Comfort Food (36 page)

Salt and Pepper were meowing over an empty saucer in the middle of the floor.

“Did someone give you a little milk, hmm?” she asked, reaching over to rub their furry heads.

Just then Hannah rapped impatiently on the patio door, which Gus quickly unlocked.

“You’re never going to believe this,” said Hannah.

“But Carmen is on
Good Morning America
,” finished Gus. “I just saw it. I had no idea.”

“That’s some
chutzpah
, if you ask me,” Hannah said, a drop of admiration sneaking into her voice. “You gotta respect a tough competitor.”

“Yeah. But you know what? I’m not going anywhere.”

“Are those cinnamon rolls?” Hannah asked, sniffing the air. “My favorite!” She literally ran to the stool at the island and sat down, waiting to be served.

“You like those, do you?” Oliver said, coming into the kitchen. “I put them in a bit ago and they’re almost done.”

Hannah’s eyes went from Oliver, in just his jeans, to Gus, in her nightie, and back again. “Oh,” she said, her face turning red. “I didn’t realize . . . I mean, I knew you were spending time together. But I didn’t think it was seriousand . . . wow.” She turned around so she wasn’t facing them anymore. “I should just go,” she said. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”

“Hannah Levine, all you’ve walked in on is Oliver and I having breakfast,” Gus said. “I am quite sure that would garner us a ‘G’ rating.”

“I’m sorry . . .” stammered Hannah. “I’m just a bit blown away, that’s all.”

“Let’s go onto the patio and have a talk,” Gus said, meeting glances with Oliver. Then she put an arm around Hannah and led her outside.

“Oh my God, Oliver slept over!” said Hannah. “Did you know that?”

Gus could not keep the grin off her face. “Yes, I was an active participant,” she said. “It may have been the first time but it definitely won’t be the last, I can tell you that much.”

Hannah tried to force a smile.

“What’s all this?” Gus asked, as they strolled over to the roses, the patio cold under her bare feet, arm in arm with Hannah.

“I suppose I just thought we were the same,” said Hannah. “Single. The kind of people who just don’t do that sort of thing. Dating. Sex.”

“I didn’t, for a long time,” admitted Gus. It wasn’t as though she’d forgottenChristopher in one night, or that she ever would. But she was now ready to restart this part of her life. She was ready to let herself feel.

“But now I think differently,” she said to Hannah. “I want something new. Besides, you’re the one who asked me if I met anyone at the retreat!”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I thought you should go off and get all serious.”

“Who says it’s serious?”

“I know you, Gus,” said Hannah. “Guest bedroom or not, you wouldn’t have had a man stay the night if you weren’t falling for him.”

“Shhh. Don’t want Oliver to hear.”

“Ha,” said Hannah, her lip trembling slightly. “From the way he was looking at you, I’m pretty sure the feeling is mutual.”

Gus felt a thrill run up her spine but, with great difficulty, managed to keep a solemn face to listen to Hannah. In spite of her new situation, she was genuinely concerned for her friend.

“I’m going to be all alone,” said Hannah. “At best the third wheel. And when you sit around making up pet names for each other, I’m going to have nothing to say. Because I’ve never even had a boyfriend. And all that might go along with that, if you know what I mean.”

“Baby steps, Hannah,” Gus said, rubbing her back. “You’ve only been out of the house a few weeks.”

And together they returned to the kitchen, where Oliver was placing rolls on a platter. He presented one, still warm, to Hannah, with a wink at Gus over her head.

“Do you like me again, Hannah?” he asked as she bit into the sugary glaze.

“Yeah,” she said, her mouth full. “You’re not half-bad, Oliver.”

But if Hannah reacted poorly to the news of her relationship with Oliver, Gus worried even more what Aimee and Sabrina might think. There’d been no point in talking about it with them before she knew how she felt about things, but now that she was certain she wanted to continue seeing Oliver, it was better to get it all out in the open. A family, as she had so often said to her daughters, should not have secrets.

“I am dating someone—and it’s Oliver,” she told her daughters, over the phone because she was—quite frankly—more than a little nervous.

“As in a
date
kind of date?” asked Aimee.

“Like a boyfriend?” asked Sabrina.

