’s toys.”

  She pushed his hand away. “Neither should you, minstrel man.”

  Tessa hurried toward the subway, knowing it was too late for her “Revolutionary Ideologies” class. But she might have time to stop at the library for some advice from Schneidermann the Marxist.

  As she ran down the subway steps, Tessa threw Eli’s leaflets into the waste basket. Special Agent Hal Gorden reached in and pulled them out.

  * * *

  Louie sat cross-legged on the chef’s table. As he sucked in the sweet smoke from his homemade cigarette, he pointed at the two prep men and snarled, “Mushroom!”

  It was the prep men’s job to “turn” the vegetables, to cut them into equally sized and shaped pieces. They washed, peeled, shredded, diced, chopped and sliced while chattering in rapid-fire Vietnamese to keep up with the rat-a-tat-tat of their knives.

  Until the chef arrived, Louie was head man in the kitchen. And that, as far as Louie was concerned, meant that until the chef arrived, he did nothing. But, like a true boss, he did it loudly. “Mushroom! Mushroom!” Louie shouted, waving his arm like an Arctic explorer leading a dog team.

  Sonny waved his clipboard as he came into the kitchen. “Jesus! This place smells like the Palladium! You’re not supposed to smoke in here.”

  Louie opened his eyes wide. “Oh, I no supposed to smoke?” he asked, exhaling in Sonny’s face. “Why? I no get ashes in pot.”

  Sonny grabbed the cigarette and put it out. “That’s not why the Health Department gives fines. You touch your lips. You get saliva on your fingers. Then you touch the food. That’s as bad as spitting into the soup.”

  “But no as much fun,” Louie giggled.

  Sonny flipped through his pages, reading off items that wouldn’t keep for another day but which were good enough for the staff lunch. “I have three cod, two swordfish, four or five red peppers, and I can throw in a couple of zucchini.”

  “Excellent,” Louie said as though suddenly inventing the word. “I sauté peppers and zucchini. Chop tomato. Add tomato paste. Maybe vermouth. Cook fish very little bit . . .”

  “Why don’t you cook fish more than very little bit? Yesterday you cook chicken very little bit and there was still blood on the bones.”

  “You eat bones?”

  “No.”

  “You eat bones, I cook bones. You eat chicken, I cook chicken. No same thing.”

  “Fuck you,” Sonny said.

  “Fuck you.”

  “Where the hell is Bud?”

  “Chef very busy. What you want?”

  “None of your business. Where the hell is he?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Fuck you.”

  * * *

  Bud, Libby’s thirty-five-year-old chef, lay back on the bed. He stared up at the morning sun coming through the skylight in his SoHo loft while Libby’s best friend, Phyllis Elgin, buried her face between his legs.

  “I’m going to bite it off,” she growled. “I am. I am. I am. First, I’m going to eat this part, then . . .”

  “Phyllis, it’s bad manners to talk with your mouth full.” If only she would shut the hell up. Sex, like a single grain of caviar, was too fragile for words. It was a taste to be savored in its purest form. No onions. No lemon. No emotion.

  Ever since he crossed the Canadian border to avoid being sent to Vietnam, Bud had little use for emotion. As though to justify running away to save his hide, he determined to have the best hide possible. While working “off the books” in dozens of kitchens, doing everything from pot washer to prep man, he worked off years of Kansas corn-fed flab. As he peeled and chopped and shaped the vegetables, he began to reshape himself. By the time Bud was promoted to grill man, he was as obsessive about his own flesh as he was about the meat he cooked. He demanded no less perfection from his body than from his butcher. Suddenly, he felt secure. He discovered a new set of standards by which to live. He returned home during the period of amnesty and embraced the new American cuisine, if not the flag.

  Phyllis had begun making sloppy sounds to let him know she was having a wonderful time. Bud folded his hands behind his head. He tensed his buttocks to cue her and stared directly into the blinding sunlight. It hurt. He smiled and closed his eyes. Then, according to the recipe, the man known in the kitchen as Primary Sauté began to simmer in his own pan gravy.

  By the time Phyllis climbed up alongside him, she was breathing heavily. “My compliments to the chef.”

  Bud s
melled himself on her lips. He pulled her close, kissing her, his tongue searching deep inside her mouth until he could taste himself fully. Phyllis began to moan, mistaking Bud’s passion for himself as passion for her.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked, watching as he got up and walked to the open shower in his open bathroom. He turned on the hot water. “Are you upset?” He turned on the Jacuzzi. “Is it me? Did I do something wrong?” Phyllis wrapped the sheet around herself and followed him. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  He stared at her for a moment. “I’m thinking chickens.”

