The Secret Ingredient (15 page)

I sauté the shallots, retrieve the chicken, and put it all in the wok. The recipe calls for a large saucepan, but if
they’d had woks back then, that’s what they would have used. The kitchen smells really good. I start to boil water and measure the rice.…

They are in there for a long time, and Eloise can only hear muffled voices. She goes into the spare bedroom and gathers her things. She can’t get her toiletries, at least not right now. She goes outside and climbs into her pale blue T-Bird. She drives away and tries not to look back
.

Lola arrives in a flurry, and we sit down at the table. The fricassee is pretty darn good. As we eat it, I tell her more about my musings regarding Eloise. Lola seems intrigued but also looks at me a little funny.

“I just picture these two strong girls, against all odds, taking the risk of their lives,” I say a bit defensively.

“Well, Livie, I wouldn’t get too carried away. After all, Eloise could’ve been a dog.”

In my dream, Jane Armont is wearing a flowing blue dress. She is preparing dinner for a group of children. She gathers them all around a large table and starts serving them spaghetti. I come to the door with Hank by my side. There is no room at the table. I try to speak, but it sounds more like moaning, and she just shakes her head slowly.

When I wake up, it’s two a.m. and my forehead is sweaty. I go to the bathroom to get a towel and notice that the door to the Dads’ room is open and Bell is not inside. Where would he be at two in the morning? I wash my face, then tiptoe downstairs. He’s in the big blue chair, just sitting there.

“Dad, are you okay?”

He looks over at me, and the only way I can describe his face is deflated.

“Are we losing the restaurant
and
the house?” I ask.

“No. Well, I don’t think so. But something has to happen.”

“Well, what about all your friends? People love you. Everyone loves you. As a matter of fact, I’ve never met anyone who didn’t love you.”

“What about Ms. Birnbaum?”

He’s right. My fourth-grade teacher was a homophobic nightmare.

“Okay, but that’s it.”

“Pretty good track record?”

“Yes. Maybe everyone can chip in or something. Like at the end of
It’s a Wonderful Life
.”

“Ah, I’m not exactly Jimmy Stewart. Am I at the end of my movie?”

I don’t have the heart to inquire about the card from the bank people, and I don’t know if Bell wants the answer to this question to be yes or no, so I decide to go ahead and distract him with my own news.

“Well, something happened to me, and I guess I have no one to tell. I mean, there’s Lola, but her mom has cancer, and she’s already been so great helping me with … other stuff, so there hasn’t been a right time.”

“Oh, Ollie, that’s horrible. How is she holding up?”

“Well, you know Lola.”

“Yes, I do. She’ll be okay. But it won’t be easy.” Then Bell’s thoughts seem to turn back to our family. “Maybe we should run away and join the circus.”

“We wouldn’t have to audition. We could just say, ‘Look at our life!’ ”

Bell laughs, and the sound of it gives me comfort.

I look him right in the eye and say, “Theo and I, well, we … I know it’s supposed to be a big deal, but it wasn’t for me.”

“You mean …”

“Yes.”

I know it’s weird to tell your father that you’re not a virgin, but what can I say? Bell is my father, but as I mentioned, he’s also like a friend.

He bends over and hugs me, and I can tell he’s swallowing his emotion.

“I hope those are happy tears,” I say.

“I’m happy for you.”

“Thanks.”

“Well, I assume you used …”

“Protection?
Yes
, Dad. Of course.”

“Whew.”

I take him into the kitchen and fix him some toast with butter and sprinkled sea salt, placing it on a paper towel in front of him, along with some of the leftover fricassee I made for Lola. He eats it like it’s his last meal.

“So, Jeremy’s big showcase is tomorrow—well, technically tonight,” I say.

“I know. I’ve got some of the staff going.”

Light starts coming in from the kitchen window, and it gives the room a magical, predawn glow.

