The Secret Ingredient

by Stewart Lewis

  “I just have this feeling, like something is slipping away. I don’t know, my innocence? It’s like, when you’re a kid the biggest worry is whether or not you can have ice cream after lunch, and then you become an adult, and real threats happen, like Dad losing the restaurant. And I’ve been thinking about the fact that there’s a woman out there who gave birth to me who I don’t know and maybe won’t be able to find. It just feels like the foundation we’ve all built is breaking down.”

  “Tell me about it. My mother gave up on Timothy, and I’m the only reason he’s still alive. When you’re a kid everything is a fairy tale, or they lead you to believe that by the books they give you.… Then you realize life is, well, screwed up beyond belief.”

  We reach the end of the park and start walking down the sidewalk back toward Theo’s neighborhood. We pass a couple on a bench, and the man kisses the woman’s shoulder.

  “The thing is, Liv, what is it you want?”

  “What?”

  “Well, from what I saw at the restaurant last year, you always seem to be helping other people. But you need to figure out what you want. Like, what’s your dream?”

  “I’ve always wanted to go to Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, the famous cooking school. Not sure how the heck that would actually happen, though. It’s got to be super expensive. My guidance counselor says I can totally get into college, but what’s the point if I want to be a cook?”

  Theo throws me that smile he used to give me, standing in his apron behind the dish rack at FOOD. “There’s no reason you can’t go to cooking school in France. Dreams happen.”

  We stop at a crosswalk and a tricked-out car filled with what looks like gang members pulls up, the bass thumping so hard I can feel it in my heart.

  “Yeah, maybe to some people—people with money and—”

  “To everyone,” Theo says. “Maybe it starts out like a fairy tale, then everything gets jacked, then it all comes together in a happy ending.”

  “Listen to you, Mr. Positive.”

  “You have to be that way, sometimes, to survive.”

  We cross the street and start picking through a parking lot sale. I see a sad painting of an apple, some costume jewelry, and a trunk full of old matchboxes. Theo secretly buys a necklace, then slips it on me. It’s blue, with small beads separated by spiky silver things. The color matches my eyes. It’s not something I would normally wear, but because he puts it on me so sweetly, I fear I may never take it off.

  When we get to the block of Sunset where we separate, I notice another flock of birds, this time maybe twenty of them in formation above our heads. Grace.

  “What about you?” I ask him. “What’s your dream?”

  Theo studies his feet for a moment. Then he speaks, his voice shaky, as if he’s been waiting a long time to have this conversation. “Well, I want to race on a team, get paid to cycle and see the world. And to have someone I can be myself around. Does that sound corny as hell?”

  I look up and the palm trees are lean, proud soldiers, the one constant in my life.

  “No. But tell me, did you see anyone else? Up in Oregon?”

  He doesn’t answer, just looks at me with what could be guilt or pity.

  “The important thing is that we’re here now, right?”

  I look up at him, and he cups his hand under my chin, leaning in to kiss me. For that moment, I don’t hear the cars or the birds or anything. My mind becomes as clear as an empty glass bowl.

  CHAPTER 9

  When I was five and Jeremy was seven, we had bunk beds that were shaped like racecars. I slept in the bottom car, and if I had a bad dream or something woke me up, I would push my feet against the bottom of Jeremy’s mattress to make sure he was there. One time I pushed and there was no resistance, so I panicked. I grabbed my blankie and walked into the living room to find Jeremy staring at the front door. I asked him what he was doing and he said, “Waiting for Papá.” At the time, I had no idea why he’d be doing such a thing, but now I realize that was the first time Enrique and Bell had a spat and Enrique left. Jeremy was devastated. I was too young to really know what was going on, but I do remember Jeremy on the brink of tears, and just wanting the good to be restored in the world.

