My Nest Isn't Empty, It Just Has More Closet Space

by Lisa Scottoline

  I don’t know what they did with the coloring book.

  Crash

  By Francesca Scottoline Serritella

  It all happened so fast. One moment everything was normal, and then, black. Then, white. Then, a blinking folder icon with a question mark inside it. And then, I knew.

  My computer crashed.

  I sat, frozen as the cursor on the screen. I came out of my catatonia after a few minutes, but my laptop remained non-responsive. I managed to access the Web on my cell phone and Google a description of my problem, but what I found was not good. Words like: “Hard drive failure!” “Ah, you got the question folder of death!” “Looks like your Mac is on its way to the big Apple store in the sky.”

  I felt my gorge rise. I was near hyperventilating. I thought I might cry. There was only one logical thing to do.

  I called Mom.

  “Are you okay?” she answered, alarmed. It didn’t occur to me until then that it was after two in the morning.

  “I’m fine, but omigod—”

  “Are you hurt? Where are you?”

  “Mom, I’m fine, I’m home.”

  “Did something happen to the dog?”

  “No! Listen.” I paused to find the strength. “My computer just crashed.”

  I heard my mom give her trademark irritated huff. “Honey, go to sleep. We’ll deal with it in the morning.”

  “Wait! Did you hear me? I really think it’s dead.”

  “Tomorrow, we’ll talk tomorrow. Now come on, go back to sleep. Goodnight.” Click.

  I was so frustrated with my mother at that moment, but once calm, I had to recognize that the generation gap was to blame for her lack of sympathy. My mom uses her computer for work, email, shopping for books online, and Googling images of puppies.

  I have my entire life on my computer. Every photo from the last six years, thousands of music files, all of my notes and school-work from college, my household budget, my datebook, my address book, my everything.

  So I began the Odyssey of the twenty-first century:

  Self-discovery via data-recovery.

  First, I called the Apple store, and they told me the only “Genius” appointment available was at the uptown store at 4:20 P.M. Going to the Apple flagship store on a Sunday afternoon is the retail equivalent of telling someone you’ll meet them in Times Square on New Year’s Eve.

  I stood on my tippy-toes to peer above the heads and spotted the glowing screen that read “Genius Bar,” the North Star for all desperate Mac users.

  I popped out from the tightly packed crowd like a watermelon seed between two fingers and threw myself prostrate before my appointed Genius. He took my laptop with hipster apathy.

  As he was opening my computer, hooking it to various wires of life support, he asked, “So what happened when it crashed?”

  “I was just using the Internet. I didn’t drop it or anything. All of a sudden, it froze.”

  “What were you doing right before it froze?”

  I hung my head. I would have to confess my sins. I was doing something online that is so shameful, so embarrassing, I could hardly say it. I was brought up better than this. I thought no one would know, I was in the privacy of my own home, but now—busted. I told him:

  “I was putting my name into the Jersey Shore nickname generator.”

  You thought it was porn, right? No, worse. I was unmasked as a reality TV junkie. I once used that same laptop for my Harvard thesis.

  My computer didn’t crash, it quit.

  So I waited while he typed at superhuman speed, plugged and unplugged, booted and rebooted. No more than a few minutes had passed when he looked up and said, “Okay, I think we’re done.”

  My heart swelled. “Did you fix it?”

  “No. Your hard drive failed. It’s dead. Can’t get anything off it.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Nope.”

  “But how could this happen? I didn’t drop it or do anything to it.” My eyes welled with tears, which elicited a look of concern, or maybe fear.

  “It’s not your fault. Someday or another, all hard drives die. Some just days out of the box, some years. There’s not always a reason. Just like with people.”

  I couldn’t point out the illogicality of this statement. I was too busy weeping.

  “Um, don’t cry.” Twentysomething guys hate when girls cry. “Do you back up?”

  For the record: if someone tells you, through tears, that their computer crashed, do not ask them, “Do you back up?” Not helpful.

