Chocolate Quake

by Nancy Fairbanks

  “I assume they’ll release her in due time,” he replied.

  “In due time?” I took out my cell phone and dialed, murmuring to Jason, “We have to remember to return this before we leave. Could I speak to Inspector Harry Yu, please?”

  I waited. Then I said, when he came on the line, “This is Carolyn Blue. When does my mother-in-law get out of jail?” Jason was giving me that look of husbandly amusement, for which I could have kicked him. “We’ll come right down to pick her up if you’ll tell me when.”

  Inspector Yu couldn’t say. There were formalities to go through. One of which was the interrogation of Charles Desmond. But she should be free today or tomorrow.

  “We won’t be here tomorrow!” I exclaimed. “I’m going to complain to the . . . the District Attorney.”

  He told me to “feel free,” but the DA was unlikely to be in his office on Saturday. He liked to play golf when he got the chance. Then Inspector Yu wished me a good day and hung up.

  Of all the nerve! I got out my notebook and found Margaret Hanrahan’s home number, called her, and explained the problem. She, thank goodness, sympathized and said the least she could do for Vera, who had gone through a week in jail because of the Union Street Women’s Center, was to move the process along, grease the wheels of justice, as it were, as soon as she finished her breakfast. I suggested that it would be nice if my mother-in-law were released in time to attend the anniversary celebration. Margaret agreed that Vera’s presence would add immeasurably to the occasion.

  Paul asked if all the staffers at the center would be present for the event. I was sure they would. Sam asked if he and Paul were invited. I said if they weren’t, they could consider themselves invited by me. Paul suggested that they might have a nice surprise for me and then offered us a ride to Vera’s apartment, since the apprehension of Charles Desmond made it safe to go there. Desmond hadn’t had another gun, as it happened, but that was beside the point now. Jason and I did have a lovely night in the brass bed upstairs.

  We also had a lovely morning. We packed and successfully took buses to the phone rental store and to the Legion of Honor so that Jason could see the Henry Moore show. I passed on all the artistic and biographical information that Nora Hollis had given me. Then we took a cab to the Swan Oyster Depot, where Jason feasted on a wide variety of oysters, and I had a lovely salmon plate and chatted with one of the brothers. From there, it being quarter to two, we took a cab to the center and arrived as the Women of Color, carrying placards, caught Marina and Eric Timberlite stepping out of a limousine. Bertha Harley and her indignant protesters be sieged the Timberlites with sad stories about single mothers and elderly ladies who were going to be homeless because of the greedy machinations of Timberlite Ventures, Inc.

  The director and her husband were completely surrounded and unable to get away until Mr. Timatovich rushed down the steps to rescue his employer. I heard her say to him, “Oh, thank you, my dear man. Don’t let anyone tell you you’re to be fired. I shall see that you remain our security guard as long as I’m the director here.” Mr. Timatovich tried to help her up the stairs, but her angry husband was pulling her toward the limousine, and he prevailed over her objections by slipping Mr. Timatovich a twenty-dollar bill.

  The upshot was that Marina didn’t get to make her director’s speech launching the celebration, but Nora Farraday Hollis was happy to take over and welcomed everyone to “this auspicious occasion.” One of her remarks involved the debt the center owed to Sam Flamboise and me for our efforts in finding the murderer of “dear, dreadfully missed Denise Faulk.” We received a round of applause, and Mr. Valetti stood up to sing, joined by a black contralto and the gospel choir, who sang in English and added some unusual flourishes to the gypsy scene in Il Trovatore. Then the pot stickers were served.

  Grandmother Yu, who was there with Ginger, really knows how to make a pot sticker. I had two, not to mention burritos made by Jesusita Gomez, who attended with her children and wanted to know where her savior, Vera, was. I said that I hoped to hear soon that she had been released from jail. “Horse’s ass cops,” Jesusita muttered and went off to talk to Dr. Tagalong.

  While we were sampling sushi, fried chicken and col lard greens, Philippine delicacies I couldn’t identify but liked a lot, and Ethiopian injerra with red hot dips, while I was introducing Jason to people I had met, including a rather glum but clean Martina L. King, Paul and Sam wandered over with a tall, handsome man. “This is Porter,” said Paul. “He’s a friend of ours.”

  Jason and I greeted Porter and recommended the Dragon Rolls, which weren’t as good as those at Ebisu, but Jason didn’t know the difference, and I was just happy to see them again. Even if they didn’t have the salmon roe spine spikes, they did have wonderful carrot stick antennae sticking out the front. It was truly a shame to eat such works of art.

  “Porter would like to meet your friend Kara Meyerhof, Carolyn,” said Sam.

  “Oh, my goodness. Aren’t you a dear?” I gave him a hug and rushed off the find Kara. The fellow was tall enough, although I was afraid his shoulders weren’t as wide as hers, but he seemed quite amiable, so maybe he wouldn’t mind. I located her chatting with Dr. Tagalong and Grandmother Yu about the new Tai Chi class. “Kara, friends of mine have brought along a nice man for you to meet. His name is Porter, and he’s very tall.” Kara actually blushed with excitement and hurried after me.

  I didn’t know why Sam and Paul seemed so amused because Kara and Porter got along famously. I heard him suggest that they go out for dinner after the celebration. I’m ashamed to say I was eavesdropping—until a small band of people led by a priest burst through the gate and began to harangue the happy crowd.

  “For shame,” said the priest. “Urging a good Catholic girl to have herself sterilized.” He had spotted Dr. Tagalong and was heading her way. For a wonder, the doctor, who had seemed so proud of Jesusita’s tubal ligation, if that’s what the fuss was about, turned pale. “You have led this young woman into grievous sin and endangered your own soul!” he shouted, his voice gaining volume. Poor Jesusita, who had been happily munching a tamale, burst into tears. Then her two children began to cry as well.

  I considered his actions not just tactless, but unnecessarily cruel, and I was tempted to tell him the story of Dr. Scott, who was deported from San Francisco to New Orleans by his Union-sympathizing parishioners during the Civil War because he persisted in preaching favorably about the Southern cause. Dr. Scott had been taken directly from the church service to a waiting steamer on the docks for bringing the wrong message to a hostile audience, just as this priest—

  “And who are you, Father, to tell any woman what she can do with her own body?” It was my mother-in-law. She’d just walked out of the kitchen with Margaret Hanrahan. “Until you’ve brought a child into the world, a child you don’t want—”

  “I love my children,” said Jesusita defensively. She gathered them up in her arms. “I just don’t want any more.”

  “Of course you don’t,” said Vera. “You can’t support any more.” She turned to the priest. “Have you chased down the fathers and insisted that they support these two children? Did you come to Jesusita’s rescue when she was thrown in jail because of the crimes of one of those fathers? Did you insist that he marry her and support the children by honest labor? Of course your didn’t.”

  The priest looked disconcerted. He tried to gather himself together, but my mother-in-law was not finished with him. “You, Father, are a trespasser here, where we care about the fate of women and the well-being of their children. This is private property, sir. If you don’t leave immediately, we will have you arrested for trespassing.”

  Many in the crowd cheered. I couldn’t help but feel a burst of pride in my mother-in-law, just out of jail and already on the front lines. The priest glared at her, but he did leave, his six followers trailing behind. Beside me, Kara was saying, “I have to tell you something, Porter. It’s only fair that you know my name used to be
Karl.”

  Well, there goes the dinner date, I thought, but I was wrong because Porter laughed and said, “You’re kidding. Well, I have a confession, too. My name used to be Por tia.” Oh my goodness, I thought. They’re made for each other. I guess. I wasn’t sure how it would work, not being that familiar with transsexuality, and I wasn’t about to pursue the matter, but I did wish them well. Sam, wouldn’t you know, was grinning at me. I suppose he knew that Porter had once been female. Vera was giving Jason a hug, and then, for a wonder, me.

  “I have to say, Carolyn, Margaret has been keeping me abreast of your activities on my behalf, and I’m impressed. You’re a much gutsier woman than I would have thought. Maybe you should think about giving up food articles and becoming a private investigator.”

  “Mother,” protested Jason, horrified.

  “Oh, don’t be a goody-goody, Jason,” she said and walked away, laughing, only to be accosted by the delighted and amorous Bruno Valetti. The two of us stared at each other, amazed. Such good humor was unlike Vera, and I, for one, doubted that it would continue unless she managed to get away from her admirer.

  And then the cake girls came out of the kitchen in a row, proudly bearing their cakes to a table that had been set aside for them. Each of the ten cakes held a burning candle, representing one year in the center’s history, and the young women had added decoration I wasn’t expecting. On the end cakes were balloons outlined on the frosting with M&M’s. On the eight middle cakes they had written, with good intentions but poor spelling, Hapy 10 Aniv ersery Unon St Womin Centar.

