Onze Labs

Food of the Gods

Austin knows he'll have to make up for this, storming out before the argument is over. They'll have to talk about it, which means he'll have to listen—again—hear how insensitive he is, how he belittles her work, her goals.

    It's true: he doesn't like to listen. He's a professor; he imparts knowledge. He likes to talk. OK, hold forth. Well, she knew that when she took up with him. She knew what he was like.

    Austin has a PhD in American History from one Midwestern university and he teaches at another. He met josie his first night in town; she was waiting tables at a restaurant someone had told him was a good place for dinner. He'd flirted with her, thinking she was younger than he and not as wise. After a year, he's not fully convinced he's wrong on the latter point.

    His route to the U never varies, though his mode of transport does. He sometimes rides his bike or walks but today is piloting a 10-year-old Honda, because of the rain. The rain that in a month will be snow. He is starting his second year at the university, entering his second year of life with josie. She moved in last month.

    Their argument was over, of all things, fruit.

        Austin made a remark about the persimmons josie had in a blue bowl: "Ah, persimmons," he'd said, "food of the gods." Then he'd offered a short history of the fruit: that the English couldn't wait until winter to eat the bitter fruit the American Indians called "pessamin," didn't realize it ripened and sweetened in the cold. How The Native Americans shared with Hernando de Soto a kind of bread made with what the conquistador thought was prunes. Austin had picked one up, and josie told him it wasn't ripe.

    "I wasn't going to eat it."

    "Of course not. You were going to pontificate on it, ruminate over it to the point that I no longer want to look at it, let alone bake a tea bread with it—which I definitely won't want to give you a taste of,  because I'd just get a lecture on the history of tea, the beverage, the meal, the ritual, the…the…oh, fuck it, Austin, just go to work. Go lecture the people who don't know anything yet. Talk to the people who want to listen."

    They've had this conversation before, about how he can't just enjoy a thing, enjoy the look, the feel, the taste of something. Why couldn't he just remark how striking the contrast of the orange persimmons in the cobalt bowl, if he had to say anything at 7:30 in the morning? He knows this is what she's thinking.

    Austin understands it's particularly annoying when the topic is food, because josie is a professor, of sorts, of the culinary arts. She is now the chef at that restaurant where they first met. She was not a student back then, but a graduate of the California Culinary Academy and the veteran of several different San Francisco cafés, bistros, and one major restaurant he'd never heard of but evidently should have. She snagged him with her white apron, but she hooked him with her handmade pizza crust. She knows something better than he does, and yes, this troubles him a little, but he's big enough to know his resistance is ridiculous. He's working on it.

    The other thing they argue about is his driving to work, when they live only a mile from campus. She wants him to walk or take the bus. Especially considering he always stops at Brady's café half way in for a coffee and a muffin, where he's standing right now. It occurs to him just then that before he remarked on the persimmons, he smelled something in the oven. She had baked him muffins. She'd been talking about it, but usually started her mornings later than he, because she was at the restaurant so late. He hadn't even commented that she was up early today.

    The girl behind the counter says hello to him, but he turns away, plods back to the car in a daze. He considers driving home and apologizing, but running through that narrative in his mind, he realizes it's forced, contrived. Better to play out the role of the idiot male and take what's coming when she gets home at midnight.

    He doesn't notice the two persimmons sitting on the roof until he is unlocking the door. There is a note, written on a crumpled receipt, rain droplets gluing it to the driver's side window:

                            Hey, Professor. Some goddess loves you.   

    A plastic bag hangs from the door handle. She had to have decided in a second what she would do, snatched the persimmons from the bowl, found a bag for the muffins, scribbled a note, all before jumping on the bike, riding like mad. Did she take time to grab a coat? Austin stands there in the drizzle, thinking.

Lovely

    Viewed outside the context of a rose-and-yellow wedding at the Sheraton Suites—two years in the making, custom-made bridal and attendants' gowns, a harpist, a jazz trio, a string quartet, top-shelf flowers, food, and booze, 160 bucks a head—it's just a look. One package of Flame Red henna, a little water, and two hours later, I resemble some kind of Greek goddess: wiry tresses wild, furious, and very, very, orange-red; Venus rising from the foam—or Pandora, perhaps, eyeing the box.