  “I back up my work files, but not any of my personal stuff.”

  “Maybe that should be the other way around.”

  Whoa. Deep.

  It was the first Genius thing he’d said all day.

  It reminded me of my mom’s first two questions on the phone. I couldn’t see it then, but she had the priorities straight. I am okay, the people and animals I love are okay. The lost files I miss the most are photos of those same people and animals: Pip’s puppy pictures, my grandmother at my graduation, my road trip with my college roommates. But my old roommate is coming to visit, I just spoke with my grandmother, and Pip is curled in my lap.

  The data may be lost, but I have the hard copies.

  The Joy of Cookbooks

  Okay, here’s a weird thing I do. I hope you do it, too, because then we can understand why we do it, together. If not, I’m going to look really dumb.

  But here goes:

  I buy cookbooks. I read cookbooks. I love cookbooks. But I never cook anything from cookbooks.

  And it’s not like I don’t cook. I cook all the time. I cook every night. Sometimes I even cook at lunch, either whole-wheat pasta with sautéed tomatoes and garlic, or grilled salmon with steamed spinach and garlic.

  Impressed? Me, too. But I never use a cookbook.

  Also now you know why I’m single.

  And why I never worry about vampires.

  We’ve already established that I hoard books, but I’ve never thought of myself as a cookbook hoarder. I buy plenty of cookbooks and receive more as gifts. I also get some free, like the great Costco cookbook, and others are sent to me from publishers, I guess for promotional purposes. I’m delighted by each one and I happily read them all, page by page. I savor the gorgeous photos of glossy cherry tarts, hearty potato casseroles, or moist chocolate layer cakes. I imagine all the delicious tastes, like the tang of a Meyer lemon, the sweetness of a candied pear, and the wiggly vein of cinnamon in a bread pudding.

  But I never make any of them.

  I clip recipes from magazines and newspapers, all the time. I even have a thick file folder for my clipped recipes, which I keep next to my cookbooks in the kitchen. I was so happy when People magazine started having recipes, and I clipped its simple recipe for Vanilla Cake. I cut out the Potato-Leek Gratin recipe from the Williams-Sonoma catalog. I couldn’t believe my good luck when I found the recipe for Commissary Carrot Cake in the newspaper.

  Yum.

  I loved that carrot cake from The Commissary, back in the eighties. It was a great restaurant and a great dessert.

  I’d love to taste that carrot cake again.

  But I guarantee I won’t make it from the recipe.

  I even ripped out of a magazine in my dentist’s office the recipe for Olive-Oil Poached Halibut with Brussels Sprouts and Mushrooms.

  Sound good?

  I thought so.

  Am I going to make it?

  Don’t hold your breath.

  Numbers don’t lie, and put simply, I own twenty-three cookbooks, and in my whole entire lifetime, I have only cooked from a recipe on five occasions. And three of them were on Thanksgiving, when I checked The Joy of Cooking to remind me of how long to cook the turkey. By the way, the answer is always the same: Longer than I thought. From now on, I’m putting the turkey in at dawn.

  The biggest enigma is the restaurant cookbook. This happens when I go to a fancy restaurant in New York, almost always taken there on business,
when somebody else is paying. I’ve eaten at Union Square Café, Babbo, and Le Bernadin.

  Wow. Delish. Life is good.

  The food is so terrific that on the way out, I give in to temptation and buy the cookbook written by the celebrity chef. My reasoning is always, Wouldn’t it be great if I could make Seared Scallop Salad With Spring Vegetables, just like Eric Ripert?

  I can. In theory.

  All I have to do is turn to pages 82–83 and get busy. The dish would be finished sooner than you can say haricots verts. You can’t acquire the talent by acquiring the cookbook, but you don’t need to. If you just follow the six easy steps, it all comes out in the same place.

  Cooking is behavioral.

  Or is it?

  We’ll never know.

