(As originally published in Salt & Pepper Magazine, December 2019)
Bailey held the receiver to her face for long seconds after the clipped “ciao” and only jolted back to herself when the dull tone started. She looked up at her reflection in the mirror above the lowboy and counted to three before rushing up to her bedroom. She was already showered, hair fluffed, nails painted, and face powdered to a goddess glow. She dabbed something by Cartier behind her ears and open her wrists before slipping on a simple cream gown and tiptoed down the stairs with gold slippers in her hands.
It was just after dusk and the candles she had lit around the dining room created the ambiance she was looking for. The tablecloth was white, the plates were blue, silver was wrapped in linen, and it was cut crystal for water and wine.
She quieted her nerves with a swallow of Barbancourt right from the bottle before going to the kitchen to prepare the entree. It was a decidedly unpretentious dish, but by now she’d learned how to glam a dish up. A cast iron skillet sat on the front burner, waiting for the stick of unsalted butter set aside on a plate. There was pancetta instead of plain ham, shredded Gruyere, and flakes of Parmesan from the finest purveyors in Manhattan arranged on the counter, each waiting for its moment to shine. When the doorbell finally rang, Bailey inhaled, slipped on her shoes, and walked slowly to the door. She stopped at the mirror again, memorising her own eyes, the curve of her cheekbones, the line of her chin, preparing to look for them and not knowing was she would find.
“Hello Mom.”
As she stepped into the marble foyer, the older woman’s shoes made no sound. She looked at Bailey’s outstretched hand and leaned in to kiss her lightly on both cheeks. She gave a thin smile and nodded cautiously.
“Come in.”
Bailey moved down her own hall as if for the first time. The veins on her hands pulsed and she was unnervingly aware of the click of her heels on the wood floor. As they passed through the living room she was surprised by the leitmotif of “All Blues” filling the space , even though she had pushed the button own the Miles Davis mix before going to the door.
“Can I offer you something? Some champagne?
The breeze coming through the kitchen window distracted her from the pounding in Bailey’s chest as they walked to the dining area with a small round table facing the open kitchen. She stepped to the other side of the counter and started preparing a meal she had no appetite for. Her hands trembled but she kept her arms in a dancer’s arc as she assembled her ingredients.
“Your home is beautiful.”
The older woman wandered through the living room with her hands clasped behind her back. She stopped at the mantle to admire a small marble elephant with its hind parts facing the door between a rated Michelin Star announcement and a James Beard Rising Star Chef of the Year medal. Bailey keep a furtive eye on her guest, but stayed focused on keeping her dress immaculate so close to a sizzling pan. She was nervous, but she knew that the buttered edge of the sliced baguette was pleasing; the warm comforting smell was already clinging to her face but her voice stayed cool.
“Thanks.”
The aroma of the two cheeses together was stirring and the pancetta curled into a light crisp, but Bailey’s mouth was dry when she finally floated out of the kitchen to serve the Croque Monsieur.
The older woman sat staring at her plate for slow moving seconds and when she looked up champagne was filling both their glasses from a bottle whose pop she hadn’t even heard. Now Bailey’s shoulders were relaxed and her hands were still. She leaned forward with her elbows on the table.
“Do you remember the last thing we ate together?”
Her mother tilted her head and her shoulders folded in to Bailey’s cool gaze. Her manicured hands turned upward in her lap, and though she cleared her throat, her voice was still a whisper.
“It was winter, and the line for those cardboard blocks stamped by the government was long. I showed a phone bill to prove our address and we both walked away with a rectangular box that might as well have been filled with gold. The elevator was broken again, you didn’t seem to mind the five flights it took to rip into our treasure. It was endless minutes of peeling off layers of wool and polyester and we couldn’t get to our basic T-shirt and jeans fast enough. But every pice I pulled off myself got repositioned onto you, do you remember that? You were like a little doll switching ears and noses and arms. We were all wrapped up again, this time up to the eyes. We marched back down to the corner with our eyes tearing up against the wind.
Coming back with two more blocks of surplus was like winning a jackpot of possibilities. We could have Mac and cheese, cheese omelet, melted cheese with fruit, or just chunks of cheese popped into our mouths as we curled up in front of the TV. The best thing was the simplest thing. You could make it yourself.
“You knew I was at the stove?”
“A mother knows, Bailey. I wasn’t always sleeping on those mornings that you couldn’t wait. I know you toasted Wonder bread and scraped the tub of margarine . The plastic wrapping on the cheese was pulled back to half and the knife in your hand wasn’t the sharpest. I suppose that might have made it more dangerous, in hindsight, but you always handled everything you touched with trust. You chopped up the cheese and chunks from a can of Spam and made your treat in that old aluminium pan we had.
Now, the trick was to light the flame without setting the place on fire, or singeing your eyebrows. You succeeded at one.” The younger woman smiled in spite of herself and tightened her face again.
“Do you remember how it tasted?”
“Thankfully, no. Sadly, no.”
“Well, you might be able to find some Spam somewhere still, but they don’t pass out that cheese anymore so…”
“Bailey…”
“These days I make due with what my restaurant’s supplier gets. Wheels and wedges with weird names from France. It gets imported, you know? Not trucked in cardboard boxes from some Midwest warehouse. Is that why you’re not eating? It’s not the same, is it?”
Bailey gulped her champagne in one shot and the hard clink of the stem hitting the glass table startled them both.
“Bailey, please…”
“You know, people always said how much I looked like you. Everybody said that you must have spit me out, we were like doubles. I’ve been seeing your face on posters and the back of books for almost my whole life, but the only real memory I have of you is one I can’t recreate because it’s all gone. The best I can do is this fancy version with silver and linen and champagne. And now it’s cold. Is this how they make it in Paris?”
The older woman reached across the table, hoping for a touch of something she couldn’t name. She would wait as long as had to, be rejected and come back grovelling if she must.
“Mom, why are you here?”
“Because you’re mine. You’re still mine.”
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