Gus had prepared a big speech, about no one taking Christopher’s place and being single for so long and the excitement she was feeling now. How she felt rejuvenated. Like she had felt when she was just out of Wellesley, in love, and eager to change the world. When anything seemed possible. But she decided that it wasn’t necessary to explain why she was doing what she was doing, or to rationalize her feelings. She could just let it be.

“I’m happy,” she said simply. “And I wanted you to know.”

“Well,” said Sabrina. “Then I guess that’s what matters. It’s still weird, though.”

“I like Oliver,” said Aimee. “Good choice, Mom.”

The four of them met later at a new Spanish restaurant on the Upper East Side, which was awkward for a few moments, until they all relaxed and realized they were the same people, just mixed around in a new configuration.They made a toast to Carmen, naturally, who had passed along Oliver’s name to Alan Holt, and to
Eat Drink and Be
. Ratings remained high, though the other Sunday night programs in Alan’s “smorgasbord of destination television” were also doing well, and they’d aired another successful episode since the July Fourth party, centering on using only local organic products from tristate farms within a hundred miles of Gus’s home. Eating locally was one food trend that Gus supported, thank you very much.

All in all they had just two more shows—including Sabrina’s early autumn wedding to Billy—and then they would finally know whether or not Alan was going to renew.

“To making it work,” Gus said. “To the future.”

28

Priya had been cooking for two days, and planning her menu for the four before that, visiting the Indian market to see what was fresh and to spark ideas. She had sent out a formal invitation to Hannah Joy Levine, askingher to be a very special guest at the Patel family table.

“I have not seen you so intent in a long time,” Raj said, clearly pleased, as she crushed cumin seeds.

“You just want to eat everything up,” she said, popping a piece of cucumberin his mouth.

“True,” he said, chewing eagerly. “But I am not just pleased to see you cooking. I am happy to see you so cheerful.”

And she was. Everything was different now, once she had taken Hannah’s articles in to her doctor and told him how she was feeling. A few blood tests and it was confirmed: Hannah Joy Levine could have been a doctor. Well, maybe not quite, seeing as she didn’t go to college. But she had read Priya correctly in guessing at a slow thyroid gland, and in doing so had brought joy back into her life. Even to the parts of her life with Raj where’d she have definitely told someone to MYOB. No more did Priya find herself awash in fatigue, or wanting to cry for no reason. In time, her doctor had said, her hair might not be so thin and her eyebrows might fill in on their own. It was all so simple when you saw it from the other side.

She would never have guessed at how quickly the medicine made a differencein just a few weeks. One afternoon, watching another repeat of Gus’s old show
Cooking with Gusto!,
as Kiran played Chutes and Ladders with Bina nearby, she noticed—as though for the very first time—the light that came in through the window and shone on the wood floor. It looked so inviting that she went over and stood in the warmth, closing her eyes and imagining all the negative energies melting away. And when she looked up again and saw her house, she could see that it was a very happy home indeed.

The meal she was preparing for Hannah was a traditional
thali
, a multi-itemplatter consisting of
bhaat, farsan
, dal, curry, veggies, sweet and sour pickles,
raita
, chutney, with plenty of
roti
wheat bread. And, because she knew how much her new friend enjoyed sweets, she made plenty of those Indian delicacies as well, plus a large tub of good old-fashioned American-stylevanilla ice cream over which she planned to drizzle chocolate sauce after mixing in an assortment of chocolate chips, peanuts, coconut flakes, and every candy she could think to include.

The children had been enlisted to clean their rooms—it didn’t matter that Hannah might not see them—and Raj had pitched in by getting a new flat-screen television so they could all watch the U.S. Open after dinner. If Hannah wanted to. If she was up for it.

Her buddy Troy was coming for dinner as well, since Hannah insisted on driving to New Jersey in her red car and had only a learner’s permit. Not even Gus would ride in the car with her, Hannah had explained when she RSVP’d and asked if she could bring a plus-one. (“A plus what?” Priya had asked.) But of course it was more than fine. One person made it a party, but two guests made it an occasion.

Gus met with Porter, Oliver, and Carmen two days after Labor Day to plan the last episodes of
Eat Drink and Be
. The wedding episode was the simplest to organize, even though it had been extended to ninety minutes, because the majority of the food was being made ahead of time and catered by a chef friend of Gus’s.