  In the end, my restaurant cookbooks morph into culinary souvenirs, though I do pull them off the shelf from time to time and salivate over the pictures.

  Pornography for girls.

  So maybe we can all figure out why we do this thing we do.

  It’s food for thought.

  Or maybe thought for food.

  Peachness

  I haven’t written much about my new puppy Peach yet, because I’ve been avoiding the subject.

  Not that I don’t love her, because I do. In fact, no disrespect, but she might even be the best puppy I’ve ever had.

  I’m avoiding the subject because anything written about her should begin with why I got her in the first place, and the answer is a simple, if unsatisfactory, one:

  I don’t know why.

  This reveals something about me that I hadn’t realized before, and wasn’t especially proud of, until now.

  When I understood that this is The Tao of Peach.

  Let me explain.

  We know I already had four dogs, which is three more dogs than anybody needs. The two golden retrievers are older, from an era when Daughter Francesca was around to play with them, and the two younger dogs, Ruby The Crazy Corgi and Little Tony, are empty-nest babies, meant to replace my daughter, though breast-feeding has been less than successful.

  So, obviously, the last thing I needed was another empty-nest dog.

  I already had one for each breast.

  And I wish I could tell you that Peach is a rescue dog, but she isn’t. Please know that I have had rescue dogs in my time, and so my rescue karma is excellent. Plus I contribute mightily to rescue organizations to absolve my guilt.

  So how did Peach come into being?

  It’s not logical.

  Bottom line, I was so crazy about Little Tony, who’s a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, that I wanted another Cavalier.

  I told this to a fellow Cavalier fan, and she said, “Of course you want another one. They’re like potato chips.”

  And though I appreciate the sentiment, and I love potato chips, that wasn’t the reason. After all, I’ve had three golden retrievers in my time, too, and what are they?

  Fritos?

  It doesn’t stand to reason.

  And why is it that we always look to carbs for comparison, anyway? I’d go with candy. Have you ever had a single M&M? It can’t be done.

  Anyway, I tried to understand why your love for one dog makes you want another one. As a matter of logic, if you love your dog, you should probably just spend more time with him, but I already spend all my time with all my dogs, working at home, walking them, throwing them Kong balls, and taking them with me on trips for drive-thru coffee. In fact, I have been known to take four dogs to the local Dunkin’ Donuts.

  Little Tony gets munchkins, because he is one.

  I was wondering if the doggie decision was like children. I had only one child and didn’t think about wanting another, because I was fresh out of husbands. But I was guessing that normal people, who remain happily married, have a kid they love and decide that because they love it so much, they want another of its…breed.

  Right?

  Whatever, still not the reason.

  To stay on point, I heard that a female Cavalier puppy was available, and I thought about it for a long time. It wasn’t even an impulsive decision. I took two months to think about it, consulting Francesca and my friends, Franca and Laura, who were fine with whatever I decided. Together we ran through the factors and arguments, all of which proved that there was no reason to get another puppy.

  Then I got in the car and picked up Peach.

  Peach, Lisa’s writing partner.

  And never looked in the rear-view mirror, parentally speaking. She’s got melty brown eyes, floppy ears, and a little russet-and-white body. She’s calm, friendly, and a champion snuggler. She’s housebroken and learned to sit in two days. She’s tough enough to play with the big goldens and sweet enough to captivate Little Tony. He fell in love with her at first sight and made her his child bride, Mrs. Little Tony.

  Ruby wishes her dead, of course.

  Peach was the best decision I ever made, because now that I think of it, I did have a reason to get her, and it’s simple:

  I wanted to.

  And nobody was around to stop me.

  So maybe that’s what she teaches.

  Do what you want to.

  Even if it looks a little wacky to the people at Dunkin’ Donuts.

  I Don’t

  By Francesca Scottoline Serritella

  I’m not even twenty-five, and I’ve spotted my first sign of aging. It’s nothing physical, not a wrinkle or a gray hair. I noticed it while reading a newspaper article on my tiny BlackBerry screen, though it has nothing to do with fading eyesight. I caught myself doing something that I’d never have done a year ago, something undeniably postgraduate, something, almost, old.

