“You don’t mind?”
I reach over and squeeze her hand. “Not at all.”
She squeezes back. “Thank you.”
I pause. “What are you going to tell my folks?”
“Crap,” she says. “I haven’t the foggiest. We’ll have to figure that out.”
“Yeah, that should be interesting.”
We get in the car. “Eggs and pancakes?” she asks.
“It’s nearly three in the morning,” I say. “We’ll also need sausage.”
“Golden Nugget?” she says.
“On my way.”
And we pull out into the night.
The Thin Man
(1934)
WILLIAM POWELL AS NICK CHARLES: Well, I do believe the little woman cares.
MYRNA LOY AS NORA CHARLES: I don’t care! It’s just that I’m used to you, that’s all.
If you’ve never lived with a pair of octogenarians, let me tell you. It is alternately the most hilarious thing you’ve ever experienced and the most annoying thing you can imagine.
For starters, as savvy and sassy as they are for their age, Bubbles and Herman are still elderly. In the past three days I’ve had to explain the vast difference between a “butt dial” and a “booty call,” I’ve discovered that without his hearing aids in, Herman’s natural speaking voice is just shy of the decibel level of a 1972 Who concert, and I’ve learned about the private lives of the neighborhood biddies in excruciating detail. On the other hand, they are adorable; fully released into their public romance, they are sweet as can be, and both of them are glowing. If Herman weren’t in a reasonable amount of pain, I’d be worried that there is some middle-of-the-night tiptoeing going on. Between the two of them and the fleet of nurses, assistants, cleaning ladies, and therapists who are in and out of the house like it’s Union Station, what little time I have at home isn’t exactly restful.
I’m trying to sneak a quiet breakfast in the Nook alone when I hear a long, resonant explosion of flatulence coming down the hall.
“Bubbles!”
“Oops. Didn’t know you were about at this hour.”
“Well, goodness, if I wasn’t awake before, I’d certainly be up now to see if the house was coming down!”
She swats at me. “It’s your fault. You should know better than to feed an old woman ratatouille.”
I wave my hand over my nose. “Well, considering it’s now like a monkey house in here, I’ll make a note to never do that again!”
She curtseys. “Roses, my dear, my wind is like roses.”
“Your wind is like hell itself has belched up six-day-old sausage and onions,” says Herman, who has appeared in the kitchen with the help of his new rolling walker. “But in a good way, my love, in a good way!”
She puts her hands on her hips. “Careful, you old thing, or I’ll be sure to come to your room the next time I’m feeling some pressure in my belly.”
“Really? Do I have to listen to all of this?” Their banter isn’t exactly William Powell and Myrna Loy, no matter how clever they think they are.
“No, dear, you most certainly do not,” Bubbles says.
“Actually, I have an idea about that,” Herman says, sitting across from me at the little table.
Bubbles puts on the coffeepot and slides some slices of bread into the toaster. “This is actually a good idea; you listen to Herman.”
“I was thinking that all of this tumult around here with me and my entourage must be making your life insane. You have little enough downtime these days with the whole bakery on your shoulders, and goodness knows it will only get worse as you start prepping for the cake contest in earnest. So I thought, why don’t you temporarily relocate to my apartment? You’ll have peace and quiet. I converted Junior’s old room to a very comfortable guest room a few years ago, and no one has ever used it! The bed has never even been slept in, and it has its own bathroom. You could have some privacy for a change, and you can’t beat the commute!”
It never would have occurred to me; I haven’t even thought about moving out of Bubbles’s house at all, let alone now, let alone into Herman’s apartment.
“Isn’t he brilliant?” Bubbles says, sliding a cup of coffee and a plate with buttered toast in front of Herman.
“Just during my recovery, dear. Just till the contest is over and I’m back to my old self. What do you think? I know our company is fascinating . . .”
“And our wind is so delightful . . .” Bubbles adds.
“Enough. You people will be the death of me. Yes, thank you kindly, Herman. I shall take you up on your generous offer and house-sit for you while you are convalescing here.” It’ll be weird as hell to be in Herman’s apartment, but the thought of some time on my own is too good to let me focus on the other parts. And I do like the idea of being able to just live my life for a bit without someone else witnessing my every move. Even though I spent many nights at Dexter’s, I still really did live alone, and much as I love Bubbles, I do miss that solitude now and again.
“Good,” Herman says.
“I’ll pack a few things today and take them over when I go.”
“But the bakery is closed today,” Bubbles says.
“True, but I’ve got the week ahead to prep for, and my new assistant is arriving today at three to meet me and go over our plan for the cake contest.”
“Do you know anything about them?” Bubbles asks Herman.
“Nope. Junior told me I wasn’t to worry about anything except my recovery, and that he had everything in hand, and I’m letting him manage. But, my dear, if you meet this person and it isn’t the right person, you need to say so, and we will find someone else.” He waggles a finger at me.
I shake my head. “I’m sure it will be fine.”
I leave the two of them to their breakfast and head upstairs to pack for the next part of my adventure. My phone rings. It’s my dad.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he whispers.
“Hi, Dad. Why are you whispering?”
“Your mother is here.”
