Bon Appetempt: A Coming-of-Age Story (with Recipes!) (24 page)

I
t’s the week of Thanksgiving, and therefore, the week of our annual sale at work, when people go from being customers to panicked consumers. And maybe because the mornings have finally turned cold enough that I need to flip the heat on, or maybe because I know I have a long day ahead of me and I feel like indulging myself a little, I decide to have a piece of toasted baguette with butter and jam for breakfast, the same thing that Matt usually has.

I change my morning routine so infrequently that when I twist open the jar of apricot jam and see bits of white, cold butter mixed in with the pale orange preserves, I’m instantly and oddly reminded of my dad. This is the way the jar of jam always looked in Saegertown. And for a brief moment, I picture him standing at the kitchen counter trying to spread squares of butter that are too substantial for the heat from the toast to melt them, before resorting to smashing them down, crushing the bread in the process. The layer of jam he smeared on top was always just as excessive.

Meanwhile, I take a bite of my own toast and find it lacking in both components. This is typical of me. I seem to always err on the side of
not quite enough
. When Matt and I sit down to
a pasta dinner, I tease him about his mountain of Parmesan compared to my much more sensible couple of tablespoons, but then halfway through the meal, I take a bite of his and find it undeniably more delicious than my version.

And for a fleeting moment, I seem to better understand my father. I see him as someone who doesn’t hold back, who doesn’t restrain himself or his hardly conventional opinions (ranging from how the US government attacked itself on 9/11 to how he won’t see
Zero Dark Thirty
, as “everyone knows Osama bin Laden died in 2003”), who continues to smoke and maintain a cheeseburger-and-pizza-centric diet well into his sixties with seemingly little concern as to his deteriorating health and his family’s history of heart failure.

A month ago, the future had looked promising again. A literary agent whom I queried about my novel contacted me, interested in having me put together a proposal for a food memoir loosely based on Bon Appétempt. Not to mention that for my combined birthday and Christmas present, Matt and I booked a trip to Paris for two weeks. (In order to spread out paying for everything, we wouldn’t leave until late March.)

However, once the holidays hit, my outlook takes a turn. Once again, I struggle to see beyond my ten to six-thirty existence of “I’m sorry, but we can’t extend the sale price to you after the sale has ended.”

Now that I’m thirty, I’ve also become very aware that I only have so many “good years” left to get pregnant. The fact that I’d like to have two kids feels particularly troublesome, especially considering what I’ve heard my dad say in passing over the years, that though most women should be fine to get
pregnant up until the age of forty, thirty-five is technically when fertility starts its rapid descent.

During my morning search for the prized all-day parking spot within a three-block radius of the store, I begin to imagine a simpler life. Back at our apartment, after dinner, I retire early to the bedroom, streaming episodes of my favorite TV show of all time,
My So-Called Life
, which is set in Pittsburgh. And suddenly my vision of a simpler life has a specific setting. I begin to think about moving back home. I begin to think about the wide suburban streets I rode my bike on as a kid. I begin to think about buying a little house and getting pregnant and being able to call up my mom or Matt’s parents to see if they can swing by and watch the baby while I run a few errands.

I think about how much fun it is when Matt and I go back to visit now, how we stay at his parents’ house—the one he grew up in and in the basement of which we shared our first kiss—and quickly revert to our teenage habits, staying up late watching movies, eating pickles and hard pretzels, and going to sleep without properly gathering our plates and putting them in the dishwasher. In the morning, before his parents leave for work, Matt is lightly scolded for leaving empty glasses everywhere and we’re left with a handwritten list of reminders:
If you go out, make sure both dogs are in their crates and the fire is turned off
followed by the perennial:
And don’t let the cat out!

Matt’s dad is famous for repeating himself in a way that calls attention to the fact that he
knows
he’s repeating himself. And we kids are famous for playing into the need to have these things repeated to us. “Why, Dad? Why shouldn’t we
let the cat out? She’s clearly very curious about the outdoors,” Matt will say, feigning confusion and gesturing to Autumn, the calico cat, who spends much of her day sitting and staring through the window of the front door, her tail sweeping the floor from side to side.

“Because,” his dad will say, “she might like it!”

And as I daydream, I realize I’m a lot like Autumn. I’m staring out the window, pondering a different life. However, unlike Autumn, I could open the door and step through it if I really wanted to, couldn’t I?

We can’t go home for the holidays because of our work schedules, but like we’ve done in years past, we book tickets to Pittsburgh for mid-January. And while Matt knows I’m discouraged with the state of my noncareer, he doesn’t know that I’m so discouraged that I’m planning on using this trip to secretly consider what it would be like if we lived there again.

We arrive at the Pittsburgh airport, and as I walk from the baggage claim area to my mom’s car, which is waiting for us curbside, the freezing wind blows right through the winter coat that had worked just fine in LA and comes to rest in my bones, where it will remain for the rest of the night.

Matt and I have our own traditions with our families our first night back at home, so while Matt and his parents eat chicken wings, pizza, and what they jokingly (and lovingly) refer to as “sweat sandwiches” (as the guy who makes them is known to work up quite a sweat no matter the time of year), Mom, Bruce, and I head to Grandma’s to pick her up and take her out for sushi.

Since my last visit, Grandma has cut sugar out of her diet
because of her failing kidneys, and though Mom warns me that she’s lost a lot of weight and is teeny tiny now, I’m still not ready for the change. We pull into her driveway and within a minute, she is making her way toward the car, her thin legs emerging from below her wool coat like sticks.

