Love, Life and Linguine

by Melissa Jacobs

  Jeremy shook his head. “It’s too far from Ally’s parents. They live in New York. Although they are moving to Florida soon. Still, we’re going to stay on the East Coast. I’ve had several job offers in Philadelphia. We’ll buy a house in this area and stay close to home.” Jeremy smiled at Mom and Dad. They smiled back. Everybody smiled at everybody, making the best of the situation.

  “Here she comes,” Jeremy said.

  Allison came back from the bathroom, walking hesitantly toward our table, trying to discern the status of the conversation.

  My father stood and folded Allison in his arms. “Welcome to the family.”

  Five months later, Sarah was born. Jeremy finished at Wharton, but Allison didn’t. Jeremy became an MBA. Allison became a MOM.

  Although she’s been a Louis for eight years, I don’t know Allison very well. She came into the family as I was leaving. To work, to travel, to boyfriend. Of course, we’ve seen each other at holidays and birthdays—the ones I attend—but we haven’t formed a relationship independent of the family. So my image of Allison is as my brother’s wife. A job at which she excels. Jeremy adores Allison.

  So does Mom, apparently. It looks like they’ve grown even closer now that Mom lives in Lenape Hill, which is nearer than Westfield to Allison’s house. It’s good that Allison has Mom and Mom has Allison. Where does that leave me? I don’t know. I guess I have to find where I fit in this revised version of the family Louis.

  Someone to Dance With

  “What were you laughing about?” I ask Allison and Mom.

  “We were talking about the wedding last weekend.” Allison uses the pearly pink polished nail of her pinky finger to brush blond hair out of her eyes.

  “What wedding?” I ask.

  “Cousin Lauren’s,” Mom says. “It was a fabulous party.”

  “Why wasn’t I invited?” I ask.

  “You were,” Mom says. “You said you couldn’t go because of your trip to Paris.”

  “Oh.” When was the last time I saw Lauren, or any of my cousins? I missed the family seder in April. I was in Rome. The Chanukah party? I was in Dallas. Gee. Looks like I’ll be having guilt for breakfast.

  “Tell me about the wedding,” I say.

  “Lauren’s dress was beautiful,” Allison starts.

  “The band was great,” Mom says, “even though I didn’t dance.”

  “Why not?” I ask as I turn to the coffeepot. “You love dancing.”

  “Your aunts and uncles dance with each other,” Mom says. “I don’t have someone to dance with.”

  Mom states that as fact, without self-pity. But the sadness of the statement brings tears to my heart. Standing in front of the coffeepot, I keep my back to Mom and Allison, so Mom doesn’t see the emotion on my face.

  Allison says, “You should start to date.”

  That makes me laugh. “It’s too soon for me.”

  “Not you. Mom.”

  Turning, I look at Mom. “You want to date?”

  Mom shrugs.

  “She doesn’t want to be alone for the rest of her life,” Allison says.

  “She’s not alone. She has me and Jeremy and you and the kids.”

  “It’s not the same,” Allison insists. “A woman needs a man.”

  Allison and I look at Mom. Mom looks at the kitchen table. “It would be nice.”

  I am stunned. Why am I stunned? Do I want Mom to be alone? No. But, I didn’t think she was alone. I can’t imagine her with anyone but my father.

  “Some of my friends have found dates from the personals in the Jewish Exponent,” Mom says. “Helen has been dating someone she met on the Internet.”

  “We’ll go on the Internet,” Allison decides. “Lots of people do that.”

  Yeah. People who aren’t my mother. Shouldn’t she, like, knit?

  Mom looks at me. “What do you think, Mimi?”

  Allison raises her eyebrows, willing me to be supportive. So now I have to be supportive. I can’t be the bad daughter.

  “If you want to date,” I say, “then I think you should.”

  Mom smiles. “Really?”

  No. “Yes.”

  Allison looks at her watch. “I have time. Let’s go on the Internet now and look at websites. The three of us can do it together.”

  “Helen and I are going to a lecture and lunch at the JCC,” Mom says. “But I don’t have to leave for a while.”

