Whistlin' Dixie in a Nor'easter

by Lisa Patton

  “That’s what I’m told.”

  “Is everything okay, Leelee?” my sweet Mary Jule asked. She never ceased worrying about us.

  “I guess. I just had a little run-in with Helga, though. I tell y’all what, I can’t stand her.”

  “Who’s Helga?” Mary Jule had obviously forgotten about my new nemesis.

  “The bossy bitch who won’t let Leelee decorate her own house,” Alice said.

  “Oh yeah, what’d Helga do this time?” asked Mary Jule.

  I told them the whole story . . . and I didn’t candy coat it at all.

  “What is she still doing there, anyway? Why can’t you ask her to leave?” Virginia wanted to know.

  “Because Baker and Ed Baldwin said we have to keep everything exactly the same for a year.”

  “Easy for Baker to say. Personally, I don’t know how you’ll stand it eleven more months,” said Alice.

  “I’m just looking forward to April when they go to Germany for two months. I suppose I can make it until then. Here’s another thing. We have had to spend so much money up here it’s ridiculous.”

  I heard Baker’s key turning in the front door. “Uh-oh, better go, here comes Baker,” I whispered into the phone. “I don’t want him to hear me ragging on Helga. I love y’all, call you later.” I hung up just in time.

  Not only did I not want him to hear me complaining about Helga, I sure didn’t want him to hear me confiding to the girls about our finances. We were clearly in over our heads but there was no way Baker would admit it. We had written an awful lot of big checks for start-up costs. There was food and liquor and beer and wine to buy, propane gas and fuel oil to heat the place, and salaries and payroll taxes to pay. And that was just the beginning. Our mortgage to Helga and Rolf was nearly $2,000 per month.

  Picking out the tree was our favorite holiday tradition. Baker and I always took pride in finding a perfect tree, a Fraser fir, and the bigger the better. So it was no surprise that the girls and I were counting the minutes until we could go in search of our first real live growing-in-the-wild Christmas tree. We learned that the Green Mountain National Forest, as long as you have a permit, lets people cut down one tree a year for free. And each one you come across is shaped more perfectly than the one before. Up north, you don’t have to pull trees out from a huge stack and twirl them around ’til you’ve found the one you want; there are a million flawless ones growing wild in the woods.

  After cutting it down, we had to put our Christmas tree in the parlor of the inn so our “houseguests” could enjoy it. (That was the term the Schloygins used when referring to the people spending the night in the inn.) I’d never shared my Christmas tree before; I felt a little funny leaving presents for my children underneath it during business hours. Of course, normal business hours were twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. But my children wanted to see presents, naturally, so they saw presents. Baker and I got in a big fight over that one. I didn’t understand why we couldn’t put the tree in the “superb owners’ quarters,” but he insisted we had to keep everything just as it was for at least a year.

  My present had been under the tree for a couple of days, and I had already picked up the box and shaken it two or three times. Baker thinks he’s so sneaky, I thought. He’s hidden my diamond earrings in a big huge box and filled it with extra weight. I just knew that after I agreed to move all the way to Vermont, he finally had bought them for me.

  ______

  On Christmas Eve, the girls had been counting the minutes until the next morning and it took forever for them to fall asleep. We were huddled up together underneath blankets on the couch, and the Franklin stove blazed in front of us. As I read the poem “ ’Twas the Night Before Christmas,” I thought back to the night before.

  I had ventured out to Fairhope to pick up a pizza once the snow had stopped falling. The full moon beckoned to me from high in the clear starlit sky. As I looked out over the flawless stretches of snow-covered pastures, I could have sworn it was daylight. The black-and-white colors of the cows were as vivid as if it were noon. Houses were illuminated by the lunar radiance, and even the details of the shutters were easily discernable. I wanted to drive and keep on driving; with every mile I was more fascinated than the one before.

  Now, hidden in the lines of the famous poem, I stumbled upon a description of what I’d seen. I knew the words by heart, yet I had no insight into their true meaning until I experienced it myself. “The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow gave the luster of midday to objects below.”