I go back upstairs and lie down. I wonder if Rose told her mother when she first did it. Was Kurt her only one? When we finished, Theo fell asleep against me, and he made this soft purring noise, and I nestled against him. It was crazy adorable. What I love about Theo is he’s such a gentleman. Which is how I picture Kurt …

Rose comes out of the bedroom and can tell Eloise is gone. She tells Kurt that Eloise is troubled, has been staying for a while. She feels okay about omitting some of the truth. They found some sort of domestic bliss, but they weren’t really lovers. Eloise wanted more; Rose just couldn’t do it. Yes, there was the kiss after dinner, but from then on they just held each other through the nights. How else could they get through? Kurt knows something was a little strange, but he is so grateful to be home, he doesn’t second-guess anything. At least not right away …

Does everyone carry these kinds of secrets? I try to imagine the depth of Jane Armont’s secret. Having a child out in the world but never knowing what she has become.

I send a secret prayer out into the universe for my dads, for Jeremy, for Lola’s mother, for all of us. All we can do is keep going and hope for the best.

CHAPTER 21

The next day at work, after organizing a bunch of files for Janice, I hear a familiar
bing
from my screen. I stop what I’m doing and see that there’s an email from Le Cordon Bleu:

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Bonjour!

You have requested information on Le Cordon Bleu Paris. Many thanks for your interest. We are one of the leading schools dedicated to culinary excellence.

Our professional training consists of three certificates—Basic, Intermediate, and Superior—in Cuisine and in Pâtisserie. Each certificate is eleven weeks long. Students may choose to study both Cuisine
and Pâtisserie, to be awarded the Grand Diplôme Le Cordon Bleu, or they can choose one path of Cuisine or Pâtisserie, which culminates in the Diplôme de Cuisine or the Diplôme de Pâtisserie. Students may also choose to enroll per individual certificate. We run otherwise four sessions every year; training can start at any of these sessions.

Please find attached Le Cordon Bleu Paris course details, schedule of courses, price lists, and application forms. Let me know if you are interested in our professional training.

Sincerely,

Laini Montreau

Service Clientele

Le Cordon Bleu

Just reading it makes my heart race. I’m not seeing Theo until Thursday, as he said he’s busy today and tomorrow, and I’m not going to Laguna with Lola until Saturday. So it’s nice to have something else to think about. I print the email, fold it, and slide it into my bag.

I notice the cookbook and wonder if there are any notes I haven’t read yet. I flip through, seeing some of the notes I’ve already read, dishes I’ve already made. Then, next to a drawing of someone pulling a star down from the sky, I read
DARE TO DIP
. Below is a recipe for what looks like a Tex-Mex dip. Rose has written only one thing in the margin:

Kurt would have loved this
.

I can feel my pulse in my throat. There’s no date. Was this before or after he came back from the war? The dip looks a little rich, but maybe I could do a variation on it. After all, isn’t that what we’re here for? We are given ingredients, and it’s up to us to spin them, make them sing. There’s no single way to cook something. It’s about intuition, and knowing that even the most unexpected flavors sometimes go together.

On my way home, I decide to get the ingredients for Dare to Dip and make it for Theo. I know he’s busy, but he’s got to eat, right? I can just surprise him and drop it off. The small market on Vermont has everything except jalapeños, but the guy at the taco truck at the bottom of our street gives me some for free. He asks me where Hank is. I tell him I’m not sure. The man, along with everyone in our neighborhood, loved that dog. How can I tell them? Are some things better left unsaid? Did it really matter if Rose didn’t tell Kurt everything?

I get home and start to boil the black beans immediately. The recipe calls for a paste, which I’ve never really made before, but how hard can it be? I peel the onions and start to halve, then quarter them.…

Rose doesn’t like secrets. She’s never had any at all, until Eloise. Even losing the baby, everybody knew about that. She wasn’t ashamed about it, just sad. Three weeks go by and nothing from Eloise. One morning Rose is cleaning the bathroom and hears something break on
the floor. At once, the smell fills her chest with emotion: she has broken a small bottle of Eloise’s perfume. Rose thought she had gotten rid of everything, every sign of her, which felt like a betrayal, but how could she not? As it turns out, she is not one of those women. She is, and always will be, in love with Kurt. Still, she stops to smell it for a little while. Until her mother, who has let herself in, surprises Rose by walking up to the threshold of the bathroom door
.

