The Way Life Should Be (21 page)

On the way home, we stop at the Riverside Diner and Tom orders a roast beef sandwich—“Don’t rat on me to the vegans,” he says—and I ask for a BLT. We settle into a booth by the window, and the waitress brings over a pot of hot water and two green-tea tea bags (Tom says to counteract the oxidants in the bacon; I suspect to alleviate his guilt). I tell him more than I intend to about New Jersey, my parents’ divorce and mother’s death, the debacle at the museum that propelled me out of the city. We linger as the waitress clears our plates. I order a coffee and we share a giant oatmeal-raisin cookie as I describe the picture of the cottage on my bulletin board and the assorted sordid details of my recent adventure.

I stop short of Blondy with a Y and the generic haikus. I have my pride.

“So you did it,” he says. “You came and found your dream cottage.”

“Yeah, right.”

“You scoff, but that place has potential.”

“I really don’t think so.”

“Sure. Knock off the back deck and build a new one, redo the kitchen, patch and refinish and paint. It just needs a little TLC.”

“That shack is a metaphor for my life,” I tell him. “I have an ideal image in my head, and the reality turns out to be completely different.”

He tears off a piece of cookie and pops it in his mouth. “Well, you can’t expect your dreams to materialize fully formed. Maybe you just need to move the two extremes closer together. Adjust the way you think. Let me ask you something,” he says. “What do you really want to do with your life?”

“Oh, God.” I think for a moment. “I like to cook, but cooking has always been a hobby, at most. Then I moved here, and all of a sudden I have the time and—I don’t know. I’ve become possessed. When you talked about your job in California, I recognized that passion—a glimmer of it. Even though I’ve never felt anything like it before.”

He nods, tearing off another piece of cookie.

“I guess my dream is someday to open a restaurant. That sounds crazy, doesn’t it?”

“What’s crazy about it? It seems like a logical step.”

“I lack experience. I have no money, no idea how to finance it.”

“But you can cook. You’ve been a party planner; you know how to organize complicated events. You manage social gatherings with ease.”

“Well, if that’s all it takes…”

“Having the desire and the skill is ninety percent of it, in my experience. The rest is follow-through.”

Tom sweeps stray cookie crumbs into a pile, brushes them into his cupped palm, and deposits them back on the plate. This is a man who likes to control his environment. I think of the neglected wife, his self-described monomania, the autocratic arrogance that draws acolytes to his workshop.

And then I think: This man knows what he wants; he takes chances, changes careers, acts impulsively and decisively, clearly enjoys his life. He is unlike anyone I’ve ever met.

“So who are these interns of yours?” I ask. “Are they—groupies?”

He smiles. “They call themselves apprentices.”

“Did Katrin start out as an apprentice?”

“No. She’s a Realtor. She sold me my space.”

“She seems nice.”

He gives me a skeptical look. “That’s charitable, considering
that she gave your boyfriend a flaying. I’ve been on the receiving end of that, and let me tell you, it’s not pretty.”

“I’m sure he deserved it. And—” I hesitate. “He really isn’t my boyfriend.”

“Oh?”

“I did come here for him. But he’s not the reason I stayed.”

“I see. So you’ve decided.”

“What?”

“You’re staying.”

“Did I say that?”

“Seemed like it.”

For a moment I reflect on this. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I have this class to teach. I don’t have any plans to leave right now.”

“That’s usually how it works,” he says.

“How what works?”

“How people stay.”

“Is that how it was for you?”

“No, not really. I made a conscious decision to move here, and my intention has always been to stay. I want to be part of it—part of the island. I can see raising a family here. Growing old here. Having my ashes tossed off Cadillac someday.”

“Wow. I can’t imagine being that sure of anything.”

“I’m a lot older than you.”

“You mean wiser, right?”

“Nah,” he says, looking over at me. “You might be wiser. But I’ve got that fuddy-duddy thing of wanting to put down roots. It’s pretty simple, isn’t it? You turn forty—”

“You’re forty?”

“Oh, damn,” he says. “Gave myself away.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed a day over thirty-nine,” I say.