  It’s around ten p.m. I’ve just gotten off the phone with Lola, giving her the details of my date with Theo. I lean back on the couch and close my eyes. I can hear Davida singing to Hank, and the scrape and roll of kids skateboarding under the streetlights. Just when I doze off, the slap of the screen door jolts me awake. Enrique is in his usual preppy outfit and has not been drinking. I know this because he looks me right in the eye.

  I glare back at him and he looks surprised. “What is it? You are mad with me?”

  “You remember Theo, the dishwasher?”

  “Yes, I think.”

  “Do you remember when he just disappeared?”

  “A little.”

  “Well, he said he called and left a message for me. That you were the one who took the message.”

  Enrique smiles, as if this problem is nothing to be alarmed about. A scraped knee fixed with a Band-Aid. “Oh, Ollie, I am so sorry. I don’t remember. Maybe I was—”

  “Wrapped up in your own world?”

  He smiles again, but this time like a scolded puppy. “Not fair, Ollie. I—I know I can be … like that.…”

  What is it with people and their smiles? How can they hold so much weight?

  “Well, I just want you to know something: the things you do, or forget to do in this case, affect the people around you—a lot. And even though I’m upset about this, it’s nothing compared to what’s going on with Dad. He needs you. Please, just be nice to each other. I can’t stand the tension around here.”

  There’s water collecting in Enrique’s eyes. He gets a beer and brings me some orange juice in a coffee mug. He knows it’s basically the only thing I drink. When I was a toddler he once bought orange Gatorade by mistake and I wasn’t having it. I spit it out right in the middle of a crowded bus. He tells the story all the time.

  “We have to help Dad,” I say.

  “Bell, Bell, Bell.”

  “What?”

  As if we are on the set of a sitcom, Bell walks in. He looks tired but, as Lola says, charming—a poor man’s George Clooney. He doesn’t say anything but looks at us both in his way, distant yet concerned, a walking duality. He goes into the kitchen and comes back with a glass of milk. We each sit silently, together and alone, sipping our drinks and wondering what will become of us.

  I end up falling asleep on the couch but once again am disturbed by the screen door. It’s Jeremy. It must be after midnight, but he’s got fire in his eyes and sweat stains on his T-shirt. He starts pacing.

  “Ol, I’m glad you’re here. I signed the demo deal. A thousand dollars! I bought the truck, and now I can get supplies. Should be up and running by the end of the week. And check this out—we hacked into the system and changed the annoying ice cream music. Now it’s this trippy jingle. Anyway, I’m stoked, it’s gonna rake in cash, I can feel it.”

  This is always how it goes with Jeremy, and I’ll encourage him as always because he’s my brother, even while knowing that there are holes in his plans. He seems so pumped I don’t ask him if he’s even old enough to run his own business.

  He sits down next to me and gives me a little hip check.

  “You look different. Are you in love?”

  “Shut up. But listen, I’m curious about something. I know you used to ask the Dads about your birth parents.…”

  “Yeah, and they kept telling me they wanted to remain nameless.”

  “Me too!”

  Jeremy looks hesitant, then starts talking. “Look, I didn’t want to tell you then, but the day I turned eighteen, I tracked down the info through my friend whose dad works at the public records office. And it turns out they’re dead. My mom died when I was a kid, and my real dad died a few years ago. Good times, eh?”

  “I know my mother isn’t de
ad. I don’t know how, but I do. I can feel it.”

  “But what does it matter, Ol?”

  “I’m not sure why it matters, but it does.”

  Jeremy throws up his hands, then asks, “What’s the deal with the Dads?”

  “Papá isn’t on the couch.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing, just tell me about the demo deal.”

  Jeremy gets up again, fiddling with his hair and scratching his cheek. He looks a little freakish. I think again about Bell saying we don’t choose our family. What made my mother choose not to have one?

  “I convinced them to let two of the songs be mine. And the other two will be that cougar chick’s tunes.”

  “Great. You doing ‘Hole in the Sky’?”

  “You know it.”

  I get up and stretch a little, then give him a hug.

  “I really need to sleep. Like, in a bed.”

