Authors: Ruth Reichl
“Kicked them out?” I was incredulous.
“They weren’t the only ones.” He didn’t even try to hide his bitterness. “Her whole neighborhood was evacuated. Ten thousand people in California lost their homes.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say.
“Nonna says her mother couldn’t believe that the country she loved so much would do that to her.” Richard gazed up at the shelves around us, and I wondered what he was seeing. “You can look it up. Joe DiMaggio was a national hero, but while he was in the army they wouldn’t let his father, who’d been a fisherman all his life, go out on San Francisco Bay. They considered him a security risk.”
“What about your grandmother? What did she do?”
“Nonna’s father was in jail, and her mother didn’t want to leave without him. But then the mayor of San Francisco—his name was Rossi—was accused of giving a Fascist salute, and she got scared. She borrowed money, came to New York, and moved in with friends here. Nonna still doesn’t like to talk about it—she’s ashamed.”
“What happened to her father?”
Richard gave an angry laugh. “The madness ended before the year was out. Fiorello La Guardia had more guts than Rossi, and he made an enormous fuss. On Columbus Day the attorney general went to Carnegie Hall and announced that Italians would no longer be classified as enemies. But it didn’t do my great-grandfather much good; he was on the West Coast and they kept him in jail until the war in Europe ended.” He took a ragged breath and with obvious effort changed the subject. “How old is Lulu?”
I wanted to ask a million questions, but Richard clearly didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “She would have been thirteen when she wrote this. I’m hoping she kept writing to Beard throughout the war.”
“But you haven’t found his letters? How great would it be if you found his replies! Then you’d really have a book.” He seemed relieved that I’d let the subject of his family drop.
“But why would they be here?”
Richard stretched out, settling his body against the wall. “Why are all these letters here? What was the point of hiding them? Does Sammy have any ideas?”
“I think he was as surprised as I was. But he’s obviously not very interested; he hasn’t been back since the day we found this secret room.”
“What about Maggie? She spent half her life at
Delicious!
You should ask her.”
“No way! As far as I’m concerned, the only good thing about the magazine closing is that I never, ever have to see Maggie again.”
“She’s not so bad. Let’s take her to The Pig and see what she knows about your three librarians.”
“You call her.” I had no desire to see Maggie. “Count me out.”
“Oh, come on.” There was a challenge in his voice. “I never figured you for a wimp.”
B
Y THE TIME I GOT TO THE PIG, MAGGIE WAS SITTING AT THE BAR
with Richard, sipping a Manhattan, and Thursday was setting a plate of deviled eggs in front of them. Thursday was wearing a Madonna-like smile. Was it seeing Richard that made her so happy?
“You look no worse for wear.” Maggie was giving me the once-over. “I thought you might have the half-starved look of so many out-of-work people.”
“You mean like you?” The old enmity had come roaring back, and she was no longer one of my bosses.
She gave a shout of laughter. “Well, you’re right, it’s been a rotten time. I’ve been catering, which is just another way of saying that I’ve been in hell.”
“That bad?” Richard took a bite of an egg.
“Worse.” Maggie upended her glass and took a huge swig of her drink. “Last night I did Christmas cocktails on upper Fifth Avenue, and I was honestly afraid I’d kill the hostess before the evening was over. I had no idea how spoiled I’d gotten at
Delicious!
She made me go up to her apartment six times in the two weeks before the event to ‘rehearse the hors d’oeuvres.’ If she wasn’t filthy rich I’d swear she just wanted free food.”
“You’re missing the point.” Richard was still nibbling on the edges of the deviled egg, reluctant to commit to it. “It’s not about the money. She wanted to show you who was in charge.”
“You’re right.” Maggie scowled at the memory and downed the better
part of an egg in a single bite. “I should never have gone into this business. She demanded changes in all the recipes. Every damn one! And she made them all worse.”
“No.” Richard sounded amused. “She made them hers.”
“In my home”—Maggie made her voice very high, a bad parody of Julia Child—“we serve only prime beef; you will have to show me the butcher’s bill. Are those ordinary apples you’re using? Please! I’ll have nothing but heirlooms in my kitchen. And I always insist that the caterer make the puff pastry right in front of me, where I can see it. Why should I pay all this money to serve frozen products any fool can buy in the supermarket?”
