Authors: Ruth Reichl
“And what do I have to do in exchange?”
“Given a few nugatory changes, you might be rendered quite appealing.” He stared thoughtfully at my hair. “I have been thinking that
you might lighten your locks. A bit of color would have a salubrious effect.”
“You’re the only person in the world who uses the words ‘nugatory’ and ‘salubrious.’ ”
“Thank you.” He inclined his head and then pointed to my eyes. “Contact lenses, perhaps? And an improved wardrobe might have a salutary effect on your morale.”
It was ridiculous. He seemed to see himself as my fairy godfather, and I saw no point in arguing. His increasingly archaic vocabulary was a sure sign that he was getting drunk, and I crossed my fingers beneath the table and agreed to everything, convinced that by morning he would have forgotten the whole thing.
Dear Genie,
My heart goes out to Sammy; I can’t imagine how it must feel to be as old as he is, and as lost. When they closed
Delicious!
I lost a job, but for him it was like walking off a cliff. He was going along, enjoying his life, thinking things would never change, and then—boom! He found himself hurtling through thin air, unable to find anything to hold on to.
Now he’s found me, but I’m afraid I’m going to be another disappointment. He seems to have before-and-after fantasies, where Billie the nerd ends up as some kind of goddess. What’s he going to do when that doesn’t happen? My only hope is that we can find enough of Lulu’s letters to write a book. It would make him so happy.
And I’ll admit that having him at the mansion has changed everything. Reading the letters with him is like discovering a strange new planet where the men are all gone and the women make do. Their lives were changing every day. Now I wake up every morning, eager to get to work.
I’m glad I told him about you too. I hardly ever do that—I think Diana’s the only other one—but if we’re going to be true friends, he needs to know you’re out there. Always were, always will be.
xxb
Now that Sammy was at the mansion, looking for Lulu’s letters was fun. It wasn’t easy; the clues seemed to have become more elusive. I was convinced the next one would be “meatballs,” and when that didn’t
work we spent a week researching dozens of variations—“polpette,” “kofte,” “frikadeller,” “albondigas,” “bouletten,” “bola bola”—before giving up. Next we tried “contests.” There are a stunning number of food competitions in America, but after researching everything from old-fashioned pie eating to Rocky Mountain oyster tournaments and cow-pie flipping trials, we reluctantly accepted that we were getting nowhere. Then I tried “gravy”; one card sent us searching pointlessly through Italian cookbooks, another directed us to eighteenth-century French recipes, and a third had us reading about the history of the tomato, before we finally admitted defeat. I couldn’t help feeling that Bertie was deliberately sending us off on wild-goose chases; two weeks later, we were back to square one.
We reread the letters. “Perhaps we should investigate that institution where Beard was working,” Sammy suggested.
“The ‘National Seamen’s Service’?” I went to the card file. “Nothing.”
“Try ‘Seamen,’ ” he said. “Or ‘Service’?”
I kept flipping disconsolately through the cards. “Nothing.”
“ ‘United States Seamen’s Service’?” he suggested.
My fingers stopped moving, and I pulled up a card. “Not ‘United States.’ ‘United Seamen’s.’ ” I handed it to Sammy.
“ ‘Although merchant seamen came under constant attack, they were not considered servicemen. But the government found these traveling sailors to be a vital source of information and created an international string of clubs to provide them with food, drink, and a decent place to stay. Anyone with an interest in the Second World War will find the letters on the subject of this unique department of the War Shipping Administration fascinating; they can be found in the 1944 files.’ ”
I was through the door the minute he’d finished reading the last sentence.
M
ARCH
16, 1944
Dear Mr. Beard
,
Father has been found! He says he’s a cat, he survived a crash, and he’s got eight lives to go. He can’t tell us the details, but we know that he’s in the hospital in Sicily, and he says he will be flying again very soon. He writes almost every day now, as if he’s trying to make up for lost time. Mother seems different too; yesterday I heard her singing “Paper Doll” in the shower
.
The Cappuzzellis have had a letter too. Marco did lie about his age, and now he’s headed overseas. Mr. C. wants to wire his commander, but Mrs. C. just moans and says, What’s the point? By the time he got home he’d be almost eighteen, and he’d join up again
.