    My sister Carlice doesn't see it that way. She said, "I told you highlights, Angie, not a whole new color. I knew you'd do something like this." Then, fighting tears, "That just better be semi-permanent, and you better start washing it out right now." And, losing, "I'm the one they're supposed to be staring at."

   Now we stand among the orchids and jasmine, awaiting the next round of canapés, sipping a champagne recommended by the same consultant who had excitedly wrapped a swath of silk tulle around my head to "pull my hair off my face," to "complement my unique style"—a stop-gap measure that worked until the ring-bearer (who has his own issues with knickers and bow ties) yanked it free, just before I took my turn down the aisle. Mother slips her arm around Carlice's waist and sighs, a genuine if faintly cautious smile on her lips. When she says, "Well, isn't this lovely!" I am the first to raise my glass and reply, "Yes! Too… lovely!" 

Leftovers

I woke up this morning with a taste for pancakes and immediately began to cry. The chef is gone. He left the buttermilk behind to sour in my icebox, along with the crème fraîche, the eggs, the vanilla extract, and the organic French butter. He left me the elements of breakfast, in pieces, scattered across my kitchen. Candied walnuts. Maple syrup. A seasonal assortment of fresh berries. He forgot his whisk, too. Or maybe that was a gift. With him it was hard to tell.

It started out simple, with a salad. We met at the market around the corner, over the avocados. I was holding one in my palm and he put his hand over mine, said, "Ah, non, non, non. It's too ripe. You can't do anything with that one, not even guacamole."  Then he pulled an avocado from his basket, replaced the one in my hand. I didn't tell him I wasn't planning to buy the thing; I'd just wanted to get a better look. We met again at the check stand. He paid for my ice cream and avocado, then walked me home. I invited him up for a bowl of chili—nothing fancy, I told him. From a can.

He went straight to the kitchen, set his knapsack on a chair, his groceries on the table. He took out a head of romaine—a little showy, like a magician doing a trick: watch this. From his pack he pulled out what looked like a case for a flute. Or a pool cue. When he opened it, I saw the glint of stainless steel. Then he wielded a knife, slowly, gracefully, even. Like a dancer or something, making a point. I didn't like the looks of it.

"Whoa, mister!" I said. "It's not that kind of party."

He froze, tilted his head to one side, confused. "I will make you a Caesar salad. You have a cutting board?" He had a slight accent, a way of  saying things that could make some questions sound like statements. And vice versa. I pointed him to the counter, then turned away and reached for a bowl. I heard several clops and when I turned around he was cupping handfuls of lacy green strips, dropping them into the colander. "Eggs?" He said-asked as he dug in his grocery bag for a jar of anchovies.

"This is going to be some salad," I said.

"Yes," he said, fixing his eyes on mine. "Like no salad you have ever had before." Next to the eggs, he found a box of Velveeta.

"Ah, mon dieu. What is this?"

"Ah, mon ami. It's cheese."

"You put this in your body? Your beautiful body?" He slid his hand from my neck, over my shoulder to my waist. Then he tsk-tsked me. "This is not cheese, ah non. This is, this is—polyester."

"Polyester has its merits."

He held his breath and kept his hand on my hip.

"It's versatile—and durable."

His face softened. He spoke slowly, softly. "Food is not durable, ma chère, it is not supposed to last. Even our enjoyment of it is ephemeral. That is why we must eat so many times in one day."

"So why make a fuss every time, if you're just going to do it again anyway?"   

He smiled. Tilted his head, but just slightly. Pulled me closer. "Who knows which meal will be the last? We must savor each dish, relish each time the pleasure of a warm bread or a delicate wine or a simple blueberry." He was so cute. With that accent of his, "blueberry" came out as two words, with the stress on "berry."

"Come here," I said, "Let me taste your blue berries."

