The Monday Night Cooking School Part 6

In the large, wide, blue bowl, swirls of thin noodles wove their way between dark black sh.e.l.ls and bits of red tomato.

"Breathe first," Charlie told him, "eyes closed." The steam rose off the pasta like ocean turned into air.

"Clams, mussels," Tom said, "garlic, of course, and tomatoes. Red pepper flakes. b.u.t.ter, wine, oil."

"One more," she coaxed.

He leaned in-smelled hillsides in the sun, hot ground, stone walls. "Oregano," he said, opening his eyes. Charlie smiled and handed him a forkful of pasta. After the sweetness of the melon, the flavor was full of red bursts and spikes of hot pepper shooting across his tongue; underneath, like a steadying hand, a salty cus.h.i.+on of clam, the soft velvet of oregano, and pasta warm as beach sand.

They ate. Bite after bite, plateful after plateful. They talked about childhoods-Charlie was from the West Coast, Tom from the East; Charlie had broken three bones in a bicycle fall, Tom his nose when his older brother was learning to pitch baseball. When the bowl was empty, they ran hunks of bread along the sauce at the bottom and brought them dripping to their mouths. The light through the leaves dimmed and disappeared, and they were left with the candle in the middle of the table, the light coming through the partially opened back door to the house.

"Dessert time," Charlie declared, and went into the house, returning with a small plate of cinnamon-dusted cookies and two small cups of thick, dark coffee. They ate and drank, quieter now, watching the movements of each other's hands, eyes.

"You know," she commented, taking a last sip of coffee, "I've met a lot of guys who see s.e.x like dessert-the prize you get after you eat all the vegetables that make the women happy.

"I guess I see it a little differently," she continued reflectively. "I think s.e.x should be like dinner. And this is how I like to eat."

"THE MEAT IS DONE," Lillian p.r.o.nounced, taking the spoon from Tom's idle hand and running it in a wide circle around the pan, pulling the sausage into the center, where it steamed and simmered.

"Now we're ready for the next step-but first a trick. A meat sauce loves red wine. But if we put in the red wine now, the meat will taste acidic, so we're going to add some milk." Lillian poured what seemed like a huge amount of white liquid into the mixture. "I know it seems odd, but trust me."

Tom looked down into the pan. It did look strange, the white at first swirling around the meat, pulling away from the oil like a finicky child who doesn't want to get her hands dirty. But as he watched, Tom saw the milk begin to enter the meat, change its color to an almost ashy gray, softening its edges.

"We'll let that simmer until the milk is absorbed," Lillian commented. "I know," she acknowledged, "it all takes so much time. While you're waiting, you could answer three e-mails. You could call a friend, start the laundry. But tonight there is no time, so we don't need to worry about wasting it. You can just sit and let your thoughts unwind. And you'll be glad you did, because time will change the taste into something smooth-the difference between polyester and velvet."

TOM HAD STAYED at the restaurant only through the summer, making money to help pay for law school. He wanted Charlie to quit, too, and go back to school, but she wouldn't. The restaurant owner had had a change of philosophy, perhaps prompted by the meals Charlie kept leaving on his desk, and had offered her Tom's position when he found out Tom was going back to school in the fall. at the restaurant only through the summer, making money to help pay for law school. He wanted Charlie to quit, too, and go back to school, but she wouldn't. The restaurant owner had had a change of philosophy, perhaps prompted by the meals Charlie kept leaving on his desk, and had offered her Tom's position when he found out Tom was going back to school in the fall.

"But do you want to work here all your life?" Tom asked her when she told him the news.

She looked at him, disappointed. "I want to cook," she said, "and this is the only restaurant in town, unless you count the fish-and-chips joint."

"What about your literature degree?" he persisted, caught up in the energy of his first week back at cla.s.ses. "Don't you want to do something that lasts?"

She stared at him and shook her head. "Poetry isn't any different than food, Tom. We humans want to make things, and those things sink into us, whether we know it or not. Maybe your mind won't remember what I cooked last week, but your body will.

"And I have come to believe," she added, smiling wickedly, "that our bodies are far more intelligent than our brains."

There had never been a way to counter Charlie, perhaps because she didn't care if he agreed with her or not. She loved him, she knew that, and knew that he loved her.

"Why me?" he asked her, looking up at her face through the cascade of her hair falling about them.

"You're the oregano," she said simply.