  “What?”

  Bud stepped into the shower. “Chickens. You know. Here, chick-chick.”

  “Oh.” Phyllis stepped back as water sprayed onto her. She brightened. “Shall I come under with you?”

  “No.”

  “No,” she repeated softly. “I thought that was all the rage. Boys and girls taking showers together.”

  “I hate it,” he said, rubbing himself vigorously with soap.

  “Me, too. I like my privacy.”

  “If you want to brush your teeth, there’s an extra brush.”

  “Oh, good.” She lit a cigarette. “I certainly wouldn’t want your toothbrush in my mouth.” She inhaled deeply and blew the smoke toward him. “Did you say chickens?”

  “Libby wants a new chicken dish. I can’t come up with one. I’m stuck.”

  “So that’s it. You’ve got chicken block. Poor darling. Don’t worry. You’ll think of something.”

  But Bud didn’t just want something. He wanted something to blow the roof off Libby’s. He was tired of reading about who ate there. He wanted to read about what they ate.

  Phyllis watched as he rinsed off the soap. The last of her went down the drain. “Shall I get a towel and dry you off?”

  “What?”

  “Oh, fuck you!” she muttered.

  Bud stepped out of the shower and into the Jacuzzi. He sat down, leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “I wasn’t thinking chickens the whole time.”

  Phyllis sat on the edge of the tub staring at him. His eyes were tight shut. She flicked her ashes into the water. “Why don’t you bring back chicken pot pie?”

  “No.”

  She leaned over and whispered into his ear. “Would you like Phyllis to slip into the tubby with you?”

  “No.”

  Phyllis stood up. She threw her cigarette into the water. She screamed at the top of her voice, “What the hell have you got against good old chicken pot pie?”

  Phyllis and Bud left the building like two strangers, each going in the opposite direction. A third stranger was Special Agent Chuck Logan. He radioed for someone to pick up his car. He followed on foot as Bud walked the two and one half miles uptown.

  * * *

  Steven sat on the edge of the bed in his Lincoln Center apartment. He was breathing heavily as he stared into a glass of orange juice. His knee shook nervously. Without looking up, he hurled the glass across the room. It shattered against the wall, an arc of juice trickling down to the floor.

  Donald Elgin lay naked on the bed. “Tacky. Tacky. Tacky.” For years, Donald had been one of New York’s most eligible bachelors. Heir to the Elgin banking fortune, he coasted on the vanity of women who swore they had been to bed with him. But, by the time he was forty-five, rumors had begun to circulate. Enter Phyllis. Since his family’s only concern was that Donald’s wife be of a different gender, they welcomed Phyllis with open arms. Her dowry of two sex-scandal divorces was the perfect squelch.

  “I’ve told her, hundreds of times, to put names in the book,” Steven said flatly. “But she won’t do it. The same thing happens over and over again.”

  “That’s the way Libby is. She doesn’t mean any harm.”

  “Yes, she does!” Steven banged his fist against the satin goose-down comforter. “It happened again last night. I had the Newmans driving down from Connecticut expecting their usual table. All of a sudden Sam appears. He gives me a big hello and expects his usual table. Then in waltzes Morty Janklow and guess what?”

  Donald sighed. He ran his index finger down Steven’s bare back. “Spare me,” he said with mock horror.

  Steven turned angrily. “What the hell am I supposed to do? Wave my magic wand and make everyone disappear?”

  “You don’t have a magic wand, Steven. Only good fairies have magic wands and you are a very naughty fairy. Pick the glass up from the floor.”

  Steven put his head on Donald’s chest, his chin quivering as he spoke softly. “Bacall was in the other night. Libby sees that I’m taking the order myself. I mean, it’s Bacall! I go into the kitchen. I couldn’t have been gone three minutes. But as soon as I turn my back, enter Libby. Hello Betty, kissy kissy, and before you know it the whole fucking order is changed. Even the wine. How do you think that makes me feel?”

  “What was Bacall wearing?”

  Steven swept his arm across the night table, hurling the lamp, books, glasses and radio to the floor. “Don’t do this to me, Donald. You said you’d get me out of there!”

  “You and I both know how many restaurants open and close every year.”

  “You promised me!”

  “This is not the time to discuss money.”