CHAPTER 21

“Tonight we’re going to concentrate on il primo piatto, the first
course,” I tell the group. “We’ll be making
stracciatella alla Romana,
spinach and egg soup; clams and mussels
fra diavola
; eggplant
rollatini;
and asparagus wrapped in prosciutto di Parma.” We are gathered in Rebecca’s stunning kitchen in Egret Bay, with its picture window onto the darkening bay, standing around her butcher-block island.

To make soup stock, I explain, you begin with the parts of a chicken you can’t or won’t use, the parts you would otherwise discard: backs, necks, skin, wings, innards. Buy whole chickens, and when you cut them up, save and freeze these parts. When you are ready to make stock, simply thaw and place them in a large heavy pot with a lid. Add any sturdy vegetables you have lying around—carrots, onion, garlic, celery—and a bay leaf or two. Sprinkle generously with sea salt and peppercorns, add water to cover, and then bring to a boil and simmer for several hours or longer—all day, if you can. Strain well with a fine sieve. Let cool, skim the fat off the top, and strain. Strain again.

Use this stock as a base for
zuppa di legume,
a broth of beans, peas, and chickpeas, or
minestra,
a thick soup with escarole, cannellini beans, and sliced pepperoni. Or make pasta
fagioli
: Sauté garlic in olive oil in a Dutch oven until soft. Add white beans
and tubatini, cooked al dente, or resistant to the bite. Add the stock and bring to a boil, then simmer. Stir in a scoop of fresh marinara for flavor.

When I make stock, I tell them, the smell that fills the house conjures up images in my mind, deeper than memory, sifted from my grandmother’s stories of her village in Italy.

“Oh goody,” Flynn says. “I love granny stories.”

I describe the women in the kitchen and the men coming home at noon, their lunch simmering on the stove, sitting down to eat the soup with whatever else was in the pantry: salty sardines and onions, cheese, bread, wine. I imagine it all: the cobblestones on the square, the cold brackish sea, the wild rosemary in the meadow. I picture Nonna in the kitchen with her own grandmother, pulling out the heavy pan, setting aside chicken parts, chopping vegetables on the warped wooden board she still uses, its grain worn and scarred with knife grooves. I can smell the broth, the sea, the scent of her own long hair, swaying to her waist.

Like a TV chef, I actually thought ahead and prepared a pot of chicken soup for today. “This soup,
stracciatella,
is one of Nonna’s favorites,” I say. “It’s very simple, only four main ingredients: chicken stock, fresh spinach, eggs, and grated Pecorino Romano cheese.”

When Eileen asks for exact measurements, I am prepared. I have printed a recipe:

Stracciatella alla Romana

8 cups chicken broth, preferably homemade

6 ounces fresh spinach, cut into strips

4 eggs, plus 2 tablespoons water

½ cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese

Salt and pepper

Boil the stock and add spinach, cooking until wilted, about 3 minutes. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs with the water; add grated cheese. Whisk the egg mixture briskly into the boiling broth, and add salt and pepper to taste, then serve.

I ladle the soup into small, blue-and-white Chinese bowls that Rebecca has stacked on the counter, and dinner begins. Tasting it, I remember that day several months ago in Nonna’s kitchen when she wasn’t feeling well and wanted only this soup. It reminds me of her—comforting and yet intense, not to everyone’s liking. It seems fitting that of any food she might have craved, this is the one.

As if to illustrate this thought, Flynn pushes his bowl away.

“I don’t know,” he says with a grimace. “Something about that slimy spinach.”

“It’s not slimy, you philistine,” Lance says. “It’s silky. This soup reminds me of egg drop, but more intense.”

“You’re just saying that because of the bowls,” Flynn says.

“It
is
interesting how different cultures do versions of the same dish,” says Tom. “I’m thinking of matzo ball soup or chicken and dumplings in the south.”

“I just think everything is connected,” says Rebecca. “Each civilization has its own interpretation of universal themes. We share the same emotions, right? Aren’t all cultures, despite the variations, linked by a shared core of humanity?”