"WE CAN ADD the wine now," Lillian prompted. The milk was gone, soaked into the meat. "Tom, will you get a bottle of red from the cook's shelf?" She turned to the cla.s.s. "Now it might not seem to matter what wine goes in the sauce-it's going to simmer so long, anyway. But you'll notice the difference if you take care with the ingredients. We don't want to skimp on our wine, even if it's in a sauce, and we want a wine that can hold its own with the meat-something heavy and full and mellow." the wine now," Lillian prompted. The milk was gone, soaked into the meat. "Tom, will you get a bottle of red from the cook's shelf?" She turned to the cla.s.s. "Now it might not seem to matter what wine goes in the sauce-it's going to simmer so long, anyway. But you'll notice the difference if you take care with the ingredients. We don't want to skimp on our wine, even if it's in a sauce, and we want a wine that can hold its own with the meat-something heavy and full and mellow."

Tom brought over a bottle and handed it to Lillian with questioning eyes. She pulled open the cork and breathed in, smiled.

"That'll do just fine," she said.

CHARLIE CALLED THEM "mamma wines," after the matrons they met in Italy on their honeymoon-a grand, two-week tour, celebrating his new job in a big-city law firm and the chance for Charlie to cook in a restaurant with a capital R. Their plan had been to start in Rome, and then move on to Florence, Lake Como, Venice. But Charlie reached their "mamma wines," after the matrons they met in Italy on their honeymoon-a grand, two-week tour, celebrating his new job in a big-city law firm and the chance for Charlie to cook in a restaurant with a capital R. Their plan had been to start in Rome, and then move on to Florence, Lake Como, Venice. But Charlie reached their agriturismo agriturismo forty-five minutes outside Rome and stopped. forty-five minutes outside Rome and stopped.

"Taste this," she said during dinner at the long wooden table. "We aren't leaving until I know how to make this pasta."

Linguini led to ravioli followed by cannelloni, caponata. The town was small and unattractive, something Tom had believed was impossible in Italy. Its best function seemed to be as an overnight stop for slow tourists on their way between Rome and Florence. The buildings were postWorld War II, concrete and stucco, not an arch, a fresco, a little-known Caravaggio to be found. When Tom tried to tell Charlie this, she just smiled and told him to go find a little hill town where he could taste wine, or something.

"I've got what I need," she would say, and then add with a grin, "at least for the morning." And she would head to the kitchen, where she would be greeted with choruses of "La bella americana si e finalmente alzata dal letto" "La bella americana si e finalmente alzata dal letto"-The beautiful American has finally gotten up out of bed-provoking roomfuls of knowing laughter.

Tom learned to be back for lunch at the long table under the trees outside, and after lunch, when the farmhouse would settle into a profound quiet and Charlie would roll luxuriantly into his arms, her hair an ever-s.h.i.+fting maze of smells-fennel, nutmeg, sea salt. Hours later she would leave him and return to the women, only to start the whole process over again at dinner.

"You could have a worse honeymoon," she chided him, with a wink. "I could be pillaging some old museum for poems..."

He didn't care, he realized. Didn't care when reservations, so carefully made six months before, slipped by, and with them views of a terra-cotta-colored duomo, a Grand Ca.n.a.l, a foam-kissed cappuccino at a lakeside cafe. Every lunch, every dinner, he returned to a woman who seemed to draw into her body the very essence of the food she was learning to make, becoming deeper and more complicated and exciting.

After two weeks, they left and returned to Rome. Charlie spent the plane flight home scribbling designs, notes for ravioli recipes, on sc.r.a.ps of paper. "What would you think if I tried bourbon in the filling?" she would ask him. "Italy meets the Deep South."

Back at home she found a job at a restaurant, and within weeks her new dishes were finding their way onto the menu. Some evenings Tom went to the restaurant at the end of his work day and ate with her on the back steps; some nights they both knew in advance he would simply go home. He would open the door of their house to the smell of sauce on the back burner. By the pan, there was always a note.

Hey, Darling, Hey, Darling,I'm working late, so you'll have to use those beautiful hands of yours in a useful occupation for once. Cook the pasta. Don't ask what's in the sauce. We'll see if it had the particular effect I wanted later.I love you,Charlie "YOU COULD SIT here all evening and watch the meat absorb the wine," Lillian commented. "It's amazing what you'll end up thinking about. Plate tectonics. A child in your lap. Crocuses. here all evening and watch the meat absorb the wine," Lillian commented. "It's amazing what you'll end up thinking about. Plate tectonics. A child in your lap. Crocuses.