After dinner, Mom drops me off at the Bookmans, where Matt and I usually stay when we’re both home. But once I’m inside the house that’s become so familiar to me over the past fifteen years, it hardly feels usual; Matt’s parents are in the process of selling and moving to a smaller loft space downtown. There’s hardly anything left in Matt’s bedroom apart from a bed, a desk, and an icy draft coming from one of the windows.

In the morning, Matt and I eat breakfast with his parents before heading over to my house in the afternoon, where my brother and Katherine have just gotten in. They’ve driven up from Charlotte to spend the weekend, and Mom has taken the opportunity to arrange for us to sit for professional family photos, something Bill and I haven’t done since we were kids and something that does create family unity in that Matt, me, Bill, and Katherine immediately become united against Mom because we can’t believe she’s actually making us do this.

That night, all of us, Grandma included, have dinner at the Bookmans. Matt’s dad builds a fire, Matt’s mom makes chicken Parmesan, Matt makes garlic bread, and my mom arrives with her classic Caesar salad. I do nothing more than clean a few mushrooms and pour red wine. And halfway through, I realize it’s the big holiday dinner I’d wanted all season long, with people talking over one another, dogs
abounding, and my brother and Matt making obscure Fantasy Football references. By the end of the night, the color has returned to my face and the circulation to my feet.

The following day, my dad is planning to drive from Saegertown to take us kids to an early dinner. I haven’t seen him since the wedding four years ago, and then all of a sudden, there he is at Mom and Bruce’s door, hands in the pockets of his brown leather jacket as if it’s an alternate Sunday night in 1993 and he’s arrived to pick us up and return us to Saegertown. And before I can stop myself, the first words out of my mouth are, “Dad, you’re so fat!”

At the wedding, he had been a few months removed from heart valve replacement surgery and at least twenty to thirty pounds lighter. And as he didn’t completely reek of cigarettes that weekend, I guess I’d hoped that he’d not only quit, but that the major surgery had inspired him to start taking better care of himself.

But clearly that’s not the case—when I go to hug him, the smell of smoke is pervasive.

“Geez, Amy,” he says, laughing, “we can’t all be fit and trim Angelenos.”

“I’m sorry. You just—you don’t look
healthy
.”

“What do you want from me? You know my dad died at sixty-two, and look at me at sixty-three! I’m doing
way
better than him,” he says, and laughs again.

Matt’s at a hockey game with his dad, so dinner will be just the four of us, and since Dad curiously bought himself a yellow Mini Cooper for his sixtieth birthday, we opt to take Katherine’s Jeep. From my spot in the back, it’s uncomfortable seeing my brother in the driver’s seat and Dad in the passenger’s; it
doesn’t suit him to just sit there, to not have his eyes firmly on the road and the wheel in front of him.

We head to one of Dad’s favorite pizza places, Beto’s, where they famously serve any toppings, even the cheese, uncooked. So, if it’s a cheese and pepperoni pizza you want, you get a hot slice of pizza topped off with cold, shredded mozzarella and cold pepperoni.

Dad took us here all the time as kids, but I haven’t been in years and am fully prepared not to enjoy the two squares with extra cheese I order, especially as I see that they’re served to me on a Styrofoam plate. But honestly, it’s not bad. The bottom layer of cheese ends up melting because of the residual heat, and I find the mixture of textures and temperatures bizarrely pleasing.

Dad orders four slices with extra cheese and pepperoni as well as a full pizza to go, which he’ll bring back with him to Saegertown. But I’m not sure what’s more disappointing: the idea of Dad eating an entire Beto’s pizza himself, the ensuing conversation, or the nasty cough he displays throughout the meal.

After mostly talking to Billy about some of his old Saegertown classmates and, yes, ex-wrestling opponents, Dad turns to me. “So what’s going on? You have an agent now?”

I’d recently mentioned this news to him over e-mail.

“Yeah, I do.”

“And is he from the William Morris Agency?” (My dad enjoys the fact that there is a talent agency with his name.)

“No.
She
is not.”

“But isn’t the William Morris Agency, by virtue of its name, the best? Shouldn’t you ask to switch?”

At which point, my brother jumps in. “She’s working on a
memoir, Dad. So, we all have to be on our best behavior from now on.”

“Oh God, remind me not to tell Dolly. You know, she’s not doing well. I doubt she’ll make it through the year.”

“Why? What’s wrong?” I ask.

“She can hardly breathe and she’s basically blind.”

The topic of my potential book doesn’t surface again.

We do, however, discuss Dad’s new online chess “clan,” the Chessperados.

After dinner, we head back to Mom and Bruce’s. Dad comes inside too, though he never makes it past the foyer. Mom greets him there and they talk shop for a bit, about the current state of medicine and Mom’s struggle to get used to electronic records. It’s always both odd and reassuring to see them standing side by side chatting—Mom with her arms crossed and Dad with his hands in his pockets, his shoulders subtly slumped.

We say our good-byes. I give Dad an awkward hug, and in the most serious voice I can muster, I tell him to take care of himself.

A few days later, Matt and I arrive back in Los Angeles on a late flight. By the time we retrieve our car at the Crowne Plaza hotel’s long-term parking and drive home, it’s eleven p.m., which of course feels like two a.m. We’re hungry but too tired to do anything about it. I open my suitcase only to retrieve my toothbrush. I brush my teeth and crawl into bed. Compared to Matt’s childhood mattress we’d spent the past five nights on, ours feels like something you might get at the Four Seasons.