  After finally getting the girls to sleep, I drifted out front, looking forward to spending some alone time with my husband. Baker and I always opened our gifts to each other on Christmas Eve—alone, just the two of us—in front of our tree. But not this year. The staff was hanging around after the restaurant closed and seemed in no hurry to get home. Baker was busy passing out free liqueurs when I arrived. He was headed back to the kitchen for another round when I stopped him.

  “Can we open our presents now?” I whispered. “Just the two of us?”

  He looked down at the empty tray and then back up at me. “Sure, honey.” I could tell he would rather keep partying but his better judgment told him not to.

  We stole over to the tree but when Roberta spotted us she followed right behind and stood in front of the fireplace. I sat down in the tattered easy chair next to the tree and Baker knelt down right in front of it.

  My husband seemed as excited as I was about my present. He scooped it up from underneath the tree, gazed at the shiny red paper tied up with a big gold bow, and passed it over to me. “Go ahead, honey, open it. You’re gonna love it.”

  “What is it?” I asked him, gleaming with joy.

  “I’m not gonna tell you, just open it.”

  “I’m excited,” I said, turning the box over and shaking it. That rascal, I thought again, he’s hidden my earrings inside this big, heavy one.

  Roberta blurted out a clue as she reached around and tugged on her backside. “Oh, you’re goin’ to love ’em, alreet. You’ll wonder how you ever lived without ’em, I tell you.”

  You’re darn tootin’ I’m gonna love ’em—Uh-oh, Roberta’s acting like she has a personal connection with my Christmas present. My first rip into the paper revealed the word SOREL printed on the box. The second rip revealed a picture of a boot. What in the world? . . . I slowly lifted the top off the box, still thinking about which way I was going to wear my hair to show off my studs . . . only to find the most god-awful pair of . . . rubber snow boots. With horror written all over my face, I picked up the first one and peered inside before turning it upside down. When nothing fell out, I turned the other one over and frantically shook it as hard as I could. My entire right arm disappeared into the boot as I dug my hand all the way down to the stiff toe. Nothing. I frantically ruffled through the packing paper, still holding on to hope that a small package might be hiding in a corner of the box. No such luck.

  I could feel Baker’s eyes burning toward me but I refused to look at him. He knew dang well I was disappointed and tried back-pedaling his way out.

  “They’re Sorels, Leelee.” He reached over and grabbed one of my Christmas galoshes out of the box. I watched as he fiddled with the laces and ran his hand over the toe. “The woman at the shoe store told me a Sorel is the warmest boot money can buy. It protects your feet in forty-below temps.” He knocked on the sole. “Everyone wears them up here and yours are the top of the line.”

  Forty-below temps! It’s not like we moved to Alaska.

  “Try ’em on, honey!” Baker jammed the boot back into my hand.

  Upon closer examination I realized they were even uglier than I thought: Number one, they were the biggest things I’d ever seen, and number two, they must’ve weighed ten pounds each. Reluctantly, I kicked off my kitten-heeled slingbacks and slipped the right one onto my foot. A thick black string laced up the front of the gray monster and a chunky rubber sole crept up from the bottom and
almost covered the toe. The thermal liner stuck up a few inches from the top of the boot and came up to my mid-calf.

  Roberta was about to bust. “My Sorels look no different now than they did the day I fought Buelah Mayweather for ’em five years ago at a tag sale. Yes sirree, the best money can buy.” (“Tag sale” is Northern for yard sale.)

  Interesting he didn’t bother to buy me a pair that look more like the snow bunny’s adorable ones. After Roberta’s pronouncement all I could do was fake like I liked them. “Thanks, Baker,” I said, with a phony smile. Really I was about to cry. Not so much because I didn’t get the diamond earrings but that he would actually buy me snow boots for my Christmas present.

  “You’rrrre welcome.” He whispered out of the side of his mouth, “They were real expensive.” As if that was going to make me like them.

  “I like ’em,” I lied. It’ll be a cold day in Cuba before I ever put those monsters on my feet. But how will I explain it to Roberta?

  Also in the boot box were four packages of something called toe heaters. I picked one up and examined the packaging. Supposedly, they provided eight hours of protection.

  “I threw those in so your toes would stay extra toasty.”

  I had no comment.

  Daddy would have told me to put the Sorels in my own tag sale, go out and buy the boots I wanted, and be sure and put them on Baker’s American Express.