  “Okay, Ol, let’s try and meet up tomorrow,” he says.

  “Sounds good.”

  Jeremy heads to the door but then stops before he opens it. He turns around and says, “You met someone, didn’t you?”

  “It’s a long story,” I say, touching my blue necklace.

  “I bet. Night, sis.”

  “Night.”

  Even though I’m exhausted, when his footsteps are gone, I find the cookbook and check randomly again, leaving it all to fate. In the margin next to a recipe for COOL CASSEROLE, I see Rose’s now-familiar hand:

  5/12/68

  This came out bland. I forgot to season the macaroni. Even though I know he didn’t like it, Kurt told me it was great. Over two years have passed and we still haven’t said his name. He did ask me about Mother, though, and I told him the truth. He slowly shook his head.

  This note makes my eyes water and my stomach queasy. Kurt complimenting Rose’s casserole is like the birds: grace. Maybe it would have been better if they had said his name, put it out on the table for everyone to see. Simple, like bread and butter. I know it’s not simple, but maybe if they treated it that way it would have been.

  Again, I write my own note underneath Rose’s:

  If only we could cook our way out of everything.

  I walk up to my room quickly and slip into bed, turning on my AM radio. I can’t stop thinking about Rose, and Kurt, and her mother, and about where the key might lead me. Finding my mother seems like this impossible thing in the distance, like seeing a castle from a plane. But maybe it’s getting closer. It might even be as simple as going to the bank. But for some reason, I don’t want to go until I see Theo again, and it’s only when I think of him that I can finally get to sleep.

  CHAPTER 10

  When I come downstairs in the morning, Bell has just gotten back from running. He’s sitting at the small kitchen table, panting a little too hard. I get some juice and start cutting up a mango I got at the street market. He watches my technique like he’s fascinated, but I think he just needs a distraction. I decide to further distract him by telling him about work and reconnecting with Theo.

  “He’s a good egg,” Bell says. “I’m glad.”

  “It’s weird, though—he’s on this acting path now. I never pictured myself dating an actor.”

  “I thought he was into cycling?”

  “That mostly, but he also wants to be repped by Janice.”

  “Which would technically mean you’d be romantically involved with one of your clients.”

  As if on cue, Enrique walks in and says, “We all know how that one goes.”

  The story is slightly different depending on who tells it, but when Bell first met Enrique, Bell was running a catering company and Enrique’s dance company had hired it for their tenth anniversary. Apparently, Bell got the menu wrong because of a miscommunication. Bell says it was because of Enrique’s accent, which was much thicker at the time, but Enrique says it was because Bell had two martinis during their initial meeting. They ended up having a very heated argument in front of all the guests, before taking it into the stairway of the reception hall to be private, and that’s where it gets murky. From what I know, Enrique started to cry, and Bell held him in the stairway while the party raged on inside. Eventually they came back and danced together, to everyone’s raised eyebrows.

  Now Bell raises his eyebrows and heads upstairs to shower. Enrique grabs a couple pieces of my mango and sighs, sitting down where Bell just was. I tell him about Jeremy’s ice cream truck, and how we both plan to save the restaurant.

  “That is sweet, Ollie, but it’s a lost cause.”

  I stop chewing the mango and give him a serious look. “What do you mean, Papá?”

  Before he can answer, the phone rings. I can tell by his serious tone it’s going to be a long call, but I wait, anxious. It’s so like Enrique to drop a bomb and not think about the destruction. When he finally hangs up, I say, “Lost cause?”

  He looks at me with what some might say is condescension, but then I can tell he wants to take it back.

  “Sorry, Ollie, I’m not myself today. It will be fine. I’m glad you guys want to help out.”

  I don’t really have the energy to inquire further, so I try my best to believe him.

  “Can I give you a hypothetical?”

  He nods. This is how he used to start a lot of conversations with me, and now it’s my turn.

  “Say my birth mother didn’t remain nameless. Would you not want me to contact her?”

