Kitchen Chaos (22 page)

My mother parks outside of Frankie's house so we can all walk together to school. When the Caputos (all of them) and I go out to meet her, Frankie's mom wraps her arms around Mama in a big hug. My mother is not a hugger, but not to accept one would be disrespectful, so she hugs back. I have to force myself not to laugh as I watch her smile politely and awkwardly pat Mrs. Caputo—er, Theresa, as she just told me to call her—on the back.

The big bowl my mother is carrying makes the hug even more awkward. It's covered in aluminum foil, and I realize that in my frenzy to get over to Frankie's to help fix the disaster, I didn't even bother to ask what she was making. And now she refuses to tell me what's in the bowl. I could probably figure it out just from the “aroma”—one of Chef Antonio's favorite words—but I think my nostrils might be permanently seared with the smells of smoke and whatever those chemicals are in fire extinguishers.

When we reach Clinton Middle School's big red doors, there's a crowd of seventh graders and their families already filing in, but Liza's nowhere to be seen. I look at Frankie, wondering if we're thinking the same thing: Is Liza going to be late because Cole's babysitter bailed again at the last minute? Is her mom even going to make it? Frankie bites her lip, and I can tell she's worried too. We enter the building with all of the other kids and parents, and we're carried along by the current of bodies like a school of fish, up the flight of stairs
and out into the sea of the social studies corridor.

Frankie and I lead our mothers to the potluck area first and settle them in next to each other at one of the tables. Still no sign of Liza and her mom. Mr. McEnroe's here, though, and Frankie immediately turns to him and flashes one of her movie-star smiles. “Good evening, Francesca!” I hear him say in his super-enthusiastic way. “And this must be your mother! I hear the two of you are becoming professional chefs. Can't wait to taste whatever you've got there.” Frankie and her mom exchange a look and then burst out laughing. Mr. Mac looks totally confused, but he chuckles with them anyway, just to be polite.

As Frankie's brothers scatter off somewhere, we leave our mothers to chat with the other parents and head to our table to set up our display. As soon as we get there, we both sigh with relief. Liza is waiting for us, along with her mom, who's already poking around another group's exhibit. I don't see Cole anywhere,
so it looks like their sitter came through. Frankie and Liza look at each other for a long time. I'm not sure what's been going on between them, but I suspect Frankie was annoyed that Liza wasn't there to help come up with our Plan C this afternoon. For once, I don't feel like the odd one out.

Whatever was up, it looks like they're over it now. First they practically fall into each other's arms in a massive hug, and then they start dancing around and doing that crazy handshake thing. They twist up their arms, snap in sync, high-five, fist-bump, sing
“holla”
 . . . and then they do something new. Something totally unexpected. They each reach out one arm and pull me over into a huddle—a big, three-girl hug. “When Museum Night is over, we'll have to teach you the handshake too,” Frankie says. Liza squeezes my hand. I picture Sierra and my cousin Chloe; I still miss them like crazy, but right now all I can think about is how much I can't wait to tell them about my new friends.

Liza and Frankie arrange the papier-mâché food, prop up our mounted reports, and set up an iPad running our edited demonstration clips from the cooking class videos while I get the dioramas all ready. My tiny food really did come out well, and I had so much fun making it. Maybe I'll be a sculptor someday instead of an illustrator or graphic designer. Or, who knows? Maybe I'll be a baker. I was pretty proud of those sourdough rolls, and Frankie's right—these miniature bagels with their almost-microscopic poppy and sesame seeds do look almost real.

Liza is blown away by the waffle cones—especially when she finds out that Frankie's mom was in charge of the waffle iron. She gives us both another hug and apologizes for not being there to make them with us, even though it's not her fault she has to help out with her brother so much. I tell her that at least she made it here, along with her mom, which is really all that matters.

Speaking of mothers, once we're all set up and Frankie and Liza have started scooping ice cream, I go out to the hallway to check on mine. My nostrils must be healing, because it smells incredible out here, and seeing all of this food in one place makes my stomach growl. I realize that it's dinnertime, and with everything that happened today, I haven't eaten anything since lunch, which is at 11:35 for seventh graders. That was a long time ago.

I navigate through the crowd to the table where we left my mother and Theresa. Along the way I notice some of the dishes: Stella Tanaka's dad is there with homemade sushi rolls; a woman who must be Gabriella Perez's grandmother brought tamales that look as good as the ones at the Mexican food truck Sierra and I used to stop at after school; and Alex Vilenchitz's mother made something that looks like pierogi, even though Chef Antonio told us those are from Poland and Alex is Russian.

I find my mother perched over her bowl with
a large spoon in one hand and a chopstick in the other. Now that the bowl is free of its foil, I can see that what she's shoveling out is some kind of noodle dish. The fact that each bite requires lots of slurping tells me she's made longevity noodles—only there's something a bit different about them than usual.

When the crowd around the table finally thins out, I grab a plate and hold it out to my mother. “
Chang shou mian?”
I ask.

She nods.

“It looks funny.”

Mama scoops up some noodles and plops them onto my plate, using the chopstick to prevent them from sliding back into the bowl. “Yes, but how does it taste?”

