Aftertaste

by Meredith Mileti

  “I know what an anthropologist is.”

  She looked at me like she was considering asking me for a definition.

  “What’s your boss’s name again?” she asked, trying another tack.

  “You mean Enid Maxwell?”

  “Yes, Enid. Pretend you’re writing a report of what you’re observing, editing out all the extraneous details. Just give her the facts, not the emotions. I think you’ll find it a useful technique for helping to keep your feelings under control in difficult situations.”

  So, I practice all the way to Grappa, taking note of the precise hue of the yellow cabs, which really are more orange than yellow, the bent street sign at the corner of Leroy Street, the man dressed in a clown suit swinging an expensive briefcase, his cell phone pressed to his ear.

  I stop short on the corner of Bedford and Grove. From here I can see Grappa, which is in the middle of the block. The black and white awning looks freshly scrubbed, and pots of blooming hibiscus trees flank the front door, which, as I move cautiously closer, I see has been replaced; the worn wooden one I’d painted with glossy paint by mistake has given way to a deeply stained chestnut one. The restaurant looks dark. I linger at the top of the steps, gathering the courage to venture down the three steps and try the front door.

  Jake must have come up through the alley, because suddenly he is behind me. I can feel him even before he speaks; the hair at the back of my neck prickles as I catch the familiar scent of his cologne. I turn around, and there he is, dressed in jeans and a blue button-down shirt that looks as if he’s napped in it, an apron slung low on his hips.

  “Around back,” he says, smiling at me. I follow him down the alley, where he pulls out a key dangling from a chain underneath his apron, and watch as he unlocks Grappa’s back door. He holds it open for me and allows me to enter first. I walk past the office, which mercifully is dark, and down the hallway, pausing just at the entrance to the kitchen. The summer sun, on the verge of setting, casts ribbons of golden light through the wrought iron bars on the half-windows, bathing the kitchen in a luminous glow. Apart from that, it looks almost exactly the same as it did on the day I left.

  “Philippe and his crew left things more or less the same in here,” Jake says, taking my sweater and hanging it on top of his jacket on the hook by the door. “The dining room, not so much. You won’t like it. That’s why we came in through the back,” he tells me, simply.

  “I know,” I whisper. “I’ve seen it. On the Web site.” Jake nods.

  He places a light hand on my arm as he moves past me into the kitchen.

  Jake has set the corner of the workstation with a crisp white cloth and two tall candlesticks, a small vase of tulips between them.

  “Prosecco?” he asks. I’m about to decline; after all, this is supposed to be a business meeting, not to mention the fact that I’ve already drunk a half bottle of wine in the tub. But before I can even answer, Jake opens the walk-in, pulls out an already opened bottle of Prosecco, and pours two glasses. He hands me one. “Mind if I put you to work?” he asks.

  “Not a bit,” I tell him, grateful for something to do.

  He smiles at me. “Okay, how about a salad?” Without even thinking about it, I reach to pluck a head of garlic from the braid by the prep station, the small whisk from the jar of utensils by the grill, and next to it, the salt box, everything, incredibly, exactly where I’d left it.

  I whisk the vinaigrette together in the bottom of the wooden salad bowl, top it with assorted greens from the walk-in, and shave a few shards of Parmigiano-Reggiano over the top.

  I turn around, but Jake’s gone. I hear him in the office, and seconds later, the opening bars to Gianni Schicchi begin filtering through the sound system; on his way back in, he stops to check something in the oven. “Okay, what next?” I ask.

  “Nothing. Everything else is done. I’m just finishing,” he says, busying himself at the pasta station, where he unveils two perfect mounds of pizza dough resting on the marble block.

  “Demeter’s breasts,” Jake says with a wicked grin. He raises his glass of Prosecco. “To Demeter, goddess of grain. No, seriously,” he says. “To a fruitful and successful partnership. Thanks for coming, Mira,” he adds, softly. I raise my glass and take a seat across from Jake at the pastry station. I watch as he takes one of the two mounds and caresses it into a perfect round pizza with nothing more than a couple of flicks of his wrists. I do my best to conjure Dr. D-P’s anthropologist, but she is no longer on Mars; she is right here in this kitchen, watching, mesmerized as the muscles twitch beneath Jake’s shirt, the bones of his wrists rotate smoothly in their sockets. He slips the dough onto a peel and slides it into the pizza oven.

  With the slam of the oven door, the reverie is broken. I suddenly wish I’d kept my last appointment with Dr. D-P. How foolish not to have told her I was going, not to have left a lifeline, a trail of psychic breadcrumbs back to the land of rationality. I’ve left myself with little choice; I’m on my own.

  “So,” I say, while Jake busies himself with preparing topping for the pizza. “Interesting meeting yesterday.”

  “I thought you’d think so,” he says. “I assume you’re in?”

  “Probably. I want my lawyer to look things over first, and assuming everything checks out, we’ll send over an addendum to the proposal.”

  Jake looks up, his hand poised over some fresh arugula. “What kind of addendum?” he asks.

  I shrug. “Hopefully, it won’t rock the boat, but if I’m going to take creative control over Grappa, I need to know that I’ll have the freedom to make the kind of decisions I need to.”

  Jake takes the warm pizza from the oven, spreads it with a wedge of softened, oozing Taleggio, scatters a few slices of fresh apricot, some prosciutto, and a handful of the arugula over the top. He anoints it with olive oil and a squeeze of fresh lemon. The combination is one of my recipes, and it’s been a seasonal favorite at the restaurant for years. I wonder if Jake even remembers it’s mine. He picks up his wine and the pizza, and we take our seats at the table.

  “Bravo! This looks beautiful,” I tell him as he places the pizza onto my plate.

  “They won’t be into redecorating. I can tell you that right now,” Jake says, frowning.

  “That’s okay. The dining room is fine the way it is. I’m talking about staffing, purchasing, choosing suppliers.”

  “I know you’re talking about Brussani Imports, but there are some things you should know—” Jake begins.

  “Look, it’s not just Renata, and I haven’t made up my mind about anything yet. AEL has promised me creative control of Grappa, and I need to know I’ll have the power to make decisions that I think are in Grappa’s best interests. That’s all.”

  Jake pauses and then nods slowly. “Good idea,” he finally says. We eat in silence for a minute or two.

  “I was cleaning out the storage unit at Perry Street, and I found a couple of boxes of your things. Do you want to come and get them?” I ask.

  Jake looks up at me, surprised. “What? Oh, sure. Thanks for saving them,” he says.

  “No problem.”

  Jake leans his forearms on the table as if he’s about to say something.

  “So?” I ask.

  “So what?” Jake says.

  “What else do you want to talk about?” I ask. “You said yesterday you had some things you wanted to discuss.”

  Jake picks up his wineglass and pushes his wooden bar stool back a couple of inches. “Remember when we took that trip to Puglia?”

  He knows that I do. We’d gone for our anniversary a few years ago. We had stayed on the top floor of a small hotel impossibly cantilevered over an expanse of rocky shore. We’d eaten burrata, a Pugliese specialty, every morning for breakfast, with a slab of bread—arguably the best in Italy, still warm from baking overnight in the dying embers of the ancient stone oven. The cheese would arrive each morning on a tray outside our room, still warm, and wrapped in the customary thick b
lade of grass, swollen like a ripe piece of fruit. I can remember the sun-dappled roof tiles outside our private terrace, where we’d made love in broad daylight overlooking the Adriatic Sea, licking the thick cream from each other’s lips.

  My mouth is suddenly dry. I reach for my wine, nodding, I hope not too vigorously.

  “Do you remember Silvano’s?” he asks.

  “Of course, I do,” I tell him. We’d eaten at Silvano’s three times in our weeklong stay there. Usually, when we traveled we tried never to eat at the same restaurant twice, but we’d met Silvano on one of our first mornings in Polignano a Mare. He was picking mussels from the sea floor at low tide on the beach near our hotel. Jake and I stopped to watch him, and after a while we got to talking. We told him we were chefs on holiday. He told us he owned a tiny restaurant a quarter mile or so up the beach, and he invited us to come for lunch. By the end of the meal we were in the kitchen helping him prep for dinner. He did everything himself, from the cooking to the dishes, relishing all the tasks with the intensity of a person who is uniquely content with his life. We’d enjoyed his company and his food so much we kept going back.

  “I was thinking,” Jake continues, “about the concept of a cooking holiday. Not just a cooking school, but an actual working restaurant, where people come to work for an afternoon, an evening, even a week.”

  It’s an interesting idea, but an impractical one. When I tell him so, he shrugs.

  “Some people are fascinated by what we do, and I bet we could get them to pay big bucks for the chance to walk in our shoes for an afternoon. I think it might be an interesting idea for a television series, actually. Didn’t you ever fancy yourself a star?” he quips.

  “No!” I tell him, shocked at the suggestion. He laughs, and I finally figure out he’s been teasing me. “Well, maybe,” I say, smiling.

  Jake reaches across the table and picks up my hand, tracing his finger over the butterfly bandage Boulie placed there a couple of days ago. “What happened?” he asks. The gesture surprises me, but the roughness of his calloused hands is familiar, exciting.

  “Nothing, just a cut,” I tell him, gently extricating my hand from his grasp.

  “Don’t move,” he says, getting up from the table and crossing the kitchen. He hefts a large cast iron pot from the oven. He lifts the lid, cups his hand, and wafts the steam upward toward his face.

  Even from across the room, the smell makes me want to swoon. Jake has made my favorite dish—his signature take on cassoulet, made with wild boar sausage braised in Barolo, cannellini beans, fennel, and sweet red peppers. I can hear the hollow snap as he breaks the delicate crust of toasted bread, garlic, and grated Parmigiano-Reggiano. He fills a shallow bowl and places it reverently in front of me.

  “It’s not exactly summer fare, but I know it’s your favorite. I missed making it for you this winter. It actually works nicely with your pizza recipe, which has always been one of my favorites. We make a pretty good team, don’t you think?” he says softly. “Go ahead, taste it.”

  “Aren’t you going to join me?”

  “Of course,” he says, raising his eyes to meet mine. I watch as he fills his plate, picks up a bottle of wine and two glasses, and joins me at the table.

  He pours us each a glass of red wine. “Well?” he asks, his eyes focused, unblinking, on my face.

  I spear a piece of meat, which yields easily to my fork, and raise it to my lips. I take a deep breath and close my eyes. I give Dr. D-P’s anthropologist one last desperate try, but all I can taste is Jake. The flavors are at once complex and earthy. I taste every ingredient: the thick, slightly gamy taste of the boar; the subtle undercurrent of the fennel, which, when braised, releases a delicate licorice perfume; the gentle creaminess of the beans; the smoky heat of the roasted peppers; the harmonious balance of the wine.

  It tastes like love.

  I open my eyes slowly. Jake is still watching me. I look away, embarrassed, shamed at what I’ve allowed him to witness.

  “I’m not sure anyone appreciates my cooking quite like you,” Jake says, his voice thick and low.

  Suddenly, he’s at my side. He pulls me to my feet, presses me to him, and kisses me, a deep, rich, extravagant kiss that reminds me of a bowl of late summer raspberries, warm, tender, lush, and tart. I can feel how aroused he is. He pulls my shirt free from my jeans and runs his hands across my bare back, pressing me into the corner of the counter. The pain is exquisite.

  Just then a phone rings somewhere, the ringtone, Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries.” Jake’s. And mine, although Jake probably doesn’t know that. Months ago, in a fit of longing, I changed my ringtone to match his and never bothered to change it back. Jake pulls away, panting. His eyes flit to the hallway where our coats hang on hooks. He looks at me, looks away again. I pull myself up, run a hand through my rumpled hair.

  “Hold that thought,” he says, scurrying over to the hallway to fish his phone from his coat pocket. I reach for my wineglass and take a long, luxurious sip, but the wine lodges uncomfortably in my throat. I finally swallow, not because I want to, but because I need to remind myself exactly how bitter it tastes. The last time I tasted it was here, in this kitchen, almost a year ago. I grab the bottle and confirm what I already know. 1999 Tenuta dell’Ornellaia Masseto Toscano.

  “Sorry, I missed it, and they didn’t leave a message,” he says, frowning. “Now, where were we?” he says, reaching for me again.