"For now, however, we'll add the tomatoes and move on to the pasta. Now, we want some tomatoes for texture. You could use a can of crushed tomatoes, but crushed tomatoes are made from the bits, the parts n.o.body is going to see anyway. If you want to make sure you have the best, then you buy them whole and crush them yourself. Again, more time." Lillian opened a can of whole tomatoes and pulled out a Cuisinart from the shelves under the counter. She ladled tomatoes from the can; the machine whirred, and then stopped. Lillian tipped its contents into the pan.

"Finally, a bit of tomato sauce to thicken things up." Lillian opened a can of tomato sauce and poured some in. "There. That can take care of itself for a while," she said, turning down the heat under the pan.

"Now, on to the pasta." Lillian pulled out a large container of flour and plunked it onto the countertop.

"You could use dry-it would work just fine. But we have time tonight. So, go ahead and put some of that in a mound," she directed Tom. "Then make a hollow in the middle. Use your hands."

Tom reached into the wide mouth of the gla.s.s jar and felt the flour between his fingers, soft as feathers. He cupped his palm and pulled up a handful, then another and another, creating a small mountain on the wooden countertop. He made an indentation in the center, running the base of his thumb along the edges to smooth them out, feeling the flour s.h.i.+ft beneath his fingertips; it reminded him of playing at the beach, hours with the sun on his back and acres of building materials at his disposal.

"Good." Lillian went to the refrigerator and returned with a small bowl of eggs. She cracked one into the hollow. "We add the eggs one at a time until it seems as if there is enough," she said. "Tom, you can stir with a fork-you'll want to make sure there are no lumps."

IT WAS T TOM who had found the lump, nestled like a marble at the base of Charlie's breast. His breathing, which had been racing to keep up with his excitement, suddenly stopped. It was like waking to a gun in his face; the world held, mid-fall. who had found the lump, nestled like a marble at the base of Charlie's breast. His breathing, which had been racing to keep up with his excitement, suddenly stopped. It was like waking to a gun in his face; the world held, mid-fall.

"Hey, bud, where did you go?" Charlie had asked him teasingly.

He had pulled himself up even closer to her, his lips against the line of her jaw. He took her hand and led her fingers to the lump. Then he drew his head back and fell into the look in her eyes.

"THAT'S ENOUGH," Lillian said, taking the fork from Tom's hand. "Now we work the dough. Think of your hands as waves moving in and out of the ocean. You fold the dough over, then push it gently with the heel of your hand, then fold again and push again, for as long as it takes until the dough feels as if it is part of you. You could use a dough hook on your mixer if you wanted, but you'd miss out on something. Kneading dough is like swimming or walking-it keeps part of your mind busy and allows the rest of your mind to go where it wants or needs to."

TWO WEEKS AFTER he found the lump, Tom came home from work early and heard laughter at the back of the house-Charlie's and a man's he didn't recognize. He walked into the kitchen and saw Charlie sitting at the table, her s.h.i.+rt open, b.r.e.a.s.t.s falling forward unrestrained. Her head was tipped back, laughter floating up from her like flowers. At her feet knelt a man he hadn't seen before. he found the lump, Tom came home from work early and heard laughter at the back of the house-Charlie's and a man's he didn't recognize. He walked into the kitchen and saw Charlie sitting at the table, her s.h.i.+rt open, b.r.e.a.s.t.s falling forward unrestrained. Her head was tipped back, laughter floating up from her like flowers. At her feet knelt a man he hadn't seen before.

"What..." Tom stood unmoving, not understanding.

"Tom," said Charlie, smiling up at him, "meet Remy. He's helping me with a little project."

She looked at Tom's expression and laughed softly. "Remy blows gla.s.s, Tom. We're taking a mold of my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Remy's going to blow me a pair of winegla.s.ses. One for me and one for you-we never had quite such an equal distribution before." She was still laughing, but her eyes were on his, waiting for understanding.

Tom looked at his wife and the man on the floor, his hands cupped around her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Charlie's words fell about him, and he realized he had no way to make sense of the information he was being given.

Charlie watched him, took a breath, and the laughter swept off her face like dust in front of a broom. "Tom, we both know what the doctors are going to say tomorrow. They're going to take my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. I don't care, they can have them, but I want something." She shook her head. "Something I can hold in my hand. Do you understand?"

Tom looked at the woman he loved and the man kneeling on the floor. He walked over and put his hand softly on Remy's shoulder. Then he bent over and kissed his wife.

OVER THE FOLLOWING MONTHS, the world turned into something small and terrifying, with its own language of terminology and statistics, prognoses and theories made from the very stuff of reality-although Tom often thought that Charlie's beliefs about yeast or spices were more worth putting your faith in. He found himself yearning for days of grocery lists and difficult clients, things you could complain about because you knew they would eventually go away.