  I was reading the Weddings section of the paper.

  Gone are my days as a carefree college coed; now I’m in my freshman year of spinsterhood. When it comes to reading the wedding announcements, I have adopted the single-gal clichés I thought existed only in Cathy cartoons. Here’s my confession, in writing.

  I scour for the ages of the brides. This is the habit that shames me the most, since I consider myself a modern woman, forging my own path, free from the trappings of time and tradition. I lift weights at the gym, I alone built my IKEA furniture, and when I saw a mouse in my apartment, I trapped and disposed of it with minimal crying. Yet here I am, subtracting my age from all the brides’—twenty-eight, okay, I got four years to find the guy; thirty-three, cool, I can date a couple duds and focus on work; twenty-five, omigod I’d have to know him NOW.

  Did I read too much Jane Austen in college? Or not enough? Is my dowry approaching recession as I get closer to the other side of twenty-five? My mom can throw in a couple chickens, if that will sweeten the deal, and a corgi too, although that won’t sweeten anything.

  And I read only the announcements with an accompanying photo. Why? Let’s be honest, this is about superficial judgment and self-comparison. If I can’t see the couple, how will I know who got the better end of the deal—did a chubby hubby luck out with a bombshell (he must be funny), or did Plain Jane nab a total hunk (girlfriend, tell me your secret)?

  My newfound love of wedding photos extends beyond the Sunday paper. I am also a creeper of Facebook wedding albums. I friended an old classmate I barely knew, just to see her wedding photos. But I had to do it, because she always had the best clothes at school, so I knew her dress would be to die for, and she’s beautiful and skinny as a rail, and God—I was in wedding-pic heaven.

  Until, of course, I was in self-criticism hell.

  But that’s the drama of the Weddings section. It’s a thrilling roller-coaster ride of self-esteem.

  I’ve even upgraded my methods of voyeurism from photos to online videos of the couples. This is where it gets juicy. Occasionally, the story of the pair’s serendipitous meeting or their gratitude for having found each other is lovely and moving, I sit smiling at the computer screen.

  But other times, I cringe as red flags spring up like some cynical pop-up video: one bride whines that
he took forever to propose; a groom bitterly recalls how she mocked his outfit on the first date; a dreamy-eyed couple shared love at first sight, although at the time, they were each married to other people. Good luck, kids!

  Thing is, I don’t even want to be married. Well, not yet. I think I just want to be marriageable. Some men have the misconception that women are desperate for a husband, but really, all we want is the knowledge that we’re lovable. Doesn’t everybody want that reassurance from time to time? Or maybe just on Sundays?

  I took my new reading habits as a sign of my advancing age, but having confessed my sins, I feel pretty childish. I’m not ready to be married. I will be someday, when I’ve stopped comparing my age, my looks, my style, myself to any stranger smiling from the newspaper. I’ll be ready when I can stop asking, “Am I lovable? Who loves me?” because I know the answer.

  I do.

  Deadhead

  Of course I read the obituaries.

  I can’t be the only one.

  I do it every morning, in two newspapers, before I start to work. It takes a lot of time. I know, it sounds like stalling, but it’s more like praying.

  You’ll see what I mean.

  And it’s not as if I started reading them recently, now that it’s likelier I’ll die than find a date.

  In truth, I’ve read obits all my life, even as a kid.

  I never saw them as being about deaths. I saw them as being about people, and I love people.

  In other words, it’s not a death story. It’s a life story.

  I’m always struck by how accomplished people are, and what they’ve done in their lives that’s benefited me, only I didn’t know it. For example, today I read an obit of a doctor who was one of the first to link smoking to cancer. I owe that guy, though I never knew him. I nagged my father to quit, and he did. I nagged Mother Mary to quit, but she didn’t until she got and survived throat cancer.