“You put up with this?” I was stunned. “You?”
She looked embarrassed. “I need the money. I’m not sure that my business is going to make it. Still, when she said that the only acceptable caviar was beluga from the Black Sea, I told her to find another caterer. Serving the eggs of the last beluga sturgeon on the planet isn’t something I want on my conscience.”
“Brava!” Richard clapped his hands.
“That”—Maggie put up a hand and halted him in mid-clap—“turned out to be a serious mistake. Because after I’d gone through the sustain-ability rap, her eyes started shining and she said, ‘We simply must redo the menu! Everything we serve will be local and sustainable.’ ”
Maggie being cowed by a Fifth Avenue matron? I loved it.
“So!” She turned on me. “While I’ve been killing myself for the cocktail crowd, it seems you’ve been eating bonbons in bed. You look like you’ve put on weight.”
“I’m glad adversity hasn’t changed you.”
She gave another crack of laughter and pulled the cherry from the bottom of her glass. “I think being out of Jake’s shadow will be very good for you.”
“Won’t it be good for you too?”
“If you’re asking if Jake bankrolled my business, the answer is yes.” She gave a wry smile. “I think he’s still feeling guilty about the restaurant we had back in the eighties; we could have had an empire by now if
he hadn’t been such a jerk. But maybe I shouldn’t have taken the money from him.”
“Being nice to people must be quite a strain.” I was surprised by how much I was enjoying myself. I looked at Maggie, wondering if this was how Lulu felt around Miss Dickson.
“It
is
a strain.” Maggie said it without a hint of embarrassment. “But what are you doing these days?”
“That”—Richard saw an opportunity and rushed in to grab it—“is what we want to talk to you about. Billie’s still at the book, honoring the Guarantee—”
“You’re kidding!” Maggie’s voice was sharp now. “Young Arthur closes
Delicious!
but keeps you? No wonder Pickwick’s in so much trouble.”
“Well, thank you very much.”
“Oh, don’t get your knickers in a twist. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“—and,” Richard continued, as if he had not been interrupted, “she went up to the library. We were wondering what you know about the
Delicious!
librarians.”
“Sorry.” She drained her Manhattan. “Can’t help you there. The last one was gone by the time I arrived.”
“But you must have heard stuff.” Richard rose as Thursday beckoned us to one of the elegantly rickety antiques that passed for tables at The Pig. “Knew people who knew them? Can you remember anything? Anything at all?”
Maggie furrowed her brow as she settled into her seat. She looked down at the platter of tiny Kumamoto oysters Thursday had set in the middle of the table; she picked one up, tilted her head back, and allowed the sweet cucumber-flavored mollusk to slip down her throat. Thursday stood listening as she opened a bottle of wine. “You know, in Mrs. Van Allen’s day, the magazine was nothing like the place you knew. It was kind of a ladies’ seminary. A few selected males of the Sammy persuasion were permitted to join the staff, but it was mostly us girls. The HR person from Pickwick told me they once sent a hunk of a man over to try out as an assistant, and Mrs. V. called, asking what they were
thinking. ‘The girls and I,’ she said, ‘wouldn’t like that at all.’ She made them wear white gloves every day.” Maggie paused to down another oyster. “The white-glove days were ending when I arrived, but a few of the old girls were still there. God, were they high on that library! Whenever they talked about it, their eyes would light up. According to them, when the magazine lost its last librarian, it lost its soul.”
Maggie had eaten most of the oysters, and now she moved on to the salad, one of Thursday’s more inspired creations. She’d shredded kale into confetti and tossed it with sweet little currants and richly toasted pine nuts. Mixed with lemon juice and oil, and laced with grated Parmesan, it was an incredible concoction. Maggie put a forkful in her mouth and paused to appreciate it.
“So did they tell you anything about the last librarian?” prompted Richard.
“Bertie?” said Maggie. “It was hard to know what was true. They were all in love with the legend of Bertie.”
“What do you mean, legend?”
“Apparently there was nothing Bertie didn’t know about food. Nothing. You could ask any question and instantly get the right answer. If you wanted a recipe for, say, bouillabaisse, you’d learn that in Marseille they always used rascasse, grondin, and conger, but in Bagnolles, just down the road, they didn’t consider it authentic unless it contained lotte. Bertie could give you a recipe without looking it up and could also tell you how the recipes in Waverley Root, Elizabeth David, and Julia Child differed. Every time I went looking for a source, one of the old biddies would roll her eyes and say, ‘Oh, if only Bertie were here. Bertie would know the answer.’ ”
“But you never actually met her?”