One night he came home from work to find the kitchen empty, the door to the backyard open. Tom couldn't see Charlie at first, but then he spotted the gentle motion of the hammock, the slightest of movements under the apple trees. As he went down the stairs he could see Charlie's profile, her cheekbones, sharp in the light, the inch or so of hair that was beginning to grow back along her skull. She had been worried about her looks, she who had been the object of so many appreciative glances, and yet her beauty had not so much changed with the loss of her hair and b.r.e.a.s.t.s and all the weight, but distilled, intensified-so pure and personal he sometimes felt as if he should ask permission to look at her.

"You know," Charlie said, without turning her head, "one of the unantic.i.p.ated benefits of big b.r.e.a.s.t.s is that they make very large winegla.s.ses." She raised her gla.s.s, one of the pair Remy had made.

"Charlie, should you be...?" Charlie turned toward him, and the expression in her eyes stopped his words.

"It's a nice evening, don't you think?" Charlie said. "It deserves a good red."

"Charlie...?" He waited, holding on to the air in his lungs, knowing that with the next breath everything would be different.

"New nurse," Charlie replied, taking a long, reflective sip of wine, "wanted to make sure she was doing her job well-thought I'd appreciate those lab results today, not wait until the doctor's appointment."

"But I thought..."

"Apparently not," she said, shaking her head slightly. "Want some wine? I saved some for you."

She s.h.i.+fted position, making s.p.a.ce in the hammock next to her. Tom climbed in, Charlie holding the gla.s.s high above her head to minimize the motion of the wine. They lay, looking across the length of the hammock at each other. It was quiet in the yard, the noise of the traffic out on the street and the sounds of their neighbors arriving home enclosing the s.p.a.ce like a blanket.

"You know," she said after a time, leaning her face against his leg, "every night, people used to come into my restaurant and I would watch them as they ate my food. They'd relax, they'd talk, they'd remember who they were. Maybe they went home and made love. All I know is I was part of that. I was a part of them.

"A very quiet part." She smiled. "But I'm starting to think there are advantages to quiet."

He looked at her across the hammock. She was already leaving, a bit at a time. He longed to reach for her, pull her across the length of the hammock to him, but the still, quiet look in her eyes stopped him.

"They aren't taking any more of you," he said. "I'm not going to let it happen."

"My sweet lawyer," she said, her voice deep and slow as the bottom of a river, "I don't think you have a choice." She paused, and took another sip of wine. "We're all just ingredients, Tom. What matters is the grace with which you cook the meal."

"WHEN THE DOUGH IS READY," Lillian said, "we roll it out and cut it, into long, thin strips. There are machines that do this-try them if you'd like. Or find yourself a long wooden rolling pin, a sharp knife, and a good, tall chair to hang the strips over. They won't all look the same, and that's all right. It's your hands that matter."

OVER THE WEEKS, Charlie disappeared, as steadily as water evaporating from a boiling kettle. Watched pots, Tom thought, and took a leave from his work to sit with her, his eyes never leaving the ever-deepening curves of her face, the tips of his fingers resting next to hers when her skin could no longer tolerate touch.

"Isn't that a b.i.t.c.h," she said, with her slow, steady smile, "just when you most wanted to jump my bones."

And he couldn't tell her that he did, he would, that he would take whatever of her was left. Instead he commandeered every part of her care that required touch, was.h.i.+ng her by hand when she could no longer stand in the shower, ma.s.saging lotion into her feet and legs and hands when the medications sucked the moisture from her skin, buzz-cutting her hair when it grew past her self-imposed one-inch limit.

"b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, Tom," she said, "at least I shouldn't have to worry about my hair. You think people really won't know I'm sick?"

And he learned to cook, whatever she could eat, adding the subtle and gentle spices that gave flavor without attacking her decimated stomach lining, the greens and yellows and reds that brought the outside world to her.

"Promise me you'll keep cooking when I'm gone." Charlie's voice was insistent.

"I'll eat," he said, frustrated. "Don't worry about me."

"Not just eat," Charlie corrected him. "Cook."

Finally, even food was no longer a topic. The house lost the smells of cooking and Charlie lived only on air and water, diving deep into her mind for longer and longer periods of time, coming back only to look into him, as if her eyes could tell him everything she had seen while she was gone. Then one day she met his eyes, dove, and simply disappeared. Tom was left behind in a stunning vacuum, surrounded by stacks of useless medications and bandages, holding only a feeling, deeply lodged in his bones, his brain, his heart, that even though Charlie had told him again and again that it wasn't about winning, he had lost.