A few days ago I asked Mrs. C. what they eat in the springtime in Sicily. She told me about the wild vegetables they gather on the hillsides. That reminded me about the milkweed shoots last spring, so yesterday I went back to forage for them. I had forgotten how delicious they are
.
I made Mother a nice little milkweed salad for her lunch. That should show up Estelle Dixon! She’s still ahead of us, but there are a few more weeks until Easter, and I’m not giving up. I will be sorry when the contest is over; making these thrifty lunches with Mother has been such fun
.
About the onions: You were absolutely right. I sliced two very thin, sprinkled them with salt and pepper, and covered them with vinegar. Then I left them to sit in the refrigerator for a few hours; Mother said they make her sandwiches taste so much better
.
Your friend
,
Lulu
“Why are you looking so glum?” Sammy was jubilant. “Father is in fine fettle. Mother is warbling in the shower. And our Lulu is out in the
countryside, collecting milkweed shoots. What misfortune are you anticipating?”
“Look at the date.” I pointed to the top of the letter.
“March 1944. Where is the difficulty?”
“You know those books I’ve been reading? If he’s in Sicily, he’s going to be part of the Anzio campaign; the landing was called Operation Shingle. It started badly and got worse. The Allies dropped more bombs there than anywhere else on the continent. And it didn’t help much. The Germans had set up antiaircraft guns, and, despite the air support, the soldiers were just sitting ducks. By March they’d been bogged down there for two months. The generals were fighting among themselves—reading about it makes you so mad!—and sending men off on crazy sorties, where they got separated from the army. It was terrible.”
Sammy shuddered. “I believe there was a film called
Anzio
. Dreadfully realistic. As I recall, I had nightmares for weeks. But by late March, D-Day was just around the corner. I would conjecture that all the pilots were sent to Normandy to cover the landing.”
“They weren’t.” I’d been doing my homework. “Eisenhower wanted to create a diversion in Italy, and he kept them there.”
“Anything must have been better than Normandy,” Sammy murmured. “Now, where do you suppose we will encounter her next letter?”
“Who sang ‘Paper Doll’?”
Sammy thought for a minute and then began to laugh. “What a perspicacious young woman you are! It was the Mills Brothers. An ideal clue.”
We raced to the card catalog, and when there was not a single blue card for “mill,” “miller,” or “millstone,” we were both incredulous. “It seemed so perfect!” I fumed as we retreated to the secret room.
We spent the rest of the day following clues that led nowhere. “Cat,” “onion,” “vinegar”—all useless.
“I believe that will do for today,” said Sammy. “I find that I am being bombarded by images of Anzio.” He did look very pale. “I simply cannot erase it from my mind. Tomorrow is another day.”
He turned to go, and we were already at the library door when I realized I’d forgotten my purse.
“I left it in the secret room.” I went back to retrieve it.
“The brave young soldier,” Sammy called after me, “risks life and limb to rescue a fallen comrade at Anzio.”
“I think you’ve just christened the secret room,” I said when I re-emerged.
Sammy gave a forced little chuckle, but he still seemed anxious.
“Laugh if you want.” I cradled my purse as I walked down the stairs. I meant to keep talking so he’d stop seeing the war images in his head. “But this brave young soldier actually has been plotting a kind of rescue. Rosalie’s birthday’s on Sunday, and when I asked Sal what they were doing, he looked at me like I was crazy. ‘We don’t make a big deal of birthdays,’ he said.”
“I take it that you do not approve?”
“I don’t. Rosalie works so hard.” I’d wanted to throw a big party, but then I thought better of it; Rosalie would spend the entire evening making sure everyone else was having a good time. “I was thinking she’d like a romantic lunch, just the two of them. They almost never get to spend time alone.”
“I trust you have enlisted Thursday?” The color was coming back into his cheeks.
“Yeah, she loved the idea and came up with this great little menu. And Richard’s going to decorate The Pig’s private dining room.”
“I shall contribute a bottle of Dom Perignon,” said Sammy grandly, and I hoped that I’d managed to make him forget about war.
“
HOW
’
RE YOU GOING TO GET
Sal out of that shop?” Thursday asked at our final planning meeting.
“I have my ways,” I said, wondering exactly what they were.
I was still worrying about it early Sunday morning as I stopped to buy a bunch of roses on my way to the shop. It was a start.
