Cooking as Fast as I Can (9 page)

One late night, after too much Crown Royal and Diet Coke, I told her, “I know you're cheating. I haven't caught you yet, but I know I will.”

Blake denied it, told me I was crazy and that she loved me, and I pretended to believe her. Even so, I started packing. I packed my books and pictures and made a stack of boxes against one wall, and there they sat for many months.

One weekend I went home and my mom and I were making dinner. It was dark outside, bright inside the kitchen, where there were no curtains on the windows, but thick shrubs provided privacy from the street. We had just opened a bottle of wine, an event that still signified an occasion in our house, and were laughing about something—no one likes to laugh more than my mom—happy to be together in the kitchen, as we always were. My mom was leaning against the counter, facing the window. Suddenly she shrieked and jumped. I whirled around to see Blake's face against the glass, peering in at us. My mom stomped outside and told her to get off the property, as if she were some crazy stranger. I didn't try to stop her.

Later, Blake would sob that she'd been seized by jealousy.
That she loved me so much she couldn't bear to think of me with someone else, and when I'd told her I was going home for the weekend, she'd smelled a lie on me. Her own guilty conscience motivated this, of course. A few months of drama followed; she cried and begged me to forgive her; I listened and eyed my cartons, yet did nothing.

For my twenty-first birthday, Blake said she wanted to make me a special dinner. Nothing could have made me happier. Even though I hadn't yet discovered my calling, I believed in my bones in the power of food, that sharing a meal could mend rifts in a relationship and build bridges over the ruins, that eating good food together was so much more than simply filling your stomach. Food marked all of life's best occasions—birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, reunions, and holidays. Even the spread after a funeral is both a celebration of the life of the person who's gone and a return to the task of living, which revolves around making and eating food.

I came home from class that day around six thirty, my backpack slung off one shoulder. As I climbed the stairs, I inhaled to try to get a whiff of cooking before I entered the apartment. When I cooked, the smell of garlic sautéed in olive oil infused the hallway outside our door. Once inside, I knew immediately that no feast was in the works. There were no lights on, and it smelled like Windex, which I used to wash down the counters.

But then Blake surprised me by hustling out of the kitchen with two plates piled high with steaming Chinese food.

“You cooked?” I asked.

“Of course! It's your birthday. Sit down before this gets cold.”

I knew Hattiesburg take-out Chinese when I tasted it, and that night, when I went to throw something away in the gar
bage beneath the sink, I found the empty red and white containers stuffed at the bottom. I stared down at those smashed containers and knew we were doomed.

I grabbed the cartons from the garbage and stuck them under her nose. I watched while she tried to formulate a lie, but she could hardly argue with the evidence. I flung the cartons at the wall. She threw up her arms, as if she was afraid I might throttle her, which was not out of the realm of possibility. I was furious at her, but more furious at myself.

Still, remarkably, I made no move. Every day I went to school and I came home. I wanted hard proof of Blake's infidelity, and I knew I had to bide my time.

Not long after the Chinese food incident, on a Saturday morning, Blake hopped out of bed and said she was going to cook us a big breakfast, but first needed to run to the store. It was seven thirty, early for a Saturday. I was only half awake when she left. I went back to sleep, and when my eyes clicked open at nine, and there was no smell of coffee brewing or bacon sizzling in the pan, or the rich, mouthwatering scent of eggs over easy in butter, or any noise in the apartment at all, I thought
enough
.

I wonder if Blake was so brazen because however betrayed I claimed to feel, I never did anything about it. Or maybe it was because we had only one car. My Fiat was in the shop that week. I had no means to come after her. I threw on some sweats and asked Natalie, a friend who was sleeping on the couch while between apartments, whether I could borrow the keys to her VW. We were chummy and generous in the way of college students, and she tossed me the keys without asking why or when I would be back. I roared over to Julie's apartment and sure enough, Blake's car was parked in the driveway.

I'd allowed my boss at the fitness center in Jackson to talk
me into resigning because I was gay. I'd swallowed Blake's lies about her cheating and her cheap Chinese food. I was flunking algebra for the third time because I couldn't bring myself to keep asking, again and again, how to solve for
x
. But when I saw Blake's car, something fierce emerged in me.

I threw the door open and walked right in without knocking. They were in the kitchen, both wearing long T-shirts, the kind that double as nightgowns. Julie was sitting at her little kitchen table and Blake was standing, holding a cup of coffee. They looked as cozy as you please. The satiated just-been-fucked glow on their faces vanished when they saw me blow in like a Mississippi tornado.

“You”—I pointed my finger at Julie—“can have her. I'm done.”

And with that I turned on my heel and left.

And this time I really was done. I drove back to the apartment and called my parents. “I need you guys to come down here now and help me move. Come as soon as possible. I'm leaving Blake and moving out today.”

My mom said, “Hallelujah!” I could hear her, my dad, and Grandmom Alma doing the happy dance on the other end of the line. They made the ninety-mile trip in under an hour and a half. By this time Alma was in her eighties and was no stranger to the drama of human existence. As we were moving my cartons into the U-Haul, Blake came home and turned on the waterworks, begging me to stay. “Better back off,” said Alma. “We're moving her out of here today whether you like it or not.”