I unwrap a fresh pair of chopsticks from a box on the table and take a bite. It's definitely not my mother's go-to
chang shou mian
, but the flavor is familiar. I take another bite, and suddenly it comes to me where I've tasted this before.

“This is Chef Antonio's recipe!”

My mother smiles slyly, then puts her finger to her lips. “Shhh.”

“But you said his recipe wasn't ‘authentic.' ”

“It isn't,” she says. “The spices are different—mostly Chinese, but also a little bit American.” She leans in closer. “Just like
you
.”

I smile—not a dutiful-daughter smile, but a smile full of genuine warmth and gratitude.

My mother shrugs. “And Chef Antonio's
chang shou mian
tastes good, don't you think?”

I nod.
“Hĕn hăo.”
Very good.

I'm about to head back to our exhibit when I feel my mother's hand on my arm.

“I almost forgot,” she says, taking three fist-size balls of aluminum foil out of a Ziploc bag and placing them on the table next to the bowl of noodles. “I brought these, too.” She unwraps the foil and arranges the three surviving sourdough rolls in a perfect triangle. Yesterday, after we finished baking them,
Liza and Frankie let me take a few home since they reminded me so much of, well, home.

“The Wong family came from China like
chang shou mian
,” Mama says, pointing to the pile of noodles on my plate. “But
our
family is from San Francisco, too.” My mother tears a piece off one of the rolls, dips it into the sauce on my plate, and takes a bite. She passes the roll to me, and I do the same. It's a strange combination of flavors that you'd never expect to go together, but somehow, it works. Just like us.

It's kind of incredible, isn't it—how you can feel like the whole world is against you one minute, and then that you are exactly where you're meant to be the next? Even before the Sourdough Incident, I was seriously dreading the whole Immigration Museum thing. Between six weeks of trying to convince Frankie to play nice with Lillian and my dad canceling his trip at the last minute, I was totally over our project. We'd worked really hard, so I pretended to be
excited for the sake of our “team,” but when Frankie told me about her mom and brothers totaling our rolls, I pretty much gave up.

Before tonight, the only good things about the last thirty-six hours were baking at the studio with Frankie, Lillian, and Chef Antonio and watching my mom make her pecan pie for the first time since Dad moved away. Even though some of the thickest branches on the family tree hanging over her desk are crocheted with the names of ancestors back in Africa, according to Mom, everything they brought with them was lost when they stepped off the slave ships. She says that her “roots” are in Georgia, where she grew up, and that pecan pie is a traditional food in her family, no matter who invented it.

My mom claims the secret to her recipe is that she buys the pecans raw and toasts them herself. In my mind I can play back memories of her in the kitchen like an episode of a cooking show made just for me: watching her slide a sheet of freshly toasted pecans
out of the oven, chop them once they've cooled with her favorite knife, and add them to the gooey mixture of Karo syrup, sugar, butter, and eggs—with a splash of Grandad's favorite bourbon. Seeing my mom take the dusty old Reynolds family cookbook off the shelf for the first time in ages and burst open a bag of fresh pecans was like discovering a DVD you didn't even realize you were missing and pressing the play button. And the way Cole looked at Mom as she moved around the kitchen—singing to herself the way she always used to—like she was an exotic animal at the Prospect Park Zoo, made me want to share my special show with him too.

When I told my mom about our ruined rolls, she said I should go straight over to the Caputos and not to worry about watching Cole. She could keep an eye on him while she baked, and if he got to be a handful, well, showing up to the potluck with a store-bought pie wouldn't be the end of the world. Not the end of hers, maybe, but right at that moment, not having my
mom's homemade pecan pie felt pretty close to the End Times. Frankie was on her own for this one. So I lied to my best friend for the first time ever, scooped up my brother, and pulled two stools up to the breakfast bar so that together we could watch Mom work her magic on piecrust and pecans.

By the time the pie was ready, our apartment smelled like Christmas and my mom had changed into a black wraparound dress. She even took the time to touch up her makeup. When Cammy showed up to watch Cole five minutes early, I was actually starting to get excited about the social studies museum. I still hadn't forgiven my dad for choosing a meeting over me, but I was beginning to realize that even without him, I'll always be part of a family. The three of us—Mom, Cole, and me—might not be perfect, but most of the time we're good enough.

It turns out being a group of three is good enough for Frankie too. When she and Lillian walked into the exhibit room, dragging all of our stuff, you would
have thought they were BFFs. One of them would start telling a story about Nicky and his paper airplane or describing the taste of fire extinguisher foam, and the other would finish the sentence. If I didn't know them, I'd think they've been friends for two years, instead of two hours. Part of me wishes I'd gone over to help this afternoon after all, so I would know what actually happened that finally brought Frankie and Lillian together. So far all they do when I ask for more details is look at each other and crack up. I guess you had to be there.

Whatever went down at Casa Caputo, Lillian and Frankie—along with Theresa, Nicky, and The Goons—totally killed it with the waffle cones and endless supply of ice cream. Everyone seems impressed with the other parts of our project, too—especially all of the historic details Frankie made sure we included in the dioramas and Lillian's miniature food—but I'm pretty sure our exhibit is so popular because we're the only ones giving out
sweets. Mr. McEnroe has been back to “assess” our project three times already, but I've noticed he's less interested in reading the long historical essays on our posters than sampling the different flavors of ice cream.