The Accidentals

by Minrose Gwin

  Now I peer over June’s shoulder at a recipe for chess pie. My mouth waters. As she turns the pages, I keep seeing the word substitution. The cookbook is a remnant of the war years: margarine may be substituted for butter; potatoes made into pie crusts; dry milk and dry eggs used instead of the real thing, none of it appealing in the least. “What are you going to cook out of this stupid book?” I ask. “Nothing’s what it’s supposed to be; it’s all substitutions.”

  She lifts her face; she looks calm, serene even. “Coq au vin,” she says. It sounds like “coke awe vine.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It involves chicken,” she says. “A lady from France put it in the book to show how to make old-timey French dishes.”

  “Involves chicken? Why don’t you just fry up some chicken? I could sure settle for that.”

  She looks at me like I’m the fool of the world. “Because this is better.”

  She hands me a list. “Call Nesbitt’s,” she commands. “Tell them to send out the stuff. Tell them to charge it to Dad’s account.”

  I look at the list and snicker. First off there’s the bottle of red wine, which you can’t buy anywhere in Pearl River County.

  “Fancy dancy,” I say. “Plus, Dad doesn’t have an account.” Dad never orders from Nesbitt’s, says he can’t afford it. Mama did on occasion, but only when she was making a special meal and she always paid in cash so Dad would never know the difference. The last time she ordered from Nesbitt’s it was a leg of lamb and some mint jelly for Easter.

  “Oh, shut up,” June says.

  She shows me the recipe. Next to the wine she’s written, Substitution: Dad’s cherry bounce from the basement. Next to “few sprigs fresh thyme” she’s written, Forget this: it’s just for decoration, and for “few sprigs parsley,” ditto. We have the bay leaves, flour, butter, and sugar. For the vegetable oil, she’s written, Substitution: melted Crisco; beside mushrooms, ugh. For something called beurre manie, she’s scrawled, What’s this? Oh, just forget it!

  The recipe calls for a medium-sized chicken, jointed, cut into eight pieces. This, we know, is important. The back and carcasse, whatever that is, need to be reserved for stock. Next to these instructions my sister has written, What’s stock? Look up. Then there are onions, chopped.

  On top of all this, there is, of all things, brandy, a cup of it warmed (Substitution: more cherry bounce, don’t forget to warm it); two cloves garlic, chopped (What’s a clove? Is it like the little brown sticks Frances chews?); twenty pearl onions, peeled (Never mind, plenty of onions already).

  In all, we agree I’ll order the chicken (“Ask for a plump hen,” June advises), two onions, two clove sticks just in case, two garlics ditto. The recipe calls for four ounces of streaky bacon, cut into strips or lardons. We have no earthly idea what lardons are, so we agree to ask for strips.

  When I put in the phone call, Mr. Nesbitt himself answers, which is unusual. When I give him the order, he responds, “All my bacon’s streaky. Everybody’s bacon’s streaky, honey. That’s what bacon is, streaky. What you girls up to over there? Your daddy know you’re ordering all this stuff?”

  “Yes sir.” I try to sound cheerful, ambitious. “We’re making a special dinner for him. It’s his birthday.” Being around our mother has turned me into a talented liar. I don’t know a delicate way to tell Mr. Nesbitt to put it on our account when we don’t have one. “Can we have an account?” I finally ask.

  “Don’t worry about it, honey,” he says. “You better let me cut up that chicken. Y’all don’t need to be messing with knives. Likely to cut a finger off.”

  “We’d appreciate that. But we need the neck and the carc-asse.”

  “Carc-asse?” He starts to sputter. “You mean the bones? The bones are in the pieces, honey.”

  I’m about to hang up when June pops up from the bed. “Ask him to send some hamburger and buns and pickles,” she calls forth, “and some potatoes and salad dressing and dry pintos and a ham hock.”

  I ignore her. Clearly she’s getting carried away. I don’t even know how all this stuff is getting paid for, much less adding on more, like we’ve got money to burn. The groceries arrive shortly before Dad gets home from work. June and I are standing at the kitchen sink looking out at the doves rooting around under the empty bird feeder when Mr. Nesbitt walks in the kitchen door without knocking. We both jump. The sack of food looks small in his meaty hand.