The saga continued for another year or so. Blake would follow me to class, crying and begging in front of students bustling around campus. She would show up at my apartment in the middle of the night and bang on the door. Once I
had to call the police. This being a southern story, there was an incident with a handgun, a small revolver that she carried in her purse. One hot Saturday afternoon I was studying at my kitchen table and received a call from Natalie, the friend who'd let me borrow her car to drive to Julie's that fateful day, and who now roomed with Blake. Natalie said Blake had been waving a pistol around and threatening to do herself in. I dropped everything and sped over, and as Natalie and I were standing in her living room, we heard a shot fired upstairs. Without thinking about whether Blake might shoot me, I flew up the steps three at a time to find Blake in her bedroom blubbering that I didn't love her anymore, and what was she going to do? She'd shot the light fixture, which had apparently satisfied her appetite for gun violence. She handed the gun over to me. After I sat her down and made sure she was all right, I got the hell out of there.

I dropped her revolver into my purse and forgot about it. A week later Natalie and I and a few guys she knew decided a bar crawl was in order. It may have been after exams. We drank at home, then hopped into the car and sped down the dark highway in search of a great bar someone knew down in Purvis, or maybe Lumberton. The radio was cranked, windows rolled down, we were hollering and singing into the night. Then, the red and blues started flashing behind us. We weren't especially panic stricken, not at first. Your average Mississippi cop was unmoved in the face of an open beer. Usually they'd sidle over to the window and say, “I'll just take that beer from you and give you this ticket. Now don't let me catch you again and get on home.”

But this particular officer pulled the driver out of the car, and without any cordial chitchat handcuffed him and tossed him into the back of his patrol car. Natalie and I were in the
backseat clinging to each other, drunk and sobbing. “We're going to jail! Some crazy backwater jail where we're going to get raped and murdered.” We were scared, but it wasn't until I remembered the pistol in my purse that I saw spots before my eyes and felt my internal organs clench with fear.

The cop found the gun and took us all back to the station. I was sobering up quick and thought with horror of how my parents and Grandmom would react. They would be disappointed, sad, and pissed, and not necessarily in that order. I thought about their utter devotion to me, their commitment to helping me get through school, the way they dropped everything and probably broke a few speed limits themselves racing down to Hattiesburg to help me move. They really didn't deserve this.

I was handcuffed, fingerprinted, and booked for carrying a concealed weapon. I explained that the reason I had the gun was that I'd taken it away from a friend who'd threatened to kill herself. I offered to show them how I didn't even know how to shoot the thing. I said I was happy and relieved that they had confiscated it. I was smart enough to keep saying
a friend
and not
my girlfriend.
I would probably still be in jail had I dropped that bomb on those good old boys.

They confiscated the pistol, issued me a fine, and released me.

Not long after that, I found out that I'd finally passed algebra.

seven

M
y mom kept a scrapbook for each of her kids, and on the inside of mine, written on the bottom left corner of the front cover in black permanent marker, it said: Born April 3, 1967. Adopted April 10, 1967. The large, clear hand proclaims there are no secrets here. My parents made a point of treating my adoption, and also the adoption of my brother Mike, as if they were the most normal family events.

Then as now, adoption is closed in Mississippi, but when I turned twenty-one I was given the chance to find my birth mother. I'd wondered about her, of course, but at that moment all I really knew was that I came from good, healthy stock. A few years earlier, when I was around eighteen, I became curious about my health history. I can't remember why I was so curious, other than I was beginning to understand that I didn't share my parents' DNA, but had the DNA of other people who might be wandering the earth with some inheritable syndrome or disease that I should know about. I'd asked my parents, and they said all they knew was that the Mississippi Children's Home had given me a clean bill of health before my adoption was finalized.

What I didn't know was that my question inspired my mom to contact the Children's Home. She learned that my birth mother called the home every year around my birthday,
hoping to be in touch with me. My mom then wrote my birth mother a letter, telling her in general terms about my upbringing, how she was a nurse and my father was a teacher, and how I was a good student and fine athlete. Not strictly true, but my mom was generally proud of me. My birth mother wrote right back and said she was married with two kids, and that whenever I was ready she would love to meet me. It turned out that she was also a registered nurse, just like Mom.

On the night of my birthday dinner we stuffed ourselves with
kota kapama
and Alma's cheesecake. It being my birthday, I went for that second slice. I remember my mom going from room to room opening windows, letting in the smell of spring. The dogwoods were blooming, as well as the saucer magnolias with their fragrance of overripe citrus.

She returned from the other room with a stack of letters. “Cathy,” she said, “when you had those questions about your birth mom awhile back we contacted her. I kept a copy of what I wrote, and here's what she wrote back. Also, we thought you should know that she called and wanted to meet you when you turned eighteen, but we felt it was too soon.”

“Too soon? I was eighteen! A legal adult.” I felt a swirl of conflicting emotions at the thought of meeting the woman who gave birth to me, but my kneejerk response was to get het up and offended. I was irked that Mom and Dad contacted her and hadn't told me. “You were coping with a lot of serious issues then,” said my mom. “Adding another issue to the mix was the last thing you needed then. When she called asking again last week, we thought it was time. If you want to meet her it's okay with us. We're with you all the way.”