Wonder Boys - Michael Chabon [89]
Dinner was a roast leg of lamb, crisp and speckled with rosemary, served with new potatoes that had been roasted in the pan of crackling fat. These, along with the matzoh ball soup and a gigantic green salad trimmed with yellow pepper and red onion, had been, we were told, Irene’s responsibility. Marie had provided a casserole of sweet potatoes stewed with onions and prunes, another of zucchini in a sauce of tomato and dill, and two cairns, at either end of the table, of the tasty little hollow puffs of matzoh-meal artifice, at once crusty and moist, called bagelach. Unfortunately, however, Philly’s claim that the menu had no symbolic content was not strictly true, because it also included Emily’s contribution, a kugel or pudding made, in this case, from potatoes. She’d been working on the thing, Irene informed us in a cautionary tone, all morning. As we brought the first forkfuls to our mouths the air around Emily suddenly gathered and took on a strange heaviness.
“Mmm,” I said. “Great.”
“Delicious,” said Irene.
Everyone agreed, chewing very carefully.
At last Emily took a bite. She managed a brave smile. Then she hung her head and covered her face with her hands. One of the things Emily most disliked about herself was her haplessness in the kitchen. She was an impatient cook, hasty and careless and easily distracted. Most of her efforts arrived at the table with uncooked middles, missing ingredients, and an apology from the mortified chef. In this I think she saw a kind of parable of her life, having started out aspiring to write heart-stopping novels and short stories, and ended up generating ad copy for the biggest kielbasa in the world. It seemed to her that she must have left something out, or taken something too soon off the burner.
“It tastes like something,” said Deborah, poker-faced. “Something we used to eat in school. Oh, I know.” She nodded. “Paste.”
I hate you, said Emily to her sister. Fuck you and go to hell.
“Sorry,” she said. She looked down at her plate.
“Sweetie pie,” I said, reaching out for the first time to touch her. I cupped her chin in my hand, and stroked her cool hair, and admired for the one thousandth time the surprising planes of her downturned face. Emily was a thoughtful, intense, and complicated woman with an ear for dialogue, a nice sense of the absurd, and a loyal heart, but I may well have had no better reason for falling in love with her than her face. And I don’t care what you will say about me, either. People get married for worse reasons than that. But like all beautiful faces Emily’s made you believe that its possessor was a better person than she was. It allowed her to pass for stoical when she was petrified, and for mysterious and aloof when she was so filled with self-doubt that she bought presents for other people when it was her birthday, framed most of her conversation in terms of apology and regret, and for all her talent could no longer manage to string twenty-five paragraphs of prose together to make a short story. “I think it tastes fine. I do.”
She took hold of my hand and gave my fingers a grateful squeeze.
“Thanks,” she said.
Deborah looked faintly disgusted.
“The two of you,” she said, giving her head a fatigued shake. “Shit, man.”
There was more at work here than Deborah’s natural gift for verbal abuse, of course, though only I knew it. I’d hurt her feelings with my earlier remarks about the dress, and doubtless that explained part of her anger, but I had also, I could see, by my confession about Sara, filled her with an as yet directionless, all-encompassing sense of outrage. It was this and her sisterly loyalty, albeit twisted back on itself like a Mobius strip, that had led her to say that Emily’s kugel tasted like library paste.
“So,” said Irene, in a brave but reckless effort to change the subject, “Grady. How is your book going? Emily said you were going to see your editor this weekend.”
“That’s right,” I said.
“Did he show?” said Emily, looking