“So?”
“I’m hiding in my office.”
“Why, pray tell?”
“She was crying in the bathroom, so I went to comfort her and asked why she was crying and she said she didn’t know and I asked if it was about the house and she said no and I asked if it was about you and she said no and I asked if it was about the wedding and she stopped crying and got angry and said that there didn’t need to be a reason for a woman to cry, she was just crying, but if I wanted to use her emotions as an excuse to back out of the wedding, she would really appreciate it if I would tell her as soon as possible before she writes any nonrefundable deposit checks. I assured her I would never back out of the wedding, and she said fine, then I should just let her have a healthy cry without trying to be all Mr. Fix It about it, so I left before I said anything else wrong, and now I’m hiding in my office.”
“Jesus, Dad, has it ever been this bad before? I mean, I remember a couple weird meltdowns over the years. Was it just that I didn’t see it?”
“Nope, it has never been this bad.”
“Do you think you should . . . ?”
“Crap!” he interrupts me. “I hear footsteps. Gotta go.” And then he hangs up.
I let myself into Herman’s place and drop my bags in the living room. It’s clear that Herman’s late wife, Rose, decorated the place and that he hasn’t really changed a thing. There is a decidedly feminine feel to it. The sofa is a subtle floral; the pillows have fringe and tassels. I give him credit, though; Herman keeps it pretty impeccably clean. I go down the hallway, trying not to think about the other night and all that was witnessed, and head right instead of left at the end. The guest room is actually quite charming, with an old brass queen-sized bed covered in a handmade quilt, the kind that is silky soft from years of use and washin
g. There is a small desk, a tall dresser, and a little kidney-shaped settee. One door leads to a tiny closet, the other to the en suite bathroom, with a claw-foot tub and pedestal sink. I go get my bags and unpack quickly, putting work clothes and underwear in the dresser, toiletries in the bathroom, earplugs on the nightstand. I set my computer up in the den, where the television is, and log in to be sure the Wi-Fi is working. Thank goodness Herman is a modern man; he, like Bubbles, has a decent smart TV and fast Internet, so for the hour a day I am both awake and not working, I’ll have entertainment, and I’ll be able to hopefully not get too far behind on Wedding Girl emails.
A quick check of the kitchen and cupboards reveals for the first time that the place is inhabited by a bachelor of a certain age. Plenty of canned and frozen prepared foods, lots of cereals, most with a hefty bran component. The fridge is a wasteland of condiments, olives and pickles, plus a bag of desiccated baby carrots, some various sliced cheeses, and a couple of beers. With so much to do today, I’m not really up for a run to the store, so I log in to our Instacart account and place a grocery delivery order for some staples. Bubbles has got plenty of spunk, but errands like grocery shopping can sometimes take it out of her, so I taught her how to use the online delivery service, and she loves it. I’ve added my debit card as one of the payment options, so once I enter Herman’s address, I’ve got groceries headed my way within the next two hours. I check my watch. It’s just after eleven, so I have plenty of time to get everything sorted here and prep for meeting my new assistant downstairs at three.
Herman and I have been doing a lot of talking about the cake the past couple of days, and we think we have a good plan for the three tiers. The bottom tier will be the chocolate tier and incorporate the dacquoise component, since that will all provide a good strong structural base. We are doing an homage to the Frango mint, that classic Chicago chocolate that was originally produced at the Marshall Field’s department store downtown. We’re going to make a deep rich chocolate cake, which will be soaked in fresh-mint simple syrup. The dacquoise will be cocoa based with ground almonds for structure, and will be sandwiched between two layers of a bittersweet chocolate mint ganache, and the whole tier will be enrobed in a mint buttercream.
The second tier is an homage to Margie’s Candies, an iconic local ice cream parlor famous for its massive sundaes, especially their banana splits. It will be one layer of vanilla cake and one of banana cake, smeared with a thin layer of caramelized pineapple jam and filled with fresh strawberry mousse. We’ll cover it in chocolate ganache and then in sweet cream buttercream that will have chopped Luxardo cherries in it for the maraschino-cherry-on-top element.
The final layer will be a nod to our own neighborhood, pulling from the traditional flavors that make up classical Jewish baking. The cake will be a walnut cake with hints of cinnamon, and we will do a soaking syrup infused with a little bit of sweet sherry. A thin layer of the thick poppy seed filling we use in our rugelach and hamantaschen, and then a layer of honey-roasted whole apricots and vanilla pastry cream. This will get covered in vanilla buttercream.
We figure this gives us a chocolate layer, one that is fruit forward, and one that is more nut based, so something for everyone. The focus will be on getting the tiers, all of them rectangular and the same size, stacked on one another and then covered in the stonework fondant in a base color of gray. Gray is the hardest color to achieve with fondant—it can go blue or lavender really quickly—but I have a secret formula for it, so hopefully that will be fine. Once the thing is built, we’ll go back and do shading and details with powdered food colors for depth and realism. All of the extra structural components attached to the building, like the porch, balcony, and roof detail, will be made of Rice Krispies treats and then covered in fondant. They’re easy to cut into blocks and shapes, or mold free-form, and if you leave them uncovered, they firm up pretty well. And they are lightweight, so hopefully they won’t fall off even when they’re covered in fondant.