“To be honest, I never believed that Bertie was real. I thought it was some phantom they’d dreamed up to make the rest of us feel stupid.”
“Do you have any idea when she left?”
Maggie had powered through her salad, talking with her mouth full. She was eating as if she hadn’t eaten in weeks, and when Thursday arrived
with plates of airy gnocchi, her eyes lit up. “Exactly what I wanted!” she cried, scooping one up. “No idea.”
“Come on, Mags!” said Richard. “Try a little harder. When did you get there?”
“Mid-eighties. And I figure Bertie had to have been gone at least ten years by then. It would have taken them that long to create the myth. I haven’t thought about the library in ages, but I remember some fantastic story about Bertie sneaking in late at night to work on a mystery project.”
“What?” Richard and I shouted together, and Maggie put down her fork and opened her eyes very wide. “Wait. What are you two up to? Why do you want to know this stuff?”
“Just curious,” I started to say as Richard simultaneously blurted out, “Billie’s found—” before my glare stopped him cold.
“Found what?” Maggie was looking at me intently.
“The amazing card file in the library,” I tried.
Maggie’s smile softened her face, and I saw how lovely she must have once been. I thought about the butterfly tattoo on her shoulder. “I’d almost forgotten about that.” She had a dreamy look. “I used to love going in there to leaf through those cards. All those colors!”
“Which one is Bertie?” I asked. “Do you know?”
“Isn’t it obvious? The blue one, of course.”
“Perfect!” There was laughter in Richard’s voice. “Of course. That color used to be called peacock blue, until the Sheaffer ink people stupidly renamed it turquoise.”
“How do you know that?” Maggie was staring at him skeptically.
“I’ll have you know I’m a proud member of the
fountainpennetwork.com
,” he said.
“Art directors!” she scoffed.
I cleared my throat. “Could we get back to Bertie? How old was she when she worked there? Was she married? Was she a certified librarian?”
Maggie waved her hand. “Haven’t a clue. For all I know Bertie was a
dancing horse who ran away from the circus. I don’t know a thing—except that during Bertie’s last days at
Delicious!
, she was sneaking in and out at midnight. Whenever the library was mentioned, Mrs. V. would smile knowingly and say that one day the whole world would be grateful to Bertie.”
“Do you have any idea why?” asked Richard, but Maggie had had enough. “I’m tired of this.” Her voice was cross. “Damn
Delicious!
, damn Bertie, and damn Pickwick Publications. They fired us, and as far as I’m concerned they can go to hell—and take their legends with them.” She picked up her wineglass and took a long drink. When she put it down, her face was as blank as if a shutter had been lowered. She was closed for the night.
Hi, Genie.
Not going to complain. Things are definitely better since we found the Lulu letters. I can’t think back to the time before New York—not yet. But this time last year I was fretting about the Fontanari story, terrified about what Sal’s reaction would be when it was finally printed. And that turned out okay.
So what if I have a ridiculous job and no clue about my future?
So what if Sammy’s disappeared and nobody knows where he is?
So what if the one good friend I’ve made has left the state, never to return? (Although she wasn’t lying when she said she’d write every day.)
Even Mr. Complainer seems to have vanished; he hasn’t been to Fontanari’s for the last two Sundays, and I admit that I miss him. Leave it to me to miss the chance when I had it. If I had it.
Did I say I wasn’t going to complain? Sorry.
It’s Christmas. I’m working at Fontanari’s every day, and the place is packed. I’m spending New Year’s Eve at Rosalie and Sal’s. My resolution is to get contact lenses, if only to shut Rosalie up. Things could be worse.
At this rate, next year will be even better, right?
I love you.
xxb
Tina Fey had told some
New York Times
reporter that she was gifting Fontanari olive oil to all her friends, and the line that greeted me when I got to the shop stretched down the block. Sal was convinced that was
why Mr. Complainer had abandoned us: He’d finally moved on to a more efficient shop. “You want a store filled with cops and complainers,” he said morosely. “Now we’ve lost Mr. Complainer. Who’s next?”