  “All right, little ladies,” he says, with a quick look around. “Here’s your stuff, but don’t start on the cooking until your daddy gets home. Don’t want you burning down the place. Tell him happy birthday and this is on the house. We been thinking about you folks.” His eyes start to water and he casts his eyes in the direction of the living room. He wants to see into our lives, the private things we do, where we take our rest. “Let us know how we can help out.” His velvet words worry my face like mesh. As he looks down at us, big old tears now rolling out of his eyes, I feel like Mama’s trapped sparrow, pecking at the bag.

  After he heads out the door, wiping his face with a handkerchief, I turn to my sister and see what I haven’t seen before. The gold specks in her eyes burn. “Old jackass,” she says. “Old horse turd. I could kick his butt. Kick it from here to the moon. Who does he think he is, feeling sorry for us?” She tosses her hair, reminding me of Mama.

  “Okay,” I say, “let’s make it.”

  “You don’t just make it, stupid. It has to marinate.”

  “What?”

  She rolls her eyes. “Soak.”

  “Soak in what?”

  “We don’t have wine, so we’ll substitute cherry bounce.” She opens the bloodied wrap, pulls out the chicken pieces, sits them out on the counter, and begins to salt and pepper them. “Go down to the basement and get some of Dad’s bounce.”

  By the time I bring the bottle back up and struggle with the cork, finally managing to poke it down into the bottle, where it bobs like a little boat, she has gotten the chicken nicely laid out in a Pyrex dish. We peer at the directions, which tell us to boil the wine, aka bounce, with thyme and parsley, neither of which we have, and bay leaves, cool for an hour and pour over the chicken and marinate for twelve hours.

  “We need to hurry,” June says breathlessly. “Forget the bay leaves. I’ll put them in later.”

  I pour the bounce into a cooking pot, noticing with relief that the cork has trapped most of the cherry debris in the bottle. June turns the flame on high and the bounce starts to bubble.

  June looks at the kitchen clock. It’s already five; Dad will be home in fifteen minutes. “No time for cooling,” June says, pouring the boiling bounce over the raw chicken, which sizzles and turns an unnatural shade of hot pink. We put aluminum foil over the steaming Pyrex dish and push it to the back of the icebox, strategically placing milk cartons and leftovers in front of it. The bacon and onion she puts in the vegetable crisper, which is empty since our father never buys vegetables.

  That night Dad comes in, hangs up his coat, puts his hat on the rack, heats a jar of Chef Boyardee, and pours it over three slices of white bread. At the table June winks at me over his newspaper.

  WHEN WE GET in from school the next afternoon, we turn on the radio and get to work. June, wearing Mama’s apron, props the cookbook on the kitchen counter. She orders me to turn the oven to 350 and gather the rest of our ingredients from their hiding places. The chicken, now the shade of ripe watermelon; the streaky bacon; Crisco as a substitute for the oil; onions, clove sticks, garlics, and more cherry bounce to make up for the brandy. Elvis belts out “Jailhouse Rock” and I dance around the kitchen.

  “Do you think we could just leave the rest of the cherry bounce out of it?” I say, eyeing the Pyrex dish of gory chicken. “Don’t we have enough bounce in this thing?”

  “Nope,” she says, throwing the whole pack of bacon into the pan, “we have to flambé it, that’s important. You need to get busy. Cut up the onion, remember to peel it first.”
/>   I have no earthly idea what flambé is but know better than to ask. I cut up the onion, tears streaming down my face, while June fries the bacon, which is stuck together, causing part to burn and part to stay raw. She pulls out the burnt pieces and we eat them. Then she melts a blob of Crisco in the pan and instructs me to throw in the onions. Wiping my wet face with a cup towel, I’m thinking I’m getting the worst end of this deal. I air my grievances, but my sister is preoccupied. She has the flame up too high and the onions are smoking. She grabs at the skillet handle, which of course is hot, and hollers for me to get her a cup towel. I reach over and turn off the flame, remarking on how much smarter some people are than others.