~

Those first two weeks he made me pancakes every day, with every fruit there was. Berries inside, berries outside, plum compote, caramelized pears, peaches, and fresh whipped cream. In the middle of the night he would make us a snack, "for the entr'acte" he said. He would cook by the light of the stove and the street lamp outside the kitchen window. As I lay in bed I would stare at the ceiling and wait for the aromas to reach me. Once he made bread pudding—had slipped it in the oven before we went to bed, in anticipation of our intermission.

"Every country has some kind of pancake," he told me. "You find them on every continent."

"Even Antarctica?"

"Surely the Americans have imported them." There it was again, a statement spoken as a question: lilted at the end, said with a pursed mouth, sparkling eyes.

He blamed my lack of cooking skills on my nationality. I didn't protest. "But if we could do our own cooking, what would we need with the French?" He showed me a thing or two, between bites. I've never had pancakes like the ones he made: spongy, but light. They dissolved before you had a chance to chew. Like him.

What luck, he said, that we met when we did. Perfect timing. He had just quit his job as a chef and I clearly needed a nutritionist. He would rescue me from the evil cult of prepackaged foods, teach me how to feast. Every night for two weeks he served me a new dish with a foreign name: paella, gaspacho, quiche Lorraine. Dinner began with an amuse-gueule. That means "amuse-mouth." It's like an hors d'oeuvre. Something to tease the palate, get you ready for what's coming later. The foreplay of food, he said. Here's a sample: He's facing me nose to nose, so close his face is a blur, so I know him only by his breath, a heat wave on my lips, and his hands, rough with cuts and burns but gentle on my cheeks. As he leans in to kiss me, he whispers, "Tiens, let me amuse your mouth."

    At first he found my stock of canned goods droll. He chided me, tried to convince me to see food as art as well as alimentation. "Good food is not a luxury," he said, "but a necessity. One must eat not only to feed the body but also to nourish the soul. Both need fresh, wholesome, and tasteful nutriments."

    "Fresh, I can handle," I told him. "Wholesome and tasteful—I'm afraid I'm just not that kind of girl." I knew he didn't get my jokes, but I thought he found me saucy, piquant, something his palate would adjust to, like jalepeño peppers or ripened cheese. But he thought he could season me to his taste. He tried to teach me how to use his knives, how to slice and dice and julienne. He left one of his favorite pans at my place. He thought I would use it. I mentioned it once, and he said, "It is a gift, my chou. Use it for your good health. May it serve you as well as it has served me."

"But it doesn't even fit in the microwave."

I couldn't turn him off. He wanted to make me his sous-chef, but I just wanted to get it to go. When I would marvel at the flavors of a steamed green bean, remark on how fast his hands moved when he sliced carrots or whipped egg whites, he would hand me a kitchen implement. "Tiens, chérie. Here, you try."

"Why should I as long as you're here? Why cook the cow when the goose lays for free?" Missed him completely. We spoke different languages, couldn't find a common cliché.  He was all braise and sauté and apéritif, and I was all six-pack, frozen, ready-to-serve.

One night I surprised him, made dessert—my specialty, Oreo cream pie. "A kind of chocolate mousse à l'Américaine," I said. It's a simple dish: Oreos, pudding, and Cool Whip. Takes ten minutes to prepare, four hours to freeze. Instead of one big pie, though, I made us two small ones. Before serving them I drew hearts on top with chocolate syrup. He was touched. He brushed my cheek with his fingers. His eyes looked misty. His mouth looked ready to be pleased.

It wasn't.

He tried to hide it, but I saw the disappointment when he took that first bite. He closed his eyes, as if savoring it, but he wouldn't look at me until he had swallowed. He said nothing. Leaned into me and kissed me. I pulled away. "But don't you want to finish it?" I asked.

"I'd rather have you instead."   