  I drain the wine. “Nowhere,” I whisper. “That’s where we are, Jake. We are nowhere.” It isn’t until I say the words that I realize I actually mean them. It’s like putting on a pair of eyeglasses you thought you didn’t need. Suddenly, I’m calm, and like that anthropologist Dr. D-P had rattled on about, preternaturally tuned into the most insignificant details. Like the stain on Jake’s apron that looks like the state of Florida, the pack of Merits in the front pocket of his shirt I hadn’t noticed before, the wistful look in his tired eyes. “I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I can’t.” He grabs my wrist, presses my palm to his mouth, and kisses it. I pull my hand back and turn abruptly.

  Partly, it’s the wine, but mostly it’s the way Jake’s body had tensed the instant the phone began to ring. I know, without Jake’s having to tell me, that he isn’t finished with Nicola—not nearly—and I can’t see myself dodging phone calls, meeting clandestinely, being another in a long line of women wooed by Jake and his bag of recycled tricks.

  I pick up my sweater on the way out the door. Don’t turn around, I repeat until I’m safely out of the alley and onto Grove Street.

  Regrets? A few, but the biggest one is that I didn’t get to finish the cassoulet.

  Dolce

  I’ve set the board: henceforth ’tis yours to eat.

  —Dante, The Divine Comedy

  chapter 31

  The great gourmand, Auguste Escoffier, once said, “Good cooking is the essence of true happiness.” Did he mean that happiness is to be found in the act of cooking? Or in the appreciation of the result? If the former, it should follow that all good cooks are happy. But most of us aren’t, at least the ones I’ve known. Most of the cooks I know are looking for something. The lucky ones, people like Boulie and Silvano, seem to have found it, while the rest of us soldier on, searching for love, or adulation, or affirmation, gathering scraps wherever we can find them.

  Maybe what Escoffier meant was that true happiness is to be found in one’s ability to satisfy a basic human need so spectacularly. Those of us content to take our happiness secondhand cook because what we want, what we crave, is to be needed. Nurturers extraordinaire, brokers of comfort, we hope to turn the tables on our own needs by filling the stomachs and souls of the world.

  Jake had needed me. Maybe that was what I loved about him. We’d been companionable, compatible, in small ways; our dreams, professional at least, had been shared. Perhaps he even loved me, insofar as he was capable of loving, but I suspect what he really loved about me was my caring for him completely, loving
him to the exclusion of everything else. Until Grappa; and until Chloe.

  One thing I know for sure—Jake’s infidelity won’t end with Nicola and Zoe.

  Some men are just built that way, I guess. It should give me some satisfaction, but it doesn’t. It no longer even makes me angry. When I examine just what’s worth salvaging from my life in New York, what I keep coming back to is Grappa, some reminder of the reason I became a cook in the first place. That, and Chloe, should be all I need.

  Arriving home, I find that Richard has covered one wall of the apartment with irregularly shaped splotches of yellow. At least a dozen different shades, beautiful, rich hues—the deep golden of a mellow aged Gouda, the color of burnished wheat on an autumn afternoon. And not the whole wall, just a small section, maybe four feet square. Some of the splotches look like he has just waved the brush back and forth a couple of times, and one of them, the last one in the row, is just a single stroke of ochre, barely the width of the paintbrush. He’s dumped the brushes in the kitchen sink without rinsing them and is lying on his bed in a paint-spattered sweatshirt, sound asleep with his shoes still on. He looks still and peaceful, his fingers interlaced, the tops of his knuckles smudged with paint.

  He stirs as I remove his shoes. “Welcome home,” Richard says, his voice raspy with sleep.

  “Looks like you’ve been busy,” I say, nodding toward the wall.

  “I remembered you said you always wanted to live in a yellow house,” he says, taking my hand. “Do you like it?”

  I do, and the fact that Richard remembered this touches me. I put my arms around him and lay my head on his chest. “I love it. Yellow is a happy color, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, and there are many shades of happiness. You can take your pick,” he says, sitting up and gesturing toward the wall.

  “Looks like we’ve got plenty to choose from,” I tell him.

  “It’s a miracle I was able to get anything done, what with the parade of hovering visitors you lined up to save me from myself,” he says.