The paste comes out well. I add minced garlic. I place the tomatoes in a big colander and run water over them. Then I get the large knife and start to cube them.…

Rose looks up at her mother in her demure navy waistcoat and feels like a child caught doing something she shouldn’t have been doing. Her mother is the only one who knew anything. About three days after the kiss, all three of them had dinner together. Eloise was being her usual self, nonchalant yet daring, brushing one of her stockinged feet along Rose’s calf under the table. Rose found it incredibly liberating and giggled like a schoolgirl. Her mother knew something was off. Her generation was so rigid. All her friends had grandchildren, and after Rose losing the baby, her mother resented her, but only subtly, which is the worst way. But homosexuality? Forbidden. Her mother pitied her, and also felt sorry for herself.…

What I would give to know that feeling, that bond between mother and daughter, no matter how troubling. When Jane looks at me this weekend, will she immediately be tuned into my feelings, automatically see through me?

I start to layer everything in the casserole dish: the black bean paste, onions, tomatoes, sour cream. I use real avocado instead of guacamole. Now comes the laborious part: grating three kinds of cheeses.…

Rose stands up and says, “It’s not what you think, Mother.” Her mother doesn’t look convinced, and says, “Well, I brought you some rolls.” Rose doesn’t like her mother’s cinnamon rolls, hasn’t since she was a kid. But the fact that her mother has brought them is touching. And Kurt, of course, will devour them. There is nothing that man wouldn’t eat. Rose thanks her mother and, with her eyes, asks her to leave. She needs to pick up these pieces herself
.

Would Jane have brought me rolls? If and when I get married, will she help me pick out a dress? I spread all the cheese in layers, substituting Monterey Jack for mozzarella, as that’s what we have in the fridge. I preheat the oven and start dicing the jalapeños.

Sure enough, that night Kurt eats two of the cinnamon rolls. He has lost weight in Vietnam, so Rose is happy to see him filling up. The night before, Kurt
woke up several times from terrible dreams, and Rose doesn’t even want to know what they are, the things he’s done and seen. She can only imagine. The important thing is that he’s home now, and he’s safe. After watching
The Ed Sullivan Show,
they go to bed, and Kurt takes his time with her, kissing her cheek, her neck, her collarbone.…

When the dip comes out of the oven, I put a towel underneath it and walk over to Theo’s. I must look a little odd, walking the streets with a sizzling dip, but there are stranger sights to be seen in Silver Lake.

By the time I get there, the cheese is perfectly warm and gooey. I am praying Theo has tortilla chips, or even pita bread we can bake. Otherwise we’ll be eating this dip with a spoon. Hope is in the front yard with Timothy, who smiles when he sees me. But then he gets a panicked look on his face. I look up at the house. Just beyond Timothy, through the kitchen window, I see the last thing in the world I am expecting—Theo, dancing with a girl. His arm on the small of her back, her hair in a high ponytail.

My body seems to be stuck in one position, and I stop breathing. I feel like I might lose my balance. Timothy makes a noise that sounds like he’s repeating the word
no
over and over. The dip falls from my hands and crashes onto the driveway. I look down at it, briefly wondering how something so perfect can become so ruined in the blink of an eye. Timothy’s still shaking his head, and Hope
is looking at the ruined dip, her hands over her mouth. She starts to say something, but I don’t hear her. I turn around and run.

On my way home, I consider going back to confront him. I wish I could just barge in there and start yelling, but that’s not my style. Now I’m even more thankful I’m going to Laguna in two days. Half of me knows that finding my mother trumps wallowing in self-pity over my first love cheating on me. Still, I feel like my heart has exploded, and the other half of me wants to curl up into a ball and cry for hours. Rose would never do that, would she? She would forge on, make her next recipe, against all odds. Maybe there’s an explanation, but it certainly looked like what I thought it was. I tell myself to set it aside, which is easier said than done. But I have no choice because tonight is about Jeremy.

Largo is packed with a lot of young men in suits and sport coats, which doesn’t match the saloonish vibe of the place. Bell and I have a small table right off the side of the stage. Down-tempo house music plays to warm things up. Not my first choice, but it’s calming me after what I just saw. Bell can tell I’m hurt.