Tender at the Bone (12 page)

“Let’s do something!” said Bobby.

We were coming down from all the alcohol. For once nobody was sick. Two years earlier we would have played tag or spin the bottle and two years later we would be smoking dope. But here it was, eleven o’clock on a Friday night and none of us knew what to do. I put on some records but nobody had enough energy for the Shirelles. And so I said the first thing that came into my head: “Let’s bake a cake!”

“Ah, Home Economics,” said Bobby and I immediately felt ridiculous. It was such a Bobbsey Twins sort of idea. My friends were way too cool to cook. Tommy would think I was a jerk.

“Chocolate!” said Linda. “Let’s bake a great big chocolate cake and then eat it all!”

“With that fluffy white frosting,” said Julie. “You know, the kind that looks like snow?”

Tommy and Bill were still talking about cars, but they seemed to think a cake was a good idea. “Imagine Miss Hill walking in now,” said Bobby. Our least favorite teacher had once actually called my mother to warn her that Julie was a bad influence on me, that I was hanging around with what she called “greasers.” But of course my mother wasn’t home, and so it was not she who replied, in her deepest voice, “Thank you so much, Mrs. Hill, I can’t tell you how grateful I am for your interest in my child.”

Tommy was so near I could smell the mixture of cigarettes, soap, English Leather, and motorcycle oil that clung to him. I squeezed my eyes shut, hard, and prayed, “Make him like me.” I needed a drink. “Who wants a Seven-and-Seven?” I asked.

“I’ll make a pitcher,” said Linda, going for the ice cubes.

I began to sift flour for the cake and Bobby put on an apron. I felt someone come up behind me and the smell of English Leather became more intense. “You smell like sugar and butter,” said Tommy. I could hardly believe it. Me? Suddenly I felt bold and beautiful. I dabbed a little vanilla behind my ears.

“Like my perfume?” I asked. His breath came closer and he nuzzled my neck. “Mmmm,” he whispered, “delicious.”

“Tommy’s doing the cakewalk,” said Bobby.

“You just keep creaming that butter,” said Linda, and everybody burst out laughing.

By midnight I was drunk again. Tommy kept watching me and every once in a while he came close and accidentally brushed against my breasts. They felt as if they were on fire. “This is how I imagined chemistry class would be,” I blurted out.

“Oh yes,” said Linda. “Mr. Allston’s night chemistry for wayward teenagers. It’s a special class; who wants to lick the bowl?”

Julie had stopped crying. The kitchen was a mess. Flour was whirling in the air. Tommy helped me pour the batter into the greased pans and after we put the cake into the oven he pulled me out to the living room, put on some slow music, and we danced. The bell kept ringing and other kids kept coming in the door, but I was oblivious to everything but the feel of his body against mine. He started kissing me, slowly, and I inhaled his scent, thinking how nice he was.

“The cake!” I cried suddenly, but he didn’t stop. “Don’t worry,” he said, “someone else will take it out of the oven.” I imagined black smoke pouring out of the kitchen, the house burning down. I didn’t care. It was my first kiss. Tommy maneuvered me over to
the sofa and we lay down together, gently. I snuggled up against him. For a brief moment I wondered what it would be like to be married to a mechanic. And then I fell asleep.

Nothing terrible had happened. The throbbing in my head abated a bit. Then I looked at the living room and panicked. My mother would go crazy if she came in now.

Tommy watched my face and rubbed my cheek gently. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Make some coffee. I’ll get everybody up.”

“Forget the coffee,” I said, “we’ve got to get these glasses and ashtrays out of here. It smells like a brewery. Let’s open the windows and air the place out.”

“Well, that will wake people up,” he said reasonably. As he began throwing the windows open I went from room to room, discovering one disaster after another.

Julie and Bill were in my parents’ bed. I averted my eyes as I implored them to wake up. Bill was snoring, but Julie took one look at the sun in the sky and jumped out of bed. She had nothing on. “I’ll get him up,” she said, “don’t worry. We’ll get this room cleaned up.”

Gloria and Troy were in my bed; I didn’t want to know what they were wearing. Or what they weren’t. Linda and Bobby were in separate twin beds in the guest room. “Oh my God,” said Linda, “I passed out. I told my parents I was going to Gloria’s and she told her parents she was coming to my house. I’ll be grounded until I’m a hundred!”

She began pulling up sheets and picking up ashtrays. She shook Bobby. “Get those guys in the living room out of here,” she ordered.

The oven was still on in the kitchen but at least someone had thought to take the cake out. It sat on the counter, still in the pan, looking wrinkled, brown and uninviting. The room was a
shambles, cracked eggshells on the floor and cigarettes snuffed out in the middle of plates. I was frantic, darting from one mess to the other.

Tommy came into the room carrying a garbage bag. “Calm down,” he said soothingly, “I got everybody up. They all look decent.” He peered at me and added, “Maybe you’d like to go, you know, sort of splash some water on your face? Just in case your parents come in?”