  He looks at me deeply, as if I’m changing before his eyes, which I suppose I am. “Ollie, we can’t really stop you from doing anything. We can only advise you and protect you as best we can.”

  “It’s cool, I was just wondering.”

  The next week seems to fly by. I don’t hear from Theo, but I know he had to go back to Oregon to get the rest of his stuff. Once in a while I get panicky and impatient that I haven’t heard from him, but I know he has a lot to deal with up there, and before he left, he promised to call the day he gets back. So most of the time, I just float around in a happy haze and think about seeing him again.

  At J. Tucker Casting, the mood is brighter. Janice is all smiles, and she’s humming a lot. Apparently she was hired to cast a big movie at Paramount, and it looks like she’s going to sign Tom Hanks as the lead.

  This morning is a casting day, so after rounding up a file of head shots for a 7UP commercial, I send the files to Janice electronically even though she’s on the other side of the door. I’m getting pretty adept at navigating the casting software and the J. Tucker email server. I look out the window at another clear blue sky, with only one wisp of a cloud barely noticeable.

  Janice opens the door and brings me some fancy chocolate.

  “A client gave me these. Unlike me, you are young enough that they won’t immediately become love handles.”

  “Oh, c’mon. You have, like, no body fat.”

  She smiles, checking herself out in the mirror behind me, then says, “I’m keeping you in the act.”

  Janice is one of those people who will remain happy if you constantly praise her.

  “Have you ever been to Paris?”

  She laughs. “Are you kidding? Of course. The only problem is there are too many French people.”

  “I want to go to Le Cordon Bleu, you know, the cooking school?”

  “Ah, yes. Well, from the taste of that eggplant lasagna you brought in the other day, I would safely say you hardly need much training.”

  “Couldn’t hurt, though, right?”

  She examines a piece of the chocolate, sniffs it a little, and then puts it back in the box.

  “No, it couldn’t. But are you telling me you’re ready to throw away your budding casting career for the culinary arts?”

  I take a small bite, letting the chocolate melt a little on my tongue.

  “Yes.”

  She pretends I’ve stabbed her in the heart and then retreats to her office. I retrieve my cookbook and set it on my lap. I think about Hank leading me into that alley and t
hrough that green door with the peeling paint. I can almost smell the scent of the psychic woman. Be aware of your choices.

  I open to a recipe for RIGHTEOUS RATATOUILLE. Rose’s note in the margin reads:

  3/7/66

  Made this for Kurt.

  After, we danced.

  For the first time, I spilled wine on my blouse and didn’t care.

  What is getting into me?

  A flourish swells inside my chest. Why do I feel like I know this woman? I touch the handwritten part with my finger, and I can feel my face turn red. It wasn’t really about the ratatouille. The food was just the beginning.

  I call the secretary at Paramount for Janice, and it isn’t until after I hang up that I realize my fingers are still clutching the book, marking the page. After they had the ratatouille, she must have made love to Kurt. This is dated earlier. Is that when she conceived the little boy, Matthew?

  On my way home I pick up the ingredients for the ratatouille. While I’m in the kitchen preparing, no one is around, and I’m able to go to that other place—as Bell would say, I’m in the zone.

  In the end, I add a little honey to counteract the garlic. Bell and Enrique come home and must smell the dish because they sit down as though this dinner were planned. They don’t say much, but I can tell they like it. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from Bell, it’s how to forgive. I don’t really know what’s wrong between them, and he’s not ready to run through the fields with Enrique, who disappeared again for a few days this week, but I can tell by their body language that Bell’s starting to let him back in. I picture Rose spilling the wine, something inside her giving way, loosening.

  After we’re done, Bell grabs me for a dance while Enrique hums an old Spanish tune. Once again, food has brought us together. I try to send a secret message out into the universe to Rose: You are good enough.

  When everything is washed and put away and there’s no one but me in the kitchen, I open the cookbook to the inside cover and stare again at the curvy letters: Rose Lane

  What a beautiful name.