  Help Mom troll the Internet for lovers? I’d rather not. “I have things to do.”

  “It’s okay,” Mom says to Allison. “Mimi’s been through a rough few days.”

  I accept my pardon. Allison takes Mom’s hand and the two of them leave the kitchen and go into the den. I hear them turn on the computer. They laugh. I decide to shower, and wash away the scent of despair.

  Bobbi’s Ideal Mate

  After Allison leaves to collect the twins, Mom asks me to help her fill out her profile on an Internet site for singles over fifty. I can’t think of a logical reason not to. Pulling up the dating site’s profile screen, I start to fill in Mom’s information. “Age?” I ask.

  “You know how old I am,” she says.

  “Maybe we should skew downward. You look a lot younger than sixty. You could easily pass for fifty-five.”

  “Yeah,” Mom says. “Let’s start my dating life by lying.”

  “Fine.” I type “60” into the age box. We finish the rest of the vital statistics.

  Reading from the website, I say, “Name some characteristics and hobbies your ideal mate should have.”

  Mom thinks. “Someone who wants to travel.”

  “Dad never traveled.”

  “Intelligent,” Mom continues. “Well read. Love of the performing arts.”

  I laugh. “Dad didn’t like to go to plays or concerts.”

  “I know.”

  From the screen, I read, “What well-known person would be your ideal mate?”

  Mom thinks for a moment. “Billy Crystal.”

  I turn around to look at her. “Billy Crystal?”

  “Yes. He’s Jewish. Funny. Smart. I don’t know how old he is but he looks like he’s in my generation. He’s very witty at the Oscars. Helen and I went to see his one-man show on Broadway. Brilliant.”

  Turning back to the computer, I hit send and watch the screen as the information transmits. Then I realize that Mom’s ideal mate is nothing like Dad. Why not?

  Mom leaves for her lecture and lunch. I stand in the kitchen and I feel alone. I need to be somewhere I feel safe, and that place is not here, in Mom’s new house with Mom’s new life. Where can I go? Well, there is one place.

  Home

  Twenty minutes later, I sit in my car staring at Café Louis.

  Although I haven’t seen her for almost two years, Café

  Louis looks the same. But worse. Her burgundy paint is peeling like chipped nail polish. Butterscotch-colored roof tiles are turning black at their roots. Crowning the restaurant is her once glittering tiara, a painted sign that reads “Café Louis.” She looks like what she is. A relic. A discarded remnant of an era when independent and family-run restaurants dominated this area of New Jersey. The party is over; it’s moved down the street to Red Lobster. But no one has told Café Louis. She wears lipstick and stockings and waits by the door, wondering when her guests will arrive.

  And yet, I love her. Café Louis is part of me. Part of my family.

  The restaurant business is hereditary, Dad said. As far as family legacies go, it’s not so bad.

  Café Louis is a descendant of Luvitz’s Deli in Brooklyn, where my father learned the restaurant business at the nudging elbow of his father. Just as my father left the borscht-colored shadow of Luvitz’s Deli, so did I leave the cheese fry–scented atmosphere of Café Louis. I ascended to the white-linen stratosphere of fine dining. But now I’ve come crashing back to the beginning, back to where I was taught to waitress and to cook, back to the place I got hooked on the restaurant world.

 
Sitting in Sally, I close my eyes and see my younger self, tripping on good tips, dancing with the cooks as we tried to keep up with the dinner rush. Drinking the camaraderie of the waiters.

  And then, I turned the party into work. I took my waitressing smile to the board room and left the short, black aprons to the younger, pierced girls. I lost my mise en place in the world. But I can get it back.

  The glass door creaks as I open it and walk into the restaurant. It’s midmorning. The waiters have yet to arrive. The house is empty. Slowly, I walk the length of the chrome counter, running my hand along the red leatherette and chrome stools. Behind the counter are soda fountains, a metal vat for iced tea, and display cases holding pies, cakes, and giant cookies. The dining area is lined with booths and filled in with tables of four. Everything is just as Daddy left it.