Soon after that he started doing some catering, so the midnight breakfasts ended and dinner was served only on Mondays. I gave him the check when he had me stir a Hollandaise while he was on the phone with another gastronome. He began to describe the dinner he was preparing for me, down to the precise color of the tomatoes and the variety of basil. As the creamy white sauce simmered I began to seethe. I would not watch this affair be reduced to his recipes—every entrée and sauce, every amuse-gueule. I wouldn't watch him distill the dinners to some kind of cookbook he could carry off; I would not be boiled down to a list of ingredients to be reheated at someone else's stove. He had taught me this much: when a stew is too salty, add a potato to balance the flavors, but when you put too much sugar in the batter, pancakes will burn on the surface and stay raw inside. I poured the sauce into the sink, took his knife case from the counter, tossed it at his feet. "Get off the phone," I told him. "I'm ordering out."

~

Even though I wouldn't but touch his knife while he was here, now I see through my own reconstituted, dehydrated, flash-frozen-from-concentrate world. Now I understand that bread needs warmth to rise, soups need to simmer and sit for a day, and a good custard takes a good long time to thicken. A week after he left I made a Caesar dressing. Tossed it with prepackaged greens. I can also make a decent quiche (in a store-bought crust), and last night I finished off the best bouillabaisse I've ever tasted—a  feat, especially when you consider that two months ago I didn't even know the word. I have gone whole days without looking at the microwave. Sometimes I tell myself I made him up—I didn't meet him in that store, he didn't teach me a thing. I like to think that I had amnesia or slept through the first part of my life and suddenly came to, hefting that avocado. Spontaneous enlightenment. Food for thought. It's easier that way. Hard to miss someone you never knew.

But of course I miss him. What do you think? I miss him so bad I can taste it.

Nothing Ever Happens

Alessandra crouches low, so her ruffle-pantied bottom hangs over her lace-cuffed ankles. She holds her dimpled hands on her pudgy bare knees and looks at the glistening line curl and swirl across the patio. The morning sun has caught the snail trails just so, and they have captured Alessandra's attention; she traces the slimy lines with her eyes until they stop at her patent-leather Mary Janes. Hands still on her knees, Alessandra stands up part way, just enough so that now her back side pokes out behind her as she peers between her alabaster sausage legs to see how far the snail trail goes. Finding the end will take some exploring, so she turns herself around in one spritely hop.

"JAMISON!" she hears her mother shriek from inside the house. She freezes and waits to hear her
name, too.

"Jamison, we were supposed to leave five minutes ago. Put your pants on, NOW." Alessandra's mother appears at the screen door and sees the girl standing perfectly still, looking at the house with big brown eyes.

"Alessandra, you look lovely, sweetheart. Your brother is almost ready; don't leave the yard. We'll be on our way shortly." Her mother's face dissolves into the darkness behind the screen door before Alessandra can say, "Yes, Mommie." Her hands are clenched together in front of her at her waist, and she drops them to her sides, then grabs her green dress, begins to lift the skirt to her face, but  thinks better of it. Instead, Alessandra tips herself up on her toes, then seesaws back onto her heels, swings her arms front to back, making her skirt sway forward and backward. The sun comes from behind a cloud and a fine line shimmers in the light, catches her eye, and she remembers her mission.

Alessandra starts to walk toward the edge of the patio, away from the house, but ever so slowly. She straddles the trail, walks with a lumbering gait, like a monster would: She moves her entire lower body with each step, without bending her knees or ankles. Then she moves to one side of the trail and walks  as if she is walking on a rope, like in the circus. She holds her hands out at her sides, walks carefully. When she arrives at the edge of the patio she jumps to the first of several flagstones that make a path to the driveway and are big enough to sit on. She leaps to the nearest one by throwing out her right leg and letting her left one trail behind her. She stumbles a little when she reaches the stone, but regains her balance without stepping into the moist lawn. She crouches low then springs to the next stone with both feet together. She walks normally across the rest of the stones, but looks left and right, because there are tigers in the yard waiting to eat her if she touches the grass.

The trail she was following on the patio has disappeared, but Alessandra sees three new tracks looping down the long, smooth driveway. She steps over one path, and once between two silvery streaks, she hunches over, holds her chubby arms in toward her chest and walks down the driveway in baby steps: She moves each foot just a smidgen at a time, walking the way snails would if they had feet.

When Alessandra reaches the sidewalk a tall woman walks by. She is wrapped in a cloud of perfume that follows her down the block. Alessandra closes her eyes and imagines a place where so many flowers grow, a field that smells like the lady who smells like her mother.