  “Stop talking like a fortune cookie!” Steven shouted. “I don’t have any other time. I can’t hold on much longer.”

  Donald stared into Steven’s eyes, wondering whether it was all worth it. Steven was handsome enough. Not the way Cal was handsome, but then Donald was never one for manly men. He liked them young, imperfect, envious of his wealth, desperate. The ones he could play with and throw away.

  Steven whispered, “Donny darling, help me.”

  Donald closed his eyes. “Oh, how I hate that tone in your voice. It is so faggy. It really turns me off.”

  Steven took hold of Donald’s hands. “I know the business inside out. I’ve got Bud ready to leave with me. But he won’t wait forever. He’ll go off on his own if I don’t make a move soon. Donald, I can walk out of there with half the place in my pocket.”

  “But you’ve already got half the place in your pocket. The woman is your mother.” Donald pulled his hands away. “I have to be honest with you, Steven. I’ve always been very fond of Libby.”

  “You don’t know what she’s really like.”

  “I hate going behind Libby’s back.”

  “Jesus. That takes the cake. What about going behind Phyllis’s back?”

  Donald got out of bed. “It’s getting late. You’d better get dressed. Put on the blue suit I bought you.”

  “I was saving it for my funeral.”

  Donald laughed. “There you are. Back to your old cheery self. And wear one of those new shirts I sent you from Turnbull’s.” He leaned over and kissed Steven.

  “You really think you can buy whatever you want.”

  “Of course I do. What’s the point of wanting something you can’t buy? You might not get it.”

  Steven pulled away. His eyes were ablaze with anger. “But then again, you might, Donald. You just might.”

  * * *

  Special Agent Scotty Livingstone tailed the limousine. Donald dropped Steven off two blocks from the restaurant. “Livingstone to Control. Pick up my car. Am following subject on foot.”

  * * *

  Libby couldn’t sleep. Not with Cal next to her. Ever since their divorce, whenever they spent the night together, Libby stayed awake. She never told Cal. She knew he’d never understand why his being next to her was even more exciting than his making love to her.

  She had been staring at him for hours. First, trying to find a pattern in the stubble on his chin. Then inhaling his scent. Listening to him breathe. Very gently putting her hand over his heart. The king of the jungle was on his back. Belly up. Exposed. Trusting. During those precious hours that other people squandered on sleep, Cal was hers alone.

  But not tonight. The bed was crowded with guilt, regret, and fear. A law firm that
specialized in losers. She could hear them shouting at her to get the hell up. Something was wrong somewhere. She had better find out before somebody else did. Before “Somebody” Birnbaum did.

  Suddenly, Libby was convinced the whole place was falling apart. She had to get downstairs and fast. Capital F Fast. Instead, she stood frozen in front of the full-length mirror in her bedroom. Capital N Naked.

  Libby stared into the mirror. She was afraid that even with clothes on she’d still be naked. She had been through her closet twice, three times, trying to find something to wear. But there was nothing in the kingdom to cover her up. It was as though Birnbaum had changed all the labels to read “The Emperor’s New Clothes—New York/Washington/Los Angeles.”

  She knew she couldn’t stand there staring at herself forever. Not the way she had when she was pregnant. She had watched her stomach for hours on end. Wondering whose child she was carrying.

  Libby put on a pink sweatsuit, pink socks, pink sneakers. She took a deep breath and looked at herself in the mirror. Now, she thought sadly, I am in the pink.

  * * *

  As Libby rushed into the kitchen, the entire Vietnamese population stopped talking. Beer cans disappeared. Everyone was suddenly very busy and very quiet. Louie bowed. “Chào cô!”

  Following strict protocol, she said good morning first to Louie. “Chào cô.”

  He bowed again. “Chào cô. You eat today with cooks, lady? I make excellent meal with Sonny garbage.”

  Libby took the clipboard out of Louie’s hands. “What are the specials? I’m worried about the specials.” She glanced down the list. Grilled duck thighs. Coconut chili. Red snapper.

  “Lady, I help you?”

  She ignored Louie and walked around the chef’s table. Ho, the grill man, slammed down his cleaver, separating the second joint from the duck’s carcass. “How you do, boss?”

  “Tôi manh.” She reached quickly for the carcass, checking that the skin was thick and white. Even-colored. Free of dry patches. “I’m fine.”

  “I fine,” he repeated. Ho earned nearly as much as Louie. The grill was the most dangerous station in the kitchen and the goods he handled were the most expensive.