“I’m the mother of the bride,” she said. “I’ll have enough stresses walking her down the aisle.” Everyone had agreed that only a handful of easy hors d’oeuvres would be prepared by the team on air in the first fifty minutes, followedby a brief ceremony and then several minutes of the reception.

“Everybody loves a wedding,” said Porter. “The SaTroy fans are up in arms over this development—been writing in to the message boards withoutceasing—and we’re generating quite a lot of buzz. Yet again.”

“This has been quite a show, Porter,” said Gus.

“It’s been the best thing you’ve ever done. And a damn fine first turn at bat, Carmen.”

“Which leaves us with the second-to-last episode,” said Oliver. “We’ve done octopus, brunch, veggie, grilling, local foods, and we’ll finish with the wedding. But how do we sum it all up?”

“How about our favorite dishes from childhood?” Carmen said. “Wasn’t that what we were supposed to learn at our retreat—finding our outer child?”

“
Inner
child, yeah,” said Porter. “That seems good.”

“How about we call them family favorites,” Gus said. “We can come up with one item for everyone who’s appeared on the show.”

“That’s pretty ambitious,” said Oliver. “I don’t know if we can squeeze it in.”

“Let’s try—we’ll just show a few quick tips from each,” she said. “For example, when I was young, my grandmother always made the most delicioushomemade buns. I don’t think we could show everyone how to make bread and do all the other stuff we have to do, but I could talk about it and show the finished product.”

“And since it’s fall, we can work in a bit of a harvest theme,” suggested Oliver. “Like a fruit crisp using pears and apples in recognition of Troy’s family.”

“And I love meat loaf,” said Porter. “We never make any good old-fashionedmeat loaf on this channel.”

“What’ll be our Spanish touch?” sniffed Carmen. “I want to recognize what matters to me, as well.”

“If octopus is your family favorite, then just tell us and by all means bring it in,” said Gus. “This show is going to be for everyone.”

Gus went directly from her meeting to Bar 44 at the Royalton. There, she found Sabrina and Billy eagerly awaiting her arrival. She’d been surprised, as she had spent more time with her daughter and her fiancé, at how simpatico they were, and how Billy seemed able to read Sabrina’s moods quite well. He still looked like a Ken doll, with his conventionally handsome features, but there was clearly much more to him than that. Billy was, in fact, a very sensitive, caring man.

“We’ve just had a big talk about the food for the wedding,” she told them now. “Lobster, and filet, and shrimp, and even a bit of truffle.”

“Thank you, Gus,” said Billy. “I’m completely overwhelmed. I know we had a rocky start but I am thrilled to become a part of your family.”

“Well, that’s good because if the season doesn’t get picked up, I could be looking for a new home,” she said, laughing.

“You’re always welcome with us,” he said.

They shared a good bottle of cabernet as Sabrina proudly showed them the dress she had picked out for Aimee, her maid of honor, and the bow ties she planned to force upon Salt and Pepper.

“I’ve an idea,” Gus said. “Aimee knows we’re doing wedding stuff but why don’t I ask her to join us for dinner?”

“Perfect,” said Billy. “I completely want to talk to her about an article I read about cassava production in Central Africa. She’s great to talk to.”

“Blah blah blah,” said Sabrina. “The two of you can be so boring sometimes.”

Gus held up her hand. “Wait, she’s answering,” she said, before asking Aimee to meet them. There was a long pause on the other end of the line.

“I’d love to, Mom, but I have plans.”

“Tell her to turn off her game shows and come on down,” piped up Sabrina, directing her comments toward the phone.

“Oh?” asked Gus. “What sort of plans?”

“I’ve met someone,” said Aimee. “And that’s all I’m going to say about that.”

A slew of questions popped into Gus’s brain: she had to know more, more, more. But she stopped herself. She was learning.

“Okay,” she said. “I can’t wait to hear all about it when you’re ready.”

It was getting rather late when Carmen returned to the test kitchen at the studio. Oliver was there, putting together some of the dishes for the next episode. He was just straightening up after placing a pan in the oven when Carmen came up and put her arms around him.