  “Oh shut up. Read me the directions.” She scrapes the burnt onions off the bottom of the skillet and dumps a steaming glob of them on the counter.

  “‘Remove the chicken from the marinade and pat dry.’”

  “Do it,” she orders.

  “We’ll turn the cup towel red.”

  “Who cares?” she growls. “What’s next?”

  “‘Dust the chicken with flour, then add to pan and fry lightly to brown.’”

  “Get the flour. It’s in the pantry.”

  I have by now piled the gory chicken pieces on the kitchen counter, which makes it look like a murder scene. I throw the dish towel in the garbage and get out a fresh one. I wash my hands, which are now dyed red, and head for the pantry. When I return with the sack of flour, June snatches it from my hands and dumps most of it on the pile of chicken, giving it the appearance of a series of small bloody hills covered in snow.

  “I don’t think that’s what the French lady meant when she said to dust it,” I say.

  “To hell with the French lady,” June says, adding more Crisco to her pan, firing it back up, and shaking flour from each chicken piece before she throws it into the bubbling grease. The kitchen has begun to look like one of Dad’s tornadoes blew through.

  The chicken’s sizzling along, smelling like heaven, June’s turning it with Mama’s long fork, and I’m thinking this isn’t so bad. I’m still crying, though. The onions have let loose a river. A flood. I shake my head, and my tears splatter my sister. She grins at me. “Maybe if this turns out, we can have it for Christmas,” she says.

  I look at the next thing to do: “Pour in the warmed brandy and flambé it.”

  “Did you ever figure out what flambé means?” I ask. I blow my nose on the clean dish towel.

  “Don’t you know anything? It means burn,” she says. “Go down to the basement and get some more bounce.” She hasn’t been cutting onions, but something is happening with her face. It’s red and blotchy and her nose is running too.

  I eye the Pyrex dish where the chicken has marinated. It’s filled with bounce. Blood too, but who cares? “Let’s just substitute this,” I said, pointing.

  “Okay,” she says, “but it’s against my better judgment. If it messes up my dish, I’m going to kill you dead. Pour it into a cup. I just need one cup. Forget warming it up.” She sounds like she’s choking on something. She wipes her eyes on Mama’s apron.

  “How do I burn it?”

  “Get a match, stupid.”

  I get some kitchen matches from the drawer. I pour the bloody bounce into a cup and pour the rest down the drain. I get a match and try to light it. Nothing happens.

  “Wait!” June yells. “You pour it over the chicken first!” She’s sweating and her hair is hanging over most of her face. She runs her sleeve under her nose.

  “Pull your hair back,” I say. “You’ll catch yourself on fire if it flames up.”

  She glares at me. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

  I reach over, pull my sister’s hair behind her ears. My fingers leave war paint streaks of chicken blood and flour on her cheeks. I make a mental note to tell Dad to take us both in for haircuts.

  “Do you think the chicken’s done?” she asks, sniffling.

  I have to wipe my eyes to see the directions. “It cooks an hour more in the oven, after you put the other stuff in with it, the bacon and onion and all, so it’s going to get cooked one way or the other.”

  She grins, and the grin, along with her war paint, makes her look murderous. Tears are dripping off her chin. “Okay then, bring on the bounce and get a match ready.”

  The local announcements are on the radio. Sputnik 2, with Laika’s remains inside, is still orbiting the earth. The town of Opelika will test its warning sirens tomorrow, Saturday, at noon. Next week there will be a display of bomb shelters at the fire hall. Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man is playing at the Lyric, which makes me think of how the movie reel will likely break and flap about like chickens do when they get aggravated, and the boy in the projection booth up in the balcony will do something magical—what I don’t know—to fix it. If he takes a while, we’ll stir in our seats, murmuring and agitating. But he always splices it somehow. If sometimes parts are skipped where the broken part was, it’s a small price to pay.

  I pour the cherry bounce over the sizzling chicken, then strike my match.

  My sister pauses, searches my face as if she’s looking for a crumb she can brush away. The match is burning down. Once we had had a mother. Her pulse had fluttered at the temple. She had put on the daisy apron and cooked food for us in this very kitchen.

