How Sweet It Is - Alice J. Wisler [4]
“Yes, but I still have pain all over,” I told him, hoping to sound refined, with only a mild strand of desperation. What I really wanted to say was, “Which pain were the drugs supposed to cure? The pain in my legs or the pain in my heart?” Somewhere around March, two months after the accident and a month after my grandpa Ernest’s death, I’d realized my life was in shambles. I didn’t know how I would ever be normal again. And somewhere around that time, the physical pain went away and the heart pain set in.
Just like death, people don’t like to talk about pain—well, unless it belongs to them. They want you to move on, get over it, resume your life, whip up an omelet, frost a cake, be happy, play the saxophone. But I still carry pain—and Extra Strength Tylenol is not getting rid of it.
When the fries arrive on a chipped blue plate, I squeeze Hunt’s ketchup into a mound and dip one crispy slice into the red circle. I chew loudly, making a smacking noise, just to hear the sound. I figure table manners don’t count when you dine solo, although my mother would surely disagree. “Deena, Deena, you must eat like royalty,” she once said. I don’t know where that idea of hers came from. I’m the daughter of pig farmers and have yet to feel regal.
The next time I sink a fry into the red condiment, all I can think is that the ketchup looks like a pool of fresh blood.
three
Covering my plate with three white paper napkins from the dispenser, I recall the first time Chef Bordeaux taught our class how to make crispy fried potatoes. He called them by a fancier name, yet they were just one step above French fries. He coated them in a seasoning of salt, pepper, garlic salt, cayenne pepper, and olive oil. Then he baked them at 400 degrees for thirty minutes, taking them out of the oven once to stir them. “So as not to burn,” he said. We ate them when they were done, and we were all impressed with the soft insides and flavorful taste.
“You like potatoes?” he asked us.
“Yes,” we said, in between bites. We were all in training. I’d only been working at his restaurant for a month. Anthony, just off the boat from a small village outside of Lyon, France, said never had he had potatoes so “delicate.” He then switched from English to French, and none of us understood him. Chef B grew up in San Sebastian, Spain, but he tried to follow the young Frenchman’s enthusiasm. After all, Anthony had been recommended to him and the Palacio del Rey from a two-star restaurant in Lyon.
Anthony makes the best braised duck in orange sauce I’ve ever tasted. He knows how much I like it, so he made the dish for my going-away party. Chef Bordeaux made wild rice seasoned with garlic and fresh rosemary from his own garden. The rest of the meal included shiitake mushrooms filled with cheese and baby shrimp, mint sorbet, and basil and parmesan Tuscan loaf bread. The party couldn’t have been more flavorful or beautiful, unless perhaps it had taken place on the Queen Mary 2. It was too bad the occasion was that I was leaving the restaurant.
The event even included a gift. Everyone chipped in and brought a set of cake pans for me. There were three—an 8-inch, 9-inch and 13-inch—and each one was wrapped in silver-and-purple paper topped with a large bow. I almost cried when I opened them, and I don’t cry easily. My mother taught my sister and me the art of sucking in not only your stomach but also your emotions. “A woman cannot be easily read,” she told us. “A woman must cover her body and her heart.”
I pull another napkin from the metal dispenser and lay it like