I went to the kitchen sink. “No,” he said, pushing me toward the bathroom. “You need a mirror.” He was right. I went upstairs to put on a clean shirt and each step reverberated through my body, hitting my head like an upside-down hammer.

But when I got downstairs Tommy had organized everything. “It’s all figured out,” he said. “First we clean up all the booze and cigarettes and throw them in the cars. We make the beds. Then we pile all the dirty dishes onto the dining-room table as if we’ve just had breakfast.”

“Brilliant,” said Linda. “Why on earth would we all come over here at six in the morning for breakfast?”

“What if we had an early morning science project?” said Tommy. “You know, calculating the effect of the rising sun on birds or something?”

Linda turned to me. “Are your parents going to believe that?” she asked. “Mine would never fall for such a stupid story.”

Mine, I knew, would. My mother would be pleased that I had made so many friends in my new school, even if they weren’t the right sort. She’d think it was a sign that I was well adjusted.

“Maybe we won’t have to use the story,” said Tommy. “Maybe we’ll get everything cleaned up and everyone out of here before they come home. It’s just a contingency plan.”

“Ooh,” said Linda, “big word!”

Tommy didn’t even answer. He looked down at me from his six foot three inches and asked, “You got any oranges?” I nodded.
“Make some orange juice,” he said. “Coffee and orange juice smells so innocent.”

Nothing is sexier than a competent man: I was in love. Then Tommy put his arms around me and whispered, “While you’re at it, do you think you could, you know, sort of ice that cake?”

And that is how my parents found me at 6:30 in the morning. Up to my elbows in coffee grounds and orange rinds, making seven-minute frosting. My friends were innocently sitting around the dining-room table and if some of them were breathing as if they had just run a race, my parents didn’t notice.

“Oh,” said my mother brightly, “how nice. You’ve made matzo brei for your friends. I’m so glad you’re not lonely.”

THE TART

Right after Christmas, Tommy enlisted in the navy. I cried when he left and wore the miniature silver ring he sent around my neck. But neither that nor his misspelled letters were a satisfactory substitute for his presence, and I started drinking in earnest. My parents were away most of the time and now that Tommy was gone the American high school experiment was not much fun. I couldn’t wait to go to college.

I threw myself into the applications. My mother was pushing for the Ivy League but I wanted to get out of New England, to get as far as I could from the person I had become. I wanted to be in a place where nobody knew me. I wanted to start all over again.

I applied to the University of Michigan because there was no fee and no essay. When I was accepted three weeks later I realized it would be perfect: tabula rasa, I had never even visited the state.

In the meantime, though, there was the summer to get through. I applied for a job at the local Dairy Queen, but my mother had
other ideas. She came home one weekend and handed me a ticket. “We’re going to Europe!” she said brightly.

Oh great! All of a sudden she wanted to spend time with me. “I can’t,” I hedged. “I have to make some money for college. It was your idea.”

“You can work over there,” she said. “I have it all figured out.”

Unfortunately, she did. My mother had discovered the wonderful world of working abroad, and she was going to write a book about it. She had even wheedled an advance out of a gullible publisher. Mom had thought of everything: while she stayed in Paris interviewing young Americans, I would be a counselor in a camp on a small island off the Atlantic coast of France. She had thoughtfully arranged it all. I was stuck.

“I wonder if it is a good idea that you take that sort of a job,” Béatrice wrote. “In America working in a camp is ideal and I might do it myself in a year or two. But I’m afraid things are rather different here. Secretaries and shopkeepers become counselors because they want a free vacation. You won’t have anyone to be friends with.”

Béatrice was even more skeptical when she learned that I would be working in a
“colonie sanitaire”
on the Île d’Oléron. Health camps were a sort of rural version of the Police Athletic League, places where poor French children were sent for a free month in the country. “Think of the food!” she wrote. “You’ll starve.”

She was wrong about everything.

OLÉRON BERRY TART
PASTRY

1½ cups sifted flour

¼ cup sugar

¼ pound sweet butter

2 tablespoons cream

1 egg yolk

Put flour and sugar into a bowl. Cut the butter into small squares and add to flour-sugar mixture. Toss with your fingers until butter is coated with flour, and then rub until the mixture resembles cornmeal
.

Add cream to egg yolk and pour into flour mixture. Mix lightly with a fork until pastry holds together in a small ball. If not moist enough, add a tablespoon or so of water to bring it together
.

Sprinkle flour across a counter and place pastry on flour. Push the dough with the heel of your hand until it has all been worked through. Gather into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap, and let rest in refrigerator 3 hours
.

Remove and allow to warm for about 10 minutes. Sprinkle more flour onto counter. Flatten ball into a disk and roll out into an 11-inch circle. Fit gently into 8- or 9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom. Press into pan gently, being careful not to stretch the dough; trim off edges, and put into freezer for 10 minutes until firm
.

Preheat oven to 350°. Line tart shell with aluminum foil and fill with dried beans. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove aluminum foil and beans and cook 4–5 minutes more, until golden
.