“Are those for Rosalie?” asked Sal. “She’ll be pleased.”
This was the moment. “I was thinking …” I began haltingly. “This is the slowest time of the year.… ”
It took a little while for me to get it all out, but when I was finally done, Sal stared at me as if I were an alien creature. “Leave the shop to you and Theresa?” His tone suggested that he would be more likely to leave a couple of orangutans in charge. “Abandon my customers? What will they think?”
“You were gone for hours when you took me on the Sal Test,” I said. “What’s the difference?”
He looked at me incredulously. “That was work! I was doing it for Jake. I wasn’t just going off to have a good time. Besides, Rosalie was here.”
“They’ll think,” said Theresa, who had come in quietly with Rosalie, “that you’ve decided, for once in your life, to act like a normal human being and put your wife before your customers.” I’d been so busy trying to persuade Sal, I hadn’t noticed them entering the shop. Rosalie was putting bread on the shelves and filling the cases, acting as if all this had nothing to do with her. But she didn’t object, which seemed like a hopeful sign.
I don’t know what tipped the balance, but when Kim Wong arrived to present Rosalie with the chocolate invitation that she’d created for the occasion, Sal threw up his hands. “I give up,” he said. “You win. Rosie, go get your coat. Looks like we’re taking the day off.”
Still, he was spewing instructions as he walked out of the shop. “Don’t forget that Gennaro’s mama likes the spring Parmigiano, not the summer. Don’t give Jane cold mozzarella; she’ll throw it in your face. And Mr. Abruzzo prefers the bresaola to the speck—”
“You think you’re the only one who knows how to run the shop?” Theresa pushed him through the door. As it closed behind him, she was saying, “No, don’t answer that. Please.” But when she turned around, I saw that she was apprehensive. “I’ve never been in the store without Sal or Rosalie,” she admitted.
At first everything was fine. “They’re celebrating her birthday!” Gennaro clapped his pale hands together and looked prayerfully toward
the ceiling. “
Benissimo!
Mama will be so pleased.” Jane actually complimented me on the mozzarella. And, as predicted, on this cold February day, the shop was less frantic than usual.
But then, for the first time in two months, Mr. Complainer walked through the door. “Oh, no!” To my horror, I said it out loud.
“Nice to see you too.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.” I carved off a chunk of pecorino and handed it across the counter, a peace offering. Awful Amy, I noted happily, was absent. “It’s just that Sal’s going to be devastated that he missed you.”
“He’s not here? He’s always here.” He ran both hands through his curls. “Is something wrong? Is he sick?”
“He’s fine. Fine. It’s Rosalie’s birthday, and he took her out to lunch.”
“You mean,” Theresa chimed in, “you made him take her to lunch.”
“Really?” asked Mr. Complainer. “Good for you!” His smile held so much warmth, I could feel my cheeks begin to flush.
“Nobody can make Sal do anything,” I said.
“I think you’re being modest.” He was beaming his approval.
“She is,” Theresa agreed.
“I did plan a little lunch,” I admitted, surprising myself by hoping he’d keep looking at me like that. “And Sal wasn’t exactly thrilled. Why did you have to show up and make matters worse? He’s never going to forgive me; he’s been looking for you every Sunday.”
“Really?” Mr. Complainer laughed with open delight. “You’re not just saying that?”
“No. He really misses you.”
He clearly had no idea how much Sal liked him. I handed another piece of cheese across the counter. “He’s convinced you’ve been going down the street, where the line’s shorter.”
“That’s crazy!” Mr. Complainer seemed incredibly pleased. “I would never … He should know that. I treasure my Sundays with Sal.”
“So how come you haven’t been in?”
“I’m teaching up in Cambridge. This is the first time I’ve been in the city in almost two months.”
A professor? He was a professor? But teaching one semester didn’t necessarily make him that. Writers sometimes taught. Aunt Melba had once spent a semester at Cranbrook. And I supposed all kinds of other people moonlighted at universities. I wanted to ask what he taught, but it wasn’t the Fontanari way; Sal said it was fine if the customers wanted to tell us about themselves, but it wasn’t our place to ask. But I could say this: “So we can tell Sal you’ll be back?”
“As soon as I’m done with the gig, I’ll be back to—how did that writer put it?—‘worship at the Fontanari altar.’ ”