  “Well, now.” A voice comes from behind me. “Look who’s come home.”

  Grammy Love

  Behind me stands Althea Jefferson, affectionately known as Grammy Jeff. She is a tall, round, black woman and she has been in charge of the lunch shift since I was a child.

  Grammy Jeff folds me into her thick arms. “Honey, it’s good to see you,” she says in her North Carolina–flavored voice. “What brings you here?”

  “You. I came to see you.” Maybe that’s true. Grammy Jeff was a source of comfort for all of the adolescent turmoil I couldn’t tell my parents. Mostly boyfriend stuff. There was nothing I couldn’t tell Grammy Jeff. She has lived through it all.

  Grammy Jeff holds me away from her body. “You supposed to be at your fancy job, traveling around the world and such. Something bad must have happened. I’m guessing it has to do with a man. Am I right?”

  “You’re always right.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Grammy takes my hand. “Come on, then. I got to get ready for lunch, but I got time to make you something good to eat. You can tell me all about it.”

  Grammy Jeff’s macaroni and cheese is a miracle to behold. I like watching Grammy cook the dish almost as much as I like eating it. Sitting on a stool next to the metal table, I watch Grammy pull a pasta pot, a double boiler, and a casserole dish from the storage area. When she has water on to boil and the cheddar melting, Grammy turns her attention to me. “Tell me what happened, baby girl.”

  By the time I finish the story, Grammy has cooked the macaroni and melted the cheddar. To the cheese, Grammy adds milk, eggs, butter, salt, and pepper. She puts the noodles into a casserole dish and drowns them in the sauce. Grammy puts the dish into the oven, then turns to me and says, “Let me tell you a story.”

  While the macaroni and cheese bubbles in the oven, Grammy tells me a story. She speaks in biblical parables. A devout Christian, Grammy has a biblical psalm, proverb, or parable for each of life’s situations. Her voice is deep and it rises and falls in a beautiful rhythm. Now, Grammy says, “The lips of a forbidden woman drip honey. Her mouth is smoother than oil. But in the end, she is as bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Proverbs, five,” Grammy finishes. “Praise the Lord.”

  “Amen, Grammy,” I readily acknowledge.

  As Grammy places the casserole dish of macaroni and cheese on the metal utility table, the kitchen’s back door slams. In walks a six-foot-five, thin man in his thirties wearing khakis and a Sean John T-shirt. This is Grammy’s grandson, Nelson Jefferson.

  “Good morning, my Jewish queen,” he says.

  “Good morning, my African prince,” I reply.

  Nelson doesn’t ask what I’m doing at Café Louis. He doesn’t ask a lot of questions. We’ve known each other since we were children, but we come from very different backgrounds and we’ve learned that it’s best not to be nosy. Nelson is a good person who got dealt a bad hand in the form of his mother, Grammy’s daughter, who had him when she was fourteen. Grammy raised Nelson after his mother left for parts unknown. He’s helped Grammy in the kitchen for most of his life, and as he puts on a white chef coat, I realize that he’s now a bona fide employee of Café Louis.

  As if to answer my unasked question, Grammy says, “Nellie works the grill and the Fry-o-later during lunch.”

  “One person can handle the lunch crowd?” I ask.

  “It’s not so much of a crowd anymore,” Grammy says.

  Business is slow? That’s news.

  “Anyhow,” Grammy says, “I do all the cold stuff ahead of time. Tuna salad, chicken salad, seafood salad, macaroni salad, potato salad. You know I make the best potato salad in New Jersey.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say. But this a lot of work for one woman, especially one pushing sixty-five. Jumping off my stool, I say, “Let me help, Grammy. Where are the recipes?”

  Grammy tsks. “Honey, I don’t have recipes. I cook from my heart.”

  I laugh. “You don’t want anyone to know your secret ingredient?”

  “I’ll tell you my secret ingredient,” Grammy says. “Love.”

  When the first lunch order comes in, Grammy kicks me out of the kitchen. “Me and Nellie got a system,” she says when I volunteer to help.