For a moment everyone is silent. Rebecca has startled us, accustomed as we have become to her reticence.

“Personally, I tend to be less ‘we are the world’ and more ‘life
is random,’” Flynn says. “But hey, it’s nice to believe in patterns. We have to order the world somehow.”

“You’re such a pagan,” Lance says. “I agree with Rebecca.”

“This magic soup is affecting your brains!” says Flynn.

“Actually,” Tom says hesitantly, “I think you’re conflating two disparate ideas. Whether various cultures share like characteristics—which on some level seems indisputable—and whether you believe that life is random, not predetermined by fate or religious deity, are two completely different questions.”

“What did he just say?” Flynn asks, raising his arm in a gesture of bafflement.

“He’s saying you’re full of shit,” says Lance.

“Not at all,” Tom says.

“The point is,” Flynn says, “whatever all
that
was, I’m just saying I’m a realist. A pragmatist.”

“I’d say narcissist,” says Lance, “but that’s a whole other story.”

Tom glances over, gives me a covert wink, and I feel a quiver of pleasure.

“Oh!” Eileen says, pouring herself a second glass of wine. “Let’s hear it.”

Lance laughs, his hearty guffaw breaking the tension. “I’d need to start drinking again.”

Shaking his head, Flynn says, “Maybe it’s time for all of us to switch to bottled water.”

I assign tasks
for the remainder of the menu: the rolled stuffed eggplant, asparagus wrapped in sliver-thin prosciutto di Parma, spicy clams and mussels. We all get to work, scrubbing mussels, cutting eggplant horizontally into quarter-inch-thick slices, trimming and blanching asparagus. Rebecca’s kitchen is perfect for this, with two sinks and two undercounter pull-out garbage pails. We move easily around the large black granite island with
out jostling each other; the recessed lighting under the cherry cabinets, the industrial-size range hood, and the brushed-steel appliances make the whole enterprise seem somehow more professional.

Rebecca’s son, Josh, bored with his rented G-rated movie, perches on a stool at the island. I cut him a crumbly slice of Parmigiana and he takes a tentative bite, looks at it, takes another. “Salty,” he says.

“This cheese took five years to mature,” I tell him. “That’s why it’s so pungent.”

“I was a baby five years ago,” Josh says.

“And think how much more pungent you are now than you were then,” Tom says. For the first time this evening, he is standing beside me.

“What does ‘pungent’ mean?” Josh asks.

“Strong,” Tom says. He smiles at me, showing those white teeth. “Hi.”

I feel myself flush. “Hi.”

“This worked out, didn’t it?”

“Thanks to you,” I say. “Almost everything here came from the market.”

“What market?” Josh asks.

“We went to a farmers’ market in Blue Hill yesterday,” Tom says.

“I know that place,” Josh says.

“Hey, is that your art on the refrigerator?” Tom asks.

We look over. The picture, an evident self-portrait, is crayon and watercolor. In it, a green-faced boy with a riot of purple hair and an uneven grin raises his stick arms in the air. Orange clouds hover over his head.

“I did that last year. I’m better now,” Josh says.

“Not bad,” Tom says. “Do you take lessons?”

“I made that at school. I mostly just draw at home.”

“You should come by my barn in Deep Spring Harbor,” Tom says. “There are always kids around, painting and drawing.”

Josh nods. “Cool.”

“I want to come,” I interject.

“So come,” Tom says.

A moment passes between us, a held gaze.

Perhaps sensing Tom’s shift of focus, Josh hops off his stool. Eileen touches my arm, asking, “How many eggs in the ricotta filling? Do you have a recipe for the
rollatini
?” I turn to answer, feeling Tom’s eyes lingering on my back a moment more.

“This is an
everyday marinara,” I say. “The staple of many Italian dishes and the base of the
fra diavola
sauce we’re making for the shellfish. Anyone know what ‘
fra diavola
’ means?”

“‘
Diavola
’ is devil, right?” Flynn says. “I think Lance called me that once.’”

“No doubt,” Lance says.

I hand around my approximation of Nonna’s magic: