Tender at the Bone (30 page)

I met the Superstar the same week as Mr. Izzy T, but that was no accident. We had friends who had friends who knew Andy Warhol and when they asked if we wanted to come to a party at The Factory we were ecstatic.

Doug was ready to go at once but Pat and I had to dress. I put on a short, low-cut red dress, green tights, and high heels; if my long dark hair had been green I would have looked exactly like a poppy. Still, I was no competition for Pat, who could turn heads dressed in blue jeans. She was six feet tall, with the strong face and sturdy body of those Greek goddesses on the Acropolis. She was so striking and athletic that people always whispered, “Is that a man or a woman?” when she strode past. She enjoyed wearing exaggerated clothing to confuse them.

For this night she donned one of her more fantastic outfits; Andy Warhol was her idol. In the espadrilles she had made out of number ten cans she was almost seven feet tall and she was wearing part of the “New York Woman” series she was designing for a show at the Museum of Contemporary Crafts. This one, a parody of a model, had mouths where the breasts should have been and bracelets made of $100 bills (they weren’t real). Her earrings were fishing lures and her fake eyelashes stuck out six inches. “You look fabulous!” squeaked the Superstar, who was standing by the door when we walked in. “Who are you?” She swept Pat off to the other end of the room.

The huge loft was filled with sweet smoke and people we didn’t know. Doug and I stood there self-consciously; it was awkward and not that much fun. But Andy Warhol was an Important Artist and there were a lot of famous people in the room. We were proud of ourselves for being there; it was why we had come to New York.

I could have stayed all night, but Doug had a limited tolerance for a roomful of strangers. We were getting ready to leave when Pat came up to me looking flushed and happy. “You have to invite Jerry to dinner,” she pleaded. “She’s a Superstar. And you have to
cook something really great. She says Andy is looking for someone to do the costumes for his next movie. And she says she’ll introduce me!”

Jerry walked into the loft and looked curiously around the space. She examined the kitchen shelves, which did not disguise the fact that they were built from wood scavenged from discarded industrial pallets and the oversized picnic table. She looked at the homemade sofa. She ran her hands across the decals we had plastered onto the refrigerator and most of the surfaces in the kitchen. She peered into the pots I was stirring. “You’re all SO creative,” she moaned, bending her head over the gas until I was afraid her black curls would burst into flames.

I was making the gougère I had learned from Mrs. Peavey. It emerged from the oven looking fat and puffy and the Superstar took some down to the end of the loft where Pat was sitting at her sewing machine. She looked at Pat’s costumes; “I love them,” she squealed. “I know Andy will too!” And then she headed back to the kitchen for another piece of gougère. On the way she glanced at Doug’s sculpture.

Abstract forms didn’t interest her, but men did. She looked appreciatively at Doug’s back and asked, “Did he marry you because you cook so good?”

I didn’t know what to say.

“I bet you cooked and cooked for him until he finally popped the question,” she prompted. “Men really like women who can cook,” she continued wistfully. “I wish I knew how.”

She stood watching as I washed lettuce, standing a little too close for comfort. When I moved back, she moved with me. “I bet my boyfriend, Rick, would be impressed if I could cook,” she said.

I didn’t say anything. She didn’t leave. I heard Pat’s sewing machine start up. Doug turned on the band saw. I bent down to remove
the pie from the oven. The Superstar examined the high, snowy topping as if it were an alien creature and squealed, “Oooh, what’s that?” so loudly I almost dropped the pie.

“Lemon meringue,” I said.

“It’s gorgeous!” she breathed. “Can you teach me to make it? Rick loves lemon meringue pie.”

I looked at her dubiously. “Maybe we should start with something easier,” I said.

“Fine,” she said. I realized, to my horror, that I had just agreed to give her cooking lessons.

“Can you believe it?” I asked Mr. Izzy T on my next visit. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Don’t worry, doll, you can do it,” he said. “But I tell you what. Why don’t you go over to Ludlow Street and ask the fishman for a recipe? Every girl should know how to make gefilte fish. You should see the fancy ladies who come there on Friday!”

It was true: on Friday mornings the street in front of the dingy basement fish store was filled with limousines.

“Go in,” urged Mr. Izzy T. “You could learn something.”

That Friday I followed a sleek mink coat through the door. And almost gagged: it was gruesome. The fish markets I knew were pristine places with clean white tiles and pretty piles of lemons. This was an airless hole where the fishmen wore aprons encrusted with blood. They looked like butchers to me—whoever thought that fish could bleed so much? The men stood there, chopping the heads off fish as the women in fur haggled horribly, as if it would be dishonorable to pay a penny more than necessary. It was positively medieval.

I stood there for a while, just watching. When it was my turn I asked for a couple pounds of fish mix. The man scratched his stubbly chin, weighed the mixture out on a rusty hanging scale, wrapped it in white paper, and handed it over. “What do I do with it?” I asked.

He turned to one of the fur coats. “Hey, Essie,” he said, “this
madel
wants a recipe. Can you help her?”

Essie was a short plump woman with bright orange hair and high color. She nudged me with her elbow and said, “A little gefilte fish never hurt a relationship.” And then she actually winked. “I’m going to Streit’s matzos,” she said. “Come in my car and I’ll give you the recipe. You got a pencil?”

I had a pencil. The chauffeur opened the door. “Such a neighborhood,” said Essie as the car snuffled east. She pointed out Mr. Izzy T’s store. “A great artist,” she said. “You need a quilt, you can’t do better. But so slow! To get a quilt for my daughter’s birthday I had to yell so much I almost had a heart attack. And so opinionated! I wanted a blue quilt for my Rachel; it’s a good Yiddische color. He says it should be green. The arguments!” She sighed happily at the memory.

“Now,” she said, “the recipe. Remember, the fish is just a start, you need the matzo too.” She finished dictating just as the Cadillac pulled up in front of the factory.

The small, hot building was filled with men wearing long black coats and yarmulkes as they pulled the flat squares off the conveyor belt. “Two pounds,” said Essie, pulling off her gloves. “And see that they’re warm. I didn’t schlep down here to buy stale!” She stuck her chin in my direction and said, “Her too. She wants fifty cents worth.” And then she reached out her hand and touched my matzos, just to make sure I wasn’t being cheated.

I made the gefilte fish the second time the Superstar came for dinner; I thought it would impress her. She thought it was icky. So did Doug and Pat. To be honest, I’ve never been a big fan of gefilte fish myself.

“So, maybe you try Italian?” suggested Mr. Izzy T the next time that I saw him. “There’s that Italian butcher over on Mott Street. His
meat isn’t kosher, but it won’t kill you. Maybe he could give you something to teach your girlfriend.”

“She’s not my friend,” I insisted. “I don’t even like her.”

He just shrugged.

After the gefilte fish debacle I was not prepared to take Mr. Izzy T’s advice on neighborhood purveyors. Still, one day as I passed I looked in the door. The shop was clean and bright and the butcher was dressed in a spotless apron. The meat case was filled with great coils of herb-flecked sausages and the lamb chops were gussied up in those little frilled panties. It was irresistible.

“Sit down, sit down,” said the butcher. “Joseph Bergamini. What could I do for you?”

“I need some lamb shoulder,” I said. He carefully selected a piece of meat and held it up.

“This do?” he asked.

I nodded.

“How much?”

“Two pounds,” I said. “And could you cube it?”

“Stew?” he asked.

I nodded.

“You don’t need no shoulder for stew,” he scoffed. He replaced the meat in the case and took out some lamb necks. He weighed them out, wrote down the price on a piece of paper, and began meticulously separating the meat from the bones.

“Much cheaper this way,” he said.

“But it’s so much work,” I protested.

“Whaddya think I’m here for?” he asked. And then he began expounding his political theories. “Did you know,” he said, pointing the thin boning knife at me, “that if every manufacturer installed a fifteen-dollar device in their plants the air would be clean? We could do away with pollution. They’re killing us for fifteen dollars! The cheap bastards!”

On subsequent visits he worked his way through his theories and the meat case, offering me suggestions for fixing the world and making cheap meals. “You ever try cooking veal breast?” he asked. I hadn’t. “Got a pencil?”

I made the veal breast the night the Superstar came for her first lesson. While it cooked, filling the loft with the good smell of herbs, onions, and garlic, she and I got down to work.

It wasn’t easy.

“You wouldn’t believe it!” I railed to Mr. Izzy T. “She wanted to know what the bubbles were when the water began to boil.”

He laughed gently and I went on. “She stood there watching for so long that her makeup started melting off! By the time I had taught her how to cook pasta, drain it in a colander, and make a simple sauce of tomatoes, basil, and onion, her curls had gone straight and mascara was running down her cheeks.”

“Look, doll,” he said, “if you can teach that girl to cook you should write a book.”

“Yeah,” I said sarcastically.

“Really,” he said. “Think about it.”