  We all clapped enthusiastically, and Nora announced that each head of department present would blow out a candle. Then the ground pitched under our feet, and the cakes slid apart, all four layers going every which way, balloon cakes falling off the ends of the table in pieces. I grabbed hold of Jason and held on for dear life, women and children started screaming, and Sam looked up at the house. It wasn’t, thank God, falling down, but then the old Victorians survived earthquakes well because they were made of redwood. They just burned down afterward, for the same reason.

  “It’s over, folks,” he shouted above the din. “Couldn’t have been more than a three and a half. Just a little stress on the fault. No big deal. Help yourselves to some cake.” Somehow or other, his words seemed to calm everyone. Except me. People began scraping cake bits off the table onto paper plates that had held the main courses. The cake plates had fallen off with the balloon cakes.

  “Jason,” I said, “this is really too much. I want to go straight to the airport before the Big One hits.”

  “OK,” he agreed, “but which are you more upset about? The tremor or the destruction of your cakes?”

  Now there was a question. “I’m not sure,” I replied. “But I do think the tremor could have held off an hour or so. Those young women were very proud of their cakes. They worked hard.”

  “Well, their work is being appreciated.” We looked at the cake tables, which were almost bare, while a lot of children were smiling and smeared with chocolate.

  “Just a typical day in San Francisco,” Sam remarked, grinning, as he came up to give me a hug. Then Jason and I said goodbye to everyone, including his mother, and escaped out the gate.

  “I never did get to see the sea lions at Seal Rocks,” I lamented as we headed for Union Street. “I wonder how they feel about earthquakes. It’s probably traumatic for a sea lion. One minute he’s sunning himself on a nice rock. The next his rock is jumping up and down, maybe even breaking apart.”

  “He probably just slides off into the water and frolics around until it’s all over,” said Jason, hailing a cab.

  “We should be so lucky,” I mumbled. “I’ve now lost three very nice desserts to earth tremors. I’m not sure I want to come back here.”

  “Sure you do,” said Jason, helping me into the cab. “You liked the food, and the chances are minimal of my mother being in jail the next time we visit, or even of another series of tremors occurring.”

  “You wanna go anywhere in particular, man?” asked the cabdriver.

  “Sacramento Street, first,” said Jason. He provided the address because we needed to pick up our luggage at Vera’s sublet.

  “Just what are the chances, would you think?” I asked. “Of more tremors if we come back?”

  “I know a man in the Math Department who could figure it out, if you’re really interested,” Jason replied.

  “That might be reassuring.” We in the academic world do have certain perks, I thought. Travel to interesting places. Access to all sorts of information—including my chances of losing another three desserts if I return to San Francisco, which, earthquakes aside, is a wonderful city. We could even visit Sam again if it didn’t turn out to be too dangerous. And visit the sea lions.

  My husband has taken up cooking—well, one recipe—but he invented it himself, perhaps to show his appreciation for a favor I did his mother, perhaps because he got interested in yellow tomatoes after he saw me struggling to recreate a soup I ate in San Francisco, or perhaps he suddenly saw cooking as an activity related to scientific experimentation and couldn’tresist a little hands-on lab work in the kitchen.

  Quick and Scientific Pasta Sauce

  • Mash 3 large or 4 small cloves of garlic with salt.

  • Add the garlic to one 14.5 oz. can golden roma tomatoes and pour into a food processor.

  • Cut into chunks 1/2 peeled cucumber, 1/2 large onion, and 1 yellow bell pepper and add to the tomatoes.

  • Add the leaves from 1 bunch parsley, 4 or 5 dashes of balsamic vinegar, and 4 or 5 dashes of olive oil (or vinegar and oil to taste), turn on food processor, and process into sauce.

  • Mix sauce with hot pasta.

  Carolyn Blue,

  “Have Fork, Will Travel,”

  Abilene Herald

  Recipe Index

  Citizen Cake’s Hazelnut on Chocolate

  on Hazelnut on Chocolate

  Provided by Elizabeth Falkner, executive pastry chef

  and managing partner, Citizen Cake, San Francisco

  Italian Omelet

  Dragon Rolls (or not)

  Zaré’s Wild Mushroom Soup

  Zaré’s Dungeness Crab Cakes

  with Whole-Grain Mustard Sauce

  Provided by Hoss Zaré, chef/proprietor,

  Zaré, a restaurant, San Francisco

  Star Salad—Beet, Avocado, and Endive Salad

  with Orange-Sherry Dressing

  Coquilles Saint-Jacques

  Chocolate-Black Raspberry-Walnut Cake

  Easy Pappa al Pomodoro

  Quick and Scientific Pasta Sauce

  Provided by William. Herndon, chef in my kitchen, when

  he isn’t away from the house pushing back the frontiers of science