  My husband seemed very excited about his presents. I wonder why? He got a ski jacket, a new sports coat, and a new tackle box.

  I hated my Christmas Eve.

  And my Christmas morning.

  Breakfast for the inn guests had to come first. Of course, they wanted it during the time my children wanted to open their presents. Poor Baker spent the whole morning running back and forth from the kitchen to the parlor, lucky to even catch a bit of “Look what Santa brought me, Daddy!”

  I couldn’t hang out in my robe sipping coffee and munching on a danish, nor could I enjoy a nice, relaxing Christmas Day lounging around the house. It didn’t stop me from putting on my favorite Christmas music, though. When Amy Grant’s “Tender Tennessee Christmas” came on, I couldn’t resist cranking up the volume, even if it was the parlor. At that one moment, I couldn’t have cared less what Helga thought.

  The Schloygins never closed for any holidays. Why on earth should they? Neither of them had children. And we were “keeping everything just the way it was,” thanks to Ed Baldwin. “It’s the key to success,” he must have said a hundred times. Lesson number one about the restaurant business hit me like a cold shower: A holiday means business as usual. When most Americans take time off and hit the streets, those of us in the restaurant biz hit “the floor,” as they say.

  Later that afternoon, just before we geared up for dinner, we had a staff Christmas party in keeping with the Schloygin tradition. Helga had insisted we give everyone a Christmas bonus. Baker agreed with her that it wasn’t the fault of anyone on the staff the Vermont Haus Inn had changed hands right before the holidays. So everyone received a Merry Christmas check of one week’s salary from the Satterfields. More money we didn’t have.

  Everyone reciprocated, however, and we opened all kinds of gifts. Roberta brought Sarah and Isabella each a Beanie Baby. She brought Baker and me a little handcrafted HOME SWEET HOME sign. “I thought it would look nice on your apartment door,” she said when I opened the gift. I imagined Roberta’s whole house was filled with little objects like that.

  Pierre actually went out and bought the girls Barbie clothes and gave Baker and me a bottle of wine. He even wrapped up a package of doggie treats for Gracie.

  Helga and Rolf gave us a family gift. A fruit basket. It still had the price tag on the bottom—$8.99.

  Jeb brought his mama over to join the gift swap, which embarrassed me to death because I had nothing for her. The only thing I knew to do was run back to the apartment and wrap up one of my own gifts. Since I wasn’t sure of her style, I impulsively grabbed the tin of Dinstuhl’s white chocolate that Virginia’s parents had sent us for Christmas. Mrs. Murphey knew that white chocolate was my favorite so she sent Dinstuhl’s biggest tin. I regretted it as soon as Jeb’s mama opened it; she never even bothered to pass it around. To me, that takes gall.

  Mrs. Duggar gave everyone a sample-size bottle of Avon Skin So Soft body oil. She had become an Avon rep, despite the controversy it caused at Mary Kay. According to Roberta, Mary Kay wanted Mrs. Duggar’s pink car returned when they found out she was making Avon calls on the side. Roberta went on to explain that Doris Duggar paid for that pink Chevette with her own elbow grease and it didn’t matter who she worked for in the future—it rightfully belonged to her. Jeb went out and bought her the Club, that red car lock thing that fits on the steering wheel. “Problem solved,” Jeb said, and now his mama does whatever she pleases. When I opened my Skin So Soft bottle she made a comment about how handy it would be come spring. I was totally baffled by the comment but I didn’t give it much thought.

  Jeb wanted everyone to open his gifts at the same time. Talking about proud. When Jeb bought his floor model for JCW, he got a promotional bonus. Now, all of us had matching Jeb’s Computer World mouse pads. Baker and I were the only ones who even owned a computer. Roberta just smiled and smiled and made Jeb think she was pleased as punch with hers. Later she told me that she had never before in her life owned a place mat for her coffee mug.

  It was Kerri’s gift to Baker that got the most oohs and aahs. She actually went to the trouble of tying flies for my husband. Turns out she is a fly-fisherwoman herself, born and raised in Idaho. The rest of us received Sugartree coffee mugs. How nice and thoughtful of you, Kerri.