  June turns up the flame. It flares and the cherry bounce begins to boil.

  “Okay,” she says. “Light it.”

  9

  Grace

  SO WE WENT ALONG, THE THREE OF US, DAD DIGGING HIS way to China, June poring over her cookbooks instead of her lessons. I turned outward, joining the band, studying until late into the night, reading the teen magazines so that I could dress myself and my sister in the latest fashions. Along with my perky outfits, I cloaked myself in what you’d call normal teenage girlhood, briskly sweeping aside thoughts of my mother, the way I swept out our carport every Saturday.

  Time, which had seemed to stretch out in one endless present tense after Mama died, slowly clicked back into place. The past became past, the future awaited. Monday became Monday, Tuesday Tuesday, each day punctuated by some small activity: a test in social studies, a new dish that June had concocted, a special television program we liked. And so the gears began to grind and we went on, day by day, week by week, month by month, the way people do. Some nights I dreamed I hadn’t insisted on going to the zoo that day; instead, we had come home two hours earlier and Mama had made supper. Sometimes gumbo, sometimes just hamburgers and frozen French fries.

  Once, in my dream I lifted the lid on a pot and there was a baby inside. It reached out its little arms and said, Get me out of here. I popped the lid back on and woke up in a sweat.

  THEN ONE BRIGHT Sunday morning I woke up and eighteen months had passed. I opened the window. It was April and breezy. The jonquils had turned to paper and folded up for the season. Azalea buds were splitting their green sheaths. Outside my window, at one of Mama’s nest boxes, a male bluebird lit all in a flutter, then called for its mate. At the zoo, giraffes were dancing in the morning sun, though my sister and I weren’t there to see them.

  Although I was not myself beautiful, the giraffes had left me with a fierce attraction to what was. This is how, about this time, I came to fall madly in love with Daniel Baker from across the street. Daniel was two years my senior and quite good-looking in a blond sort of way, and the fact that he sat in the shadows of his parents’ screen porch on Sunday afternoons wearing his sister’s blouses deterred me not in the least.

  “I know he’s a bit off the track, but aren’t we all?” I said to June, who, along with her best friend, Hilary Lumpkin, was thought by some to be more than a bit off the track herself. It was more of a pronouncement than a question. I swished my ponytail when I uttered it, wishing my own dark hair were the color of my Daniel’s, the color of the sun in the sky.

  One day I decided to take the bull by the horns and visit Daniel during one of his Sunday afternoon porch sits. And why not? T
he Bakers had been kind when our mother died, Mrs. Baker sending Daniel over with steaming casseroles and freshly cut mums from her own garden. So it was the natural thing to do, I reasoned, to be friendly, to go across the street to see a friend, a chum, on a glorious spring afternoon.

  I went over to my dresser and pulled out my best pair of pedal pushers. They were wrinkled, so I got out the ironing board and iron, thrummed my fingers on the board waiting for it to heat, and then set a nice crease down the middle of each leg. Since the iron was hot, I pressed my best crop top too. Both the shirt and the pedal pushers were purple, my favorite color. They didn’t quite match since they’d been bought separately, but they were close enough. I laid them out to cool on the bed and unplugged the iron, which was steaming up the room, making my hair droop and frizz. I took it into the kitchen and set it down on the stove the way Mama had taught me so that it wouldn’t burn the house down.

  The metallic click of the iron against the stove top stopped me in my tracks. It was at moments like this, when I remembered something my mother had cautioned me about, that I missed her the most. There were dangers in the world I couldn’t begin to know—hidden patches of quicksand I wouldn’t see until I was up to my waist.

  I wolfed down a bowl of leftover chicken potpie, June’s latest culinary accomplishment, and went back into my room and brushed my hair. As a final touch I put Vaseline on my lips and eyebrows to make them show up. The house was quiet that morning, Dad having probably overdone it again on the cherry bounce. I tiptoed down the hall and into the bathroom, where I brushed the taste of chicken potpie out of my mouth. I sat down at my desk to finish up my homework and wait for afternoon.