"Alessandra! What did I tell you?" Alessandra's mother yanks the first arm she sees, whips the girl around and drags her back up the driveway to the garage. On the way Alessandra spies a little snail that has nearly reached the edge of the driveway. She lifts a leg just in time to stomp on it as she stumbles by.

Dissolution

Darkness settles in me like a rheum, a gelatinous mass that no amount of coughing will expel. You said nothing, which is worse than no. How did a guy like you end up in a poem like this?

I want to be swallowed alive slip down that dark hole into the cool humus watch the sky shrink to a single point of light then disappear. I fall to the ground; the earth stains my knees and impacts under my chipped and ragged nails. My hands flutter, frisk the soil, but cannot find the portal.

I pant. Choke on my heartbeat, which throbs into my hands, and now I know I can continue to claw but I cannot sink any deeper. The sky – today an almost cloudless blue – won't let me out of its sight.

International Arrivals

The Girl From Ipanema, its samba beat neutered by violins, fails to sedate her. She can't hear it. Nor does she hear the acid female voice command Mr. Park to pick up the white courtesy phone. Santa Claus could be meeting Pokémon at the baggage claim, and she will never know. But in that brief blank space between where the announcement ends and the song resumes, all Lorna's senses register the swoosh of cold, stale air when the frosted glass doors slide apart.

The baby in Cynthia's arms looks nothing like the picture: she's paler than Lorna expected, a little peaked—is that one of the things she's not supposed to say, one of the things she is supposed to think about before saying out loud? Is it one of those things that even though she means it in a caring way, makes her sound insensitive? At some point Lorna went from being out of touch to being wrong.

It happened around the time when Cynthia changed her name to Cinthya and went off to the other side of the world to find herself—and then got herself a little child. That's how Cynthia—Cinthya—that's how Cinthya had said it: "Mother, I got myself a little child." To which Lorna had replied, "What do you mean?" And Cinthya had said, "I mean what I just said. Why are you always trying to deconstruct and complicate what I say?"

It was one of those traps, a question that was meant to shut her up but also begged her to speak—but to say only exactly the right thing. In 23 years Lorna hadn't figured out what that was, so she just said the first thing she thought: "What kind of little child?" The sigh that came through the phone was cold and sharp. Lorna pursed her lips and blinked. Waited. Expected but didn't batten down against the gale force of Cinthya's words.

"Mother." Just that one word, a firm declaration, in a tone that implied she was a bad one. "You wonder why I moved so fucking far away."

The curse word made Lorna wince. And it gave her inspiration and courage to speak. "Now, I don't see the need for cursing. I'm just wondering. You tell me you have a child, you 'got a child,' and I wonder what that means. Did you 'get' the child before you went over there, or after? And by the way, what kind of way to talk is that, 'get a child'? You know, I can't expect you to tell me anything if I don't ask. I never heard about any husband or boyfriend, and now there's a child. I just want to know what kind of child: a boy or a girl? An infant? A teenager? Does the child look like you? Now, don't get defensive. When we adopted you, people asked me these questions, and I didn't take offense. People just want to know, that's all. Because they care." And she kept silent, resolved to say nothing more, no matter what.

Cinthya spoke slowly. She plodded through her words with a certain resignation. "She's just a child, Mother, a baby. It doesn't matter where she came from or what she looks like. She needs me and I need her and we are together. I love her. I love her dearly." There was another silence, another sigh; this time the slow breeze that escapes when shoulders drop into gravity's pull. "It's time for us to come home. I want to come home."

Over the next two months the two mothers spoke more than they had in two years. The elder lectured on nutrition, lactation, and exhaustion; and the younger held forth on people of color and communities of color, the importance of sensitivity, and the inevitability of racism. They both tried hard to think before they spoke.

But still she's nervous and worried and—whoosh—there they are, and Cinthya looks just as anxious, but she keeps walking this way, and mother and child are in grandmother's arms, and the music continues, but no one hears, because they are all thinking things they are unable to say.