We’ll do the tiles for the roof out of tuile cookie batter cooled on a special template to give them the form, and then will glue them on with chocolate. All of the carved stonework for the columns, the urn on the front staircase, and the detail work on the roof will be molded and carved chocolate sprayed with white chocolate colored gray. The windows will be panes of clear sugar mounted in chocolate window frames made to look like wood, the wooden front door will be composed of chocolate with sugar windows embedded, and the transom and sidelights will be made of designs baked in cookie dough and filled with colored sugar to create edible stained glass. And all of the other details, the people, etc., will be made of fondant or gum paste or marzipan.
It is a lot of very exacting work, and I really hope that whoever is coming today will have some artistic skills to offer. I’m really good at all the fussy bits, but I won’t be able to manage it all alone, not in six hours. At the very least, I hope my new right hand can handle the big fondant sheeting work, and the roof tiles and structural details, so that I can deal with the small stuff, some of which will likely get screwed up and need to be redone.
I make a list of every individual component, determining which ones can be prepped ahead and delivered to the contest venue completed, and which will have to be managed on-site. I created a calendar of when each component can be made, working backwards from the contest to figure out what can be done when.
All of this is making me hungry, and my groceries are still at least an hour out. I go to the computer and log in to Philly’s Best, order myself a large cheesesteak and onion rings, and then hunker down to deal with as many Wedding Girl emails as I possibly can before I have to go downstairs. I’m just eating the last onion ring when my groceries show up, and I stock Herman’s fridge and cabinets with everything I’m going to need for the next few days. I still have over an hour before I have to be downstairs, and that claw-foot tub is calling my name. I run the water as hot as I will be able to stand it, and strip, grateful that this tub is deep and wide. The tub at Bubbles’s is on the small side, and not really terrific for getting a good soaking. But this one is almost oversized, and when I get in, the water covers my shoulders, and I sink in gratefully. The quiet is amazing, and I realize I haven’t really been alone like this since I moved into Bubbles’s house.
This might need some tunes.
I have a killer 1980s playlist in my phone, and suddenly all I want is to be soaking in this lovely hot bath and singing along to some serious New Romantic pop music.
I get out of the tub, the cool air feeling amazing on my skin. I skip the towel and scamper out in my wet altogether to the living room to get my phone from the charger.
“Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!” I scream and fling myself behind the couch.
“Um, hi,” says Mark.
An afghan comes flying over the top of the couch and lands on me. I awkwardly wrap it around myself and stand up.
“What. The. Fuck,” I say. “Don’t you knock? Or ring a bell? Or announce your presence when you come into a place? What are you doing here anyway?” The afghan feeling prickly against my damp skin.
“I had no idea anyone was here; my dad is at your house, and the store is closed today, and I was early, so I thought I should come upstairs and see what sort of state the place was in. What are you doing here?”
“Your dad said I should stay here while he is at my grandmother’s place, since it is a little nuts over there.”
“Oh, well, that makes a lot of sense, really,” Mark says.
“Will you give me a moment? I’m going to go get dressed.” I sidle out of the living room, and once I’m in the semi-protected space of the hallway, I run to the bathroom, pull the plug on the drain, and grab a towel to finish the job the afghan couldn’t handle. I get dressed, throw my wet hair into a bun, and head back into the front room.
“Make yourself at home,” I say, looking at Mark, who has one hand in my bag of Fritos and is e
ating a massive sandwich made with my freshly procured provisions.
He holds the bag out to me, and I wave it off.
“So, did you want to talk up here or downstairs?” he asks, plucking a piece of salami from the side of the sandwich and popping it in his mouth.
“About what?”
“About the contest.”
Great. Now he’s going to be all involved. Super. I check my watch; it’s twenty to three. “The assistant won’t be here for another twenty minutes. I think we should wait.”
He grins at me, with a bit of mustard in the corner of his mouth. “The assistant is here.”
“Downstairs?”
“Right here, baby.” He winks at me and grins like a game show host.
This has got to be a nightmare. “You?”
“Yep. I have made arrangements to leave work early every Monday, and you can have me three other nights per week after the store closes, and I’m taking vacation time for the Thursday and Friday of the competition weekend. Will that be enough?”
My head is spinning. “But . . . you . . . can’t . . .” I sputter. If I didn’t have high blood pressure before, I do now. In fact, this might be sending me right into atrial fib.
He nods. “I thought you might feel that way. I brought my bona fides.”
He gets up, walks over to the door, and picks something out of his briefcase. He comes back and hands me a couple of papers. I shuffle through them.
“You went to culinary school,” I say.
He looks smug. “Yeah.”
“At the freaking CIA.”
“True.”
I look back down. “You did the intensive pastry session at Ferrandi in Paris.”
“Yup.”
“You fucking staged with Jacques Torres.”
“Uh-huh. And, you know, also with my dad, since, um, birth. Will I be good enough?” he says, sarcasm dripping with every word.
“I don’t understand.”
“What’s that?”
Wedding Girl Page 26