  I’ll tell you right now what Daddy would have said about Kerri. “Dahlin’, any woman who would trudge through a stream in hip waders and extract hooks out of fish lips is no lady.”

  Chapter Nine

  All the regulars wanted to meet us when the word got out that Helga and Rolf had sold the Vermont Haus Inn. The most important thing on their minds, however, was that their favorite chef was still at the helm and the prices were still the same. The menu had not changed for thirty years. I mean, not one item varied. Even the appetizers remained untouched.

  We served eggplant caponata, roasted red peppers with anchovies, melon with prosciutto ham, pâté, escargot, herring in sour cream—and lastly, head cheese. The entrées were classics like beef Wellington, Dover sole, veal piccata, veal marsala, lamb, and duckling with cherry sauce.

  Rolf was in the kitchen one morning preparing one of his infamous appetizers, when I bopped in with a basket full of dirty clothes and plopped them down on the washing machine. The washer and dryer were kept in the commercial kitchen, despite the fact that the health department counted off five points each time they made their routine inspections. As I was dumping the darks into the machine, I happened to glance over at Rolf. He was standing in front of his cutting board, holding a cow’s head.

  “AAAAAAHHHHHH! Rolf! What are you doing with that?” I screamed so loud I about scared the stew out of Roberta, who was standing in front of the sink, peeling potatoes.

  “Making head cheese,” he said, with a laugh. “There es no need to scream.”

  “I have been avoiding asking about head cheese and now I know why.” I put my hand up in front of my face to try and block the grotesqueness.

  “Head cheese is an old-fashion dish, one of my favorites. It es made from ze organs in a calf’s head.” When he pulled back the lips to expose the teeth, I felt the pit of my stomach start to churn.

  Rolf smiled as he demonstrated. “First you clean ze teeth vif a stiff brush. Now—remove ze ears . . . ze brains . . . ze eyes . . . and ze snout . . . and most of ze fat. Soak it all about six hours in cold vater to extract ze blood.”

  Watching Rolf maneuver the cow head was the last thing I wanted to do, but I didn’t want to appear rude. I kept watching, even though my belly begged for me to shut my eyes.

  “Then, you wash
and drain ze meat. Now put in cold vater and add onion and celery, and simmer ze meat until it falls off ze bones. Next, cut up your meat, remembering to reserve ze brains for later, and cover vith your stock. Now you are rready to season and cook a little more.” He wiped his hands first together and then on his apron. “Then pour into a mold and cover. Be sure and serve it chilled and cut into nice thick slices.” He glanced up at me before remembering one last piece of advice.

  “Oh, ze most important part—cover vith a vinaigrette sauce that has ze brains that you saved all mixed in. Vedy easy and vedy good. Helga’s favorite, too. Would you like to try a piece? Have it for lunch, vhy don’t you?”

  “I’m not really hungry right now. But thank you anyway.” I slightly lifted the lid to the washer and peered at him over the top. “Now I know how to make head cheese!” It would take a five-hour make-out session with Paul McCartney or Jon Bon Jovi to even get me to consider a bite of head cheese. Maybe I’ll submit it to the next issue of the Memphis Junior League Cookbook . . . Head Cheese from the kitchen of Mrs. Baker Satterfield.

  _______

  Right after the New Year, Helga insisted it was time to hire an evening babysitter so I could start full time in the restaurant. More and more I was feeling like Helga’s punching bag, dangling from the inn’s dining room ceiling. And it seemed she felt it was her right to take a swing at me any time she passed by. The last thing I wanted to do was obey her but frankly I didn’t need the trouble my resistance to her demands might cause.

  Miss Becky at the Elfin Academy had a seventeen-year-old daughter who was a junior in high school and saving for college. The first night Mandy arrived, I was dressed and ready to head into the restaurant. I had been blue all day at the thought of spending most evenings away from my daughters.

  But thankfully, Sarah and Issie fell in love with Mandy on the spot. Mandy’s gentle yet playful spirit put me a little more at ease with having to abandon my daughters night after night. She told me her friends referred to her as “the bookworm” but as far as I was concerned, that was a big plus. We knew the Berenstain Bears books by heart and a week never went by that I didn’t buy the girls another book to add to our at-home library.