  I walk into the hundred-seat dining room and see that only four waiters are working lunch. I guess business is really slow.

  But the people who are eating here have been eating here for decades. Mrs. and Mr. Byrem. Dave Arthur and his firefighter buddies. Rabbi and Mrs. Levine. Mrs. Leopold, who leads a brigade of community volunteers. The Riesenbachs from down the road. Maury Levy. Marlene Kaplan and her daughter, whose name I can’t remember. But they remember my name.

  Restaurant Diva

  What exactly is the status of Café Louis? Getting my Nancy Drew on, I go to the downstairs office to sleuth for clues. Although it feels like I’m spying on my brother, I’m not really doing anything untoward. I own half of Café Louis and I have the right—nay, the responsibility!—to check on Jeremy’s management of the restaurant. After all, I am a restaurant consultant. So? Consult.

  The office is the same mess it was when Dad was alive. The four-walled room is lined with wood bookshelves, most of which groan under the weight of piles of paper. Receipts, recipes, reviews. In the corner, an ancient, black-and-white TV spreads its antennae. On the wood veneer desk sits a beige telephone sprinkled with food particles. I sit in Dad’s chair, a creaky metal contraption with torn leatherette cushioning.

  Every man needs a throne, Dad said.

  Other than the phone, the desktop is empty. No papers, no files, no computer. Dad mistrusted computers. So where is the paperwork? Opening drawers, I see decades of detritus. Pencil stubs, carbon copies of bank deposits, my fifth grade school photo, a repository of rubber bands, a postcard with “Greetings from Asbury Park” on the front. Turning the postcard, I read its message. “To, All my love, B.” There’s a lipsticked kiss next to the letter B. How cute are my parents?

  In the bottom drawer of the desk, I find an expandable file folder with neatly marked tabs. It is so logical and neat that I assume the file folder is the work of my brother, not my father. Sure enough, the monthly pouches hold the information I want: paperclipped purveyor forms, stapled piles of credit card slips and bank deposits, and rubber-banded ordering slips decorated with the handwriting of waiters.

  I organize the information, stacking piles of evidence that can tell me the story of at least three months of business at Café Louis.

  One number that’s not here is liquor sales. Café Louis is a BYOB. Like many other restaurant owners, Dad never wanted to deal with New Jersey liquor laws. Had he purchased a liquor license in the seventies, subsequent liquor sales would’ve made back that money a hundred times over. Oh, well.

  By late afternoon, I have formed a working theory about Café Louis. Check averages can be increased by making the menu à la carte to encourage customers to order more food instead of including soup, salad, and two sides with each entree. Food costs need to be lowered by finding more affordable purveyors. I can make this happen. I am a restaurant diva. Right? Of course, right.

  Café Louis needs me. I need her.
As far as codependencies go, it’s not so bad.

  * * *

  Café Louis

  Soup $3

  Matzo Ball Soup

  French Onion

  Manhattan Clam Chowder

  Soup du Jour

  Salads $5

  Tossed

  Greek

  Caesar

  Cup of Soup and Salad $6.50

  Cup of Soup and Half a Sandwich $8

  Sandwiches

  served with lettuce, tomato, pickle, and chips.

  White, rye, pumpernickel, wheat, or Kaiser roll.

  Grilled Cheese $5

  Chicken Salad $6

  Corned Beef $7

  Jeremy’s Club $8

  Tuna/Egg Salad $5

  Chicken Parm $6

  Roast Beef $7

  Meatball $8

  Cold Platters $9

  served with lettuce, tomato, onion, cole slaw, and the best potato salad in New Jersey

  Chicken Salad

  Tuna Salad

  Egg Salad

  Whitefish

  Entrees

  served with bread and butter, choice of soup or tossed salad, and two sides

  Lasagna $10

  10 oz. Sirloin Steak $13

  Chicken Parmigiana $13

  Spaghetti with Meatballs $10

  My Wife’s Meatloaf $13

  Chicken Marsala $13

  Fettuccine Alfredo $9

  Brisket $13