After the weeks and months of watching, of life suspended in the bottomless well of Charlie's illness, the world seemed absurdly practical. There were bills to pay, a lawn to mow, laundry that smelled only of sweat and last night's microwaved dinner. Incoming phone calls reverted to casual check-ins from friends; no longer was he the source of grim updates. The hand-delivered meals from helpful neighbors slowed and then disappeared. He went to the grocery store without wondering if she would be there when he returned, the churning in his stomach replaced by a more certain and deeper ache. She was nowhere and everywhere, and he couldn't stop looking.

The only people who really wanted to talk about Charlie's death were the service providers and government agencies, who all wanted proof, in hard copy. He became the dispenser of death certificates, sending forth missives of mortality to phone service providers, credit card companies, life and health insurance, the Department of Motor Vehicles and Social Security. It was amazing, he thought, how many people cared to know, for sure, that you were dead.

Charlie had been clear that she didn't want to be buried. "Not unless you can turn me into compost," she told him firmly, then explained to him what she wanted. So one night a group of friends gathered and ate dinner on the beach that Charlie loved-slices of dripping cantaloupe from the old fruit vendor who cried when he heard the news, fresh fish marinated in olive oil and tarragon and grilled over a beachfront fire, chunks of thick-crusted bread from her favorite bakery in town, a spice cake Tom made from Charlie's own recipe. Afterward, they threw her ashes in great arcs out to the water. What only Tom knew was that each of them carried a tiny bit of her home with them that night, baked into the cake they had eaten.

After that, Tom stopped talking. It was as if all those conversations, the hard ones while she was alive and the prosaic ones after her death, had used up anything he would ever want to say. It was simply too much trouble to open his mouth, to think about what someone else might want or need to hear. His mind was busy, although he couldn't have told anyone with what.

ALMOST NINE MONTHS LATER, on what would have been Charlie's birthday, a friend had taken him to Lillian's restaurant for dinner. "Charlie would want you to be around food on her birthday, buddy," he had said, "and Lillian's will make even you want to eat."

It was August, the leaves on the cherry trees in the restaurant garden green and full when they walked up the path to Lillian's. They sat on the porch in the large Adirondack chairs with gla.s.ses of red wine as they waited for a table, listening to the hum of conversation about them, the clink of silverware coming through the open windows of the dining room inside. Tom felt his mind slowing, coming to rest in the serenity of the garden surrounding them.

When they were finally seated in the wood-paneled dining room, a waitress came up to their table and greeted them.

"We have a wonderful seafood special tonight," she announced. "Lillian found beautiful fresh clams and mussels at the seafood market today and she is serving them over homemade angel hair pasta in a sauce of b.u.t.ter, garlic, and wine, with just a bit of red pepper flakes and..." The waitress stopped, fl.u.s.tered at her lack of memory.

"Oregano," Tom said quietly.

"Yes," the waitress responded, relieved. "Thank you. How did you know?"

"Lucky guess," Tom said, raising his gla.s.s in a silent toast. He looked down at the table in front of him, concentrating on the weave of the linen cloth, the curve of the handle of his fork, the cut-gla.s.s lines of the small, round bowl filled with sea salt and fennel.

Then Tom noticed a folded chocolate-colored placard, almost hidden behind the bowl of salt. He picked up the small sign and read the cream-colored script flowing across the surface.

Announcing: The new session of The School of Essential Ingredients "CLa.s.s, I think we are ready," Lillian called over her shoulder, as she emptied the pasta from the huge pot into a colander. "Now all we need are plates."

As Lillian transferred the steaming spaghetti noodles from the colander to a heavy ceramic bowl, the students stood up obediently and went to the shelves, pa.s.sing white pasta plates from one person to the next like a fireman's brigade. They lined up in front of the counter, jokingly jostling each other. Lillian carried over the big blue bowl and began placing a serving of pasta on each plate.

"Tom," she said, turning to him, "you do the honors with the sauce. It's yours, after all." She watched as he ladled the first fragrant red spoonful onto a waiting bed of creamy-yellow pasta. When everyone was served, the cla.s.s settled into groups in the chairs, talking companionably before taking their first bites, after which the room dissolved into a silence interrupted only by the sounds of forks against plates and the occasional sigh of satisfaction.

"Look at what you did," Lillian remarked quietly, standing next to Tom at the counter.

"They'll eat it," he said, "and then it'll be gone."

"That's what makes it a gift," Lillian replied.

Chloe